TOUGH LOVE

Introduction

-{Matthew 5}

-The title of today’s sermon is tough love. When you hear that phrase you normally think of a situation where somebody is making wrong life-choices and they will not listen to reason. So, to give them a taste of reality and to shock them into changing their ways you show them tough love—you do something that might be temporarily painful for them but will hopefully lead them back to a right path.

-But that is not the type of tough love that I am talking about today. When I use the phrase “tough love” I am talking about having a love that is just very hard to do. It is having a love that is tough to live out and to show because it goes against our natural tendencies. It’s tough love because it’s tough to demonstrate the kind of love we are urged to have.

-The love that we are called to show is a value we hold as members of God’s Kingdom through Jesus Christ. It is a kingdom value. And I guess you could say that if we stubbornly refuse to share this love, God might need to show us tough love of the first variety. But if we are to reflect our Savior, we reflect this love because it is the same love with which He loved us.

-Maybe to demonstrate the type of love I am talking about, I’ll share this story:

~There was a missionary couple who returned to the states and rented a house. They got it all cleaned out and looking nice. The house next door was for sale and was purchased by a family that we might call sordid. They played loud, obnoxious music all the time, their house and yard were constantly in shambles, they constantly cursed and said all sorts of foul things, and it even kept escalating from there.

~Well, the straw that broke the camel’s back was when one of the neighbor’s kids climbed the back fence and slung orange paint all over the white siding on the missionaries’ back porch. When the wife found it she wanted to go over there and give them a piece of her mind and let them have it.

~Yet God got a hold of her, reminded her that they are lost and needed a loving touch from a Christian, and that Christians are called to love even the worst of enemies, and forgiveness is a good first step toward that love. So instead of going over to waylay on them, she baked some cookies and took them over to the neighbors to begin to show them the love of Christ.

-Now, what would you have done if you were in their situation? Here are people who are hostile toward you in some way, you might call them enemies, and yet here you are called to love them. It’s not natural. If you just go by your knee-jerk reaction to things, love is not the first reaction that comes up.

-For me, when I see on TV these people who are proudly displaying the facts that they aborted dozens of babies, or parents who expose their kids to all sorts of perversions, love is not the first thing that comes to mind. Often, because I’m a Star Wars fan, I begin to wish that I had some of the force abilities from the movies. I just want to zap them with some force lightning or do the force choke thing.

-But that is not what we are called to. We are not called to the natural, but are called to the supernatural. It is tough to show that love, but with the Holy Spirit it is possible.

-So, this passage is found in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus talks about the values we live by as members of His Kingdom. Earlier, in v. 20, Jesus said:

Matthew 5:20 ESV

20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

-To demonstrate what He means, He goes into several comparisons of what God’s Word had said, how it is normally interpreted, but then He tells us what it really was meant to convey. So, each section begins with Jesus saying YOU HAVE HEARD THAT IT WAS SAID OF OLD and then gives the law and normal interpretation. Then Jesus says BUT I SAY TO YOU, and He goes into how that is lived out as a member of His Kingdom. This is how your righteousness exceeds the scribes and Pharisees. They follow the letter of the law, but this is what the spirit of the law always meant.

-And so we are looking at one of those comparisons and contrasts. And what we find is that Jesus stated that the righteousness that reflects Kingdom values includes loving people we would not naturally love. And what I want us to take away today is that an ethical value that reflects that we are part of Christ’s Kingdom includes a supernatural love of our enemies.

Matthew 5:43–48 ESV

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

-{pray}

-What does Jesus teach us about this tough love?

1) This tough love requires a change of heart (vv. 43-44)

-Jesus said:

Matthew 5:43–44 ESV

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

-Jesus’ audience would have been familiar with the fact that the first part of the quote came from Leviticus 19:18 that calls people to love their neighbor, which elsewhere Jesus calls the second greatest commandment. And Jesus’ audience would have been fine with that commandment because they had a very narrow view of what the word “neighbor” meant. It meant people like them. It meant people like family and friends and their religious community. LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR, no problem.

-And because of that narrow view of neighbor, over the 1400 or so years since that command was given by God through Moses, the Jewish religious leaders added another phrase to it: YOU SHALL HATE YOUR ENEMY. That was the teaching of the day. Love people in your circle, hate those who are your enemies. The problem is that the last part of the phrase isn’t found anywhere in the Old Testament. In fact, elsewhere in the Old Testament it says the opposite:

Proverbs 25:21 ESV

21 If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink,

Exodus 23:4–5 ESV

4 “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. 5 If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.

-That seems pretty clear, but they figured that loving your neighbor entailed hating your enemy. That was something they added to make them feel better about themselves, and it is just the natural thing to do in the fallen human nature. But there were obvious problems with this. One, they had too narrow of an idea about what neighbor meant, and Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan straightened that out to show that neighbor meant anybody and everybody. And, number two, God’s Word clearly says to do good to your enemies. So, to do this, you need a change of heart which only Jesus can provide.

-Jesus says to love your enemy, and not just love them, pray for those who persecute you. Loving your neighbor does not mean just something passive like not do harm to your enemy. Jesus is calling for something active where you actually do something to benefit your enemy. He is calling us to love and seek the benefit of those who might not love us back; in fact, they may still seek to do us harm. And we are to love them. We are to seek for their welfare and goodwill. And the greatest of all the goodwill that we could show them is to seek their salvation in Christ.

-Now, to be clear, that doesn’t mean we don’t point out sin. Somehow the liberal Christians have interpreted this phrase to mean that you don’t point out people’s sins to them. But what could be more loving than to warn people about something they are doing to harm themselves? If someone is about to drink poison is it more loving to tell them to not drink the poison or allow them to drink the poison because it’s their choice? We love them most when we point them to the ultimate good. And the reason we do this is because:

2) This tough love reflects our Heavenly Father (v. 45)

Matthew 5:45 ESV

45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

-When you love your enemies you are most like the Father and you are most like the Son. Why do we say that? Because God has loved His enemies—a sinful, rebellious humanity. We may ask how God loved His enemies? First, Jesus demonstrates that God loves His enemies through what theologians call common grace. Through His providence, God provides for and sustains His image bearers even when they are still in rebellion against Him.

-Jesus said that God makes the sun rise on the good and evil and sends rain on the just and unjust. The Jews were part of an agricultural society. They needed sun and rain to grow their crops, and God provided that sun and rain for everybody. It’s not like God somehow supernaturally made it such that the sun only shown on the crops of the righteous or that patches of rain only poured upon the crops of the good. God gives the sun and rain to everybody.

-Common grace is God providing for the needs of everybody, whether they are a believer or not. Unbelievers have homes and jobs and vehicles and food and safety as much as believers do. They may not recognize it, but that is because God provided it for them. This is God showing love to them, with the desire for them to repent because of the goodness He shows them (according to Romans 2:4).

-But there is another way that God shows love to His enemies in that He sent His Son to die for their sins. Everybody is an enemy of God because of their sin. Everyone is in a hostile relationship with God because His justice demands sin be dealt with. And yet, even when we were still sinners and enemies, Christ died for us so that all who receive and believe may be saved. God gave His most prized possession, His Son, for His enemies.

-And here we are and sons and daughters of God through faith in Christ, and do we think that we are to love people any less than God does? Do we think that we are somehow morally superior to God in that we can choose whom we will and will not love? Even when wronged, God gave all that was needed for a sinner’s redemption. Think of Christ, as nails were being driven through His hands and feet, crying out FATHER FORGIVE THEM FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO, and willingly giving Himself to the pain and torture and experiencing the wrath of God out of love for an unlovable, ungrateful people.

-And do we think that somehow we get a pass on loving our enemies in the same way? Do we actually think we are in the right by holding that grudge and clinging to that bitterness and hating that person because of what they have done? If God had acted like that we’d all be lost.

-Again, God’s love was not such that He just winked at sin or overlooked sin, patting the sinner on the head saying try better next time. God’s love does not somehow trump His holiness and justice. God’s attributes are not separated like that—they all work together. It was at the cross that His love of enemies and justice for sin could both be satisfied. Like I preached on a couple of weeks ago, that’s how God showed love. And when we show love like that—desiring the ultimate good for those who hate us and persecute us and mock us and even try to destroy us—then we are most like our Savior and most like our Father who is in heaven. And then Jesus continues by telling us...

3) This tough love reaches beyond the norm

Matthew 5:46–47 ESV

46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

-It is natural and normal to love people who are within your circle or who love you in return. It is natural and easier to treat people with honor and respect who are just like you and who love you back. But Jesus says, if you do that, how are you any different than an unbeliever? Unbelievers love the people in their inner circle. Unbelievers love the people who love them. But unbelievers don’t love those who hurt them or hate them. And if you do the same, what makes you any different from an unbeliever? If you claim to have believed in Christ, and the Holy Spirit is residing within you (influencing you and guiding you), and all you do is love other Christians, what makes you different from people who don’t know Jesus (because they do the same thing)?

-Jesus tells us that what makes us different, what makes us distinctly Christian, is to go beyond the norm and love everybody, even our enemies. We desire the goodwill and prosperity and peace for all people, and we want all people to be saved—even those who insult us, lie about us, persecute us, and misuse us. Christian love reaches beyond what is normally expected in the world. The world loves its own. The Christian loves even the most despicable, vile, hateful, sickening person that you can think of, exactly because it is the same love that was extended to us.

-And so, we could say that the love that Jesus speaks of in this passage not only refers to the objects of love (everyone including our enemies) but it also speaks of the type or degree of love that we show. Because the love that God showed us and that we show others is not some mere toleration. We don’t show love but merely putting up with people or enduring people or being patient with people. The love that Jesus talks about isn’t even just being kind and hospitable to people.

-The love that Jesus says we have for even our enemies is agape love—a sacrificial love where we give ourselves over for what is best for the object of our love. It means that you go out of your way so that you can bless your enemy and pray for your enemy and want the best for your enemy and doing it with the right heart attitude, knowing that you are being like your Savior, knowing that you are living as a child of God and a member of His eternal Kingdom. Loving your enemies and loving everyone is not some begrudging moment of service, but a lifestyle of doing what needs to be done so that everybody around you knows the love of God through you. You are the conduit through which God loves the world, including His enemies.

4) This tough love routes us to our intended purpose

-Jesus ends this section saying:

Matthew 5:48 ESV

48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

-When you first read that verse you freak out for a moment because that is a tall order. How in the world can we be perfect like God? We can’t. If we could we wouldn’t need a Savior. But it’s exactly because we are not perfect that we need a Savior. What in the world does this verse mean?

-It might be a shortcoming in translation into the English language. The word used for perfect there means to meet the standard or to be mature or to be fully developed in a moral sense. It is not saying that we are expected to be sinless. There is no human that could do that. But what it is saying is that by loving like this (loving your enemies, praying for those who persecute you) you are fulfilling your purpose as a child of God—you are living like Christ and representing His ways rightly.

-Honestly, this verse concludes this whole section of living with a greater righteousness than the scribes and Pharisees. It’s not merely that we don’t murder, but rather we don’t even hate. It’s not a matter of merely not committing adultery, but we don’t even lust. It’s not a matter of merely not lying or breaking oaths, but we have a lifestyle of truthfulness and integrity. It’s not a matter of merely not seeking revenge, but we actually do good to those who mistreat us. It’s not a matter of merely not hating our enemies, but we actually sacrificially love our enemies. When we do that, we are living for Christ’s kingdom, our righteousness is greater than the scribes and Pharisees, and we are most like our heavenly Father.

-But we will never do it perfectly in the normal sense of the term. And that is why it is so good to know that when we sin and we fall short we have a Savior and our sins are forgiven. That doesn’t mean we don’t try, but we don’t have to worry of losing God’s love as long as we are in Christ, because through Christ we were turned from enemies into children of God.

Conclusion

-I’ll end with this story:

-I read a story about a Baptist pastor during the American Revolution, named Peter Miller, who lived in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, and enjoyed the friendship of George Washington. In Ephrata also lived a man named Michael Wittman, who was an evil-minded sort who did all he could to oppose and humiliate the pastor. One day Michael Wittman was arrested for treason and sentenced to die. Peter Miller traveled seventy miles on foot to Philadelphia to plead with George Washington for the life of the traitor.

General Washington said, "No, Peter, I cannot grant you the life of your friend."

"My friend!" exclaimed the old preacher. "He's the bitterest enemy I have."

"What?" cried Washington. "You've walked seventy miles to save the life of an enemy? That puts the matter in different light. I'll grant your pardon." And he did.

Peter Miller took Michael Wittman back home to Ephrata--no longer an enemy but a friend, and eventually a brother in Christ.

-How have you shown your love toward anybody lately, much less your enemies? Is your heart hard right now toward somebody? Maybe you need to come to the altar and ask God to change your heart toward that person. Or maybe you want to pray about somebody’s heart toward you. Or maybe you want to come to the altar and pray that God gives you His Kingdom values and you live it out.

-But there may be some here who are still enemies of God because they have not trusted in Jesus Christ. Do not die an enemy of God, because once you die there is no changing your mind. There are no second chances. You will forever remain His enemy, and forever suffer His wrath. Jesus died so you would not have to suffer that. Believe in Jesus, today, and be saved.