“Your Enemies Need You!”
(Matthew 5:43-48)
(SLIDE)
INTRODUCTION
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0HhHLHLHaA
A truck driver was sitting in a crowded roadside diner ready to eat his lunch. It wasn’t just any diner and any lunch. It was his favorite diner on the road and his favorite lunch. Just as the waitress brought the truck driver’s meat loaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, and green beans to his table, a motorcycle gang swaggered in the door. Most of them sat themselves at the table next to the truck driver but there wasn’t enough room at that table for all of them. The gang members left standing turn to the truck driver and barked, “Move! We want that table!” The truck driver calmly said, “I haven’t finished my meal.” One of the motorcycle toughs took his dirty finger, swiped it through the mashed potatoes and gravy, stuck his finger in his mouth and said, “Hey, not bad grub.” Another gang member took the trucker’s cup of coffee and slowly poured it over the remaining food on the plate and snarled, “You’re finished now!” The trucker stood up, took his napkin, wiped his mouth, walked to the cash register, paid for his meal, and silently walked out the door. All the bikers started laughing and one of them made a comment to the waitress: “Ain’t much of a man, is he?” The waitress simply replied “And he’s not much of a truck driver, either. He just backed his rig over your motorcycles.”
If you and I are honest, most of us would have to say that when it comes to dealing with those who oppose us or those that we just don’t like, we’re more likely to identify with the truck driver than with the person trying to build bridges to them. If you’re here for the first time today, we’ve been in a sermon series based on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, called “Perspectives” where we’ve discovered that if we really want to act like, walk like, talk like, and be like Jesus, we’ve got to gain His perspective on what it means to be a Christ follower. This has not been an easy series because we’ve taken on some very difficult issues such as rage, adultery, divorce, deceit, and revenge--and we’ve discovered that Jesus has a radically different view and expectation of those who follow Him on how to live life well. This morning we close the series by addressing perhaps the most difficult of Jesus’ teaching…to love our enemies. If you have your Bibles with you this morning, please turn to Matthew 5:43-48.
SCRIPTURE
43 “You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. For He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your •brothers, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. - Matthew 5:43-48- HCSB (SLIDE)
MESSAGE
I. Love everyone unconditionally vv. 43-44 (SLIDE)
• Love you neighbor and your enemy!”
• “Do not take revenge or bear a grudge against members of your community, but love your neighbor as yourself; I am Yahweh.”-Leviticus 19:18- HCSB (SLIDE)
• Loving an enemy means choosing to let our love OVERRIDE our feelings of disgust, anger, bitterness, disdain, ….
• Not all forms of love are the same. Jesus calls us to agape love-the kind of love that actively seeks the other person’s highest good (SLIDE)
• Agape love means to show unconditional kindness. It means going out of your way to show mercy and friendship even to the people who drive you bananas. Even to the people who don’t treat you well.
• “For God loved the world in this way: He gave His •One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.”- John 3:16- HCSB (SLIDE)
• If God loves them, why can’t we?
II. Lift up everyone prayerfully v. 44 (SLIDE)
• Pray for enemies?
• “But I say to you who listen: Love your enemies, do what is good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.- Luke 6:27-28- HCSB (SLIDE)
• If someone is giving you a hard time, maybe that’s God’s way of saying "I want you to pray for this person. You can pray that God will help them to do well at school. You can pray that they’ll get along better with their parents. And most of all, pray that through your life, they will see the unconditional love of God in action. Pray that they will experience ultimate joy in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus says "Love your enemies and PRAY for those who persecute you."
• It’s hard to stay mad at someone you pray for
• Illustration: Karin & I arguing
• If prayer is asking God’s will to be on earth as it is in heaven, why can’t we pray for them?
III. Look at everyone equally v. 45
• Look at others from God’s perspective
• Illustration: Kid’s in trouble/facing each other in chairs
• But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us! Romans 5:8- HCSB ( SLIDE)
• Our righteousness is as filthy rags
• There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike have become useless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one. No one righteous, not even one.” - Romans 3:10- HCSB- (SLIDE)
• Say, “I’m a sinner!” “You’re a sinner!” “I’m not your judge!”
• “Friends, do not avenge yourselves; instead, leave room for His wrath. For it is written: Vengeance belongs to Me; I will repay, says the Lord. But If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For in so doing you will be heaping fiery coals on his head. Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good.”- Romans 12:19-21- HCSB (SLIDE)
• If God is the judge who will deal with all evil and unrighteousness, why can’t we wait on Him to do His job?
IV. Live so everyone can see Jesus clearly vv. 46-48
• Reflect God’s perfectness while you’re being perfected
• Perfect- refers to maturation or wholeness
• “inaugurated eschatology”= “already/not yet” tension
• “From now on, then, we do not know anyone in a purely human way. Even if we have known Christ in a purely human way, yet now we no longer know Him in this way. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come. Everything is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed the message of reconciliation to us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, certain that God is appealing through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.” He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” -2 Corinthians 5:16-20- HCSB- (SLIDE)
• Loving our enemies is a big part of what it means to act like, walk like, talk like, and be like Jesus.
• “For you were called to this, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in His steps. He did not commit sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth; when He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He was suffering, He did not threaten but entrusted Himself to the One who judges justly. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness; you have been healed by His wounds.”- 1 Peter 20-24- HCSB (SLIDE)
• Christian love goes beyond our narrow circles to include people no one else would ever think about including. It means helping those that no one else would think about helping.
• If we are no different than the rest of the world on this and other issues, what’s the purpose of being a Christ-follower?
TIME OR RESPONSE
A professor of psychology had no children of his own, but whenever he saw a neighbor scolding a child for some wrongdoing, he would say, "You should love your boy, not punish him." One hot summer afternoon the professor was doing some repair work, putting in a concrete driveway leading to his garage. Tired out after several hours of work, he laid down the trowel, wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and started toward the house. Just then out of the corner of his eye he saw a mischievous little boy putting his foot into the fresh cement. He rushed over, grabbed him, and was about to scold him severely when a neighbor leaned from a window and said, "Watch it, Professor! Don’t you remember? You must ’love’ the child!" At this, he yelled back furiously, "I do love him in the abstract but not in the concrete!"
