Love to the Loveless Shown

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Matthew 5:38-42

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Well, this morning we press on now to the fifth antithesis as we have been slowly working our way through the
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Sermon on the Mount and as we come near the end of chapter 5 and look forward to beginning chapter 6, we've been dealing with these series of antitheses where Jesus either directly quotes or references some aspect of Old Testament law.
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Now, it's significant that he doesn't quote it in ways that he often, in other places, quotes scripture where he says it is written, but here he says with the antitheses, you have heard it said of old.
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It's very significant because it points to, he's interacting with the larger teaching the way that it was popularly understood.
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This is what you've heard and by implication, here's how you've applied and practiced it.
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But I'm telling you, the application goes a lot deeper and the practice is a lot more strict than what you've understood and so that's the significance of what we've been seeing with these antitheses.
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As we said last week, there's a certain shock value that Jesus is after with the sharp contrast that all of a sudden catches the hearer off guard.
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What do you mean? That seems to almost be against everything we understand about the commandment, but you have to frame that with what
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Jesus says even before we got to these antitheses where he said, I have not come to destroy the law.
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I haven't come to take away one jot or tittle of the law until all is accomplished. And so it's significant to see that he's revealing what the law has always held forth.
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He's blasting away the barnacles and crustaceans of fleshly interpretation and he, the divine law giver, is telling us what has always been true of the moral law of God.
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So this morning we come to the fifth antithesis, Matthew 5, 38 through 42.
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You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I tell you not to resist an evil person.
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But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also.
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And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him too. Give to him who asks you. And from him who wants to borrow from you, do not turn away.
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You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Now, this is a direct quote from several places in the
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Old Testament. Exodus 21, verses 23 and following. If men are fighting and hurt a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman's husband imposes on him, and he shall pay as the judge has determined.
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But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
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And you see the significance of that passage, not only with this larger sense of the retribution fitting the offense, but the significance also in this passage of the value of human life in the womb, where if the life is lost, if premature birth, if the result of a pregnant woman being hit in the midst of fighting or because of the offense of some aggressor, then it's life for life.
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That's a very significant passage for us in our understanding of the value of human life, and we have that right from Exodus 21.
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But it's not the only place where human life is valued, and this language of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is put forth as a scale for retribution.
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Leviticus 24, if a man causes disfigurement of his neighbor as he has done, so it shall be done to him.
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Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, as he has caused disfigurement of a man, so it shall be done to him.
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Or Deuteronomy 19 .21, where just a larger principle is put forth. Your eyes shall not pity, life shall be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
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So this is, again, the larger presentation of justice. It's a legal principle, and we've seen in there some variations of how it would be applied as Old Testament case law.
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But the legal principle made famous by the so -called Code of Hammurabi, about 1700, 1750 years prior to the
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Lord, and the Latin term is what it's still referred to by today, the lex talionis, the law of retribution.
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An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. It sets the standard for rectitude in punishment.
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And what that does is it prevents excessive punishment. That justice is served because the penalty fits the crime.
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The penalty is exact or parallel with the offense. And so it discourages, on the one hand, excessive punishment, which is an evil, which is a corruption.
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But it also discourages sort of vigilantism or vigilante retaliation.
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I don't know why, for the life of me, our culture has become so self -absorbed and so ethically degraded that you essentially have cheerleaders.
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You have young women fawning over some murderer named
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Luigi because he killed a CEO of a company. I'm sure the
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CEO wasn't exactly the friend or the Robin Hood for those in plight. But to think that you would cheer and fawn and applaud murder in cold blood.
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This is exactly what these laws, as we see here in Exodus 21 and other places, are trying to prevent.
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Vigilantism, a sort of heartless, cold -blooded retaliation. A human life has been taken, life for life.
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It's what we see in the covenant that God makes with Noah after the flood.
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That he establishes that for man's blood to be shed, blood must be shed. There's this principle of a penalty fitting the crime.
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And that's what makes the shock value of Jesus' words in Matthew 539 so powerful.
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Exact retribution, rectitude for offense, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, wound for wound, offense for offense, strike for strike.
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Whatever you do to me, I'll do to you. Now maybe, because I'm a servant of the most high
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God, I won't go tenfold. I won't go Lamex route. I won't be avenged sevenfold, but you better be sure
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I'm going eye for eye. I'm gonna go tooth for tooth. Whatever you do to me, I will do to you. I will get what
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I'm owed. I will defend what belongs to me. And to that, Jesus says, I tell you, not to resist an evil person.
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It's very striking. What a shock value that would have had. To explain this,
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Jesus gives four illustrations of what he means. And that we shouldn't restrict it to these four things, but see them as illustrative of what he's getting at with this idea.
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And the first illustration is this. Whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. There was a sort of cultural predilection for the right hand.
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You have a lot of metaphorical significance to those at the right hand. This is the hand of favor. No offense to the left -handed friends in our audience here this morning.
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But the right hand is the metaphorical hand of significance. So to be struck with the right hand and then have to turn the cheek also, the right cheek to the right hand means you've been backhanded.
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This is perhaps something that's very formal, but it seems to be more just some strife that's exploded now.
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And there's been this insult that's given. An absolute insult, you've been backhanded. It's still a way we talk about someone doing something dastardly to you.
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We say that was backhanded or that was a backhanded comment. It's like you've been swiped across the face.
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And the immediate result of that would be that stinging sensation, that sort of where am I, what just happened?
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And in the midst of that thought, you're already winding up and getting ready to return fire, as it were.
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And Jesus says, instead, turn your cheek otherwise. In other words, prepare to be hit again if that's what's necessary.
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In other words, it's the farthest thing from retaliation he can muster. Now, we have to be careful that we don't stretch this beyond what
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Scripture would have to say. Again, there's a certain level of forceful rhetoric, of exaggeration to make the point.
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And so certainly, Scripture commends the idea of self -defense. Christians aren't those who allow themselves to be beaten to a bloody pulp, necessarily.
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There is a value placed on human life, even to defend your own life. But what Jesus is stressing is this idea of not seeking immediate retaliation, of having enough self -restraint that you'd actually be willing to receive another blow before you seek to defend or strike or injure another.
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Now, some take this principle, some take this illustration, and they drive it all the way toward a whole theology of non -resistance.
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And you have that largely in the Anabaptist traditions, the Quakers, others that have convictions of pacifism.
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And so they won't partake in military service or law enforcement or other types of work that would require you to get in scuffles and get into the fray, as it were.
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And it's because they have this conviction that to be a follower of Jesus, these kingdom ethics mean you have to be totally committed to non -retaliation, totally committed to non -resistance, absolutely no place for violence.
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But again, as we saw with oaths and vows, Jesus makes an absolute statement. But then when you take a step back and look at the biblical balance on the whole, you start to see that there is a place.
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We have to be very mindful and careful about how we bring these things together, and that's certainly true with this.
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The larger catechism is very helpful, and I won't go into all the verses it uses to support. But it says, in fact, the
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Sixth Commandment helps us understand this. You shall not murder, that's the Sixth Commandment. But it says, as part of application, the sins forbidden in the
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Sixth Commandment are the taking away of the life of ourselves or of others, except in cases of public justice, lawful war, or necessary defense.
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That's a right statement. That's clear just from the Old Testament itself. That's clearly what
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Jesus entails in Luke 22 when he says, sell your cloak and buy a sword.
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In other words, you may have to defend others. You may even have to defend yourself. There's a time and a place for that.
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And like Jim Elliot and the missionaries, there may be a time to lay down the rifle, to lay down those weapons of self -defense.
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You recognize that you have a greater cause that you're after. So the
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Christian determines to know the difference according to their own calling. So public justice, lawful war, necessary defense, these are right uses for us to defend ourselves.
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What Jesus has in mind is this heart for retribution, this thirst for revenge. That's what he's banishing from his followers.
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In other words, you could put it like this. There's a difference between defending your own life and being bloodthirsty to defend your honor.
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Defending your life in a necessary way versus being vengeful. Having such an ego that you can't take the slightest offense or sideways glance.
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Jesus would have us defend our own life, but he says to follow him means we, in many ways, will have to allow our honor to be trampled on.
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And yet we're never to respond with a heart of vengeance. And this is crystal clear. Even if we defend ourselves or defend others, as will be necessary at times, it's never out of a heart of vengeance.
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It would be the equivalent of, and you see well -trained law enforcement officers, as soon as they stop the threat, what do they do?
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They rush in to give life support. And it's that kind of sense. I've now stopped the threat.
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I've defended life, even if it's my own life. And now I'm gonna try to save life, you know?
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And so that's the idea here. It's crystal clear that it cannot be a heart of vengeance. Romans 12, 18 and following, as Paul says to the
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Christians in Rome. If it's possible, very important caveat, if it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.
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Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, Paul says. Rather, give place to wrath, for it is written, vengeance is mine,
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I will repay, says the Lord. Verse 21, do not be overcome by evil, but rather, overcome evil with good.
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That is the original doge or however you pronounce it. Do only good every day, overcome evil with good, that's the idea.
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So Paul tells these Christians, you're going to get into the fray, you're going to have offenses, threats, persecution.
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Cultivate a heart of willing sacrifice so that you're never tempted to avenge yourself.
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Know that God will defend you, even if he requires your life, your sacrifice. Know that vengeance belongs to the
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Lord, so never seek to avenge yourself. That's what Paul tells these believers in Rome. So this is the first illustration.
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If someone strikes you, rather than retaliate, rather than go to war, you simply lay down that bloodthirst, that sense of vengeance, you turn also.
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You're so willing to be one of these peacemakers that are so blessed that they actually see
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God, that you're willing to turn and receive, as it were, another blow. The second illustration he gives, if anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also.
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This is most likely reflecting a legal situation. We have that, I think, carried very well in our translation here.
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If anyone wants to sue you, it's more than just a request. Hey, give me that. I like your sweater. I like that jacket.
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Give it to me. That's not what's going on here. There seems to be a legal case involving a lawsuit. This is technical language.
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It's really hard to understand and conceptualize the terms here of tunic and cloak.
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It's more like inner garment and outer garment. But what we mean by inner garment is usually a lot more intimate and personal than what an inner garment was in antiquity.
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But the idea is you have your sort of inner garment. And you would think that would be the most vital thing, right?
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That's the most intimate thing. But again, that's a misunderstanding. The most precious garment would be your outer garment. That's your full covering.
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In fact, if you're traveling, as you would do very often, averaging dozens of miles every day, perhaps, if you were on a lengthy route, that would be your bed.
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That was your mattress and your sleep sack all in one. That was the original snuggie or whatever they call those things.
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And so the idea was, this is your valuable garment. The lawsuit could take everything from you.
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It could totally, as it were, drain your savings account. But what the law said was, even if everything is to be stripped away from you, you must have your cloak.
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You have to have the cloak. If a poor person has everything taken from them, the law said, just in the same sense of valuing life.
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Even where that offense is so grave that everything must be taken away, you shall not take away the cloak over the night.
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They at least need to have that bed sheet, as it were, that great massive cloak. And so we see that, for example, in Exodus 22, verse 26.
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If you ever take your neighbor's garment as a pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down.
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The law would not have them be without the cloak. Deuteronomy 24 says the same thing. If a man is poor, you shall not keep his pledge overnight.
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You shall return it to him again when the sun goes down, so he can sleep in his own garment and bless you.
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Already you see this idea of Jesus leaning into law and recognizing, even in the case of retribution, of a lawsuit where the innocent party rightfully takes away from the offending party, the law already is showing mercy as a principle of not being vengeful or without mercy.
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You shall return the garment to him that he may sleep. And so what you see Jesus drawing upon is this willingness to relinquish even that basic necessity.
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He's saying that the law of old would at least give you your cloak at night, but here's what I'm telling you. If you're going to follow me, you'll even let him keep the cloak.
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In other words, there's nothing so basic, no necessity so vital that you can say,
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I demand this if you're a follower of Jesus. The shock value, again, is profound.
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He's essentially saying what we regard as our rights by law must be forfeited if it is necessary for the sake of the kingdom.
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Paul enlarges on this principle, by the way, when he's castigating the church at Corinth in 1
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Corinthians 6, because they're going to the courts, courts ruled by pagan Romans, as it were.
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And here they are as Christians, and he's saying, you have a much better sense of justice and mercy than some pagan
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Roman. Why are you going to their courts to settle your disputes? And his argument in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 7 is, shouldn't you rather be wronged?
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Where is he getting that idea from? He says, well, as long as justice is served, all that ends well is well.
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No, he says, it's better to be wronged. He's essentially drawing the same idea that there's bigger things at stake than your own rights.
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There's bigger concerns for the kingdom of God and the testimony of that kingdom than your rights, than your necessities.
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And so Jesus says his followers will not demand them. They'll be willing to relinquish them. Third illustration.
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Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him too. Literally, I mean, miles is a perfectly fine translation.
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Million is the Greek, you see the word mile within that. It roughly translates to the idea of 1 ,000 steps, 1 ,000, and I like that picture.
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Again, this is most likely a form of conscription, where Roman soldiers had this sort of tacit ability, and it had legal frameworks.
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There were certain limitations placed upon that, where they could press into service any passersby.
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If they were out and they were dragging their kit, and Roman soldiers had a lot of stuff to drag around, they could find someone on the road and say, you, carry this burden with me for a mile.
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And I like the idea of 1 ,000 steps, because if you have a begrudging, grating reaction to that, as almost all
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Judeans did, then you'd be counting down those 1 ,000 steps. You'd be measuring that mile marker.
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As soon as I hit that limit, and you're kind of off, I'm out of here. You know, 999, 998, 990, you'd be going all the way down.
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I can't wait to be free of this burden, and I can't wait to be rid of the Romans. And Jesus says to this oppressed people, actually go an extra mile.
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Go an extra mile. Go even beyond what they require, what they compel. Don't be counting down from 1 ,000 to 1, so that in disgust you can show your contempt.
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As you're walking along the way, go, so, what's it like being a Roman soldier? What's it like occupying my land?
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Strike up a conversation. Who knows what the Lord's gonna do with that? Maybe you'll need an extra mile just to see what the Lord's gonna do with that.
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Be willing, Jesus says. Fourth illustration, give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you, do not turn away.
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Now, you have two things bound together here, both containing this idea of generosity, of giving.
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The first giving seems to be far more general, although it's probably a way of reflecting almsgiving.
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In fact, when we begin chapter six after the last antithesis, that's, in the first four verses, that's what we're talking about, almsgiving.
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When you do your charitable deeds, don't do it to be seen by men. And so you have this practice of almsgiving, of giving to charity, of giving to the poor, and Jesus seems to be reflecting on that here.
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Give to him who asks you. The borrowing, the second part of this, from him who wants to borrow from you, do not turn away, this implies dealing with loans, with some sort of agreement, a person in need who asks, can
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I borrow this? And Jesus says, don't deny them. If you have the ability to meet that need, don't deny it.
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Now again, there's all sorts of cases that need to be applied to this. Jesus anticipates that Jesus' followers are willing to meet needs.
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They're willing to meet needs, that's the general principle. Just like in the last illustration, they're willing to go the extra mile.
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In other words, they're willing to go beyond what is asked of them. This is true of Jesus' followers. But there's twin dangers here.
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If we misunderstand and misapply, give to him who asks you, from whoever wants to borrow, do not turn away.
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There's twin dangers. The first danger, on the one hand, we can absolutize this teaching. And what does that do?
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That creates a society, it begins in a church, then it creates a society of everyone saying, give and let me borrow.
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Give to me, let me borrow. You know what Jesus says. Hey, you better give that to me. You better let me borrow. You know what Jesus says.
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So if we absolutize it, then we're already going in a wrong direction. To the degree that giving alms actually becomes a means of enabling and ensnaring those who are in need.
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There's a lot of books that have been written on this over the past several decades. And some of us just know this by direct experience, that there's a way of giving that's actually harmful and ensnaring, rather than helpful.
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And so the early church had to deal with this. They had to create not only the role of deacons to figure out in Acts 6 how to distribute bread to the poor, because of the clamor between the
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Hellenist and Hebrew widows. In other words, it wasn't as simple as just saying, let's just give. They had to say, well, we have to put out a certain way of doing this.
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And by the time you get to the pastorals, all right, if someone's going to be on the roll, here's the criteria. Here's the conditions that have to be met.
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So you never have a sort of superficial, at face value, arms are always open with no criteria, no conditions.
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You just don't see that in Scripture. A really important book that came out not that long ago,
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When Helping Hurts, that really draws out a lot of these principles. Remember what Jesus says, the poor you'll always have with you.
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So on the one hand, we can absolutize this teaching, and we can ignore the warnings of Scripture about hasty sureties, and Proverbs speaks to that.
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Several Proverbs speak to the foolishness of becoming a surety, a sort of hastily becoming a surety, and putting your own means, your own livelihood on the promise of another.
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These things have to be weighed out and reflected upon. But on the other hand, I said it's a twin danger.
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On the other hand, we just completely ignore Jesus' teaching. We don't want to absolutize it, we don't want to ignore it.
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We need to understand the larger concern. Jesus wants us to have a certain compassion for those in need, so that we can live generously according to our means, and according to the providential opportunities that he supplies.
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Part of that is, again, just what means do we have, and what opportunities does he present us with?
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And it could be a very small opportunity, little things like, you know, you're in line at Hannaford, and you see some old man, and he's got milk, bread, and eggs in his cart, and he's rifling through, looking for that last nickel, and you think, you know what,
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I'm just going to pay for that. I'm assuming, you know, it could be as simple, and I've done this before, it's like, it would be a lot faster if I just pay for these few things, because it's going to take 20 minutes for him to find that nickel.
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So I'm just going to pay for it. But the reality is, it's just, here's a providential opportunity.
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Who knows what the Lord has in store for that? All sorts of ways that, according to our means, and something that is an afterthought for us, could be something that carries all sorts of significance, and leads to all sorts of wonderful testimony.
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And so we have this idea, again, we, on the one hand, we don't want to enable or ensnare those who are in need.
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We have to be thoughtful about how we give. The early church had to figure that out. But we also don't want to ignore the larger concern.
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And I would say we're probably erring on the latter, generally speaking, as Christians, than on the former. I think it's that we don't see with eyes of compassion in the way that Jesus would have us see with eyes of compassion.
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If we're prone to making mistakes, it's probably there. I know that's true in my own life, at least.
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Now, clearly, non -retaliation, in other words, not defending your honor, not seeking revenge, not returning reviling for reviling, and having a sort of sacrificial witness.
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I go the extra mile. You can keep the cloak. I know the Lord will be enough for me. That these things are characterizing those who belong to the kingdom.
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Remember, Jesus says, blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed. We make it all the way through the Beatitudes, and we already have this radical portrait of those that are blessed.
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It was unlike anything we had thought if we hadn't had Jesus' teaching. The paradoxes of those that are blessing are actually the hungry, the thirsty, those who are mourning, those who are meek, not the boastful, proud, the ones that seem to be doing so well.
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So you're already thinking, wow, there's something radically different about this kingdom. And then you press forward even more, and you see these antitheses.
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Now you really have a picture. This is a picture of sacrifice. This is a picture of allowing yourself to be wounded.
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What kind of kingdom is this? Well, it's not a kingdom like the world. We know that.
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I tell you not to resist an evil person. That means that the followers of Jesus refuse vengeance on the one hand.
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On the other hand, they actively seek to live generously, refuse to avenge themselves, refuse to return dishonor for dishonor, and then actively live generously.
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This is what characterizes the life of a disciple. This is what characterizes the life of Jesus.
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That means in the church of God, there's no grounds for a bullying Mike Tyson or a miserly
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Ebenezer Scrooge. Neither of these are worthy of the kingdom of God. Jesus is opposing the selfish mindset which makes so much of one's honors and rights that retaliation is not only inevitable, it's necessary.
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I have to do this. What Jesus is saying in this passage is that his followers won't stand upon their ego in that way.
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They don't demand their rights and their honors. They won't swiftly retaliate. They won't seek revenge to such a degree that they can even let go of their most basic possessions, their most basic necessities.
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They hold with a loose hand, and that includes not only their resources, but even their time.
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Craig Keener, I think, puts it so well. It is not, we have to be clear, it is not that the
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Christian must never respond or resist in any way. Wasn't there some movie made, I know some of us were talking about it in years past,
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Hacksaw Ridge, about a pacifist who was enlisted in the war effort and he had a conviction that he could not fire upon an enemy.
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That's tremendous, a powerful testimony of him falling through on his convictions. And so let me just applaud that.
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What a hero, what courage. Let me also say you cannot win a war like that. You cannot win a war.
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And Jesus does say in Luke 22, sell your cloak, buy a sword, which translates in our day to, you know, don't buy a fall wardrobe, buy an
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AR -15, at least when you could get them in our state. So it's not that the
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Christian must never respond or resist in any way, but it is this. The Christian must value others above themselves in concrete and consistent ways.
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That's what it means to follow Jesus. Now this is a challenging call. It was shocking to the hearers then.
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If we hear it rightly and we don't dismiss it with a thousand qualifications, it will shock us as well.
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This demands something radical about our lives that is not natural to us. It's certainly not natural to the world that forges us.
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This world says it's dog eat dog, so just press ahead however you can. You know, it's survival of the fittest, essentially, you know, if you've got it, go for it.
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That's essentially every man to himself. We all felt that creep out of our nature with COVID, right?
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All of a sudden you were the one that needed the TP and the Lysol, right? Didn't matter what everyone else needed.
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You needed that cart full. This is a challenging call because it calls us to something fundamentally opposed to the way of this world, which is this, self -denial.
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The world is governed by an ethic of self -assertion. Jesus calls his followers to an ethic of self -denial.
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The extremity of separation could not be more pronounced. At every stage of sanctification in the life of a believer, self -denial is required.
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You simply cannot grow in God's grace if you're not growing in self -denial. To grow in grace is to see less of yourself and desire to see less of yourself and to see more and more of Christ and to serve more and more.
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And so sanctification requires this challenge. It requires this call.
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Finding our life with the Lord means losing our life apart from him. And the only way to begin walking in these ways is to begin dying to self.
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In a fundamental way, I say, you cannot grow in God's grace unless you learn how to die to yourself.
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And in many ways, becoming a Christian is the initial act of dying to yourself. And that's why conversion, the experience of coming to salvation, is presented in this language of you died with Christ.
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Now your life is bound up with him. And we give this picture through baptism.
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You were buried because you died. And now we raise you up, as it were, out of that watery death.
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Your new life is in him. In a way, we're saying the Christian life begins with dying to yourself.
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You're dead. And now your life is in him. And therefore, your life will be for him.
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And it's this life of continual self -denial. I remember reading in Vance Havner, an old
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Southern preacher, and he was talking about missionaries on their way to the African coast. And you have, of course, galley ships going back and forth during the
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Atlantic passage, the days of chattel slavery. And these really callous captains and pilots that would take these passages and had no issues at all about throwing the sick overboard to drown.
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You could just imagine the kind of heinous men these were, men like John Newton before he came to Christ. Just completely callous, blood all over their hands.
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And they're watching these missionaries that are making their way to go and actually save and convert and spread the gospel there on the coasts of Africa.
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And Vance Havner recounts a captain mocking these missionaries. Don't you know they're just gonna kill you?
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You're going to die there. Even if they don't kill you, you're gonna starve or get some disease. In other words, why are you wasting this trip?
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Why are you going to Africa? You're just gonna die there. And the missionaries responded, oh, we died before we left.
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We've been dead. We died to ourself, our needs, our rights a long time ago. That's why we're going.
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We're already dead. Do you see? That's the logic. That's what it means to follow
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Jesus. To fulfill Jesus' call then, we need a radical change in the way that we view other people.
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And to fulfill that radical change in how we view other people, we need to have a radical change in the way we view ourselves.
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You cannot begin to look at others rightly until you see yourself rightly in the mirror of God's word.
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And this is where self -denial arises. When we see that reflection in the mirror, there's a tendency to give a lot more attention to outward standards than to the inward state of the heart.
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In other words, what we like to do is just take a quick peek in the mirror and go, that's enough. And then we wanna quickly focus on all the external things.
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Where do we line up? How do we measure up? How do others compare? We're just looking at the external things. We're still very much self -focused.
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It's still all about me and mine. But when we begin to reflect on the internal state, that's where we can all of a sudden begin to see others in a different light.
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We recognize, I am not right with God. And for that reason,
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I've been flattering myself and I've been very hard on others. But when I begin to recognize that I need to be made right with God, I can view others who are not right with God in a totally different light.
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John Newton himself, I just mentioned John Newton. John Newton himself said, when people are right with God, they're apt to be hard on themselves and easy on others.
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But when they are not right with God, they are easy on themselves and hard on others. That's invariably true.
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So again, to fulfill Jesus' call, we need a radical change in the way we view others. And in order to do that, we need a radical change in the way we view ourselves.
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This is the crucial point. We are not to practice self -denial, ultimately, for our own sake.
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It's such an important point. Jesus here, in Matthew 5, 38 through 42, does not call us to have this radical change in the way that we approach and relate to others for our own sake.
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Jesus is not saying, deny yourself so that it will really help you and make you stronger and make you wiser and make you more holy.
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That's not why he says you should deny yourself. We are not to practice self -denial, ultimately, for ourselves.
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We are to practice self -denial for the sake of others. That's what Jesus is saying. We practice self -denial for the sake of our neighbors.
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B .B. Warfield, he says this so well, the old Lion of Princeton. He says, self -denial for its own sake is in its very nature, ascetic, monkish.
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In other words, it wants to withdraw. It wants to go into the ivory tower and hide away from the world.
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It concentrates its whole attention on self. Isn't that the irony of it all?
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I'm going to now become so self -denied that I'm going to go into a chamber and focus completely on myself.
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That's how self -denied I'm going to be. In the pursuit of having self -knowledge and self -control, it can do nothing but come to the very summit of selfishness.
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Again, do you see what he's saying? The very quest to deny yourself by becoming this monk and separating yourself from everything actually is the height of selfishness.
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You're completely consumed by yourself. You have nothing to offer others. You don't even relate.
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You don't even see. You don't even interact with others. It's all about you. Warfield says it partially conceals the selfishness of its goal because it's always refining the ideal of the self, excluding it in greater and greater ways.
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Self -denial then drives to that secret chamber. It narrows. It contracts our soul. It dries up all the springs of sympathy.
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It nurses and coddles our self -importance until we grow so great in our own esteem that we become very careless about the trials, the sufferings, the joys, the aspirations, the strivings, failures, and successes of our fellow men.
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Self -denial understood in this way will make us cold, hard, unsympathetic, proud, arrogant, self -esteemed, fanatical, overbearing, cruel.
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It can make a monk. It can make a Stoic, but it cannot make a Christian. The Lord Jesus in these kingdom antitheses calls his followers to self -denial for the sake of others.
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Now this way of understanding self -denial really requires two things.
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Probably a lot more than that, but I wanna impress this upon us this morning. There's two springs that converge into the river that we call self -denial.
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And you must have both. You must have both if you would have a self -denial for the sake of others.
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And in fact, these two springs shouldn't be thought of as completely separate because as soon as you have self -denial, you've found that these springs have been mingling long before.
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And those two springs, these two sources of self -denial are this, purpose and patience.
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Purpose and patience. So the first purpose is speaking to, why would we deny ourselves?
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What are we after? What's the point of this all? Why go the extra mile? Why let them keep the cloak?
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That's the thing you need most. That's the basic thing. Why would you turn the other cheek?
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Why would you give so freely the things that you need, that you labored for, that you earned?
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Well, the purpose clearly for the sake of the kingdom is witness, testimony, discipleship.
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It's about advancing the kingdom. And so that's the purpose. Jesus, in other words, Jesus wants us to think about sacrifice, self -denial, in a way that we don't get caught up with self -pity.
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If you don't have purpose as a source of self -denial, you will get caught up in self -pity.
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Oh, look how hard it is for me. Look at what things I don't have. Look at how I have to go through life like this.
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Oh, well, at least I'm a witness in the way that I do it. You need to have a purpose with that sacrifice, a sense of why you're living this way, why you're putting up with the situation, the circumstances, the deprivation that you have.
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It's for a purpose. There's a reason you've made this sacrifice, isn't it? So don't fold back in on your own sense of self.
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That's not the self -denial Jesus is after. It's self -denial for the sake of others, for the sake of the kingdom.
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Now, this testimony that Christ desires has always been a concern for the church. You read the
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New Testament, there's always a concern about the testimony toward those outside. We see that very clearly in 1
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Corinthians. What will those outside think when they come among you, when they happen to pass by the living room in the midst of your worship?
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There's a concern. How will we be seen? Will the testimony be evident? Will it be clear? And so with that, the apostolic faith had this call to bear up under persecution, that even though persecution, suffering, and reviling would come, the
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Christians cannot avenge themselves. They cannot return reviling. We find, for example, this picture in 1
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Peter 2 .12, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you, they're going to.
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He doesn't say if, he says when. When you're mocked, when you're scorned, when they speak against you, that they may buy your good works, which they observe.
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Glorify God in the day of visitation, you see? The idea is that good works, going the extra mile, letting them have the cloak, holding resources freely, turning the other cheek rather than seeking revenge, that by those good works, even if they mock you and scorn you throughout, they won't be able to deny it at the bitter end.
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That's the idea. So you've got this concern for conduct when unbelievers are speaking evil, the apostles wanted to see that good conduct, that shining testimony bear out upon the unbelievers.
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The problem is, in times of persecution, that's when it's the hardest to do that. When you're being reviled, when you're being scorned, when you're being abused, when you're being taken advantage of, that's when it's hardest to be meek and lowly.
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That's when it's hardest to be sacrificial. You become proud, contentious. Instead of having the mind of Christ, you want to arm up, wind up, and strike back.
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When a coworker snubs you, when a family member offends you, when someone, for apparently no reason at all, makes it their personal hobby to smear you, what's the hardest thing to retain?
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Patience and a purpose. There's a purpose to this. Therefore, I'll be patient.
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Therefore, I won't return. Therefore, I won't try to posture myself and try to push back and try to get some vengeance.
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I'll be patient. This is bigger than me, bigger than my feelings, bigger than my honor, bigger than my ego, bigger than my needs, bigger than my resources.
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This is about his kingdom. This is about his testimony. Believers, in other words, will be marked by a certain self -control.
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It's everything we've seen in these antitheses, that believers know how to possess their vessel. That's true not only in sexual purity, but it's also true in terms of retaliation.
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You know how to control yourself. You're not rude, not spiteful, not overbearing. If you've ever dealt with sandpaper, the world is like a 60 -grit.
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It's just big clobs of sharp edges and just basically tears the wood down as soon as you make a pass.
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That's 60 -grit. Believers are like 600 -grit. That's not even sanding anymore.
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That's just polishing. That's what believers are like, not abrasive. And sanctification is moving us from 60 -grit to 600 -grit, from something that is scraping to something that is polishing, in fact, making something better in its appearance.
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Now, this is true not only in the world outside, but it's true in the church, and it's hardest in the church. It's why we're in a church.
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The idea is work it out in the church. If you can do it in the church, you can do it in the world. If you can do it among brethren, then you can do it among pagans.
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Remember that our calling as Christians is bound up with how we treat other Christians as we see throughout, all the one and others of God's Word.
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Paul says to the Ephesians, "'I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you, walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long -suffering, bearing with," he doesn't say the world out there that maltreats, "'bearing with one another.'"
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That's where all that's going. That's where the lowliness, the gentleness, the calling, that's what
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Paul's beseeching, that with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.
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Now, of course, it has to take place in the church. Why? In the church where we're gonna have our feelings hurt the most. Now, frankly, some anonymous pagan's not gonna hurt my feelings very much.
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I take their opinion of very little value, and therefore, their mockery really won't hold much water.
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It's not really gonna pack a punch, so to say. But a brother, a sister, ouch, that's gonna sting, that's gonna hurt.
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My sense of belonging, my sense of relationship, my sense of unity, all of a sudden, the emotions are running hot, the resentments get buried really deep.
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And so, if we can work it out in the church, imagine what we can do in the world. If we can bear with these things in a lowly and gentlest state in the church, imagine what kind of light we'll display to the world.
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And so, we strive after like -mindedness. We deny ourselves. We disarm ourselves. We look for the
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Spirit to produce those spirit -like qualities that will bring about the unity and the bond of peace. And you can see, and you just know by experience, if you've been a part of a church for any length of time, including this one, this doesn't snap into place.
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It doesn't fall into your lap effortlessly. It has to be worked out and walked out over time with persistence.
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It requires self -control. It requires self -denial. It requires dying to your sense of ego.
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It requires a certain forgetfulness so that you can move on in a sincerity of love.
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It requires long -suffering, bearing up, bearing with one another. And what do you need to do that?
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You need a purpose, and you need patience. If you have the purpose, you will have the patience. When I was a young man, and I found this beautiful co -worker that I wanted to pursue named
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Alicia, just so you know, I'm gonna make it clear, it was Alicia. And of course, once we started spending some time, and she would go to her aunt's house, and she would get ready.
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I'd say, hey, I gotta work at four o 'clock. You know, maybe we can go out to dinner, and then we'll go to your parents' house. She's like, okay, that's great.
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You know, I'll be ready at 4 .15. So I can still vividly remember driving up. This happened dozens and dozens of times.
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I'd drive up, park in her aunt's driveway, and wait. 4 .15,
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4 .30, 4 .45, five, 5 .15, 5 .30.
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And finally, the screen door would open, clomp, clomp, clomp down the stairs to my car door, and she'd go, sorry.
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And what do you think I said? It's okay, it's okay.
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Now, 10 years of marriage, what do you think I say? No, what took you so long? I had a purpose.
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I didn't wanna scare her away, I had a purpose. It's okay, I don't mind sitting in my car for an hour and a half.
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You'll be very patient when you have a purpose. You have a goal, you have a hope, you have an objective. You'll wait in the car for hours to accomplish it.
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That's the idea. When you have a purpose, you have that, by all means, I could win some kind of patience.
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And so patience doesn't ignore the provocations of others. It simply has a higher purpose to achieve in the way that it responds.
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And that's what Jesus expects of his followers, to graciously bear with weaknesses, with offenses, with even cruelty, because there's a higher purpose at stake, there's a higher testimony at stake.
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So you're gonna be patient because you have a purpose for it. We recognize it's God who calls us to this.
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It's the same God who is patient with his purpose in our lives. Because of his purpose to complete the work that he's begun, he puts up with us, and our failures, and our shortfalls, and our offenses before him.
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Why is he so patient with us? Because he has a purpose too. And he's put his own name on the line, he's put his promise.
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And so the fruit of long suffering, of forbearance, endurance, perseverance, all of this gets nurtured in our lives as we reflect upon God's dealing with us in Christ, and therefore the way that we are to emulate that and how we treat others.
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And what I'm saying to you, brothers and sisters, is you will not be patient if you do not have a purpose. You will not be able to follow what
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Jesus says in these verses if you don't do it with a purpose that gives you a whole reason and way of being patient.
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So Jesus says, whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. What does that mean?
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It means you're going to persist rather than retaliate. You're gonna persist because you have a purpose.
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You're gonna be patient. You're just gonna be persistent. I love that word persistence. It's active. It's intentional.
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I have a goal. I'm gonna keep persisting. Yeah, you said that, you did that, but I'm still pursuing.
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I'm not so easily dissuaded. I am persistent. You can't get rid of me that easily. That's the idea.
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I'm going to persist rather than retaliate. And this is the idea. I'm not going anywhere.
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I'm not running away. I'm still here, not retaliating, but I'm not going anywhere. I'm just turning the other cheek.
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I'm not going anywhere. I'm persistent, you see? That's the idea. I don't condone this at all.
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In fact, I think it should be outlawed, frankly. It's so barbaric. But you have this slap fight stuff now.
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I can almost see some elements of jujitsu or boxing and MMA's like, ah, this is getting a little gladiatorial and bloody, but the slap fighting,
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I'm just like, okay, let's make this illegal. Because you're watching these lumberjacks sit across from each other and chalk their hand and just smash the side of their skulls.
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And when they come back to, in about five minutes, they have like a pumpkin on the side of their head and they look so deformed and they're trying to muster up to return the swing.
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And frankly, that's how ugly and nasty it can get when we're seeking retaliation. Just worse and worse, nastier and nastier, harder, heavier, more deforming, more violent.
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Even if it's not that way externally in a way that could be seen, that's what's boiling and bubbling in our hearts.
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A Christian won't run, won't wind up for the KO. A Christian will persist without retaliation.
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If anyone wants to sue you and take your tunic, give them your cloak, that means a Christian's gonna be willing to release rather than to grasp.
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You come at the things that are so basic, what's that to you? You don't even need that. And rather than grasp and clutch and pull, a
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Christian learns to let go. You know, how many of you with younger children like I, you see in the plethora of toys that they received over the last two weeks, doesn't matter what they have or how disinterested they are, they only care about the toy that their sibling picks up.
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All right? You have a toy in the corner of a room and they're not paying any attention to it the whole day until the sibling picks it up and then it's like, that's my toy.
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And they clutch it and try to grasp it away. And as a parent, you say, you weren't even looking at it, it was there for hours.
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Let go. Christians know how to let go. You don't grasp and say, mine.
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You realize with grasping that the firmer you grasp something eventually your hands get really sore.
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That's a good way, a good indication if you're holding things too tightly in your life, you're just getting sore about it.
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You're just holding it too tightly. You're sore about that issue, that resource, that thing. It's sore to you.
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It's because you're holding onto it too tightly. A Christian knows how to let go. At the end of the day, it's not even mine. Everything I am and everything that I have is the
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Lord's. And when you learn how to put holiness to the Lord on even the little bells in your home, you're able to live without clutching and grasping and being so desperate.
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The third thing we see is in Jesus saying, whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him too.
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You see there this call to endure rather than abandon. You endure rather than abandon.
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Endurance is a little different than persistence. It's not this active, I'm not going anywhere. It's rather,
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I'm gonna put up with. I'm gonna put up with rather than slink away. I'm gonna take on the weight, take on the hardship.
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I'm gonna press forward for the long haul. It's what we saw last week or maybe the week before in 1
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Peter 3 and 1 Corinthians 7, saying wives, okay, you have an unbelieving husband, but don't run away.
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Try to win him. You don't know if God's gonna save him through your witness. In other words, endure. That's the call.
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Paul tells his minister there, Timothy, endure hardship like a good soldier. A good soldier is one who knows how to endure.
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They know how to march a day without rations. They know how to go all seasons, all weather. They endure hardship.
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That's being a good soldier. What's a lousy soldier? A soldier that abandons his post. It's too wet, it's too rainy,
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I'm too hungry. This is too hard. That's a lousy soldier. Why? He didn't endure. So long -suffering is the call of endurance here.
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You'll go the extra mile, you'll endure. Yeah, it didn't amount to much. It blessed the
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Roman soldier. It didn't mean anything to you. Well, it meant something for the kingdom. It meant something for the testimony. You don't know what seeds you planted.
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That's the idea. By the way, long -suffering is a fruit of the Spirit. We easily forget that.
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Love, peace, patience, kindness. Long -suffering is a fruit of the Spirit. And then when
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Jesus says, give to him who asks and from him who wants to borrow from you, do not turn away, we learn to give rather than withhold.
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Give rather than withhold. This means we cultivate a giving spirit. How do we cultivate that?
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Where does that begin? Generous hands don't grow out of nowhere. Generous hands grow from sympathetic eyes.
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It gets back to self -denial. I have to radically change how I'm viewing others. I'm not viewing them rightly. So I have to radically change how
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I'm viewing myself. So I devote myself to God. I reflect on his dealing with me. I begin to understand who
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I really am and what I'm really like. Now with sympathy I can see others. And sympathetic eyes grow generous hands.
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Sympathetic eyes grow generous hands. I remember fishing in Falmouth years ago.
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I had some buddies at work and we would sometimes go out to Falmouth and just do some fishing in the middle of summer for an afternoon.
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And I had spent, I used to work very close to Dick's Sporting Good and I spent any surplus income, which really wasn't surplus income on Rapala lures and Yozuri lures and all these expensive things to trick out my tackle box.
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And of course I barely caught any fish at all but it looked so pretty. I'm like, I'd want a bite on that if I was a fish and I'd catch seaweeds and I'd watch guys reeling in stripers on like a wooden plug with Elmer's glue.
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And it's like, ah, I got taken advantage of. But I remember being taken aback. I was there and I opened up almost with this aura, this tackle box and it had all these pristine, colorful, flashy lures.
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And I was admiring it and I think my coworkers were admiring it too. I was like, yep. And then some random stranger walked by and he looked at it and he goes, can
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I have one? I was like, what? He's like, can I have one? I was so caught off guard.
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I was like, yeah. I didn't know what to say. It felt weird to say no but it's like, felt weird that you would ask that.
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I don't even know who you are. And he proceeded to pick out a pretty expensive lure.
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And my friends were looking at me like, what are you doing? What's happening? And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know what's happening.
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He just took that. It was this picture of generosity that I never intended to give.
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But of course, what made it so hard in that moment was, in my flesh I'm going, these are my lures.
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These are mine. I wasn't able to see with sympathetic eyes that he didn't have any lures.
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Maybe his line snapped and it was the only thing he had and he had to bring home a fish for dinner. And maybe it was just out of desperation rather than boldness that he just said, can
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I please have one? And I guess he fulfilled the scripture, you have not because you asked not.
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Because he walked away having. But the point is, looking back on that, my flesh shouldn't have reeled.
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If I was thinking about Matthew 5, I should have said, why don't you take two? That doesn't mean you're completely open and foolish with the way you distribute resources.
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But there's a way of viewing even the things you've worked for, even the things that you admire and say, at the end of the day, these are the
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Lord's. These are the Lord's. I think of that with some of my prize possessions now.
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It's funny, I don't remember books that I've bought, but I remember with granite sharpness books I've lent. Some of you in this congregation still have some.
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We need to have that generosity that knows how to give rather than withhold. And this is all the idea here, we persist.
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With loose hands, we can release, we endure. We go the extra mile for the sake of the kingdom testimony, we can give.
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And all these things really come together in the example of Christ. Christ suffered for us, Peter says, in the very same passage
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I alluded to earlier. Leaving us an example, he says, so we can follow in his steps. Who persisted and held with a loose grasp and endured and gave more than Jesus Christ himself.
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There's never been a man in this world that so persistently sacrificed himself, so freely denied himself, gave release of everything to the degree that he didn't even have a stone for a pillow.
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That endured, not just the mockery and the scorn and the humiliation, but even the abject death on the ignomious tree and then gave, gave and continues to give as he lives ever more to intercede.
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He's only ever continued to give to us. And Peter says, that's your example as a
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Christian. And Jesus in Matthew five says, that's what you'll be like if you're following me. That's what's gonna characterize your life if you belong to my kingdom.
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Although we were loveless in all the ways that those that will abuse us, scorn us, take advantage of us, misuse us.
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Loveless in these ways, we were once loveless in that way too. Until he showed his great love to us and made us more like himself, loving, lovely, so that we could show that to others.
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The great line from Samuel Crossman's hymn, my song, he's adoring the love of Christ. My song is love unknown.
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Never known love like this. The world's never known love like this. My song is love unknown, my
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Savior's love to me. Love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be.
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That's what Jesus is saying in Matthew five. Love to the loveless shown. Shown with a tunic that you don't grasp.
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Shown with an extra mile that you trod. Shown with the way your hands so freely give. Jesus did not retaliate.
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He says, I did not come to destroy. I didn't come to condemn. The Son of Man did not come to destroy, but to seek and save those who were lost.
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So was his self -denial, he would not retaliate because he's the great physician. He did not grasp, as Philippians two says, he wouldn't grasp on with an indomitable grip all the divine honors that basked him in glory.
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He was willing to condescend to the flesh into a state of humiliation, and he did not abandon.
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He endured, he wouldn't leave us to die. By rights after the fall, we all should have been left in our miserable state, but he wouldn't abandon us.
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To his own death, he would not abandon us. As we sang, what a friend we have in Jesus. And he does not withhold.
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Doesn't he say, every good thing I give to you? Even his own inheritance, he shares with us. No good thing does he withhold from us.
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And so we look to Christ in his example. He's the one that's persisting with us even this morning, seeking us even now to be just a fragment of the generosity that he's shown to us, seeking us, wooing us, drawing us near, releasing not just our guilt from us, he won't hold it against us, but releasing with that his blessings, his promises, his delight.
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And he's enduring with all of our failures. He's enduring all of our doubts. When we are faithless, he's faithful.
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And he gives not only all these blessings and these promises, he gives himself to us continually. Doesn't he?
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That you may be with me, that you may be partakers with me, that you may be one with me, as I am one with the
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Father. That's his desire. And where did that all come about? How did that all come to us?
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It all began with his self -denial because of his great purpose.
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That's why he was patient. That's why he is still patient. That's why he will be patient. And that's why we must be as he is.
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But let me close. I wanna close just reading Adolf Schlatter, who was an old
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German theologian in the 19th century back when Adolf was still a kosher name to use among Germans. He's actually one of the good ones, a
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Tübingen theologian. Had a lot of insights as he was a Protestant teaching at Tübingen, but he was very concerned about the gospel and very prescient in a lot of ways too.
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Very unique place to be for someone like him. But he's reflecting on this. I have one of the last things he wrote.
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He died in 1938, just shy of the war really ramping up. And one of the last things he wrote, this man who wrote commentaries and technical monographs and was just a brilliant mind.
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One of the last things he wrote was a daily devotional titled, Do We Know Jesus? Do We Know Jesus?
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And it was just his own reflections on walking through passages and saying, just look and know this gracious savior.
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In a passage related to Matthew 538, he says this. What after all are we apart from God's patience?
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Apart from him who bears and nurtures not only the good in this world, but also the evil ones. To be sure it is a mysterious statement that God is patient.
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Sometimes it's helpful to have a deep mind like that. Just to alert you, slow down and listen. It's mysterious to say
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God is patient. Just as it's a mystery that he is merciful. We can actively express our displeasure with this.
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We despise patience as meaningless, impractical, counterproductive. You gotta strike while the iron's hot.
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Don't let them get away with that. It strikes us as the worst thing to do. But it still remains a fact that we only live by God's patience.
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The world turns on God's patience. We draw breath on God's patience, all of us.
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And yet because God is patient, Jesus is too. And because Jesus is patient, his disciple is too.
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If we would follow Jesus, we will be patient with a purpose, we will deny ourselves.
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We will persist, we will not retaliate, we will release those fingers that are so prone to grasp.
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We will endure, and with sympathetic eyes, the eyes of Christ himself, we will give.
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We will give of ourselves. That's what it means to follow Jesus, amen? Let's pray.
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Father, thank you, thank you indeed, Lord. You have shown love to the loveless. You've shown it not only to us and giving it to us, but Lord, you've shown it to us as an example to be followed.
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May we be worthy of that example. May we count the cost of that example,
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Lord. You say this will characterize the life of those who follow you. Lord, if there's others in this room like me, we see pronounced all the ways that our lives are not characterized by these things.
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Oh, how we long to be more like you. Oh, how we long to see you and be made like you.
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And yet, we recognize by beholding you in this way, even lamenting and seeking to draw close to you, we are being made more and more like you.
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We pray, Lord, that you will increase that reflection by the power of your spirit, that you would do this great work in our midst.
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Thank you for the generous love, for the mercy that renews every morning in perfect patience because of the promise that will endure even to the end of the ages.
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May we ever adore you as we celebrate these things and are nourished and cultivated by them,
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Lord. Make our church fruitful in these ways. As we pursue discipleship, as we talk about the things you've put before us in this year and the years ahead,
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Lord, may we recognize what it means to advance your kingdom in these ways, by these means.
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May we look at our resources, the providential opportunities all around us and serve you as a testimony of your grace to us so that you would receive all the glory and honor.