WWUTT 1951 Love Your Enemies (Matthew 5:43-47)

Love Your Neighbors and Enemies in the Sermon on the Mount

You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you Becky. We're back to our study in the Sermon on the Mount. Finishing up chapter 5 this week. And I'm going to begin by reading verses 43 -48 out of the Legacy Standard Bible.

Hear the word of the Lord. You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.

For he causes his son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore, you are to be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Now that last statement there, verse 48, is really its own stand-alone thought.

It is the summation of everything that we've read in the Sermon on the Mount thus far. So I'm going to let that be its own devotional lesson. We're going to come back to that, verse 48, on Tuesday and Wednesday.

For today, we're considering the last of the you-have-heard-that-it-was-said statements that are made here in chapter 5. And this one concerning the law, you shall love your neighbor, but then also added to that, and hate your enemy.

You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Jesus is saying, that's what you have heard. So we have that statement, and then Jesus' reply in verse 44, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, and then he gives three reasons why.

So let's come back to the statement first, in verse 43. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor. Now, like I said last week, if you're reading from the Legacy Standard Bible, or the New American Standard, whenever the Old Testament is quoted in the New, the editors have put it in all caps.

So here in verse 43, we have five words in all caps. You shall love your neighbor. We know that's a quotation that comes from the Old Testament. It's in Leviticus. Whenever Jesus said, you shall love your neighbor, he's quoting the law.

But then the next part of verse 43 is not in all caps. You shall love your neighbor, that's a quote from the Old Testament, but the next part is not, and hate your enemy. Well, God didn't say that in the law.

So where does that come from? Well, that's the Pharisees adding to the law. You shall love your neighbor, that's in there, that comes from God, and hate your enemy, he didn't say that. This is what the Pharisees were teaching the people.

Loving your neighbor would have been, you just have to love your fellow Jew. And they weren't even doing that very well. We'll see that, we'll see evidence of that as we continue on in the Gospel of Matthew.

But the Pharisees were basically saying, you only have to love your kinsmen. You don't have to love these Romans. They're our enemies. They're ruling over us. So just love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.

And Jesus responds to that in verse 44, but I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. Now the law doesn't make any distinction between neighbor and enemy. Loving your neighbor will entail loving your enemy, and praying for those who persecute you.

Now the interesting thing about this, this is the conclusion of chapter 5, and we've read this before in chapter 5. Something similar to this, right? Go back to the Beatitudes, verse 9. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called what?

Sons of God. And what do we have here in verses 44 and 45? I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father, who is in heaven. Ah, well, we've seen that before.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father. And continue on from there, verse 10. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And what are we reading here at the conclusion? Pray for those who persecute you. So this is Jesus bringing back to mind something that he said in this sermon already. Pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.

And the statement that was made previously was, blessed are you when people persecute you, when they insult you, when they falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, Jesus said, for your reward in heaven is great.

For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Now, when you understand that, when you understand that you are blessed by God when you are persecuted, how much easier then does it become for you to love those who persecute you?

The blessing comes from God. It doesn't come from man. And you can love those and pray for those who persecute you, because you know that God is already blessing you. You've already received blessing from God because you've been persecuted by this individual.

Love them and give the gospel to them that perhaps God will grant to them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth. And they may escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.

I'm just quoting to you from 2 Timothy chapter 2, verses 25 and 26, I believe it is. It's the closing part of 2 Timothy 2. We are blessed when we are persecuted. Do you have that kind of attitude when people hate you, when they revile you, when they even utter all kinds of things against you falsely?

Do you rejoice? Do you love God? Do you praise him because you know he has blessed you for these things that you have gone through for the sake of his name? The apostles rejoiced over this. They were beaten, as it says in Acts 4 and 5, they were beaten for proclaiming the gospel and they went out from there rejoicing for having been considered worthy of the name.

They knew they had been persecuted for the name of Christ and they rejoiced in that because their reward in heaven was great. I would imagine the apostles are bringing back to their minds these things that Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount.

Blessed are you when others revile you. And we're just behaving in the same way that Jesus behaved. When we don't revile in return, but we praise God whenever we go through this kind of a thing, this is what Jesus did.

1 Peter 2 .20, if when you do good and suffer for it, you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. This finds favor with God, it says in verse 20. Going on to 1 Peter 2 .21, for to this you have been called since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps.

He did no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth, who being reviled was not reviling in return, while suffering, he was uttering no threats, but he kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously, who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that having died to sin, we might live to righteousness.

By his wounds you were healed. Jesus was reviled. He who did no wrong, he was reviled, and he did not revile in return. He continued to entrust himself to him who judges justly. And when we follow this instruction to love our enemies, this is the very thing that we do.

We follow the example of our Lord Christ who loved his enemies. My friends, he loved us. And who were we before we became followers of Christ? Before we were adopted into the family of God and became his sons and daughters, who were we?

We were enemies of God. Remember Romans 5 .8, God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We were enemies of God, but he showed grace to us and gave his son to die on the cross for our sins, to rise again from the dead, so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

God loved his enemies. That includes us. And so how much more should we, following the example of even our Father in heaven, we follow the example of our Savior, we follow the example of our Father by loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute you.

Jesus prayed for those who persecuted him. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Remember those words from the cross? So we follow the example of our Lord Christ when we love our enemies and we pray for those who persecute us.

Now when it comes to our enemies, who would our enemies be? Well, of course, we've already kind of detailed their behavior a little bit here. Those who revile you, hate you, persecute you, utter all kinds of evil against you falsely, on whose account?

Because you're a follower of Jesus Christ. So who do they really hate? They hate Christ, therefore they hate you. In John 15, 18, Jesus said, if the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you.

And Paul instructed his protege Timothy in this way, 2 Timothy 3, 12,. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. All who desire godliness in Christ will be hated by the world.

If you're not enduring any kind of backlash for your faith, can I ask you why? Could it be that you look too much like the world and not enough like Christ? If you love Jesus and you desire godliness, then the world is going to hate you for that.

In 1 Peter 4, it says that they will be shocked that you won't follow them in their flood of debauchery and they malign you. These people will hate you just because you won't join them in the sins that they love.

So these are examples of who our enemies will be. It's those who hate Christ. It's those who hate righteousness. Righteousness, of course, is defined by God. So that even your good and righteous behavior becomes an offense to the world who loves sin and unrighteousness.

In John 3, 19, we read, and this is the judgment, the light, who is Christ, has come into the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his work should be exposed.

But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. Your enemies may be made up of members of your own family, people who hate Christ.

They hate that you're a follower of Christ. You're even related to some of them. Your enemy could be somebody you're married to. I know that's a scary thought, but it's a reality for some people. One spouse comes to know the Lord, the other hates Christ, or the other falls away.

It could be that when they got married they were both professing Christians, but at some point during the marriage, one spouse ends up loving sin and falling away and hates the spouse who continues in Christ.

You may have an enemy in your parents, or later in life, some of your own children might become your enemies. They could be people that you thought were your friends. They're people that you go to work with, colleagues, peers.

They could be random strangers. Your enemies could be a Democrat, or even a Republican. You can have enemies on both sides of the aisle. They might be conservative or liberal. We're kind of operating under a different definition of conservativism these days.

You may have enemies that you shared a gospel tract with, or you told the gospel to, and they hated you because of what you said to them. You might attend a church that is worldly. I hope not. But if you're going to a church that's very worldly, there might even be people in your own congregation that hate you.

But no matter who they are, you must love them and pray for them. And Jesus gives us three reasons why. So let me read verses 43 and 44 again. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. And the first reason is right here in verse 45, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. You may also read this, so that you may be sons and daughters of your Father who is in heaven.

That's an acceptable reading of that as well. So the first reason you love your enemy and pray for them is the biggest reason. It's because God told you to. Are you a son or a daughter of your Father in heaven?

Then do what he says. Love your enemy. Pray for those who persecute you. Understand that at one point, you were an enemy of God, but God sent his son to die for you so that all who believe in him will no longer be an enemy of God, but you're a friend of God, even his sons and his daughters.

The second reason Jesus gives for loving your enemy is this. Look at the rest of verse 45. For he makes his son to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

This is one of the most central verses in Scripture where we find a declaration of God's common grace. Even those who do evil enjoy the blessings of God's creation. So you must be gracious toward them as well.

There are people in this world headed to heaven, and there are people in this world headed to hell, and you don't determine who gets what God does. Therefore, it is not for you to discriminate. Certainly, we must not discriminate because of color, race, creed, nationality, sex, age, accent, background, social class, the kind of clothing they wear, or whether they went to one university or another university.

I think we've seen certain grudges draw lines even in families over their favorite college football team or something like that. You can't discriminate against them. You can't even discriminate against your enemies.

You must love one another, especially your enemies, for you were once as they were. My friends, we cannot go around attacking the mission field. Our enemies are the mission field. We need to be taking the gospel to them.

We can't be attacking the mission field. Several years back, we had a man at our church. This was when I was pastoring in Kansas, and he attended one of our adult Sunday school classes. I wasn't teaching the class.

This was somebody else, and I actually heard this story from the teacher of that class. At the start of the class, this man was complaining about his neighbor. Apparently, he and his neighbor were quarreling about everything, including the height of his neighbor's fence.

And the man decided that he was going to take his neighbor to court because his fence was too high. Then, during class, the teacher started talking about sharing the gospel, and this same man spoke up and said, I've tried sharing the gospel with my neighbor, but he just won't listen to me.

He's about as hateful and as spiteful toward Christianity as any atheist that you've probably met. After class was over, the teacher approached him and said, Is the neighbor you're talking about taking to court because his fence is too high the same neighbor you were talking about sharing the gospel with?

And the man said, Well, yes. And the teacher, trying to stifle a laugh, said, Come with me. We need to have a little talk about loving your neighbor. So you can't attack those that we need to be sharing the gospel with.

Pray that the Lord would turn their hearts to God. It's really difficult to hate someone that you're praying for, unless, of course, you're praying imprecatory psalms. That's another discussion for another time, although we've talked about that on this podcast as well.

It's probably easier to pray imprecatory psalms against somebody than it is to love them and pray for those who persecute you. Is this a difficult command? Yes. This is very difficult, but it is a distinguishing mark of a person who desires to do the will of God, that God's will would be done over our own.

The third reason Jesus gives us for loving our enemies is here in verse 46, 46 and 47. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others?

Do not even the Gentiles do the same. The tax collectors were crooked cheats, and yet it's effortless for them to love those who would personally benefit them. And even wicked pagans know how to care for their own families.

It's why the Apostle Paul said in 1 Timothy 5, 8, but if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he's denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Because again, even unbelievers know they have to take care of their families.

We've been called to love those who cannot even benefit us. And in the case of your enemies, your enemies want to even take everything from you, and yet you're supposed to love them. And what is the number one way that we can show love to our enemies?

Surely you know the answer to this question. What is the way, the number one way that we're supposed to love our enemies, and even those who persecute us? Share the gospel with them. Desire that our enemies would repent of their sin and come to the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved, and then they're no longer our enemies, they're our brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Do you want that for your enemy? Would you rather they go to hell? Charles Spurgeon said this, Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not saved yourself, be sure of that. In another place he said, The saving of souls, if a man has once gained love to perishing sinners and love to his blessed master, will be an all-absorbing passion to him.

It will so carry him away that he will almost forget himself in the saving of others. He will be like the stout, brave fireman who careth not for the scorch or for the heat, so that he may rescue the poor creature on whom true humanity hath set his heart.

This is really the exercise for us in loving our enemies. We share the gospel with them and desire for them to be saved. And they're going to hate us for it, but we leave that in the hands of God. Consider also these words, let me close with this, from Romans chapter 12, beginning in verse 14.

Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. By being of the same mind toward one another. Not being haughty in mind, but associating with the humble.

Do not be wise in your own mind. Now those two verses there, verses 15 and 16, that was absolutely about loving one another in the body of Christ. But listen to this part in verse 17. Never paying back evil for evil to anyone.

Respecting what is good in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with everyone. Never take your own revenge, beloved. Instead, leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.

But if your enemy is hungry, feed him. And if he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. And what is the way that we give food and drink to our enemies?

We give them the gospel of Jesus Christ. Which is true food and true drink. Let's finish there with prayer. Heavenly Father, I pray that we understand this concept. We know what it means to love our neighbor and love our enemy.

And pray for those who persecute us, so that we may be sons of our Father who is in heaven, and we would desire that they would become sons and daughters of God as well. Help us to love not just those who benefit us, but even those who would want to take from us.

We love not just those that we're related to, but we love those who hate us. Because we were once enemies of God and you loved us. So following the example of our Father in heaven, following the example of our Lord Christ, we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.

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