[Music] and with that would you please open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5 we're going to begin at verse 38 as we continue our series through the Sermon on the Mount as I've said to you before Jesus delivered this amazing classic sermon seated on a hillside that slopes up from the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee there among the grass and the flowers of the field Jesus spoke to a group of his disciples and to those who were potentially his disciples explaining to him to them I should say what the nature of his kingdom
was all about Jesus was a king who came to establish a kingdom but his kingdom was different than the kingdom that the people of his time were expecting so he needed to explain and correct their misunderstandings about the kingdom of God so as Jesus taught and by the way when Jesus taught this he sat and all of his listeners stood what a pretty pass we've come to in the last two thousand years I stand and you all sit but Jesus taught these words and in this section of the Sermon on the Mount he's correcting the
misunderstandings they had about the law of God they had heard the command you shall not murder but they thought it only applied to the act and not the intention of the heart they had heard the command you shall not commit adultery but they thought it only concerned the act and not the intention of the heart and Jesus wanted to correct their misunderstandings of the law of God and bring the truth of God's Word to their heart that's where we come to this section beginning at verse 38 you have heard that it was said an eye
for an eye and a tooth for a tooth but I tell you not to just an evil person 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 and whoever compels you to go one mile go with him to give to him who asks you and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away do those words challenge you if they didn't challenge you you didn't understand them or you weren't paying attention
because this is a very challenging passage of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus begins by addressing a passage from the Old Testament the passage is found in exodus chapter 21 verse 24 where it says in the law of israel i for an eye tooth for a tooth hand for a hand foot for a foot and jesus says you have heard this taught and it was taught in the synagogues of their day but the way they taught it actually took this good and helpful law of God and it twisted it and it mangled it into something
that actually did harm among God's people and not good let me tell you how they twisted this law back in Jesus's day first of all they warped it by changing the sphere in which it applied secondly they warped it by regarding it as an obligation and not as a limit let me explain to you when God spoke this law in the Old Testament Exodus chapter 21 he absolutely meant it it's not like God said it later and goes oh not really no he meant that law but he meant it in the context you can read
it for yourself in Exodus chapter 21 it's in a section that gives instructions to the judges of Israel on how they should administrate civil justice it's not in a section that talks about how we should get along with our neighbor it's about how justice should be administered in the IOT and friends sometimes we make a lot of misunderstandings in the Word of God when we take things that God has spoken for how things should be done in the civil society and we apply them to the personal realm or when we take things in the personal
realm and we apply them to how they should be done in the civil society what they did was they took this law I for an eye and tooth for a tooth and they took it out of the realm of civil government and they put it in the relationship for human relationships therefore if you Ram my car with yours I'm supposed to Ram your car right back you see that eye for an eye tooth for a tooth what they also misunderstood about this law was that God intended it to be a limit and not an obligation
let's face it not only in civil government of also in interpersonal relationships if you poke me in the eye I want to poke you in your eye and stomp on your foot and God says no justice has limits that the punishment should fit the crime and punishment should not be excessive and that's something that lawmakers need to keep in mind from a biblical principle I don't know in every case and that's up for people who have no knowledge more knowledge about the law and justice and thinking our side but we agree with the principle that
punishments should not be excessive that justice should be properly administrated that the people should not suffer loss of life or Liberty without the due process of law in a just society but they twisted this in those days they took it out of the realm of civil government put it in personal personal relationships and then they made it an obligation they said I for an eye tooth for a tooth if you poke me in my eye I am obligated to poke you in yours and that's how they regarded it she said no you're twisting these scriptures
you're mangling this now let me remind you of something in general here this shows us that it is possible to twist the scriptures the Apostle Peter spoke of how Soompi who are untargeted does the Old Testament say to practice animal sacrifice absolutely it does then should we do it today no what's the context and what's the sphere we understand number one that those were commands made to ancient Israel and number two we understand that the sacrificial system is fulfilled by what Jesus did on the cross they don't even have to do animal sacrifices in Israel
anymore because Jesus fulfilled the whole purpose of sacrifice by His perfect work upon the cross okay we get that or how about this later on in the Gospel of Matthew in Matthew chapter 19 Jesus has an encounter with a rich young ruler and what does he tell the rich young ruler he says sell everything you have give it to the poor and follow me did Jesus say that absolutely he did is that a binding commandment upon every believer every time well we don't think so look at the context and look at the sphere so it's
possible to take passages or lines from Scripture and to twist them what we have to remind ourselves as this is that not everybody who quotes the Bible or who opens the Bible and start speaking is actually teaching accurately from the Bible now please we don't need to become a harsh and we don't need to become paranoid every time somebody opens a Bible sweat starts pouring off us are they teaching the truth are they teaching err we don't need to become harsh or paranoid but we need to have the attitude of some people in the New
Testament from a city called Berea because they're from Berea we call them Bereans and in Acts chapter 17 verse 11 it describes the attitude of the people of Berea when the Apostle Paul came and preached there it says about them that they received the word with all readiness and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so do you notice that receive the world with all word with all readiness means they're not paranoid or panicked they received the word search the Scriptures daily to see if these things were home meant that they
themselves studied their Bibles to see if what Paul taught was true let me tell you when you study your Bible to see if what I tell you is true it does not insult or dishonor me at all it honors me one of you comes up to me after service with a question pastor David you said this but it says this in the Bible what about this or would you leave a note on my pulpit that doesn't need to be anonymous it's okay when you let me know hey David what about this you said this but
the Bible says that ladies and gentlemen that does not dishonor me in the slightest it honors me and it's a credit to you as Bereans read your Bibles look at what the people who teach and have influenced your life see how it measures against the Bible so we receive the word with readiness not with paranoia or harshness but we also check it in our own individual life but when we see what Jesus said here it's challenging enough isn't it look at what verse 39 says whoever slaps you on your right cheek turn the other to
him also Jesus presented the fullness of what God intended with the eye-for-an-eye law and how God never intended for it to limit the idea of the love that we should show to one another you see Jesus told us here that when a person insults us that is slaps us on the right cheek our instinct is to give them back what they deserve and even more now in their culture that was a way that a deep insult was expressed they would slap somebody with the back of their hand across the right cheek and that's the text
accurately says slaps and not punches and that's why it says on the right cheek because it's clearly indicating a back of the hand across the face this isn't a blow meant to so much injure as it is to insult remember those old movies or cartoons where the distinguished Englishman takes off his glove and then slaps the face look that's kind of the idea here now we don't insult people with that kind of mechanism in our culture we insult them over social media or over many other ways that we do it we have our own ways
of giving and receiving insults in our society but what Jesus said is when you are grievously insulted this way don't resist that evil person who does it instead trust God to defend you now the first thing I want to notice about this is that Jesus himself modeled this do you understand how terribly that our Savior was mocked and insulted during his life and during his ministry Jesus was called a glutton a drunk an illegitimate child a blasphemer a madman and on and on and when people insulted him way it didn't get just the hair on
the back of his neck up and jesus answered back with far worse against them no he patiently and gracefully bore such insults but friends it went into a whole dimension deeper than that at the cross because at the cross Jesus endured such mocking such such insult upon his person and character that I can hardly believe that he withstood it sometimes when I think about what Jesus suffered at the cross not only in his physical and spiritual pain and agony but what he must have suffered emotionally and psychologically the cross I can hardly bear it to
have these religious leaders who hated him come up to him and spit in his face it didn't injure him physically but can you imagine the wound and then when he was on the cross and those same religious leaders who Jesus knew they were so wrong and he was so right when Jesus came to them excuse me when they came to Jesus on the cross and they mocked him and laughed at him on the cross ladies and gentleman Jesus could have called down the fire from heaven upon them right then but he didn't he patiently bore
the mocking and the insults so this is what Jesus is telling us to do now I do need to spend a little bit of time talking about some misunderstandings of this passage that I think are not only wrong but potentially dangerous there are three wrong ways to misunderstand this number one it's wrong to think here that Jesus meant that a physical attack should never be resistant or defended against again as I said before and I hope it was clear when Jesus said a slap on your right cheek it was culturally understood as being a deep
insult not a physical attack Jesus did not mean here that if somebody hits you across the face with a baseball bat you should stand there and let him hit across the other side you're faced with a baseball bat did you know that the Bible teaches that we have not only the right but even the responsibility to defend ourselves and our loved ones how about this something you may never consider before the disciples in Jesus's day with Jesus with them they care traveled around with a sword there's several different passage in the New Testament tells they
carried a sword with them why for self-defense but there were a lot of robbers and criminals and dangerous people on the day the disciples carried with them a sword for self-defense the Bible is not against the concept of self-defense when it comes to our physical person now Jesus is telling us therefore not that it's wrong to defend yourself physically but you must bear the insults that people bring your way however let me say this there may be times under the guidance of the Holy Spirit when somebody is led by God to act absorb a physical
attack upon themselves for his glory but what I mean well let me tell you story I heard about this and I I heard the story years ago and I can't get it out of my mind it has to do with an English evangelist named dick Weaver now dick Weaver lived about a hundred and fifty years ago he was converted in 1852 and in the great revival that swept Great Britain in 1859 God used him as a mighty evangelist and dick Weaver used to go out and preach the gospel on the streets all the time he
was a man who at seven years of age went to work in the coal mines and he started drinking at 13 until he was wonderfully converted in his adulthood but when he grew up in to be a man he was a massive physically imposing man and before he was converted he made his business street-fighting for money that's what he did so when he got saved he was still a very physically imposing man and people knew this about his past one day when he was out street preaching not street fighting a man called out to him
said hey dick Weaver I read in Matthew 5:39 that if somebody strikes you on your right cheek you should turn the other cheek to him how about it dick Weaver this massive man said bring it on he steadied himself held out his face for the guy to punch it and the guy came with all his strength and smack dick Weaver across the face Weaver was a massive man and he staggered back but he didn't fall down and then he slowly went towards the guy you can imagine the tension in the crowd slowly went towards the
guy and he turned his other cheek towards him the man was so freaked out that he ran away as fast as he could couple years later on the streets of Liverpool a man came up to dick Weaver and said do you know who I am gonna know I don't remember you goes I'm the man who punched you on the street he said I got converted just about a year ago and God's been working in my life ever since and that's a remarkable story but but it isn't what Jesus is talking about here Jesus isn't talking
about what we would normally consider self-defense and there's another wrong understanding of this that I need to address it's wrong to think that Jesus meant that evil should never be resisted Lisa Jen will we know that because Jesus demonstrated with his own life that evil should and must be resisted when Jesus strongly rebuked the religious leaders you can look it up especially in Matthew chapter 23 you'll see that Jesus said we need to resist evil when Jesus went to the temple courts and turned over the tables of the moneychangers who were corrupt businesspeople they're disgracing
the house of God Jesus showed evil should be resisted so nobody should take this as the attitude well Christians should never resist evil no ladies and gentlemen when there's human trafficking going on and people are being abused and put in virtual slavery in the modern-day context it's right for Christians to stand up against it and nobody should say that well the Bible says don't resist evil when there's injustice in the world when there's just plain wrong going on it's the place of Christians to stand up and to say no if there's evil in the world
we as Christians we desire to resist it the third way to wrongly understand this the first way is to think it prohibits self-defense the second way is to think that it prohibits resisting evil but the third wrong way to think about this is to think that it means that there's no place for punishment or retribution in society sometimes when somebody commits a crime and is rightfully sentenced you know we're gonna assume that it was a proper working of our justice system they're rightfully sentence some people think that compassion would say oh please please don't punish
the criminal after all the Bible says it shouldn't be an eye for an eye in a tooth for a tooth ladies and gentlemen and once you understand that the Bible says that governing authorities have a responsibility from God to punish evil now we should be concerned and we should pray for our community that justice is executed properly that it's truly justice and that's why our police need prayers are our district attorneys need prayers our court systems need prayers so that justice would be properly done in our community but the execution of justice in a community
is very close to the heart of God let me read you from Romans chapter 13 verses 1 through 4 it says this let every soul be subject to the governing authorities for there's no authority except from God and the authorities that exist are appointed by God therefore whoever resists the Authority resists the ordinance of God and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves for rulers are not a terror to good works but to evil do you want to be unafraid of the Authority do what is good and you let praise from the same for
he is God's minister to you for good but if you do evil be afraid for he does not bear the sword in vain 3 is God's minister and Avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil you see I must turn my cheek when I'm personally insulted but the government shouldn't turn its cheek it has a responsibility to restrain the evil man from physical assault upon others sometimes the way I've explained it works out like this you know if you could just use a hypothetical you know kind of weird analogy for this there you are
at night and you hear somebody rummaging around in your kitchen and you know your wife wakes oh hey honey there's somebody in the kitchen go find out what's going on and you creep into the kitchen and there's a burglar in your kitchen and what do you do you walk up and you grab a frying pan and you'll pop them over the head just like in the movies and the guy cumple down and you know you tie them up or something like that you wonder should I call the police the guy says oh I'm so sorry
you know just can't you forgive me that show me the love of Jesus let me tell you what you should do you should forgive the man you should show them the love of Jesus you should make them breakfast and you should call the police why well because loving him on a personal level that is your absolute obligation before God but you know what if you let the guy go you may feel pretty good and self indulgent about the love you show to them but you know who you didn't just love your next-door neighbor who's gonna
get robbed tomorrow night you need to love that person on a personal level and have no personal animosity against them make them breakfast and bless them in the name of Jesus but then let the police do the job that Romans 13 says God has given them to do to administrate justice in the society so that's the way we need to understand this but listen what Jesus says here is challenging enough enough with the ways we can misunderstand this the understanding of it is challenging enough look at what Jesus says in verse 40 if anyone wants
to sue you and take away your tunic let him have your cloak also Jesus here is referring to a law found in Exodus 22 in Deuteronomy 24 that said this when you sue somebody and you win the lawsuit you're permitted to take their shirt but not their sweater their outer garment you see in those days they like to dress in layers so this is what they were there they would have an undergarment that went under next to the skin then they would have an inner garment something like our shirt like that and then they would
have an outer garment like a sweater or a coat or something like that and most people back then only had one change of clothes and then of the lawsuit the only thing you had to give to the person you owed money to and you lost the lawsuit was your shirt the law of Moses said they could take your shirt but they couldn't take your sweater or your coat why because he needed to keep warm this was a compassionate example of the law of Moses giving compassion to the person who was in need you can take
the shirt but not the coat you need to leave that you know what Jesus said to his followers he said if you lose the lawsuit and you're forced to give up the shirt then out of love and in a spirit of reconciliation give me your coat to do more than the law requires you to do ladies and gentlemen that is sacrificial Christian love and it's radical but it transforms the world when we express it listen we are looking for the way to do as little as possible for our adversary to set ourselves against them Jesus
says no I want you to do the extra thing for them if they ask for your shirt and they have the right to take it because they won the lawsuit then out of a deliberate choice of love you don't have a choice to give me your shirt you lost the lawsuit but out of a deliberate choice of love give them your sweater or your coat and show the love of Jesus to them you might say that Paul repeated this idea of Jesus when he said this in Romans 12:21 do not be overcome by evil but
overcome evil with good no we're not going to allow us to be overcome by evil but rather by doing good in the name of Jesus we will overcome evil and then Jesus says something perhaps even more challenging verse 41 he says whoever compels you to go one mile go with him - and what does Jesus mean by that again he's referring to something common in that day remember that the land of Judea was under Roman military occupation and the Roman soldiers had certain rights under military law and this was one of the rights of a
Roman soldier if the Roman soldier is marching through the land of Judea and he's tired of carrying his pack he can commandeer a Jewish man or woman to carry his pack for him hey you Jew you got to carry my pack Roman law says so and I have the sword so let's say you're the Jew in Judea and the Roman soldier comes to you and says you you carry my pack how are you gonna feel about that not too happy are you you're despised oppressor is forcing you to do something that you'd rather not do
so what's the Roman soldier do he drops the pack at your feet carry it Jew puts his hand on his sword just so you know that he means business and reluctantly with hatred in your eyes you pick up that pack and you put it on your back and you walk not side by side beside that soldier for sure either in front of Herman behind them you walk and let me tell you how you walk that mile you walk it counting every step because you know exactly how many steps make for a mile and when you
reach that one mile step you stop you look at that Roman soldier with hatred in your eyes you take off the pack and as firmly as diplomacy will allow you to you drop it at his feet and without a word you just you let him know I fulfilled my obligation I'm done with you you know what Jesus said Jesus said you had to do the first mile the law requires you to why don't you grab a hold of that situation and transform it by love and say first mile I had to mr. Roman soldier the
second mile I do out of love for Jesus let's talk and carry it a second mile ladies know that's pretty radical isn't it wouldn't that transform the way we think if we really had it in our heart to say listen um I am NOT going to take retribution or revenge upon people who wronged me but with the love of Jesus I'm gonna forgive them and look for a way to do good towards them instead of looking to oppose my enemies and defeat them and get revenge against them how can I do good towards them and
take a situation where they even though they're trying to manipulate me I'm gonna transform that manipulation into a free act of love on my behalf mr. Roman soldier you don't rule my life Jesus Christ does Jesus Christ rules my life I'm gonna carry that pack two miles how do you like that what a radical and transforming thing last week I was in Florida visiting a pastor that some of you know pastor John Spencer at a Gulf Breeze Florida and his son Neal who served with us at the church for some time and pastor John was
taking me on a tour through the offices and such and he pointed out some very interesting photographs to me photographs taken by a mine named Michael Belk who's a fashion photographer I never heard his name before but he's a very skilled photographer and Michael Belt became wonderfully converted and he took a series of pictures of Jesus you know kind of a classic Jesus looking guy in modern situations illustrating what he would regard his biblical truths and so he's showing me these different pictures and he's good David I want you to see this one this is
my favorite and he shows me this photograph that Michael Bell took of Jesus with a soldiers pack and a gun because it's in a modern situation and he's walking with and talking with a soldier and you kind of look at that okay he's illustrating you know taking the second mile and then you notice something about the soldier that the soldiers not dress like a Roman soldier you notice the armband on the soldier and it's a swastika and you realize what the photographer's trying to communicate through the picture you know when Jesus told us to do
this in love towards our enemies and to not take revenge or retribution on him he meant even the bad enemies look when I talk to you about having love and forgiveness and not taking revenge or extracting retribution it's easy for each one of us to kind of say okay pastor I get it okay okay I get it but then kind of instantly make a little list and your might but not to them those are the really bad ones ladies and gentlemen yes to them the Romans were that them and Jesus says open up your heart
let my love flow through it let's take a look at the last verse here verse 42 jesus says give to him who asks you and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away and we read that and the sweat begins to form on our brow just a little bit go man if I gave to everybody who asked of me and if I if I gave to a bar lent to everybody wants a bar man I'd have nothing I got to hold on to something and Jesus says listen once you do this
hold on to me and I'll show you the way ladies and gentlemen we always want to read that and say well then what's the limit bounce us to give to everybody if I walk up and down stage Street and give to everybody who asks of me I won't have anything left what am I supposed to do listen there is a limit and let me tell you what the limit is the limit is love itself because you understand this don't you that sometimes giving someone what they ask for isn't loving them it's hurting them sometimes affirming
somebody in their behavior and shielding them from the consequences of their behavior that's not loving them it's hurting them we have a limit oh my giving to other people you better believe it has a limit this is the limit I want it to be it's the limit that love itself would impose it's not the limit that my self-interest would impose but the limit that love itself would impose because it isn't love to give in to somebody's manipulation without transforming it into our free act of love it isn't love to always give to the person who
asked because you could end up hurting them it isn't always love to shield people from the consequences of their misbehavior but notice the free or excuse me that the common thread it's love that is the limit and not self that's what Jesus transforms us to do now if you're like me and you read this and you take it seriously you go I don't know if I can live like this well I don't know that I can and I know that you can but number one I remember that the Jesus who lived this way exactly he
lives inside his people and instead of me trying to live this life for Jesus I say Jesus would you come inside this me and live this life through me it changes the perspective completely and then number two I remember that Jesus died on the cross to forgive me for where I fall short and these exact places Here I am I'm someone who doesn't fulfill this the way should thank you Jesus for dying on the cross Jesus thank you for being the one who perfectly fulfilled this command that you fulfilled it and now you present it
to your followers and I want you to live it through me to the best of your ability but if you read this and say man I've broken that many times in my heart and in my actions then come right along with me and we will bring our sinful selves to Jesus and ask for his forgiveness and the filling of his life and spirit so that we can do this once more and follow after him is that a good prayer for us to prayer I think so let's pray together father in heaven that is exactly our
prayer that the life and the love of Jesus would fill us we don't Lord one of so much do this for Jesus as if we did it ourselves and presented it to him Jesus we desperately plea to you that you would do this through us in us in Jesus we come to you as people that need to be forgiven Jesus we ask that you would forgive us for our hearts full of revenge for our hearts full of retribution towards those who have wronged us Lord for wanting to answer an insult with an insult Lord by
the power and the grace of Jesus Flo in us forgive us and help us Lord to walk with you as a true disciple should nor thank you for not answering the evil we did towards you with retribution but rather Lord giving us your love and grace and mercy on the cross we pray this Lord in Jesus name Amen
