Love Your Enemies, Part 3 (Matthew 5:43–48) [Audio Only]

with your Bibles this morning I want you to look at Matthew 5: 43-48 Matthew 5: 43-48 the Old Testament says that man plans his way but the Lord directs his steps I found that to be true even in preaching we've preached a lot of messages about love because it is such a recurring theme in the Bible I've preached on the theme of love again and again and again and again and when I came to this passage I said Lord these dear people have heard me talk about love so many times I think I'll just take

all of these verses 43 to 48 and do it in one message because I don't want to say what they've heard before and that was my intention but the Lord just strung me out and this is the third week on the same passage and you know you in preaching you can plan all you want but you have the feeling very often that the spirit of God is taking you places you never expected to go and that's part of the adventure of the pulpit and so as we come this morning to the same passage for the

third time I feel in my own heart that this isn't really what I want to say to you but I guess it's what the Lord needs to say sometimes I think the Lord strings things out on the same theme because maybe somebody wasn't here last time who is here this time and God knows that this is for them the only thing I fear is that sometimes when we hear the same thought thoughts or the same words or similar ideas we think we know them and we don't hear them at all and some of the greatest

lessons we'll ever learn are the lessons that we've heard again and again but finally come to really understand so may the spirit of God fill in the blanks about love reinforce what you already know and say it in a fresh way so that there'll be a different level of commitment than there ever has been in the past we all have friends and I guess we all have enemies we all have people who love to be with us and we have people who love to attack us and the test of our Christian character is not how

we treat our friends it's how we treat our enemies that's the bottom line you can really tell all there is to know about a man's true spirituality by what he does when people attack him by what he does when people despise or hate or persecute or stand against or criticize because then will be the Rev of the reality of his life and if he is a creature of Love made so by the indwelling presence of Jesus Christ he will love that person just as much as he will love his dearest friend because it will be

his character to love and have little to do with the person involved that is essentially what Jesus is saying In this passage he is saying your tradition tells you verse 43 love your neighbor and hate your enemies that's what you've learned you've learned that there is a justification for hatred you've learned that there is a place for vilification and animosity and bitterness and revenge and resentment you've been told that your pride is Justified and your Prejudice is allowable you've been told that there are some people you well should hate but verse 44 I say unto

you love even your enemies you see what men do and what God commands are two different things and that's the essence here you see the people to whom Jesus spoke thought that they were good enough he says you're not good enough at all your kind of love is not adequate your kind of love is very very narrow it picks out its objects the love of those in my kingdom is indiscriminate it loves friend and foe just the same just the same in Luke 23:34 we see a beautiful illustration of this the Romans have done a

foul deed they have taken the lovely Son of God they have driven Nails into his hands they have driven nails through his feet attaching him to a wooden cross they have lifted the cross and dropped it in its socket and when it hit the jolt would have ripped and torn his flesh they have spit on him and mocked him the Jews have done a foul deed they have accused him of being being a blasphemer they've screamed for his blood they too have mocked him casting things in his face he hangs on the cross at his

feet is a vicious frenzied frantic hateful despising mob thirsty for his blood the result of years of bitterness and hatred against one who is only an agent of love and how does he react to that and what is his attitude to them Luke 23:34 says Jesus said father forgive them for they know not what they do and they parted His Garment and cast lots in the midst of his magnanimous prayer of forgiveness they were still busy gambling for his cloak but the point that I want you to see is that Jesus could love them so

much that he could beseech the father on behalf of their forgiveness that's not a human love that just isn't true of mankind you say well Jesus was God you know we can't do that thing that that's beyond us we can't love enemies to that degree I think we can there's another biblical illustration in the seventh chapter of the book of Acts there was a man by the name of Steven full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit a man who was numbered among the first chosen in the church in Jerusalem as a Godly Man

to be placed over some important Ministry Steven who was the best of the very best in the early church Steven who was a man who knew God and who knew the Old Testament and knew the New Covenant even in Jesus Christ and Steph stood up in the seventh chapter of Acts and he preached an inditing powerful message not unlike Peter's message on Pentecost and he laid bare the sinfulness of Israel and when he was finished the people were so frantic and so overwrought and so cut to the heart says Luke as he writes that they

literally screamed with their voices and clapped their hands over their ears that they wouldn't hear anything from this man and they picked him up and threw him over a precipice and then they begin to Pummel his body with stones and the Bible says in the midst of this he pulled himself into a kneeling position just imagine that the Jewish method of stoning was to find about a 10- foot drop and drop the man down and then the first accuser would take the largest stone and try to crush his head with it then the second accuser

would follow and finally the mob would Stone him until they crushed the life out of his body Steven was lying at the foot of this receiving the stones and he managed to pull himself into a kneeling position to do what to pray a prayer and what was his prayer simply this Lord lay not this sin to their charge Lord be merciful don't make them pay for this be gracious to them that's loving your enemies I have several times read the the story of George Wier who was a martyr in the early years for his faith

in Christ he was to die because he loved Jesus and wouldn't deny him and so he was taken to the place of execution the Executioner prepared to take his life but he had known of his life in testimony and he was so burdened with the guilt of his role as executioner that he hesitated in reluctance in taking his life and the biographer says at the point where he hesitated Wisher looked up and saw the hesitation and so he stood up put his arms around him embraced his executioner planted a kiss on his cheek and said

to him sir may that be a token that I forgive you that's loving your enemies and that's what Jesus is talking about Kingdom character doesn't hate it doesn't even hate enemies not Kingdom character not the kind of character that manifests godliness not the kind that manifests the virtue of a transformed life and that's the message here you see the Jews felt that they were already all right but the Lord shows them that they're not as proven by the fact that even their love is an inept inadequate narrow kind of thing and so Jesus presents to

them the truth about love in verses 44 to 48 we have the teaching of Jesus in response to the tradition of the Jews the tradition of the Jews love your neighbor and hate your enemy the teaching of Jesus quite different as we go through this passage this morning there are five points that I want you to see as we move five ascending connected sequential truths that lead us to a marvelous conclusion I pray that God will really show you as we move how these apply in your heart now keep two things in mind Jesus is

speaking here and really there is a two-fold purpose one let's say a person is not a Christian and they're hearing this what is their reaction their reaction is to know that they fall short of God's standard their reaction is to know that they don't love like this they can't love like this therefore they're sinful because this is required and if you don't love like this you're a sinner and if you're a sinner you need a savior so the message that Jesus is giving to the people there to the Jew news to the to the massive

crowd is that this should prove to you once and for all that you haven't arrived and that you need a savior and then of course he is the one who offers himself as that savior but there was another group on the hillside when he preached this and that was his disciples they had already believed in him they had already committed their lives to him but sometimes even for those of us who have been forgiven for our lack of love those of us who have been given the power to love fail to love and so for

us this becomes an exhortation doesn't it to live up to what is now potentially a reality first he is saying you are a sinner if you don't love like this and you must be forgiven then he says if you have been forgiven and you have been given the capacity to love like this you must respond to that in obedience so it's a message for everyone the crowd and the disciples for you that know Christ and exort ation to a greater love for you that don't a realization that you're a sinner and you fall short and

you need a savior let's look at the first point in the five Jesus says simply in verse 44 but I say unto you love your enemies now beloved this was just a devastating statement in the society in which Jesus lived because there was so much hate the wonderful commentator William Hendrickson writes All Around Jesus were walls and fences he came for the very purpose of bursting those barriers so that love pure warm Divine infinite love would be able to flow straight down from the heart of God hence from his own marvelous heart into the hearts

of men his love over leaped all the boundaries of race and nationality and party and age and sex when he said I tell you love your enemies he must have startled his audience for he was saying something that probably never before had been said so succinctly positively and forcefully end quote he was saying something that they just didn't do love your enemies are you kidding I read of a native tribe in Polynesia who had around their Huts special articles hanging all around the roof of the Hut a visitor said what are they they said there

are reminders reminders of what reminders of injury When anybody injures us or anybody does something against us we hang a token of that injury there so that we will remember every time we have been wronged and none is ever removed until full vengeance is gained that's the human way that's not God's way that's the way the Pharisees lived around their legalistic Hut hung all of the Articles or symbols of their Vengeance they were proud and prejudicial judgmental hateful men masquerading as religious and Jesus devastates that he says just in one statement love your enemies what

is contradictory to their entire lifestyle they hated they hated the Rabel mob they hated the publicans who were the tax collectors who had sold out to Rome they hat hated the Gentiles they literally despised them and Jesus gives them a simple command that lays be all that hate love your enemies he says who does he have in mind everybody we talked last time about neighbor encompassing enemy didn't we neighbor is a big enough word to Encompass an enemy Jesus said love your neighbor as yourself an enemy fits into that a neighbor is anybody in need

isn't it remember we looked at Luke 10 and we talked about the Good Samaritan and how in the story The Good Samaritan we said that the Good Samaritan came along and he saw this man who was a Jew and Samaritans and Jews didn't have any dealings there was tremendous hatred between the two of them and yet he went over and he saw that man and he said that man's my neighbor and he bounded up his wounds and he cared for him and he wrapped him and he put him on his animal and took him to

the inn and paid his bill and and did the whole thing and he made a sacrifice didn't he a sacrifice of time a sacrifice of energy a sacrifice of money a sacrifice of of prejudice a sacrifice of of all of the factors of his life to stop and do all of that because the man was in need and we said that's that's the way it is your neighbor is anybody in your path with a need but in Luke 10 and the Good Samaritan Jesus really is making an an opposite Point as well because the lawyer

said who is my neighbor I mean I'm going to go through the world and I want to pick out my neighbors and do what I should but when Jesus came to the end of the story he said who was that man's neighbor or which one of the three that came down the road showed themselves to be his neighbor and what was he saying first there was a priest and he ignored it then there was a levite and basically they were the helpers of the priest so they fit into the religious community and he passed by

and then a half breed Samaritan and he helped him and he said to the lawyer which one of those proved to be the wounded man's neighbor in other words Jesus turned the tables instead of going through life and trying to pick out who your neighbor is he says are you a neighbor because if you're a neighbor then anybody in your path is going to get your neighborly love it kind of works like this in our society humanly speaking we basically are objectoriented in our love aren't we you know you you sort of love people by

on the basis of the kind of object they are if they're attractive you know you for example when the guys are looking for some girl to marry you know girls come across their path and they'll say you know no thanks keep moving there I'm not there yet and you know different girls are coming along all of a sudden boom you know there she is you know and you just kind of zing in on her and there's something attractive there and and there's this emotional thing that that hooks you to the thing and you don't feel

that with anybody else so that our love is object oriented when we look at a picture or we look at a house or the style of a car there are some objects that attract our affection and some that do not there are certain personalities that attract our love and some that do not now that's the human kind of affection and that's really what the lawyer was saying now as I go through the world how do I know which objects I should attach to Jesus is saying that's not the issue the issue is are you a

neighbor if you're a neighbor and your heart is filled with love any object that gets in your path is going to receive that love see that's what he's saying he's saying don't try to figure out who your neighbor is you be the neighbor to everybody and then you won't have a problem Jesus is calling for love toward an enemy and that's a simple thing I don't know how else to say it other than to Simply say it means to love everybody exactly the same be they Friend or Foe you say what do you mean by

love John I don't mean affection we talked about that last time God doesn't expect you to love him filia like a friend doesn't expect you to love him stor like you love somebody in your own family he doesn't expect you to love them AOS affectionate Desiring love but what he does say is to love them agapa which is a love that seeks their highest good and seeks to serve their needs when Jesus said in John 13 love one another's I have loved you he had just washed their feet at that point he wasn't saying you

know these disciples are so wonderful they're just irresistible no they were cantankerous ugly arguing over who would be the greatest in the Kingdom they were acting sinful they were self-motivated and self-centered and couldn't even be considered enough to consider Christ going to the cross and comfort him they were acting about as ugly as they ever acted in the New Testament and yet he said love each other like I've loved you what did he do he washed their dirty feet and that's what he's saying love is an act of service to one in need not necessarily

in Emotion you'll notice that he says love your enemies and then the text also in the King James says bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you now that's not in uh the critical text or manuscript text it's been brought into this one from Luke 6 the Lord did say it Matthew just didn't include it and some scribe brought it over but but it's really true if you love your enemy when he curses you you'll bless him and when he hates you you'll do good to him that's the Practical outworking of

it you see it is not so much the feeling watch this it is not so much the feeling as when your enemy is your enemy you say things that bless him and you do good to him it is what you say and what you do that God is after not how you feel you may have an enemy and in your heart you know that there's no great human affection you know there'll never be a great friendship you know you'll never Embrace him like a person in your family but you will with your mouth bless him

in what you say and with your life bless him in what you do so that we find that the love that we're talking about here is the love of action not the love of emotion look with me for a moment at First Corinthians chapter 13 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and what is it saying but perhaps the greatest definition ever given of love I want to have you note verse 4 through S just briefly we could spend a lot of time on this and rightly we should and have in the past but for this moment just

a brief look but keep in mind one great and important truth there are 15 characteristics of Love given here all of them appear in a verbal form they're not presented as substantives they are presented as verbs why because love is doing Love Is In Action love can never be defined statically love can never be defined as a plateau love is always an activity always an action and by the way somebody has titled this as the Beatitudes set to music or a lyrical interpretation of The Sermon on the Mount so others have seen the parallel but

Paul in describing love uses verbs because love is only described in terms of what it does that's all and I suppose the reason that you don't always believe somebody who says they love you when they say it is because they say it but there never seems to be anything done about it and you have every right to question that kind of love because love does things for example verse four love is patient literally means long tempered and most times the word is used of patience with people love is patient love is kind it means literally

in the Greek useful in other words love sets itself to do Deeds of kindness that help people in their time of need and then it says love does not envy that is it doesn't have a competitive Spirit it isn't jealous it joys in another's success and it says love is not boastful is not boastful vaunteth not itself means is not boastful and I think the Greek word there has mostly to do with outward bragging outward pretense outward showing off the voice of conceit and then it says following that love is not puffed up and I

think that's talking more about the inside the inward bigheaded self-centered see love is not self-centered it's patient toward people it's kind and it has no competitive Spirit no jealousy never envies anybody else's position or any body else's situation at all and can just totally rejoice in somebody else's success love does not behave rudely or unseemly it says and that's such a beautiful thought at the beginning of verse 5 Love is always considerate always concerned with somebody else always tender in dealing with people even evil people love never insists on its rights you know today you

can even take courses do you know this you can even go to seminars a week long and take courses on how to assert your rights that's not the way love acts love seeks not its own in other words it's unselfish it only seeks the things of others love is not provoked and that means it doesn't have a sudden Outburst of anger or rage it never reacts to injury or loses its temper love thinks no evil that is it always imagines the best about people it always wants to think the very best it always wants to

give the benefit of the doubt it always forgives and forgets and never carries a grudge and is never defensive never eager to blame somebody else and then it says love in verse six rejoices not in iniquity love never takes pleasure when someone else sins never takes pleasure when someone else is chastised it rejoices in the truth that is love is positive encouraging goodness and love then four things Bears all things believes all things hopes all things endures all things love bears all things it's a beautiful Greek word it means to cover something it throws a

blanket on others faults it just covers them up it believes all things it's never suspicious it always believes the best it hopes all things even when it knows there's a failure it's optimistic enough to believe that something different's going to happen there's going to be a change it refuses to take the failure is final and then love endures all things no matter what you do to love vers verse 8 says love never what fails boy what a great picture just like shining a light into a prism it splatters all of the colors of Love do

you love like that that's the kind of love that characterizes our Lord Jesus Christ that's the way God loves if you don't love like that you need a savior and if you've received the forgiveness for a lack of love and Christ lives in your heart and you have forgiveness and you have his love sh abroad As Romans 55 says but you're not letting that love out you're bottling it up then you need to make a new commitment to love the way he says you're love the commentator Linsky says it indeed sees all the hatefulness of

and the wickedness of the enemy feels his stabs and his blows may even have something to do toward warding them off but all this simply fills the loving heart with the one desire and aim to free its enemy from his hate to rescue him from his sin and thus to save his soul mere affection is often blind but even then it thinks that it sees something attractive in the one toward whom it goes the higher love may see nothing attractive in the one so loved his inner motive is simply to bestow true blessing on the

one loved and to do him the highest good lensy says I cannot love a low mean criminal who robs me and threatens my life at least in the sense of liking him and I cannot like a false lying slanderous fellow who perhaps has vilified IED me again and again but I can by the grace of Jesus Christ love them all see what is wrong with them desire and work to do them only good and most of all to free them from their vicious ways end quote and so we are to love not in terms of

a feeling but in terms of service Paul says it so beautifully in Romans 12: 20 let me read it to you therefore if thine enemy hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink that's how you treat an enemy if he's hungry feed him if he's thirsty give him to drink for in so doing Thou shalt Heap coals of fire on his head basically I think that means to bring conviction upon him to make him feel bad about his hatred and his sin and be not overcome by evil in other words when somebody does evil

to you don't don't retaliate don't lose the battle but overcome that evil with your goodness let the enemy come and throw everything he can at you it'll never make you fall into sin you will drown his evil as christom said like a spark that falls into the sea so does an injury find itself extinguished when it comes to the into the sea of the love of a Believer when people cast their Sparks of hatred at us may they be as quenched as the spark in the now Jesus simply then says love your enemies secondly moving

up this ascending ladder of Truth About Love he says pray for your persecutors in verse 44 and pray for them who despitefully use you and persecute you praying here is simply beseeching God on their behalf despitefully using you is is using you for a negative purpose or abusing you and certainly persecution is clear when somebody comes along and does despite to you or does evil to you or harms you injures you persecutes you what are you to do you are to go before the Lord on their behalf and intercede for them that's what Jesus did

on the cross that's what Steven did I've read so many stories about those who've died for the faith and even while they were being consumed in the Flames they were praying for those who were persecuting them I remember reading in the tremendous book a distant grief you ought to read that book if you haven't read it I told you the story of keus sangi some months ago and that book is available now how they came to take his life in Uganda under Edam men and came these men with the guns pointed at his head and

he began to confront them with the gospel and pray to God to change their lives and the Very men that came to kill him bowed the knee to Jesus Christ pray for those that persecute you you know there is no persecution in the world and there is no hatred in the world world as severe as hatred regarding religious things you see man lives with sin and man lives with tremendous guilt and guilt produces fear and the ultimate fear that man has is the fear of death what's going to happen if there is a God and

I have sinned will I be punished man lives with the imminence of punishment and thus man lives in fear so man inevitably constructs a system in which he can deal with this fear he convinces himself that he's okay that he's kept enough rules that God's going to let him into heaven that he's really not such a bad guy or else he just decides there's no God at all I will not come under guilt I will not have the fear of judgment and I'll get rid of it by just saying there's no God when you go

to an individual and you say you're a sinner you will die and go to hell apart from Jesus Christ and you need to be redeemed and you need to be saved you are striking that individual at the core of his deepest pain because you are dragging back all of his anxiety all of the sin all of the guilt all of the fear that he has managed somehow to sublimate under his philosophy or religion do you see you're tearing it all open again and that's why the most severe persecution is always religious because you are unmasking

people at their most vulnerable Point besides that persecution brings to focus the real battle between Satan and God so religious persecution throughout history has always been the most intense always and when we really stand up and live for Jesus Christ in this Society we will get persecuted and more and more people all the time this is going to happen and the question is in the midst of the most heinous kind of hatred at the point of the most serious reaction of persecution can we pray on the behalf of the very one who seeks to destroy

us that's what Jesus said we are to do what do you mean pray I think he means to beseech God for their highest good I don't think he's talking about the prayer of importunity to call down fire from heaven and consume them I think he's praying here for their salvation I was reading Spurgeon a couple of weeks ago and I found a little sentence in one of his messages and he said prayer is the Forerunner of Mercy when we pray we release God's mercy in a very real way and this is what I Think Jesus

is saying pray for your persecutors the very ones who would take your life pray for them you know we can we can point out our enemies you know we can say boy they're enemies of Christ and they're enemies of of the cross in the Bible and the church and we can forget that what we hate is what they represent but we must love who they are hate the sin and love The Sinner you know and pray for them wouldn't it be great if we just begin to pray for the people who are set against us

praying what that they would be redeemed you know what just that prayer and and of itself will fill your heart with love it'll wash your soul to pray like that when somebody comes to me and they'll say you know I've got a problem with soand so I they just I resent them and this is my answer is always the same I'll tell you what to do pray for them set aside a certain time every day and pray for them you know what happens that begins to wash the soul of bitterness When you pray for somebody

and you ask God to be merciful in fact christom also said that kind of prayer is the very highest Summit of self-control you've really brought your life into Conformity to God's standards when you can pray for your persecutors Dietrich Bon Hofer who suffered so much in Nazi Germany said this is the Supreme command through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy We Stand by his side and we plead to God for him oh what a beautiful thing that is the cruel torture of crucifixion couldn't silence Jesus prayer the crushing Stones couldn't silence Steven's

prayer but I wonder what has silenced your prayer for your enemy so love your enemies pray for your persecutors and then we Ascend another level up manifest your sunship that's the third Point manifest your sunship verse 45 and it starts with hapas in the Greek which indicates purpose why love your enemies why pray for your persecutors for the purpose that you may be the sons of your father the Bible says God is love if God is love and I'm his child then I should be characterized by love and so first John says if you do

not show love to your brother how can you claim to be a child of God don't claim you belong to God if you don't manifest love and Jesus is not saying you will become a Son of God if you love he's not saying now just muster up enough love and you can get yourself into being a son he is saying you will prove the validity of the claim that you're a son when love is Manifest in your life you will prove it it's kind of like Peter said we already have this divine nature we already

have received this Incorruptible character but to make our calling and election sure we have to add to what we've received virtue and so forth in other words we'll never convince anybody we belong to God unless we're like him and he loves manifest your sunship I told you some years ago that when I was a little boy I got into trouble um stealing some things from a Sears store with a little friend and they took us and put us in the city jail in Glendale my father was out playing golf with a couple of deacons and

he was notified about it came to get me at the jail thinking it was a mistake and then tried to explain to his deacons what his son was doing in jail but um I remember when I got home my mother was crying and she didn't think I would do such a thing and and I'll never forget what some person said to me I can't even remember who it was and they just kind of went Johnny MacArthur did you forget who your father was I never forgot that I owed something to my father he had given

me my very life I wanted to be his son one of my little boys Mark said to me the other day he said Dad are you ever going to retire I said no he said good CU I'm glad you're a preacher I said ' are you are you glad to be my son he saides I'm glad to be your son well I'm glad to be my Father's son too but I think it's only right that I manifest something in my father's character right and that's what Jesus is saying you know you Pharisees and scribes may

claim to be the sons of God but if you don't manifest the character of God you never convince anybody never what is the biggest criticism that people have of the truth of the Gospel it's the people who claim to live it but don't that's always there are so many Hypocrites in the church the best answer for that is come on in we got room for more but but it's true that the biggest detriment to Christianity is Christians I mean we just don't live up to the standard that we ourselves ascribed to so that's the problem

manifest your sunship let it become a settled fact prove it you know there are people who are Christians but you never know it because they don't love like this but I'll tell you you find somebody who life is full of love who overflows with love who gushes out with love toward everybody be he Friend or Foe and the world will have a very difficult time assuming that that person comes from a human Source because people don't love like that and that's exactly what the Lord goes on to say in this verse he says you are

to be the sons of your father who is in heaven in other words your style of Life ought to be one that isn't earthy you ought to manifest a Heavenly Source that's why he identifies the father as the one who is in heaven not your Earthly father your heavenly one not with a human approach to life as good as that may be philanthropically speaking but in a manifestation of love that is only possibly described as heaven and then he says and how is that so well look at God he makes his son to rise on

the evil and on the good he sends reain on the just and on the unjust first he talks about the evil and the good and then he inverts it and talks about the just and the unjust and he switches those two back and forth the evil come first one time and the good come first the next time in order that you might see the point here is impartiality he inverts the order just to show you what he's saying is God loves everybody when the sun comes up and shines and its beauty and spreads its warmth

it's it's for everybody and when the rain falls it's for everybody the other night we were out watching our son play a football game in the evening in the in a place outside of the city and the clouds were puffy and there were I saw two rainbows over here and one rainbow here and these big beautiful clouds and the moon and I was enjoying it just a beautiful evening little rain was trickling down and you know all the rest of the people all around me didn't know the Lord they enjoyed it too and the sun

comes up and gives light and grows your grass and it grows my grass and it grows the grass of the people on our block who don't know that God even exists and couldn't care less why because God is good and God is indiscriminate in his benevolence this is what Calvin called common Grace common Grace Divine love and Providence touches everybody and this is what he's saying look be like your father let your love be so indiscriminate that your Sun Shines on everybody and your reain falls on the just and the unjust then it'll be obvious

that you belong to your father there's an old Rabbi tale that tells of the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea and when the Egyptians were drowned it says the Angels began to praise God and God lifted his hand mournfully and silenced the angels and said the work of my hands are sunk in the sea and you would sing God loved Pharaoh God loved Pharaoh's soldiers because God is love be manifesting your sunship by praying for your persecutors and loving your enemies in Psalm 14515 we read this listen to it carefully the eyes of

all get that word all the eyes of all wait upon thee and thou givest them their meat in due season thou openest thy hand and satisfi the desire of every living thing who is the source of all supply for every living thing it is God it is God all men receive common Grace providential love not all receive that very very Very Special Love That is reserved for God's covenant people who come through the blood of Christ just an illustration Genesis 17:20 as for ishmail ishmail was an illegitimate son not the Covenant son of Abraham not

the one God had planned for the Messianic line but a son taken in adultery from Hagar as for Ishmael I have heard thee behold I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly 12 princes shall he beget and I'll make him a great nation did you hear that God is even gracious to an IL legitimate son God is even gracious to a to an a not of people to an outcast that's God's love but verse 21 says but my Covenant will I establish with Isaac listen God loved Ishmael but he

had something real special for Isaac and God loves all and the world but he has something very special for his Covenant people who come in faith to Christ common Grace is a wonderful thing providential love is a wonderful thing but it will not save you for that you must come to Christ Jesus says love your enemies pray for your persecutors and thereby you will manifest your sunship number four exceed your fellow men exceed your fellow men this is a brief and Clear Point verse 46 four if you love them who love you what reward have

ye I mean if you just go around loving the people in your group are you to be commended if you just love the people who agree with you and think like you and belong to your little thing are you to be commended are you to receive some kind of reward do not even the tax collectors the same now I want you to know folks that you can never in any way imagine the emotion of of the Pharisees and the scribes when he got done with that one sentence do not even the tax collectors the same

I mean they must have gone into real fits if there was anybody they hated it was the publicans why because these were Renegade traiter Jews who had committed treason against Israel by lining up with the Roman government to extort from the people taxes to to pad their own pockets they had become the Pawns of the Romans who wanted to literally a Roman citizen would buy a certain territory in the Roman Empire and he would have the rights to exact the taxes out of that territory then he would hire Renegade Rabel Rouser Jews who wanted only

money and thought nothing of their people and those Jews would then collect the tax they had to get a certain amount for this guy and all the rest they could skim off for themselves they became despised despicable in fact you read Matthew you read Mark you read Luke and you will find again and again and again the despised character of the publicans or tax collectors defined in those passages now he says to them look if you love them who love you what reward have you you just love the people with your own pride and your

own Prejudice and your own narrow little thing you're no better than traitors and renegades and publicans cuz they love their group too in other words you don't prove you belong in my kingdom they thought you know we have love why we love the people in our group he says yeah well that's great so do the worst people in the human race they do that they love each other murderers have something in common so do thieves and robbers and adulterers and extortioners and whatever you know it's interesting to me in just doing some reading about the

Criminal Mind some people can't wait to get back in prison because that's where their element is do you know that one of the major reasons that people commit crimes again and again is because they're more at home in the jail and they are on outside because that's their people they they love those people you're no better than that he says if all you can do is love the people in your group if you think that was a blow the next one was even worse and he says in verse 47 if you greet your brethren only

what do do you more than others don't even the Gentiles do that if all you can do is warmly embrace the word greed having to do with a warm embrace with the kiss as it was done in the East if if you only have a warm and affectionate Embrace for your brothers you're no better than a gentile now folks there's only one thing worse than a tax collector what was that a gentile and when Jesus and I mean Jesus didn't pull any punches when he told them they were no better than tax collectors and Gentiles

he was really getting them where they hurt some kind of religion you've got he says you're no better look at the statement in the middle of verse 47 I just love this statement what do ye more than others what makes you different if you don't exceed the human standard you're no different why should you be rewarded for being like everybody else why should God Reserve his kingdom for you why should God Reserve his crowns for you why should God pour out his blessings on you you're no better than anybody else and this is a devastating

statement folks he's saying that religious people are no better than Heathen people he's saying that people who function in the temple are no better than people who extort you're all Sinners he see it's just a matter of kind of sin you're no better than the rest what do you do more than anybody else What Makes You Different beloved that's a question for us to face you know those of us that are Christians what makes us different in the world are we different on the job because our ethics are different our conversation is different our attitude

is different our love is different are we different in our homes are we different in our communities because if we're not different we have nothing to say to this society that they're going to believe Oswald Sanders said the master expects from his disciples such conduct as can be explained only in terms of the Supernatural and if your conduct can only be explained in terms of the supernatural then you got something to say to the society they're going to take note but if you're like everybody else what is the difference what do you have that they

don't have if we're to speak to this age and call this Godless age to Jesus Christ and let them know that there's something real about Christ it'll be when our lives are unique and have no other explanation than that God is there so Jesus says love our enemies pray for our persecutors manifest our sunship and exceed our fellow men and one more be like our god this is the sunum bonum this is the epitome of his statement verse 48 therefore all these four only lead up to this be ye perfect and I've heard people say

oh yes but he means mature he means you need to be growing you need to be moving along you need to be coming along and and and just growing up listen he says be ye perfect how perfect as perfect as your father who is in heaven and he's not just coming along he's there the point is this you are to be like God you say Well that's standard is too high you're right and that's exactly what he wanted the Pharisees to know you can't make it I think this is beautifully Illustrated in Matthew 19 and

I want you to see this just very briefly and then we'll draw to a conclusion but Matthew 19 verse 23 you know this this because you've heard it before but let me read it to you Jesus said to his disciples verily I say unto you that a rich man shall with difficulty enter the kingdom of of Heaven this is a very hard statement for them to hear right that a rich man shall with difficulty enter the kingdom you know why that was hard because they believed that rich people got into the kingdom easier than everybody

else why because they believed basically their system taught you get into the kingdom by works the Richer you are the greater your works why you can buy more Lambs to sacrifice you can buy more bullets to sacrifice you can give more money into the temple treasury in other words you're more religious you can you can buy your way into the kingdom the Richer you are the more sacrifices you make the more money you give the greater the greater ease you'll have in getting into the kingdom but he reverses the whole deal a rich man with

difficulty enters the kingdom how difficult it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven now I've heard people say all kinds of things about this they say oh well this is too bad Jesus said this very confusing a camel can't get through the eye of a needle well that's pretty obvious I got that right off the bat camel cannot get through the eye of a needle I I've heard all kinds of things if you could arrange the molecules of a camel

in a straight line and you could put them through the eye of a needle if you could reduce a camel to liquid you could eye drop it through the eye of a needle on on and on and on I've even heard a deal about a needle gate you know a little low gate and all the camels had to crawl through if they were going to build such a gate an archaeologists I'm not I don't think I've ever found such a one but if they were going to build one for camels they wouldn't build it like

that they'd make it big enough for camels to go through I mean they weren't totally inept in those days what is he saying he is saying it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter into heaven you say but a camel can't go through the eye of a needle and that's what he's saying and neither can a rich man buy his way into heaven it's just as impossible that's the next verse when his disciples heard it they were exceedingly amazed and they wouldn't have been

if they knew about a needle gate they said who who then can be saved if a rich man can't be saved who can Jesus beheld him and said unto them with men this is what impossible With God all things are possible you want to know what he's saying nobody can be saved not a rich man a poor man or anybody in between the man with the most possible potential money whatever can't do it nobody can be saved on his own nobody can do it through flesh works but with God anything is possible what Jesus is

saying in The Sermon on the Mount is the same thing be perfect and they're supposed to say but I can't be perfect and that's when he says right and if you fall short of perfection you need a savior and that's where Jesus comes in and brings to you what Peter calls the divine nature and makes you like God a partaker of his nature and God in a miracle of Salvation does for you what you could never do for yourself be like God when you came to Jesus Christ positionally you were made like God you were

given his eternal life his righteousness you became like him in that sense and now you need to bring your behavior into harmony with your position listen a Christian is not someone who keeps the sermon on the m a Christian is somebody who knows he can't do you see and comes to Jesus Christ for forgiveness for the sin of falling short and receives from Christ the forgiveness and then the power to begin to live these principles that's the point of the message even when you fail you're forgiven because Christ has paid the price for your sin

that's the message and so back to where I started if you're not a Christian what's the message to you if you don't love like this that's a sin and if you're a sinner you need a savior and Jesus Christ will come in and forgive your sin of lovelessness Jesus will cleanse your life and he'll plant his love in your heart and then he'll teach you how to love the way he wants you to love for some of you this is a call to Salvation for some of you it's an exhortation to let the love that's

there flow my favorite illustration I close about loving an enemy is this one Abraham Lincoln was held in contempt by a man named Mr Stanton he called Lincoln a low cunning clown and he nicknamed him the original gorilla and he said that men were foolish to wander around Africa trying to capture a gorilla when they could find one in Springfield Illinois Lincoln never said anything to Stanton and because Stanton was the best man for for the job when Lincoln needed a war minister for the United States he chose Mr Stanton he appointed him over all

of the soldiers of the United States he treated him with love and courtesy and the years past the night an Assassin's bullet tore out Lincoln's life in a little room to which the president's body was taken there stood that same Mr Stanton looking down into the silent face of Abraham Lincoln with all of its ruggedness and character and speaking through his tears he said there lies the greatest ruler of men the world has ever seen and because Mr Lincoln could love him with a forgiving love he received in return his adoration beloved Jesus is calling

us to love our unlovely unlovable world with a love that knows no discrimination and such a love will show that we're like God and reveal God to them that's the beginning of an effective evangelism may God help us to love the way we are to love to manifest his nature let's pray Lord we're so much aware and here in our our own church of people with needs transportation for the elderly and the handicapped house cleaning for old people and people who are handicapped people need jobs houses medical Legal Financial help we have children who need

help like buddy that we mentioned this morning we have kids at the Juvenile Hall people in the jails and the hospitals and we need some people whose hearts are filled with love to touch these people to reach out pick up the the wounded and the needy and Lord we need to love each other no matter where we are in human definition the way you love all and are good to all teach us to love that we may be known as your children in Jesus name amen you've been listening to John MacArthur Bible teacher with grace

to you for free access to all of John's lessons and a listing of study Bibles and books available for sale visit Grace toou website at gty.org John MacArthur and grace to you reserve all copyright protection under applicable law our copyright policy is available at gty.org and it includes instructions for and limitations on duplicating this digital file