Loving Your Enemies Series

Good morning. I have a strange request. I am going to ask that you would take a moment, settle your minds, and begin to think about anybody that you might classify as an enemy. I am not just talking about personal enemies. Maybe somebody who has harmed you in the past like a coworker, a former friend, or family. I am talking about a person or someone who represents a people group that are so opposed to your way of thinking, your belief system, and your values that you would collectively refer to them as enemies. I can tell some of you are struggling, so I thought I would provide some images that came from the internet. I know most of you well enough that if you were to meditate on some of these images your blood would start to boil. I think many of them are opposed to what you believe, your values, your political affiliation, and that sort of thing that you would refer to them as enemies. What is true in the church is also true in the culture. What we see in the culture and in the church to a certain extent is that when we consider somebody an enemy, at a minimum, we try to badmouth them, dishonor them, disparage them, and in some extreme cases actually destroy them. What we see in today’s passage is that a lot of people decide to hate them. We also see in today’s passage that Jesus had another option. He would say to love them.

We are continuing the series Learning to Live Like Jesus. It is an 11-week series based on the Sermon on the Mount, which is Jesus’ extended talk that is found in chapters five, six, and seven of the gospel of Matthew. We are winding chapter five where Jesus had given us a pretty good picture of what life looks like in the kingdom and what a kingdom citizen would look like. Today, we are going to cap off chapter five where Jesus addresses a very important topic, and that is the topic of love. Not simply love of God, not even love of neighbor, but really love of enemies. Consistent with what we have been doing the last few weeks, I would like to have somebody stand up and read from the NIV Matthew 5:43-48. (Scripture read here.)

Some very challenging words from Jesus to the people back then and even us today. As usual what Jesus seems to be doing is contrasting the common teaching of the day as taught by the Pharisees and the teachers of the law and that sort of thing with also his common opinion about a particular topic. This has to do with the topic of love. Jesus begins by saying “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’” As I mentioned last week, when Jesus would say “You have heard that it was said”, he is often referring to the Old Testament or what we would call the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, which are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. This particular passage comes from the book of Leviticus. It is actually Leviticus 19:18 where it is said “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against your people but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.” So Jesus is finding this passage back in the book of Leviticus. He is very fond of this phrase “Love your neighbor”. We see it in other sections of the gospels. He is particularly fond of tying it with love of God. He would actually consider love of neighbor the second-greatest command next to “Love your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.” We know where Jesus got this first part of the phrase, but we really don’t know where he got the second part where he says “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’” We don’t know where he got this because there is really not a passage in the Old Testament that specifically says to hate your enemy. There are passages that seem to allude to it like Psalm 139:21-22 where as King David says “Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and abhor those who rise up against you? I have nothing but hatred for them. I count them my enemies.” Some suggest that maybe this is where the idea of hating your enemies came from. But really what I was reading this week is that many scholars and commentators feel that the hatred of enemies just became implied based on the first command to love your neighbors. The assumption is if I am to love my neighbors then that means I should hate my enemies. That was where many believed the common teaching came. But even thought we don’t know exactly the source of it, what we do know is that Jesus comes on the scene again and begins to challenge the common though to the day. He challenges the idea that you are to love your neighbor and hate your enemy. He goes on to say “But I tell you love your enemies and pray for those that persecute you.” This is a radical thought obviously back then and as much as it is today.