Message
Matthew 5:21-26; 43-48
The Power of Love
Humans are interesting creatures aren't they? On the one hand we mostly want to be seen as being good people who are doing the right thing and who make a positive contribution to the community. On the other hand – in order to achieve this goal – we often try and do as little as possible.
We do it at school – just doing enough to make it. Sometimes being very distracted.
We do it at University – “P’s” mean degrees!
We do it at work – cutting corners to get to deadlines so we don’t look bad.
We do it at home – just doing enough to keep things running.
What we are is minimalists.
We are not always like that but we can be. Doing the least amount we can – but still doing enough to make ourselves look good.
The problem is that we also have a tendency to take this attitude into our spiritual lives as well. Let me show you what I mean – and we will take the 5th commandment as an example.
In the original language the 6th commandment is stated in only two words … in English it only takes four words You shall not murder.
It sounds simple enough doesn’t it.
Just avoid taking someone’s life and you haven’t murdered them.
We are all good. Except we are not.
Read Matthew 5:21-22
You have heard that it was said …
But I say.
There is this huge contrast between what was happening – and how people were supposed to actually act. The reason for this contrast is seen by having a closer look at the context.
You have heard that it was said.
Who have they heard?
Well in verse 20 Jesus talks about the righteousness of the Pharisees.
The Pharisees and Jesus were not friends.
Which was kind of strange because everyone else at the time believed the Pharisees where good hard working people. They were often leaders who were held in high regard. They were very committed to God and to the Jewish community. They took the word of God seriously.
But the Pharisees had a way of using the Word of God so as to make themselves look good.
They used the Word of God as a set of rules.
Then around those rules they made other rules.
And when other people didn’t meet that standard the Pharisees would judge them as being less holy.
And Jesus takes the approach of these guys and makes it very clear that they are not acting in the way God wants them to.
We get a really good example of how they function by going down to Matthew 5:43
You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.”
You can sit and read through your whole Bible and you will not find the phrase “hate your enemy”.
So how come the Pharisees were teaching the people to “Love their neighbour and hate their enemy?” Well it was an interpretation of
Leviticus 19:18
Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the LORD.
There it is in Scripture - love your neighbour. But where does the “hate your enemy” part come from? It works like this:-.
(Give a Rabbi teaching voice)
God’s Word says, love your neighbour. But who is your neighbour? Well the Lord doesn’t leave us in the dark about this for Leviticus 19:18 says do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people. Did you see it? The application of this text is towards one of your people!!
That means your neighbour must be one of your fellow Jews … for he is one of your people. Now notice it doesn’t say anything about loving strangers and enemies. So when God tells you to love your neighbour that must mean you do the opposite for everyone else. To love your neighbour means to hate your enemy.
That’s how the teaching of the Pharisees worked.
So, when you are reading through Matthew 5:20-48 there is an important interpretative issue to keep in mind.
In Matthew 5 when Jesus starts a sentence with, “You have heard it said”
He is not saying, "this is the Word of God".
Rather “You have heard it said” is an indicator that the Pharisees have twisted the Word of God in some way.
So, definitely the Scriptures say:-
Do not murder … as quoted by Jesus in Matthew 5:21.
Do not commit adultery … as quoted by Jesus in Matthew 5:27.
Love your neighbour … as quoted by Jesus in Matthew 5:43.
But when the Pharisees consider the meaning of these Old Testament passages they do not teach the full situation correctly.
Do not murder …
also means not being angry.
Do not commit adultery …
also means not looking at a woman lustfully.
Love your neighbour …
also means loving your enemy.
The issue is not what the Pharisees are saying. It is what they are not saying.
The Pharisees are minimalists.
They have defined their relationship to God by a set of external rules.
All you need to do is keep these set of rules and everything would be ok.
But it is not ok. In fact, because they were they were creating some really big problems.
Here is an example:-
In those days the Jews had two types of chickens. Chickens which laid eggs and chickens which were fattened up to eat.
On the Sabbath day you could not eat eggs that were laid by an egg-laying chicken because the chicken had worked to lay that egg.
But, if your eating chickens laid an egg you could eat that one. Because the eating chicken wasn’t working … it had accidently laid an egg.
In the same way you couldn’t eat the fattened chicken on the Sabbath – because the work of the fattened chicken is to lay an egg. But if you were hungry and needed to eat you could eat the egg-laying chicken.
So that was a rule – about eggs and chickens.
But there were no rules about condemning your fellow Israelite to hell.
And the Pharisees didn’t have any rules about looking at naked women and wishing she was your wife … even when you were already married.
And when you had an enemy you took revenge – no matter what.
As long as you were eating the right eggs, you were ok.
Jesus says, “No you are not”.
You have heard that it was said …
But I say.
Jesus says, “Let me tell you what it is really like to live in my kingdom … to be a real kingdom citizen”.
Matthew 5:21-26 – But I say …
You may not have literally picked up the gun, but if you have been angry with someone you might as well have. You see murder is just anger that has been given its full expression. Why do you think they say, “If looks could kill ...”.
We know if looks could kill a lot more people would be on trial for murder.
Jesus doesn’t look at the actions. Jesus looks at the heart. What He wants to see is a heart that is going to bring about peace. If you are offering a gift and remember someone has something against you:-
… see this clearly – Jesus is not talking about times when you have something against others.
… it is when you remember that someone has something against you.
You may be at fault. You may not be at fault. But YOU are the one that goes.
You fix the issue. You be the peacemaker. That is the kingdom way.
You have heard that it was said …
But I say.
That is what it means to be a Kingdom citizen.
Matthew 5:43-48 – But I say …
The natural response is to take revenge and to get even. But that isn’t the way of God.
God sends the sun to shine on those who are good and bad.
God provides rain to the righteous and the unrighteous.
Even though they have turned away, God does not deal with His enemies with a spirit of hate.
Jesus is saying, when it comes to those around you need to put on a new set of glasses.
Love the unlovable.
Respect the unrespectable.
Show care for the obnoxious.
Don't have a spirit of loveless-ness, hatred and revenge towards your enemy.
It is so easy to get our backs up, “I have the right to be hurt”.
Yes but Jesus is calling us to take the responsibility to act differently.
You have heard that it was said …
But I say.
That is what it means to be a Kingdom citizen.
But I say …
It is such a different approach.
It doesn’t look at a situation and say, “What is the minimal amount I can get away with?”.
It looks at a situation and says, “Is there more that I can do here?”.
And what Jesus is doing is getting us to stop and ask a serious question.
Who am I?
Am I just a big-bummed, lazy, minimalist Pharisee sitting around using all sorts of rules and regulations which make ourselves look better than others so that we can feel that we have a special place in society?
Or am I someone who is seeing to live in the Freedom that God has given me.
Going into each day having the freedom to enjoy God.
Because that is the big issue at stake here.
God engages in our lives so that we have the freedom to enjoy that relationship.
Being a minimalist isn’t enjoyable and it doesn’t bring freedom.
Being minimalists makes us stingy and cranky.
Being minimalists changes nothing.
And I’m not content with that.
Because God has such a great big plan for me.
To show us the extent of that plan God comes into this world.
We know Him as Jesus. He is the answer to our minimalist attitudes.
He is murdered. Hated. Rejected. Hung on a cross nails in His hands.
He loves us which such intensity that He is willing to die for us and give us a new start.
He says I won’t divorce you. I won’t treat you like so many others who take you on and dump you. Even if you let go of Me I will not let go of you.
God comes into this world loving His enemies and He takes the maximum penalty. Death. Hell. Rejected by the Father. “My God my God why have you forsaken me?” – that is the question He asks on the cross.
I am dying because I love the people who are here.
They need to be cleansed and forgiven.
I am coming to renew them and help them to be on fire for me.
They are minimalists. I want them to be Kingdom citizens.
Don’t you want to be a kingdom citizen?
The reality is that there are heaps of people in the world who haven’t murdered someone else. Plenty of people who have taken this command and fulfilled it.
Does that mean that they are any closer to God?
It doesn’t … does it. All it means is that they have done the minimal amount to be seen to be ok.
How many people do you know who have not been angry with someone else?
Who have not judged and condemned?
Who seek reconciliation even when other people have hurt them, or had something done against them?
There are very few who are like that.
So where is the freedom? How can we even begin to enjoy God if Jesus makes the rules more harder to fulfil rather than easier?
Have you even been angry then come back and sought forgiveness admitting that you were wrong?
Have you ever gone to someone who has something against you … and it wasn’t even your fault … and sort to patch up the relationship?
Have you been that person who, rather than judging someone else and putting them down – even though so many others are judging and putting them down – that you are the person who gets beside them and loves them?
Could you do that in your own strength?
Could you do that without a heart which has been spiritually transformed?
You don’t have to be exceptionally special to avoid murdering someone.
But it takes a unique person – a transferred-by-the-Spirit-of-God person – to achieve what Jesus is calling us to achieve.
And it is precisely at that point that you find your freedom.
Jesus isn’t saying “don’t get angry at your brother” to create a new rule.
Jesus is saying, “In those times when you don’t get angry you can have the knowledge that I am with you. Because without Me you couldn’t do any of this.
You have heard that it was said …
But I say.
We can only be “but I say” people when Jesus has come into our lives and begin the work of spiritual transformation.
That is what it means to be a Kingdom citizen. And that is where true freedom is found.
So who are you today.
A minimalist Pharisee. Or a freedom-enjoying Kingdom citizen?
Prayer
