Love Your Enemies: Sermon on the Mount with Sinclair Ferguson

0:02 Now we're coming to the sixth of our studies in the Sermon on the Mount and to the concluding words of Matthew's Gospel, chapter 5. Let me just remind you of where we are in Jesus' teaching. He has taught the people that the kingdom of God has come. He's demonstrated the power of that kingdom in the miracles of restoration that he's accomplished. And now he's teaching his people how the gospel transforms the life that kingdom people lead and live. He has taught them something about their blessedness. Interesting today, isn't it, that you often hear people use that term, I'm very blessed. And you want to go to them and say, are you blessed because you are poor in spirit, because God has taken hold of you in this way? are you really just saying in a religious way, I've been very lucky in my life? No, Jesus is speaking about a deep down transformation, so much so that his disciples live out a life of righteousness that is much more profound and much more impactful than that of the Pharisees. It is actually possible to intimidate people by your religious practices.

1:28 You've probably met some people who are so intimidatingly religious that they are off-putting. And Jesus is teaching righteousness that goes down so far that instead of producing people who are intimidating, it produces people who are meek, people who have this wonderful sense of poise about their lives, that they are able to be generous. They're delivered from the superglue of their own greed. And so he's saying, now, God's law was always meant to point us back to the beautiful life of freedom and joy that God intended us to have in the beginning. And he's coming now to the last of these illustrations where he's been contrasting the way in which the law was misinterpreted and misused with the way in which we should use it properly.

2:31 And he comes to another famous statement, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." Now, here is another point when it's pretty clear here, isn't it, that he's not speaking about the law that God gave, but the way in which that law was misinterpreted and misapplied. You love your neighbor? Ah, the people said. Well, the logic is if you love your neighbor, you what your enemy. If you love your neighbor, then you hate your enemy. That's logical, isn't it? That's what God wants. Well, of course, Jesus is pointing out that indeed it's far from logical. I had a philosophy professor. I was a philosophy student when I was a youngster. I had a philosophy professor who, like all other philosophy professors, terrible illustrations. And his great illustration of the law of contradiction was this. Professor Wernham takes tea with sugar is not the opposite of Mrs. Wernham doesn't take tea with sugar.

3:49 He was trying to teach us the difference between something that is a real contradiction and something that's a false contradiction. And these teachers of old had come up with a very false contradiction. Love your neighbor does not mean hate your enemy. And Jesus is wanting to explore that for what does it mean for us actually to love our neighbor? Now, it might be said, well, isn't it really biblical to love your neighbor and hate your enemy? And what about these prayers that we find in the Psalms, the imprecatory prayers? What about the actions of Elijah? Well, you will notice whenever there are, whenever these defenses of the kingdom against the violent attacks of the powers of darkness, there is always this sense about them that the person who is engaged in them is not acting in a private capacity.

5:02 He is acting in a deep consciousness that God has given him a position. David has been given the position of the king. And what is taking place is actually going to destroy that kingdom. It's going to destroy those people. And so it's appropriate for him to resist evil and to resist enemies. But Jesus is saying, you shouldn't take these unusual illustrations from the Old Testament and universalize them and say, well, David said it, so I can say it. Because you're not David. Because you're not the king. Actually, come to think about it, you don't even live in a monarchy. This is not your role in society. So Jesus is saying it was a huge mistake to take that principle of resisting enemies, which was a principle to be employed by the king for the state, and then to apply it to your private life and say, if anyone is my enemy, I will kick them in the teeth.

6:14 So, no, there is no antithesis here. Love your neighbor. Hate your enemy. The truth of the matter is you need to discover what Scripture says about the identity of your neighbor. There is a wonderful passage, isn't there, later on in the Gospels when a lawyer asks Jesus the question, what's the greatest commandment? Love God with all your heart and soul. Love your neighbor as yourself. Next question. He was a good lawyer, wasn't he? Next question. I'll get him. Next question. Who is my neighbor? Do you remember the answer Jesus gives to that question? I mean, not just the fact that he tells this great story of the Good Samaritan, but the really, the thing that I think must have made people in the back of the crowd give one another high fives at the end was that the way Jesus turned it around and said to the lawyer, Now tell me, Mr. Lawyer, which of these three men proved to be the neighbor to the man who was in need?

7:28 You see how he turned it around? The man was wanting to know, how can I limit my responsibilities? What's the circumference within which people are neighbors and outside of which they're not neighbors? And Jesus is saying, no, the really significant thing is you are the neighbor. And everyone who is in need is the person to whom you are to be neighbor. So rather than love your neighbors and therefore hate your enemies, Jesus is saying, yes, love your neighbors and be neighbor even to those who turn out to be your enemies. Now, if we're to understand this aspect of living out the Christian life, Theologians often say to us that there are three principles that help us in the matter of practical Christian living or the Christian ethic.

8:26 One is this, what is the goal that is involved? The second is, what is the motive that is involved? And the third is, what is the standard that is involved? And you'll see, I think, all three of these in Jesus' teaching here. The goal is to love our neighbor to such an extent that we love even those who have become our enemies. And Jesus is able to say this because he teaches us that love is not something that overwhelms us and controls us. Love is a disposition of the Christian which the Christian exercises towards others. You know how we sometimes use this expression, you know, I fell in love. Why do you need to fall in love? What do we mean by saying, I fell in love?

9:29 love. We mean that something overwhelmed us, don't we? We were mastered. Our hearts were captured. That's love at the level of romantic experience. But the Bible's understanding of love is not dominated by this sense of, I'm overwhelmed by the loveliness of this object, but I am determined because Christ has given Himself for me that I will give myself for and to others.

10:08 Now, here's the million-dollar question. How do you do that when the person who is in view really is your enemy? How do you love your enemy? You see, the point I'm making is, you know, it's one thing to be told to love your enemy. Just imagine we were sitting here in a Bible study group and you're the leader and you say, now, what is it that Jesus is teaching here? And Mrs. Jones says, oh, he's teaching us here to love our enemies. We must love our enemies. And we're all sitting nodding. Yes, that's wonderful. We must all love our enemies. And then as the leader you say, how do you do that? How do you do that? You know what happens in the group. Either the very verbal person will give you all the answers or every eye will turn back to the Bible study leader and say, well, you tell us how we do it. You tell us how we do it. We haven't read that book, but Jesus tells us. Do you notice how he does? He doesn't say, now, pay attention, I'm about to announce to you how you do it, but he is telling us how we do it.

11:22 I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Now, notice that there's a radical difference from get your own back on those who persecute you. Hate your enemies. But it's not just an exhortation to pray. You know, so I must pray. It is that the Lord Jesus understands the moment you begin to pray for somebody who is your enemy, you can no longer treat them the way you naturally would have treated them. And it does several things. For one thing, it removes you from a situation in which you're trying to defend yourself against your enemy into a situation in which you are actually, you've become the active one in relationship to your enemy. You know, many enemies are intimidators, aren't they? They want to do you down, make you feel small. They are in control. But, you know, the truth of the matter is once you begin to pray for them, you become increasingly conscious. They are not in control.

12:34 The Lord is in control. And as I begin to pray for them, in a sense, they are huge in front of me, but I am looking to one who is, if I can invent the word, even huger. You see? And they are dwarfed. And I begin to see them in their true colors. They are but a creature of Almighty God. They are impoverished in life. because they're full of anger and hatred. And as soon as I begin to turn to the Lord about them and pray for them and ask the Lord to intervene in their lives and in their situations, and instead of that native instinct to get our own back, we begin to see them in a different light altogether, we begin to pity their situation. Because you see, the tragedy is they don't really understand themselves. They think they are big when actually they are small.

13:42 I remember visiting very high-end part of a particular city in the United States where I was preaching for a weekend, and it happened to be the weekend, I think it was a Reformation conference, and it happened to be, of course, the weekend of Halloween as well. And outside one of these very substantial, large houses, this man who I was told also flew in snow for Christmas Day, had this huge kind of giant King Kong the size of his house out there, you know, wow, he is really something. And as I was driven to church on the Sunday morning and looked over to the man's house, I realized somebody had come along with an air pistol and shot King Kong, and King Kong was, you know, he was just slumped in front of the man's house. Prayer is that air pistol when it comes to our enemies.

14:42 that they may necessarily realize what has happened, but they do begin to realize that we are not as small as we seemed because we have a great God, and they are not as big as they seemed. And what Jesus is driving at here is that we're turned outwards from ourselves.

15:05 You see, our instinct when somebody becomes our enemy is self-defense, isn't it? It's to withdraw, not to open our hearts. But now when we begin to pray, we've looked up to the Lord. We've seen their need. And the wonderful thing is we begin to focus more on their needs than on our weakness. Isn't this what Jesus did on the cross? Here he's surrounded by his enemies. He does this himself. They seem so strong. He seems so weak and frail. Father, forgive them because they don't actually realize what they're doing. So, first of all, Jesus gives us the goal. Love for neighbor extends even to our enemies. And this is so radically different from thinking that love your neighbor means hate your enemy. And then he gives us the motive. What is the motive?

16:12 Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. Now, in a sense, when we read that in the light of the whole Sermon on the Mount, we need to say, just hold that thought for a moment because we're going to hear a great deal more about this. So, while Jesus is dealing with this issue of loving even those who are enemies, He's giving us just a little, He's opening the door to what is going to be the big emphasis in chapter 6 that we understand we are not only blessed, but we understand that we are actually children of the heavenly Father. Why does that make a difference? Well, he tells us, you pray for those who persecute you because you are sons of a heavenly Father, and that heavenly Father makes his Son rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust. And what does amount to if you love those who love you? It was when we were still his enemies that God showed his love for us in giving his Son for us. And if at the end of the day we think our neighbors are just the people we like and therefore are to love, we're no different from the tax collectors. We're no different from the people we despise. They like each other.

17:53 There is honor among thieves. No, he says, here is the wonderful motive the gospel gives to you. You are a child of a heavenly Father who is generous to His enemies. Remember what family you're in. A friend told me years ago of an incident that took place in Buckingham Palace, where the chaplain, one of the royal chaplains, just happened to be in the palace when the The present Queen Elizabeth and her late sister were just small girls. They were dressed up in party frocks and they were being put into the royal limousine to be driven away to a party. And the Queen's mother, the late Queen mother, was standing beside the rather grand limo waving the royal finger at the royal children.

18:56 And the chaplain was nosy enough to stop and listen to what the royal voice was saying behind the royal finger. And the royal voice was saying, now remember, girls, royal children, royal manners. Royal children, royal manners. Isn't that what Jesus is saying? You know, when you realize who you are as a child of the heavenly Father, you have all motivation in the world to ask the Lord to help you to be like himself with respect to your enemies. So do you notice now what's happening? We're beginning to see our enemies for who they really are. They're desperately needy people, and we're beginning to see ourselves for who we really are. Father, we are royal children, and we have this wonderfully generous Heavenly Father.

19:54 And in that sense, this is the mystery of the Christian life to those who don't experience it. We can afford to be generous. We can afford to be super generous to our enemies and disarm them by that generosity because we belong to the heavenly Father. So, there is a goal and there's a motive, and do you notice there's also a standard? The goal is to love our neighbors, and that includes our enemies. The motive is to live as the kingdom children that we are, And so, what's the standard? Well, the standard appears in verse 48. You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Now, the word that's translated perfect here is a word that elsewhere in the New Testament we would translate mature. It almost means growing up.

21:06 And we might think that's what he means. He doesn't really mean that we should be perfect. It just means that we should be grown up, you know, that we should be generous, like grown ups should be generous and not like children always bickering over who wants what. But the fact of the matter is that the Heavenly Father is perfect. It's not just that he's mature, that he's older than we are, and he's been around the block. It is that he is absolutely perfect, and he shows that perfection in his generosity even to his enemies. And Jesus is saying to us, actually, that is the standard. A man who is a minister, a first minister of the church that we belong to in Scotland, Robert Murray McChain, once wrote in his diary by way of prayer, make me as holy as a saved sinner can be.

22:13 And I think of that in contrast with that prayer that Augustine wrote in his confessions in an earlier part of his life. Lord, give me chastity, but not yet. Give me chastity, but not yet. And Jesus is saying, we need to understand that as children of the Heavenly Father, He is our model. He is our standard. You know, if you're a dad, it's always with mixed emotions that you hear somebody say, you know, I met your son and he's just like you. And I think he doesn't look anything like me at all. What it means is because I happen to preach often, you keep looking at this face, and you've picked out things in his face, and you know where he got them. Well, we're not yet perfect.

23:07 But if we're children of the Heavenly Father, then in our love, even for our enemies, people begin to see, oh, he is so like the Heavenly Father. May God help us to live that way for his glory.