Testing the Limits of Love

ILL: When I was a young man, I decided to test my father one day. I was a senior in high school with a bad case of senior-itis, feeling my oats, I just declared- I’m not going to school today. When my father disagreed with my assessment, I can’t remember exactly what was said after that, except that it wasn’t long until he was in my face, I was against the wall, and I went to school.

Testing limits runs in our veins. It’s why we have cars, why we can fly, why man has been to the moon. We push our limits as far as we can go, in almost every area of life except one. That’s the area that Jesus is testing our limits of today.

Matthew 5:43–48, this text is from the sermon on the Mount, it’s the last of our series called Kingdom Principles.

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? 48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

When I read this, the first thing that comes to my mind is that this commandment to love our enemies tests the limits of our love. Wherever you set the borders of your love- your family, your friends, your church, your neighbors; wherever you set those edges, I would bet that it doesn’t include those who hate you, those who curse you, those who use you, and even abuse you.

No, we have limits to our love. Those are limits that Jesus is testing today with this commandment to love our enemies.

1. Loving our enemies will test our BEHAVIOR-

How we respond to people that hate us.

We understand the commandment to love our neighbor is an ancient commandment- Leviticus 19:17-18, You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke (reprove) your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Context of this commandment was God’s moral law for Israel, a repetition of the 10 Commandments and Book of the Covenant between God and His people. Aside from loving God, this is the central point of all the law. In fact, Jesus taught that the first and great commandment was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and that the 2nd was like it- to love your neighbor as yourself. On these two things, He said, hangs all the law & the prophets.

So what is He doing here? He is basing Christian love in two things- the ancient commandment to love your brother and neighbor, and even extend that love to your enemies. Let’s be clear about our designations because sometimes we confuse the two:

A neighbor is the person who is nearest you at any given time (e.g. the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25-37). This story tells us that cultural, ethnic, & religious differences does not make someone an enemy. Differences, dislikes and disagreements do not an enemy make.

What makes someone an enemy is not how you feel about them, but how they treat you. If they curse you, hate you, mistreat and persecute you, that is an enemy. Our enemies are the very people Jesus says we are to love.

That’s what will test the limits of our behavior- how we respond to people that hate us. According to Jesus-

An enemy is someone who curses, hates, mistreats & persecutes you. How do you love someone like that? (not with feelings but with actions)

If they curse you, you bless them

If they hate you, you do good to them

If they mistreat and persecute you, you pray for them.

King Jesus is the best example we have for how to treat an enemy.

When people beat him, he blessed them

When people hated him, he died for them

When people crucified him, he prayed for them

1 Peter 2:21–24, For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: 22 “Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth”; 23 who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; 24 who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.

Loving our enemies will test our behaviors, and their root- our beliefs.

2. Loving our enemies will test our BELIEFS-

What we believe about God, Who He is and What He does for us, and how He treats those against Him

At the heart of all our behaviors are our beliefs. There are times when behaving a certain way will change the way you feel about someone. Not so when loving your enemies. If hate is in your heart, you can only act out of hate. When love is in your heart, you act out of love, and that love has to be based in something or someone that is greater than you. In this text, that love is God’s love.

i.e. Loving our enemies is based on the CHARACTER of God. God is the one who makes the sun to rise on both the evil and the good. He is the one who sends rain on the just and the unjust, both the righteous and the unrighteous.

What that means is that God doesn’t categorize people based on their character. No, He is good to all because of HIS character. He is a Good, Good, Father.

Romans 5:8, But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And we think, what’s the big deal, everyone is a sinner, all are separated from God, all have fallen short of his glory, so what?

We forget, or never knew, how bad our sin is, and if we don’t know how bad sin is we don’t understand how good God has been. Sin is not just a little white lie, a little thing, some minor fault that I need to change. No, sin is absolute rebellion against our Maker, Sustainer, Redeemer, and Friend. It is to walk in direct disobedience to His will and ways. It is to say- I want this more than I want you (the lust of the flesh & eyes). It is to thumb our nose at God and say I am the captain of my own ship, the master of my own soul (pride). It is to be (as Eph 4:18-19) separated from the life of God, ignorant of the works of God, blind to the things of God, and hard hearted toward the love of God. In a word, it means enmity with God- we hate Him and we are hostile to Him. We are His enemies!

Yet, He has loved us so much that even when we were His enemies, He was our friend! Romans 5:10, For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. Loving our enemies tests our beliefs about the goodness of God and His grace towards us in the Lord Jesus. If He could love us as bad as we were, how could we not love others, bad as they treat us?

3. Loving your enemies will test our BOUNDARIES-

just who do we love? only those that love us? Only those that are like us? if we do, how does that make us different from anybody else? Even tax collectors and unbelievers do that- we should do more!

What Jesus teaches us about this is that there are no Categories or Conditions for the people we are to love.

No Categories: good and evil, righteous or unrighteous. We are to love all people, even when they are not like us physically, do not share the same ideology, aren’t on the same socio-economical level, don’t hold to biblical values we believe in or trust God. We are not to put people into different categories in order to love them.

No Conditions:

What good is it to love those who love you back? The worst people (e.g. tax collectors) in the world love those who love them back.

What does it matter if you welcome people who are just like you (e.g. brothers)? Even unbelievers (e.g. Gentiles, heathens) do that.

There are no categories or conditions that make people more lovable, because loving people is to be based on God’s love, not our’s. His character in us, not their’s. That’s what makes this last point all the more important.

We are never more like God than when we love those that hate us.

4. Loving your enemies will test our BELONGING-

do we belong to God? Is He our Father? Is Christ our Brother? Is Heaven our home?

We need to remember the context of the sermon on the mount. Jesus is taking the commandments of God and the traditions of men, the things that his disciples had been taught and heard, and he qualifies them for a new Kingdom- the Kingdom of God, the one in which God reigns supreme, Christ is Lord over all, the citizens are all indwelt by the Spirit, and His people reflect His character.

What is His character? It is perfect. God is completely holy, righteous, and good.

What is our character? Are we perfect? Of course not! We are straight out of luck.

Most English translations use the word perfect, but the original actually means mature or complete. If we learn to love our enemies, then we will be more like God than we ever have been. This is like the piece de resistance of the Christian life, the show piece, the highlight, the hallmark characteristic of Christians- love others, even your enemies, like God has loved you, His enemy.

This is the very thing that makes us most like God and fits us for heaven.

There’s going to be a lot of people in heaven that do not share our physical characteristics, are not on the same socio-economic status, do not hold the same interpretations of the Bible, and dare I say it- agree with us politically.

There’s going to be people who wear masks & don’t wear masks, who get vaccines & don’t get vaccines, who vote republican and democrat, oh, and by the way, most of them won’t be American Christians anyway... How we love and treat those who differ from us, disagree with us, dislike us, and would destroy us if they could- that is what makes us complete as Christians and ready for the Kingdom of God.

So, have we tested your limits of love? How you treat those that hate you? What you believe about God’s love for you? Whether or not you can push the boundaries of your love beyond those who love you, to those don’t look like you, can’t do anything for you, do not agree with, and who hate you?

Loving your enemies is Kingdom love. Are you in the Kingdom of God?

Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 5

5:1–12 Chapters 5–7 contains Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which describes how members of the kingdom of heaven should live. Jesus’ statements in vv. 3–12 are known as the Beatitudes. This is the first of five primary speeches by Jesus and sets the tone for the rest of Matthew’s Gospel.

Prior to this point, John the Baptist preached about the immediacy of God’s kingdom, viewing baptism as a means of entrance (3:2, 6). Here, Jesus gives instructions about how members of the kingdom should live, instructions fleshed out in the remainder of Matthew’s Gospel through parables and examples from Jesus’ life.

Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 5

5:21–48 Jesus presents six antitheses—statements using opposites to make a point—to illustrate what it means to have a righteousness that surpasses that of the scribes (teachers of the law) and Pharisees. The righteousness required of Jesus’ disciples goes beyond the observation of the written law. However, Jesus’ teaching here does not overturn the existing Jewish law; it merely supplements or elaborates its teachings with principles for living the ethics of the kingdom of heaven (see note on Matt 5:17).

Matthew 5:43–48, 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? 48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

1. To Love our neighbor is a COMMANDMENT.

To Love our neighbor is an ancient commandment- Lev. 19:18

Who is my neighbor? the person who is nearest you at any given time (e.g. the Good Samaritan)

Cultural, ethnic, & religious differences do not discriminate our neighbors, nor does it make someone an enemy.

What makes someone an enemy is not how you feel about them, but how they treat you.

If they curse you, hate you, mistreat and persecute you, they are an enemy.

Our enemies are the very people Jesus says we are to love.

2. CHRISTIAN Love has a Kingdom Qualifier- love your enemies.

We are to love our neighbors and our enemies, because we are to love all people. This is what it means to live in the Kingdom of God and for Jesus to be your Lord.

To Love our enemies is a Kingdom Qualifier | dealing with a Kingdom Context

An enemy is someone who curses you, hates you, mistreats and persecutes you...

How do you love someone like that? (not with feelings but with actions)

If they curse you, you bless them

If they hate you, you do good to them

If they mistreat and persecute you, you pray for them.

King Jesus is the best example we have for how to treat an enemy.

When people beat him, he blessed them

When people hated him, he died for them

When people crucified him, he prayed for them

What makes Loving our enemies a Kingdom Qualifier is the Character of God.

3. Loving our enemies is based on the CHARACTER of God.

God is the one who makes the sun to rise on both the evil and the good. He is the one who sends rain on the just and the unjust, both the righteous and the unrighteous.

What that means is that God doesn’t categorize people based on their character. No, He is good to all because of HIS character.

Christian love in the Kingdom of God means:

There are no Categories for the people we are to love- we love a good person, but not an evil one; a righteous one but not an unrighteous.

We are to love all people, even when they are not like us physically, do not share the same ideology, aren’t on the same socio-economical level, don’t hold to biblical values we believe in or trust God. We are not to put people into different categories in order to love them.

Thank the Lord that even when we were enemies He died for us.

There are no Conditions on the people we are to love.

What good is it to love those who love you back? The worst people in the world love those who love them back.

What does it matter if you welcome people who are just like you? Even unbelievers do that.

Thank the Lord that when we had nothing to bring, He still loved us.

There are no categories or conditions that make people more lovable, because loving people is to be based on our character and not their’s. That’s what makes this last point all the more important.

We are never more like God than when we love those that hate us.

4. Loving our enemies makes us COMPLETE.

The word perfect doesn’t mean perfection, it means complete or mature. It’s not that we are ever sinless in this life, but we learn to sin less, and that includes how we love those that hate us. That characteristic is lacking from most of us, but it’s that very thing that makes us most like God and fits us for heaven.

There’s going to be people who wear masks & don’t wear masks, who get vaccines & don’t get vaccines, who vote republican and democrat, oh, and by the way, most of them won’t be American Christians anyway... How we love and treat those who differ from us and disagree with us, is what makes us complete as Christians and ready for the Kingdom of God.

So rate your love level- where is it? Do you love those who love you? Do you love those who don’t look like you? Do you love this can’t do anything for you? Do you love those who don’t like you? Do you love those who hate you and would level you if they ever got the chance?

That’s the kind of love that belongs in the Kingdom, so do you belong in the Kingdom?

Luke 6:27–35 (NKJV)

Rules of Kingdom Life

Matt. 5:39–48; 7:1, 2, 12

27 “But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. 29 To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. 30 Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back. 31 And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.

32 “But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. 35 But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil.

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