2b The Christian Life Means Loving your Enemy
Stand Firm: Living in a Post-Christian Culture • Sermon • Submitted
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We will continue our exploration of Standing Firm in a Post-Christian World. Last week we looked at living our neighbors as the first part Jesus commandment given in the Sermon on the Mount. Tonight we explore the rest of the commandment given by Jesus, Loving your enemies.
In the face of that self-righteous hatred, Christ confrontingly said:
44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is 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 do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
This is not just a rebuke and corrective to the rabbinical tradition. This is essentially the Son’s commentary on the Old Testament law, unpacking the fullness of what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. We can boil down Christ’s teaching here into three simple directives, the first of which is to love your enemies.
Directive #1 Love Your Enemies
Directive #1 Love Your Enemies
Matthew 5:44 (ESV)
44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
Jesus begins by saying, “But I say to you, love your enemies” (v. 44). As we’ve already seen, Israel’s religious elite had a hard time distinguishing between their neighbors and their enemies. That was essentially the issue that prompted the Lord to invent the parable of the good Samaritan.
25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” 29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
What were the circumstances that lead to Jesus telling this parable?
Luke’s gospel records that story of a scribe confronting Jesus, hoping to “put Him to the test. He pointedly asked Christ how to inherit eternal life, and Christ prompted him to recite a variation on the first and second great commandments: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself ” (v. 27). Christ replied, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live” (v. 28), but the scribe wasn’t satisfied. “Wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” (v. 29).
What did the parable of the Good Samaritan point out? Why did it offend the religious Jews so much?
The ensuing parable no doubt offended the sensibilities of Israel’s religious leaders, and not just because the priest and the Levite in the story showed such casual uninterest in helping their fellow countryman who had been robbed, beaten, and left half-dead by the side of the road. The real offense came in the form of the parable’s hero, a Samaritan whom all the Jews would have considered an avowed enemy. Christ’s story not only exposed the haughty self-righteousness of the religious leaders, but it provoked their prejudices too. There were no ethnic or religious lines that excused Israel’s animosity—anyone in their path with a need was to instantly become a potential object of their love.
In reality, Israel had been commanded in the Old Testament to treat both their neighbors and their enemies with the same kind of love. But Jesus, in classic rabbinical style reasoning from the greater to the lesser, immediately turned their attention to those hardest to love—those who were most offensive, objectionable, and distasteful. If you can faithfully love those kinds of people, you can love anyone.
It’s worth noting that the love we are instructed to show to our enemies in Matthew 5:44 is not emotional but volitional. The Greek word here (agapē ) speaks of the love of the will. It’s not related to any personal fulfillment; rather, it is focused on acting for the other person’s welfare and benefit. It’s not interested in reciprocation. It is the love of unmitigated benevolence, prompted by a pure and invincible goodwill toward any needy person we encounter. Luke’s gospel expands on Christ’s words in Matthew 5, adding two practical applications of the love we are to show our enemies: “Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you” (Luke 6:27–28). One commentator captures the weight of the Lord’s exhortation this way:
[Love] indeed, sees all the hatefulness 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 out; the higher love may see nothing attractive in the one so loved,. . . its inner motive is simply to bestow true blessing on the one loved, to do him the highest good. . . . I cannot like a low, mean criminal who may have robbed me and threatened my life; I cannot like a false, lying, slanderous fellow who, perhaps, has vilified 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, most of all to free them from their vicious ways.
After humbly stooping to wash the disciples’ feet, Christ told them, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you” (John 13:34). Make no mistake—the disciples were not lovable men. In the years they spent with the Lord, they were quarrelsome, jealous, selfish, vindictive, and occasionally at odds with Christ Himself. Yet He perpetually put their needs above His own, loving them in spite of themselves. In the end, He laid down His life for them (15:13).
In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ commands that we show that same kind of love to our enemies.
Directive #2 Pray for Your Persecutors
Directive #2 Pray for Your Persecutors
44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
Jesus’ words become more intense as He continues: “Pray for those who persecute you.” The Lord promised His disciples—and, by extension, all believers throughout the history of the church—that they would face persecution for His sake
20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.
In Matthew 5, He instructs us how to respond. He says to pray for those who are violent and hostile toward you. This is reminiscent of His statement at the end of the Beatitudes:
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Can you think of a time when Christ exemplified this attitude?
On the cross when He said,
34 And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments.
And God answered that prayer. He forgave one of the thieves (v. 43). He certainly forgave the centurion who was standing there (Matt. 27:54). And He forgave many people in that crowd, because they were regenerated on the day of Pentecost. In the agony of the cross, Christ was pleading with the Father for the sake of those who were inflicting His pain. That is how we are to desire the well-being of those who persecute us.
Stephen used one of his final breaths to cry out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” (Acts 7:60). And who was standing right in front of him with the garments of the witnesses at his feet? Luke recorded that it was “a young man named Saul” (v. 58)—a man who devoted his life to the persecution of the early church, only to encounter the Lord on the road to Damascus and become an Apostle himself. God obviously answered Stephen’s prayer on behalf of the Apostle Paul. In that sense, Paul was the fruit of Stephen’s prayer. Stephen understood what it means to selflessly love those who persecute you, as he was praying to God for their forgiveness and redemption while they were still stoning him to death.
Again, we should hear the words of Bonhoeffer, who served as a pastor in Germany and was put to death by the Nazis. Regarding the command to love our enemies, he wrote: “This is the supreme demand. Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God.”
Faithfully praying for your persecutors is the noble high ground of godliness. Christ instructs us not just to forgo revenge but to petition Him on behalf of our oppressors and tormenters. Loving our enemies means pleading with God for their forgiveness and repentance.
Directive #3 Manifest Your Sonship
Directive #3 Manifest Your Sonship
Why are we commanded to Love our Enemy and Pray for those who persecute us?
45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is 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.
Commands don’t always come with explanations. We’re not always told why we’re commanded to do something. But in Matthew 5:45, Jesus tells us why we are commanded to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors, and the reason points us to a glorious, climactic reality. He says, “So that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” This is an incredible statement. We demonstrate that we are children of God when we manifest His characteristics. How will the world know we truly belong to Him unless we love as He loves? And the more we behave in a godly manner, the more readily apparent it becomes that we are His children and possess His character.
Scripture is clear that our love is a powerful testimony to our sonship. The Lord told His disciples,
35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
What does the Apostle John tell us about God and his nature in 1 John 4?
In his first epistle, the Apostle John wrote,
16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
Moreover, he wrote,
20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
Our love for others speaks volumes—particularly our love for the unlovable and for those who are unloving toward us.
In situations where we are confronted with the call to love our enemies, we need to remember that God loves His enemies too. While it’s true the Lord’s anger burns against the wicked and that He will one day pour out His wrath on the rebellious, at the same time, there is also a sense in which He shows His love to all mankind impartially. Theologians call this the doctrine of common grace, and we see examples of it in Scripture and throughout our daily lives.
Psalm 145 highlights one example. What is it trying to say?
15 The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. 16 You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing.
Put simply, God feeds everyone.
Is there an example of God’s common grace given to us in the Sermon on the Mount?
45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is 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.
God’s common grace to all men is on display every day in His creation. To both the saved and the unsaved, He gives sunlight and rain to sustain life and grow food. He makes our lives possible. As Paul said in his sermon on Mars Hill, “In Him we live and move and exist” (Acts 17:28).
So this leads to ask, does God really love the lost? If he does how?
We can quickly touch on some other aspects of God’s love that extend even to His enemies. God loves the lost in that He holds back His wrath. In
10 For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.
Paul refers to the Lord . This isn’t saying that all men will be spiritually and eternally saved; rather, Paul has in mind the Lord’s temporal protection of the lost against His immediate righteous judgment. Every breath an unregenerate person takes is another act of grace from a merciful, saving God. Not only that, but God also loves the lost in that He warns them of the judgment they will face unless they repent. In His Word and through His people, God is constantly calling sinners to turn from their ways and submit to Him in faith. Jesus put it this way: “The one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out” (John 6:37). We have the privilege of extending God’s love to the lost by calling them to repentance and faith.
We also see God’s love for the lost in His compassion. Scripture is clear that God is grieved by the perversion of His image in man’s rebellion and by the eternal consequences of unrepentant sin. Luke 19:41 tells us Christ wept for Jerusalem. Matthew recorded the Lord’s lament over the city: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD !’” (23:37–39). Our God has great compassion for the lost. We must cultivate the same kind of compassion for the sinners in our midst, spurring us on to proclaim His truth.
That’s the love of God that extends to everyone, and the kind of love we must show to others if we’re going to be identified as His children. This love is not limited to some narrow definition of who qualifies as your neighbor, as the Jews had done. It’s not limited to only the people you happen to like or the people who naturally attract your affection. It extends even to people who hate you and those who would wound, defraud, and persecute you. It extends to people who are outside your social circles—even to those on the fringes of society. And it’s not just for your family and friends. Christ points out that even rank sinners and pagans can show affection for loved ones (Matt. 5:46–47).
Jesus is saying that there is a love of God that extends beyond His love for His own. God loves even His enemies— those who hate Him, those who hated His Son, and those who persecute His people to this day.
And if we are going to be known as our Father’s children, we need to manifest that same kind of love for the lost. He demonstrates His love to sinners through general goodness, pity, warning, admonition, real grief over their plight, and a pleading offer of the saving gospel. We must love our neighbors—including our enemies —in the same way. We need to prioritize their general welfare. If that means a meal, clothing, money, or some other kind of assistance, we give it freely, out of a sincere desire for their good. More than that, we show them pity, compassion, and grief over their slavery to sin and the consequences that await if they do not repent. Loving our enemies also means warning them of God’s judgment and faithfully, lovingly admonishing them to repent and believe while there is still time. That is loving our neighbors the way God loves.
Christ’s words in Matthew 5:48 tell us what we likely already know: that such perfect love is impossible on our own.
48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
The point of the Sermon on the Mount was to expose the futility of the Jews’ self-righteous religion. Over and over, sinful man is confronted with his inability to meet God’s standard on his own terms. Holiness and righteousness are beyond our reach.
But the point is not to send us into despair. Rather, it’s to drive us into the arms of our Savior. It’s to burn the truth of Matthew 19:26 into our minds—that
26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Even as new creations in Christ, we constantly need to be reminded not to rely on ourselves—to push aside the pride and self-righteousness that come so easy to us all. We need to recognize the weakness of our flesh and cast ourselves onto the mercy and strength of our Lord.
And as He sheds His love abroad in our hearts, may we learn to share it faithfully—not only with our fellow believers and others who are easy to love, but with all our neighbors, and particularly those who are difficult to love, and even those who qualify as our enemies. May the Lord soften our hearts for the people He’s placed in our midst, and may we be mindful that we were once His enemies and would still be if it weren’t for His great love.
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