Love
Sermon Transcript
0:00:14.0
Good morning, everyone. They say that love is a many splendid thing, and it is. Especially the romantic kind between a man and a woman, between a husband and a wife. Love is also a many splendid thing when, well, let’s just say, one human being chooses to lay aside hatred and act in a loving kind of way toward another person. For centuries and in every generation we’ve tried to capture the essence of love. And perhaps nobody did that better than the Greeks many centuries ago. They had four words in their language to describe this mysterious thing we call love, something we learned from God who the Bible says is love. It’s the essence of who He is. It’s the essence of His character. But the Greeks had four words. The first was this word called eros. Eros was to describe sexual love. It’s where we get our word “erotic” and “erogenous.” It’s a word that you won’t find in the Greek New Testament anywhere, mostly because the Greeks way back in the 1st century had so perverted and so twisted the idea of sexual love, they had taken it outside the context of the boundaries that God had established for that kind of love, which was the marriage relationship. The Bible says that the marriage bed is honorable. It is a gift that God gives. But the Greeks had distorted that. They had perverted it. And so those who wrote the New Testament under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they never used the word eros.
0:01:56.4
Another word the Greeks used was storge. This is family love. This is a love that a mother and a father have for their children and that children have for their parents. Interestingly enough, it’s also a word that’s not found in the Greek New Testament. Not that it couldn’t be there, but the Holy Spirit didn’t choose to lead the writers of the New Testament to include that word.
0:02:17.5
If you’ve been to the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia, which is only three hours north of us here, you know what the third word is. And it’s that word phileo. It’s the word that Peter used when he had a conversation with Jesus after Jesus’s resurrection. Remember that breakfast on the beach? Jesus was serving up some fish and chips for the boys there. And He looks at Peter and He says, “Peter, do you love me?” And Peter says, “Yes, Lord, I phileo you.” It’s the highest form of human love that any of us can muster up apart from divine help.
0:02:52.9
And then there is the word agape, that uniquely Christian word that describes God-like love, God’s love toward us. It’s a divine love. We like to say that agape love is unconditional love. It’s also indiscriminate. It’s the way God loves. And all of that is important background for us to have as we go back to our study of the Sermon on the Mount, and this time to chapter 5 verses 43-48. Jesus ends, really, the first third of the message landing upon this notion of love. And like He has done in previous weeks, what He says about the standard, the standard of love that He establishes, is nothing less than radical.
0:03:40.3
Let’s take a look at it. You read along as I read aloud in verse 43 and following. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 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, 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. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” Now He says in verse 48, “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
0:04:49.0
Now, these words from Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount describe the highest of Christian ethics and obligations, this idea of love. A four-letter word here, L-O-V-E. The highest of Christian ethics, the highest of Christian obligations. And it shouldn’t surprise us that Jesus goes there at the end of this section of the Sermon on the Mount, the end of the first third, because He’s been making an argument throughout chapter 5 that our righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees or we have no chance of getting into the kingdom of heaven. And He makes that argument in six little, kind of, mini sermonettes, dipping His thoughts into at least three places in the Ten Commandments- the sixth commandment, the seventh commandment, and the third commandment. He also lands upon aspects of the civil code. We talked last week about the law of retaliation—an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth—and the implications of that today.
0:05:49.5
But now He reaches for what some would describe—what even Jesus described—as a portion of the summary of all the law and the prophets. You may remember in Mark 6 or so that somebody came to Jesus and said, “What is the greatest commandment, rabbi?” And that was an easy one. Any rabbi knew this. “It’s to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, with all of your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.” And the questioner looked at Jesus and said, “You got it right. You got it right.” And so Jesus comes back to that statement, at least a portion of it. The summary of all the law and the prophets, if you could summarize it in one statement it would be to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. And He says to them, “You have heard that it was said…” And here is where the Pharisees had twisted this. Here is where they had perverted it. Here is where they had changed it enough to accommodate their own prejudices and all that kind of stuff. He says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’”
0:07:06.5
Where would they get an idea like that? But in true form, what the Pharisees had done is they had taken this law of love in the Old Testament and, again, they had twisted it. They had perverted, like they had done other things. And they had done it basically three ways. First, by narrowing the definition of a neighbor. They narrowed the definition of the neighbor to basically include those people they liked, those people who thought like them and dressed like them and talked like them and ran in the same social circles as them, those of the same ethnicity. You know, it’s not difficult to love your neighbor if you have a very narrow definition of who my neighbor is. This exclusive club of people I’ll call my neighbors.
0:07:53.2
But Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan and kind of blew that out of the water. Do you remember that? The story about a guy who was walking down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, a dangerous place filled with robbers and bandits. And the robbers and bandits came over the guy and hurt him and left him for dead on the side of road. And, low and behold, a priest comes along, a Jewish priest, and passes by on the other side. The Levite comes along, passes by on the other side. And then a Samaritan comes along, this good Samaritan. And he renders aid to this man on the side of the road. The whole point of the story was to answer the question, who is my neighbor? And the idea was that the answer was a lot broader than what the Pharisees had allowed for and what they wanted. And the answer to the question was your neighbor is anybody who comes across your path that is in need, regardless of ethnicities, okay. But the Pharisees had done this masterful job of narrowing the definition of neighbor.
0:08:55.2
Second thing they did was they subtracted the words “as yourself.” You see that back in verse 43? Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said…” This was the common notion in the streets and in the synagogues that you’re to love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Now, wait a minute. Where did the “as yourself” part go? “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It’s an important part. Because you know what? Nobody loves you more than you do. And I don’t mean that in an arrogant, egotistical kind of way. I mean, psychologists will tell us that even those of us who have a healthy self-esteem, there’s an aspect to that that is self-love. So the ethic of loving your neighbor, the bar goes up, doesn’t it, when we put the words “as yourself” there because we don’t want to—nor should we—love our neighbor less than we love ourselves. But the Pharisees had subtracted that out. The common notion was, “Yeah, love your neighbor,” that narrow definition of a neighbor. And the implication was you can love your neighbor less than you love yourself too.
0:10:00.7
So they subtracted the words as yourself, and they also added the words “and hate your enemy.” Now, where in the world did they come up with something like that? They wrongly assumed that “love your neighbor” also meant the opposite, that if I love my neighbor—this narrow definition of a neighbor—that there is also room for me to hate my enemy. Where in the world would they come up with an idea like that now? In all fairness to the Pharisees…and every once in a while we want to cut these guys some slack because they’re not unlike us, right? In all fairness to the Pharisees, they might have read some portions in the Old Testament that gave them the permission, perhaps, to hate their enemies.
0:10:45.6
Turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm 139. I love Psalm 139. It is one of my favorites in all of the Bible, certainly one of my favorites in the book of Psalms. I memorized Psalm 139 when I was about 16 years of age. Our youth department challenged us with a scripture memory program. And I tackled Psalm 139. And the pastor was so impressed with it, he put me up in front of the congregation. I had my brown leisure suit on with my silk, kind of, western shirt. There is a tape somewhere, I know, floating around Indiana. Please nobody find it. But it was the first time I ever stood in front of a congregation. And I remember saying these words by memory, and even verbalizing verses 19-22, which were even a little disturbing to me back then. But listen to these. Kind David says, “Oh, that You would slay the wicked, O God! Depart from me, therefore, you bloodthirsty men. For they speak against You wickedly; Your enemies take Your name in vain. Do I not hate them, O Lord, who hate You? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.” Now, 30 some years ago when I was 16 years of age, that was disturbing to me then. But now in a political culture where we have hate crimes legislation and we talk about hate speech, it’s disturbing even more, isn’t it? Is this hate speech from the Bible? Well, let’s understand it in the context here.
0:12:24.4
There is a category of psalms that theologians refer to as the imprecatory psalms. And Psalm 139, the section that I just read, is one of those sections. And there are many other psalms like it where King David mostly wails against the enemies of God and names among his own enemies those bloodthirsty enemies of God. And it’s some strong language here. Now, you’ve got to understand, David was a man after God’s own heart. And part of what that means is David loved with a perfect love the things that God loved. And likewise, he hated with a perfect hatred the things that God hated. Now, you remember a few weeks ago when we talked about anger. And Jesus said if you have anger in your heart it’s the same as violating that sixth command that says you shall not murder. And we said there is a category of anger called righteous anger. The Bible says, “Be angry and sin not.” But we also said at that time that not many of us display righteous anger. Not much of our anger is considered righteous. But there is that notion of righteous anger. Jesus displaced it when He cleansed the temple not once, but twice in His ministry.
0:13:44.9
But likewise, there is something that David refers to as perfect hatred. It is hating the things that the holiness of God hates and hating that in a perfect kind of way. It doesn’t take away how disturbing those words are to me, even in the context of our modern era. I’m just suggesting that maybe that’s where the Pharisees got this idea of you can love your neighbor, and at the same time there is room in our hearts to hate our enemies. I’m not suggesting anything other than that, but maybe that’s where they got the idea.
0:14:29.6
Now, some of you may be sitting there and saying, “You know, love your enemies. That’s great. I don’t know that I have an enemy. I’ve got a few people in life who annoy me. A few people who are kind of disturbing to me. A few people who are kind of like, you know, these little yippy dogs coming. But I don’t know that I could classify them as my enemy.” It reminds me of when I was a fourth year seminary student in graduate school. And I was exercising my right to be apathetic. I was not adhering to the dress code on campus. And I was only taking a few classes, and I walked into this Old Testament class. It was probably the final semester of my fourth year. It was an afternoon class. I was sitting in the back. And a brilliant Old Testament scholar named Dr. Chisholm was wax eloquently in the psalms. And I was kind of half listening. And he landed upon the imprecatory psalms. And he talked about David wailing against the enemies of God and naming the enemies of God among his own enemies. And I just remember in a hasty moment raising my hand in the back of the room and saying, “Prof, excuse me, but I don’t get it. I don’t understand David because I don’t have any enemies.” Do you ever say something that, as soon as you say it, you realize how foolishly you’ve spoken? It was one of those moments. And suddenly the room got real silent. There were about 25 students in the room, and most of them were looking in the back of the room. “Who is the idiot in the back who was saying that?” And Dr. Chisholm was kind of a character. And he loved to take moments like that and just let the pause grow pregnant. And I was just, you know, waiting for it to come. And he kind of leaned over his lectern. And he wore his glasses down on the end of his nose like a good prof would. And he just looked at me. And he says, “Jones, go pastor a church for five years and then give me a call.” (Laughter) Actually, I didn’t laugh. I kind of slumped in my chair. And I thought to myself, does he know something I don’t know? I’m just getting started in ministry. But, you know, he was right except for one thing. I didn’t take five years. No sir-ee.
0:16:44.1
Well, maybe you’re sitting here, and you're saying, “No, I know exactly what an enemy looks like because I serve in the military. We know how to profile an enemy combatant.” And with the shootings at Fort Hood this week, we know that there are enemies within as much as there are enemies without. We know what that’s all about. Maybe you’re in politics. You’ve been in Washington here long enough to know what a political enemy looks like. I remember back during the Nixon years he was famous for his enemies list, if you can imagine such a thing. I suspect there are a few enemies lists around Washington even today. Maybe you’re just a rabid Redskins fan. And you know that when the Cowboys come to town, you know what an enemy looks like. It’s the one with the stars on their helmet.
0:17:28.1
Or maybe you’ve just got somebody in your place of work or in your neighborhood, a friend of yours who is standing in opposition to you for some reason. I mean, somebody who just kind of has your number. And in this dog-eat-dog world in which we live, they have risen up against you for some reason. And maybe it’d be too harsh to call them an enemy, but they’re opposing you in some way. It’s been many years since I sat in Dr. Chisholm’s class. In fact, this fall I entered my 19th year of ministry. And I now have a different perspective on what he’s talking about, because as sad as it may seem, I’ve served enough churches to know that, yeah, there are sometimes there are people—even in a congregation as sweet as it seems—that rise up against the leadership of the church. And it’s a sad thing.
0:18:31.6
What I have learned is not to debate the fact that these things happen. In fact, as I continued in my study of the scripture and in the ministry over the years, I have found that this was rather common among God’s leaders. David had his enemies. In fact, when he was anointed the king, his first enemy was the Lord’s former anointed, King Saul. King Saul grew jealous of David. So much so that one day as David was playing his harp, Saul (0:19:00.0) took his spear and thrust it across the room to try to pin David against the wall. David escaped that day.
0:19:05.7
I think of Moses. His own sister and brother opposed his spiritual leadership and rose against him. Miriam and Aaron I’m speaking of. I think of Nehemiah. You ever read the book of Nehemiah? Nehemiah was the guy that God used to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem in 52 days. But he had vision vandals named Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem that were thorns in his side, wanted to destroy the work of God. You can read about them in the book of Nehemiah. Even the Lord Jesus Christ had His enemies, didn’t He? One of them rose up from within the 12. His name was Judas. Sold Him off for a few pennies.
0:19:49.8
I read the New Testament. I read the works of the apostle Paul. The apostle Paul mentions a guy named Alexander the coppersmith. He said, “He did me much harm,” (0:20:00.0) Paul says. You have anybody in your life who is doing you much harm? Is rising up against you and opposing you in some way? This is immensely practical for any of us in this room. And here is one of the things that I’ve learned over the years is that I can’t let someone else’s opposition to me rule me or control me. I can’t let that become the foundation of how I live my life or live out my calling to ministry. And that is immensely practical for any of us in this room. The fact that we have enemies, the fact that we have people oppose us in all walks of life is undebatable. The question though is, how do we respond to them? And Jesus says the idea that you can narrow your definition of who your neighbors and your friends and your cliquey little circle of folks that you love and hate your enemies…no, that isn’t going to work. He introduces this radical idea of loving your enemies, blessing those who curse you, doing good to those who hate you, and praying for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.
0:21:20.1
I’m the first to tell you it looks real good on paper, all right. But it’s hard to live this out unless that agape love is flowing through you. That’s that God-like kind of love where He gives us the resources and the assistance to respond in a God-like way. Let me give you three reasons from the text here why we should consider implementing this theory of loving our neighbors. Let me just put it that way, because I know it’s hard to do. Every carnal and fleshy thing inside of me says, “No, I want to hate my enemy. I want an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth with my enemy.” To love my enemy, to bless my enemy, to do good to that person who opposes me? It just goes against every…everything you learn in Washington, right? Politics or otherwise.
0:22:21.5
Three reasons. First of all, to demonstrate that we are truly sons of God, sons and daughters of God. Look at it again in verse 45. He says love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, “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.” I love that little weather lesson He gives there about the sun and the rain. It speaks of the indiscriminate nature of God’s love. He doesn’t discriminate when He loves. God so loved the world. Theologians refer to this as the common grace of God, as opposed to His saving grace. The common grace of God, where the sun shines on the just and the unjust. The rain falls upon the evil and the good. The sun and the rain fall upon the neighbor that you love and the enemy that you’d love to hate. And when we choose to love our neighbors, we’re acting like our heavenly Father. Like Father, like son. Like Father, like daughter. I know it sounds radical, but we’re called to a higher ethic, aren’t we.
0:23:38.0
To put it another way, when we choose to love our neighbors, nothing makes our heavenly Papa more proud. Now, I don’t know about you. I can make a fairly good guess here that anybody who has a father in the room—and I think that’s all of us—that we long as children to hear these words or something like it from our Father. “I’m proud of you, my son. I’m proud of you, my daughter.” My dad grew up in Iowa on a farm. And he will tell you that he didn’t hear words like that very often from his father. And so my dad compensates on the other side of it. And I can barely have a conversation with him…he lives in Texas…and he tells me regularly, “I love you, son, and I’m so proud of what you’re doing.” We long to hear that. Even as I say that, some of you, it invokes some emotions in you because you didn’t hear that growing up. “I’m proud of you, son. I’m proud of you, my daughter.” Well, I’m here to encourage you today. You have a perfect heavenly Father who loves to encourage His kids and loves to look at His kids and say, “I am so proud of you when you respond just like I would respond. And when you love your enemies, I just want to say, ‘Way to go, my child. Way to go, my daughter. Way to go, my son. You’re a chip off the old block, because that’s exactly what I did toward you.’”
0:25:12.2
Romans says that God demonstrated His love toward us. He demonstrated it. It wasn’t an ooey gooey feeling He had toward us. He demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners—okay, let’s just call us the enemies of God—Christ died for us. And when you choose to live by that ethic, when that person is opposing you and you do the thing that everything in your natural self says no way and you choose to love your enemies, “I am so proud of you,” your heavenly Father says.
0:25:52.1
Second reason to love our enemies is because it will differentiate us from the world. Let’s read on against in verse 46. He says, “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?” Nobody is going to reward you for loving that narrow definition of a neighbor that you have, that little circle of friends, that little clique that you’ve formed of like-minded and like-thinking people, same ethnicity, all of that. “Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the Gentiles, the tax collectors do that?” Yeah, but when God’s people choose to love and to do it in a way the world doesn’t, it differentiates us from the world, doesn’t it. It’s another way of saying it proves your testimony. It proves your testimony.
0:26:50.1
John 13:35, Jesus said this to His disciples on the night before He was crucified. He says, “By this all will know that you are my disciples.” I suspect He had them leaning into the conversation at that point. And He said, “If you have love for one another.” Now, understand the context of the conversation. This is in the upper room. He’s saying this to, you know, to the boys. He says, “If you guys love one another, everybody outside of this room is gonna know you’re one of My disciples.” Love becomes the most powerful and positive apologetic for the Christian faith. Because the outside world is looking inside the church and looking for people who profess the name of Jesus Christ. And they’re wondering, is this real? Is it authentic? And the one thing that says yes more than anything else is when those church people just love each other like they’ve…like I don’t experience in the world. Now, it’s one thing to love one another. It’s another thing to love my neighbor as Jesus defined it. It’s yet another thing to begin loving your enemies. And you think the outside world looking in on the church and seeing the church loving one another is a powerful apologetic. When this church busts open the doors and gets off the corner and out into the world and out into the community and really begins to live out our faith and we love our enemies, you’ve got the world leaning into that, friends, and wondering, what have you got?
0:28:43.9
But you know what the sad thing is? Most of the time the world looks inside the church and sees Christians bickering and fighting and acting in a very unloving way toward each other. And it’s destroying our testimony. Shame on us. Let’s love one another, not in an ooey gooey kind of way, but in demonstrable kinds of ways. And then let’s take that love and go out into the world where the enemies of God really exist.
0:29:18.5
Love is viral, to get the H1N1 virus. Love is viral. It’s what makes Christianity contagious, friends. And it’s a virus you want to catch. And it’s a virus the world wants to catch and is desperate to catch. And nobody is going to demonstrate it to them better. The responsibility lays at our feet as member of the body of Christ.
0:29:44.6
Thirdly, we do this because it’s the best way to grow in Christian maturity. Look at verse 48. “Therefore you shall be perfect,” Jesus says, “just as your Father is perfect.” Don’t trip over that word “perfect” too much. It doesn’t mean that we can achieve a level of perfection in this life. The word “perfect” can also mean “complete” as it relates to us. Think of Philippians 1:6 that says, “He who began a good work in you…” When you invited Christ in your life, it was the beginning. It was the beginning of a project that God started in your life and in mine. A project He labeled then sanctification. “He who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” And as much as you and I may resist this idea of loving our neighbors, part of a completed project in us is moving us closer and closer toward that agape love that goes beyond loving one another and loving our neighbor toward loving the unlovely in this world that we might call our enemies, or at least those who oppose us. It’s part of His completion work. It’s part of His completion work.
0:30:53.4
Now, where do we begin in all of this? I’m the first to tell you that this Sermon on the Mount is challenging my socks off. Well, I’ve still got them on, but you know what I’m talking about. I mean, the bar just keeps getting higher and higher, doesn’t it? Where do we begin? Well, Jesus gives us a clue. He says, “Love your enemies and pray, pray for those who persecute you.”
0:31:20.7
I want you to think about that as I read for you verses 43 and 44 from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the New Testament called The Message. It’s a fabulous paraphrase. I love how he renders these verses. Listen to this. He says, “You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst.” I love that phrase. Isn’t that great? Next time somebody opposes you, ask God to show you how to respond in a way that brings out the best in you, not the worst in you. And then he goes on to say, “When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer.” I love that phrase. Because you know what it reminds me of is that when somebody opposes me, when a real enemy faces me, I can spin up a lot of negative energy posturing myself in an “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” kind of way. I mean, as he stands opposed to me, I can just stand taller, right? And everything inside my natural self wants to do that. And I can spin up all this negative energy doing that, or I can choose to take control of my energy and to channel that energy into prayer. Energies that are the positive energies of prayer. Because more often than not, what I have to do in prayer, what I have to allow the Lord to do, is to change my heart toward that person who is opposing me. I have to allow my heavenly Father to bathe me in His agape love and to remind me that I was once an enemy of God. And He moved toward me in a divinely loving kind of way. And as I begin to pray for that person that I’ve labeled an enemy, it’s hard to pray and to be in the presence of our Father and allow hatred to be in my heart. But prayer allows God to change my heart and to begin to shape my response in a way that is more God-like. And, friends, I don’t know where else to begin with something like that.
0:33:46.8
But you’re probably got somebody in your mind right now that this message has brought to your heart. And I’m just gonna challenge you to not say, “Hey, this looks good on paper. It’s a nice theory I might want to consider testing one day.” I want to challenge you to walk out of here today determined to put this into practice in, yes, a most radical way and to begin on your knees this afternoon prayer for that person or persons that are opposed to everything you hold dear and to watch as God begins not only to change your heart, but perhaps even the situation.
0:34:34.3
Father, these are challenging, challenging words that we are unpacking from your Son, our savior in His Sermon on the Mount. Some of us thought this might be a nice little Sunday stroll through the park, this Sermon on the Mount. But, Father, it challenges us to the core. The highest of Christian ethics that we might love even our enemies. We need your divine help to do that, Father. Thank You that You demonstrated Your love toward us during that time in our lives when we were the enemies of God. And You sent your one and only Son Jesus to love us on the cross. And as He received those nails in His hands and in His feet, yes, He prayed for His persecutors and said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Father, some are here today, and they need to receive that forgiveness that flows through the blood of Jesus Christ and His cross. And others of us need to come back to the foot of cross and remember just how forgiven we are and how loved we are, even when we were in opposition to everything holy that flows through Your being. Help us to be just like You. Help us make our heavenly Papa proud this week and to love our neighbors. We pray this in Jesus’s name, amen.
0:36:36.7