Matthew Sermon 18
This is HARD STUFF!
Matthew 5:43–47 (NLT)
43 “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’* and hate your enemy. 44 But I say, love your enemies!* Pray for those who persecute you! 45 In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For He gives His sunlight to both the evil and the good, and He sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. 46 If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. 47 If you are kind only to your friends,* how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that.
This is not easy stuff
· We want to hate people who do us wrong.
· We want justice.
· We want to love those who don’t hurt us, who treat us well.
· But even when Jesus got angry with the religious leaders of His day, He did it because He loved them, and only wanted them to repent and follow God.
In a word: Being godly (loving your enemy) is not giving justice (what they deserve), but mercy (what they don’t deserve). And so grace is giving people what they don’t deserve:
Being Merciful Means, loving your enemy!
· It means:
§ Instead of throwing the book at them, you let them off the hook, and kiss vindication good-bye.
§ You pray for them even though they were wrong.
§ You leave justice to God.
§ You love them even when they hate you!
• After all, isn’t that the way God was with you?
• You sin daily, and God just keeps forgiving!
• God shows Grace and Mercy to you everyday.
· Your life was, and is still, messy, but God loves you.
· God forgives you, so will you forgive and love even those that are hard to love?
· Do you think you’re easy to love all the time?
· Don’t forget before He saved you, you were God's enemy once.
o So shouldn’t you show the same grace that God showed you?
o There is nothing anyone can do to you that’s any worse than what was, and still is, done to God.
Here is what God says:
James 1:19–21 (NLT)
19 Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. 20 Human anger* does not produce the righteousness* God desires. 21 So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.
Romans 13:10 (NLT)
10 Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s law.
Galatians 5:22–24 (NLT)
22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to His cross and crucified them there.
1 Corinthians 13:13 (NLT)
13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
Never forget no matter what:
1 Corinthians 13:1–7 (NLT)
Love Is the Greatest
If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;* but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
Closing:
Loving your enemy, learning to forgive, showing mercy, even when it's messy is a choice. We choose to carry hate, we choose not to love, or we choose to show mercy, love and grace. After all, isn’t that what Jesus did? He chose to forgive you and save you a spot in Heaven!
Jesus loved you so much that even when you were a sinner, He suffered for you, He even died for you! He knew your life, my life, everybody’s life was going to be messy, and so in His greatest sermon, He tells us to:
· Look past peoples faults (like He does)
· Give passionately, even when it hurts (like He does)
· Suffer often (because He did)
· Always Forgive (because He still does for us)
· And to Love others as He, Himself loves us, so we can go and multiply His Church!
You see it's not about your feelings, or you being inconvenienced, it's about His Glory, and your eternal soul. It's about trying to live the life He lived, so we don’t have to die the death He died. It's about glorifying the one who sacrificed for us all!
If you don’t know Jesus, there is no better time than now!
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