Loving Your Enemies
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 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?
47And 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.
Luke 6:35:
35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
In the Preface to his book Exclusion and Embrace, Miroslav Volf tells a story about one of his memo rable encounters with the renowned theologian Jurgen Moltmann. Volf was giving a lecture and he had been arguing that “we ought to embrace our enemies, as God has embraced us in Christ.” After the presen tation, Moltmann stood up and asked Volf publicly, “But can you embrace a cetnik?” Volf writes that he struggled with that question, he asked himself; “what would justify the embrace? Where would I draw the strength for it? What would it do to my identity as a human being and as a Croat?” Volf knew what he want ed to say, He answered Moltmann by saying, “No, I cannot, but as a follower of Christ I think I should be able to.”
I appreciate the honesty and humility in Volf’s answer. It’s honest because it reveals the struggles that we have as believers in dealing with the injuries caused by those people whose intention is to hurt and harm us. It’s humble because it admits that this kind of love (loving our enemies) cannot be produced or created by our own efforts unaided by the grace of God. We can only love our enemies when we are united to Christ.
Of all the moral imperatives in Matthew 5, none remains more challenging than Jesus’ call to “love our enemies.” This theme permeates not only Jesus’ preaching and teaching, it is also a constant theme of his life, death, and divine heritage.
How does God want us to love?
A. Love that embraces the broadest scope
The call for all believers is not only to love our neighbors, but also to love those who do not love us, those who are not seeking our best interest, those who would like to undercut us at every point. Jesus here is commanding us to look beyond our own community and love the unlovable.
It is easy to love those who love you or those who are within your own circle
(family, friends, churchmates). These people tend to be cooperative and trade favors. How about your enemy? Can you really love those who have been hostile to you? How do you react when someone insults you, or maligns you, or treats you unfairly? Are you a fight person (eye for an eye; tooth for a tooth) or a flight person (stay away from nasty people) or a freeze person (You don’t say or do anything; you just suffer in silence) or a faith person (you trust God that he is aware of what is happening, and he will act because he abhors and des
pises those who are cruel and enjoy violence).
The command to love our enemies is clearly countercultural and counterintuitive and it is essential to kingdom living and the expansion God’s kingdom.
♦ We should not judge people around us according to their abilities, outward appearance, or social posi tion.
♦ Our love should not discriminate against anyone. Love unselfishly and unconditionally. Develop a genuine interest in others. Philippians 2:4 commands us – “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.” Lift up your eyes and look beyond yourself.
♦ Love bigger in a cancel culture.
Illustration: Be a bridge-builder and not a wall-builder.
B. Love that embodies the biblical standard
The point of the passage is not to state the means (the act of love as instrument) to gain the status of sons, but to stress the necessity of pursuing a certain kind of sonship patterned after the Father’s character. Jesus wants us to aspire to love as our Father loves. Jesus desires that all believers will pursue a life patterned after God.
“Our responsibility to love our enemies is grounded in the fact that God providentially loves the just and the unjust,” (D.A. Carson, Love in the Hard Places).
1. It shows in our attitude – Loving our enemies include our inward attitudes.
2. It shows in our actions - What kind of love does God have? The latter part of v.45 tells us; “For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Theologians since John Calvin have related this kind of love to “God’s common grace” (i.e., the gracious favor God bestows “commonly,” without distinction, on all men). God can simply condemn all because of his justice. Instead, he displays persistent and prolonged favor on all. God bestows “good things” indiscriminately and impar tially on all people, whether they are good or evil (righteous or unrighteous).
3. “What more are you doing than others?” The key word here is the word “MORE”. This love will demand “more” from us – more of our time, more of our resources, and more of ourselves.
4. Do you share God’s heart? “Take unilateral initiative, and don’t quit. Love your enemies. Unreciprocated love expresses the image of your Father,” (David Powlison, Seeing with New Eyes)
5. What Jesus gives us in our passage is a practical teaching on what it means to love (not eros, storge, phil ia, but agape which is a deep, continuing, growing, continuous and ever-renewing activity). Practical kind ness – we must love our enemies practically by doing good to those who hate us (unnatural deeds), bless ing those who curse us (unnatural words), praying for those who abuse us (unnatural prayers). Consider
the admonition here to “pray” (love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, v.44). To love and pray for enemies continually and without reservation is new. Love and prayer are mutually reinforc ing commands. John Stott said, “The more love, the more prayer; The more prayer, the more love.” When
you pray for someone, you hope for his/her good. When we pray for an enemy, ha tred starts to disappear, and compassion begins to develop. Also, prayer serves to showcase whatever is on your heart; it reflects your passions.
Illustration: Ernest Hemingway’s short story entitled “The Capital of the World” (Dear Paco). The world is filled of people in need of forgiveness and reconciliation. The model for such forgiveness is most profoundly found in Jesus Christ.
C. Love that emulates our beautiful Savior
This love is not only indiscriminate and impartial, but also imitative. Ephesians 5:1,2 gives us the same command – “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
We see the love of the Father displayed in his creation. The ultimate demonstration of that love was when he sent his beloved Son. When Jesus came, he was the love of God incarnate. If we really want to have a robust understanding of God’s love, we must look at the profound example of Jesus Christ. Pasul said in Romans 5:10, “For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son…”
A. Luke states it this way – (Luke 6:35) When we love our enemies, our reward will be great and we will be sons of the Most High.
B. To “become sons of the Most High” according to Dan Doriani is the Hebrew way of saying we will be like the Most High (like God himself). “Therefore, to love one’s enemies is to be like Christ and like the Fa ther….The likeness is the reward.”
C. How can any of us ever live up to this standard of new love?
D. Gospel imperative (what you must do) flows out of Gospel indicative (what God has done). God’s “done” fuels your “do.” Jesus’ commands in Matthew 5 reveal our sin and our inability to keep the law. It causes us to look within and sees our own inability to fulfill all these commands. This is good news, friends. The frustration and the despair prepare us for the gospel. It compels us to plead for mercy and grace. God grants not just mercy for our failure, but also grace to fulfill what seems to be unattainable for us if we take things into our own hands.
E. So, aspire to be like our Father. The love that he shows is the love that he commands. Our enemies offer us the opportunity to love as our Christ loves.
Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat:
The love for equals is a human thing – of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles.
The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing – the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.
The love for the fortunate is a rare thing – to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without en vy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, the world is always bewildered by it saints.
And then there is love for the enemy – love for the one who does not love you, but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured’s love for the torturer. This is God’s love. It conquers the world.
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This kind of love is unnatural and unconventional. You don’t learn this kind of love by trying. You don’t learn to love like Christ that way. We learn to love like Christ by ex periencing his love. That’s how we continue to learn to love, by experiencing it in Jesus, who is the Friend of sinners. Look to Christ. Live like Christ. Soli Deo Gloria!
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