Transcript Document

Presentation 23
Presentation 23
Introduction
A composer wrote a demanding piece of
music. It was seen to be a piece of exceptional
beauty and infused with the character of the
composer. All who heard it fell under its spell.
Then a new conductor took over the
orchestra. He thought the original music
too demanding and made what he called
‘necessary alterations’. He reinterpreted the
music so that it ended up contradicting the
composer’s original intention.
Soon, changes that were supposed to
‘improve the performance’ began to produce
the most bizarre sounds.
Presentation 23
Introduction
Then the son of the composer arrived,
formed a new orchestra and conducted
the music as his father intended. The
audience were then overwhelmed by
the difference in the quality sound.
Jesus is the Composer’s son, the piece
of music is God’s law and the displaced
conductor the scribes and Pharisees
who had reinterpreted God’s law to
their own ends.
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THE PHARISEES' PERVERSION
In this sermon, Jesus is reclaiming God’s
law from the perversion of the scribes and
Pharisees. They’d changed the score, to enable
them to become ‘law-dodgers’.
Jesus now takes them to task over what they taught
about a man’s relationship to his enemies. The
words of v43 ‘love your neighbour’ often quoted by
the Pharisees are not in fact found in the O.T. text
which reads, ‘love your neighbour as yourself’. To
omit the words ‘as yourself’ is to dilute what is a
very high and exacting standard. Immediately we
do so, we no longer ask, ‘Is this how I would want
to be treated if I were in their position?’
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THE PHARISEES' PERVERSION
The teachers of the law had gone even further in
their dilution of God’s command by narrowing
down the understanding of the word ‘neighbour’.
It was restricted to mean only a Jew, one of their
own people, race and religion.
This encouraged the building of a protective wall
around the Jewish race who then thought, ‘We
will love only those on the inside of the wall’.
Those on the outside, the Gentiles, they described
as dogs whom they failed to love. They argued that
since God’s word commanded them to love their
neighbours then the converse must be true, God
must surely intend them to hate their enemies.
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THE PHARISEES' PERVERSION
This racism perverts the clear teaching of God’s Word. For God’s
people are encouraged to love foreigners as themselves.
“The alien living with you must be treated as one of your
native born. Love him as yourself for you were aliens in
Egypt” Lev.19v34.
Commands were given by God to regulate behaviour
towards those whom they classed as enemies.
“If you come across your enemies ox or donkey
wandering off, be sure to take it back to him. If you see
the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down
under its load, do not leave it there ; be sure you
help him with it” Ex.23v4-5.
Cf. the more positive injunction, “If your enemy is
hungry, give him food to eat.” Prov. 25v21
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THE PHARISEES' PERVERSION
The whole of the O.T. says with a single voice,
‘your enemy is your neighbour’ and the thing that
makes him your neighbour is that he is a fellow
human being in need. Therefore do the best for
him you can. The scribes dodged that.
It is clear from scripture that God does not teach a
double standard of morality, one for our
neighbour and one for our enemy. But these
teachers of the law had reshaped its’ teaching.
Instead of allowing God’s law to challenge and
modify their own wrong behaviour, they modified
the law so that it could approve of their wrong
behaviour. Fallen human nature loves to do that.
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RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW
When Jesus told his hearers to love their
enemies he was merely restating God’s law
or restoring ‘the score’ to its original form.
Love our enemies, ‘Impossible,’ you say. Of
course it is, for only God’s grace can enable us
to behave in this way. Now Jesus’ love that
reached out to those who nailed him to the
cross is the possession of every believer and
resident in their hearts. Many Christians find
great difficulty at this point and experience
guilt as a result. In the 5thC Augustine wrote:
“Many have learned to turn the other cheek
but do not know how to love him by whom
they were struck”.
Presentation 23
RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW
Christians can sink into bogs of introspection trying to
work out if they really love a particular person or not.
What practical help can be given? First, we need to be
able to distinguish between liking and loving. Liking
involves feelings of emotion and the approval of the
other person and his behaviour. But it is possible for
God to say when he looks at us that he does not
like the way we are, he does not like some aspects
of our behaviour and yet he loves us. Love is not
a matter of feeling but of the will. If our wills are
surrendered to God we can love our enemies
and want the best for them without necessarily
liking them in the sense of approving of their
character or behaviour.
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RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW
Secondly, we need to act in love towards others. True
love involves deeds. Cf. Lk.6v27 ‘Love your enemies,
do good to those who hate you’. In the parable of the
Good Samaritan, Jesus puts flesh upon his teaching
here. The Samaritan loved his neighbour, an enemy,
by doing him good. This kind of do-gooder is often
despised and ridiculed by a world whose wisdom is
summed up in the words, ‘They got themselves into
this mess, lets see if they can get themselves out of it.’
But that can never be a Christian’s response for it has
not been the response of God towards us in our sin
and rebellion. Love always interferes; not in a
patronising way, not as an outlet for sentiment but as
an expression of compassionate service. cf. Rom 5.8
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RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW
Thirdly, Jesus also makes it clear that words can
express love. The way we speak to people and the
way in which we speak about people is important.
There is a danger of reserving a warm caring
vocabulary of expression for our friends but when
we speak of those we consider to be our enemies
we draw from a different vocabulary list and our
language is cold, cynical, caustic, humiliating.
The suggestion in v47 is that the warm welcoming
greeting which shows interest and concern for
another is something which the natural man
reserves only for those he considers his friends.
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RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW
If our enemies call disaster down on our heads
and express in words their hope that some great
harm should befall us, then Jesus wants us to call
down heaven’s blessings on them and declare by
our words that we wish them nothing but their
good. Bishop Dehqani-Tafti was interviewed after
the brutal killing of his son in Iran during the
revolution. Asked what he thought of his son’s
executioners he replied, that he thought their
greatest need was to experience the blessing and
forgiveness that could be theirs through Christ.
There was no hint of bitterness or recrimination.
He wanted the best for those who had taken from
him the son that he loved.
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RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW
Fourthly, Jesus also taught that we should express
love not just in word or deed but in prayer.
Intercession for our enemies is the summit of
Christian love. ‘Father forgive them they do not know
what they are doing’.
Dietrich Bonheoffer, who for some years was the
object of Nazi hatred before his execution at their
hands wrote, ‘This is the supreme command,
through the medium of prayer, we go to our enemy,
stand beside him and plead for him to God’.
It is impossible to pray for someone effectively
without loving them and it is impossible to go on
praying without that love growing.
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RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW
We do not wait to begin praying until we can
feel love within our hearts. We purpose in our
wills to pray for our enemies and as we so make
the surprising discovery that we have love for
them in our hearts. Who is to say what God
might accomplish through our persecutors.
George Whitefield the C18th evangelist
reflected upon how God could turn persecutors
into supporters of the gospel. He wrote:
“I left my persecutors to God’s mercy, who out
of persecutors has often made preachers.
That I might be thus revenged upon them
is the hearty prayer of George Whitfield”.
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WHY LOVE IN THIS WAY?
Why are we to love in this extravagant way? To reveal
our family identity, v 45 that we might be seen to be
God’s children. God’s love is indiscriminate. God shows
love to his enemies daily by giving rain and sun to make
their crops grow. Instead of retaliating he shows them
mercy and patience.
How different this is from the world’s example of
limited and conditional love. Mere human love tends to
be tainted and marred. Parental, filial, and conjugal love
are marked by selfishness and self interest. We love in
response to something we see in others- they are in our
family, our club, our church or because of the return
which we hope our love for them will bring us.
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WHY LOVE IN THIS WAY?
Jesus makes it clear that this is precisely the kind of
inadequate love that the despised tax-collectors
and pagans exhibited. Their discriminate love was
motivated by self interest. The love Jesus looks for
in his followers is not natural but supernatural and
by its display it reveals its source.
“To return evil for good is devilish, to return good
for good is human, to return good for evil is
divine”.
This divine love is the love of God shed abroad in
our hearts by the Holy Spirit. When unbelievers
experience our display of this extraordinary love
they will come to recognise that God’s love for
them is extraordinary
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WHY LOVE IN THIS WAY?
By loving in this way we pursue the goal of perfection
v48. Jesus’ words do not imply that he taught that
perfection was an attainable goal on earth. This
meaning would destroy the inner harmony of the
Sermon of the Mount which advocates the need of
daily repentance and forgiveness. The word ‘perfect’
carries the meaning of ‘complete’ or ‘mature’. It was
used to describe a ship which had been fully fitted out
for sea, or a legion of soldiers thoroughly equipped for
battle. God does this work cf. Phil 1.6 ‘He who has done
a good work in you will complete it.” Jesus is exhorting
his followers not to be satisfied with a partial obedience
to the law of love but to have it brought to completion,
maturity that it might be fully grown.
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Conclusion
We need to ask, ‘Who do we love and how do we
love?’ God’s standard for loving lies beyond the power
of natural human attainment but within the scope of
the provision of God’s grace for his children.
An old Navajo Indian woman was abandoned by her
family and left to die. She was taken to a Mission
hospital where her needs were lovingly tended over
nine weeks. She could not understand the kindness
shown her by the hospital doctor who visited her daily.
When asked why he did so, he looked after her and
replied that it was Jesus who made him behave as he
did.
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Conclusion
One day, one of the hospital workers asked
this woman if she would renounce her idols
and place her faith in Jesus for salvation. As
she pondered the question the doctor
popped his head around the corner and the
woman replied, ‘If Jesus is anything like that
doctor I could trust him forever.’
Does our love for those who have shown
themselves opposed to us and the gospel
cause them to reassess their stand and say,
‘If Jesus is anything like them then I will trust
him forever?’
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Conclusion
It has been suggested that there is a haunting
quality about Jesus question in v47 ‘What are
you doing more than others’.
If we are Christians different principles should
govern our thinking and behaviour, for we have
different resources and a different relationship
to God. We are called to be different. Is that
difference apparent? Christian discipleship
requires a high price to be paid - it will cost us
everything. But it is the God who has given us
everything who calls us to give everything for
him and to him. Are we prepared to do that?
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