And I invite you to turn in your copy of God's Word to Matthew chapter 5. We're continuing working our way through the Gospel of Matthew. We're now in Matthew chapter 5, the first chapter of the Sermon on the Mount, and we'll be looking today at verses 38 through 42. 38 through 42. And as you remember, what we are seeing here is that Jesus is talking to us about a new way of living. The arrival of Jesus brought in the kingdom of God. And that kingdom of God is opposed to the kingdom of this world. There are two different ways of living, Jesus tells us. And he describes how we are to live in the Sermon on the Mount. Those who are followers of Jesus are to live in this way, he says. Now the thing that we need to remember as we remember the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, is that Jesus said that we are a blessed people. We're blessed not because of what we do. In fact, he makes very clear in the Beatitudes that the only reason we're in the kingdom of God is not because we have obeyed sufficiently or earned God's favor, but we're in the kingdom of God through grace because this is what Jesus has done for us, that we now belong to that kingdom. And yet, there still is a place for God's law for us. And what he's doing here in the second half of chapter five is he's unfolding These misunderstandings that have taken place in the time of Jesus, much like they take place today, of what God's law requires of us. And he's telling us this is the way that we are to live as his followers. And here he talks about how do we deal with others when we ourselves are wronged. And so let's read then Matthew chapter five, see what our Lord has to say starting in verse 38. He says, You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. With us far the reading of God's word, may he bless it to our hearing, especially as it's preached to us this morning. Well, people of God, it doesn't come as a surprise if I tell you that revenge comes rather easily to us as a human race, right? It's our natural tendency whenever we are wronged to retaliate. It comes easy to us to push back when someone harms us. And let's face it, we've all been wronged. We wrong and we wrong other people and we ourselves are consistently wrong. And so the world has a way of reacting. It tells us to push right back, get what's yours, demand your own rights, seek justice. But Jesus here is giving us a radically new approach to how we are to behave when we are wronged. And he deals with it here in verses 38 through 42. We've already said that the Sermon on the Mount is the most famous sermon in history. Well, this is probably the most well-known passage within the Sermon of the Mount. It's full of colorful expressions, right? Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, turn the other cheek, go an extra mile. All those have now become part of the English language. People just use them in regular conversation, right? They all come from here. And that's because over history, people have considered this passage to be the high point of the Sermon of the Mount. In fact, some will say that here we find the very essence of Christianity. For many, it also has become the basis, reading these passages, has become the basis for pacifism, the view that we ought to never engage in violence. So why don't we look at this passage, and with so much that has already been said in our culture and throughout history, let's try to understand what did Jesus really mean? in these few verses. And so as we look at this, we want to do so under four points. We're going to look at surrendering our rights, defending the rights of others, personal self-sacrifice and the perfect sacrifice. So we're gonna look at surrendering our own rights, defending the rights of others, our need for personal self-sacrifice, and finally we'll end by looking at the perfect sacrifice of Christ. So let's look at the first part, surrendering our rights. Of course we live, and this is not surprising to you as I've already said, we live in a world of grievances. where we constantly are being wronged by others and we want to push back. Some of those grievances are major, right? Such as if you're assaulted or if a loved one is murdered or you suffer a financial scam that empties your bank account. Somebody slanders you to the point that it gets you fired from work. Those are all major grievances, major assaults on you. Some of those, of course, are minor. You might get cut off on the highway. Someone might steal your coffee at Starbucks when you go up there to grab it. Schoolmate might call you a name. But however it is, we're constantly reminded that we live in a fallen world where we wrong others and others wrong us all the time. And especially in today's culture, we created a whole industry of grievances, where whenever we're wronged, there's all sorts of ways in which we can push back. In fact, you might say that almost the entire legal system in the United States is built up against dealing with grievances. Well, how do we, as followers of Jesus, respond when we are wronged? What do you do? What do you think about? How do you feel when somebody slights you? When somebody hurts you, when somebody steals from you, it doesn't have to be financial, it could be property, or it could be your honor, it could be your good name, how do you respond? That's what Jesus deals with. And so he starts in verse 38, you have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Now, before we can examine how Jesus answers that, we need to understand what he's laying out in verse 38. That eye for a nine, a tooth for a tooth, what is that all about? Well, it summarizes passages that we find in Exodus and Leviticus and Deuteronomy. And when we first look at it, there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding in our culture as to what is being said here. People look at that and say, oh, that's so barbaric. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Oh, that's Old Testament wrath of God stuff. You know, that's hurt people. It's so different from the God of love of the New Testament. But of course, we can't really understand what Jesus is pushing back on if we don't really understand what that passage itself really is. So let's hear some of those passages. For example, Exodus 21-23. If there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. One more, Leviticus 24, 19. If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him. Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him. I need to change these glasses. I can't read anything with them on. But you see in this passage, this is not some barbaric call to go out and hurt people. This is actually a call for restraining violence, for restraining retribution. This is a call in the Old Testament that was novel and that was liberal in those days because the goal was to eliminate blood feuds. You see, back in those days, it was very common in the ancient Near Eastern world, if you harm someone, then you were required to harm them back at a greater level, right? If you're Sicilian, you know exactly what I'm talking about. So, if someone cuts off my brother's hand, then I have to knock off the assailant's head, and it just keeps escalating this violence. The family responds with even greater violence, and on and on, and where does it come to an end? Think about the Hatfields and the McCoys in our own nation's history, right? That kind of thing. And so the purpose here was not to promote violence, but to restrain it. And to say that the punishment that would be given when somebody wrongs someone or someone commits a crime, the punishment should fit the crime. We say that nowadays and we consider it to be obvious. But it was not obvious back then. The Old Testament God's law was revolutionary. It was, in the best sense of the word, liberal. It was a human rights thing. The punishment should be precisely equivalent to the wrong. What this passage is pushing for is for even-handed justice. Today we use that term, it's perhaps overused and misused, but it's for equity. Now by the time of Jesus' day, people had become, yes, more civilized than they were during the times of the ancient Near Eastern world in the second millennium before Christ. Much of that physical retaliation had been replaced by financial penalties. And especially because Roman law didn't allow people to just go around whacking everybody, right? So what would happen is if somebody then hurt you, wronged you, you would take them to court. But what this meant was that the financial penalty had to fit. And we, again, agree with that today. If somebody backs into my car and there's a fender bender, we can't fine that person $3 million, right? It just would be inequitable. So that's the first thing that we have to understand before we can push back on, you know, look at what Jesus is pushing back on. We have to understand what the law actually says. God's law is actually good. The other thing that we need to understand that so often is misunderstood about this passage is that it was given in the context of civil law. That is to say, this is the law that was given to Israel as a nation. This was not given to people individually to live this way. If somebody harms me, if I get my tooth knocked out, I'm going to knock out your tooth. No, this was given to the judges. This was to be discharged by a judiciary. What that law did, again radical for its time, is it took the punishment out of the realm of personal vengeance. and put it into the hand of the state. What had happened in the time of the Romans and what Jesus is pushing back on, again, we don't have that context, but it's clear to Jesus' hearers, is in Jewish practice it had returned back to the place of personal vengeance. In other words, it had gone away from the law courts and it entered into how we dealt with people personally. And the large reason for that is the Jews were pushing back against the fact that they were under Roman rule. They didn't like the fact that they were subjugated. And so they began to take quite literally the law into their own hands. And the idea of personal vendettas had come back. The question had now got to the point is, how far can my personal retaliation extend? And so that's why people were misusing and misapplying God's good law. And as you know, as we've been going through all these different things in the second half of chapter 5, we've been seeing that all throughout. People in Jesus' day were misapplying God's good law and doing wicked things with it, much like they do today. So that's the first thing that we have to understand. When he says in verse 38, you have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, that does come from God's law, but it was being seriously misapplied. And it's to that that Jesus then responds in verse 39. But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. And again, he has that same pattern that we've seen week in and week out, where he first says, this is what you've heard others say, but I say to you, and that I is emphatic in the original language. I say to you. This is the king speaking to his followers. The king doesn't receive the law. This king makes the law. His interpretation is final. And he's setting up a contrast between the way it has been understood and the way that he tells us it really ought to be. So let's unpack what he's saying when he says, do not resist the one who is evil. And again, these passages, I think, even though people say this is the high point of the Sermon on the Mount, In large part, many people have misunderstood what is being said here. A lot of folks look at do not resist the one who is evil and they understand that to mean that we cannot stand up against evil. We cannot resist and push back on evil in this world. Martin Luther, the great reformer, in his commentary on this passage talked about, you know, he had been a monk before he became a believer, and he describes one crazy example that he encountered in the monastery. He said there was one monk who let the lice nibble at him and refused to kill any of them on account of this text, maintaining that he had to suffer and could not resist evil. So, there are folks who have maybe not understood it to that extent with lice, but this idea then that we ourselves can do no violence and when evil comes, we can do nothing to stand up to it. And this passage then has become the basis for much of what we would call Christian pacifism, the idea not only that we should not exercise violence, but we should not participate in things like the military or law enforcement or courts of law. Now, one of the key proponents of that, and the one that I'm going to kind of use today as our foil, is Leo Tolstoy. And you recognize him from your English literature classes where you had to read, even though he wrote in Russian, but it's translated into English, you have to read it. He was a 19th century Russian novelist. As you know, all Russian novelists essentially will be depressing and everybody dies and things are horrible at the end. And, you know, he wrote War and Peace and, you know, things like that. So you can thank him. But after he wrote all those novels, he was converted, became a Christian. But he centered almost his entire belief system on the Sermon on the Mount, and in large part, a misunderstanding of these texts. And so he came up with this idea of a pacifism where there is nonviolent resistance and that kind of thing. He had a great effect on Gandhi. Gandhi would read his book, What I Believe, which he wrote in 1884. Martin Luther King also claimed to look back on Leo Tolstoy as deeply influential to him. But how far did Tolstoy go? He did not only say that we ought to not engage in any kind of resistance to evil personally, not only that we should not join the military or police or so on, but he said that society should have no soldiers, should have no police, should have no judges, should have no lawyers, because by necessity they resist evil people, and that goes against what the scripture, what Jesus was saying. So he was known both as a pacifist, and it's going to sound crazy, but an anarchist because he believed that there should be then no resistance. But is that what really Jesus means in this passage? Is he calling us when we see great evil to just sit idly by? No. That's not what it means at all. It does not mean that we cannot fight evil, does not mean that we should never right wrongs, it does not mean that we should allow evil to triumph. To understand what Jesus is saying, we have to look at that word. Do not resist the one who is evil. And the thing is, it is an explicitly legal term. Not so obvious in our English, but very obvious in the original language in which the New Testament was written. And so it's an explicitly legal term, and that makes sense because what is Jesus pushing back on? A misunderstanding of a legal law, right? He's pushing back on how the people were misapplying an eye for an eye and a tooth for the tooth. Those were civil laws that were being misapplied, and so Jesus' response is clearly in the legal realm. And the word resist literally means to take someone to court or to give testimony against someone. In other words, to oppose them legally within a court of law. And that's what Jesus is saying. He's saying in your personal relationships, when you are wrong, don't stand on your legal rights. That's what he's getting at. He's not saying you can't fight evil. It just means that you yourself do not have to. Oh, you wronged me? Well, watch out, buddy, because I'm going to sue you until you've got nothing left, right? And he's saying, no, that's not the way we behave. The Good News translation paraphrased verse 39 a little bit, but I think it captured the feeling, the meaning when it says, do not take revenge on someone who wrongs you. That's how it translates what Jesus is saying here. And I think that captures the essence. Yes, you've been wronged. Do not enter into personal retaliation mode. That's what Jesus is pushing back on because that is what was happening in his time. Some two decades later, the Apostle Paul is wrestling with the very same thing. And you have Christians who are suing one another, who are going to court. And in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 7, Paul pushes back and he says, the very fact that you have legal disputes among yourselves shows that you have failed completely. In other words, you're not living out the gospel. He goes on, would it not be better for you to be wronged? Would it not be better for you to be robbed? Instead, you yourselves wrong one another and rob one another, even other believers. And he's basically saying, stop doing this kind of behavior where you push every time for your own rights and you take that person to court and so on and so on. That's what Jesus is getting at in our passage. He's not saying that you can't stand up to evil. He's talking about the fact that we should serve other people humbly, that we should imitate Christ and pay the price even when we are wronged. He's talking about foregoing your personal rights. allowing yourself to be insulted, allowing yourself to be imposed upon. It does not mean that you cannot take a stand on matters of principle against those things which are evil. It does not mean that you do not defend the rights of others. And that actually leads to our second point, which is even though he calls us to surrender our own rights, and we'll see why he asks us to do that in a moment, we are to defend the rights of others. And this is something that Tolstoy and others who have held to Christian pacifism fail to understand. Because you see, there's really a bunch of problems with Tolstoy's view, but we're going to look at two of them. And two of those problems with Tolstoy's view both stem from a failure to understand what vocation is. Now, vocation literally means calling. We tend to use the word vocation now only for a few professions. Pastors have a vocation. Nurses or teachers. Those folks have a calling. But in reality, in Christian understanding, we all have different vocations. We're all called. Yes, I may have been called to be a minister of the gospel, but before that, I was already called to be a faithful son and to obey my parents. I was called to be a citizen of this country and to submit to the civil authorities as Romans 13 tells us. I've been called now as a married man to do certain things as a husband and now as a father towards my children. Those are vocations too. We all have these different callings. And what Tolstoy and others who hold to this view fail to understand, they fail to distinguish between the individual person, the private individual, and the role or the office that that person fulfills in their vocation, in their calling. So you see, he didn't just simply say, you ought to not respond with violence when you are wronged. But he said, you can never use and never push and never resist an evil person, even if somebody else is being wronged. I remember a friend of mine who was a Christian pacifist, and he would say that if somebody came into his house, because I posited the example and said, hey, what would happen in these cases? What if somebody came into your house and was killing your children and raping your wife? And he'd say, I would have to stand idly by. And that's a complete and utter failure to understand the role the husband has to protect his family. The Scripture calls us as men, as husbands and fathers, to protect our families, to protect our wives, to protect our children. So this view fails to understand that role that we have in many different vocations. I'm just using that of husband and father, but there's many others where we are called to defend the rights of others. And we're not just talking about physical attack. Certainly there's that, but it can happen in other ways. So let's say you're a dad and you get sued and you get sued unjustly. But this unlawful or unjustified lawsuit might deprive you of your ability to provide for your family. So then, yes, you are justified to push back. You are justified to defend yourself in that lawsuit. What Jesus is saying is that you're not justified to then take personal revenge on that person and to go after him and destroy him because you're just gonna get him for what he did to you. That's what Jesus is pushing back against, not against you defending yourself and caring for others. You see, this idea of caring for others really falls under the broader calling that we all have to love our neighbor as ourself. I think the Westminster standards, if you look in the Westminster Larger Catechism, at the very end it has a really good commentary, if you will, on the Ten Commandments. And under the sixth commandment that says, you shall not murder, it says that that doesn't just simply mean that you refrain from hurting other people, but that you do everything else to promote the well-being of other people. We're called to do that. And sometimes, yeah, you do have to step in and stop evil directed at another person. I remember years ago when I was much younger, where I had to intervene when several gang members were ready to beat the tar out of my younger cousin. And look at me, you know, I'm a whole lot of intervention here. But I stepped in there, and the gang leader came up to me and said he was impressed with the fact that I was willing to stand up to four against one. And so they backed off. Or else I probably wouldn't be here with you. But why would I do that? Because I used to watch my father do that. 1960s, 1970s New York was a pretty bad place, much like today's New York. I would see him intervene between a mugger and a little old lady on the subway. Sometimes we're called to take direct action like that or in other ways. We are, it's part of our loving our neighbor as ourselves. So this view from Tolstoy and others fails to understand that broader call that we have in our vocations to yes, we are called to defend other people. Tolstoy's view also fails because it confuses the distinction between the duties that we have as individuals and the duties of the state. Now today we think of the state, we think of the government, we think, Oh, government's bad. No doubt government is abused by those in office. But the state has been put in place by God himself, right? Romans 13, 6 says the authorities are ministers of God. God has placed all people who are in authority in that place to serve his purposes. And in that same Romans 13 passage, Paul tells us what God requires of the state. Believe it or not, the state is not called to be people who administer a welfare state and all sorts of other things. One of the very few purposes of the state is to resist evil, the very thing that Jesus is talking about here. Romans 13.4 says that the civil magistrate, that is the one who is in authority, is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. So right there in God's word, we're being told that the state, the civil magistrate has a calling in his office. to resist evil, and to even punish evil. So it's wholly appropriate for Christians to serve in the military, or to serve in the police, or to serve in other positions of civil authority, like being a district attorney, or even a defense attorney. You might say, wait a minute, defense attorneys, don't they always protect the wrongdoers? In our system, sometimes the folks that are being tried are the ones who are being treated unjustly. So you can be on both sides of the system and still be working for justice. You as a believer can serve in those roles, but you can only do so as an agent, as it says here, right? It actually uses that language in Romans 13, 4. He is God's servant, an agent. So you are an agent of the state and your role is a public servant. you seek justice. In your role as a public servant, you would resist evil, but you do not do it as an individual. Again, if you've watched any cop shows, any cop movies, you know that that's an ongoing theme, right? You can arrest a person, you can exercise that civil authority to do something that's part of your duties as a cop, but then the bad cop is the one who then uses his authority for his own personal gain. And that's what Jesus is pushing back against. He's not saying that we should not be involved. accomplishing the purposes that the state has been given by God but that we're not to personally exact revenge and vengeance this is the theme that's been going all throughout this passage I hope you can see that at this point he's not abrogating the principle of just retribution he's saying we leave that to the authorities and you might be one of those who serves in a position of authority. But when you do these things, it is in your position in that office, but not you individually. If you use your power to seek revenge against others, to seek vengeance against those who have wronged you, then that, Jesus says, is wrong. That's what we're seeing here in this passage. So what he's really talking about is personal self-sacrifice. He's not saying that we never resist evil and that you cannot be involved as a member of a legal system, right? Whether it be the cops, the military, and so on. He's not saying that we cannot be a part of that. He's talking about personal self-sacrifice, and that's our third point. Jesus makes us absolutely clear because he gives us four very brief illustrations of what he's talking about. You might consider them quick little cameos. They all have to do with being personally wronged. And look how he responds. So in our third point, let's look at verse 39. He says, if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. Okay, this has also been misunderstood. A lot of people see this as being an act of violence. If you get attacked, you cannot defend yourself. If somebody comes at you with a knife, just let him keep stabbing you. No, that's not at all what he's saying. The slapping on the cheek in the ancient Near Eastern world was meant not as a violent act, but it's meant as an insult. We still see that kind of thing today, right? When you say something disrespectful to your mom because you're now a snarky little 13-year-old and your mom slaps you, right? That's meant to get your attention. Well, in the ancient Near Eastern world, it actually was an insult that when done in public, was something that accused this person of being not worthy. It was something that you can actually take somebody to court over. In fact, if it was done publicly, I've heard people compare this like today, saying, well, it's like giving the middle finger, but while that's rude and certainly is telling somebody, I don't care, you don't usually take somebody to court over that. But if you were to slap somebody in the face publicly in the ancient nearest world, then that would be like you standing up and actually saying this person is not worthy and so you could actually be taken to court for libel or for defamation of character. That's what's happening here. It's again in the realm of what's legal. We're going to see that as we look at the other examples that they all fit into that. Same paradigm and so when he says turn the other cheek He's not saying if somebody punches you just let him keep wailing on you till you're dead. He's not saying that he's saying if somebody insults you Then you don't have to retaliate legally you don't have to Go after him for retribution. Just be ready to endure further insults. That's what Christians Do you respond with grace in the same way that God responded graciously when you wronged him? Right? And that's what we're getting at. Just think about it. How many people have been won over to the kingdom of God because we have insisted on our rights? We have stood on our rights and we've pushed for retaliation. Yeah, no, people don't respond that way. I'm reminded of Tom Skinner. Some of you who are older might remember him. He was the leader of the Harlem Lords gang back in New York City in the 50s and 60s. This guy was tough, this guy was belligerent, this guy was one mean dude, right? But he came to know Christ. He was converted. And once that happened, the guys were now mocking him. They were now challenging him. They noticed that now he was willing to meekly accept insults. Before, if you would have said anything that would have been just slightly offensive, he would have been all over you. He would have had his guys all on top of you. That would have been the end of that. And now they had noticed, hey, look at the way he behaves. That impressed not always all of them, But it impressed a number of his assailants, and some of them even came to know Christ. That's what Jesus is calling us to do. If somebody insults you, then be willing to accept further insult. Again, it does not mean that you don't defend yourself physically if somebody attacks you. Let's look at the next little cameo illustration in verse 40. If anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. Again, this is in the legal realm. Notice it's right there in the language. If anyone would sue you, In Jewish culture, I did not find examples of this elsewhere in other ancient Near Eastern cultures, so here I'm not going to say the ancient Near East, but for Jewish culture, your cloak was sacrosanct, and it was legally protected because it's the only thing you had. You know, you could be sued. And back then, you know, most people didn't have a whole lot of paper money, so they would take your stuff. and he might take this, and he might take that, and whatever, because you had committed a wrong, or your ox had gored their ox, and you can't afford to buy him an ox, and whatever else, and so they would take everything, but your cloak could not be messed with. Exodus 22, 26. If you take someone's cloak in pledge, you will return it to him at sunset. It is all the covering he has. It is the cloak he wraps his body in. What else will he sleep in? If he appeals to me, I shall listen. At least with me, he will find compassion. So this is God saying part of our compassion, even when we are suing somebody and getting our rights, was you don't take the last thing that protects them. You might grab this, you might grab that. And what Jesus is saying is, look, when that happens to you, then be willing not only to give up what you owe them, but even to go the extra mile. Oh, there I am using the language from earlier. And give him your cloak. It does not mean that when somebody demands something of you, not in a law court or whatever, just somebody comes up to you and says, hey, I want this. Oh, yeah, sure. You just give him everything. But it does mean that if you find yourself in that position, you can surrender voluntarily those things. That's the significance of what's here. I think John Calvin did a good job in translating this. Of course, I mean in interpreting this. Of course, he does it with typical 16th century flair. He says, none but a fool will stand upon the words so as to maintain that we must yield to our opponents what they demand before coming into a court of law. So he's saying, look, if you are being asked just by somebody, hey, hand me over whatever you've got, you don't necessarily have to do that. But he's talking about if you go into court of law, and he goes on, when Christians meet with ones who endeavor to rent from them a part of their property, they ought to be prepared to lose the whole. That's what he's calling us to do again, not standing on our rights, right? To have this unselfish attitude to your rights, to your property, and so on. The idea is, again, where sin abounds, our grace should abound even more, as Romans 3.20 calls us to. Let's look at the next cameo. We'll work quickly through these. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Again, this is a legal thing. In the Roman system, you could be forced to serve in any number of different ways. And one of the most common ones was when the army was going from here to here, they didn't carry all their baggage. They got you to carry it. They would sit there and say, hey, boom, you've got to carry this pack. The Roman soldier otherwise would have had to carry it, but he makes you do it. Now legally, he could only go one mile. Now, the Jewish people hated this practice. We read about it in Mark 15, 21, right when Jesus was to be crucified, and he was carrying his own cross, but he had been so beaten and flogged that he couldn't. Well, the Roman soldier wasn't gonna do it. He grabbed Simon of Cyrene, somebody from the crowd. Hey, you, buddy, you're gonna do it. That was a legal requirement. They were allowed to do that, and the Jews hated it because it reminded them that they were a subjugated people. It was humiliating. to be forced to do it. And yet Jesus says, look, after you've gone one mile, which was the maximum that was allowed by law, then carry that load one mile more. In other words, no soldier had a right to make you do that, but you do so voluntarily. And when you do that, then he will see that you have another emperor besides Caesar, that you belong to another empire, beside the Roman Empire. It's an empire with principles that are infinitely stronger than those of Rome. When we go that extra mile, as it were, and we do so voluntarily, we communicate something different to these people. Reminds me of a story that I read some years ago about James Walsh. He was the last of the American Catholic bishops in China. When China became communist and it pushed out all the Westerners and began persecuting the Christian church there. Walsh had served as a missionary for a number of decades in China, and then in 1948, he was sent to Shanghai and he became the leader of the entire Catholic mission there in China. But just the very next year, 1949, the Communists came into power and they ordered all the foreigners to leave, to get out. And they were in the process of beginning to clamp down on Christians. Walsh, however, chose to stay. And so the persecution ramped up and more and more folks were being subjugated. By 1951 there were 1,500 Christian leaders alone imprisoned in Shanghai. We don't have numbers for how many of the people, but that's how many of the leaders. And they again pressured Walsh that if he didn't want to join them that he should leave, but he stayed. And in 1956, he wrote a letter back home. He said, here in Shanghai, I share the lot of Chinese clergy who cannot leave, who must bear the brunt of all pressure and annoyance. I like to be with them. I don't like to do anything to separate myself from them of my own volition. And two years after he wrote that letter in 1958, they finally had enough with him. They imprisoned him. They sentenced him to 20 years and he didn't quite stay those 20 years in prison. They did release him in 1970 and expelled him from the country and he returned here to the United States. But this is an example of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book The Cost of Discipleship calls costly grace. He went that extra mile. He didn't have to stay, but he was willing to do so to suffer along with his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and also to be an example to those persecutors and they would know he serves a different Lord than those Chinese communist overlords or those Roman Caesars or whoever else. So that's what Jesus is calling us to do, to win people over by love, not by retaliation on the basis of our rights. We are to then do what's unexpected, to put up cheerfully with even the most unreasonable demands and then go well beyond what's being asked. Okay, look at the last of the illustrations he gives in verse 42. Again, this has been misunderstood by some people, that we're supposed to give everything away and be left destitute. And that's not at all what it's saying. I mean, if you were to apply that, then it would be self-defeating. You would actually be unable to help people because you've given away everything to one or two individuals and unable to be a generous giver. As the Australian New Testament scholar Leon Morris once wrote, there would soon be a class of saintly paupers owning nothing and another of prosperous idlers and thieves. Well, that reminds you of our welfare state, then you understand where we're going with that. The principle, though, that Jesus is getting at here is that we should, like the Philippians passage that we read earlier, we should put the interests of others before our own convenience, before our own interests. He's calling us again to sacrifice for the sake of others, to be generous. to people whether they deserve it or not regardless of the conditions that's what it's getting at not that you give away everything that you have again john calvin i think hits it on the head he says christ's purpose was to make his disciples generous not prodigal foolish prodigality pours away the lord's gifts recklessly Instead, Christ exhorts his disciples to be open-handed and generous, being kind to all, not weary of giving so long as they have the means. That's what we're seeing here. And with the very exception of this last one, when it talks about people begging from you, you can see that all of this is really falling within the realm of legal, personal insults or attacks and so on. And Jesus is saying, within that realm, we're not to respond seeking vengeance. We're not to seek retribution. But instead, we're to show grace, we're to let people see that we operate on a different principle. And when we do, then that gets people's attention. We're being called again, as he's been doing all throughout the Sermon on the Mount, to be countercultural. As Paul would say in Philippians chapter three, verse 20, our citizenship is in heaven. And we want people to see that. And one of the key ways in which we do that as citizens of his kingdom is in how we respond when we're wronged. Now, the problem with all of that, of course, is Jesus is talking about here about personal self-sacrifice and not personal retribution. The problem is that you and I can't do it in our own strength. As I said at the very start of the sermon, you want to push back because I want justice. It's the natural way in which fallen human beings respond. How do we deal with that? How can we live up to this standard? Well, as we've seen all throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus doesn't just call us to this higher behavior, but he himself is the one who fulfills it and enables us to do it. So let's look at our last point, the perfect sacrifice. One of the things we see in our culture is that, yes, the world is constantly insisting on fairness, and we see that today. Everybody's crying, equity, equity, we want equity. But behind that cry for fairness is a legalistic mindset. that is constantly making much of one's rights. It's all about your rights and standing on those rights. And of course, when you are wronged, and look at that language, my rights, when I'm wronged, it puts it in black and white in terms of good and evil. When you are wronged, then that's why we retaliate. And again, we live in a culture, there's a whole industry of grievances, you know, a grievance industry out there in which we are told that we constantly have to respond in certain ways. This is why we're seeing right now people who feel like they've been wronged, finally have in the last five, you know, ten years increasingly resorted to violence. And you hear people even saying now things like political assassination is okay if it accomplishes a certain means and so on. It really comes from this. They believe that they're being equitable and it's come to that. It's this that Jesus is pushing against and saying, no. We don't do that. We don't take guns into our own hands or violence and so on in order to accomplish these ends. We are to be wronged. If you serve as a minister of the state, as a policeman, as a military person, as a judge, as a lawyer, then within those bounds you are to seek justice and you can as a Christian, but not personally. Now, when we think about us retaliating, we don't have to, you know, do something as big as assassinating somebody. It doesn't have to be a kill-bill kind of personal vendetta. We do it in all sorts of other ways, right? Somebody, for example, says something to you that you don't like, maybe it's something mean, maybe it was just insensitive, and what do we tend to do? We snap back. with something equally mean, or we reply with a snarky reply. I know I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about people out there. I know you guys don't do that. But people do stuff like this, right? Sometimes we don't even say anything to their face, so we just roll our eyes when they walk away. But behind all this is this idea that we feel aggrieved. Right? Let's kind of dig into our hearts and see what's happening. Why do we respond that way? Because we feel aggrieved. We want to assert our own rights. We're seeking justice. What we're doing, and if you'll turn back with me to the passage that we read earlier from Philippians, remember we said we were going to look at that? What we're doing is we're putting our interests above other people's interests and yet Jesus is saying that we are to set aside our interests, our own rights for the sake of other people. Look again at Philippians chapter 2 and look at verses 3 through 4. Again it should be printed, no it's not printed for you in your bulletin but you can find it. And what does Paul say in verse three? Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. This is what Jesus has been talking about. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Notice he doesn't say you never pursue your own interests. He just says don't have yourself so locked into it that that's the overriding factor always. Put others above your own. And then Paul goes on to do what Dietrich Bonhoeffer in that little book, The Cost of Discipleship, calls visible participation in the cross. Now what does he mean by that? He's calling us to put the interests of others above our own, and he says that's what happened in the cross, and he's basing that on what Philippians says. Because after he calls us to put the interests of others above our own, in verse five he says, have this mind among yourselves. which is yours in Christ Jesus who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross You see, what did Jesus do when we wronged Him? And let's face it, we wronged Him. He is our Lord, He is God, and we have sinned against Him. We have done wrong to Him. If ever there was a person who could have insisted on his own rights, it's Jesus. Jesus is the only person who could sit there and say, I have done nothing to wrong anybody else. I don't deserve this from you guys. And he could have pushed back and pushed back hard, but did he? No. He put our interests above his own interests, so much so that he was willing to pay the ultimate price. He was willing at great cost to give his life for our well-being, even though we were the ones who had hurt him. We were the ones who had wronged him. As it says here, he was willing to become obedient even to the point of death, even death on a cross. 1 Peter 2.21 says Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps. We're being called to live in that same way. Peter goes on, when he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but he continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. And that's what we're called to do. When Jesus was arrested, the Jewish guards arrested him, blindfolded him, and they beat him and said, who's hitting you? Come on, prophesy. They spat upon him. Then they turned him over to the Roman guards. They did the same thing to him. They took a series of thorns and they formed it into a crown and they stuck it on his head. They covered him up with an old leftover purple robe, got a bunch of reeds, formed it into a scepter and said, oh, hail, king of the Jews. And then they mocked him and beat him some more and spat in his face. And as John R.W. Stott has put it, Jesus, with the infinite dignity of self-control and love, held his peace. He did not respond in kind. So this is not just Jesus sitting here in the Sermon on the Mount telling you to do something that he himself would not do. Later he would say, listen to what the Pharisees say, but don't do what they do, because they always fail to live up to it. But Jesus lived up to the very things that he calls us to do here in the Sermon on the Mount. He did not push back. He demonstrated a total refusal to retaliate in his person. And never there was somebody who could have, it was him. And you might say, well, okay, Peter says that he's to be an example, but I can't live up to that. Don't miss what Paul says in Philippians 2 verse 5. He says, have this mind, this mind where you put the interests of others above your own, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Now, some translations have misunderstood this and have mistranslated it. They translate this as, have this mind amongst yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. Well, certainly that mindset was in Christ Jesus, but it literally does say what the ESV says. Not only that it was in Christ Jesus, but it can be yours in Him. In our union with Him, we find the strength and the ability to demonstrate that same love to others. In just a moment, we're gonna come to the Lord's Supper. And the Lord's Supper is what? It's our communion with our Lord. And he presents it to us in the form of a meal, in the same way that a physical meal strengthens you to do physical things. He, if you come to him in faith, believing that he is the Lord who lived this way and did these things for you, he promises to meet you and to feed you and strengthen you spiritually so that you can do what otherwise you and I would not be able to do on our own, which is to love others, even at cost to myself or to yourself, to not push back, to not give the snarky little reply or any of those things when you are wronged. Because that is our first reaction, is to get even. But Jesus is calling us to be counter-cultural. He's telling us that we're to do good to those who wrong us. He's telling us to not keep score, to love others and to forgive others. It's not natural. It doesn't come natural to sinful fallen beings like you and me. But he does promise to empower us, to do the very thing that he already did for us in our place. when he went to the cross, and that is to love other people even as he has loved us. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for this great love that we have received in Jesus Christ. It's a costly love. It's a love that wasn't just words spoken, I love you, but they were demonstrated at the cost of his own life. And here we have Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount again calling us to live in ways that are opposite to the way the world lives. The world wants justice to insist that we push back, and Jesus tells us to show grace. Help us, Father, to do that. We come recognizing that it is beyond our own ability to do so. And we pray that you would equip us and enable us through Jesus to be able to demonstrate to the world that we do have a different king, a different emperor than Caesar and whoever else, and that we live by a different set of rules.