I invite you to turn in your copy of God's Word to the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew chapter 5. We'll be looking at the last few verses in Matthew 5, verses 43 through 48. Matthew 5, 43 through 48. And I think this is going to be the last, not just of chapter 5, but the last of Matthew that we're going to see in our regular progression before we enter some Christmas sermons starting next week. So this will be the last hurrah for our regular series and then we'll pick it up after the new year. So let's turn 543 to 48. Before we turn there, you know, all throughout my childhood when I was growing up, I constantly would hear people say, oh how much you look like your dad. You know, one of those things, right? And as a kid, you love to hear that because you want to be like your dad. My father was a hero to me. And after he had passed away, and then I was a teenager, people would say, oh, look at you now. Now you especially look like him. And even years later, When I was already an adult and married and have kids, I would run into somebody who had known him when he was younger, and they'd say, you look just like your father. Of course, you know that expression, like father, like son, so it's not surprising that I would look like him. Well, here in the text that we're about to read, we see Jesus twice refer to God as our Heavenly Father, our Father in heaven. And since then He is our Heavenly Father, then we want to be like Him, right? That's what sons want to do. So, how do we become like God the Father? And the answer is what Jesus is going to show us here. The key to being like God the Father is to love in the same way that He loves. And it's not surprising that at the end of this chapter where Jesus has been clarifying the Old Testament law for us, that He would end with talking about love. Let's see how God loves. And we see that then, verse 43, let's hear the Word of God. Jesus says, You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you 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. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." Well, thus far, the reading of God's Word. May He bless it to our hearing, especially as we hear it preached to us this morning. Well, last week when we were looking at what Jesus was saying in the passage right before this, He told us that when we are mistreated, when we are abused, when people wrong us, we ought not to respond in kind. Instead, He said to turn the other cheek. In other words, we are to respond to people sacrificially with grace, even when they don't show us grace, even when they harm us. But once we think about that, there are people out there trying to harm me, either physically or my reputation or my emotional life. That leads us to asking questions of hatred and of love. Whom then should we love? And who can I hate? The early church father, Augustine, once said, many have learned how to offer the other cheek, but do not know how to love him by whom they were struck. It's one thing to say, okay, I'll respond sacrificially to you attacking me, whether that be physically or verbally or whatever the case may be, but do I have to love you back? We live in a society that knows quite a bit about hatred. Like all other societies, we experience moments of heightened chaos and conflict, and we're experiencing one right now. Perhaps if you're on the younger side, you may not realize that things have not always been this way, but we're looking at all these protests. that are all over our nation. We're seeing substantial escalations of violence in our cities where it's become commonplace, almost to the point that people now expect that that's the norm. We're seeing assassinations and political violence. Young people have been pulled and the majority Not a sizable minority, but the majority now say that using violence isn't acceptable if it's for a good cause. In other words, the end justify the means. We see now people regularly having meltdowns. things that before in polite society we learned to control ourselves now the slightest little thing somebody doesn't get our order right somebody does something that we don't like and you see it I mean you only need to go on YouTube or TikTok not that you guys spend any time on those things I'm talking about people out there but you will see those things on there right what we have ever really since the 60s is a general lack of civility starting with the me generation it's all become about us and the more that it's about us the more we don't care about others. And so what we're seeing in our culture really reveals all sorts of deep-seated hatreds. Some of those are racial hatreds, and ethnic hatreds, political hatreds, and religious hatreds. And they're all very visible in our society here in the United States of America. So we have a very long way to go as a society in order to fulfill Jesus' command to love your enemies. So what can we learn, then, from what Jesus is telling us as we face the reality of the world in which we live? As we look at the passage, we're going to see three things. We're going to discuss worldly love, family love, and perfect love. Worldly love, the love that the world offers, what it calls love, the family love that we're to have as those who belong to the family of God, and then finally, perfect love, which we find only in one person. So let's look at the first of those, worldly love. And this is, as I said, the last of the series of sayings that Jesus has been doing here at the end of chapter 5 in the Sermon on the Mount, the most famous sermon in the world. And these are some of the most famous passages in that most famous sermon. And what he's been doing for us throughout all this is he's been clarifying the law of the Old Testament. He's been letting us know earlier in chapter 5, look, the law is not what gets you into the kingdom of God. Remember, he's speaking to his disciples, not to the world at large, he's speaking to his people. And he's letting us know, it's not your obedience of the law that earns you the right to be in the kingdom. It is only by the grace of God shown to us in Jesus Christ that you have been brought into the kingdom. But that does not mean the law has no place as those who are now in the kingdom of God, by the grace of God shown to us in Christ. Here is how you are to obey. Jesus lays out for us what life in the kingdom should be. And he gives that as he clarifies the law, because the law is the expression of how we should live. And so he ends this section by dealing with yet another misunderstanding of the law. In verse 43 he says, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. The problem is that they have heard falsely. That's not at all what the law says. Oh they got one portion right. You shall love your neighbor. And that's part of the first great commandment which we find in Leviticus 19 18. But notice I'm saying it's only part of it because they omitted. You shall love your neighbor. as yourself and you see all throughout this section as jesus has been clarifying you have heard that it was said but i say he's been showing us how we tend to water down the law to make it easier for us to obey make us easier for us to live up to it we bring down the standard of the law and we decrease our own view of our own sin and so here we are you're being called to love your neighbor but not as yourself because how do i love myself well to the max Let's face it, we all love ourselves much more than we love anybody else. And the standard is, love that person as much as you love yourself. But see here, they've lowered it. Love your neighbor. Okay, so that's a much lower standard. It doesn't have to be as much as me. I just gotta throw a little love his way and her way, right? So notice how already, right there, they've lowered things. And then they added something that's nowhere found in Scripture. You shall hate your enemy. Well, that's nowhere in the law of God. It's a complete and utter distortion of God's word. What they've done is they've taken the word neighbor to be exclusive. In other words, love only your neighbor. He's the only one that you have to love and therefore you're free to hate everybody else. And that brings in the question then, the big question then, who is my neighbor? If I can define who that subclass of human beings is, I can limit my love. It doesn't even have to be loving as much as I love myself, but I can throw them a little bit of love and the rest I can exclude. And that's what you saw in the reading that we had earlier in the service when Adam read the very well-known parable of Good Samaritan. The lawyer is asking the question. Who is my neighbor? And he's trying to limit that to make it easier to obey. And let's face it, it's not hard to love someone when you limit that love to just your neighbor, that is to those who are near you. And by being near you, I don't mean near you just physically, like the neighbor across the street or next door, we're talking about those who are near you ethnically, or near you racially, or near you economically. It's much easier to love when you limit your love to people who are just like you. You don't have to stretch yourself. You don't have to do anything else. They already fit into the groove of what you value and what you find important. And once you've done that, you can love those people, at least to a certain extent. And as was happening in that day, and so many of us continue to do, then we hate everyone else. The problem, of course, is that when you live in a culture like that, when you think that way, it becomes impossible for hatred to starve, because all we're doing is feeding hatred. We're giving it an opportunity to thrive as plenty to feed on. Love diminishes, hatred increases. We have justified our hatred. That's what people were doing in Jesus' day, and it's what people do today as well. But Jesus won't have any of it. And the answer he gives us is basically saying, look, This is, again, a distortion of the law. The law was meant to restrain hatred because of our sin, not to justify hatred against others whom we don't consider to be our neighbors. No, that's the way the world loves. That's worldly love, where we limit our love to those who are just like us. And Jesus is saying, no, that's not the way the kingdom of God is. You are being called to love all kinds of people, even your enemies. That's a different kind of love. Is that kind of love possible? Well, let's look at our second point, that of family love. And Jesus responds to them in verse 44, but I say to you, love your enemies. and pray for those who persecute you. And again, for the last time, we have Jesus using this formula, this contrast between you have heard that it was said, in other words, what other people say, and then He says, but I say. And in every one of those cases where it's written here in our Sermon on the Mount, that I is always emphatic. You have heard other people's opinions, but I say. And again, who is the I who speaks? It is the king of the kingdom of God. He's not just simply an interpreter. He's not just simply passing on what others have said about the law. He is the one who makes the law. He is the one who has the right to say this is what it means. If I'm up here and I'm doing my job as a preacher, I'm never telling you, I, John Kanellis, tell you. It's always, look at what the Word says, look at what the Scripture says, right? We're simply ambassadors, heralds of God's truth. But Jesus can come and speak and say with His own authority, here's what I say. So we need to listen to what He says. And He says that the answer is not the way the world loves. It's not that worldly love. The answer for us, the calling for us is a family love, which is the love of God. And you might say, well, why don't we call it a godly love? Why am I calling it a family love? Because he makes clear twice in verses 45 and 48 that it's a love that flows from our Father in heaven. We belong to a family broader and wider than any other family on the planet Earth. And in that family we have one father. And families have family characteristics. Certain families do things in certain ways. That's what defines them as families. Every family has its own culture. And so in this family, that of brothers and sisters in Christ united to the Father because of Jesus, we have a different way of loving. That's the family love that we're talking about. What's that family love like? Well, let's turn this into a Puritan sermon. If you've ever read a Puritan sermon, you know they give you lists. And they go on for about 67 pages. We're not gonna do that quite as much. But I'm gonna give you a list of different characteristics of what the love that God is talking about here, that Jesus is talking about here, that love that is a godly love but is supposed to be our love as well. We're gonna look at that. And as you hear these things, think to yourself, to what extent am I living up to that love? So the first thing I want to say, the first attribute of family love is that it is commanded. It is commanded. Jesus is not just simply praising those who love their enemies, he's actually commanding it. It's part of the law, it's not against the law. Too often we try to contrast law and love as if they are exclusive, but no. As James tells us, love is the fulfillment of the law. Later on in chapter 22, Jesus will say in verse 37, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. You see, our love for other people flows from our love for God, and both of them are commandments. They are both commanded for us. So family love is commanded love. It's also difficult. It's another attribute of family love. It is difficult. He tells us in verse 44, not just simply to love those who are our enemies, those who don't like you, who don't think well of you, but even to love those who persecute you. And that's tough. Richard Nixon once wrote, persecutors are the most difficult enemies to love. It's one thing to love a person who doesn't like you and maybe thinks ill of you but is not doing anything about it. It's much, much harder to love someone who is physically or in some other ways actively working to hurt you. It's a difficult kind of love. And because it is difficult, the third characteristic is that it's also costly. It's also costly. Family love is a costly love. It's a sacrificial love. Cheap love that doesn't cost you anything. That's easy. But that's not true love. Look at the love that God showed us. It cost the father his son. You all know John 3 16. God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. It costs the father his son. It's a costly love. It's also a love that is volitional. Volitional, what does that mean? It's an act of the will. He tells us in verse 44 to love your enemies, to pray for those who persecute you. Both of those, love and pray, those are action words. Those are verbs, right? In other words, loving is not just a feeling that we have. Oh, I just feel love for these people. No, it's something that you have to do. It's an action. It's volitional. It's an act of your will. In verse 45, Jesus says that God makes His Son rise on both the good and the evil. Notice that word, He makes His Son rise. It doesn't say He allows His Son to rise on good and evil alike. No, He makes it. It's an act of His will. In other words, this kind of love is an active love. It's not a passive love. The Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky once wrote, love in action is much more terrible than love in dreams. And he's using terrible in its original sense, something that is just so much harder, so much greater to do. It's so easy to love people with just feelings from a distance. I've had over the years of counseling, I've had people tell me, oh, I love everybody, just not him. It's very hard to love an actual tangible person whom you have to see and touch and be with. It reminds me of something that Linus once said in a Peanuts comic strip. He said, I love mankind. It's people I can't stand. Okay, that was actually Voltaire who said that, but Linus quotes him. But this is a volitional love, an active love that requires us to love the person who's right there in front of us, not just some general feelings of love that you can express when you're up there getting your Academy Award and all that. It doesn't cost you anything and you don't have to do anything about it. This kind of love also is an unconditional love. It's a love that's not determined by the person's loveliness or the attractiveness of that person. Again, he says in verse 45, he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. In other words, God gives his good gifts indiscriminately, even to those who oppose him. And therefore, we're called to do the same. We're called to love without any conditions or any expectations from that other person. That's why he says in verse 46, if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Your love should not depend on whether that person has loved you first or whether that person loves you in return. Our love should be unconditional. How often do we love people though with just expectations, expecting something? Probably a whole lot more than we would care to admit, right? Because it's an unconditional love, then it's also a universal love. universal love. Again, in verse 45, you're to love those who are evil, those who are good, those who are just, those who are unjust. You're to love friend and foe alike. When we read the parable of the Good Samaritan, we saw Jesus taking the lawyer's question, right? The lawyer wanted to know, give me a small subset of people who are my neighbor. These are the people who I am to love. And Jesus flipped it, and notice that what Jesus said in Luke chapter 10 was not, who is my neighbor, but who am I to be a neighbor to? Who am I to show love? And what he said basically was, anyone who God brings into your sphere of influence, anyone who God brings into your orbit, anyone who comes across your path who is in need of help, that's to whom you are to be a neighbor. And he broadened it. Yeah, you know, you can't be a neighbor to somebody you've never met in Rwanda. But whoever comes across your path, whether he has the same skin color or not, whether he's a different political affiliation or not, whether she is in the same economic class as you are or not, as long as they're in your orbit and have entered into your sphere of influence, Jesus tells us that we are to be a neighbor to them. to love them and to care for them, regardless of whether that person is a friend or an enemy. There's an interesting passage in Deuteronomy, in God's law, that really reflects this. Deuteronomy 22 verse 1 says this, if you see your brother's ox or one of his sheep straying, you must not disregard it, you must take it back to your brother. If you see your brother's donkey or ox fall over on the road, you must not disregard it, but must help your brother get it on its feet again. So if that person who is your brother, you see their donkey and it's lost, bring it to him. If you see your brother's donkey fallen under a heavy load and he's having trouble getting it back up, go help him. Makes sense. But now listen to this exact same command in Exodus 23. If you come across your enemy's ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to take it back to him. If you see the donkey of someone who hates you falling down under its load, do not leave it there. Be sure to help him with it. The exact same command, whether it's a brother or whether it's an enemy. We, as God's people, as Jesus' brothers and sisters in Christ, we are expected to love brother and enemy equally. It is, in fact, a universal love. It is also a generous love. And verse 45 says he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. This is a giving love. God gives us his good gifts, his son, his reign, and so on. He is generous to friend and foe alike. It reminds us of Proverbs 25, 21, which we read earlier. If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat. And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink for you will heap burning coals on his head and the Lord will reward you. How do you get back at your enemy if you're a Christian? By being generous. By giving. That's how you shame them, not by retaliating. This is a generous love. It's also a progressive love, and I don't mean that in some kind of political conservative versus progressive, but progressive in the sense that it's something that is constantly maturing. He tells us at the very end, these well-known words in verse 48, you must be perfect. And when you read that, you might interpret that to mean, well, he's expecting me to be perfect right now. But in the original language in which Jesus, speaking in which Matthew writes, the word perfect, and Jesus knows we're never going to ever be perfect in this life, the word perfect also has a meaning of being mature. To be perfect means to be fully developed. You had a goal and you have attained that goal. Think of the maturity of an adult compared to a child. They both are the same. They're both human beings. They both have the same DNA. But one is matured in his abilities. One has matured in her capabilities. And that's what we're being asked to do here. There's a process for us of growing into this ability to love like God loves. Remember, like father, like son. God knows that we're the sons. We're still growing and he's calling us to reach that maturity. We're able to love in this way. And if it is a progressive love, then that also means that it's a transformative love. In other words, it's going to change you as you progress in your ability to love people the way God loves us. It's going to change you. Take a look at verse 45 when he tells us, pray for those who persecute you. Now, think about that. Many of you will recognize Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran pastor who opposed Hitler during World War II and it cost him. He was thrown into a concentration camp and was executed just days before that camp was liberated by the Allies. Bonhoeffer wrote concerning, pray those who will persecute you, he wrote, this is the supreme command, through the medium of prayer, we go to our enemy stand by his side and plead for him to God not necessarily get to be physically there but in prayer what are we doing we're coming alongside that person who hates us and is actively working to harm us and we lift him up in prayer well that's going to change you if you're praying for your enemies it's going to transform you The now late Scottish pastor William Barclay once said, we cannot go on hating another person in the presence of God. The surest way of killing bitterness is to pray for the person we are tempted to hate. And as you find yourself praying for that person, you will see your love for them change. So people of God, don't wait until you feel some love for your enemy before you pray for them. No, begin praying, and you'll soon discover that your love for that person will blossom and grow. It is a transformative love. Just a few more. This love then is also a derivative love. What do I mean by that? In other words, it's not original to you. It doesn't come from you. You're incapable of coming up with this love on your own. None of us is able to do it. It's a love that flows from our Father in heaven and imitates our Father in heaven. That's why Jesus says in verse 45 that we should do this, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. That's why he says in verse 48, you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. This is, again, as we've said, a family love. It's derivative from our Father. What kind of love has the Father shown us? Well, let's remember this. God the Father had every right to retaliate against sinners. who opposed Him, who rejected Him, who rebelled Him. But what do we read in Romans 5.8? God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He didn't wait until we had reformed. He didn't wait till we had turned our lives around. He loved us in Christ even while we were still rebelling and hating Him. So what shapes our love is the knowledge that God has loved us even while we were His enemies, even while we were still sinners. That's why we're to love our enemies, because we're sons of the heavenly Father. We share His character, like father, like son. It's a derivative love based on who He is. The theologian F.D. Bruner once wrote that we should love our enemies so that we might really be in act what we have been made in fact, sons and daughters of the Father. One of the most amazing places you see that is when you look at the contrast, it's something that Jesus says earlier in the Sermon on the Mount with what he says here. Earlier, if you look at verse 11, when he was finishing the Beatitudes, he said, blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. So, when someone persecutes you, you are like the prophets. But when you respond back with love, when you love your enemies, even those who persecute you, then you are like God. You see that? When they persecute us, we're like the prophets. But if we are able to, through God's enabling, turn around and love them back, then we become like Him, like Father, like Son. The very last of these traits that we want to look at is that all this is countercultural. This kind of love is very different from the world's way of loving. That's why Jesus says in verse 46, if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? In other words, to love those who love you already, well, that's not extraordinary. Anybody can do that, even the tax collectors who were considered the worst sort of human being. They were corrupt. They were traitors and collaborators with the Roman Empire. They were ritually unclean. And if these worst of people can love their friends, then it's no big deal if you can, too. Jesus is saying that's no big deal. Now, the question that He asks in verse 47 should pierce us. What more are you doing than others? Jesus calls us to do more. We can't miss that. That's why He says in verse 48, you must be perfect. Again, it's not evident in our English translations, but the word you in verse 48 is emphatic. They didn't have in the old days a way to highlight or underscore or make bold or italicize, but they had ways that they can use the grammar to emphasize. And so, what it's saying is, Yeah, that's the way the Gentiles behave, that's the way the tax collectors behave, but you, you, you especially must be perfect. You must be maturing and growing in this. Jesus is saying that He doesn't require the tax collectors or the Gentiles. to act this way, to love those who persecute them, just us, His children. He does require more of us, and that's what makes us different from the world. We as residents, as sons of the king and residents of the kingdom are to be different. We have different set of principles that drive us, that shape our thinking and that shape our living. And in fact, it is this one quality, this family love, that utterly distinguishes us from the world. Jesus says in John 13, 35, by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. This is the thing that will distinguish us. So people of God, we must not stoop to the low standards that we find in our society, but we are called to pattern ourselves on the Father Himself and to love as He loves. The tragedy has been that the church is very often so little different from the world. And in this case, with this matter, we've often shown that we're unwilling to pay the high price of loving our enemies. And every time we fail to do that, we are ultimately unwilling to allow Jesus to be the Lord of our lives. We're unwilling to let him teach us the principles of his kingdom. We choose to go our way, not his way. But thankfully, there is one who always did obey. And that's the one who was perfect in his love. And that's our last point, perfect love. And of course, we're talking about Jesus himself. The beauty that we've seen all throughout this first chapter of the Sermon on the Mount is that Jesus keeps calling us to certain things. But every time that we look at them, every one of those things that he's calling us to, including this, are things that he himself perfectly does and which he then enables us to do. He's always the interpretive key to every aspect of the Sermon on the Mount. In other words, he's not just simply telling us. For Jesus, loving his enemies was not just an abstract ideal that he taught from the safety of his ivory tower. as he lectured to the masses. No, this is something that he lived out. Jesus loved his enemies. Jesus prayed for them, even as they drove those iron nails into his wrists. We read in Luke 23, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. He prayed for his enemies and he suffered on their behalf. As First Peter 318 says, Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous to bring you to God. This is not abstract for Jesus. He knows what family love is. Like father, like son. He is the perfect son who perfectly reflects the love of the Father. That's your perfect love. Now, don't misunderstand. When we talk about God's perfect love, that does not mean that God is soft on sin. So many people today are exploiting this idea that God is love. 1 John 4 tells us not that God is loving, but God actually is love. He defines love. And then they flip that around and they use that as a common, just become a common excuse for sin. You're hearing it in pulpits where people dare to stand and claim that they are shepherds of Jesus' flock. and that they are ministers of God's Word, and they dare to stand here and pervert that Word, and yes, I will say it here, even if it offends whoever's out there, but it is a travesty, it is sin, it is blasphemy when we sit there and say that because God is love, I can sin in all types of sexual sin, because that's what's being used, just like in Jesus' day where they were corrupting the law and twisting it so they can do whatever they want. People are trying to do that here. What you don't see in these liberal churches where they tell you love is love and you can love whoever, you never hear them talk about what? The cross. Unless maybe as some sort of example of Jesus sacrificing himself as an example so that, hey, we saw what he did, so you throw yourself in front of a car and protest for Palestine, freedom, whatever. That's about the extent of where they can go with that. But they never look at what the cross really is. And you know what it is? It is evidence that God hates sin. but loves the sinner. That's what we've been seeing all throughout. God shows incredible love to us sinners, but he never ever excuses our sin. He hates that sin so much that his son had to die for it. That's how serious God's hatred for sin is. What a tremendous cost. And it was an incredible love that drove God to sacrifice his own son and that led Jesus to willingly go. When Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees who brought to him the adulterous woman in John 8, and they threw her down at his feet. Rabbi, what are we going to do? We caught her in adultery. Of course, they're looking for him to either say, it's all right. Go and do whatever you want. It's fine. Oh, look, he's soft on sin. Or no, stone her, kill her. Oh, look, he doesn't show any love to anyone. And instead, as you know, he said that famous line, whoever is without sin, cast the first stone. And they all dissipated. But what does he tell the woman? Hey, sister, go off and do whatever you want, it's okay. Go, he shows her grace, because he loves her, but sin no more. God does not excuse our sin. Because he is love, he cannot abide sin. Did you see that connection? Because he is love, he will not tolerate sin because sin corrupts, it destroys, it perverts, it tears down. It has torn down marriages. It is tearing down our society. It is destroying God's good creation. And Jesus has come as the ultimate superhero. Sorry kids, Marvel and DC, they got nothing on Jesus. Because he single-handedly is upending everything that's wrong with this universe. And he's dealing with it at the cost of his own life. He loves the sinner, but he hates the sin, and we're to do the same. We're to hate that sin and love the sinner and not excuse our behavior, and out of love for others, we're not to excuse theirs. And it's tough. It's tough. Jesus is the one who perfectly fulfills us, yet he calls us to be perfect, to mature to the point where we can do this. There is something interesting else about that passage. Not only was it emphatic, you must be perfect, which means you must be maturing until you reach that goal. But that word must, you must be, literally is shall. It should be translated, you shall be perfect. There's an eschatological element, which is just a big word for saying that it's a future element. He's calling us to do something, it's an imperative, a command. You guys remember that from English grammar class, an imperative. It's a command, you are to do this, but at the same time, it has this idea of this is what will happen. Because remember, Jesus is talking not to the world at large, as he tells us right at the very beginning of chapter five, this was a discussion to his people. to the disciples and he says, you shall be this. How so? Because we are in union with Christ. The only way that you and I can fulfill this radically crazy command to love those who hate us and persecute us is only as you yourself are connected to the one who has shown perfect love and did that in our place. You try to do it on your own, you'll only get so far, and sooner or later you'll fail. But He enables us to do it. God will be working in us. As Romans 8.29 says, He conforms us to the image of His Son. And so He will enable you to love others, even as Jesus loved His enemies. That's where you have to go. He's not just an example. Hey, look at him run. He can run, you know, that really, really fast race. Now you keep up with him. No, he carries you. He empowers you. He enables you to do it. Alfred Plummer, the 19th century theologian, summed up this whole chapter or this whole section, I should say, in a really simple way. He said, to return evil for good is devilish. To return good for good is human. To return good for evil is divine. It's there that we show the love that we have that comes from Jesus. It takes all our love to love others in that way. But in Christ, we're able to do it because God supplies us that love and that ability in Him. Let me finish by telling you a short little story that I read in a book called Out of the Question and Into the Mystery by Leonard Sweet. He talks about one time when he had to go meet with a man called Tom Wiles. Tom Wiles used to be the university chaplain at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix. And he was traveling, Tom was, to pick up Leonard Sweet at the airport because he was going to a conference. And he picked him up in a brand new Ford pickup truck. And Leonard Sweet was at that time mourning the fact that just weeks before he had traded in his Dodge pickup truck. And as guys are meant, you know, as their want to do, the two men then bonded over stories about their trucks and so on and they, you know, laughed at that bumper sticker truism that says nothing is more beautiful than a man and his truck. And so they were just enjoying the fact that he was in this new brand new Ford pickup truck. And then Leonard goes on to tell you what happens next and I'll read directly from his book. And this is after he got picked up, he does the conference, now he's coming to be taken back to the airport. As I climbed into Tom's 2002 Ranger for the ride back to the airport a day later, I noticed two big scrapes by the passenger door. What happened, I asked. My neighbor's basketball post fell on the truck, Tom replied sadly. You're kidding, how awful, I said. This truck is so new, I can smell it. What's even worse is my neighbor doesn't feel responsible for the damage. I immediately rose to my friend's defense. Did you contact your insurance company? How are you going to get him to pay for it? I asked. This has been a real spiritual journey for me. Tom replied. After a lot of soul searching and discussions with my wife about hiring an attorney, it came down to this. I can either be in the right or I can be in a relationship with my neighbor. Since my neighbor will probably be with me longer than this truck, I decided I'd rather be in a relationship than be right. Besides, trucks are meant to be banged up, so I got mine initiated into the real world a bit earlier than I expected. But we see there, people of God, is a love that's supernatural, a love that is not worldly love. It's the Father's love in action made possible only through the Son. Let's pray. Father in heaven, how amazing it is that you have shown us that love in Jesus Christ. It's a love that we can't ourselves gin up or create, but it is a love that's available to us through Jesus. It is a love that He displayed perfectly and that He equips us to do. So we pray, Lord, that indeed we would be known as a loving people, that You would work in our hearts to enable us to do the hardest of all things, which is to love those who hate us and who actively persecute us. May we do so, Father, so that all can see that this unnatural or at least supernatural love, not worldly love, comes from You, and may they then give You the glory.