Beloved, as we come to this text, the last of a subsection within this sermon, allow me just to repeat once again where we find ourselves. We find ourselves looking at a congregation, a people who have gathered themselves to be under the sound of Christ's preaching, a pious people. The Lord Jesus comes and he preaches to a people who, were not profligate sinners. They were not men and women who were very evidently worldly. They were a people who seemed really to be a godly people. As we've seen through the course of this sermon, the Lord Jesus has opened up the law of God to show them that the law is far more extensive, far more spiritual than the natural man would desire. The entailment friend for this congregation that heard the sermon first was that there is no natural man. There is no natural man, friend, that is genuinely godly. The law exposes that fact quite clearly. The law shows very evidently that there is none righteous, no, not one. And as we work through the law, as the Lord Jesus has expounded on the sixth, the eighth, the seventh, the ninth, and the third commandments, we've seen how the Lord Jesus shows this to us. But if you take all of those together, what do you learn? As the Lord Jesus expounds to us the law, as he shows it's spotless righteousness, what is he saying to them? What is he saying to us? Friend, the law shows us that none live wholly, sincerely unto God. Not for God's glory, not for his sake. The law shows us and comes to us with a question. And how do you live and why do you live? for God's sake or for your own. I want you to see friend, as you come to the end of this fifth chapter, that that is the principle theme that you and I glean. But how do we see it? You remember how this discourse begins or rather how this subsection of the discourse begins. The Lord Jesus comes to his own. He comes to those who are his professed disciples and he says to them that they should desire to set forth their good works before men that men would glorify your father. That men would glorify your father when they see your obedience to him. So he's showing us what is to be the motive for his disciples. They are to do good so that men would glorify God on their behalf. And friend, what you see in this text is that true disciples are those who endeavor to work for God's sake. Their aim is the glory of their father. I want you to notice as well, friend, that this righteousness which they labor after is a righteousness that is to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. So they labor for God's glory, and the manner in which they labor exceeds the righteousness of the natural man. That's how the discourse begins. And so the Lord Jesus, as he expounds the law from verses 21 to the end of Matthew 5, he shows us what that righteousness looks like. It's not purely external. It's not just what men might see. As we said at the beginning, The law requires extensive and spiritual obedience. He's showing us what righteousness exceeds that of the natural man, that righteousness that marks a true disciple. In verse 43, he concludes this section of the sermon. You notice in the very first line, there is a break from what we have become quite accustomed to hearing. He says, ye have heard, ye have heard. Now, I say there's a break there in the sense that, not in the very words, but in what he quotes. Ye have heard, he says, that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor. That's a quotation from the law, but not what follows. And hate thine enemy. What you notice in this text is that the Lord Jesus is showing us the truth of what we began with. He's not an antinomian. He's not against the law of God. He comes to clarify the law. And so his aim here is not to destroy what was written, but rather to destroy those false glosses that the rabbinic tradition had placed upon the law. And so in this last section of the sermon, he quotes the law first of all, and then quotes what the rabbis were teaching. The law said, love thy neighbor. In Leviticus 19.18, the law goes on to say, love thy neighbor as thyself. That's not just a New Testament concept. It was in the law from the beginning. But nowhere in the scriptures will you find that last line, and hate thine enemies. That friend comes exclusively from the tradition of the scribes and the Pharisees. What you see is in the first century and even before that, the Jews began to teach that the word neighbor had a very specific meaning. They defined a neighbor primarily as one's friend, as one's benefactor. In other words, friend, you're looking at a neighbor as somebody who has done you good. That's how the Jews interpreted Leviticus 19. Love your neighbor means love those who have done good to you. Love your friends. That's what they were teaching. But the Lord Jesus in this moment, he shows that he's using a different dictionary, a different lexicon than the Pharisees and the scribes. He shows us that that command to love your neighbor is not exclusive to your friends. It also applies to your enemies. The word neighbor is not to be restricted to those who have done you good. It even includes those, as he says later on, who even persecute you. So he is correcting. He's correcting how men think. He's not just correcting the tradition of the rabbis, is he? He's correcting how the natural man reasons. I mean, in Friend Among Men today, you would find most people say that same thing, wouldn't you? If somebody has done you a good turn, you should reciprocate. Is that fulfilling the law of God? The Lord Jesus says pointedly, no. And what he does as you look at verse 44 is he shows us really friend, what he means. He gives us three consequent precepts from that first line. He shows us in other words, what it looks like to love your enemy. And then finally in verses 45 to 48, he shows us what is our pattern. He gives us, friend, not an example, but the design, the pattern that we are to use as we seek to obey him. So as you look at this text, what do you find? You find that the Lord Jesus defines neighbor far more extensively than the rabbis and the natural man. He shows us that the word neighbor in the law is not to be restricted to friends. But I want you to recognize, Christian, how profound that is. It might seem like a small point, isn't it? It's just semantics. It's just a debate about one word. But how great is the consequence of that debate? If men think that they've fulfilled the law just by loving their friends who love them, then, friend, they will reason that they're right with God. And so many still to this day do. But if the word neighbor in the law really does mean, friend, even your enemies, well, the question stands, who could stand before God justified? It's a matter of life and death. And what you notice in this text as well is that the Lord Jesus is returning to that binary that hard and fast contrast between his people and those who are not. His people will be marked by a love even for their enemies. While the men of the world, the natural men will only love those who love themselves. This is a resounding challenge So the first congregation who heard it and us. The Lord Jesus is saying, this is either true of you or it isn't. This is either found in you and so you are one of Christ's true and sincere disciples or it's not. And you're not one of his disciples in truth. If I can put it this way, friend, the stakes couldn't be higher. The contrast is an absolute one. And this is an infallible mark, Christ says, of those who really are children of the Lord, disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. So what you learn in this text, friends, is that Christ's people do not love selfishly. In these several verses, he teaches that to us. He gives to us, first of all, the general precept of verse 44, He shows us then its pattern. And then finally, friend, you also learn from this text, the principle, if you like, the fuel, the reason why Christ's people love so. So I want us briefly, friend, to look over these three headings. I want us to look first of all, the precept. Again, in verse 44, it is love your enemies. Agapeo, a Greek word that you probably know well as agape. That is to love. But what does that mean? And the word agape in the scriptures, the word love in this particular case, it is not only extrinsic. That is, it's not only an external thing. There are some who might say, well, to love your enemies just means that you do good things for them, even though you resent them in your heart. That's never, never how the word love is used in the New Testament. The word love is something that encompasses all. It originates from within, it originates in the soul and it extends necessarily then out to good works. It is holistic. So friend, when the law says, if an enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat. And if he'd be thirsty, give him water to drink. Those are external aspects of this simple command. But the command is friend holistic. It goes beyond that as well. And so this is not a radical new precept that Christ is giving us. When he says love your enemies, friend, the law already said that you are really, you are really to love your neighbor, your friend, as well as your enemy. Even if your enemy's ox falls into a ditch, you are bound in conscience, even for your enemy's ox to relieve it. This is not a radical new concept. Some New Testament commentators have gone completely off the rails here. The Lord Jesus is showing us what was always in the law. But it's that first point that I want to return to, that this idea of love is holistic. That is, it encompasses not only good deeds, but an affection toward your neighbor. The word is used this way in 2 Corinthians 12. I will very gladly spend and be spent for you. That's how the apostle describes his experience of agape. I will gladly spend and be spent for you. That's more than just doing something good for someone. That is an affection, a real heart love, if you like, toward an object. So what does Christ say? So he says, bless, bless even your enemies. Speak well of them as you can. Do good for them, so you need to be seeking their advantage. Pray, that his friends seek God's blessing at the throne of grace for them. And that even though they curse you, they hate you. They persecute you. I wanna reiterate, friend, that what the Lord Jesus is doing here is he's not adding to the law. He's showing us what was always there from the beginning. He's showing us what the law requires of you and of me. And what it teaches us then is that we are to love our enemies. I want you to notice that the word you're there, it should be really emphatic in our own reading. The point is, is that you are to love your enemies as they are your enemies. What do I mean by that? Well, if you look at verses 38 to 42, we learned last Wednesday morning that we're not to act out of self-interest. So we're not supposed to just seek our own cause or our own good. That's not how we're supposed to live. Now he says, don't love out of self-interest. Don't love. out of self-interest. That's what the, really the friend, the scope of these verses set before us. It's just as we don't act, work for self we don't love selfishly. Now, why emphasize the word you're there then? Well, in part friend, because the scriptures do hold forth that the believer is called at times to hate. Take for instance, what you find in Psalm 139. Do not I hate them, O Lord. that hate thee, or take even 1 Corinthians 16. If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha, that is forever accursed. What do we glean from those two texts? And others can be cited as well. Well, friend, the point is, is that that hatred that they bear toward men is not because Those men whom they hate are their enemies, but because they're God's enemies. Again, note what he says there. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee. In our text, the Lord Jesus shows us that we don't have a right to hate our enemies considered as they are our enemies. We are not to love, we are not to hate out of self-interest. So we are to subordinate our rights as well as our affections to God, to his cause. That's what the Lord Jesus sets before us. And so what does he say? He says, if you love them, which love you, that is if you love simply because you love somebody else's love for you, or if you love simply if you like out of self-interest, well friend, what gain do you have? You see the natural man, he loves for his own sake. Christ says, no, you are not to love out of self-interest. But how are we and why are we supposed to do so? This I wanna highlight a few things for you. There are four ways in which you and I can think about this command and its reason. Why are we to love our enemies? Well, friend, first of all, we ought to remember that that those men who are enemies are men created in the image of God. In the fall, that image was defaced, we know that, but it was not eradicated. In fact, it still remains in man to the point that when God cites the necessity for capital punishment upon the murderer, when he highlights the guilt of murder, he does so to tell us that they have killed somebody made in God's image. So friend, when the Christian thinks about his fellow man, he is supposed to think about one created in the image of the God whom he loves. James 3.9 reiterates that very point. Man was made in God's likeness, the apostle says there. And therefore friend, can you hate that which is in God's image? No matter how effaced, friend, The command is simple, to love those who are created in his likeness. Secondly, of course, it's a simple command. We're to love men because God has commanded us to do so. If we love God, we will do that which he commands. Thirdly, you and I will love because we see his glory in it. In other words, if you go back to Matthew 5 and 16, you'll remember what Christ says there, that men would see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. That is a motive for pursuing righteousness for God's people. So they are to love their enemies as well because they see that God is exalted therein. But also friend, you ought to see in this text that it is God's right finally to discern your cause. and to deal with your enemies as they are your enemies. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. And from the heart, the Christian leaves that with the Lord. All of those, friend, all of those four reasons ground this command. We are to love those who are created in God's image. We're to love because he's commanded us to do so. We are to love because we see that he is glorified thereby. And we are to love recognizing that it is God who ultimately will take our cause. But I want you to notice, friend, how the Lord Jesus leaves that first idea, this precept. If you love them which love you, what do ye more? More than natural men is the point of the text. You see what he's saying? He's saying that if you love simply selfishly, If you simply love those who love you, you are rising no more than the natural man, which means necessarily that Christ's people, they possess, friend, a righteousness that is to exceed and does exceed the natural of the fallen man. This command is not possible, Christ says, to men who are unregenerate. who are still outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's worth just meditating on that for a moment longer, isn't it? There is a moral impossibility in the natural man to do what Christ here commands. And yet the law commands you and I to love at this level and for these ends. How does that strike you? Does that humble you? Secondly, I want you to notice the pattern. So the Lord Jesus, he gives to us the precept, but now he gives us the example, the design that you and I are to take as our own. God maketh his son to rise on the evil and the good. He causes his reign to fall on the just and on the unjust. That's our model, the benevolence of God to men generally. The point of the text, friend, is really straightforward. God's long suffering and his mercy is something of our pattern. To understand this, I want us just to step back for a moment. I want you to remember how the Lord Jesus gives this to us in Luke 6. He says to, in that text, he says, be therefore merciful as your father also is merciful. So God is merciful, even to those who are the unjust, even to those, he says, who are evil. This is a really important point that really grounds the whole text before us this afternoon. God is long-suffering. He is even merciful to those who are his avowed enemies. It's important for us to meditate on that just for a moment, because here you have, friend, the reality that God is in fact merciful, and yes, gracious, even to those who are not his people. He is benevolent. Luke 6.35, again, that's the idea. He actually does good for them. And the meaning there is that he intends good for them in sending them these mercies, like the sun that shines or the rain that falls. They are tokens of his goodness to his enemies. If you take that from the text, the text makes no sense. It becomes utterly unintelligible. As you look at the text from further in Acts 14, which we read before, We're told, the apostle tells us, that God sends tokens of his goodness to his enemies, filling our hearts with food and gladness. It goes on to tell us that those are witnesses to his goodness. And to whom do they fall? Again, to the evil and the unjust. To them. As you look at the text, friend, The apostle is clear and our text is clear that these things that come even upon the enemies of God, they are witnesses not to his sovereignty alone, not friend to his wisdom alone, or not even to his justice alone, but to his goodness, they are sent as witnesses to God's enemies. Why am I belaboring this point? Because the unregenerate are to take and they are culpable for not doing so these mercies as tokens of God's goodness to them. Why is that important? If you were to go back to Luke 6, you'll notice that there the Lord Jesus describes the enemies of God who receive these things, not only as evil, but as unthankful. What he is saying there is, friend, that they are culpable for not returning thanks for these good things. There are some who deny common grace, and in doing so, friend, they become the apologist for the reprobate. If these things were not sent to the reprobate as tokens of God's goodness, they could not, and please hear me here, they could not be culpable for being unthankful. And because of that, Christian, what you and I are supposed to see in this text is that God sends these things as real tokens of his goodness to his enemies, though they will not return thanks and are guilty for it. By belaboring that point, friend, I think we also get to see a better glimpse of the pattern for us. If the Lord God sends real tokens of his goodness, even to his unthankful enemies, if God is long suffering and benevolent to those who are infinitely guilty in his sight, should we not be more willing to be long suffering and patient to those who sin against us? If God is so, friend, why would we arrogate to ourselves a prerogative, a work that God does not himself? That's our pattern. But thirdly, and finally, I want us to notice the principle the Lord Jesus emphasizes. That is, if you like, the reason why God's people love so. And you find it in verse 45. Why are they to love so? That he says, he may be children of your father. Note the word there, it's not become children of your father, that you may be, and the idea is that you would subsist or rather even reveal that you are children of your father. He goes on to say in verse 48, that you are called to be perfect even as your father. Heaven is perfect. The word perfect there in the Greek is teleo. It's a word that denotes fullness or completion. Now you could take that perfection that's in verse 48, and you could say, well, it's just reiterating verse 45, that just as the father is merciful even to his enemies, even as he is long-suffering, so we are to be merciful, so we are to be long-suffering. I want you to remember, friend, that we are coming to the end of a subsection of this sermon. And as we are, you'll notice that in verse 16, we were told about our need to work so that our Father is glorified. The idea there is that in verses 21 to 47, the Lord Jesus shows us how that would be so. A righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. And so this perfection, this fullness that's in view is that righteousness that exceeds that of the natural man. a righteousness friend that strives after the righteousness of God. It's the same kind of idea that you have in 1 Peter 1.16. Be ye holy, for I am holy. It's the same kind of growth and holiness that the apostle describes when he says to the church in Ephesus, grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. Grow into the likeness of Christ. That's what they are to endeavor. That's the perfection that they're aiming after. And no, in this life they'll never attain it. And friend, in the sense that they will always be finite creatures, God's righteousness will always be infinite. And so beyond our pale, but the idea that is here, that that is our pattern. Our pattern is not the righteousness contrived by man, defined by man, but our pattern is this. likeness with the Father, likeness to the Lord Jesus Christ, a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the natural man, true holiness. And if you look at the scriptures, you'll find that that's precisely what the Christian aims at. He aims for true holiness. He's born from above, John 3 tells us. He is the Christian that is. He is God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. He strives, friend, after this righteousness. There is something within him, a work of grace wrought within that impels him. to proceed deeper and further into genuine holiness. He is a new creature. All things are passed away. Behold, all things become new. The idea is, is that if you are truly in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are striving to this end, a real holiness. But friend, what does that look like really? Can I quote to you? at some length what the apostle tells us in Philippians 3 about himself. He writes to the church in Philippi, he says, not as though I had already attained or were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I also am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, But this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are...