kids, it's probably some of the hardest preaching you'll ever, if you ever have to preach, preaching to Christian school kids is probably the hardest preaching ever in the world. I don't, I can't explain it to you other than to say it's just very hard. So I get up and I can already see their face like, oh another chapel, you know, we got to sit and have another chapel and I could already see it on their face. So I got up And I said, all right, I said, I preach to teenagers every week of my life, every week. And I said, I want you to know something. I know what's going through all your brains right now. I said, you guys, there's always, by the way, there's always somebody in a Christian school chapel, in any, okay, I take that back. In any time of public speaking, there's always somebody out in the crowd that you're talking to that this is what they look like. Seriously. And usually they have their arms crossed like this and they're sitting back in their seat, you know, and they're just, what does this guy got to say, right? So I said, I said, I know what's going through your head. I said, some of you are sitting here going, what's this funny guy got to say, right? Like, what is this funny looking guy that just comes to my school? What did he think he's got to say? I said, I want you to do me a favor. I said, because most of you sit here and look like your cat just died. I said, I want you to just, I'm going to close my eyes for three seconds. When I open my eyes, I said, I want you to give me the biggest smile you've ever had. And I will be honest with you, when I opened my eyes, I thought, you know, A bunch of teenagers, nobody's going to smile, right? They're just going to look at me like I'm stupid and I'm crazy. I open my eyes and there's kids trying to get, they're like taking the other kid and they're like, no, I have the better smile. No, I have the better smile. And they're all cheesing for me. And I looked at him and I said, do you see that attitude you got right now? I said, God loved you so much. He sent his only begotten son to die for you. I said, that's the kind of attitude you ought to have that you're a Christian and you're in a Christian school chapel this morning. And this morning you're in church. The best thing that's ever happened is the fact that God changed your life. He gave you a new beginning. And I want to tell you something this morning. We all ought to have a smile on our face. And this morning, as we look into God's Word and as we dive into what God has to say to us, I'm so excited to just be able to know that my God has changed my ways. My God has given me a new beginning, a new start. And I'll tell you, old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. And this morning, as we dive into God's Word, let's all together, as a group of people, just try to figure out what God is saying this morning. Matthew chapter number 5, verse number 38. Matthew chapter number 5. We're continuing Pastor's series here, and we're ending out chapter 5 right here. And so Matthew chapter number 5, verse number 38, if you have your Bibles ready. I want to look at this passage this morning, 38 of Matthew chapter number 5. The Bible says, By the way, that is something that is said over and over. Look at verse 33, Notice that God keeps saying, He said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, that ye shall resist not evil. But whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away. You've heard that it's been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. For he maketh his Son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. This morning I want to look at this subject, this morning, a Christian's response to wrongdoing. A Christian's response to wrongdoing. Would you pray with me and for me? Thank you so much for this day that you've given to us. I'm thankful for the opportunity to be able to share your word this morning. I pray that you'd guide and direct as I speak and as I share what you've laid on my heart. I pray that you would help this morning. I pray that you'd be with all those who are here. Would we learn something from your word, grasp something maybe that we have not understood before, And I pray that as a result, when we walk out of this building, we'd walk away changed, different, not the same as when I first walked in. And we'll give you the praise, the honor, and all the glory, in Jesus' name, amen. We're at the Sermon on the Mount. And pastor has done a very good job of this series, Counter Culture Living. And I think this series is such a very good series because when Jesus is preaching to all these people, he's got a group of people that are following him. It's the disciples, it's the people that wanna follow Jesus to hear what he has to say, and they're following Jesus. And when they're following him, I want you to catch, Jesus is telling them all these things that they've heard, that they think is normal for them, and it's not normal to what Jesus is teaching. And so Jesus is saying, hey, you've heard this, this, and this, but I say unto you, guess what? That's not the way it ought to be. Jesus says, I say unto you, But Jesus is preaching to this group of people and he says, you've heard all this stuff of how you're supposed to live, what the law says, what you're supposed to do, but I say unto you, we looked at it last time, I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife for the cause of fornication, all these things that God has talked about in verses three, verse one through now verse 38. So now we see another passage. Jesus has been telling them to live counterculture with all these things. Here's what the culture's telling you to do, but here's what I'm telling you to do. And so today, what is Jesus telling us to be counterculture? Because we've heard the Bible says that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But what does Jesus say? So this morning, what does Jesus say about being counterculture today? And I want you to look at this. Number one, I want you to notice, dealing with revenge. Dealing with revenge. I want you to look at verse number 38 with me. Would you do that? Verse number 38. The Bible says, ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Now, That was culture's idea, and I want you to catch what this is, because all throughout the Old Testament, if you go back in Leviticus chapter 24, verse 20, Exodus 21, 24, Deuteronomy chapter 19, you will see in the law that was given, there is that exact phrase, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and you'll hear that phrase throughout the Old Testament. So Jesus comes in the New Testament, and he says, I know that all of you have heard an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. And I want you to, basically it was used in the judicial courts to determine whether one offense was greater than the other. An eye for an eye, they were getting the exact same thing. A tooth for a tooth, the exact same revenge or justice was given to each person in the judicial courts. But what started to happen is it wasn't just in the judicial courts, people started taking this into their personal life and started using an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Well, you take something of mine, I'm taking something of yours. You do something to me, I'm gonna do something to you. You take something from my family, I'm gonna take something from your family. And people started using it to excuse away the wrongdoing that they were doing. Well, so and so did it. Well, how many of you, your kids have always said, well, they do it, so it's okay for me to do because they do it. And that's how it started to work. Well, the law said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, so guess what? They did something to me, I'll do something to them. And it started to become out of control. It started to become where people were trying to one up and do more wrong because they did this to me. Well, they deserve wrong, so I'll do that and more to them. And it got out of control. And so Jesus is here and he says, hey, I don't care. You've heard this an eye for an eye, a tooth for tooth. But here's what he says. But I say unto you, no, he says that you, verse number 39, that you resist not evil. But whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn him the other also. Now, we saw culture's idea, right? Culture's idea is basically, hey, they do it to you, you do it right back to them. Hey, they take something from you, you take something from them. Just go right back at them. Do it right. Keith wrongs me, I'll wrong Keith. I'm gonna make it right. This is gonna be right. But here's what God says. He said, Notice God's way. I didn't say, remember we looked culture's idea. Notice I said God's way. I didn't say God's idea. I said God's way. Why? Because God doesn't have ideas. You know what God has? God has his way. And you know what? God, the Bible says that God's way is perfect. And if God is giving me a way to do something, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna follow in that perfect way. And so I didn't say God's idea is we should probably try to do this. No, I said, God's way is to do this. So notice what he says. He says, whoever saw smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. Now you say, All right, so someone smacks me. I'm just gonna say, hey, I have another one right here. Go ahead. Now I want you to notice what Jesus does. He replaces a law, right? Because it was a law. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. That was in the judicial law. Jesus replaces the law that we all knew of with an attitude. He replaces it with an attitude. Here's what he says. Turn to him the other also. And if a man shall sue thee at thy law, take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. He replaces a law with an attitude. What's that attitude? Let me quote a verse to you and see if you can catch the attitude. But God commended his love toward us. in that while we were yet sinners, when we were the people that wronged God, when we were the people that were blaspheming God, when we were the people that spoke ill of God, but when we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. What's the attitude God's trying to get across? The attitude of love. The attitude of love. The Bible says, Romans 5, 8, God commended his love toward us in that while we did the things that we're upset about the other person at, when we were doing that to God, the Bible says God loved us so much, he didn't just say, well, can I have another cheek? You know what he did? He said, I'm gonna send my only son to die for you. And if some of us would just take a step back and would look at the kind of person we were before we met Jesus Christ, And we look at that life and we go, God loved me even through that. What this person is doing to me is nothing compared to what I did to God before and what God has done for me before I met Jesus Christ. I'll be honest with you, we look at some of the most trite things and we get so angry and we want revenge so bad because we're owed our justice, because we're owed our right, because they took an eye from us so we gotta take an eye from them. And the Bible says, hey, Hold on, where's the attitude of love in all this? God so loved the whole world that he sent his only begotten son. And tonight, this morning, I just want you to understand this attitude of love, it's an amazing thing that God demonstrated to us. When we blasphemed him and rejected him, he still loved us. So I want you to catch this morning that Jesus isn't asking us to do anything that he's not willing to do himself. Sometimes we go, well, That's not right for me to do that. I shouldn't have to do that. No, you know what? Jesus did this. He demonstrated it. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. No, no, no. I say unto you, hey, love those around you. Give love an attitude of love. But what's an example that he gives? Look at verse number 39. He says, Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn him the other also. So you look at me and you say, Johnny, someone smacks me in the face. I'm just supposed to turn my other cheek and tell them to do the same thing to the other cheek. No, I want you to turn with me, if you have your Bibles open, I want you to turn to the book of John, just real quick. I want you to turn to the book of John, chapter number 18. This is so interesting, because literally Jesus embodied this phrase in an example for us. I want you to look at this. John chapter 18, and I want you to go to verse number 22 with me. The Bible says, do you, let me give you the backstory. Do you remember when Jesus was in the garden with his disciples and Judas betrayed Jesus for 20, for, you remember when he betrayed Jesus there in the garden? And they came in and they took him and they brought him before the high priest. Do you remember that? Okay, so now he's standing before the high priest. John chapter 18, verse number 22. And I want you to catch this. Jesus had just finished speaking. And here's what happened. And when he had thus spoken, One of the officers which stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand. Can we just back up for a second and go, can you imagine being that officer? Striking Jesus with the palm of your hand? All right, he struck Jesus with the palm of his hand saying, answerest thou the high priest so? And Jesus answered him, if I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil, but if well, why smitest thou me? You know, Jesus didn't literally turn his cheek and say, hey, I got another one right here. You know what he did? He didn't look at the guy and said, hey, you know what the law says? Guess what the law says? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a smack for a smack, dude. Turn over, I gotta smack you. You know what he did? He said, hey, look at verse number 28, or 23. If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil, but if well, why smile to somebody? Jesus didn't get all red face, he didn't get all angry, he didn't scream, he didn't yell, he didn't smack back. Jesus just answered him calmly. And I'm going to be honest with you, too often we look at the things that are done to us and we get it smacked in the face and immediately our initial reaction is, I'm going to slap them back. Or I'm going to get right back at them. And you know what? I'm going to do it even better than they did. No, Jesus' response is one with calm, easy reaction. He says, Hey, I don't think I did what was wrong, but if I did, explain to me the wrong that I did. So he gives this example, but I want you to go back to Matthew chapter five with me. Go back over here to Matthew chapter number five, verse number 40. He gives the example of the cheek, smacking on the cheek, but then I want you to look, so he says, and if any man will sue thee, verse number 40, if any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. So now someone sues. But back in Bible times, I want you to understand this whole idea. Back in Bible times, what happened was there was two types of coats. There was the inner coat and the outer coat. The inner coat was what was worn at home at a bed in the house. The outer cloak was what was put on over that when someone would go out in the public, into the marketplace, or whatever it was. They would wear that out. So in the judicial law, you were supposed to, so look at verse 140, he takes away thy coat, but let him have thy cloak also. In judicial law back then, if someone sued you, you would give your outer cloak, right, or your coat, you would give that to them. But here's what he said, or you'd give your inner coat. But now as he says, he goes, don't just give him what the law tells you to give, take off your cloak too and give it to him. Here's the idea of what Jesus is saying. Hey, go over and above to make something right. Go over and above. That's a hard lesson for us to learn. Why? Why would I do that? If someone sues me, I'll give them what they're owed and that's it, and that's all that's gonna be done. But let me give you the context of this. Let me just be honest with you. Christian, the world watches what you do. The world sees the way you react. The world sees how you respond and the revenge that you want to take out on somebody. But I want you to listen. The Bible says, don't just give them the coat that they're owed. Take off thy cloak as well and give it to them. Go over and above to make things right. And this morning I want you to be honest with yourself. Some of you this whole time I've been talking have been thinking of a situation in your life that's going on that you wish you could exact revenge on. And you know you want to, and you know you probably shouldn't, and this morning it's God telling you, hey, just do the right thing. Do the right thing. Listen, revenge as a Christian is not something that we should seek. There was a man, his name for privacy's sake, his name was Joseph Kudar, and he was a successful young lawyer in Hungary before the uprisings in the country in 1956. He was a strong believer in freedom for his country, and he fought the Soviet tanks in Budapest with his friends, and when the uprising failed, he left the country and fled to America. He comes to America, and he was a very smart man. He had no money, no friends, no job, but he was well-educated, and he spoke and wrote several languages. And he was very smart when it came to this. And so for several months, he tried to get a job in a law office. And he was trying really hard, and he kept putting his application in. But because of his lack of familiarity with the American law, he kept being rejected and turned down. So finally, it occurred to him that with his knowledge of language, he might be able to get a job with the import-export company in New York. And so he selected a company in New York, and he wrote a letter to the owner. And he wrote this letter, and he asks for a job, and he says, I would like a job, please. And he sends it out to the company, and two weeks later, he gets a response in the mail. And he gets this response, and it was a scathing letter saying that even if they did have a position open, they wouldn't even consider hiring him because of his grammatical errors in the message that he wrote in the letter that he had. But in that letter that they responded with contained many, many, many grammatical errors trying to tell him that he had grammatical errors. Now, in our flesh, in his flesh, He wanted to really go off on this owner. So you know what he did? He wrote the letter. How dare you? Some of you are thinking in your head, how dare you? And you can fill in the rest of that letter, right? He writes this letter, and he's got it stamped, envelope sealed, and he's ready to put it out and send it to this owner. And he steps back. He goes, ah, I probably shouldn't send that. And he tears it up. He writes a response back, another letter, and here's what the letter says. Dear sir, you're probably right. I probably do need to work on my English and my grammar with English probably some more. Thank you for helping me understand the fact that I do need to do this, and I'm sorry that I bothered you. Two days later, Joseph Kudar is on his way to New York City being offered the very job that he was just turned down for. And within several years, he was set to succeed that owner, that CEO that was there scathing him, that he had a letter written up ready to just completely destroy, but decided against it because of it was his time of a fleeting moment of revenge. And I'll be honest with you this morning, there's been times in my life, and you can think of times in your life, where it would have been just easy to just tell someone, how do you really feel? It'd be real easy to look at them and just say, well, yeah. You want to know what I've been holding in for a while? Let me just tell you. Let me just tell you what I really think about you. But can I be honest with you? If this is not a perfect example of letting God control our thoughts, a soft answer turneth away wrath, the Bible says. And can I be honest with you? God's way is something that is so different than what culture is trying to teach. If they did something wrong to you, get revenge back. If they did something to you, just get revenge right back. But God's way says, hey, why don't you be a Christian about it and say, hey, that's okay. That's okay, a soft answer turneth away wrath. Number two, dealing with revenge, but number two, I want you to notice, go to verse number 43 with me. Dealing with responses, I want you to look at verse number 43. You've heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. Hey, you know what the law basically said? Hey, those that love you, just love them back, right? It's super easy to love people that love you, right? But those that don't really like you on this side, You don't have to like them, it's okay. There's just people you're gonna hate, there's people you're gonna love. It says love your enemies and hate those that hate you, right? But here's what he says, verse number 44, I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. Culture's idea is this, hate anybody that hates you. Don't talk to anybody that doesn't talk to you. But can I be honest with you? Sounds like what we have in our world today. Just a bunch of hate. A bunch of people that are just against each other. A bunch of unloving, unfriendly, hateful people. And I'll be honest with you, I don't like that. I'm more of like an outgoing, friendly kind of person where I'll talk to anybody. It doesn't really sit, when you, that whole idea, culture's idea of just hate those that hate you, it doesn't really sit well with me, because I'm just kind of a friendly person. When someone's kind of rude to me, I don't really understand it, because I try to be as friendly as possible. At Starbucks, don't tell pastor I said that, at the coffee shop, I try to be as friendly as I possibly can. Why? Just because that's how I am. And you know what? Those ladies in the coffee shop, they need to hear the gospel. They do. And they need a Christian to be a good testimony and a great witness to them. And you know what? I'm gonna try to be that person. I'm gonna try to be that person. So this whole culture of idea of hating anybody that hates you, it's what we have in our world today. But I want you to notice God's way. Look at verse number 44. Verse 43 says, love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies. That is completely opposite of verse number 43. Completely opposite. He says, I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that ate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. Notice this. Someone once described hate this way. Hate is like acid. It can damage the vessel in which it is stored as well as destroy the object on which it is poured. You can't control the other person, but you know what you can control? You can control yourself. every single one of us, we can control our response to when someone does something to us. We can control our response. H.E. Fosdick said, a man who hates to be slapped on the back packs his coat with TNT and waits for this man who always slaps his back. His idea is when he hits me, I'll get him. I'll blow him up. Hate kills both the person who you hate, but also yourself as well. Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat. And I'll just be real with you this morning. The easiest thing in the world to do is harbor bitterness and hate in your heart against someone who's done you wrong. It's easy to do that. But to be real with you, you're the person that's suffering because of it. You're the one with the acid in the glass. It's harboring, it's destroying your vessel, but it's destroying the person you're trying to throw that hate on. And this morning, can we be a group of people that do it God's way? God's way is somewhat different than the world will teach. He gives us some instruction. I want you to look at this. He gives us some instruction on how to do this. Well, how do I do it God's way? Look at verse number 44. But I say unto you, love your enemies. How many of you have ever heard that phrase, bless your heart? OK, I grew up in Florida, the north of the south. I'm not really familiar with that phrase. I mean, I kind of was, but not really, right? I get married to a North Carolina girl, right? I get married to a North Carolina girl, right? That's all her grandma says. I think she has a dictionary, and in the dictionary for all the words, bless your heart, bless your heart, bless your heart. Like, bless your heart has 100 million different meanings in North Carolina, right? Oh, honey, you just look awful today. Bless your heart. Johnny's hair just isn't done. Oh, bless his heart. Honey, you look good this way. Bless your heart, right? And the way you say it, you know exactly what is being said by the way it's said. But it's the same word. Bless your heart. And it's said just like that, with that nice little heart, right? Just like that. I've learned it pretty good in five years. She's not here this morning. She's going to listen on live stream. And she's with her North Carolina family. So she'll come back saying, bless your heart. That's what she'll do. She'll come back soon. But bless your heart has like 100 million different meanings. They could have a dictionary on what bless your heart means. In fact, someone needs to write one of those with a dictionary of all the different meanings of bless your heart. This word love, the Bible says, love your enemies, right? This word love is not the word love you're kind of thinking in your head, right? The Bible says, love your enemies? Come on, man. No, bless your heart, right? No, listen, here's what the Bible says, love, ready? There is two different types of love springing from this word. The first word is a love of complacency, and this love is a kind of love where we approve of the conduct of the other person. But that's not the word that was used right here. The word love that was used here is the love of benevolence. This is a love where we wish well to the other person, though we cannot approve of his or her actions. This is the type of love we are to have. We wish well to the other person, though we cannot approve of their actions. Let me be real with you this morning. God commended his love toward us in that while John Boucher was yet a sinner, he died for us. That's the kind of love. He's not saying you have to approve of what that person has done because they've done you wrong. He's not saying that. He says love your enemies. You're gonna love them. You're gonna, you cannot agree with what they have done. You cannot approve of what they have done and how they have wronged you, but you can still love them and you can still have that kind of love where you wish well to the other person. I'll just be, that kind of loving person where I'm not going to be a hindrance to that person coming to know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior because I didn't love them the way the Bible said. Imagine if Jesus thought the same way we think. Imagine if Jesus said, well, that person did me wrong. That person talked bad about me. I'm not gonna love them. Imagine where you and I would be today. But the Bible says in verse number 48, be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. If we're gonna be like Christ, we've gotta have the love that Jesus had. Love your enemies, but notice what else he says. He says love your enemies, but he says bless them that curse you. This word bless has the idea of basically speaking well of or to. Speaking well of or to. Let me just give you the opposite of what that word means. Ready? Did you hear how big of a scumbag Johnny was? Did you hear that? That's the opposite of bless them. You know what? It ought to never be said about any of us that we are talking bad about another person, ever, ever. This is something that I have learned from straight observation in my family. Just from observing my dad be the kind of person that will bless somebody, will not speak evil about somebody, even though that person has wronged them. I'll be honest with you, that is something that has been modeled in my family ever since I was a little boy. And this principle of love your enemies, but bless them that curse you has been modeled. My dad was assistant pastor growing up, and there were some things that were said about my dad by people that I even heard about. But you know what? At home, my dad never said a word about it. My dad, in fact, would go and we would do things to do good. In fact, we're going to get there, but we would do good to those people that would speak evil. And I'll just be honest with you, that ought to be something that is said about every Christian in this room. Bless them that curse you, but then notice what he says, do good to them that hate you. That literally means what it says. Do good to them that hate you. Seriously. Do good to them that hate you. But then he ends it out with this. And pray for them which despitefully use you. I'm not going to get into that despitefully use you part this morning, but you know where I'm going with that. And persecute you. You know what the Bible says? Pray for that person. A couple weeks ago something happened to me. And in my deep down, I just really wanted, I was in the right, I felt I was in the right, and I really wanted to get revenge on that person while I'm preparing this message. And I really wanted to get revenge, right? In my mind, in my flesh, that's the human flesh, is I wanna get right, that we're gonna get even, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But you know what? I went home and I was sitting at my couch and I was leaning over and God pricked my heart and he said, you ought to pray for that person. No, I'm not gonna pray for that person. But you know what I did? Before God, I went and I prayed and I said, God, would you help them? Help my reaction to this to be right, but God, would you help them? Would you help them to see the error of their ways? Would you help them to come to a knowledge of what has happened and help them to understand? God, help them. Pray for them. He says, love your enemies. He says, bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you and pray for them. And let that be our cry this morning. As we go forward, there's someone, some of you, as I've been speaking, have got a situation, there's a person, there's something going on in your life, and you're thinking this morning, yeah, that's me. That's what's going on in my life. And I've gotta have God's way as my reaction. I can't be reacting, I can't be responding. I can't be exacting revenge on this, but I've gotta be responding. in the proper way. And Christian, can I be honest with you? Even if you're here this morning and there's not something on the forefront of your mind, there will be a time where someone wrongs you. There will be a time when someone comes and they do something and you're like, I just wanna... But can I be honest with you, this morning, can you put Matthew chapter 5, verse number 44, can you circle it in your Bible and hold on to that, so the next time someone does you wrong, you look at your Bible and you go, I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. Can that be something that we as Christians hold on to? Man, this verse is going to be circled in my Bible. This has really helped me because when I got someone that does me wrong, you know where I'm going to turn? Matthew chapter 5, verse number 44. That's going to be the first place I turn. Why? Because I want to do it God's way. Because God's way is perfect and everything that he does is perfect. And I'm deciding that I'm not just going to follow culture. I'm not just going to go with the stream. I'm not just going to do what everybody else does, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I'm going to do it God's way because I'm a Christian and because God's way is perfect. And this morning, Christian, can I encourage you, can I be honest with you? We ought to be doing it God's way. We ought to be getting the responding to those who do evil to us in the right way. Can I have every head bowed and every eye closed? Every head bowed and every eye closed. Some of you are here this morning and you're thinking to yourself, yep, there's a situation in my life that I'm dealing with right now and God being my witness, I really want exact revenge. There's things that are going on and I am in the right. I should not have had this happen to me and I'm in the right. But there's this thing that's going on in my life. And Johnny, I need prayer this morning. Would you just slip your hand up? Johnny, there's someone that's done me wrong and I need help this morning. No one else is looking. I'm the only person looking. Yes, I can see your hand. Yes, I see your hand. Anybody this morning. Johnny, there's somebody that has done me wrong and I need to respond correctly. Amen. Amen. How many of you are here this morning and you'd say, Johnny, nothing's really... No one's done me wrong recently. I'm not in the middle of something right now, but I know I'm about to be. And Johnny, this morning, I've circled Matthew chapter 5, verse number 44 in my Bible, or I will circle Matthew chapter 5, verse number 44 in my Bible this afternoon, and I'm going to go back to Matthew chapter 5, verse number 44, when someone does me wrong. How many of you say, that is my prayer this morning, that I do right to those that hate me? Amen. Hands all over the building this morning. Hands all over the building. In just a second, the music's going to play, the pianist is going to just play softly a song. And this morning, may it be your turn to come to this altar and just say, God help me. Someone's done me wrong. Someone will do me wrong. And I want to respond in the most Christian way possible. I want to respond the way God wants me to respond. It's very possible that this morning there's someone here that doesn't know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. There may be someone here that doesn't know 100% sure that they're on their way to heaven. And if you'd say this morning, Johnny, I don't know 100% sure that if I were to die right now, God forbid, but if I were to die right now, I'd go to heaven. How many of you, no one else is looking, just me. I'm the only one looking. You say, Johnny, I don't know 100% sure that if I died right now, I'd go to heaven. Would you just slip your hand up? I won't embarrass you. I won't call you out. I just want to pray for you. Anybody here this morning says, Johnny, I don't know 100% sure that I'd go to heaven if I died. Based on no hands being raised, I would assume that every person in this room knows Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. So this morning, how many of you would decide to make a commitment to God to respond to evil in a proper way? A Christian's response to wrongdoing. This morning,