Rev. David Holwick
First Baptist Church
West Lafayette, Ohio
May 5, 1985
Love Your Enemies
Matthew 5:43-48
Did you ever have an enemy? A really nasty one?
An enemy can be someone at work, across the street or even in your own home. It's a special kind of relationship. An enemy is more than just someone who is rotten, ugly and mean. Most enemies are that way. An enemy is rotten, ugly, mean - and they're out to get you. Nothing gives them more joy than the opportunity to stab you in the back.
I can say that I have had few enemies in my life. I don't attribute it to my glowing personality but to the fact that my family always moved before people got to know us. One summer I didn't move fast enough. During my vacation from seminary I got a job in a paper-bag factory. These weren't your run-of-the-mill paper-bags like you find in a supermarket. They were heavy-duty concrete bags with up to six layers of paper and plastic glued together.
My job was to load huge rolls of paper on the back of the machine. The guy who ran the machine hated me. I don't know why but he really had it in for me. Instead of looking at me, he always glared. I could do nothing right in his eyes.
One day the paper broke as it was going through the machine. It was no big deal because it happened all the time. I re-threaded the paper and plastic through the rollers and turned the machine back on. As it turned out, only one roll of material was threaded wrong. It was a roll of Saran wrap, and instead of having the glue fall on the outside, it fell on the inside. That gluey plastic hit the roller, stuck and began to wind around it. Twenty minutes later, my boss noticed the roller which was now tightly wrapped with a few hundred yards of plastic. He didn't yell at me like he usually did. Instead, he walked into the plant manager's office and screamed at him about me.
I'll admit I made a big mistake. But what made me mad was that he never told me how to do it right. He wanted me to fail. It's hard to love someone like this. And yet he had friends. There were a few people this guy would hang around. Not many but a few. Most of his friends ran machines like his.
Anyone can love their own kind. The Hell's Angels are known as vicious criminals but they take care of their members. Even Adolf Hitler had people he was concerned about. You might say that everyone believes in love - as long as they can put limits on it.
This is the principle behind the saying in verse 43:
"You should love your neighbor and hate your enemy."
The first half is a quote from the Old Testament. Turn to Leviticus 19:18. It says:
"You shall not take revenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself."
The Bible never commands us to hate our enemies. The saying Jesus refers to is a subtle perversion of Scripture. Scripture says we should love our neighbor but neighbor came to be limited to "our people" or "our kind."
The Jews knew that the concept of neighbor had to be restricted. The only disagreement was how tight to draw the circle. Most of them did not consider Gentiles to be neighbors. Some of them were so restrictive only the people in their own synagogue were neighbors.
What happened to those who were not classified as neighbors? You didn't have to love them. If you twist it a little more; it becomes acceptable to hate them, especially if they're trying to stab you in the back.
Most of us wouldn't go that far. We don't want to hate people. But we don't want to love everyone, either. Some people just aren't lovable.
This may be logical but it's not Christian. Jesus Christ does not allow any limits on whom we should love. To underline how radical he is, in verse 44 he flatly states:
"Love your enemies."
There isn't any gray area in this command.
The Old Testament itself has some similar ideas. In Exodus it says that if your enemies' ox wanders into your farm you shouldn't have a barbecue. You are supposed to return the ox to your enemy. Proverbs says that if your enemy is hungry you should feed him.
The Old Testament has parallels but it never goes as far as Jesus. Most people regard today's passage as the high point of the Sermon on the Mount. I believe it summarizes his teaching in a powerful way. Jesus is saying - don't love just your own but love as God loves. Verse 45 says:
"God, makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust."
God loves people whether they love him or not. If you break every commandment in the Bible and curse God at the top of your lungs, God will still love you. The greatest example of this is found in the cross. According to James Boice, the majority of verses in the New Testament which speak of the love of God also mention the cross. John 4:10 says:
"Here is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins."
Romans 5:8 is even more appropriate. It says:
"But God demonstrates his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
In each case the cross of Jesus is made the measure of God's love. God's love is not reserved for those who are good or deserving. Jesus only died for sinners.
The application is that Christians should love like God loves. Verse 45 says this is the identifying work of true believers. But how many Christians really pass this test?
If we were honest, most of us would have to say we struggle to meet the worldly standard, which is to love those who love us. We spend all of our energy being good to our families, our friends and those at church. There's nothing wrong with this - but it's only a minimum requirement. As verse 46 says:
"For if you love them which love you, what reward will you get? Don't even tax collectors do the same?"
One commentator has said that if you pay back evil when someone is good to you, you belong to the devil. If you pay back good when they do good to you, you're merely human. But if you can pay back good when they do evil to you, then you belong to God.
Christians should love everyone, including our enemies. It can almost seem hypocritical. How can God want us to have warm feelings toward those who are cold and cruel to us? If love is forced it doesn't seem real. The solution to this dilemma is that we misunderstand love. To us, love is mostly warm feelings. To Jesus, love is actions. Look back at verse 44. The King James Version lines up four things which have the same meaning:
Love your enemies
Bless those who curse you
Do good to those who hate you - and
Pray for those who persecute you.
Those with newer translations may find the middle two omitted because the oldest manuscripts put them in Luke 6, so they are authentic words of Jesus. Any way you cut it, Jesus views love as something you do, not something you feel.
If someone is out to get you, your stomach may churn when you think about them but you can still love them with actions. Pray for them, that God will straighten them out . . .
Many Christians have found that if they concentrate on showing love with the actions then feelings will follow behind.
A final objection may be that loving your enemies doesn't always work. I can guarantee it. But God never ordered us to be successful - we only have to be faithful.
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Typed on February 19, 2005, by Sharon Lesko of Ledgewood Baptist Church, New Jersey
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
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