Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ. Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church, located in Kernersville, North Carolina. Talk to you briefly about the hardest prayer to pray. the hardest prayer to pray.
Matthew chapter 5, I know you know where I'm going with this in verse 43. It says, Ye have heard that it hath been said. Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies. Bless them that curse you.
Do good to them that hate you. Notice this. and pray for them. which despitefully Use you. 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 sing? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not. Even the public can sell. Be ye therefore perfect.
even as your Father which is in heaven. is perfect. Hardest prayer to pray. Pray for them. which despitefully use you And abuse you.
Use you and persecute. You, let's pray. Lord, I love you. Thank you for all that you've done. It's your word.
It's our job to preach it, our job to obey it. And Lord, I thank you for preparing us. But now, Lord, we'll find out who of us are true worshipers. Not just based on what we've heard, but based on how we obey it. We love you.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Number one, I want you to notice the mistake. The mistake. Look at verse 43.
He says, Ye have heard. You've heard this, he says. You've heard this philosophy. This is what you've been told. Notice he says, ye have heard.
But then he says, But I say in verse 44. I know you may have heard this, but let me tell you the truth.
Somebody else may have told you this, but God says, let me tell you how it really is. You see, what you may have heard is that we're to love our neighbor and hate our enemy. He said, I'm sure you've heard that, which means that was popular in that culture, and it is in ours too. I mean the last person you want to do something good to is your enemy. And that just makes sense.
But that was a mistake. God said, you have heard But I say And I don't know about you, it doesn't matter what we've heard. If God says something different, he's right. Y'all agree with that tonight? And even unconnected to this particular thing, if God said it.
It doesn't matter who says something different. If I say something different than God said, don't listen to me. You listen to God. You get in God's word and you follow God's word. But God says you have heard But you've heard wrong.
Now what you've heard might be what Culture says But it's not what I say. Notice number two, we see the message. He said, You were mistaken. You heard this, but that's not how it is.
So let me give you the message here. I say unto you, Love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you. Pray for them.
which despitefully use you and Persecute you.
So, what is the message here? Number one, It's on who you love. His message here first. Is who you love, and who does God say that we're supposed to love? We're to love our enemies.
That does not mean we're not to love our friends. Loving your friends isn't understood it, that should be easy. That's why the world criticizes churches so much. Because if we half-believe what we say, why in the world would we attack each other in the church? I mean we we ought to be the ones that are easy for each other to love.
Supposedly, everything out there is what's more difficult to love. But can I tell you something? From what I've seen in church a lot of my life, we get along with them out there better than we get along with each other in here. And that's pitiful. God says here, listen, I know you've heard that you're to hate your enemies, but.
First, let me give you my message. He said, this is who you're supposed to love. You're supposed to love your enemies. You say that's hard. Yeah.
Sure is. I will say that we're being told this by an individual who proved That if he said it, he backed it up with how he lived. How many of you believe Jesus loved his enemies? He died for his enemies. Notice number two, not just who you love, but he tells us who you bless.
Notice this. Love your enemies.
Okay, that's. One for one, very hard. Number two, bless them that curse you. He is literally speaking about Blessing people that talk about you. They might not And they might curse you.
They might say despicable things to you. But this word curse here is literally just speaking on how a person speaks to and about you. Yes? That just because this person cursed you with what they said about you or to you, you and I. Are to bless them.
You like bless them with a knuckle saying, no, not a, we don't bless them that way. God says you're to bless those that do that to you. All right, two for two. And I'm over two. Number three.
He tells us who to do good to.
Now, culture is going to say, who do you love? You love your friends. Culture is going to say, who do you bless? You bless those that are good to you. Culture is going to say, who do you do good to?
Well, we do good to those that have done good to us. But God says, Who you love is your enemy, who you bless are those that have cursed you. And then He says, Who do you do good to? He says, do good to them that hate you. Not dislike.
Not who were rude. But I'm still going to be good to them. He said, do good to those that hate you. Anybody like me 0 for 3 so far?
Okay. Number four. He says, let me tell you who you pray for.
Now this is hard. Pray for them which despitefully, that means with a spirit of spite. They use you And they persecute you.
Now let me say this.
Some prayers that you pray. are four others. But there are some prayers that you pray for others. that are really for you. Yeah, so you're eyes.
Let me say it again. There are some prayers that you and I pray or that we pray for others.
Okay. But some prayers that we pray for others. really are for us. You say, What is God? He says, Pray for those that do this to you.
and praying for them. It's not even about that God's going to do for them what you've prayed. It's about the fact that God's going to honor you because you did pray for them. God's going to honor you because you humbled yourself enough to be obedient to God. To sincerely pray for those that have done despicable things to you.
Let's be honest. Most of us in church. Prayer is hard.
So we rarely even pray for those we love. Do you understand what I'm saying? In other words, a lot of people just don't pray. And that means they're not praying for anybody. They just don't spend time in prayer and they just don't pray a lot.
So that tells me this: that even people that they do love and genuinely do love and do like, it's hard enough to make yourself and discipline yourself take time to pray for them. Are you with me? Say amen. We're not even doing that. And God says, let me tell you who you pray for.
You pray for those that have persecuted you.
Now, here's why I have always found it hard. I can pray for God to make me a millionaire, and He's never answered that prayer. But I feel like if I pray that God would bless my enemy, I have a feeling He's going to answer that one. I'm just being honest with you. It's like luck of the draw.
That's the one he's going to answer. I've been praying for a whole bunch of stuff. It doesn't seem that he's answering. But as soon as I pray that one My luck. See, there's no such thing as like it's an illustration, get over it, okay.
May I say this, if if we don't pray for our enemies because we think, well, I don't want good things to come in their life because of our praying, then you and I are pretty vain to think we have that much power in prayer. Listen, God's not asking you to pray for them so that they can be magically blessed. because of your prayers. God's asking you to pray for them because that's what God would do. That's what Jesus would do.
We are not called to do what we want to do. We have been saved by the grace of God. We are now called to do what Jesus would do. And God says, Let me tell you who you pray for. This is the hardest prayer to pray.
Because I'm going to tell you, I've done this and I've prayed it, but I... was not sincere in my heart. I'm getting there, okay? I'm a work in progress. I mean, I will actually say the words.
Lord Bless Frank. Oh, Lord. Lord bless insert name. I gotta tell you, I've physically done it before. Yeah.
Do you think he really meant it in your heart? I don't know. I just don't know. I want to, I want to feel that I, I want to say that I have. Because that would be a Christ thing in our life, wouldn't it?
Right. But you gotta start somewhere. God says this is who you pray for. You pray for someone that persecuted you. They gave you persecution.
You give them prayer.
Now you say, Preacher, why in the world? Would I do that? First, Because God said it. That would mean you're obeying God. Is that a good point?
Right?
Okay. You'd be obeying God. Look at me. But when you do, God is now free to bless you. When you and I pray for our enemies, pray for those that have persecuted us.
God is now free to bless you because you've obeyed. Let's be honest. See, preacher, I don't think I can pray for those that have persecuted me, and I understand that. But is it hurting their life at all that you're not praying for them? I mean, is that really getting them?
I'm not praying for you. Are they really at home, like, oh no, they're not praying for me? What am I going to do? It hasn't affected their life at all. Look at me.
Please get this. It doesn't affect their life at all if you don't pray for them. Yeah. It does. If you pray for them.
That affects them. And it affects you. Because now you've obeyed God and you've now given God freedom to deal. with the situation. You did what God asked.
of you. God said, There's a mistake. You've heard this, but that's not true. Let me give you the message. This is who you love.
This is who you bless. This is who you do good to. This is who. you are to pray for, and all four of these are exactly opposite of what you would normally think. Modus number three.
We see the Master. Let me give you a little bit of verse 45. Why do we do this? That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
Why are we to pray? Listen, why are we to love those that. Hate us, and why are we to do good to those that hate us? And why are we to pray for those that have hated us? And why are we to bless those that have cursed us?
And this just makes no sense. Listen to me, I want you to get this because that's exactly what Jesus did. And it's exactly what God does every day. God lets the sun come up. And you and I don't live in darkness so that God can judge those that have been bad.
What would God do if He's going to judge everybody that's done wrong? He'd have to judge you. Any of us perfect? But the fact that God raises the Son up means just because there's people out there that have persecuted us and complained about us and all that, we still get the benefit of God's Son. The fact that God still sends the rain, even though there's bad people out there, you say, Well, this isn't fair that you know even the unjust people get the benefit of the rain.
Yeah, but if God stopped that, then you and I wouldn't get the benefit of the rain. You and I look at it like, why is God doing this and still blessing them? I look at it as, thank God God is doing this because He's still blessing us. Do you understand what I'm saying there? It's like this whole twist of how we normally look at it.
Well, I believe God ought to send rain to the good, biblical, godly farmers. And the rest he doesn't. And then all of a sudden it rains and everybody's farm gets soaked and We say, well, that's just not fair. Even the ones that don't love God, the ones that don't believe in God, their crops are going to grow too. Yeah, but if God judged them, then the good farmers wouldn't get the rain.
Here's my point. Notice these three things. Number one, look at it. His son. His reign.
His children. Look at this verse. Simple fact is, it's his son, not mine. The sun in the heavens S U N God's the one that created that, not me. God is the one in charge of doing what he wants with it.
It's his, and he has chosen to use what's his. to even be good to those who have not been good to him. His reign. God controls the rain. God controls the weather.
God allows that to happen. But look at me. God has still chosen to use what is his, his rain, and God has still chosen to use what is his to bless those who have not blessed God. Why should we do it too? Because we are is children.
Notice what the verse says, that ye may be the children. Of your Father. He has given us the example, and we are. to follow it. God's love is not controlled by who you are or what you are.
God's love is not controlled by what you have done for Him. God is just good. Let's talk for just a second. about the methods. It's actually not last, we have one more.
Look at verse 46. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Verse 47, and if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others?
So, what's the principle here? First, is to learn to love without reciprocation. What does he say in verse 46? You don't just love those that love you back. You don't love.
only for reciprocation. You love even if you don't get reciprocation. Married people ought to learn this. You don't do something just so that they're going to appreciate you, and they don't appreciate you.
Now you're mad at them. You really didn't do it out of love. You really did it for manipulation. I'm going to do this, and they're going to appreciate it so much, then they're going to thank me. And they're going to love me more because I did it.
And then, if they don't notice and they don't thank you, now you're mad because you did it and they didn't notice and didn't say thank you. And now you got an argument, and the whole point was you never did it because you loved them from the start, you did it because you wanted to receive love. Are you all with me or are you just Am I right about this? You know, a lot of things what we do, we do it just so we can get love out of it. God says, don't love for reciprocation.
Love those who don't love you. Notice secondly, love without appreciation. Don't just love to be appreciated. What does he say? And if you salute your brethren only.
What do brethren do when you salute them? They salute you back. You salute them because you already know they love you and you love them.
So it means this: we have to learn to love without expecting reciprocation, and we have to learn to love without accepting appreciation. We don't love, and we quit loving if they don't appreciate us. We love without expecting appreciation. We love without expecting reciprocation. Because that's what God did.
And that's what Jesus did. See here we can we go home, preacher. I didn't say it was the easiest prayer to pray. I said it's the hardest prayer to pray. Notice last the motivation.
In verse forty-eight. Be ye therefore perfect. Even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Great! As if it hadn't been bad enough.
Now you're saying we got to be perfect. How about let's start with this praying for your enemy thing. Obviously, that word perfect means complete. But I will say that our Father is perfect. What is what does this mean?
It's talking about our motivation. You and I are not motivated by looking at other people. and trying to do what they do. And we're not motivated by looking at other people and trying to do better than they do.
So, I'm not motivated because I look at Nick and say, Well, if Nick does it, then I'm going to do it, and that's what motivates me. And I'm not motivated because I look at Nick and I say, Okay, what Nick's doing, I'm going to try to do better, and God will love me more if I do it better than Nick. My motivation is not from others. What does he say here? We are not motivated by how others respond to us.
What is our motivation here? We are motivated by our response to Christ. Listen, the motivation of my prayer and my love. I am not motivated because of how others respond to me. Because if I am, I'm not going to pray for them and I'm not going to love them because before long, people are not going to respond to you the way you expect it.
Okay, yeah. My motivation Is that I want to do this for God because. God did this for me.
So I, my motivation is to be like him, not to be like you. And your motivation ought to be to be like Christ, not to be like Pastor Daniel. I'm not motivated by how others respond to me. I'm motivated. By my response to Christ.
He did this for me. He loved me when I was his enemy. He blessed me when I cursed him. Hello? He did good to me when I didn't do good for him.
He loved me when I didn't love him. And if he did that for me, okay. I'm not going to say I like it, I'm not going to say I love it, I'm not going to say I'm enjoying it, but let's just be real and honest. It's one thing to pray through the missionary list. And we need to be doing that.
Look at me. But the only thing hard about the missionary list is just disciplining yourself to take the time to do it. Can we be honest about this? You say, I'm going to pray for my wife every day.
Well, the only thing hard about that, because you'll probably get the benefit out of it, you will. The only thing hard about that is to remind yourself and be disciplined enough to do it. This prayer. is hard. This isn't reading a list.
This isn't following a checklist. This is just difficult because this comes from the heart. My hardest prayer to pray.
So, if we're going to do a series on prayer, look at me. I wouldn't be much of a pastor if I just said, listen, let's pray about all the easy things. When God said, Let me tell you who I think you ought to pray for. Your enemy. Had a guy preach in college.
One time, one of the few I listened to. And when you're young, you think you know it all? I hope I wasn't quite like that, but He preached on this, and I guess I was naive. I had just at that point started praying with a prayer system. I've done you prayer systems for years and have changed them up.
Like I said, this year, putting together a whole new prayer book, still in the process of that, using these lists and other things. But let me tell you how naive I was. I had every day lined up, Monday I prayed for missionaries, men of God. Tuesday, I forget, you know, I had it even alliterated with the thing, and I prayed on those certain days for all those different things. And this guy preached on this.
And I actually came home, and this is how naive I got my prayer list. And I guess, well, I guess I got to put somewhere in this program one day a week, I need to pray for my enemies. One day a week at least. As the same way I pray for my pastor, the same way I pray for my wife, the same way I pray for my children, which I didn't have children then. But the same way now that I would put down, I need to pray for Daniel and I need to pray for Hudson, I need to pray for Caden, and hey, I need to pray for my staff guys and have a list of church members.
Hey, I'm going to pray for them. Hey, I'm going to pray for the missionary list. And I'm going to pray from that. Look at me. From what God is saying, God said it's just as important for you and just as critical for you.
And dare I say the hardest thing you will do is schedule a time and pray for those that have done absolutely nasty things to you. Yeah. Right. I thought. Nobody has a day for that.
in their prayer list.
So, you want to get real with God? Add that to your prayer list. Start writing them down. God bless this person. God bless my mother-in-law.
Yeah. Give her good health. Why don't you add it to a day? Let me say this and I'm done. How many times does somebody that might be aware of your life and know maybe some difficulty you're having?
The greatest news that anyone can receive is the news of the free gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. It is our desire for you to know him personally. Would you take a moment to hear this to day? Every man is born with a sin nature. Romans 3:23 says, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
No matter how hard we try, We're not good enough to obtain God's glory. or to get to heaven. Because of that sin carries the penalty of death. Romans 6.23 says, For the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through the world.
through Jesus Christ our Lord. The wages of our sin, or the payment of our sin, only equals death and separation from God. But it's only through God's gift salvation through Jesus Christ that we can accept Him as our Savior. Jesus Christ paid for your sin debt. The Bible says in Romans 5:8, But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
All you have to do is receive Christ. by faith as your Saviour. Romans ten nine says That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Verse 13 continues, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It's as simple as admitting that you're a sinner believing that Jesus is the only way.
and calling upon his name. Bible says whosoever that's anyone. can call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. Have you accepted Christ as your personal Savior? There is no greater day than today to take care of this.
Would you accept Christ as your Savior? If you have any questions, please give us a call at 336-993-5192 or visit our website at Crowin Baptist Church. Dot com. or visits that person at one of our three service times. We hope you have a great rest of your day.
God bless you. Mm-hmm.
