The Greatest Sermon Ever // Our reactions to our enemies // Matthew 5:38-48 // Pastor Josh Evans

Listen, it is so good to see you in the house of God and I'm so grateful that you are here today.

What wonderful music to lead us to the throne. I always appreciate our music team and praise team, choir, everybody involved just leading us and also just kind of putting us in our hearts where it needs to be as we approach God's word. Well listen, it is good to see you here today. How many of you are thankful for the rain that we had this weekend? I know we needed it and I'm grateful for that. I'm glad it cleared up a little bit for us this morning and what a beautiful day and it is so good to see you today. If we have never met before, my name is Josh and I'm the pastor here at Union Grove and I just want to say thank you for being here and every single week we're delighted to welcome new people maybe for the very first time into our midst and we are grateful for you being here.

I want to echo what pastor David said, if you didn't take one of those new here cards on your way in, grab one in the seat back in front of you, make sure you fill it out, turn it into the welcome center which is right outside that door and we would love to get a gift in your hands just as our way of saying thank you for being here. Well we are continuing a series that we've been in for the last several weeks called the greatest sermon ever and if this is your first time, I do say this every single week, I do not want you to think that this sermon that you're going to hear in this room is the greatest sermon ever, but in fact the reason why we named it this is because we are looking and really dissecting Jesus' famous sermon on the mount and we are slowly kind of working through his sermon on the mount. What's amazing about Jesus' sermon on the mount is that this was to our knowledge one long sermon and so we are kind of piecing this thing together just a little bit, but when Jesus actually spoke this from a mountain, he sat down up in a mountain and he's looking out at a large multitude of people, he begins to kind of work through the sermon in one gigantic time.

We're not going to do that by the way, you might think I'm going through the whole thing after about a while of being in here, but we are going to piece this thing together. But here's what I love about this sermon is Jesus, he actually deals with some of the most culturally relevant topics of our day today and he addresses those. In fact, he starts out the sermon when he gets everyone's attention, he starts out this sermon talking about what we call the beatitudes, talking about blessing and happiness and the way and the path to those things and then he goes in and he challenges Christians, followers of Jesus Christ to go out and be salt and go out and be light. We are light and we are salt, but sometimes we keep those things to ourselves and then really he goes in and he begins to talk about in the middle of this sermon in verses 17 through 20 and he begins to talk about the law and if you're new to church and I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on what the law meant to society that day, what the law meant to the people in the crowd that day, but to summarize what he says in verses 17 through 20, he says this that if your righteousness does not exceed the Pharisees, now the Pharisees were the most you know earthly righteous individuals, they were the religious leaders, they were the ones that tried to keep the entire law and by the way there was over 600 commandments given in the Old Testament and the Pharisees would try to keep all of those kind of things and Jesus is saying if your righteousness does not exceed that of the Pharisees, you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, which obviously everyone in his in his crowd would have been confused, they would have sounded like wow well then we're never going to get in because we're never going to be as what they considered righteous or good as a Pharisee and what Jesus does right after that in the middle of his sermon is Jesus goes on and he mentions six things that the Old Testament mosaic law said and he begins to explain that the law is not an activity matter, that's what most all the people of that day felt that it was that we got to keep these things we got to do if you ever feel that pressure I have to do things and you feel guilty because you don't and things like that perhaps you're living like the Pharisees where you're doing these things out of obligation and what Jesus is doing is he mentions six specific things from the Old Testament mosaic law and he explains that the law is not an activity matter it is a matter of the heart it is a matter of the heart and so he begins to talk about these things he talks the first one we looked at was anger and he talked about anger and and he said you know the law said you should not murder where everybody in the audience is like got it well done we're good we we we can check that one off the list we don't have to worry about it we've never murdered anybody and he goes a step deeper and he says well actually if you've ever had anger in your heart for somebody you're already a murderer he goes on and he begins to talk about about lust and he says you know what the law says the law says you should not commit adultery people in the audience are like got it never done that never participated in that we are good to go we can check that one off the list and Jesus says well actually if you've ever lusted in your heart before then you've already committed adultery he goes on to talk about divorce he goes on to talk about our words and then today he's going to talk about this idea it'll be up on the screen our reaction to our enemies our reactions and how we are to treat enemies how many of you would admit you have an enemy raise your hand anybody not gonna admit that wow some of you are like really honest i was just kind of throwing it out there and stuff so how many of you would say your enemy's in this room anybody willing to admit that no so we we're always nervous when we when we think about enemies and we always want to know like what you know how do you describe an enemy but here's what i'll tell you about enemies is that when we think of our enemies you know we always react in some way when your enemy kind of comes in the room or you have conflict with with your with your enemy and and here's what i've found is that in a lot of ways we tend to respond and react the way they react to us how many of you would agree with that right in other words here's what we do if your enemy yells at you most of the time your natural tendency is to yell back right that's what we that's what we do if you're i mentioned this a couple weeks ago we're talking about anger if i'm on the road and i'm driving and somebody cuts me off what i really want to do is get in the other lane and i want to do the same thing to them okay don't don't judge me you guys are looking at me like what i'm saying is that our reactions to our enemies are somewhat you know we react in the same way that they do in fact jesus says this in verse number 38 of our text of matthew chapter number five he said this you've heard this is what the law said that it has been said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth uh in fact you can look back at this what what the law is talking about in leviticus chapter number 24 it's also mentioned in exodus chapter number 21 that phrase you've heard that that had been said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth in other words in leviticus you can see that god was giving the the children of israel the nation after they have escaped captivity they're giving them all these different laws that they must live by and rules to govern and what was happening was that they were to govern and what was happening was that they would retaliate so if somebody did something to them the israelites would just retaliate and do the same thing back to them and and what happens is is when when an enemy attacks you and you attack back that enemy is going to attack and what happens is it continues to to escalate it continues to to grow and the problem with responding that way and what jesus is going to get to is when you respond that way what the law kind of had told us to do and what our natural tendency is that hey listen an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth when we respond in the way that our enemies respond to us we are left with a blind and toothless society aren't we and that's what that's what we struggle with because that's what we struggle with and this is the religious way hey if they did this to you then you should do that back to them that's the world's philosophy the world's philosophy would say do to others what they have done to you and and so jesus is going to really unpack this idea that our reactions are exposing who we belong to our reactions are exposing who we belong to now i'll tell you this like i um i i've i've react you know just like everybody else i'm not a super super christian super spiritual kind of guy sometimes and so i remember we were uh in florida and uh and i i'm honestly i'm a fairly chill kind of individual it takes a lot for me to get angry for me to get to get mad and uh and so uh we were at the t-ball field and and uh said that to be funny because t-balls i mean you want to really see people's reactions attend a t-ball game right and uh so i was out there and i was coaching and uh and really you think wow do i know baseball no but in t-ball you don't really have to coach you just have to wrangle kids together and babysit them for about an hour and a half and uh so i was the coach and and so and like i said i'm pretty chill and uh when you coach in the community and things like that uh you deal with all sorts of coaches you know you deal with all sorts of fans you deal with all sorts of different things and so uh there was some call on on the field and you would think if you've never been to a t-ball game you're going to think this is crazy but real quick how many of you have ever attended a t-ball game okay right okay so most of you have been there you've seen how many of you seen some things from fans that is pretty crazy from time to time okay and so so we were there and and uh and i'm coaching and i'm doing my thing i can't even remember today what the call was but there was some call out there and the other team their coach he was kind of known for just being a hothead he would just lose his mind he i mean his assistant coach might as well have been the coach because this guy gets kicked out all the time and so he just gets thrown out of games all the time well some call happened that went in our favor and so he he went to the umpire and uh and he began to just lose his mind and he started yelling and just going crazy and so the umpire i don't know if the umpire just didn't want to handle it so he called me over there okay so i go and i'm pretty chill you know and i can normally handle a lot of things or whatever and so and i don't get very mad that often and so but this guy's just like letting me have it right in the middle of it and then i responded and this is about the most intense i get middle of t-ball game i just screamed to me to chill out that's what i said i got him with that didn't i that's a good response right i don't know and so i felt so guilty because i never i hate confrontation i felt so guilty afterwards i like after the game i was like i gotta apologize to this guy you know he's like don't apologize he doesn't deserve an apology and all this kind of stuff and so we had this whole conversation and so but here's what i'm telling you is that a lot of times when a person when they like maybe your enemy or whatever when they react to you through yelling or through anger or through a temper or perhaps maybe they blast you let's be real personal for just a moment they blast you on social media right what do we like to do well i'm going to go online and i'm going to blast them and what happens is a lot of times and by the way when you use social media i'm going to get off on my soapbox here for just a second whatever it's like we know like when you post certain things we know you're trying to talk about somebody without telling their name how many of you know that about people sometimes it's just like guys listen really like and so here's the thing though a lot of times when somebody does that to you our natural reaction is to respond in the exact same way that that person has responded to you you've heard it said that we hear all the time we say this our actions speak louder than our words okay but here's what i'm going to tell you this is what jesus is getting at in this text and we're going to look at it he says this our reactions speak louder than your actions or your words he's going to talk about as christ followers christians if you're in here and you say i know jesus is my savior i'm a christian that's a label that i have put in my life he's going to say this that your reactions to your enemies is going to tell the story of who you really belong to it's going to expose in other words some things about your heart that might not be what it should be have you ever met somebody who can't control their reactions have you ever met somebody that you say one wrong thing to them it's like world war three they lose their mind you got a tiptoe you got to walk on eggshells with them because you know that if you do anything the wrong way that they are going to react to you here's what jesus is going to say that's not a personality problem that's not a well my family was this way so this is how i respond it has nothing to do with that what jesus is going to say as christ followers if that person claims to be a christian and they cannot control the way that they react when things do not go their way what jesus is going to say is that our reactions speak and expose what is really going on in our hearts he's going to paint this picture of imagining what it would be like if we as christians when we are treated unfairly when we are treated unjustly when we are treated just flat out wrong what would it look like if we reacted in a way that pleases god and wows the lost and undying world that we live in that's what he's going to look at so let's look first at this the nature of our reaction to our enemies look at verse number 38 okay the nature of our reaction enemies what's it supposed to look like if you're sitting here and you're like okay well somebody wronged me somebody posted bad about me on facebook somebody said this and and i'm mad my boss did this and and i'm angry and and all this kind of stuff and so how in the world am i supposed to respond as a christ follower that's where jesus starts verse number 38 we just read it he says this you've heard that it had been said an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth that's the law that's what the law said leviticus uh back in leviticus verse number 39 but i say unto you that ye resist not evil but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek turn to him the other also now here's what what he's saying in other words he's talking about being publicly insulted being publicly insulted you can read a lot of commentaries about this most of the people in that day most of the people in this audience were probably right-handed that was the standard uh thing and in other words when he mentions the right cheek in order for you to get a good slap on the right cheek with your right hand you're going to be back handing somebody which is extremely a sign of disrespect and what he's saying here is when we get disrespected when we get wronged in different ways perhaps in public ways what he's saying is turn to him the other also in other words don't respond with evil to the evil that has done to you isn't that by the way just so different than the way we naturally want to respond isn't that so counter cultural to the way that we want to respond when somebody has wronged us he goes on in verse number 40 and if any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat let him have thy cloak also in other words if he takes your coat let him have your cloak and in other words that kind of rhymes and and he says you know give more in other words when when somebody takes something from you this is so far and i want you to understand and to understand in context we say this is that jesus is painting a picture of what the kingdom of heaven should look like he's painting a picture of what his kingdom looks like and what i want you to understand is that his kingdom looks absolutely nothing like our kingdom and so when you read this and you think this is so unfair anybody read that and feel that way like if somebody comes and takes something from me then give them you know more than what they are trying to take from me that seems so unfair and that's exactly what jesus is saying he's reminding us that as followers of jesus as christians we are not fair people we are not fair people we are grace people and we have a hard time with that don't we because i don't know about you but i want to be treated fairly i want to be treated right i don't like to be wronged i don't like those things but here's what he's saying is that we are not about our motive should not be about being fair our motive should be about displaying the grace of our lord jesus christ to the people that come in contact with us our enemies the people that wrong us the people that talk bad about us the people that have been mean to us perhaps right to your face he's saying don't respond to evil with more evil verse 41 and whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile go with him two miles in other words what what would happen remember the romans ruled uh this day and age and what the romans could do their law was their law was that the romans could actually stop a jew and they could stop a jew with whatever they're doing and they could ask them to carry their stuff for them and they could do so based on roman law they could do so for up to one mile and so what jesus was saying to his audience is he's saying this is that when a roman guard which in a lot of the jews in the audience that was their enemy in a lot of ways that's who they viewed as their enemy when the romans say hey you need to stop what you're doing and carry my stuff with me for the next mile you get angry you get frustrated the response is after that mile is you respond back to them and say hey do you need me to go two miles how many of you that's just not a right and natural response look at verse number 42 give to him that asketh thee or or him that beggeth thee and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away in other words what the norm of giving is go above and beyond if somebody comes and begs for you go above and beyond in the way that you give back to them now if you're like me you're like i don't know what they're going to do with what i give them right how many of you feel that way right you don't want to give to people because you don't know and there's a principle there but here's what he's saying is that when people are begging and asking of you respond to them and go above and beyond that's what his kingdom looks like and you can imagine if you're sitting in the in the crowd that day you're thinking this is so far different and so far removed than what i ever want to do to the enemies that i come in contact with and that's exactly what jesus is trying to tell us so he goes on verse number 43 you've heard again he mentions the law he said you know what the law says thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy but i say unto you love your enemies which is so far than what we want to do bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you so i want to mention three things the nature of our reaction to our enemies what how should we as christ followers respond when people wrong you and when people are mean to you the first thing is this don't reciprocate evil with evil this one's hard let's just be real i know how it is you receive a an email i mean this probably happened to you you receive an email that's mean to you what's your natural response i'm not going to think twice i'm emailing them right back and i'm firing back right isn't that our natural response to people that are ugly to us they post about us online we post about they talk about me to their friends guess what i'm doing i'm going straight to my group and i'm going to talk bad about them they take from me i'm taking back from them they don't speak to me i'm never speaking to them they they're rude to me i'm going to be rude to them they disrespect me i'm going to be disrespectful to them that's our natural tendency and what jesus is saying here his kingdom christ's followers here's what he says don't reciprocate evil with evil in other words when someone does evil to you or if someone is mean to you don't return evil don't be mean to them back don't return disrespect with disrespect don't return hate with with hate right don't do it i i know that this is is difficult for us i mean think about it in smaller contexts as people you don't even know uh when i go you know i'm at the ball field a lot with my kids or a gym some sort and here's what i'll tell you it's like a lot of these gyms that we play in around here um you're really close or a lot of the fields you're close with the enemy like they're they're right there and and uh and so you're you know your opponent their fans are right next to you and so so we hear certain things right and uh and so a lot of times you know when this is just true story when when you're sitting next to them they might be criticizing your kid because they have no idea that that's your kid right you ever been there whatever and by the way this is why i get nervous when my when my dad comes to games with me because my dad doesn't know anybody and so if a kid our team or their team can't play well my dad and he he talks loud he'll just say they need to take that kid out of the game and i'm like dad his mom is right here right like you can't do that so you got to be careful but a lot of times when you go they might be saying like hey i've heard it number 22 he's traveling when he gets the ball over and over you better call it ref and i'm sitting over here that's my son you know and here's what i want to do i want to find out you know i'm whispering like who's this person's kid because i'm about to go nuts on them right and then my wife reminds me they're 10 years old josh okay and so but here's the point is don't we a lot of times even in a crowd like that for an event or a sporting event when they kind of go and and they're raising the bar a little bit our natural tendency is we're going to return the same thing that they're given because that's natural and jesus understands that that's why he's mentioning it here because he knows he knows that that's our natural response he knows that when someone wrongs you the goal is we want to wrong them back but he's saying this as christ followers we need to not reciprocate evil with evil he goes on verse 41 and 42 and he tells us this here's how i would summarize 41 and 42 we need to go above and beyond with your enemies whatever the norm is go above and beyond in other words do more than is required for you when it comes to your enemies think about that that's hard isn't it you have somebody that you don't like and you see them in a department store what's your natural tendency like we need to get out of this store before i see them right or if you drive by and they're going into a restaurant and you see them or you see their car other restaurants all of a sudden sound very appealing to you right we're not going to go there you want to avoid them and things like that and that's normal that's how we that's our kingdom that's your kingdom what jesus is saying about his kingdom and what it means to be a follower of jesus he's saying go above and beyond when they ask you to go a mile go two miles when they beg of you for something then give them more than what they're asking for the third thing that we see of the nature of our enemies is this we need to simply love our enemies now he doubles down on this idea in verses 43 and 44 he references the old testament mosaic law and we understand that right and he says but i'm going to tell you this that in his kingdom we need to love our our enemies we need to love them we need to bless them we need to do good to them we need to pray for them now if i was in the audience you know this is so far from the truth right this is so far than than our natural tendency because think about it some of us probably even struggle to pray for the people that we like like that's how i would have responded i was like jesus do you realize like i struggle every single day to pray consistently for the circle of people that i love and that i like and you're telling me to take ones that are the last thing on my brain and the last ones on my prayer list you're telling me to actually lift up them by name to him that would be that's crazy that is so far fetched yes his kingdom different than your kingdom and so my response and i don't know how you are but this is how i am i'm like okay i'll put this into practice father i want you to change the heart of so and so okay isn't that how we normally pray for him it's like god i need them to see things my way i need you to change the way my boss views me i need to change my boss's expectations of me i need to change this person's heart god if you could lead them to another church do it i'm not saying that's a prayer i've prayed guys stop okay but isn't that how we handle things we when we think pray for our enemies we're automatically assuming we're going to pray according to our agenda we're going to pray according to our will jesus is saying in his kingdom no here's what his kingdom looks like we lift up our enemies where now we're not praying for their bad or their change we're actually praying instead for their their blessing their blessing that god would bless them and by the way let me say this is that it's amazing when you start praying for somebody you don't like it's amazing how your heart changes towards that person it's amazing like like if you have somebody that you just can't stand by the way is like if a name popped up in your head in this room that's that's who it is okay and and when they walk in you get frustrated you get angry you want to go the other way you don't like them right you can't stand them you delete them on facebook you do all the things that you need to do to protect that you do not interact with that person at all you know what i'm talking about right that that person here's what i want you to know if you still feel it's going to be very strong if you feel that way about them today i suggest you go home and start praying for their good it'll change how you feel about that person when you lift them up in prayer the reason why you probably feel the way you do about your enemy praying for them you haven't started blessing them you haven't started doing good to them because that's so hard here's what jesus is saying is he's saying this about about christians christ followers we should treat people this way to everybody no matter how bad somebody treats us i will never stop doing good to you that's what it means to be a christian that that's christ that's christ being lived out he's saying this that that jesus i think you could summarize his thoughts here in these verses that grace is more important than you defending yourself grace is more important because a lot of times when somebody defames our name or defames our family or defames our church trust me i hate that somebody writes something bad about us on google reviews or or something like that you know what my natural tendency is i want to fire something tell me who this person is who is anonymous and tell me what their email is because what do we want to do we want to jump at defending ourselves in front of everybody we feel that that is our that is our motive and that is our goal and what jesus is saying is don't be ruled by your image don't be ruled by what other people think of you because that is usually the motive of why we respond with to evil with evil is because we think that they did something directly to us forget your image forget your stuff forget defending yourself and respond in grace that's what jesus is saying be led by grace the second thing that we see here is this god is the ultimate example of how we should react to our enemies the way he's reacted to us he's the ultimate example look at verse 45 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 he sendeth rain on the just and on the on the unjust for if you love them which love you what reward have you in other words he's saying listen it's easy to love those that love you that's normal that's natural do not even the publicans the same don't don't those people the lowliest of the low in society the people that did they didn't like the most was the publicans the the tax collectors and people like that he says even they apply that verse 47 and if you salute your brethren only what do ye more than others do not even the publicans be ye therefore perfect or mature that above and beyond treatment to our enemies even as your father which is in heaven is perfect hey here's what i want you to see about this fact that god is the ultimate example of how we should react to our enemies the way i want to give you a couple principles here the way you react to your enemies reveals who you belong to the way that's what he says in verse 45 what's the first phrase that ye may be the children of your father which is in heaven in other words jesus is saying that the purpose of why it is important to react to our enemies and the way that jesus commands us is because that will reveal whether you are a child of god perhaps because you can't control your reactions maybe it's because you deep down have never trusted in jesus for your salvation you're like man pastor i can't control my reactions to my enemies they're mean to me they're mean to me i go back to them and i i do the same thing that they do maybe that's just a struggle that you have but here's what i'm going to say jesus is saying is that our reactions to the way that our enemies treat us is a reaction and it reveals who we belong to and then what he says is this number two reacting and love to our enemies stands out to the world reacting and love to our enemies it stands out to the world in verse number 46 i want to read this again because i kind of want to spend a moment here if ye love them which love you what reward have you here's what jesus is saying like for example you know as a pastor i go to a lot of funerals okay and so when i go to funerals and things like this i go to a lot of funerals like this i've never heard like this man that person they just it was so mind-blowing they just loved those people that loved them back and and i don't know how they did it but but it was just incredible i want to do that it was remarkable how they just man every single time somebody loved them they just loved them back and that's the kind of thing that that i want to do it was just remarkable how that is nobody ever says that the things that that are remembered and the things that stand out are the things like man they love people that didn't love them back right nobody celebrates man it's really hard to love those that love you nobody's celebrating that because everyone does that it's easy to love every person that loves you back the world is not surprised by that the world is not wowed by that the world doesn't look at that and think wow how remarkable is that they're not looking at that what wows them what he's saying is treating your enemies in the same way he's saying you want to wow the world you want to impress our lost and dying world that we live in you want to impress a dark society then don't be the person that responds to evil with evil if you want to impress people and you want to really lift high the name of jesus and you want to live like his kingdom and you want the lost and dying world to see something different about us as christ followers they go out and love those that do not deserve it what he's saying is that reacting and love to our enemies is what is going to stand out to the world but you know what's sad i've been in church my whole life you know what's sad is that i've been in churches i've seen people in a church that profess to know christ lose their mind over and over and over and over and over at people and you know what i'm thinking the whole time is that the world's watching and they don't see anything different about us than what is out there than what is out there what jesus is saying is the way that we could potentially reach the whole world with the gospel is if every single one of us would go out and when people are wrong to you and when people disrespect you and when people talk bad about you don't respond don't react react in a way that honors god the last thing i want you to see is this when we react and love to our enemies it reflects the attitude of our father in heaven look at what he says in verse 48 and i'm done be therefore perfect that means mature or complete even as your father which is in heaven is perfect here's what he's saying is he's saying this that when we react and love to our enemies it reflects the attitude of the way that our father has reacted to us that's the ultimate picture that's what what separates him because what jesus is reminding his his congregation with this day is he's reminding them that don't you remember how jesus responded to you don't you remember how your father in heaven responded to you let's look at it how did god respond to us how did he react to you when you did not keep your end of the bargain how did he react when you sinned how did he react when you sinned and you didn't even own the consequences of your sin how did he respond when you rejected him how did he respond when you despised him how did you respond when the scripture says that before we knew jesus we were actually enemies of him how did he respond when you made excuse after excuse after excuse for your sin you justified it over and over and over and over again how did god the father respond if we are supposed to be like our father in heaven how in the world did he respond to us well john 316 we know it for god in the midst of all that in the midst of your rejection in the midst of your sin in the midst of you not owning the consequences of your sin in the midst of you despising him in the midst of you making excuses for your sin in the midst of you being an enemy of god you know what he did he sent his only begotten son jesus christ and he allowed you that if you believe in him you should not perish but have everlasting life in fact romans chapter five talks about this but god commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners what did he do christ died for us romans 5 10 when we were enemies we were reconciled to god by the death of his son here's the point here's what i want you to see is this is that god didn't say once you fix your life up and make things right with me then i will come and be your savior but isn't that how we treat people we'll talk to them if they talk to us we'll be kind to them they're kind to us we'll say good things to them as long as they say good things to us you see there's all these different things and when we you know have our enemies and problems and conflict in life the natural tendency is for us that's the flesh that's the flesh what jesus is saying is that if you want to reflect your father in heaven and i pray you do if you want to reflect who you really belong to then go out and do something that the world would look at and rub their eyes and say what that person blasted them on facebook and now they're nice to them that person criticized them and publicly humiliated them and now they're inviting them to something with them now they're praying for that person that was ugly to them they're blessing blessing that person with a gift when that person has done nothing but be evil to them that is the difference and what he's showing us here is that that is what separates us as christ followers when we choose to treat people our enemies the way that christ has treated us when we were his enemies i don't know about you but i'm thankful that he came to me in the spite of my rejecting him you see the gospel is not a story of you getting to him the gospel is a story of him coming to you it's not a story of bad people trying to find our way to him it's a story about a good god coming to a very bad and wicked generation and creating a way for all of us to be reconciled to him you see that is the gospel and that is how we are to respond and by the way perhaps you aren't giving love and blessing and goodness and prayers to people you're not giving it because you've never received it i'm just going to be real for just a moment church i don't know your heart i don't know i don't know you i know some of you i know some of your stories in this place but here's what i'm going to tell you i really don't know your heart only god knows your heart but what i'm telling you is this should scare us this should frighten us because some of us we look nothing like that we look nothing like that and we justify it saying well this is just who i am this is just how i deal with things they deserve it and i'm thinking wait a second what jesus is saying is that the way christ followers should respond is completely different than the way you want to respond john 13 he says this love others as he has loved us so i ask you are you loving the people that do not deserve it the way that christ has loved you when you didn't deserve it only you can answer that like are you are you are you giving blessing are you praying for those people are you doing good are you going above and beyond when they continue to smack you and and continue to disrespect you are you returning kindness are you going the extra mile with people that don't deserve it because that is the way that jesus has treated you and he's telling us to go and do that to somebody else as we close i want you to think about this imagine our world if christ followers started acting this way imagine how imagine how the world would look different imagine how the world would look different imagine think about this imagine your family if you applied this is that when something that makes you so mad or whatever in in your home instead of retaliating you said nope i'm going to respond the way when i get angry and i'm treated wrong i'm going to respond the way jesus has responded to me imagine how different your family would look what about your job we're quick to when somebody comes at us we're quick to defend we're quick to defend somebody else somebody about you imagine how your job and the people around you imagine what that would look like if you started every time somebody's wrong to you everybody says when somebody says something bad about your work you respond with good you respond with blessing you respond with prayers you don't return evil with evil imagine how your job could be impacted and the people that don't know jesus imagine they're going to start their ears are going to perk up they're going to be like what is different about you like do you realize what they said about you you should be blasting them back and yet you you did and like tell me what's different you know imagine what would be what that world would be like what would our our nation look like what would our nation look like think about it if christ followers would treat people who disagree with them this way the bible way like imagine what would be different but instead you know what we do is we jump into things in our world like politics and stuff and you can't tell the difference between a christian and a lost person half the time in those conversations imagine how our world would be impacted if we decided nope as christ followers we're not going to defend ourselves we're not going to do that here's what we're going to do we're going to act like christ's kingdom and the kingdom that he came to establish and we are going to do good to those that don't deserve it we're going to pray for those who don't deserve it we're going to bless those who don't deserve it we're not going to return evil with the ones that don't that return evil to us imagine how our world would look young person imagine what your school would look like imagine what your school would look like if students that knew jesus as their savior actually when somebody's been mean to them or when somebody says something mean possibly on social media or in a text thread or something what if you as a christ follower as a christ follower what if you decided no i'm not gonna i'm not gonna return evil to that person instead my return is going to be prayer it's going to be blessing it's going to be goodness imagine listen because i we don't live in a world like that we don't live in a world like that we're we're living for our kingdom and jesus is saying his kingdom is nothing like our kingdom because in his kingdom it's not how we treat people so i ask you what how are you reacting to your enemies because reactions speak louder than your words reactions speak louder even than your actions the way we react when people wrong us shows a lot about who you belong to let's all stand heads bowed hearts lifted in prayer and ask jeff to come at this time nobody's looking around this this is just a a moment for you to respond it's a moment for you to to respond to to the message and and listen i want you to know that in this moment for just a couple minutes this is not a time that that we uh that that like nobody's gonna judge you nobody's gonna judge you if if you need to make a decision if you need to go to somebody and make something right if you need to come down front and pray if you need to do any of that nobody's gonna judge you for any of those things if they do then they're they're the pharisees that we're talking about here in this text anyway that's not what we're doing that's not what we're here for no we are a church of broken people and i want you to know every single one of you you probably had somebody that popped up in your head that you're thinking man that's my enemy that is who i just don't like when they walk into a room i can't stand it i cringe i get frustrated i i block them i don't speak to them i don't want anything to do with it whoever that is here's what i want you to do i want you to respond if you have somebody in your mind in that moment listen pray right where you are come down front make this thing right don't leave another day because our world is depending we are living in a lost and dying world and some of us are going to die by responding with evil to evil all because you just cannot help but defend yourself in every single circumstance our lives here on this earth it's not about defending ourselves it's about grace it's not about finding fairness it's about grace it's about demonstrating grace to a bunch of people that don't deserve it because i don't know a better picture of the gospel than a father in heaven demonstrating grace to a bunch of people like yourself and me that did not deserve it that's the point who is it that you need to just love and bless and do good and pray for give you just a moment to respond like i said this altar's open you can pray right where you're at here today but listen we all have something that we should take from this and apply to our hearts hearts and lives