Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: Thank you, brooklyn.
Speaker 1: So much for bringing the word.
Speaker 1: Y'all give her a hand.
Speaker 1: I want to honor her.
Speaker 1: Sorry, let me grab my table over here.
Speaker 1: How y'all doing tonight?
Speaker 1: Fantastic, all right, wonderful, all right.
Speaker 1: So let's, we are awake and ready tonight.
Speaker 1: So hard shift.
Speaker 1: This intro is a little heavier.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to warn you, but recently we passed the three-year anniversary for the war in Ukraine, so some of you might keep up with the news and know exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: For those of you who don't, there's a really, really terrible war going on, despite your views on it and our involvement in it.
Speaker 1: It's a horrible thing, and lots of people are suffering from some horrible stuff, and one of people are suffering from some horrible stuff, and one of these stories about the terrible things that have been going on in this war is that, just after the invasion on February 28th of 2022, in a small village and I'm going to butcher this Chupakiva maybe, there was a Russian soldier named Vadim, and they had just invaded, and so they were moving forward at a very rapid pace, and him and some of his squadron were driving around in a car that they had stolen from one of the people that lived in that village and as they're driving around, they see this 62-year-old man named Oleksandr Oleksandr, I believe and he's riding his bike.
Speaker 1: And so the soldiers are just filled with bloodlust.
Speaker 1: They don't even know what they're doing, they've been thrust into this war and they're just ready for violence.
Speaker 1: And so his buddies start to urge him on to shoot this innocent bystander and ultimately he does.
Speaker 1: He shoots him and it kills him immediately and at one level.
Speaker 1: These type of events happened all across the country, especially in those first few weeks of the war.
Speaker 1: But what makes this one stand out is that, after shooting, alexander Vadim and his friends tried to get away on foot and they actually got caught and they were apprehended and then ultimately, in May later that year, he stood trial for a war crime.
Speaker 1: And there's a point in this trial and you can look it up and this has all been documented.
Speaker 1: He's standing before the judge and he's also standing before the man whom he killed's grieving widow, and he had obviously come to terms with what he had done.
Speaker 1: And he has this moment where he looks at the widow in the eye her name was Katerina and he says I acknowledge my blame, will you please forgive me.
Speaker 1: And in that moment you could hear a pin drop in that room because nobody knew what was going to happen next.
Speaker 1: And she looks him back in the eyes and gently but honestly says hey, I feel sorry for you, but I just cannot forgive what you've done.
Speaker 1: So why am I telling you that this morning or tonight?
Speaker 1: Rather Sorry, I preached on Sunday, my time's off.
Speaker 1: So why am I telling you that tonight?
Speaker 1: Because the reality is, while it might not have been something to this extent, we have all had people in our lives that have hurt us, that have wounded us, that we would consider our enemies.
Speaker 1: It might have been a parent who was supposed to be there, was supposed to care for you, and left.
Speaker 1: Or it might have been a friend who was supposed to have your back, only to turn around and spread rumors or gossip.
Speaker 1: It might be somebody who picks on you.
Speaker 1: I don't know where you are, but I know that every single one of us have had that situation happen and we know what Scripture says that we should forgive, that we should be loving, but when rubber hits the road, it's one of the hardest things that we're called to do, and that is where we're at in our series on the Sermon on the Mount.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Jesus calling his followers to love their enemies, and so what we're going to see is three things specifically what he calls us to do so I kind of already spoiled it loving their enemies.
Speaker 1: Two, why he calls us to do it.
Speaker 1: And then three, how we can actually follow through.
Speaker 1: So what he calls us to do, why he calls us to do it and how we can follow through.
Speaker 1: So if you have your Bible, let's go ahead and open up to Matthew, chapter 5, verse 43, what Brooklyn just read earlier.
Speaker 1: We're going to walk back through it as you do that again to just catch you up.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is your first time, maybe you've been gone for a couple weeks.
Speaker 1: We have been walking through the Sermon on the Mount.
Speaker 1: The Sermon on the Mount is a collection of Jesus's teachings that he would have given.
Speaker 1: Some people believe all at once, some people believe all at once, some people believe among his ministry.
Speaker 1: Whatever you believe, these are his teachings on how his followers are supposed to view the world, and he is giving not just a way of doing things or a list of rules, but a completely different way of viewing the universe, and you saw that in the Beatitudes early on.
Speaker 1: Everything that we think is like stuff that we should avoid.
Speaker 1: Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed are the poor.
Speaker 1: Rather, he says no, those people have it good.
Speaker 1: And then we've seen lately hey, you're supposed to be salt and light, and these are all these different ways when it comes to lust, when it comes to how we treat people like Caden talked about two weeks ago, not retaliating, just all of these counter-cultural ideas of how Jesus's followers are supposed to be different from everybody else.
Speaker 1: And tonight we get to how we're supposed to be different when it comes to how we treat our enemies.
Speaker 1: And so I'm going to read through that text real quick one more time.
Speaker 1: Verse 43 says you have heard that it was said love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be children of your father in heaven.
Speaker 1: He causes his son to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Speaker 1: If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?
Speaker 1: Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
Speaker 1: And if you only greet your own people, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: More than others Are not even pagans doing that.
Speaker 1: Then be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect, and so would you pray with me real quick, lord.
Speaker 1: God, we thank you for your word tonight and we pray that you would help us to just see what you have for us, lord, that we would be encouraged, we'd be convicted, we would be called closer to you and, lord, that we would just be able to have open hearts and ears to your truth tonight.
Speaker 1: Lord, we love you, we praise you and praise things in Jesus name.
Speaker 1: And everybody said amen.
Speaker 1: So little tip.
Speaker 1: Whenever you're studying the Bible and you don't really know where to start, one of the things I like to do is just ask questions.
Speaker 1: Right, how many times maybe?
Speaker 1: You're in English class, they tell you the big five questions, whatever who, what, when, where, why.
Speaker 1: You ask those same questions when you're reading Scripture, and you'll find a whole lot of detail and information, and then you just start asking more questions, and so that's a method I like, and so let's just start.
Speaker 1: Right, who's saying this, jesus, and what is he saying?
Speaker 1: Well, let's look at verse 43.
Speaker 1: You have heard that it was said love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
Speaker 1: But I tell you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
Speaker 1: And so he's following the same form from the past five weeks where he quotes this Old Testament command.
Speaker 1: And so for our purposes, that would be Leviticus 19.18, where it says love your neighbor as yourself.
Speaker 1: I am the Lord.
Speaker 1: However, this time's a little bit different, because there's nothing in Leviticus 19.18 about hating your enemy, right?
Speaker 1: That's not in there.
Speaker 1: In fact, that's nowhere explicitly in the Bible.
Speaker 1: In fact, a lot of people think that this was kind of a popular add-on, for how people would interpret this verse Like they would take love your neighbor is kind of like this patriotic I don't know if you know what I'm talking about here but like nationalistic, like we're going to love our fellow Israelites, the people who are in our ethnic group in our country, and everybody on the outside we're going to hate.
Speaker 1: So we're going to love our neighbor, we're going to stick together.
Speaker 1: And so Jesus is saying, hey, I'm going to flip that on its head.
Speaker 1: I tell you to love your enemies, right?
Speaker 1: So I'm not just saying love your neighbor, I'm not just saying not hate your enemies, I'm saying love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, which would be, specifically people who would like harm the Israelites.
Speaker 1: Or, for Jesus's day, they would think of the Romans, who were the occupying force of the land, who would beat, abuse and steal from the people who lived there just because they were in control.
Speaker 1: And so what Jesus was really doing here is he was redefining what they thought of as their neighbor, because it was common for Jesus' audience, and really us today, to define neighbor as narrowly as possible.
Speaker 1: I'll love the people that look like me, that think like me, that talk like me, that come from the same part of town as I do, that believe the same things that I believe and we do the same thing.
Speaker 1: Right, think about the lunchroom at lunchtime.
Speaker 1: You look at the tables.
Speaker 1: Who sits together?
Speaker 1: Right, you have the sports kids over here.
Speaker 1: You have band kids over here.
Speaker 1: You have the rednecks over here.
Speaker 1: You have this over here, that over here, everybody kind of groups up with people that they find similar or people that they feel like they click with.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 1: You go to a little bit later and you start to become friends with the people that you share activities with.
Speaker 1: Right, I'm friends with people that I do sports with, or I'm friends with the people that I work with.
Speaker 1: Like we tend to have this tendency to group up into these little bubbles.
Speaker 1: But Jesus says, no, your neighbor isn't just the people that you click with, saying hey, everyone is your neighbor, even your enemy, right, because the enemy is the opposite.
Speaker 1: Like that's the furthest away from whom these people would consider their neighbor, like this is the opposite end of the spectrum.
Speaker 1: So what he's in fact saying is that everybody is your neighbor, which then forces us to redefine what Jesus means by love.
Speaker 1: Because, for us, we think about love as this emotion.
Speaker 1: Right, we view love as a way we feel about people that we really like, the way we feel about people that have something to add to our lives or that make us laugh or provide some benefit.
Speaker 1: Like it's a feeling, it's emotion.
Speaker 1: That's why we use these phrases fall out of love or fall into love or, you know, I just can't help but love this person because we think of it like an emotion.
Speaker 1: But for Jesus, love isn't about being kind to people who are like you or who are already your friends or who feel safe to be around.
Speaker 1: Real love cares about people who seem difficult, different or even scary to you, because the true test of love is not how we treat people outside our is sorry.
Speaker 1: Let me restart, because the true test of love is how we treat people outside our comfort zone, not just the ones inside of it.
Speaker 1: And so ask yourself who is that for you?
Speaker 1: Who's outside of your comfort zone that, if you're honest, you're very happy to leave outside?
Speaker 1: Maybe it's the person at your school who's rude to you, the person who gossips, the person who starts rumors right, the kid who everybody thinks is a bully.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's the person you find yourself constantly competing with.
Speaker 1: This is Bernie.
Speaker 1: Everybody's trying to beat each other academically.
Speaker 1: I got to have the highest class rank.
Speaker 1: I got to get into this organization.
Speaker 1: I got to get into this school.
Speaker 1: I got to get this spot on the team.
Speaker 1: I got to get this spot on the band.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's the athlete from the school across town.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's the person in your class who very vocally hates Christians and everything we stand for.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a parent, a family member, a faculty teacher, coach.
Speaker 1: But just ask yourself, who in your life do you view as your enemy?
Speaker 1: And then understand that if you're a follower of Jesus, he's calling you to love even them and we'll talk more about this here in a few moments.
Speaker 1: But love is not a feeling, so he's not just saying, hey, you need to somehow change your feelings, but it's an action, it's something that you go do, it's a choice.
Speaker 1: And specifically he gives the example here of pray for those who persecute you.
Speaker 1: And so, whoever that is, what would that look like?
Speaker 1: To just start praying for that person?
Speaker 1: And it'd be hard.
Speaker 1: If we're honest, there's people in our lives where the thought of me praying for that person makes me like gag a little bit in my mouth.
Speaker 1: But the key is, prayer changes us and as you do that, you'll notice God will soften your heart towards that person and you'll be completely changed.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't mean it will necessarily change them, but that's not the point.
Speaker 1: And so I'll say what I said earlier.
Speaker 1: I know this is one of the hardest things that we can possibly do loving our enemies, because you might not feel like that person deserves a lot of love.
Speaker 1: But the truth here is that when Jesus here in a moment, gives us we talked about what he's telling us to do when he gives us the why, it makes everything click right.
Speaker 1: And so let's go back to verse 44.
Speaker 1: Jesus says but I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.
Speaker 1: He causes his son to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Speaker 1: So notice what Jesus doesn't say here.
Speaker 1: He doesn't say, hey, love your enemies so that they'll become your friends.
Speaker 1: He doesn't say, hey, kill them with kindness and they can't stay mad at you.
Speaker 1: He never makes any sort of promise or any sort of statement that says, hey, if you love them well enough, then they might be nice to you or they might, you know, come to faith.
Speaker 1: He just simply says, hey, love them.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: To be like your Father in heaven.
Speaker 1: See, he's not calling his followers to a love that depends on circumstances or anything else.
Speaker 1: He's calling them to do good to their enemies, despite circumstances or results or really anything that has to do with that person.
Speaker 1: And that reason is exactly what he said because you're to be like your father in heaven.
Speaker 1: And so, see, that's the type of love that Jesus had.
Speaker 1: And he goes into this example about bringing rain and sunshine.
Speaker 1: You're like, what in the world does rain and sunshine have to do anything?
Speaker 1: But the example is that God is so loving that he has this thing called common grace that even for the wicked, even for the person who wants nothing with him, he still lets him live.
Speaker 1: He sustains the systems that keep his heart beating and his lungs turning oxygen to something the body can use.
Speaker 1: He gives us all the chance to exist, even if we don't choose them, because he is loving and beyond even just common grace.
Speaker 1: Romans, chapter 5, verses 6 through 8, says you see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, christ died for the ungodly.
Speaker 1: Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person, someone might possibly dare to die.
Speaker 1: But God demonstrates his own love for us in this.
Speaker 1: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Speaker 1: And then to skip down into verse 10, for if, while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life?
Speaker 1: See, god's love for us was not because, hey, we were trying really hard.
Speaker 1: Like man, he went to church.
Speaker 1: You know he meant well, he might have like slept in a little bit and missed the first part.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, he makes a few mistakes here and there, but he really he felt bad about it, like that wasn't God's love.
Speaker 1: God's love was we were completely separated from him.
Speaker 1: We were dead in our sin.
Speaker 1: We didn't even want him.
Speaker 1: We were running in the opposite direction.
Speaker 1: We were actually the language the Bible uses is enemies of God.
Speaker 1: And in the middle of that he sent his son.
Speaker 1: Jesus, lived a perfect life, died on the cross, took our punishment, the death we deserved by making and choosing for us to be enemies of God.
Speaker 1: He took that so that we can get his reward.
Speaker 1: And so when you see and start to understand, hey, that is God's incredible, just absolutely mind-blowing love.
Speaker 1: And scripture calls us his children.
Speaker 1: He's our father.
Speaker 1: There's this reality that children look like their parents.
Speaker 1: And so if you look at our kids, christine and I if you've seen Leighton, you probably have she's probably like run up to you and like asked for food because she loves to mooch off people.
Speaker 1: Or if you've heard Michael screaming because he doesn't have food in his hands, because that is also something he does very often, you know that they look like us.
Speaker 1: Leighton is Christine's mini-me and Michael is my mini-me.
Speaker 1: Now let me ask you Satan is Christine's mini-me and Michael is my mini-me.
Speaker 1: Now let me ask you do they look like us so that they can be our kids?
Speaker 1: Like is their appearance what makes them our kids?
Speaker 1: No, that is who they are.
Speaker 1: They were born that way.
Speaker 1: Their identity is what leads to that appearance.
Speaker 1: And in the same way, when we talk about being children of God, there's this truth that when we place our faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we trust in what he did for us on the cross, trust that it's enough to forgive us of our sins.
Speaker 1: Scripture says that you are born again, that the old you is dead and gone and that you are a new creation in Christ.
Speaker 1: And as a new creation in Christ, you become a child of God.
Speaker 1: And that is who you are.
Speaker 1: And because that is who you are, you then live out those characteristics.
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 1: Those characteristics don't make you his kid.
Speaker 1: The fact you are his kid is what leads to those popping up in your life, because you want to be like the God who loved you.
Speaker 1: And so, if you're a Christian, your motivation to love your enemy has nothing to do with what that person's done.
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 1: That parent that you have a grudge against, that friend, that kid at your school, loving them.
Speaker 1: Forgiving them has nothing to do with them, how they act, how they respond to their circumstances, but rather it's motivated by your desire, if you're a Christian, to be like the God who loved you enough to save you when you were his enemy.
Speaker 1: And so, yes, loving our enemies is hard.
Speaker 1: It sounds impossible, but it becomes a whole lot more possible and it makes a whole lot more sense when you understand it's got a whole lot less to do with that person and a whole lot more to do with a good God who's that exact same way and we're living out his characteristics.
Speaker 1: In fact, this is one of the ways that you can be assured that you belong to him, not that any one moment you're going to be perfect or that you're always going to have the easiest time ever forgiving people, but if you look at over time, hey, I am growing in God's direction, I'm growing into his image.
Speaker 1: You have assurance that, okay, I know I'm one of his because I'm starting to see the fruit.
Speaker 1: So, that being said, it's one thing to know what you're supposed to do love your enemies it's another thing to know why.
Speaker 1: So that you can be like your father in heaven, so that you can be like God, reflect him to the world around you.
Speaker 1: But the real question then, for a lot of us is okay, well, how?
Speaker 1: Sing them a song, bring them some chocolates, give them some roses?
Speaker 1: What does it actually practically look like to love my enemy?
Speaker 1: What if this person wants nothing to do with me?
Speaker 1: What if this person doesn't know I exist?
Speaker 1: Well, thankfully, jesus lands with some negative examples that I think we're actually going to get some practical application from.
Speaker 1: So we're going to finish verse 46 through 48.
Speaker 1: 46 says this if you love those who love you, what reward will you get?
Speaker 1: Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
Speaker 1: And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others?
Speaker 1: Do not even pagans do that.
Speaker 1: Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect.
Speaker 1: And so Jesus actually gives three negative examples.
Speaker 1: One he says basically, if you love those who love you, what reward will you get?
Speaker 1: And so it's this idea of I'm only gonna love the people that love me back, I'm gonna love the people that treat me well.
Speaker 1: And he says are not even the tax collectors doing that?
Speaker 1: Which tax collectors?
Speaker 1: I won't go into it, but they were seen as like really bad people, and Jesus still reached out to him Like he loved his enemies and how he loved tax collectors.
Speaker 1: He's just using an example here, and in verse 47, he says if you greet your own people, what are you doing more than others?
Speaker 1: Do not even pagans do that, and pagans are basically unbelievers.
Speaker 1: They don't believe in God.
Speaker 1: So he's saying, hey, if the whole call of this sermon is for you to be different and you're only loving people that love you and talking to people that want to talk to you, you're not different than anyone else.
Speaker 1: I'm calling you to something more.
Speaker 1: And so if we flip those two examples on their head, one is to love people that don't love you.
Speaker 1: Back, right, and I'm not saying that you stay in an unhealthy relationship or unhealthy situation, I'm not saying that you grovel, but I'm saying, hey, that person who doesn't want anything to do with you, that person who might have wounded you deeply or who might not look anything like you or talk anything like you, how can you love them If love is an action like we talked about?
Speaker 1: What's a way that you can serve them?
Speaker 1: Is there a way that you can meet their need?
Speaker 1: That teacher who you always have conflict with man, instead of just talking about how much you can't stand them.
Speaker 1: Is there a way you can help, like clean up after class?
Speaker 1: Or is there a way that you can help to?
Speaker 1: Hey, I'm gonna know, I'm going to listen, I'm going to try to make her life easier, I'm going to follow the rules, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: How can you actually step out in love to someone who has no desire to give that back to you?
Speaker 1: That's selfless, right?
Speaker 1: I think about my love for Leighton.
Speaker 1: Like Leighton can make me laugh, and she can, you know she can make me smile.
Speaker 1: But or let me use Michael, for example.
Speaker 1: Like he ain't doing the dishes, right.
Speaker 1: Like he's not going out.
Speaker 1: Like clocking in at his nine to five to help pay rent right, he's a baby.
Speaker 1: He throws up and pees and poops and sleeps and screams when I don't give him food.
Speaker 1: But I still love him, and that's the picture of our father's love for us is it's not contingent on something that that person's gonna give me back because we have nothing to offer God Yet.
Speaker 1: So because we have nothing to offer God.
Speaker 1: So we wrap our heads around this idea of how can I reach out to people who have nothing to offer to me.
Speaker 1: They're not going to help me climb the social ladder.
Speaker 1: They're not going to help me get ahead in my school, they're not going to necessarily help me get into the club I want to get into, but I want to love them because God calls me to and I want to be a light to them.
Speaker 1: So then, secondly, it's to greet those who don't greet you.
Speaker 1: If Jesus says, hey, you know, part of this is, if you're just greeting people who greet you, that's wrong.
Speaker 1: Well then flip that on its head.
Speaker 1: What would it look like to greet people who don't greet you and you're like, okay, so I just go around and say hi to people.
Speaker 1: But see the idea behind this when we're talking about greeting someone, what is that?
Speaker 1: You're initiating conversation with them, you're opening a door to a relationship to hopefully get to know them better, to get to learn about who they are, what they've been through, and so, to apply this, think about are there people in your life who maybe they're not necessarily your enemy, like there's no animosity to them, but maybe they're just never gonna necessarily be in the same social circle?
Speaker 1: That you are right.
Speaker 1: They're the person new to school, just moved here, doesn't have any friends, has no connection.
Speaker 1: How can you practically just reach out and start that conversation with them.
Speaker 1: We would call this and this is one of our key values in the youth ministry inviting others in right, have that conversation with them.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't have to be crazy, you don't have to like drop, hey, I'm going to share the gospel with you in 15 seconds, right now, maybe, but maybe it's just through hospitality.
Speaker 1: And what hospitality is, guys, is it's inviting people into our world.
Speaker 1: If you're a Christian, it's like hey, do you want to come to church with me?
Speaker 1: No pressure, I'm not expecting you to get saved tonight, but I just want you to come and take a step into our world and see what it's like.
Speaker 1: And when they're here, you love them, you make them feel welcome, you make them feel like they belong here, like they're heard.
Speaker 1: Guys, that's how the early church blew up, is they just brought people into their world and as they did that, they saw something that the rest of the world didn't have to offer.
Speaker 1: They saw a kindness, they saw a gentleness, right, imagine if the person you have the most animosity with, all of a sudden, you come up to them hey, I wanna like apologize, I wanna make this right.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna treat you better than anybody else.
Speaker 1: What do you think they're gonna think?
Speaker 1: Man, something's different about that person, like something's different about Connor, like he actually like cared about me, he actually tried to fix things.
Speaker 1: Like, why is he different?
Speaker 1: Why does nobody else treat me that way?
Speaker 1: And it opens the door all through just starting that conversation and initiating that relationship, and so we'll close with this.
Speaker 1: The question would be well, what about that very last line right, be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect?
Speaker 1: Is Jesus preaching sinless perfection, that in order to get into heaven, we have to do everything right, we have to check all the boxes, and if you mess up, even once you're out of there, well, no, you read the rest of the Bible.
Speaker 1: It's very clear.
Speaker 1: That's not how Jesus viewed things.
Speaker 1: That's not how any of his apostles viewed things.
Speaker 1: I don't believe in this passage that Jesus is calling for sinless perfection.
Speaker 1: Scripture is clear, 1 John, that we are going to have sin on this side of heaven.
Speaker 1: But I also think that Jesus is more than just using this sermon to paint a picture that you need him Like.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people will paint this of like.
Speaker 1: Yes, he gives all of these impossible ideas so that you realize you can do none of this without him, and there is an element where he's trying to get you to see your need for dependence on him.
Speaker 1: However, to say that's all he's doing would mean none of the stuff he just said actually made any difference, which would be a colossal waste of time.
Speaker 1: So he obviously has some meaning in these commands on lust and oaths and retaliation and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: So then the question is what in the world is he talking about?
Speaker 1: This whole section, right?
Speaker 1: We're wrapping up a big chunk of the Sermon on the Mount tonight.
Speaker 1: What is the point?
Speaker 1: Well, to understand, you have to know that the Greek word for perfect is often also translated mature, whole or complete.
Speaker 1: See, jesus is calling us to grow into the kind of people who reflect God's love in everything that we do.
Speaker 1: He's not just giving a set of rules here, as if you could ever perfectly obey them.
Speaker 1: Rather, he is setting an ideal before his followers.
Speaker 1: He's saying hey, this is what the kingdom of God looks like.
Speaker 1: This is God's heart.
Speaker 1: Do you notice how he's done that?
Speaker 1: Every single time, he said hey, this is the law, but here's God's heart in giving it.
Speaker 1: This is the reason why because God cares about other people.
Speaker 1: God cares about how we treat people.
Speaker 1: God cares about how we keep our word.
Speaker 1: God cares about all these sorts of things, and so what he's doing is he's giving us this picture of God's heart and setting it before us, and he's calling us to it.
Speaker 1: And the truth is that when you place your faith in Jesus, you receive the Holy Spirit and no longer is it you just trying to climb and run after God, but God is holding on to you and through the power of the Holy Spirit, he cleans you up little by little, changing you into someone who can actually live out this type of life Maybe not perfectly on this side of heaven, but over time, will grow into somebody who is not mastered by lust, who is honest and keeps their integrity, keeps their word, who treats other people well.
Speaker 1: Actually grow into that type of person and see these people are being called to be different.
Speaker 1: His followers us as his followers.
Speaker 1: If you're a Christian, you're called to be different, but not different by just how disciplined or how moral you are, different by your allegiance.
Speaker 1: Right, you're not a slave to this world.
Speaker 1: You're not a slave to the culture, a slave to what people think.
Speaker 1: You are a servant of the God of the universe.
Speaker 1: Yahweh, you're a servant of Jesus and as you are his servant, you become his child, and to be his child is to love him and to look like him.
Speaker 1: We're called to want his heart that's the whole point of this to align our will and align our heart with what he sees the world as and how he views it, not to just try and squeeze God into this box.
Speaker 1: If I want him to look like the type of God I want him to look like, and as you do that, he'll change you from the inside out.
Speaker 1: But all of it begins with becoming his child, and I'll close with this.
Speaker 1: We're about to pray, but the truth is none of this is possible without first becoming his child.
Speaker 1: You cannot be a source of love to others without having a source of love yourself, and we run to so many different things to be a source of love and a source of life.
Speaker 1: We run to another broken guy or girl.
Speaker 1: We run to so many different things to be a source of love and a source of life.
Speaker 1: We run to another broken guy or girl.
Speaker 1: We run to a sport.
Speaker 1: We run to our parents.
Speaker 1: As great as they might be, they can't fill that hole.
Speaker 1: We run to inclusion in a group, we run to money, we run to distraction, you name it.
Speaker 1: We run to all these sources but ultimately they are wells that will run dry very quickly and leave you empty and lacking.
Speaker 1: And, guys, there's no amount of self-help, there's no amount of willpower that's going to be able to build those bridges back or mend those wounds that we've all faced from people when they've hurt us.
Speaker 1: It's just God, it's just a relationship with him, changing your heart from the inside out, and it's resting in the fact that we have a God who's not sitting up in heaven ready to throw a lightning bolt at us, ready to just smite us the second we mess up, but a God who loved us so much that he sent his son to die for us, lived a perfect life that we could have never lived right.
Speaker 1: He's the one person in all of humanity to actually have earned heaven.
Speaker 1: Yet at the end of his life he died on a cross and it wasn't an accident.
Speaker 1: He didn't stumble into Jerusalem and get hung.
Speaker 1: He chose to go to the cross.
Speaker 1: Why he despised the shame of the cross, for the glory set before him that was you and me, because he loved you, and he didn't just love your potential.
Speaker 1: He didn't just love a few things about you and he didn't just love your potential.
Speaker 1: He didn't just love a few things about you.
Speaker 1: He's God.
Speaker 1: He knows every single detail, every thought you've ever had, every secret that you wish you could take to your grave, everything that you wish.
Speaker 1: Nobody knew about you, all of the fears and insecurities that you worry.
Speaker 1: If anybody ever found this out about me, they would reject me, they'd cast me out.
Speaker 1: And the offer of God is to be fully known and fully loved, not for the image you put up, not for the appearance you project, but for the fact that he loves you because he chose to, he created you in his image.
Speaker 1: He wants you to have a relationship with him, and resting in that then allows you to be able to offer that love to other people, even the person that you feel like you could never forgive.
Speaker 1: That.
Speaker 1: The bitterness and the anger from that relationship just weighs you down day and day and day and day.
Speaker 1: You can be set free, but it starts with becoming his child.
Speaker 1: And so here, in a moment, we're going to go to small groups and we're going to have discussion and all that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But if that's you and you say, hey, I need to make that decision.
Speaker 1: I'm not a child of God we like to throw that term around.
Speaker 1: Not everybody is children of God.
Speaker 1: In fact, biblically there's two categories children of the devil and children of God.
Speaker 1: And the thing is with sin.
Speaker 1: We are all born broken, we are all born in sin and we all start out on the other side of the equation.
Speaker 1: But in his mercy, he gives us the option to place our faith in him and be saved and become his children.
Speaker 1: So if you've never done that, that's the first step, and so I'd encourage you find a leader, have that conversation.
Speaker 1: Let us walk through that with you, because you're not supposed to do it alone.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you just say, hey, I need to talk about somebody that I need to forgive, or somebody that I need to make a plan to actually love this person and try to mend that bridge, or whatever.
Speaker 1: But I just encourage you here's we go to small groups, let's have those discussions.
Speaker 1: Don't just hold on to it.
Speaker 1: Don't try to figure it out on your own.
Speaker 1: It's not what we're meant to do.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to pray for us and we're going to small groups.
Speaker 1: All right, lord, god, we thank you so much for who you are and all that you've done.
Speaker 1: We thank and Lord that through your love, we're able to offer that love to other people, god, even the people that have hurt us, even people that have wounded us.
Speaker 1: Lord, that that we can turn around and we can love them, despite how they act or what they've done, or the circumstances or anything else.
Speaker 1: And, god, I pray you would give us the ability and the courage to actually walk that out this week.
Speaker 1: If we need to have a conversation we leave here, give us the give us the words and the courage to actually walk that out this week.
Speaker 1: If we need to have a conversation when we leave here, give us the words and the courage to do that, lord, because we want to be your salt, your light in the world around us.
Speaker 1: And, father, if there's somebody in the sound of my voice right now that is not your child and they know, hey, I need to make that decision would you give them the boldness to step out in that tonight, father?
Speaker 1: Or maybe somebody who has, and they need to take the first step towards the waters of baptism, would you give them the boldness to make that decision, whatever it be.
Speaker 1: God, we just pray for courage and obedience to respond.
Speaker 1: Lord, we love you and praise you.
Speaker 1: We praise things in Jesus' name and everybody said Amen.