Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Trinity
Sermons. This week we are continuing our sermon
series, Summer on the Mount, where we are diving
deep into Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon
on the Mount is a collection of Jesus' most challenging
teachings that teach us to turn the other cheek,
to go the extra mile, and perhaps most challengingly,
to love our enemies. But is loving our enemies
even possible? And does Jesus really have my
enemies in mind? These are just some of the questions
that we're going to unpack as we think about
this really challenging command and how we can
live it out today. Today's reading is from the
Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, verses 43 to 48.
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.
He causes his Son to rise on the evil and the
good and sends rain on the righteous and the
unrighteous. If you love those who love you,
what reward will you get? Are not even tax collectors
doing that? And if you greet only your own people,
what are you doing more than others? Do not even
pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your
heavenly Father is perfect. The word of the Lord.
I want to share a little bit of a story. It was
in March of 2020 that it was right when the pandemic
was getting kind of scary. Our family decided
to take a trip to Europe. It was kind of a dumb
idea, but we had planned this for months and
we had tickets that weren't refundable. So we
said, what the heck, we're just going to go for
it. And so began our European pandemic holiday.
And it was actually scary at points. There were
moments. when we nearly got ourselves into trouble.
But the good part about the trip was that there
was, like, nobody else there. So all the hot
tourist destinations were, like, empty, and we
had a place to ourselves we felt over and over
again. The highlight for me for that trip, though,
was when we spent a few days in Switzerland,
and we were at this town called Interlaken, and
there is a big mountain there. And the mountain
is called Jungfrau. And it's called, well, it's
one of the highest mountains in Europe. It's
called the top of Europe, this mountain. And
we decided to take the trip to the top of this
mountain. Now, to get to the top, you have to
take these special trains. They're not ordinary
trains. They're called cogwheel trains. So they
have these like little clickety, clickety, clickety
things that kind of help them go up the tracks
because it's so steep, right? And I have to say
that on most of these trains, we were like the
only people in the car, right? There was nobody
else. Very few people were taking this trip.
And this little map here kind of shows you, you
have to actually take four trains to get to the
top. So one, you can get off and do a little
touring, get off and get back on until you get
right to that saddle right at the top of the
mountain. Now, we did get out at some of those
other towns and look at some of the cheese shops
and visit around. But for me, the real goal was
to get to the top. was to get to the summit and
take that last train. The last train is called
the Jungfrau Railway. And it is the steepest
of all the trains. And you know it's that way
because if you've ever ridden like a roller coaster
at Canada's Wonderland, you know when you're
going up the hill, you hear that as you're getting
to the top of the hill. Well, imagine that for
like 30 or 40 minutes. It's just going up and
up and up and up until you get to this, what
looks like a moon base. on the top, and you could
tour the observation center when you were there,
and you could go outside, and we went outside,
and we had our family photo taken by this Swiss
flag. The air was like so, so thin, but the view
was absolutely amazing. And perhaps the sweetest
part of all is that at the top, there is this
lint store, right? And it's full of lindors.
Like, I've never seen so many lindors in my life.
So we loaded up on the lindors, and we headed
back down four trains to civilization. Which
leads me to saying this statement. The summit
is the hardest part of the journey, for sure.
But it is also the sweetest part. It's the most
difficult part to climb, but the view, I mean,
it gives you the absolute best view from the
top. Today, we are in this teaching series called...
Summer on the Mount where we're looking at the
greatest teaching ever, Jesus' Sermon on the
Mount, by the greatest teacher ever, Jesus of
Nazareth. And we're working our way up the mountain.
And in some ways you could say we've already
taken three trains. We started three weeks ago,
Matthew 5, 1 to 12, the Beatitudes. That first
train got us started and showed us how to enter
into the kingdom of God, how to enter into this
new way of life. That Jesus has for us. And then
the second train. That's when Pete Blundell was
here. He was speaking to us. No. Was I doing
the second week? Or did he do the second week?
He did. What happened? I'm confused. Anyways,
no, he did Matthew 5, 13 to 16. Yes, he did how
we're supposed to be salty. And as followers
of Jesus, we're supposed to add flavor and healing
to our world. And then last week, yeah, last
week I talked to you about how this third train
that we take up is all about Jesus teaching on
adultery and divorce and, you know, oaths and
all this stuff, which wasn't just a bunch of
new rules for us to follow. It was actually Jesus
calling us to be a new kind of person. But anyways.
That brings us to today. Guys, today is the fourth
train. There's going to be more trains. We got
to get around the mountain and back down. But
today is the Jungfrau Railway. It is the summit.
It is the steepest train. This one today is the
one that takes us right to the top. It's the
hardest part of the whole journey. I would say
it's the hardest teaching you are ever going
to come across. This is what I mean. Jesus says.
If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with
them two miles. Jesus then goes on to say, he
says, But Jesus says, your enemies. Now that
is the hardest teaching you're ever going to
come across. In fact, John Stott says that nowhere
is the challenge of the sermon greater than in
this command to love our enemies. This is the
supreme demand. It is the summit of the sermon
on the mountain. So today we're going to take
the Jungfrau railway. We are going to take the
fourth train and we are going to go right to
the top. and see what we can learn about loving
our enemies. I'm going to do this in kind of
three steps. First, we're going to consider the
climb. We're going to take a look at this imposing
mountain in front of us and see why this is so
hard. Then we're going to get on board. We're
going to try to get on board with Jesus' teaching.
And then thirdly, we're going to reach the summit
and we're going to see how sweet. And how beautiful
it is. Now, there are sermon notes here that
you can follow along. And actually, today we're
introducing something new. If you have the Church
Center app, you can access fillable online sermon
notes, especially for those who are viewing at
home. We'd encourage you to go to the app, click
on Other. You'll find sermon notes as an option
there, and you can follow along at home as well.
But let's begin. By considering the climb. I
remember when we were getting on that very first
train in Switzerland. You were waiting at the
platform. You were just looking up at that mountain.
You were like, there is no way. There is no way
we are going to end up up there. It just seemed
impossible. Seemed insurmountable. That's what
loving our enemies feels like. It feels impossible.
It feels impossible. It feels impossible in your
personal relationships. When you hear Jesus say,
turn the other cheek. Or love your enemies. Maybe
someone comes to mind, right? A friend who betrayed
you. A colleague who used you. A family member
who abandoned you and you say, no, no, Jesus,
I will not be loving my enemies anytime soon.
I'm quite happy hating my enemies. I want to
make my enemies pay for what they did to me.
Do you know what they did to me, Jesus? And so
we cling to that pain and we just say, I cannot
climb that mountain. I cannot love that person.
R .T. France says, loving our enemies cuts across
all instinct. It is a standard which, humanly
speaking, is... But step back from that and take
a look at the international conflict that goes
on around us. Geopolitical conflict. Gaza, Israel,
Ukraine, Russia. Now it's Thailand and Cambodia,
right? These old tensions. New violence. I mean,
how can we possibly get to this place where we
love our enemies when we can't? agree to get
aid in to innocent people, when we can't agree
to release hostages, right? When we can't get
ceasefires to even hold, right? Instead of turning
cheeks, we turn to missiles. Instead of going
the extra mile, we go in with extra drones, right?
Loving your enemy seems absurd. It seems impossible.
Again, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who died in a Nazi
concentration camp in World War II, he struggled
with enemy love. This commandment, he said, is
the most difficult one of all. Yet, he said,
it's the climax of discipleship. Who can get
up there? Enemy love, yeah, it's been difficult
out there in the world, but the saddest part
is it's been difficult in here, right here in
the church. That's the hardest truth, I think,
to admit. Christians themselves have excluded
and persecuted. And yes, even killed other Christians.
In the 16th century, Anabaptist Christians decided
they wanted to live out the Sermon on the Mount.
They said, yes, let's love our enemies. And Catholics
and Protestants were so upset about that that
they responded by drowning and burning and beheading
them. Christians killing other Christians. Or
how about this one? On August 9th in 1945, a
B -29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
75 ,000 people died instantly. Another 75 ,000
people died in the weeks that followed. But what
most people don't realize is, you know, Japan
was not a very Christian nation. But the most
Christian city in all of Japan was Nagasaki.
And ground zero for that bomb was the Catholic
cathedral filled with worshipers in Nagasaki.
And when the bomb exploded, it instantly wiped
out 10 ,000 Christians. It instantly wiped out
four orders of Catholic nuns. But the bomber
was a practicing Catholic. And the chaplain gave
communion to the bomber and the crew right before
their mission. Man, when Christians bomb other
Christians, well, forget even the bombs. When
we can't figure out how to live at peace with
ourselves, even in churches, man, that summit
seems so out of reach. But Jesus' teaching doesn't
just sound impossible to us. It was even more
impossible in Jesus' day. Jesus, I want you to
imagine for a moment, you're there, you're living
in Galilee. It's the first century. You're just
trying to get by. Food, there's not much food.
It's scarce. Taxes are sky high. The Romans take
80 or 90 % of what you earn. There are soldiers
patrolling the streets, patrolling the marketplaces,
on every road. Your family's land, by the way,
has been stolen, mostly, again, by the elites.
And your people, they are humiliated and degraded.
And they are abused. And your people are crucified.
Literally, every few decades, a messiah would
rise up and try to rally people, an army. They
would go to war against the Romans. And they
would be crushed. By the Romans. And you're sitting
there 2 ,000 years ago. And you're remembering
the last time Rome crucified 6 ,000 of your fellow
Jews along that road leading right into Jerusalem.
And then, oh, you hear one day there's a new
teacher. Oh, some people are saying that maybe
he's the Messiah. This guy, Jesus of Nazareth.
And you show up. There's thousands of people
there. He's up. He's preaching on some mountaintop.
And he's teaching. And you listen in and you
hear him say, love your enemies. And you are
like flabbergasted and so confused. John Stott
says, in the context of a people under brutal
Roman occupation, to love one's enemies was a
demand that must have sounded ludicrous, if not
traitorous. What this guy was asking, was a path
that they could not walk. It was a mountain that
they could not climb. So there you have these
four really... Difficult problems when it comes
to enemy love. I should say that actually some
of us think, oh, Jesus actually wasn't talking
about all these, Rob. He was only talking about
love in the church, not in the world. Or he was
only talking about 2 ,000 years ago. He wasn't
talking about today. Or he was only talking about
personal relationships and not loving our enemies
in a geopolitical sense. And so what we do is
we try to avoid the steep climb that Jesus offers
us by trying to reduce Jesus' teaching into a
category that we feel comfortable with. But I
don't think Jesus... lets us off the hook and
in verse 43 jesus says you have heard hate your
enemy now that's singular but then jesus replies
but i say to you love your enemies plural not
just one all of them not just one type all of
them all of them enemy love is the whole enchilada
it stretches from that person who hurt you to
the politician who enrages you, to the foreign
nation that you've been taught to fear, even
to your fellow Christians that you disagree with.
Which again, I know I keep throwing a lot of
quotes up here, but Jesus' command to love enemies
has been recognized from the very beginning as
one of the most radical and unrealistic demands
of his teaching. That's why the trains. going
to the top, are empty. Now, before we walk away
from the platform, let's just listen in a little
bit, right? Let's listen in to what Jesus is
actually saying, line by line, a few of these
verses. And we may yet be able to get on board
with Jesus' teaching. We may be able to begin
to ascend this mountain after all. Now, I've
tried to kind of summarize what I think Jesus'
main argument is here. It's a paragraph. It's
got about five sentences. Let's look at what
he says. First sentence, Jesus says this. Jesus
points out, the Bible never says hate your enemy,
right? When Jesus says, you have heard it said,
you are to love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
One of those is biblical and the other is not.
Love your neighbor, of course. Everyone who's
hearing them would have said, yeah, that's biblical.
But hate your enemy. That is nowhere to be found
in the Bible. You can search your Bibles from
beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation.
You will not. Or Genesis to Malachi. You will
not find it. It's not there. Now, a leading theory
is that this had just become some kind of phrase.
It had entered into, you know, first century
chit -chat. You know what they say. You should,
you know, love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
And I think we can relate. to that a bit too
because in some ways that's in our own kind of
language too. If somebody wrongs you, you've
got permission to retaliate against them. You've
got permission to hate them. You've got permission
to cancel them. But the first thing Jesus says
is error, error. He is exposing this falsehood.
It is not biblical to hate your enemy. And then
in the same breath, Jesus reminds us what is
the biblical part? He says, right, the Bible
never says hate your enemy. But he says it does
say love your neighbor. And most of his Jewish
listeners would say 100 % Jesus. That's in the
Bible. Leviticus 19 .18 says you shall love your
neighbor as yourself. This was one of Jesus'
favorite teachings in all his ministry. In fact,
you remember many times Jesus would go around
and he would say, these are the two great commandments.
You're to love the Lord your God with what? All
your heart and mind and soul and strength. And
that's the first commandment. And the second
commandment is like, you are to love your neighbor
as yourself. Jesus quoting from the Bible, from
Leviticus 19, 18. So Jesus' argument, I think
so far, everyone would probably agree, yes, it's
true, Jesus. The Bible doesn't actually say we
should hate our enemies. And the Bible does say
that we should love our neighbors. But here's
the problem. Here's the problem. In Jesus' day,
neighbor was very narrowly defined. And it was
really just interpreted as your fellow Jewish
brother or sister. A neighbor was someone in
your tribe, in your group. Someone who thought
like you, who looked like you. Someone who lived
near you. But, and this is where the train is
going to start to go clickety -clickety -click
because it's getting really steep. Jesus is going
to expand the definition of neighbor. For Jesus,
neighbors include neighbors. enemies. He says,
listen, your neighbors are not just the insiders,
they're the outsiders too. They aren't just people
like you, people very different from you. They
might not just be people that you like, it might
be people that you don't like. And neighbors
actually are not just your friends, but your
neighbors include your enemies. Wait, wait, wait,
Jesus, Jesus. So I am supposed to love my neighbors.
Yes, Jesus says. But you're saying my enemies
are my neighbors. Yes, Jesus says. So ergo, you
are saying I have to love my enemies too? Boom,
you got it, Jesus says. And do you remember that
really infuriating parable Jesus told once? Where
it was called the Good Samaritan. Where he makes
this bad guy the hero. Where he makes the enemy
into the neighbor. And Jesus says, look, you
guys want to follow the law of Moses properly?
You want to truly live out what the Bible means
when it says love your neighbor? Don't you? Yes,
Jesus, we do. We do. Well, I'm just telling you
that by definition, by my definition, your neighbors
include... Outsiders, adversaries, and even your
enemies. That is a major reinterpretation that
Jesus adds to this. But he's not done there.
Jesus doesn't just talk about any kind of love
with which we are supposed to love our neighbors.
He speaks about a specific kind of love, which
in Greek is agape love. Agape love, it's not
just feelings. It's certainly not romantic love.
It's not even friendship love. It's not even
family love. It is a rugged love. It is a sacrificial,
stubborn love. It is a cogwheel train kind of
love that refuses to give up. Click, click, click.
Click, keeps going forward. It doesn't mean you
feel affection for this person. It just means
that you are going to continue, click, click,
click, to will that person's good, even when
it hurts. Now again, just to be clear, agape
love does not mean approving of evil. It doesn't
mean tolerating abuse. It doesn't mean denying
justice or it doesn't mean staying in a dangerous
situation. To love someone this way does not
mean you let them hurt you over and over and
over and over again. Agape love actually might
involve boundaries. It might involve tough conversations.
It might involve confrontations of sorts. But
always without hatred. And always without revenge.
And I would say always without violence. always
instead with a desire, even if it's just a silent
prayer under your breath for their good and for
their redemption. And that brings us to the final
part of Jesus' argument. This is the icing on
the cake. The Bible never says hate your enemy.
It says love your neighbor. And really, neighbors
include our enemies, and we're called to love
those neighbors with this agape love. Why? Because
that's how God loves them. God loves them just
like that. We love our enemies because God loves
our enemies. In verse 45, Jesus says, God causes
his son to rise on the evil and the good. He
sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
In other words, if God doesn't withhold goodness
from bad people, why should you? And if God doesn't
discriminate, how can we? We're supposed to be
children. of our Father in heaven. We're supposed
to reflect his character. And if that's so, then
we will show the same love to our enemies as
God does. Do you see how every part... of Jesus'
argument draws us higher and higher and higher
toward the summit. The Bible doesn't say, hate
your enemies. Oh, it says, love your neighbors.
Right. And neighbors include enemies. Really?
And the love we're supposed to show is agape
love. Wow. And see how God loves all of us, including
your enemies? True. True. Now, if we can track
with Jesus up that mountainside, then I want
to say, Take a deep breath and look around you.
Because you're not standing at the base anymore.
You are near the top. And the air is a lot thinner
up here. And it is a lot riskier up here. But
the view is way more beautiful. And if you want
to see what it looks like to live life on the
summit, then Jesus tells us, and he actually
shows us, I want to just end by giving you four
ways that you can put this kind of teaching into
practice in your own life. in your own prayer
life. First, apply enemy love to your relationships.
Sometimes it's so much easier to talk about global
conflicts and geopolitics when we're talking
about enemy love and war and activism. But Jesus
doesn't let us off that easy. We've got to start
with our enemies closer to home. That estranged
sibling of yours who refused to apologize. That
church member who wounded you, that ex of yours
who still makes life difficult, the person in
your small group who talks too much. Thinking
too big about this can actually be a subtle form
of avoidance. John Mark Comer, he says, you can
advocate for world peace all day long, but if
you're still harboring bitterness toward your
mom or your sister or your friend, or your workmates,
you haven't yet learned love. Jesus always wants
to draw us into the personal before the political.
We start where we are. And if we can't practice
enemy love with the people in our own lives,
we will never be able to embody it in the wider
world. So, question, who's your enemy? Could
the next step maybe be just to pray for them?
To bless them somehow? Maybe it's to set a healthy
boundary with them, but also to wish them well
somehow. That's one step. Another step I would
like to suggest to you is that we should begin
to practice and promote what is known as creative
nonviolence. Now, nonviolence isn't weakness.
It's actually a spiritual form of power. It's
what theologians call a third way. It's not violent
retaliation. And it's not cowardly retreat. But
it's a bold, loving confrontation with someone.
that doesn't involve hate, right? Jesus wasn't
saying we all ought to be doormats. He was actually
showing us this new way to be strong. That's
why when Jesus says, when someone strikes you
on one cheek, you go and you turn the other cheek
to them, not so that they can just beat you to
a pulp, but by doing that, you actually disrupt
the whole cycle of retaliation. You force them
to confront their own violence. That is creative.
non -violence. Walter Wink said, Jesus' teaching
on non -violence is not non -resistance. It's
actually active non -violent resistance to evil.
Jesus isn't telling us to submit to evil, but
to outwit evil through creative resistance. Now,
I know there's so many questions with this. What
about Hitler, right? What about abuse? What about
self -defense? There are definitely hard questions.
But, hypothetically speaking, let's say Jesus
did want us to be people of nonviolence. What
more could he have said to tell us that? He says,
love your enemies. He says, turn the other cheek.
He says, go the second mile. He says, don't return
evil for evil. It's a difficult teaching, but
I don't think it's unclear. Jesus seems pretty
clear about it, and he gets really clear, not
just through his teaching, but by what he says.
This Sermon on the Mount, it's not theoretical.
It is autobiographical for Jesus. This is what
Jesus did. He didn't just talk about enemy love.
He embodied it. He healed the servant of the
Roman centurion. He ate dinner with Judas even
when he knew he was going to betray him. He called
him a friend. And he prayed for the people who
were nailing him to the cross, saying, Father,
forgive them. While we were still enemies, Paul
says, Christ died for us. Yes, Jesus practiced
what he preached. He went all the way to the
cross loving his enemies. And in so doing, Jesus
shows us not how to use the sword, but how to
refuse the sword. And Jesus shows us not how
to fight well, but actually how to die well.
And how do we do that? Jesus died with love in
his heart, prayer on his lips, and forgiveness
in his eyes. This is the summit of divine love.
To summit this mountain, you're gonna have to
follow in the footsteps of Jesus and ride that
train all the way to the top. And if we do, let's
just end with this. Man, what a view that would
be. Imagine what the world would look like if
all, even just Christians, practiced. Enemy love.
If agape love really took hold within the church,
right? And there was no more bloodshed. And imagine
a world with no more drones or no more hate speech
or no more revenge. I told you before, the summit
is the hardest part of the journey, but it is
the sweetest part, the part with the best view.
Enemy love is the beating heart of the kingdom.
It's what makes us different. It's the revolution
Jesus launched one act of forgiveness at a time.
The Bible promises that one day we will all reach
the summit of that mountain. One day all our
enemies will be neighbors and all our neighbors
will be friends. That's the view. Until then,
let's get on board and let's take this journey
together. Thanks be to God. Amen.