5:43-48 | Love Your Enemies

Put in Jeremiah 29:7 for huuuuge application

The Old Way

1. Love your neighbor as yourself

   1. God wanted Israel to look out for each other

   2. Had specific commands to help out their enemies within the camp | Exodus 22:3-4

2. Pharisees questioned who their neighbor was

   1. Who is my neighbor? | Luke 10:25-29

   2. Latched onto Leviticus 19:1. This only applies to the congregation of Israel

   3. Hating your enemies was the natural conclusion of these interpretations and questions

3. This is how most people live life, including us

   1. We restrict our love to a narrow group of people

   2. We hear constant prayers for our troops. How often do we pray for the enemies shooting at them?

The Love Jesus Teaches

1. Love the people we hate the most

   1. All aspects of love - emotional and through acts

   2. Don't just ignore or refuse to retaliate, but actively work for their good

2. Pray for those who would harm us

   1. For Jesus that meant Rome and the very people who crucified him | Luke 23:34

   2. For us that means jerks we work with to the terrorists who want to murder us

   3. Should we pray for their good health and happiness, and ask God to reward them for their evil behavior?

   4. Me must pray for their salvation

Imitating the Love of God

1. Learn to love for the sake of love itself

   1. Why does God love you? Because God is love | Deuteronomy 7:7-8

   2. Our love must move beyond loving for reasons and mirror God's grace

2. Jesus demonstrated his love by dying for his enemies | Romans 5:8-10

   1. We were those enemies, and should share that same love for others

   2. The least we can do is pray for them

   3. God does not desire that any should perish | 33:11

A Radical Love

1. This kind of love is what will set us apart from the rest of the world

   1. All the bad guys are playing by the same set of rules

   2. Even the worst people have others they care about

   3. What makes us different is loving people we don't care about

2. How do people know you’re a Christian?

   1. Is it because you have to tell them?

   2. If they can't see it for themselves it's because you act just like everybody else

3. We must be recognized by our love | John 13:34-35

   1. Have they seen your warm hospitality?

   2. Have they seen you be forgiving when mercy wasn't deserved?

   3. Have they seen you refuse to fire back when abused?

   4. Or do we sound just like everyone else?

Attaining Perfection

1. Love perfects us

   1. It is what makes us complete

   2. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 | We are nothing without it

2. A troubling demand

   1. God is the highest standard

   2. His love goes beyond anything we could ever grasp

   3. We can't stand around patting ourselves on the back