If Ye Love them Which Love You

In this part of the sermon: He introduces Matthew 5:43-48, contrasting the scribes' and Pharisees' teaching to love only one's neighbor and hate enemies with Christ's command to love enemies, bless those who…

Martin uses the story of a child, Donnie, told not to fight with his brothers, who then fights with neighbor kids, to illustrate the scribes' and Pharisees' flawed logic: that a command to love one group implies license to hate others.

If God commands us to love our neighbor, therefore that gives us license to hate all others. You youngsters remember how we illustrated this, when your mother and dad say to you, Donnie, stop fighting with David and with Dougie. So Donnie goes out and he starts fighting with the neighbor's kids. And when mommy and dad come and say, Donnie, what are you doing?

5:25 - 5:45 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He then delves into the two couplets of questions in verses 46-47, arguing that loving only those who love you or saluting only your brethren yields no divine reward and places…

Martin shares a personal anecdote about his premarital arrangements where the pastor told him to 'salute the bride,' which he misunderstood, to explain the meaning of 'salute' as a greeting or expression of goodwill in biblical context.

Now the word salute is the one used throughout the Old Testament for greeting. When Paul said in some of his letters, greet the brethren with a holy kiss, he used the word, it's translated salute. I never understood what the pastor meant when Mrs. Martin and I went for our premarital arrangements.

14:49 - 15:05 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Any man or woman who gets beyond the place where he needs to pray what Jesus taught him to pray has gone too far for me. He's gone farther than the Word.

He uses the analogy of calling a baby a 'perfect little boy' (meaning complete in all its parts, not mature or sinless) to explain that 'perfect' in Matthew 5:48 refers to completeness in love, not absolute sinlessness.

He's saying that we are to be perfect in our love even as God is perfect in His love. Now what is perfection in anything? Perfection is that which is complete in all its parts. A proud pauper comes to church some Sunday morning and we say, How's your wife doing?

20:59 - 21:18 Read in full sermon

The point: Go beyond filial love for the brethren to love all men and long for their salvation, and even love those who abuse and persecute you.

Martin provides the example of God sending rain on the man who curses Him and causing the sun to rise on the young man who uses the day for sin, to illustrate God's 'disinterested benevolence' or general love for all men.

How do we know? Because He loves them. He sends the rain upon the head of that man who curses him. He causes His sun to rise upon that young fellow who'll use the daytime to earn money to go out and break the laws of God into the wee hours of the morning and yet when He awaits the next morning the sun still shines through that bedroom window.

23:08 - 23:30 Read in full sermon

The point: Go beyond filial love for the brethren to love all men and long for their salvation, and even love those who abuse and persecute you.

He describes the deep sting of trying to do good for someone out of pure love, only to have them 'turn and slap the hand,' illustrating the natural human reaction to withdraw kindness, which contrasts with God's perfect love.

Let there be that love that reaches out to those that you know don't appreciate you, that neighbor you're witnessing to. And the more you love them and discreetly presenting to them Christ, the more you're conscious that they're holding you up. I know of no deeper sting than to try to do someone good from a pure motive of love than to have them turn and slap the hand that you reach out in love to them. It stings and it wounds.

24:33 - 25:02 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He further argues that a Christian is positively like God and Christ, reflecting a family likeness and being conformed to Christ's moral image, which is possible due to the…

Martin critiques the common artistic depiction of Christ (e.g., 'Solomon's head of Christ') as having soft, feminine lines, arguing that this image fails to capture the full moral likeness of Christ, including His holy wrath against hypocrisy.

And though I've said it on other occasions it bears repetition that phrase suffers from our pictures of Christ. For the minute you hear the image of his Son there comes into our minds Solomon's head of Christ. And we see the wispy far away look of that supposed picture of Christ and the soft almost feminine lines of the face and we say to be like him means I've got to somehow have a soft feminine look upon my face. No dear, it doesn't mean that at all.

33:29 - 34:02 Read in full sermon