If Ye Love them Which Love You

Introduction: Context of the Sermon on the Mount

0:03 We'd invite you to turn with us again to the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew chapter 5.

0:12 We have a number of visitors with us this morning, and so for their sakes it will be necessary to take a few minutes to just hit the high peaks of truth that have preceded the study that we'll engage in this morning. In this sermon of all sermons, and perhaps the most abused of all sermons, our Lord began by making a clear delineation of the character traits of a true Christian. That section that we commonly call the Beatitudes, those eight blessings, are our Lord's description of the character of a true child of God.

0:52 The Beatitudes are not a road map telling us how to enter the gate of salvation. But they are rather a description of those who have entered by the regenerating power of the Spirit through repentance and faith. Then having described the child of God, our Lord gave to us the function of the child of God. He is in society as light and as salt.

1:20 Apparently, because this seems so strange to the religious system of his day, as though the Lord came and was making some kind of innovation, an innovation that was going to utterly eradicate all that had preceded in the Old Testament. He moved then into that statement in verse 17, Think not that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets, I came not to destroy but to fulfill. In other words, our Lord is saying, all that I've taught you as to the true character traits of a child of God, of his function in the midst of the world as light and as salt, this is not something entirely new.

1:58 All that I say unto you has its roots in what God has revealed in the Law and in the Prophets. There is a blessed unity in all the truth of God, a progression of unfolding as far as clarity is concerned, but never is there a contradiction. Our Lord Jesus came in fulfillment of the Law and of the Prophets. Moving down to verse 20, which introduced the section that we've been studying for some months now, Verily I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

2:37 And from this point on, verse 21 to verse 48, we have in substance an amplification of that statement. We have a description of the kind of righteousness, the practical godliness that will mark the true followers of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in laying this out, our Lord continually contrasts this true righteousness with the sham righteousness of the scribes and of the pharisees. And in doing so, he gives us six parallel passages, each one beginning with the phrase, Ye have heard that it was said that I say unto you.

3:17 We are now studying the last of these six parallel passages, found in verses 43 to 48.

The False Teaching vs. The True Command to Love Enemies

3:27 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven. For he maketh his Son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye?

4:01 Do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans so? That ye therefore be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect.

4:22 In our first study of this passage, we saw that our Lord Jesus did here what he had done in each of the previous passages. He laid out the teachings. He laid out the teachings of the scribes and Pharisees. What did they teach?

4:33 They were teaching that we were under obligation to love our neighbor only. They limited the meaning of that word to your fellow Jew, and all others were to be hated. Now we saw that this was utterly unfounded in Scripture. Nowhere in the Old Testament do you find this quotation.

4:52 You do find God saying that the Jew was not to hold a grudge against his neighbor, but you will find in the book of the Proverbs almost the exact words. Where God says in Proverbs 25, And if he thirsts, give him to drink, for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. And so God never taught in the Old Testament that a Jew was to love only a Jew and to hate all others. But by a very subtle kind of reasoning and logic, the Jews, the scribes and Pharisees reasoned this way.

5:25 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?

5:46 Donnie says, well, all you told me was not to fight with my brothers. Well, that doesn't give him license to fight with all others. We have sense enough to realize that. But the scribes and Pharisees, to justify the hatred that lies within the heart of every man, apart from the grace of God, had framed a precept which gave license, almost put it in the place of duty, to love one's neighbor, but to hate one's enemy.

6:12 And so then our Lord gives us what the true command of God is, namely to love our enemies. And then he elaborates that precept. In this passage, some of you who have a modern translation will find that the next part of verse 44 is not there, but it's included in Luke chapter 6 and verse 27. So the, truth is there in the word and we'll include it here because it is elsewhere.

6:36 Love your enemies, and as a proof of this, three things. Bless those that curse you, those that would abuse you with their speech, you turn around and give them kind speech of blessing. Those that would hate you, those that would have venom in their hearts, you respond with actual deeds of kindness. Do good to those that hate you.

7:00 And those that, despitefully use and persecute you, they do so because they are lost men. Pray for them that they might have a change of heart. Now it's interesting that our Lord assumed that his followers would need this instruction.

The Necessity of Loving Enemies: Reflecting God's Likeness

7:17 Our Lord assumed that there would be people who hated his own. Our Lord assumed that there would be people who would persecute and abuse his own. Our Lord assumed that there would be those that would curse his own. Now many of us find very little need for this passage for nobody hates us.

7:39 Nobody curses us. Nobody despitefully uses us. Or occasionally someone might when we've just plain been nasty and they give us what we deserve. But I remind you that our Lord said elsewhere, marvel not if the world hates you.

7:55 The servant is not above his master. If they have hated me, they what? Will hate you. He had said previously in the Beatitudes, those very clear words that we considered some months ago, blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven.

8:20 Why did he say this? Because our Lord assumed and the history of the church has proven that wherever there is vital spirit anointed Christianity there will always be a violent overt reaction from the world. Even in polite, cultured, sweet, broad-minded America who cannot stand the presence of holy men and women without the venom of their unregenerate hearts somehow rising to the surface. Now what are we to do when men curse us?

8:55 What are we to do when men revile us? What are we to do when men say all manner of evil against us falsely? We are to love them and we are to demonstrate that love. Why?

9:06 Verse 45 That ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven. The first reason our Lord gave was that you and I might reflect the likeness of our Heavenly Father. Nothing is more normal than for children to resemble their parents. And so the Lord Jesus says to us His own we must demonstrate love to those who have no love to us for our Father does this.

9:31 He sends His reign upon the just and the unjust. He sends His Son, causes His Son to rise upon the just and upon the unjust. Now what if we fail to do this? This brings us up to the place of our study this morning.

The Consequences of Limited Love: No Reward, Like Publicans and Gentiles

9:46 Verses 47, 48, 46, 47, and 48. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? If ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others?

10:02 Do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect. Now to think our way through these remaining three verses it would be very simple. We have first of all two couplets of questions.

10:16 Verse 46, two questions. Verse 47, two questions. And then those two questions are followed by an implicit command in verse 48. And so as you think of the whole passage this is the framework of it.

10:30 The false teaching of the scribes and Pharisees. The true teaching of our Lord which was but an amplification of what was taught in the Old Testament and was further developed in the epistles. Then he gives us reason number one above all else is because we must reflect the likeness of our Heavenly Father. Now he says suppose you fail to love your enemies.

10:55 Suppose you don't demonstrate this kind of concern for those that abuse you. Two couplets of two questions, here they are. If ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? If you only show love by these acts of kindness mentioned to those that reciprocate and show the same to you, what reward have you?

11:19 Now it's interesting that our Lord introduces the subject of rewards. The scripture has much to say about rewards. We can't go into that this morning simply to say this. The only things that God rewards are those things that are pleasing to him.

11:35 And the only things that are pleasing to God are the things that his grace works, in us. May I repeat those two principles? The only things that God will ever reward are the things that please him. And the only things that please him are the things that his grace works in us.

12:01 That's why we read in Hebrews 13, in that wonderful benediction, that God the great shepherd of the sheep, who brought again from the dead that great shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in everything, to do his will, working in you that which is what? Well pleasing in his sight. And I want to categorically state that there's absolutely nothing done by men, by their own natural powers, no matter how noble, that is well pleasing to God. Chapter and verse?

12:35 Yes, Romans 8 and verse 8. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Men and women devoid of God, devoid of the Spirit of God, who have never been born of the Spirit, God. Therefore, who stands in the way of his promised reward.

13:06 And our Lord is saying in this first couplet of questions, if ye love those who love you, what reward have you? What indication is there that grace has done anything for you? What room is there for reward if the only things the Father rewards, are those things that he works in men by his own power and grace? And all you do is love those that love you?

13:29 What indication is there that grace has done anything for you? And then he follows up with that second question, do not even the publicans the same? Now it's said in the Talmud, that collection of Jewish law and tradition, that the publicans were put in the same class as thieves and as assassins and there was no hope of repentance for them. The publicans were what we would call the mafia of the Jewish society, only they were above ground.

14:03 They had a terrible reputation. Now notice what our Lord is saying. He's saying, if ye only love those that love you, what reward have you? Do not the publicans the same?

14:13 Those that are noted for their wicked, crooked, dishonest lives, even they do this. It's obvious that there's no grace in publicans. He knows that a publican is the epitome of sinfulness and crookedness. And if you only love those that love you, you put yourself in the same class of publicans.

14:33 Now what is there in a publican that will receive the reward of God? That's the emphasis of our Lord's words at this point. Then he moves to the second couplet and we have something similar, only there's a little shade of difference. And if ye salute your brethren only.

14:49 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.

15:05 And he said, well at this point you salute the bride. And I said, salute the bride? What are you talking about? I can just see me standing at the altar and throwing a salute.

15:14 I didn't quite understand that. Well that's taken from the old scriptural setting where Paul said, salute one another with an holy kiss. When Jesus sent the ten out, he said, salute no man by the way. There were apparently degrees in which they would carry out this greeting, but it was apparently not uncommon for people to meet, even the men, and to embrace and to give a kiss on the cheek.

15:37 Now this kiss on the cheek and embrace is a picture of an attitude of heart. If I were to meet you on the street and salute you, however a Jew saluted another Jew, it would be an indication that there was in my heart a feeling of goodwill toward you. I was wishing you, God, God's blessing, God's benediction. Now our Lord says, if he only salutes your brethren.

16:02 Who are your brethren? Well in this case it would be fellow Jews, I think we can say by way of application. It would be our fellow church members, those involved in our own denominational interests, those who go to our school. You see, it would be our own natural circle of associations.

16:19 Now our Lord says, if you only show outward expressions of kindness and goodwill to your brethren, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans so, or as some of the modern translations have it, and there seems to be better evidence for this translation, do not even the Gentiles so. Now what's our Lord emphasizing? The Gentiles were those nations that had no revelation from God in His words.

16:50 They had the revelation of God in nature, but God had given to Israel the Law and the Prophets. This was her greatest blessing, that to Israel was committed the oracles of God. Now our Lord says, if you merely salute, and by saluting show your goodwill toward your brethren, those of your own circle, and others you bypass, you don't need to curse them, you don't need to throw stones at them, you just ignore them. And others, He says, even those devoid of the revelation of God, those who are in the dark night of heathen paganism, they do this.

17:30 So our Lord tells us in two of these two couplets of questions that if we fail to love our enemies, and as an expression of that love to bless those that curse us, to do good to those that hate us, to pray for those that despitefully use us, we not only fail to reflect a likeness to our Heavenly Father, verse 45, but we show ourselves to be in these two categories. We're in the same category as men whose wickedness cries out that they are devoid of grace, and we put ourselves in the category of men whose blindness cries out that they are devoid of the grace of God.

The Command to Be Perfect in Love

18:13 Now is that the class you want to be in? Fail to love your enemies. And that's the class into which the words of our Lord Jesus will put us. What's the concluding command given in this portion?

18:31 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father, who is in Heaven, is perfect. Now it's interesting that our Lord does not use here the just natural, normal way of giving a command. He uses a different way in which it's a future tense. Ye shall be.

18:52 And so there's not only a command but almost a prediction here as well. Ye shall be perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect. Now what does it mean? As we often do from this pulpit, we start out by saying what does it mean?

19:08 Now whatever our Lord meant here, He certainly did not mean to teach anything that would contradict anything else that He taught. And if there's anything taught by our Lord and by the inspired writers of the New Testament, is that there is no such thing as an absolute sinless perfection this side of glory. Our Lord said, When ye pray, say, Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins.

19:40 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. Our Lord knew that it would be a necessity for a child of God to pray daily for the forgiveness of his sins. And yet He said, Be ye therefore perfect.

20:04 It cannot mean a sinless perfection, for He Himself has told us previous in this very section that the very thought of lust is sin, that the very moving of the heart in the direction of anger is murder. And in the light of that, who among us can lift up his head and say, My hands are clean? Every one of us must bow in the sense of our sinfulness that presses us again and again to the cross to plead for mercy and for cleansing. Now what kind of perfection is He talking about?

20:36 Well, what's His theme here? The whole theme is what? Loving our enemy. The whole theme is that our love must be reflective of God's love.

20:46 Verse 45, That ye may be the sons of your Father, for He sendeth His reign upon the just and the unjust, and His Son upon the wicked and the righteous. Therefore be ye perfect. What kind of perfection is He talking about? I think it's obvious.

20:59 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?

21:18 Oh, fine. He said, I've seen that little fella and he's a perfect little boy. What do you mean by that? Well, he's complete in all his parts.

21:27 Every little finger is right where it ought to be in his eyes and his ears. You don't mean he's come to maturity. You don't mean that he's a full-grown man. But you mean what a baby ought to be at that stage, he is.

21:39 He is complete in all of its parts. We say something's a perfect circle. We mean that all parts of it are just what they ought to be. Now we're told in this command that we are to be perfect in our love.

God's Perfect Love: Filial and Disinterested Benevolence

21:50 We're to be complete in all the departments of love even as God is perfect. Now we saw last week that one aspect of God's love is that peculiar love that He has to His own children. It's a filial love. Jesus said, He that hath my commandments and keepeth them he that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be what?

22:12 Loved of my Father and I will love him. Well, wait a minute. Doesn't the Lord already love me? He says, I will.

22:22 Future. Well, there's a peculiar love that God has for His own obedient children. There's a special love that God has for the Church. For we read that Jesus loved the Church and gave Himself for the Church.

22:36 The Scripture says having loved His own He loved them unto the end. Anyone who reads His New Testament and comes away with the conclusion that God has the same kind of love for everybody hasn't read His New Testament to write. God has a distinguishing peculiar love for His own that have been in His heart from all eternity. But at the same time God has what the old writers called a disinterested benevolence, a general love and affection for all men.

23:08 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.

23:30 And so you and I are to be perfect in our love. We're not only to have this filial love, this love, this peculiar love to the brethren which is the proof of God. By this we know we've passed from death into life because we what? Love the brethren.

23:47 Hebrews says let love of the brethren continue. But we're to go beyond that. We're to love all men and long for their salvation. We're to go another step and even love those who would abuse us and persecute us and say all manner of evil against us falsely.

24:03 Now I'm confident that anyone here who's born of the Spirit knows what it is to love the brethren. This is that something that draws you to God's people. And some of us are closer to some of our brethren in Christ than we are to our own flesh and blood, our own brothers and sisters or mothers and fathers because there's that peculiar love. But now God says let your love be complete in all its part.

24:33 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.

25:02 And you know what the natural reaction is? To say alright if that's the way you're gonna be I'll withdraw the hand that will do you good and I'll keep it in my pocket. The Father's perfect. Have a love that's complete in all its parts, a love that reaches out even to your enemy.

Principle 1: A Christian is Qualitatively Different

25:24 So much now for the substance of our Lord's words, the two couplets, those questions, then this command. Now may we consider together some of the principles involved in these words of our Lord Jesus. The first one and perhaps the most important is this, that according to our Lord in this passage a Christian will be qualitatively different from the rest of mankind. A true Christian will be qualitatively different from the rest of mankind.

25:56 Notice his questions. He said if you only love those that love you there are lots of men even the most wicked of men who do this you're no different from them. If you only salute and greet and show kindness to your brethren he said the whole mass of humanity with no saving light is like this. Clearly implying that a true Christian will be qualitatively different from the rest of humanity.

26:23 He won't have just a little bit more of what they have. He'll have something absolutely different. That's why our Lord said what do ye more than they? Now there are a lot of you here who believe a lot more than the Gentiles do.

26:40 That all the polite pagans of American society you believe a lot more. That's right. But now my question is what do ye more? Not what believe ye more.

26:52 What do ye more? For I remind you of the words of James that faith without works is dead. We're all well acquainted with what dead works are. We've had that preached at us for two generations.

27:05 Baptism won't save you. Church membership won't save you. And we know that. It comes out our ears.

27:10 We've heard that those are nothing but dead works until you've come to Christ and been born of the Spirit. But I would submit to you the Bible teaches a doctrine of dead faith. And it's not the curse of dead works that is the blight of our evangelical churches. It may be the blight of the liberal churches.

27:30 But our blight is that we are so filled with correct precept. And you can tell me all that you need to tell me about the cross and salvation. But my question is what do ye more than others? What is this produced in you?

27:45 Well you say I'm in church this morning. So are all the pagans in church this morning. Well you say I read my Bible. So do a lot of pagans read their Bibles.

27:55 But you say I pray. So do a lot of Christians and Roman Catholics pray and far more diligently and systematically and regularly than you do. Christ that sets you apart as someone utterly different. That's what our Lord is driving at.

28:17 What is there about you that has no explanation but that Almighty God has made you His child by the operations of His grace? That's the issue. And particularly in this area of my activity is the attitude and reaction to others. And frankly dear ones this is the thing that wounds me most deeply and I guess I had enough exposure tromping around the country for five years in evangelical churches.

28:48 The thing that's splitting churches all the way from what we would call the in our evangelical spectrum now I'm not talking about the liberals all the way from the more staid denominational churches to what we would say the full gospel works and the Alliance claims this distinction the thing that's causing problem after problem is people who are at one another's throats within the local assemblies. The absence not of love to enemies is there something qualitatively different about you and about me? If there isn't then we have

29:31 reason to question if we've ever truly been born of the Spirit of God for it's not how much doctrine has been packed between the two sides of your cranium dear ones it's how much truth has been welded into your spirit by the power of the Holy Ghost and reaches out through your affections your hands your feet your lips demonstrating that you've become a new creature in Christ Jesus. You see the reason why a Christian is qualitatively different from the rest of mankind particularly in this area of his love to his enemies is that a Christian is one in whom the root of self has received a death blow. It's not utterly slain but the first condition of discipleship is if any man

30:16 will to come after me deny himself. He's received an entirely new view about himself. You see before we're saved the cardinal law of our lives is I must defend promote advance cherish and guard the interest of my self and when anybody touches any living fiber of my self interest then I come to my defense and I strike back. If someone curses me I curse him back and if I'm too polite to do it with my lips I smile like this but in the end in my heart you know all but all this has changed for a Christian is one who's seen himself in the light of God's holy law

31:00 and having been stripped in the presence of a holy God of every last vestige of self-righteousness and self-confidence he's been battered and broken and left bleeding at the foot of the cross and he says oh God is there mercy for the likes of me and when the spirit of God speaks mercy to the heart of the convicted sinner and he rises as pilgrim with the burden having fallen off his back then dear ones he no longer is basically involved with defending and promoting himself but he's filled with a passion to live unto him who loved him and gave himself for him. Now that's basically

Principle 2: A Christian is Positively Like God and Christ

31:45 done at conversion not perfectly that's Christian growth allowing that attitude which is basically infused by the spirit of conversion to become an all pervading attitude that works out in every department of my life. That's why a Christian is qualitatively different from the rest of the world because this matter of self has been dealt a death blow. Then the second principle involved in this passage is this a Christian will be positively like God and like Christ. Verse 45 that ye may be the children of your father for he maketh his son to rise from the dead to be the son of God.

32:28 Our Lord says you must love your enemies because in so doing you reflect a family likeness. Then verse 48 be ye perfect even as your father who is the standard of the perfection in love to which I press as a Christian. It's my father who has a distinguishing particular love for his own but has an all encompassing love for the world. And so our Lord is telling us that a Christian is not one who is qualitatively different from the rest of the world but a Christian is one who is positively like God and like Christ.

33:06 You see he is not content with merely being unlike the world. The passion of his heart is to be very much like his Savior God. And that's God's purpose in redemption for I read in Romans 8.29 whom God foreknew then he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.

33:29 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.

34:02 To be conformed to the image of Christ means to be made into the moral likeness of Christ. To love what he loves with a holy love. To hate what he hates with a holy hate. To choose what he would choose with a resolute will.

34:19 To refuse what he would refuse with a resolute determination. To react in suffering in need. To speak what he would speak in the midst of need, in the midst of sin. To be like the Jesus portrayed in the gospels who when he saw the multitudes was moved with compassion.

34:43 Who when he saw sham and hypocrisy said oh whited sepulchres full of dead men's bones in all uncleanness. Now see you can't get Matthew 23 and Matthew 9 into one picture and that's why I don't want them myself. You can have them if you want but I don't. Because Solomon's head of Christ may have Matthew 9 the compassion but it can't have Matthew 23 the scathing denunciation that fell from those holy lips in the presence of sham and hypocrisy.

35:18 And our Lord is saying here that a Christian is one who is positively like God and like Christ. Why is it so? The world because self has been dealt with. He is positively like God and like the Lord Jesus because he has received an infusion of the very life and nature of God.

35:43 The scripture tells us the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. There is within us the potential by our union with Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Spirit that we can have a love of our God because that very God of love indwells our own hearts. That is why there is this possibility and this potential. I have got to skip over one application to get to one key one that I want to close with this morning.

The Source of This Love: God's Investment and Grace

36:17 Some of you sitting here this morning say, isn't the Lord expecting too much? He is expecting an awful lot, isn't he? He is expecting you to demonstrate this kind of love that will make you with a heart. Not just do it because the Bible says so, but the whole truth of our Lord.

36:38 To say, well, I have got to pray for my enemies. I will pray for them though I wish I could kill them. I will do it. God says it.

36:47 No, no, that is not what He is talking about. Anything our Lord enjoins as a duty, He is also enjoining the Spirit that should attend that duty. So when He says, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to those that hate you, pray for them, He is telling us to do good. And I can hear many a heart echoing this morning saying, Pastor, God is expecting too much.

37:13 I am not built that way. I have got news for you. Nobody is built that way. And if God were expecting this building to be erected on the foundation of Adam, it would be utterly impossible.

37:29 It would be cruel for the Lord Jesus to tell unregenerate men to be like this would be cruel. That is why people say, why does our Lord expect so much? Because He has invested so much, dear ones, that is why. Why does He expect so much?

37:52 Because He has invested so much. And He expects this kind of love because He Himself has demonstrated that love at the cross for us. And if we have been born of the Spirit that very love dwells in our hearts. So our Lord is really not expecting so much of us as He is of Himself and He is not.

38:18 This is merely saying what His grace is able to work in us. Now God can expect much of His own grace, can He not? God can expect much of His own mighty working. So if you are sitting here this morning and you hear these commands to love your enemy, to do good to those that despitefully use you, and you say, I can't, it is impossible, you see that the demands of that life to which God calls His children, those demands are utterly impossible until you have thrown yourself down at the foot of sovereign mercy and plead with God

39:03 for a new heart and plead to Christ the mediator of the new covenant who promises to put His law within our hearts, to put His Spirit within us and to cause us to keep His statutes, even this one. That is the blessing of the new covenant that He who died now promises that by the Spirit He will enable us to be what He requires. Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect. Dear child of God, the virtue that you ought to seek above all else in your Christian experience is the virtue of a love that is like the love of your Father.

Conclusion: The Virtue of Love and Witness to the World

39:42 For I read in my Bible the fruit of the Spirit is love. I read in 1 Corinthians 13 that though I could speak with the tongues of men and angels and have all knowledge and all faith unless all of these gifts are motivated by love and exercised in the climate of love, Paul says, I am nothing. And our Lord said by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have miracles, no, but if ye have love. I believe, dear ones, if the world could begin to see what our Lord is talking about here, maybe they would begin to be ready to listen when we tell them about a God who loves even His enemies.

40:24 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God before the death of His Son, they would be ready to listen about that God if they began to see in us something of the demonstration of that love. May the Lord help us to pray in these precepts and as we close out this section of the Sermon on the Mount, I believe our Lord has touched upon every basic area of Christian experience, Christian ethics, Christian practice. Anything you find in the rest of the New Testament is just taking one of these aspects and expanding it into more detail and I trust that by the Holy Spirit we shall begin to do more than others. Let us pray.

41:04 We will wait for just a few moments of silent prayer in which each of us will have opportunity to respond to what God has told us. That person against whom you feel you have legal grounds to hold a grudge and to be bitter and you hear the Lord saying this morning, love Him, pray for Him, demonstrate your love for Him, demonstrate your love by doing good to Him. Say, I can't.

41:49 Yes, but He can. You look away from your paltry resources unto Him and trust Him for His grace. Lord Jesus, we see Thee looking into the face of those who put Thee upon the cross and saying, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Blessed Lord, we see Thee relinquishing and allowing sinners

42:33 to trample the underfoot and we confess we are so unlikely, so quick to defend our reputations, our interests, our schemes, our plans and when any would stand in our way so quick to retaliate. O Lord, we confess this morning we are so unlikely, but we desire to be perfect in our love even as our Father is perfect and so we pray that You will work in us that which is well pleasing in Thy sight. Seal this word to our hearts and help us, we pray, by the Spirit to demonstrate the likeness

43:18 of the Lord Jesus to those about us. We ask in His worthy name.