Who Are My Enemies?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Good Wednesday, everyone.
00:00:05.520 | Thanks for listening.
00:00:06.400 | And listening in this season,
00:00:08.360 | we are in a season on the podcast looking at darker issues.
00:00:12.880 | Not by design, it just ended up that way providentially
00:00:15.680 | based on the questions that have come to us
00:00:17.920 | and the topics that have been on the table of late.
00:00:20.360 | We've looked at whether we can be angry at God
00:00:22.720 | when life doesn't turn out the way we hoped it would.
00:00:25.300 | That was two Mondays ago in ABJ 1828.
00:00:28.120 | Then we looked at how to overcome anger in the home.
00:00:31.660 | That was in ABJ 1829.
00:00:34.120 | And then a wife asked about how to address her husband's
00:00:36.840 | ongoing sin patterns in ABJ 1830.
00:00:40.520 | And then last time we addressed a wife who was betrayed.
00:00:43.400 | Her husband left her for another woman.
00:00:46.020 | How does she process the ongoing pain of that desertion?
00:00:50.280 | That was ABJ 1831.
00:00:53.300 | And today I wanna build off Monday's episode
00:00:55.820 | because in speaking to that mom of three young girls
00:00:58.900 | now abandoned by her husband,
00:01:01.300 | Pastor John applied the category of enemy
00:01:04.000 | and spoke of enemy love.
00:01:05.880 | Those are Jesus's words, love your enemies, right?
00:01:09.220 | He commanded that to us in Matthew 544,
00:01:11.820 | a text Pastor John spent years studying.
00:01:14.420 | He published an entire book by the title,
00:01:16.260 | Love Your Enemies.
00:01:17.340 | This is his doctoral dissertation.
00:01:19.980 | So if that enemy category fits a former spouse,
00:01:23.860 | it raised a question in my mind as I listened Monday
00:01:26.380 | and maybe in your mind too,
00:01:28.620 | who else qualifies as our enemy?
00:01:31.580 | How broadly does this category stretch?
00:01:34.580 | And that exact question is answered by Pastor John
00:01:37.720 | in his 1995 sermon on Matthew chapter five.
00:01:41.540 | Here he is.
00:01:42.380 | - Around this globe today,
00:01:45.540 | there are tens of thousands of Christians suffering
00:01:49.380 | and some of them laying down their lives just to believe,
00:01:52.860 | just to believe and to be obedient to Jesus Christ.
00:01:57.420 | So the first meaning of enemy
00:02:01.380 | is those who persecute you like that.
00:02:04.720 | Love them, love them.
00:02:07.780 | The next meaning of enemy is less dramatic
00:02:09.980 | in verse 45, about halfway through it says,
00:02:13.300 | God causes his son to rise on the evil and the good
00:02:16.380 | and he sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
00:02:20.340 | So here you have evil people and unrighteous people.
00:02:23.620 | And this morning, it was already getting light
00:02:26.980 | at 4.45 this morning.
00:02:29.040 | He's making the sun rise on all the evil people
00:02:33.360 | in the Western hemisphere here.
00:02:35.620 | From Argentina to the Hudson Bay,
00:02:38.620 | millions of millions of people who scorn the name of God.
00:02:42.700 | And he made the sun come up on him this morning
00:02:45.020 | and he gave them breath and he gave them life
00:02:46.900 | and he held the planet in being.
00:02:49.420 | And he restrained anarchy and he graced them
00:02:52.740 | with warmth on their skin, breezes on their faces
00:02:55.860 | and green in the tree and grass under their feet
00:02:59.020 | and birds singing in the trees.
00:03:01.340 | And you know what was happening when that happened?
00:03:04.420 | The heavens were telling the glory of God
00:03:06.500 | and the firmament was declaring his handiwork
00:03:09.360 | so that you here would hear this message
00:03:11.980 | before you got here.
00:03:12.860 | And that's what I was praying for you this morning.
00:03:15.020 | I looked outside and I said,
00:03:16.300 | God, you're already preaching it.
00:03:17.780 | Preach it, preach it.
00:03:19.100 | Would you please open their hearts?
00:03:20.980 | Don't let them turn on the TV and just start watching stuff.
00:03:24.340 | Would you turn on their hearts?
00:03:25.700 | Would you cause them to reach up
00:03:26.780 | and turn on the dial of the sky and say, do it, say it.
00:03:31.180 | Say it to the cities.
00:03:33.100 | Say it loud.
00:03:33.940 | Nobody deserves what happened this morning at five o'clock.
00:03:38.900 | Nobody.
00:03:40.460 | And he made it happen.
00:03:41.460 | He just brought it up.
00:03:42.540 | And look, he's still doing it.
00:03:43.740 | He's still doing it.
00:03:44.740 | There are people who didn't give him a rip this morning.
00:03:47.420 | They didn't give him the time of day.
00:03:48.940 | He doesn't get two seconds of their day.
00:03:51.700 | And he's just gracing them, hugging them,
00:03:54.220 | caressing them all day long today.
00:03:56.300 | They'll go to lakes and they'll take walks
00:03:58.260 | and they'll ride bicycles.
00:03:59.860 | And he'll be saying, I love you.
00:04:02.020 | Come to me, look at me.
00:04:03.180 | I'm a glorious God.
00:04:04.740 | I can do this for eternity for you if you'll have me.
00:04:08.220 | And they don't pay any attention.
00:04:09.940 | We need witnesses to the witness.
00:04:15.860 | The enemy in this context is those who resist God,
00:04:20.020 | who disobey his laws, who ignore him.
00:04:22.220 | So if you translate that down into our situation,
00:04:24.300 | your enemy is anybody who resists you,
00:04:27.540 | who contradicts you, who crosses you,
00:04:30.340 | who antagonizes you, who makes life hard for you.
00:04:34.260 | Which means that the command, love your enemy,
00:04:39.300 | has an application to rebellious children,
00:04:42.780 | ill-tempered and insensitive and non-listening husbands,
00:04:47.660 | neighbors who complain about your dandelions.
00:04:52.220 | And you may not call them enemies
00:04:55.540 | and they don't call themselves enemies,
00:04:58.160 | but that's the kind of illustration we've got here.
00:05:00.940 | Most people don't think of themselves as enemies of God.
00:05:04.100 | And yet God uses them as illustrations
00:05:06.340 | of how he graces people who are not whole toward him.
00:05:11.860 | A third illustration of what enemies means
00:05:14.820 | comes in verse 47.
00:05:16.460 | If you love those who love you, what reward do you have?
00:05:19.260 | You know, even the tax collectors do the same.
00:05:22.580 | And if you greet your brothers only,
00:05:24.460 | what do you do more than others?
00:05:25.780 | So who's the enemy here?
00:05:27.140 | Why is he using this in the context of enemy love?
00:05:30.580 | And the answer is your enemy is somebody
00:05:32.340 | who doesn't love you.
00:05:34.140 | If you love only those who love you,
00:05:37.380 | meaning you should also love those who don't love you.
00:05:42.380 | Or if you greet only your brothers,
00:05:44.780 | meaning you should also greet those
00:05:46.500 | who are your non-brothers.
00:05:49.380 | So enemy here in this paragraph is thick.
00:05:54.300 | It starts with persecution
00:05:55.940 | and it ends with people who don't greet you,
00:05:57.940 | not your brothers, they kind of, that's Shabbat.
00:06:01.100 | He says, "If you only greet them,
00:06:03.020 | then you don't know enemy love."
00:06:07.780 | So if I ask now in a summary fashion,
00:06:09.700 | who are the enemies?
00:06:10.540 | What's this text about?
00:06:12.140 | This text is about anybody that crosses your path.
00:06:15.980 | Love them and don't stop loving them
00:06:19.020 | even if they offend you,
00:06:22.140 | even if they dishonor you,
00:06:24.420 | even if they anger you, disappoint you,
00:06:26.620 | frustrate you, threaten you, or kill you.
00:06:29.660 | Don't stop loving them.
00:06:32.100 | And if you just look in the mirror for a moment,
00:06:34.100 | the mirror of this word here,
00:06:35.900 | you will feel like,
00:06:37.100 | I am spring loaded to return evil for evil.
00:06:42.140 | We feel it in our families especially.
00:06:44.100 | People we know best can irritate us the most
00:06:46.860 | and we just, just like that,
00:06:48.940 | we're returning evil for evil.
00:06:50.740 | A harsh word gets a harsh word.
00:06:53.180 | A criticism gets a criticism.
00:06:54.820 | A complaint gets a complaint.
00:06:56.780 | We just, just like that,
00:06:58.420 | we're just wired to return evil for evil,
00:07:00.940 | which means this call is for a very profound change.
00:07:05.940 | Isn't it?
00:07:07.540 | - Exactly.
00:07:08.380 | We're wired to return evil for evil.
00:07:10.940 | I pulled this clip from John Piper's 1995 sermon titled,
00:07:13.740 | "But I Say to You, Love Your Enemies, Part Two."
00:07:17.100 | You can find the entire message online, both parts.
00:07:19.460 | And being wired to return evil for evil
00:07:22.500 | was a text that came up
00:07:23.620 | in one of our most controversial episodes in the podcast,
00:07:26.860 | the one on guns in the home.
00:07:28.580 | You might remember that back in APJ 306.
00:07:31.340 | I'm reminded of that as I listened to this episode.
00:07:34.180 | Well, if you have a sermon clip to share of your own,
00:07:37.020 | email me, give me your name, hometown, the sermon title,
00:07:39.600 | the timestamp of where the clip happens in the audio
00:07:42.220 | and make a note of what stands out to you.
00:07:44.180 | Put the word clip in the subject line of an email
00:07:46.420 | and send it to me at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:07:49.460 | That's an email address, askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:07:53.260 | Well, do we submit ourselves to every person?
00:07:57.900 | We have a Bible question on 1 Peter 2.13
00:08:00.540 | that needs to get sorted out.
00:08:01.940 | I'm your host Tony Reinke
00:08:02.780 | and we're rejoined in studio with Pastor John
00:08:04.580 | when we dive into 1 Peter 2.13 on Friday.
00:08:08.340 | We'll see you then.
00:08:09.260 | (upbeat music)
00:08:11.840 | (upbeat music)
00:08:14.420 | [BLANK_AUDIO]