2/26/23 - Love Your Enemies - Matthew 5:43-48 - Pastor Jason Fritz

For the last several weeks we’ve been looking at the words of Jesus in the most famous of all sermons - the sermon on the mount. It’s here that we see Jesus set the highest ethic of all time. You won’t find it anywhere else and I’ll prove it to you in one statement. Jesus said, “Love your enemies.” No one has lived up to this with any kind of consistency except for Jesus himself. In the world’s major religious systems you will commonly find the charge to love your brothers and sisters and people who share the same faith. You will be told to treat all people with respect and kindness but nowhere will you find so explicitly to love your enemy as told by Jesus.  If love is the greatest thing, then loving your enemies is the greatest thing love can do. To be one who lives according to the kingdom of God rather than the kingdom of this earth is in a word: supernatural. This is the one act that sums up what it means to be a Christian and sets us apart. In Matthew 5:47 Jesus says this, “What more are you doing than others?” He’s asking, “What makes you different Christian?” Unless you live according to a heavenly kingdom ethic, you will be just like everyone else. You love people who love you, okay, everyone does that because it’s natural. Jesus is calling you to supernaturally love. The highest human ethic falls short of what Jesus is telling us. So don’t take your cues from the people around you. Don’t get trapped and confined by that. There’s something greater and higher for us!