Audio Transcript:

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Good morning. Welcome again to Mosaic. If you're new, welcome. My name is Shane. I'm one of the pastors here at Mosaic and we're so glad to have you worshiping with us today. We would love to connect with you while you're here. The way we do that is through the connection card. Hopefully you grabbed one of those on the way in. If you did, you can fill that out with us and give us some information about yourself. On the back, there, you can also check off to receive more information from us, or if you're watching at home online, you can also fill that out on our website, but if you do, we'd love to just follow up with you this week.

Send you some information about Mosaic and also just send a small gift to you in the mail, to thank you for being with us today. And if you are just joining us, we are currently going through a sermon series on Matthew 5 through 7. This is the sermon on the mount. Maybe you didn't know this, but the reason that this is called the sermon on the mount is actually because, for three chapters, Jesus preaches a sermon on a mountain, and as he does, he's painting a picture of what his kingdom looks like.

And what it looks like when his kingdom breaks into our world, into our lives, and into our hearts, and it's radically different from everything we're used to. Everything that his disciples were used to. He's preaching, he's teaching ideas that are going to change the world forever. And speaking of changing the world, Elon Musk has been in the news a lot lately. Not at all trying to compare him to Jesus, but when you think of that person, you think of his name, what comes to mind? When you hear the name Elon Musk, maybe you think brilliant genius. Maybe you think mad scientist. Maybe you think richest man on Earth.

Maybe it makes you think of Bitcoin, or the doge. He's got so many things going on, right? He's building rockets, he's colonizing Mars, he's hard wiring monkey brains. Among all of these things that he's doing, it's easy to forget about his work with Tesla, but one of the things that he's been working hard on is trying to crack this code of driverless, autonomous vehicles. And I imagine one of the most difficult things about this is, with drivers of vehicles, you're trying to replicate human intuition in a robot, in a machine.

And what that means is that the vehicles, they need to know how to adapt, how to react, and how to make split-second value based decisions in a variety of contexts and in a variety of different conditions and circumstances. You can't just download the driver's ed textbook, and then turn the key, and you're good to go. Even if you could program the car to follow the traffic laws completely, with perfection, 100% of the time, the first time they met a Boston driver, they would get wrecked. We know this.

One of the things that we're going to notice as we go through, and that we have noticed as we go through the sermon on the mount, is that Jesus is repeatedly challenging this kind of robotic, rigid, rote spirituality of the rabbis, of the Pharisees, of the teachers of the law, because they have created this religious system that looked good maybe on paper, it looked good on the outside, but it was ironically and tragically keeping them very far from God on the inside.

They developed kind of an almost textbook relationship with God, a strict adherence to the letter of the law, which, on top of that, they had kind of started adding their own traditions, their own rules, and yet none of it was enough. Something still wasn't right because in real life they were still getting wrecked. When it came to the actual purpose of the law, and the spirit of the law, they were a danger to themselves, and they were a danger to everyone else around them, and so Jesus is very critical of these teachers, of these Pharisees.

We see this over and over, and in Matthew 15, Jesus was speaking of the Pharisees when he said this, Matthew 15:8, "That this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men." A few chapters later in Matthew 23, again, he says, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees. Hypocrites, for you tithe mint, and deal in cumin, and have neglected the way to your matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faithfulness."

He says, "These that you ought to have done. It's good that you're obeying the law. You ought to do that. You ought to tithe, without neglecting the others," he said. You blind guys, straining out a gnat, and swallowing a camel. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisees. First clean the inside of the cup and the plate that the outside may also be clean."

He says, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanliness, so you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you're full of hypocrisy," and Jesus actually says, "lawlessness." Jesus had so many run-ins with the Pharisees that today, when we hear that word Pharisees, we immediately think, "Bad guy, yeah. Those are the bad guys."

But we need to understand that in the first century, this was not the case. People loved the Pharisees, people looked up to them. They respected them. They were kind of the hope for our people, for our society, for our civilization. They were the pinnacle of righteousness and morality. If they were alive today, they would have a blue check next to their name. Right? They would be the ones who could tweet storm with the best of them, they could virtue signal with the perfectly timed clap emojis, and they were the epitome of what it meant to live on the right side of history in the eyes of the people.

But in the eyes of Jesus, he saw right through their self-righteous hypocrisy, and in calling them out, he really shows us just how deep our problem of sin really goes, because we are in the wrong, we sin when we do wrong. We also sin when we do what's right, when we try to do what's right, when we aim for what's right and we think we're doing what's right, we have this sinful tendency to get proud, to get arrogant, to get smug, and self-righteous, and we put these good deeds on like a mask. We wear our righteousness like a cloak and we parade around, and all the while we're concealing the darkness that is still there lurking beneath the surface.

And so what does God think of these disguises that we wear? Isaiah 64:4 tells us that all our righteous deeds, they're like filthy garments. They're disgusting. They're repulsive. The reason that Jesus is so stern with people who trust in their righteousness, who think that they're good, with self-righteous people, is because self-righteous people are self-deceived people. He needed to shake them to wake them up and to understand that the law is good, the law is very good, but knowing it is not enough. Our feeble attempts at keeping it is not enough. Cleaning up the outside is not enough. And impressing the people around us is not enough.

Our biggest problem is not with the way things look on the outside, our biggest problem is the way that things actually are deep on the inside, and the good news is that this is why Jesus had come. Jesus had come to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Ezekiel, in Ezekiel 36:26, and he says, "I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." The things that Jesus calls us to do in our passage today are some of the hardest things that we will ever have to do.

Actually, by the end of the passage, what he calls us to is he calls us to perfection. He says, "You must be perfect." That is the standard that he sets. If we don't understand this simple truth, we can misunderstand the entire sermon on the mount, because Jesus calls us to perfection. Not in order that we might become children of God, we can't earn our way into his kingdom. That's not how it works. He calls us to perfection because in him, children of God is who we already are.

He gives us a new heart, a new spirit, a new identity, and then he calls us to just a totally new way of living life, of doing life, in his kingdom, and so as we start we need to understand what Jesus is calling us to do today is impossible, and yet at the same time with God, all things are possible. We need his grace, we need his spirit to live this out, and so before we go and really jump into the rest of the sermon today, let's just take some time to go to God together and pray.

Father, what we are about to read seems so far beyond our reach, and we know, however, that you are with us, and so we ask, Lord, we pray, that you would give us grace, that you would give us power, that you would fill us with your spirit to be the salt and the light that you have called us to be, and to press on toward this standard that you're calling us today. And Lord, we thank you for these words of Christ, we thank you for your word. Your word is holy, it is inerrant, it is infallible, it is authoritative for our lives. We pray that you would write these words, these truths, upon our heart today, so that we can live them for your glory, we ask in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, we're actually going to be looking at three small passages today, and with that we're going to be looking at three points in the sermon today, so what we're going to see is that citizens of Jesus' kingdom are called to humble integrity. This is Matthew 5:33 through 37. Are called to merciful justice. This is verses 38 through 42, and then finally, they're called to prayerful peacemaking. This is 43 through 48, so point number one, citizens of Jesus' kingdom are called to humble integrity.

Matthew 5:33, Jesus says this, he says, "Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn. But I say to you, do not take an oath at all. Either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the Earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. Do not take an oath by your head, for you can not make one hair white or black, that what you say simply be yes or no. Anything more than this comes from evil."

As we've seen over the last few weeks, when Jesus says you have heard that it was said, he's not quoting or critiquing the written word. He is referring to the oral traditions of the rabbis, of the Pharisees, of the teachers of the law who had attempted to interpret the written word, and so this comes from multiple passages in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 23, Leviticus 19, Numbers 30, Exodus 20, even the wisdom literature of Ecclesiastes 5, and so what is Jesus critiquing here?

Again, he's not critiquing the scripture. He's critiquing these traditions that had kind of started to distort God's word and the intention of his law. In the first century, making these kinds of vows, these kinds of oaths, was very common. People would swear on all kinds of things, and it got to the point where the rabbis had started to distinguish between which oaths were binding and which oaths were not, and so the idea was the greater or the more holy the object that you swore by, the greater the obligation you had to keep that vow, and obviously this is wrong. There's two really big problems with this that I want us to look at.

First of all, this is a problem because it's hypocritical. It lacks integrity. Jesus, in Matthew 23, was critiquing this again, and he said, verse 16, "Woe to you blind guides who say if anyone swears by the temple it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple he is bound by his oath. You blind fools. Which is greater, the gold, or the temple that has made the gold sacred?" It's like, on the one hand, it really doesn't matter what you swear by. Everything belongs to the Lord. The heaven is his throne. The whole Earth is his footstool.

But worse than that is this mindset, it carries with it this idea that some oaths are binding, which implies that some oaths are not, and so it's taking this teaching about vows, and it's using it to justify dishonesty. It's using it to justify breaking the command, "Thou shalt not bear false witness." And Jesus says this comes from evil.

Words matter. Words are powerful. Words are revealing. Our words are powerful, we know this. They can do great good. They can also cause great harm. But our words are also revealing. A person's words reveal a lot about a person's heart, and so if our words can't be trusted, we can't be trusted. If our words are misleading, then our persona is misleading. In other words, who we are on the outside, is not the same as who we are on the inside. We lack integrity. We are by definition a hypocrite. Our outer self and our inner self, they're not integrated, and so we know this. We know that lying is wrong, and so if this is the case, why do people do it?

Why is it a temptation for people to be dishonest, to be deceptive? And I would say most of the time, people lie in order to present a false reality that is going to somehow benefit them in a way more than true reality, and so people will lie to manipulate others for the sake of gaining comfort, for gaining security, gaining respect, gaining control, and this is why Jesus calls this evil, and as citizens of his kingdom, we have no reason to be doing this. Right? Why would we need to concoct a false reality if we are already living in the reality of grace?

If we're already living in the reality that God already knows the real us, inside and out, he knows the darkness that is inside, and yet he still loves us. He still accepts us. He came to save us from that darkness inside, and so as Christians we don't need to lie to cover up the darkness. We need to take the darkness of our hearts out into the light of God's grace where we can deal with it and put it to death. This is part of being salt and light in the world, and he's being salt and light to yourself. Preaching the gospel to the darkness of your own heart.

Jesus is calling on us to be people of integrity, men and women of our word, people who really don't need to swear an oath, to make a vow, because our reputation is our guarantee. Our word is our bond that what we say is what we do. We are reliable, trustworthy, faithful people. That's what he's talking about here.

And so the practical question, then, does this mean that Christians can never make vows? Is that what Jesus is talking about? Is he saying that you should never sign a business contract or you should never come under oath in a court of law, or make vows at a wedding ceremony? That's not what Jesus is saying. Jesus was put under oath during his trial before the high priest. We see examples of vows being made in the books of Acts and 1st Thessalonians. That's not the point. What Jesus is trying to hammer home is this idea of integrity matters.

That actually this is a key aspect of his kingdom's culture, and so as citizens of that kingdom, we need to be marked by honesty, by integrity, by faithfulness, as well. So Jesus corrects that lack of integrity. The second problem is this is also, this interpretation, it's prideful and it lacks humility.

Jesus says, "Don't take an oath at all," verse 34, "either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the Earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king, and do not take an oath for your head for you cannot make one hair white or black." In other words, who are you to swear by anything? Nothing is yours. Everything belongs to the Lord, and even the hairs on your head are outside of your control. We can't control the future. We can't control the passage of time. Therefore, be careful. Don't boast about your plans or make promises that you can't keep.

James, the brother of Jesus, talks about this in James chapter 4. He says, "Come now, you who say today or tomorrow. We will go into such and such a town, and spend a year there, and trade, and make a profit. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time, and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil."

And so we need to be humble, we need to be honest about our limitations. This doesn't mean we don't make plans, it doesn't mean we don't set goals, but we submit those to the sovereignty of God, and we understand that in Jesus' culture, Jesus' kingdom is marked by a culture of humble integrity. Point two, secondly, citizens of Jesus' kingdom are called to merciful justice. This is verse 38 through 42.

Jesus says this again to his disciples, he says, "You have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also, and if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well, and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you."

Those of you who know me know I grew up in a small town, and most of my friends that I grew up with, most of us all went to the same school. Most of us all went to the same church. And it was right there in our neighborhood, and we spent a lot of time playing there. We'd ride our bikes in the parking lot. We'd play roller hockey. There was a yard that we played soccer, football at times, and I remember when I was in like 9th grade, we were in the churchyard playing tackle football.

Right at that age where we were probably too old to be playing football without pads, and yet we were too proud and too tough to admit that, and so things got kind of crazy, and it would get kind of rough sometimes, and I remember we were there, and I tackled one of my friends, and I don't know if it was just a rush of adrenaline or what came over him, but as we get up, he's visibly angry, and the next thing I know he winds up, and he just punches me right in the face.

It was one of those moments you're like, "Did that just happen?" And I look at him again, and I realize he's winding up to punch me again. It's one of those moments where time just kind of slows down, and so right there in the churchyard I had to kind of take a deep breath, and calm myself down, and I just kind of mustered up every bit of strength that I had, and then I punched him in the stomach as hard as I possibly could, and knocked the wind out of him, and he went down, and the fight was over. Was that the right thing to do? First of all, in my defense, as the wise sage Mike Tyson once said, "Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face."

You never know what you're going to do in a situation like that. Also, we were teenage boys, which meant by the end of the game we were friends again. It was not a big deal. But is Jesus saying that it is never permissible for a Christian to defend themselves? Is he saying that Christians need to be total pacifists, doormats to injustice? That we should never take a stand against evil or come to the defense of the innocent? Should I have just let my friend keep wailing on my until he got that all out of his system? When I first became a Christian, I thought that's what Jesus was talking about here.

Now, I don't think that anymore, but before we kind of get to what Jesus is saying, I think it might be kind of helpful to clear up what he's not saying, because if Jesus is commanding absolute pacifism, if he's prohibiting a self-defense in every situation, that poses a couple of problems, and first of all one of the problems that it poses, is this would appear to contradict other passages of scripture, and even other examples from Jesus' own life, and so did Jesus ever use force to accomplish a goal? He did. On at least one, possibly two occasions, Jesus went to the temple, and he said, "I'm here to flip tables and whip fools, and I'm all out of tables."

And he made a whip, and he started chasing people out of the temple. This was premeditated use of force, but it was not sinful. Now, some will argue, "Yeah, but Jesus is God and his judgment is perfect, and it is his temple, and so that doesn't apply to us." And I would say, "Yeah, that's actually a fair argument." But there are other scriptures that we would need to consider as well. To be a consistent pacifist would require us to apply that not only to individuals, but to police, to governments, to militaries, and that would be a very clear contradiction of scripture. This is made clear for us in Romans 13.

When Paul says, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God, therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment, for rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who was in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer."

This doesn't mean that governments are always doing God's will, that they never abuse their power. We see in Revelation and other places that they often do, but in general this is true, that God is a God of justice, and he has ordained that human governments have the authority to bear the sword as a means to punish evil, as a means to uphold and carry out his justice in a fallen world.

And so Christians can serve in the military, and can be police officers, and things like that, but what about individuals? Are we as citizens of heaven permitted to exercise our rights as citizens of Earthly kingdoms in order to defend ourselves or defend the innocent around us? Again, I think scripture shows us that we are. In Acts 22, the Apostle Paul appeals to his Roman citizenship in order to defend himself against the infringement upon his rights by the local authorities. Acts 22:25 says that when they had stretched him out for the whips, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, "Is it lawful for you to flog a man who is a Roman citizen and un-condemned?"

And when the centurion heard this, he went to tribune and said to him, "What are you about to do? This man is a Roman citizen." So the tribune came and said to me, "Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?" And he said yes. And the tribune answered, "I bought my citizenship for a large sum." And Paul said, "You know, I'm a citizen by birth." And then they all freak out because they realize that they had been breaking the law by doing this to Paul as a Roman citizen, and so it is at times okay to exercise our rights as the citizens of Earthly governments, but in Luke 22 we also see Jesus tells his disciples that there may be situations, there are times, that they needed to be prepared to defend themselves in certain situations.

Luke 22:35 says that he said to them, "When I sent you out with no moneybag or nap sack or sandals, did you lack anything?" And they said, "Nothing." And he said to them, "But now let the one who has a moneybag take it, and likewise a nap sack, and let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one, for I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me," and he was numbered with the transgressors, "for what is written about me has its fulfillment."

And they said, "Look, lord, here are two swords." And he said to them, "It is enough." And so what's going on here? Clearly, Jesus isn't trying to plan some kind of armed revolt. They only had two swords and Jesus said, "Yeah, that's going to be plenty. That's enough." But you still have to ask, what were Jesus and his disciples doing carrying swords around to begin with? Because a sword is not used for daily tasks. This isn't something that they needed to cook, or to clean, or anything like that. The only reason that Jesus' disciples would've been carrying swords around as they traveled was for self-defense.

And so we need to be careful here, because later Peter pulls out his sword in the garden and attacks one of the guards who had come to arrest Jesus, and Jesus tells him, "Put it away. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword." That was not its purpose, but it does seem there is reason to believe that reasonable self-defense is permissible at times, while at the same time we understand that Jesus' kingdom is not advanced by the sword at any time.

John 18, Jesus, standing before Pilate, told him, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not from the world." And so on the one hand, we see self-defense, permissible in certain situations, with the right motivation, yet at the same time as Christians we don't live by the sword. The kingdom is not advanced by the sword. As followers of Jesus, our proclivity is love.

Our prerogative is mercy. Our first inclination is to show meekness, and if it feels like maybe that's a little ambiguous or unclear, I think it's because it is. This is part of do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. You need to trust in the spirit to show you, to tell you, to know what's right to do in one situation which might be different from another situation, and there's a tension here that we need to live in between justice and mercy.

We don't want to be vengeful, we don't want to be wrathful, but we don't want to be the crazy saint that Martin Luther talked about who let the lice nibble on him, and refused to kill any of them, on account of this text maintaining that he had to suffer and could not resist evil. That's taking it to the point of folly. If you see evil, if you see injustice happening, and it is within your means to stop it, then you should aim to do so, but you should aim to do so by the means that God has ordained under his authority, and so oftentimes this is going to mean involving the authorities, calling the police, but there are also going to be times where you are the highest authority, and perhaps the spirit will lead you to employ the use of force to defend yourself or to defend an innocent person in a reasonable manner.

John Stott put it like this, "If my house is burgled one night and I catch the thief, I employ force to knock him out, tie him up, whatever, it may well be my duty to sit him down and give him something to eat and drink while at the same time telephoning the police." That's the tension that we want to embrace of wanting to uphold justice, but also wanting to show as much mercy as we can.

I mentioned there that there was two problems with this kind of pacifist interpretation. The first is it seems to contradict other scriptures, it seems to contradict Jesus' example. The second is that this interpretation, I think it misunderstands Jesus' use of rhetoric in this passage, and it therefore misunderstands his meaning, what he's actually teaching us here. When we get bogged down with these technicalities, it is easy to miss the forest from the trees.

Jesus isn't primarily trying to teach us, "This is how you need to react if you see somebody being mugged or if an intruder breaks into your home." He's actually calling us to do something that is far more common, far more practical, far more relatable, and so therefore it's also arguably far more difficult as well. Like the rest of the sermon, Jesus is illustrating his points as he goes with a rhetorical device known as hyperbole. It's where you use an extreme, almost ridiculous example in order to grab your audience's attention so that they listen to what you say, and really think deeply about what you're communicating.

And so throughout the sermon on the mount, Jesus says these crazy things. He says you need to pluck out your eye, you need to cut off your hand, don't ever let anyone see you praying. You need to pray in your closet with the door closed, or when you give, don't even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. If we take these things literally, we miss the point of what Jesus is talking about, and these things don't actually solve the problem that Jesus is talking about, either, but when you understand what Jesus is saying you know what he means, right?

We need to take what he's saying seriously, we need to check out hearts and give thought to what he is saying, because it's important, and so when we look at this text and Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, when he tells us to go the extra mile, the point is not to start arguing about, "How do we rigidly apply this to extreme hypothetically situations that we're likely never going to face?"

The point is you know what he means, and in real everyday life, when someone insults you, when someone takes advantage of you, when you feel that you have been used, or slighted, or wronged, or made to look the fool, do not retaliate. Don't throw more fuel on the fire. React, and as much as you can, react mercifully. React in a way so that as much as it depends on you, you're able to respond in a way that deescalates that situation, that puts out that fire in order to leave room for redemption, to leave room for reconciliation and to make peace.

In our flesh, this is not what we want to hear. This is not what we want to do. Our normal, sinful response is to get angry, say, "That's not fair." To lash out, to try to even the score, retaliate, get our revenge. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But this is not how things work in Jesus' kingdom. Paul in Romans 12:17 through 21, he tells us this, he says, "Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay,' says the Lord."

"To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." And so when a friend betrays you, when a peer insults you, when a coworker throws you under the bus, when you feel like your boss is taking advantage of you, when your neighbors are being just totally inconsiderate, when someone's wronged you, when you feel like slandering them, when you feel like flaming them on Facebook, and canceling them on Twitter, and just totally executing them socially, you need to remember who you are.

You are a sinner, and you are a sinner who's been saved by grace. You are a sinner who has been saved by grace and called to be salt and light in a dark and twisted world, that we as followers of Jesus, we're called to be radically and sacrificially generous with the mercy that we extend to others because God has been radically and sacrificially generous with the mercy that he has extended to us.

Citizens of Jesus' kingdom are called to humble integrity, called to merciful justice. Finally, they're called to prayerful peacemaking. This is verse 43 through 48. Jesus again said, "You have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sins rain on the just and on the unjust."

"For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect." The bible teaches us to love our neighbors. The bible never teaches us to hate our enemies, and Jesus corrects this false teaching, and he cuts to the heart of the matter, and the heart of the matter is this: if we are children of God, then we should expect the world to treat us the way the world treated God's son Jesus Christ, and if we are children of God, then we are expected to treat the world the way that Jesus Christ treated us.

John 15, 18 through 19, Jesus tells his disciples, "If the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." Jesus promises to be with us, he promises his holy spirit, but Jesus never promises us health, or wealth, or comfort, or power, or influence, or success in this life.

What he does promise us is this, John 16:33, he says, "I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation. But take heart, I've overcome the world." He promises us peace, he promises us victory, and he also promises that before the victory there will be tribulation. Following Jesus will be hard, and we should expect that the world is going to treat us the way the world treated Jesus, but Jesus expects us to respond to them the way he responded to us, and how has Jesus responded to us? We see this in Romans chapter 5.

Paul writes in verse 6 that, "While we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die, but God shows his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God, for if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."

This command to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us, this is one of the most radical, extreme things that Jesus ever commands us to do, but when Jesus commands us to love our enemies and when he tells us to pray for those who persecute us, he's not commanding us to do anything that he himself hasn't already done for us. He was betrayed, beaten, mocked, and he turned the other cheek. He went the extra mile. He gave us the shirt off his back. He took our ragged, filthy, soiled garments, and put them on himself, and in exchange he clothed us with the robes of his own righteousness.

He loved us while we were yet his enemies, and as he hung on the cross, he prayed for his persecutors. "Father, forgive them. They know not what they do." The perfect, sinless son of God laid down his life so that enemies of God could become sons and daughters, acquitted, forgiven, reconciled, made new, and adopted into the household of God, and now, as God's children, we are called to do the same. To love our enemies, to pray for their salvation, and to understand we were once enemies of God who have been reconciled to him through the blood of Jesus Christ, and that's what we want for them as well.

As Jesus concludes this section of the sermon so far with this command in verse 48, it says, "You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect, because the standard that I'm calling you to is perfection. That's the calling, that's the goal. Be perfect. That is the what of the sermon on the mount so far." As your heavenly father is perfect, that is why, that is the reason, that's the motivation that we have, that we press on towards this goal of perfection in Christ because we have a perfect heavenly father who's loved us, and just like any child, we want to be just like our dad when we grow up.

This is what God is like, this is what our king, his son Jesus Christ, is like, and this is what we want to be like as well. If you're here today and you're not perfect, welcome to the club. You need Jesus. Repent. Put your faith in him. If you're here today and you are perfect, you are a self-righteous liar, and you really need Jesus, and repent, put your faith in him today, and understand that the bad news is bad. You are bad. You are really bad. You're worse than you really even know, and there's absolutely nothing that you can do to make things right with God, that your good deeds are never going to be enough to outweigh the bad.

The good news is that's not the way you enter the kingdom of heaven. From the very beginning of the sermon, Jesus made it clear, Matthew 5:3, when he said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." The way into God's kingdom, you don't begin a right relationship with God by appealing to a list of righteous deeds and qualifications. You begin with a contrite heart, with a broken spirit that acknowledges your weakness and cries out to God for help.

Scripture tells us if you repent, if you turn from your sin and put your faith in Jesus Christ, and call on his name, that you will be saved and you can do that today. If you want to do that today, we would just ask that you'd come and talk to us. We'd love to talk to you about that. We would love to pray for you. Come find us after the service, or you can mark that on your connection card, and we'd love to just follow up with you this week, and talk more about what this means and what the next steps to following Jesus would be, and with that being said, would you please join me in prayer? And we'll spend some more time in worship together.