Overcoming Our Hateful Hearts | Matthew 5:43-48
Jesus leads us through three steps toward overcoming our hateful hearts: (1) recall the limitation: neighbors; (2) grasp the implication: love; and (3) adopt the application: sonship. This sermon is part 7 of “Messiah's Righteousness,” Bryan Craddock’s verse-by-verse sermon series on Matthew 5.
Do you like avocados? Over the last 25 years they have surged in popularity across the United States. But I would like to say that I liked avocados before avocados were cool. Of course, it was not just me. I grew up in Southern California, the home of great Mexican food. Avocados were grown there, and guacamole was always on the menu.
But buying avocados is always a gamble. With that tough leathery green skin, they all look the same on the outside. So, you pay your money, and you always hope to find the perfect one. But you never know what’s inside until you get it home and cut into it. Sadly, it’s not uncommon to find that rather than having healthy, buttery flesh, the whole thing is rotten and gray.
Regardless of whether you like avocados, we all share something in common with them. We can look very good on the outside while we are rotten on the inside. Matthew 23:27-28 tells us that Jesus exposed that problem in the Jewish Pharisees by saying,
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 uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
It’s easy to look down on the Pharisees, isn’t it? Religious hypocrisy is disgusting. But the problem is that we are blind to it in ourselves. We learn to put on a good show to blend in with other religious people. We demonize some sins while we completely overlook others. Yet we convince ourselves that we are righteous.
As we have made our way through Matthew 5, we have seen that the teaching of Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount slices through that skin of religiosity. Messiah’s righteousness is a matter of the heart. He shows the spiritual intent behind God’s Old Testament prohibitions of murder, adultery, deceit, and personal vengeance. As we finish the chapter, we’ll see that he cuts even deeper, reaching the core of righteousness.
What is that core? On another occasion, Jesus summed up God’s Law as loving the Lord your God and loving your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22:35-40). All God’s commandments direct us to that central focus. So, it is possible to stay within the outer boundaries of the Law and completely miss the point. The sad reality is that rather than loving people our fallen hearts are naturally inclined to be hateful. In Titus 3:3, Paul says,
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
How can we overcome our hateful hearts? In Matthew 5:43-48, Jesus leads us through the same three steps that he has used with the other commandments. He helps us recall the limitation, grasp the implication, and adopt the application. Ultimately, he wants us to see that we need to be saved. Through faith in him we can be forgiven, born again, and transformed so that we can overcome. So, let’s walk through these verses to see what Jesus says. First, he recalls the Law’s limitation of loving your neighbor.
Recall the Limitation
Neighbors
When I was growing up, my mom worked for a real estate agency. She started as a secretary and eventually became an agent. One of her first responsibilities was to write property descriptions for ads in our local newspaper. A house was never small. It was always quaint. It was never run down. It was a great investment opportunity.
But those creative sales tactics only go so far. It is much harder to point out the positives when the buyer goes to see the house in person. At that point, their consideration also expands from the house itself to the whole neighborhood. You can always fix up your own property, but there’s not much you can do about a trashy place next door or the difficult people who might live there. There’s no way to put a positive spin on that!
So, people get very picky about neighbors in real estate but also in regard to God’s command to love your neighbor. Luke 10:29 tells us that one time when Jesus was talking about it, a lawyer spoke up and said, “And who is my neighbor?” You might say that he was looking for the right neighborhood. He wanted to be selective, limiting that group to people just like him. That must have been a common way of thinking, because Jesus addresses it in his Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5:43, he recalls the original limitation from God’s Law.
You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'
Now God never commands people to hate their enemy. But that was how people were distorting the original commandment. It was first stated in Leviticus 19:17-18, which says,
You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.
So, the commandment does present a limitation. In verse 18, neighbor is mentioned alongside the sons of your own people. Loving your fellow countrymen is easy, right? Not necessarily. In verse 17, neighbor is even parallel with brother. Family is always easier to love, aren’t they? Not really. The second sin recorded in the Bible was Cain killing his brother, Abel (Gen 4:8).
Loving your neighbor is not easy. But as we have seen with other commandments, loving your neighbor is the outer perimeter of a righteous life. It’s just the starting point of what God wants. He even made that clear in Leviticus 19 by expanding the definition of neighbor. In verse 34, he told the people of Israel,
You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
So, even in Leviticus 19, the object of love expands from family to neighbors to countrymen to foreigners. Why? Because the people of Israel knew what it was like to be strangers in a foreign land. They had been enslaved by the Egyptians, and the Lord had rescued them. Their love was supposed to be shaped by the Lord’s saving work. We’ll return to that thought in a moment.
Luke 10 tells us that Jesus pushed the definition of who we should love even farther in his response to that smug lawyer who asked, “Who is my neighbor?” He told the story of a good Jewish man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho who is viciously attacked by robbers and left lying on the side of the road. A priest comes along, but he walks around the man and ignores him. A Levite who should know the Law well does the same thing. The only one who stops to help is a Samaritan.
Now Jews had several reasons to dislike Samaritans. There was a racial reason. Samaritans were descended from Jews who intermarried with people from other nations (2 Ki 17:24-41). There was a religious reason. They claimed to worship the one true God. But they only accepted the books of Moses as Scripture, and they had their own competing temple on Mount Gerizim (Jn 4:20). There was also a political reason. Historically, they interfered when Nehemiah was trying to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Neh 4).
So, in Jesus’ story it’s one of those despised Samaritans who stops to help the man on the road. He binds up his wounds, transports him to an inn, gives the innkeeper two days’ wages to take care of him, and promises to return and pay any other expenses. Luke 10:36-37 tells us that Jesus concludes by asking the lawyer,
Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." And Jesus said to him, "You go, and do likewise."
Anyone who needs mercy is our neighbor regardless of race, religion, politics, or anything else. We must love them, not because they deserve it, but because that is how God treats us. But Jesus presses us even farther in his Sermon on the Mount. He wants us to grasp the full implication of this kind of love.
Grasp the Implication
Love
What identifies someone as your enemy? Is it just the color of their uniform? It has never really been that simple. Is it where they’re from? Can you judge by how they look or speak? Should you consider what they value and believe or how they vote? It might come down to whoever is trying to harm you. Jesus seems to use that definition of enemy to make his point.
We feel justified in hating our enemies. We assume that we only need to love our neighbors. But if our neighbors start to annoy us, we don’t hesitate to move them into the enemy category. Truth be told, we do the same with family. The line between neighbors and enemies is easily redrawn in our hateful hearts. So, Jesus wants us to grasp the implication of the love that God commands. In Matthew 5:44, he says,
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
Is he serious? Is he just exaggerating to make a point? I don’t think so. This was always God’s intent. We find it expressed in a very practical scenario in Exodus 23:4-5. There the Lord tells the people of Israel,
If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.
He may hate you, but that does not give you permission to hate him. He might seize every opportunity to take advantage of you, but that does not mean that you are free to ignore him in his moment of need. Treat him as a neighbor. Go out of your way to help him.
But how do we reconcile this Old Testament instruction with God's command for Israel to destroy the Canaanites in Deuteronomy 20:16-18? Or what about passages like Psalm 139:22 where David speaks of hating those who hate the Lord? Those passages are not personal. They relate to the judgment of God carried out through Ancient Israel and her king. They were the one and only nation that he has ever chosen to receive his Law and to carry out his will. But as you read through the Old Testament, you find that they botch that responsibility time and again. So, the prophets foretell the coming of a Messiah who will bring true justice.
That’s where we all run into a major problem, because we have broken God’s Law. We don’t love our enemies as we should or even our neighbors. We rebel against God’s rule and that identifies us as his enemies. Thankfully, God does love his enemies. He so loved the world that he sent his Son not to condemn but to save. So, in Romans 5:10, Paul says,
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.
On the cross Jesus suffered the punishment for our rebellion. By dying in our place, he made it possible for us to be reconciled with God and saved from his condemnation. Jesus also showed us how to pray for those who persecute us. As he was on the cross, Luke 23:34 tells us,
And Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." And they cast lots to divide his garments.
Was he just praying for the soldiers who drove the spikes through his hands and feet? Was he thinking of the Jews who demanded his crucifixion? Perhaps he was even thinking of us. Are you willing to identify yourself as God’s enemy? Do you believe in his love? We all need forgiveness, and it is only received through faith in Christ. But we cannot stop there, because genuine faith transforms us. There is an application that we must adopt, and it relates to sonship.
Adopt the Application
Sonship
When kids are young, they love to imitate the work that their parents are doing. They pretend to mow the lawn, to vacuum the carpet, to shop for groceries, and to cook dinner. It would be great if they maintained that enthusiasm throughout their teens, but for most it seems to fade. Those same activities become chores that many of them try to avoid.
If that has been your experience as a parent, you are not alone. God has the same problem with you and me when it comes to love. So, Jesus calls us to adopt the application of sonship. Let’s look again at Matthew 5:44 and continue down to verse 48. Jesus says,
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 sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the 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.
God’s love is perfect. He provides sunshine and rain for everyone, evil or good, just or unjust. Theologians call it his common grace. Acts 14:17 tells us that Paul spoke of how God satisfies people’s hearts with food and gladness. He refers to it as God’s witness, his testimony to his love. So, he wants us to imitate him, and his standard is nothing less than perfection. How can we possibly measure up? We can’t, and that’s the whole point.
The love of God exposes our hateful hearts, but back in Matthew 5:17 Jesus said that he came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. Let’s review one more time what that means. Earlier in this series, I identified four ways that Jesus fulfills the Law. First, he fulfills the Old Testament hope for a king who will bring justice and peace. But our murderous, adulterous, deceitful, vengeful, and hateful hearts disqualify us from being part of his kingdom. So, he fulfills the Law’s demand for atonement by dying for our sins and its requirement for God’s blessing by his perfect obedience so that we can be forgiven and justified by faith. We can only measure up to God’s perfect standard through our Messiah’s righteousness.
But there is one more way that He fulfills the Law. He meets its need for spiritual transformation. Moses spoke of it as circumcision of the heart (Deut 10:16; 30:6). The Prophet Ezekiel said that God would remove people’s hearts of stone and give them a heart of flesh along with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (36:26-27). Jesus described it as being born again (John 3:7). So, John 1:12-13 tells us,
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Jesus rose from the dead to give new life to all who believe in him. Being born again enables us to start living like sons of our heavenly Father, and his love for us motivates us to change. In 1 John 4:7-12, John says,
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
You cannot love as God commands in your own strength. You must be born again through faith in Christ. As children of our heavenly Father, God abides in us and causes us to grow toward a perfection that will be fully realized when we stand in the presence of Christ.
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So, Jesus recalled the limitation of loving our neighbors so that we would grasp its implication of loving our enemies and adopt the application of living as sons of God who reflect his boundless love. But that is only possible through the saving work of Christ. Only his power can overcome our hateful hearts.
Have you been born again? If not, I invite you to admit your sinfulness to God and to trust in his great love. Receive the salvation that he offers us in Christ. Place your faith in him and begin to live as a child of God. If you would like to learn more about the transforming power of God’s love, Titus 3 is another great passage of Scripture to read.
If you’re a believer, are you walking in love? There is a lot of hatred in our world, and some of it even masquerades as righteousness. Don’t be deceived! If you have succumbed to that false way of thinking, I urge you to repent. Love your enemies. Pray that those who would persecute you might be saved.
Is there someone that you find it hard to love? Think about what you could do this week to reflect the perfect love of our heavenly Father who makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
May the love of God shine through us!
Reflect
Who do you find it hardest to love? Why?
What could you do to show love for that person?
How could you encourage other believers to love and good deed (Heb 10:24-25)?