This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Well, welcome back to day five of week five of our look through the book of
Matthew. We've been looking at what Jesus had to teach about empowering and
strengthening our relationships, and it's challenging. Jesus is not causing us
to settle for some little small change in our relationships.

He's challenging us toward what only He can do in our relationships. As we've
walked through this week, we've talked about anger, and Jesus' answer to the
struggle that we have with anger in our relationships is, make your
relationships a priority. You remember that the scripture says, "Don't let the
sun set on your anger, but deal with it that day.

" Jesus taught that also in the Sermon on the Mount, "Leave your offering before
the altar. Go deal with it right away. " We've talked about lust, and the need
to take your heart seriously by acting radically.

The feelings that you have in your heart, that you've allowed to grow in your
heart. I'm not just talking about emotions, but I'm talking about feelings of
lust, or desires to have, or wanting this person. No one else may know that
you're there, but you've nursed them for a long time.

Those feelings, although no one else may know about them, everyone else is
affected by them. They're affecting your relationship, so you take your heart
seriously, and you act immediately. Jesus taught us about lies, and He said,
"You need to choose simple clarity.

Let your yes be yes, and your no be no. " Yesterday we looked at revenge, and
Jesus is teaching to practice radical mercy by turning the other cheek, by going
the second mile, by continuing to love, and to give, and to serve. And today we
look at discrimination, and hate, and the need to seek godly maturity.

Jesus talks here about a very easy discrimination when He talks about those we
love, and those who are our enemies. In verse 43, down to verse 48, Jesus
taught, "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor, and hate your
enemy. ' But I tell you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute
you, that you may be sons and daughters of your Father in heaven.

He causes His Son to rise on the evil and the good, and He sends rain on the
righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will
you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?

And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not
even pagans do that? Be perfect therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

" Jesus talks here about discrimination, and He says very simply, "You've heard,
love your neighbor, hate your enemy. " Well of course, that makes sense. But
Jesus says, "No, you need to love everyone.

You need to love even your enemy. " Now mark Jesus' words here, hear him very
carefully here. He's saying that when you begin to discriminate, when you begin
to class people, when you have these pigeonholes in front of you, and you put
some people in the loved pigeonhole, and other people in the hate pigeonhole,
and some people in the pending pigeonhole, I'm not sure which way they go, He
says, "If you do that, you are on the route to ruin relationships.

Because if you hate your enemy, that hate will stain even your most loving of
relationships. And if you love your enemy, that love will strengthen every
relationship. " Now as we've walked through this week, as we talk even about
this, do you struggle with any of these areas?

If you say no, maybe go back and listen again to the day about lying. Because
the truth is, if we're honest, we all struggle with all of these. That's why
Jesus taught on these things.

He knows us. He loves us. We struggle with.

He knows when He said, "Love your enemies," that we'd have a struggle to do
that. He knows that we would need help. And Jesus gives us help.

All through this week, He has shown us how to do the things that He's telling us
to do. And every time it's been a surprise. Every time it's been something that
shocks you.

You want to be the kind of person God wants you to be with your anger, leave
your offering before the altar. That's pretty shocking. Cut off your hand if you
want to deal with lust.

That's pretty shocking. Go the second mile. That's pretty shocking.

Well, this is pretty shocking today, too. Jesus says, "You want to be able to
love your enemy? Here's how you do it.

Be perfect. " In fact, He even ups the ante. He says, "Be perfect as your
heavenly Father is perfect.

" And we look at that and we think, "Well, yeah, I guess that would solve all my
problems. But it seems like a sort of an unrealistic dream for me to be like
perfect like God. " First we need to dig into the word "perfect" here a little
bit.

It can, and I think here, needs to be seen as having the meaning of mature,
fully grown, fulfilled. It means fulfilling the purpose for which you were
created. That's what He's talking about here.

Just as God fulfills all that of who He is, He wants to fulfill in us all that
He's made us to be. Jesus is challenging here that you and I model our love for
each other not after the way that we treat each other. Then we're going to have
friends and enemies the rest of our lives.

He says, "I want you to model your love for each other after the way that God
treats you. " And He says, "How does God treat you? " He loved us when we were
still His enemies.

He gave His life for us. Jesus gave His life for us on the cross, Romans 5 tells
us, while we were still His enemies, so that we could become His friends. And
Jesus teaches about the Father here.

He says, "Look how the Father treats people. He sends sun, but the good people
get the sun and the evil people get the sun. He doesn't discriminate.

Everybody gets His blessings and He sends rain. And those who are evil get rain
and those who are good get rain. He doesn't discriminate and cause those who are
good not to ever have to face problems.

We all face the same problems in this life. He doesn't discriminate against
anyone. He blesses everyone.

He doesn't discriminate against anyone. He blesses everyone. Now, some people
receive those blessings and trust Him and will enjoy those blessings for
eternity.

Some people reject those blessings and will be separate from Him for all
eternity. But on this earth, He loves us all and He shares that love with all of
us. So Jesus says, "Do that.

Be like that. Love your enemy. Pray for your enemy.

" Now, you and I, we look at this and we think, "I cannot do this. There's no
way in the world I can do this. " I want to remind you of where Jesus started
this section on the Sermon on the Mount.

He started by telling them, "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the
scribes and the Pharisees, you're not going to even enter in the kingdom of
heaven. " That was probably the most shocking statement of all to them in those
days because they saw those people who kept the law, who were very legal in
doing all the things, the laws of the Old Testament, as being the closest to
God. But Jesus said, "That's not going to get you into a relationship with God.

That's not going to get you into eternity. The things that we do do not
establish a relationship with God and the things that we do do not strengthen us
in our relationship with God. I can't do this.

" In one sense, Jesus, you can almost hear Him saying, "Good. I'm glad you see
that because the truth is you can't, but I can do it in you. I can do in you
what you cannot do.

" Often when I talk about this, I talk about it as Jesus' seven-mile challenge.
There is a sense in us where if we saw a pole put at seven inches and someone
said, "Can you jump over that pole? " Every one of us would say, "Well, I can do
that by my own strength.

" If we saw a pole set at seven feet, many of us would say, "I don't know if I
can do that, but I'll beat myself up trying. I'll work and I'll work and I'll
work and I'll work on it because I think I can make it over seven feet. " But
Jesus doesn't give us the seven-inch challenge or the seven-foot challenge.

Jesus says, "Let's set the pole at seven miles. " And you look at that and you
say, "I cannot do that on my own power. " "Good," Jesus says.

"Good, because you need my power. You need my power to love your enemy. You need
my power to go the second mile.

You need my power to cut off that which is hurting you in your life. You need my
power to, instead of letting anger come into your life, make your relationships
a priority. You need my power for all of it.

" That's where it comes from, His power. Now, before we pray today and ask for
His power, let's just go back to loving our enemies for a moment and be very
practical about this. Jesus said, "Love your enemies and pray for those who
persecute you.

" That's the place to start with loving your enemies. You start by praying for
them. Now, not, "God, I pray that You'd send fire and brimstone down on them.

" That's not the prayer I'm talking about. Although David did pray some of those
kinds of prayers in the book of Psalms, I realize that. No, you start with a
prayer that they'll know God.

You start with a prayer that God's love will speak to their hearts. We start
with a prayer that they will receive God's blessing in their lives. Now, let's
pray together.

Father, as we pray, we do pray those two things that we just talked about.
First, we pray for our enemies. As hard as that is, Lord, and maybe we better
pray for the first thing first before we pray for that thing.

We pray for your strength. We pray for your strength even to pray for our
enemies, to love like you love. Lord, teach us how to depend on your Spirit.

Teach us how to depend on you for strength to do what we cannot do, to let it go
and to let you work, to trust in you, to ask you through your Word, through your
Spirit, to empower us to do what you want us to do. Lord, we can only get that
strength one day at a time, one moment at a time, so give it to us this day,
this moment. And with that strength, Lord, we do pray that you would bless even
our enemies.

Lord, we want them to know you. We want them to be in eternity. We don't want
anybody to be separate from you, to miss out on your blessings.

So help even our enemies to know who you are and to seek you today, to find you
today, we pray. We pray it in Jesus' name, amen. Be sure to join us next week.

We continue through the Sermon on the Mount. We're going to talk about managing
our relationship with God, and we're going to talk about managing our properties
and our anxieties. We'll see you next week.