Mind Your Motives!--Sermon on the Mount Series

            The ABC Network has been airing a show for the last few years called “Secret Millionaire.” In each episode, a self-made millionaire goes undercover in a needy area by hiding the fact that he or she is fabulously wealthy. After getting to know to some of the people and the organizations that are trying to help them, the millionaire gets to spring the surprise at the end that he or she is in fact very wealthy and would like to give them a financial gift.

            I’ve watched a few episodes of the show, and it is very heart-warming to see the gratitude of the people who receive those gifts. But the set-up does make you ponder the real motivations of the “secret millionaire.” Are they really “just there to help,” or is there more to it than that?

            A show like that causes us to think about how murky our motives can be when we give to those who are in need. This is a good time to talk about our motives for giving, because in the next two months, every charity that knows you’re alive will be making some kind of effort to reach out to you!

            Perhaps its divine timing, then, that we come to a passage in The Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus discusses the proper motives for giving to the needy. What is it that drives us to give to those in need? Do we give only when our name will appear on a banquet program as a “gold partner,” or are we driven by other motivations?

            As we move into Matthew 6, we also move into a different section of The Sermon on the Mount. Remember that Jesus’ main goal in this sermon is to move the people from following the Pharisees as their religious leaders to following Him. In the latter half of Matthew 5, Jesus had been criticizing aspects of the Pharisees’ teaching which had distorted God’s standards. Now in the first part of chapter 6, He is going to criticize aspects of the Pharisees’ behavior—specifically, the way that they carried out their religious acts. Let’s read Matthew 6:1-4, then we’ll take a closer look at Jesus’ message [READ 6:1-4].

The Warning: Mind Your Motives!

            The Lord begins this chapter with a warning that addresses everything through v. 18, and His warning is for us to mind our motives. He says, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them.” Its that last phrase that mentions the improper motive—we are not to perform our religious acts with a desire for other people to notice us performing religious acts.

            Now I mentioned a few weeks ago that this warning initially may not seem to fit with the command in 5:16 to “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” As I pointed out when we studied that passage, Jesus is not talking about the same kind of activities in 5:16 as He about to address in chapter 6.

            In this chapter, Jesus will deal with activities that every Jewish person at that time would have thought of as religious activities—giving to the needy, praying, and fasting. In today’s world, the equivalent might be attending church, praying, and reading the Bible. If anyone in our society saw you doing those things, they would think of them as religious activities.

            But in 5:16, Jesus was referring to actions that people wouldn’t automatically think of as religious activities, such as meeting practical needs for people around you. If we’re helping the sick or protecting the vulnerable, we can freely let it be known that we are doing those things out of obedience to Christ, but as far as actions that are obviously religious, we don’t need to play those up to get other people to notice us. In fact, it is better if we just do them quietly.

            So if you’re helping an elderly neighbor with some yard work, you can let them know that you want to share Christ’s love through what you’re doing. But when you come to church on Sunday morning, you don’t need to honk your horn as you go down the road and wave your Bible out the window. And of course, in everything that we do, there is the question of our motive, as Jesus warns us here.

            So He warns us to mind our motives, but the reason He gives for doing so may surprise you. He doesn’t say, “Mind your motives because its just the right thing to do,” or “mind your motives because its your duty before God.” Instead, He appeals to our desire to be rewarded for our actions. Jesus states that if we do not properly mind our motives, “then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.”

            If you’re ever inclined to think that the whole idea of pursuing rewards from God sounds terribly selfish, then the next 18 verses might feel downright scandalous to you, because the only motivation that Jesus appeals to in this section is the motivation to receive rewards from God. But, since God does not tempt us to sin, according to James 1:13, then whatever Jesus encourages us to do cannot be sinful. Thus, the desire to be rewarded by God for our actions cannot be sinful.

            This desire actually drives us away from sin because we have to obedient in order to gain the rewards. We have to embrace God’s values in order to receive rewards from God, which will point us away from sinful behavior and toward godly behavior. All in all, the desire to be rewarded by God is a powerful motivation for good and another reminder of God’s grace. God doesn’t have to reward us at all, but He chooses to, which gives us simply one more reason to serve Him with all our might.

So the question that Jesus challenges us with is this…

What Kind of Reward Do You Want to Receive?

            a. To receive a temporary reward, make a big show out of your giving.

            If your motive is to receive a temporary reward like praise from other people, then by all means, draw lots of attention to yourself when you give. Don’t give a penny unless your name is slapped on a building somewhere; create a TV show to broadcast your giving; walk into church on Sunday morning and ask the usher, “Will your church accept large bills?” Make a big production out of it to get all the praise you can, because according to Jesus, that is all the reward you will ever get.

            The Lord mentioned some pretenders in His day who sought to bring attention to their giving. In v. 2, He says, “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others.” That word “hypocrites” came into English directly from Greek; it is simply the Greek word ὑποκριτής. That was the term for an actor in ancient Greece; if you were an actor by profession, you were called a ὑποκριτής. There wasn’t a negative connotation to the word until Jesus began to use it metaphorically to refer to people like this—people whose supposed concern for the poor was nothing but an act. They simply wanted to be praised by other people, and in that culture at that time, giving to the poor was a way to get that praise. If there had been a better way, they probably would have done that instead.

            Jesus closes v. 2 by saying, “Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.” The New American Standard and the NIV are a little better here; they read, “they have their reward in full.” The Greek behind that phrase was a business term that was written on receipts to indicate “paid in full.” The debt was settled, the account was closed, and that’s exactly what Jesus is telling us. If our giving is simply an act, if our motive is to receive praise from others, then when we receive it, we have been paid in full. We had better enjoy that praise for all its worth, because we will receive nothing more from God.

But then Jesus gives us another option…

            b. To receive a lasting reward, be discreet about your giving.

            In vv. 3-4, the Lord states, “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” What a memorable picture Jesus paints—to give so quietly with your right hand that your left hand has to say, “Hey, what’s going on over there?” To give in this way reveals a proper motive that pleases God. You’re not giving simply to draw attention to yourself but rather to extend love to a person in need, and thus display the heart of Christ.

            And for that, Jesus states that our Heavenly Father will take note of what we have done and will reward us for it. The Lord may reward us in this life with resources from which we can continue to give. That is the point of 2 Corinthians 9:7-11—“Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work…You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.” We might say this is God’s idea of compound interest! If God gets a good return of generosity from the money He entrusts to you, He may just keep entrusting money to you so that you can continue to be generous.        Notice what the true reward is—it’s the opportunity to continue serving God in a special way. And whether or not we receive any tangible reward in this life, we will certainly receive the reward of praise and honor from God in Heaven and the opportunity to serve Him in a special way in that place. So long after this world is gone, long after the praise of men which other people coveted has died out, long after the curtain has closed on the actors, the ὑποκριτής of this life, your reward from God will remain. Is it not obvious which reward we should pursue?

            My friends, let us allow this offer to sink deeply into our hearts. God offers us eternal rewards for helping those around us who are in need. How can we help but turn our attention toward such an endeavor? For centuries after the church was born, the calling card of Christian people everywhere was compassion for the poor, the sick, and the dying. When unwanted infants were left to die of exposure in the Roman Empire, it was Christians who adopted them and who cried out against this practice. When the poor in the great cities lay dying because they could not afford physicians, it was Christians who personally took them in and cared for them. When plagues swept through the Empire, even though some emperors tried to make Christians the scapegoats for them, it was Christians who went out with no fear of death to care for the sick and bury the dead.

            Why do we find asylums for the mentally ill in our world today? Why do we find sanitary, livable conditions inside of prisons? Why do so many hospitals have names like St. Catherines and Via Christi? Why is the debate in our country today NOT about whether the sick should receive care but simply how to go about it? Its because of Christianity!

            In our country today, we have many government programs that are meant to help the needy, but we must ask ourselves—do we really think the task is complete? Is there nothing for the church to do? It is not hard to envision a day for our nation when those programs no longer exist, and if that happens, who will step into the gap? If history teaches us anything about the care of the needy, it teaches us that Christians will answer the call.

            The only question that remains is, “What part are you playing?” What part am I playing? Are you only playing a part? Does your heart only open to others when the lights are bright and the cameras are rolling and the live studio audience is there to applaud your every move?

            “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”—James 1:27.

What's Love Got to Do With It?--Sermon on the Mount Series

            Perhaps no culture in history has spoken about love more yet understood love less than our culture today. Of course, we have a tool today in the radio that allows us to lump all of our thoughts about love together and try to sort out the mess the results. For example, Burt Bacharach sings about love as kind of a “cure-all:”

What the world needs now is love, sweet love

It's the only thing that there's just too little of

What the world needs now is love, sweet love,

No not just for some but for everyone.

But Carrie Underwood might have a thing or two to say to Burt, because she sings:

I bet all I had on a thing called love

I guess in the end it wasn't enough

And it's hard to watch you leave right now

I'm gonna have to learn to let you go somehow

Meanwhile, Tina Turner wants to convince us that love is nothing more than a physical sensation:

It's physical

Only logical

You must try to ignore

That it means more than that

[Chorus:]

What's love got to do, got to do with it

What's love but a second hand emotion

What's love got to do, got to do with it

Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?

But Tim McGraw wants to tell us that love is something that can be life-changing:

Better than I was

More than I am

And all of this happened

By takin' your hand

And who I am now

Is who I wanted to be

And now that we're together

I'm stronger than ever

I'm happy and free

Its your love

It just does somethin’ to me

It sends a shot right through me

I can’t get enough

And if you wonder

About the spell I’m under

Its your love

Bob Dylan describes love as something that sacrifices for another person:

I could make you happy, make your dreams come true

There's nothing that I would not do

Go to the ends of the Earth for you

To make you feel my love.

But Katy Perry just wants to use your love without getting too concerned about you:

I just wanna use your love

Tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight

I don't wanna lose your love tonight

(You don't mean nothing at all to me)

(You don't mean nothing at all to me)

Perhaps we need to tell Katy what Willie Nelson once decided:

If this is what you refer to as love

Then I'd rather you didn't love me

            Now, some of those musicians were singing about different kinds of love, and therein lies part of our problem—we can use the word love in so many different ways. One English dictionary lists 28 different ways that we can use the word “love.” I can love God, love my wife, love basketball, love bacon, and have a score of love in a game of tennis—all at the same time!

            That might explain some of the confusion we have when Jesus commands us to “love our enemies.” We better find out in a hurry just what it means to love, and fortunately, the Lord will help us do just that. Follow along with me as I read Matthew 5:43-48 [READ Matt 5:43-48].

The Problem: Granting a License for Hatred

            The Pharisees teaching, according to Jesus in v. 43, was, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” There’s no reason to look for a verse in the Old Testament that says that, because there isn’t one. You will find a command to love your neighbor in Leviticus 19:18, but you won’t find a command to hate your enemy anywhere.

            In fact, in the laws given to Moses, we find just the opposite. Exodus 23:4-5 says, “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.” And Leviticus 19:17 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.” Then, in the book of Proverbs, we find this statement that is repeated in the New Testament: “If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink, for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you (25:21-22).”

            So how did it ever come about that the religious leaders were teaching the people, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy?” They may have been attempting to capture what the Old Testament says about God’s anger toward those who reject Him. Perhaps they thought, “Well, if its okay for God to be angry toward His enemies, then it must be okay for us, too.”

            Let me give you a very brief snippet of what the Old Testament says about God’s anger toward those who reject Him. In Malachi 1:2-3, for example, God Himself says, “I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated.” God spoke through Malachi centuries after Jacob and Esau actually lived, so He’s talking about the nations that descended from those two men—the nation of Israel on the one hand (Jacob) and the nation of Edom on the others (Esau). The Edomites, throughout their history, had rejected God and even attacked the Israelites at times. God clearly states here that He hates them for their actions.

            Also, in Deuteronomy 7:9-10, Moses gives this description of God: “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face.” Now the Pharisees may have read statements like this and concluded, “If we love those who love us and hate those who hate us, it sounds like we’re no different than God!”      But I believe the Pharisees forgot at least two important details about God’s love.

1. God takes no delight in the demise of the wicked

            Make no mistake—God is the final, appropriate judge of mankind, and He will ensure that justice is carried out. But like any good judge, He does not delight in the downfall of those upon whom He must pass sentence. Ezekiel 33:11 states, “As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.” Though God will surely deliver punishment when it is just, He always does so with a broken heart.

2. God consistently does good for ALL people—even His enemies!

            That is what Jesus points out in Matthew 5—He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Notice how Jesus calls the sun “His sun.” It’s God’s sun! He can do what He wants with it. Remember, there was a time during the plagues on Egypt when God caused the Egyptians to sit in darkness while the Israelites enjoyed light. He could cause the sun to shine precisely where He chooses, but He gives it to all men equally. If God carries out punishment upon a man, it is only after He has provided food for that man every day of his life; it is only after He has protected that man every day from an earlier demise; it is only after He has kept his heart pumping and his lungs breathing and his brain working. The moment of punishment is actually an exception in an otherwise constant pattern of mercy and grace.

           

The Solution: Love Your Enemies, Too, and Pray for Them

The failure to do good for our enemies is the reason that we so often fail to imitate God’s love, and it is the reason why the Pharisees’ teaching was broken. Their understanding was that they had no obligation to do good to their enemies, so the Lord tells us instead in v. 44, “But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies.’” This command really challenges the common notion of love that we hold today. I’d like to point out two extremes that we need to avoid when thinking about love that will help us understand what Jesus is asking us to do.

1. Love is merely an emotion

            This is the extreme to which we are most vulnerable today, because from every conceivable angle we are told to “follow your heart,” or “be true to your heart.” And so, when most people say, “I love you,” if you dig down underneath that statement, what they’re really saying is, “I have pleasant feelings when I’m around you.”

            Now if we equate love with pleasant feelings, then this command from Jesus is utterly ridiculous. We don’t have pleasant feelings about our enemies, nor can we simply conjure them up at will. But as we see in the rest of this passage, Jesus doesn’t define love in terms of emotions but in terms of actions. God loves the evil and the unjust by doing good for them. So we can see that Jesus is simply expanding upon the idea of the previous paragraph—choose to do good to others even when they do evil to you.

But once we’ve grasped the idea that love is not merely an emotion, then we must be careful to avoid a second extreme…

2. Love for our enemies does not involve our emotions

            It would be easy to justify hatred in our hearts if we defined love solely in terms of our actions. For example, let’s say that my enemy is hungry. I would not be fulfilling this command if I drove past him, threw some bread at his face and said, “Here, have some bread you filthy animal! By the way, can’t you see how much I love you?”

            If we are to learn anything from Matthew 5, its that God wants our actions and our attitudes to be aligned; He wants our hands and our hearts to be on the same page. So God does want us to do good to our enemies, but He wants those good actions to flow out of a heart of compassion, pity, and mercy.

            We won’t have the same feelings about our enemies as we have about our friends, but that’s not what God is calling for. I think we can truthfully say that God Himself does not have the same feelings about His enemies as He does about His children, but what He does have is a commitment to do good to all that flows from a heart of goodwill. That could be a good “shorthand” definition of love—a commitment to do good to all that flows from a heart of goodwill.

            Jesus then mentions a very specific way in which we can love our enemies when He says, “pray for those who persecute you.” There is a beautiful word picture in this statement that kind of gets lost in translation. The Greek preposition that is translated “for” in this phrase is the same preposition that is used elsewhere to describe Jesus dying “for” us, and of course the idea is that Jesus died in our place, as our substitute. Jesus stepped in for us and did something that we could not do—namely, offer a perfect sacrifice for our sins. So the word picture here is that we are to step in for our enemies to do something that they cannot do—namely, pray to God.

            Its as though we’re coming before God saying, “Lord, I know my enemy is shut out from your presence because He has rejected you, so I am here in His place to pray on his behalf and ask that you would show mercy to him and do good to him.” What a humbling picture, one that crushes the pride and the hatred in our hearts to allow the heart of Jesus to be formed within us.

            Jesus then calls us to do these things with reference to God, first of all telling us that this is how we can show our family resemblance with our Heavenly Father. He issues these commands in v. 44, then says in v. 45, “so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” This is the way that the family resemblance will be carved within us—not by loving only those who love us, or greeting only those who greet us, because that’s just normal human behavior. Anyone can do that, so if we want to truly act like a chip off the old block and be like our Father, we must love our enemies and pray for them.

            Jesus finally sums up His discussion in v. 48 by saying, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” I think the word “perfect” is an unfortunate translation in this verse. This Greek word can also be translated “complete,” and I think that word gives us a better understanding of this verse because of the way that we use the words “perfect” and “complete” in modern English.

            The word “therefore” tells us that Jesus is summing up or drawing a conclusion from everything He has just said, and in this section He has been challenging us to be complete people, to be whole, to have an integrity about our lives in which our attitudes and our actions are in sync. When our attitudes and our actions don’t line up, we’re like a jumbled mess of a person, like a Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde. Our actions and attitudes are not integrated—they are not a unified whole.

            But this is not so for God. His actions and His attitudes are in perfect harmony with one another, and so this is how the Lord calls us to be. And as we have been reminded today, God maintains this harmony between His actions and attitudes toward all people. This is another way in which we can be incomplete—if we display this integrity toward some people, but not all people. Our Lord’s challenge is for us to unite godly attitudes with godly actions, then act with that same integrity toward all people.

            As we close today, I want you to close your eyes and think about someone who could fit into the category of being your enemy. Perhaps it is someone who mocks you for your faith, or someone who tries to take advantage of you; maybe its someone with whom you’ve had a fight in the past or someone with different political convictions than you. As you think about that person, I want you to ask God to forgive you for any times in which you have failed to do good to that person from a heart of goodwill. Be specific if you can. Also, ask God to forgive you if you have failed to pray for that person. Finally, let’s ask the Lord to help us rely on His strength to carry out these commands we’ve studied today.

The Harmony Between God's Greatness and Goodness--Attributes of God Series

            Perhaps you remember this common meal-time prayer from your childhood: “God is great, God is good, thank you Lord for this food.” A very simple prayer, but with very profound truth. In fact, you may not have realized it, but a number of the psalms in the Bible follow that same pattern of emphasizing God’s greatness and His goodness. These two truths aren’t just arbitrarily thrown together; they balance each other out and give us a well-rounded picture of just who God is. Each of these concepts serves to heighten the other and keep them in their proper context.

            Psalm 113 is a psalm that follows this pattern. Psalm 113 draws both of these ideas together and reminds us that while God dwells in majestic splendor above the heights of heaven, He is still concerned with the plight of man and involves Himself in our lives. For this reason, God is richly deserving of our praise!

I. Praise God for His greatness  vv. 1–4

            The psalmist begins with a call to worship or praise [READ v. 1–3]. And by the time the psalmist is done with v. 3 we’re thinking, “Okay, we get the point. We’re supposed to praise the Lord.” The repetition here, of course, is for the rhetorical effect of emphasis—we are supposed to react to this call, and in a very specific way. The psalmist is calling us to praise. But what does it mean to praise?

            You’ve probably heard of a person called an appraiser. I think virtually every county has an appraiser, and a lot of cities do, too. The appraiser’s job is to declare how much your property is worth so the government can collect personal property taxes. He “ap-PRAISES” your property; he states how much is it worth. So when we praise God, we are declaring how valuable he is to us.

            Now you may have noticed in these verses that several times the psalmist mentions praising God’s name. This may strike you as a little strange because we don’t think of names the way Old Testament Jews did. We use names mainly just to tell people apart, but Jews had a different concept of what a name meant. To them, a person’s name represented their character, their personality. It stood for who the person was. That’s why we see some Old Testament characters having their names changed after significant events that shaped their lives. For example, Abraham’s names originally was Abram, but after God gave the promise that He would have many children, God changed his name to Abraham, which means “father of a multitude.” This name was better suited to what Abram would become.

            So we see that what the psalmist is pointing to here is God’s essence, His character. He is calling us to praise God for the things that make Him God.

                       

            But a big question remains unanswered in the psalm thus far: “Why is God worthy of such praise?” The psalmist is going to give us two answers, the first of which we find in v. 4. The first reason for praise is God’s greatness [READ v. 4] A common religious idea in Old Testament times was that deities were localized. In other words, each nation had its own god and his power was confined to that nation. The psalmist of course flatly rejects any such notion about Yahweh, the God of Israel, because He is high above all nations. His power is not limited in any way and He shares His throne with no one, especially not some carved image of stone like these other nations worshiped. God is to be praised from every nation of the Earth because He is truly the God of every nation of the Earth, whether men bow the knee to Him or not.

            But not only is He above the nations, but in fact the world and the universe itself cannot contain His glory. Solomon touched on this idea in 1 Kings 8 during his prayer of dedication for the temple. He said in 1 Kings 8:27, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house which I have built?”

            Herein lies the first reason for the psalmist’s call to praise, because God is so great. Mankind is dwarfed by the majesty and power of God, and such a being who cannot even be contained by the universe should strike fear into our hearts and wonder into our souls.

II. Praise God for His goodness  vv. 5–9

            But there is another reason why we should praise God, and it is an important balance to the first. We should praise God not only for His greatness, but also for His goodness, which is His care and concern for mankind, and this is the key point of the psalm. The psalmist dwells on this for five verses. Not only is God great, but He is also good, and this is important because if God were only great, He would be no better than all of the other so-called “gods” out there.

            Many other religions believe in a “god” who is great, but no other religion has a god who is good. Islam certainly preaches about a god who is great and mighty and powerful, but he is not good—certainly not in the way that the Bible describes goodness. In Islam, the will of Allah reigns supreme, and there are no restrictions on it. He doesn’t have to be fair to you—he can literally choose to do whatever he wants. You could serve him faithfully your whole life, and he could still condemn you Hell simply because he chooses to do it. That’s why martyrdom is so attractive to those who are engaged in terrorism—they feel like that sacrifice gives them a guarantee of going to Paradise.

            The psalmist mentions God’s greatness again in verse 5 to set up a contrast with v. 6 [READ vv. 5–6]. Though God cannot even be contained by the universe, the psalmist here says that God stoops down to see what is taking place. God is concerned about what is going on and from other passages we know that He is working out a plan for His glory.

            Now this is not a normal thing for rulers to do. Think about all the dictators you know from history; how many of them have been concerned about the day to day affairs of their people? Even leaders in a system of government like ours. You may find them at a hospital when the cameras are rolling, but when the TV lights go off, where are they? There are some exceptions, but most rulers lose touch with and lose concern for the individuals they rule.

            Not God though! He is concerned with people and what goes on in their lives. You know I started out this sermon talking about the prayers of little children. Do you know that we can learn this lesson from their prayers as well? Sometimes adults don’t pray about certain things because we feel like they are trivial matters to burden God with. But when a child prays, what do they pray for? Their dog who is sick, the doll that they lost. Kids pray for every little thing you can imagine because they believe that God cares, and you know what? He does! God is great, but He stoops down to see our lives because He cares.

            But not only does He care, He gets actively involved. In vv. 7–9, we see that He raises the lowly up. God doesn’t just care about the rich and powerful, He cares about the lowest members of society. [READ 7–9] In ancient Israel, the two groups that the psalmist mentions, the poor and barren women, were looked down upon. They were stigmatized by society simply because of their condition, and the status of the poor that the psalmist mentions here was one of destitution. He makes reference here to the ash heap, which was essentially the town dump. Every good sized town would have a landfill outside the walls of the city where they would burn their trash and their human waste. People who had nowhere else to turn would live at these landfills, begging for the scraps of food that people brought out and huddling into the ash at night to stay warm. You can imagine that these people were not highly esteemed.

            But look at God’s actions! God, who is so great, looks down from above the heavens, sees people in absolute destitution, and is moved with compassion to raise them to a position of prominence. He sees the barren woman in her grief and is moved to grant her children. Now these examples should be taken as proverbial. In other words, they express a general truth of life. God doesn’t take every poor person out of their poverty, and He doesn’t give children to every barren woman. He has his own plans which ultimate are good and perfect, even though we don’t understand them. But this is God’s character—to be moved with compassion by the needs of people. And we clearly see from this the goodness of God.

            God’s goodness stands with His greatness to make Him the God that He is. These two aspects of God’s nature are not contradictory, they are complimentary. If God were only great, He would not be concerned about mankind, but if He were only good, He would not have the power to act on His concerns. These truths should draw out a complimentary response from us. His greatness makes Him worthy of our worship and adoration, while His goodness makes Him worthy of our love and devotion. We can see clearly now why the psalmist calls for such a response of praise, and our hearts can respond appropriately.

Fight for Your Rights?--Sermon on the Mount Series

            There was once a champion boxer who became a Christian. After he accepted Christ, he began to study the faith intently, and after a few years he became a pastor. He felt like his new role as a pastor didn’t really fit with boxing, so he left his successful career as a boxer, which really upset some of his friends at the boxing club. They felt like he’d become “holier-than-thou,” so one evening they decided to go to his house and see if they could provoke him into a fight.

            Several of the friends went together, and when the pastor opened his door, one of the men—without warning—punched him right in the side of the face! The blow knocked the pastor to the ground, but he got up and said, “Hey, what’s this all about?” Without answering, another man punched him in the other side of the face. The pastor was dazed for a moment, but he got up, and this time he started rolling up his sleeves. He looked at the men and said, “You better get ready, ‘cause I’ve turned the other cheek, and now I have no further restrictions from the Lord.”

            Today we’re going to look at the famous statement in which Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, and I don’t think He meant, “Let the other guy get in two punches first, then take him out!” But just what did Jesus mean? That question has been tossed around for a long time and for good reason, because this paragraph contains some of the most challenging statements in all of Scripture; yet, they are also some of the most familiar. Let’s read Matthew 5:38-42 [READ Matt 5:38-42].

            These verses encourage us to remember a couple of very important principles of biblical interpretation. First, we must keep statements in their context in order to understand them correctly. How many times have other people misunderstood you because they’ve taken something you’ve said out of context? We can do the same thing when we study Scripture. If we don’t consider how the context of a verse helps us understand that verse, then we run the risk of misinterpreting it. In this paragraph in particular, some people have isolated the statement, “Do not resist the one who is evil,” and have drawn conclusions from it that probably weren’t even on Jesus’ mind when He spoke those words.

            The second principle is that Scripture is the best interpreter of Scripture. Since all Scripture comes from God, it all fits together; so if one statement in the Bible isn’t immediately clear, we can look at other passages in the Bible to give us some additional insight. This principle is very helpful for interpreting this paragraph since it’s a collection of short statements that seem to touch on very different subjects. When we keep in mind that Scripture interprets Scripture, that principle becomes a tremendous aid for interpretation.

            With these principles in mind, let’s dive into this passage. We’ll take the same approach that we’ve taken over the last several weeks of first looking at the problem that Jesus addresses and then looking at His solution.

The Problem: Misusing Scripture to justify revenge.

            In v. 38, the Lord states, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’” That’s a very short snippet from a statement in the Old Testament that was given as a guideline for judges to ensure that any punishment they meted out truly fit the crime—that is wasn’t too lenient or severe. Its very important to remember that this was a guideline for judges; it was not a license for people to take justice into their own hands.

            We find that statement three times in the Old Testament; I’d like to point your attention to Deuteronomy 19:16-21: “If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you. Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”

            Again, notice how this guideline was given to the judges as a policy for them to follow. The problem was that the Pharisees and the people had turned this guideline into a license for revenge. So a principle that had been given as a guideline for justice had been twisted to excuse all kinds of injustice, because when we try to give people who’ve wronged us what we think they deserve—and that’s what revenge is—the end result is almost always injustice. If you push me down, I’m liable to think that you deserve to have your face rearranged like a Mr. Potato Head doll! Revenge does not produce justice, therefore it doesn’t line up with the character of God.

The Solution: Repay no one evil for evil, but overcome evil with good.

            In v. 39 the Lord says, “But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil.” Remember how important it is for us to keep this statement in context. The remainder of this paragraph will clarify what the Lord means. I think viewpoints that would tell us to never do anything to resist evil are guilty of taking this statement out of context. I believe the rest of this paragraph and the rest of Scripture reveal that Jesus means something much like “don’t fight fire with fire” or “don’t stoop to their level.” If someone does evil to us, we are not to respond in kind.

            In the rest of this paragraph, Jesus seems to clear away several of the limitations that we might want to place on a principle like this. When we think about refusing to take revenge, we want to draw our own lines in the sand to outline what we think we should tolerate, and if someone crosses our line in the sand, then we feel justified to take revenge. We might say, “I’ll let it slide if this guy talks about my daddy, but if he talks about my momma, he’s gone too far.” When we draw arbitrary lines like that, we become just like the Pharisees, and the rest of this paragraph wipes away any of these lines that we might draw.

1. No actions are exempt from this command (v. 39b)

            In the last part of v. 39, Jesus mentions an act that was deeply insulting to the Jews: “But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Some people have applied this statement in discussions about defending yourself from a physical assault, but I don’t think Jesus was addressing that matter. What He describes here is an insult, not an assault.

            He may have been making an intentional reference to Lamentations 3. Part of that chapter describes the good of waiting for God to make right all of the wrongs that you have suffered, and in one section we find these words: “It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him; let him put his mouth in the dust-- there may yet be hope; let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and let him be filled with insults (Lam 3:26-30).” Here’s a good example of allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture—Lamentations 3 clearly equates a slap on the cheek with an insult, so this sheds some light on what the Lord means in Matthew 5.

            This was a deeply insulting act to the Jews, but even then—even then—the Lord says that we should respond with patience, grace, and kindness. Jesus Himself was the perfect model of this response. 1 Peter 2:23 says, “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten.”

            The Jew of that day may have said, “I’ll put up with a lot, but if someone slaps me in the face, I’m going to take matters into my own hands.” But the Lord says that we cannot single out actions to make them exempt from the prohibition against revenge.

2. No rights are exempt from this command (v. 40)

            We Americans love our rights. We are weaned on the idea that there are unalienable rights that no one can legitimately take from us (and that is a good way for a government to act toward its people). But Jesus tells us, in this context prohibiting revenge, that we should hold even our own rights loosely enough that we will not take revenge if they are violated.

            In v. 40, the Lord says, “And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.” The basic Jewish wardrobe had three pieces of clothing to it. The first was the loincloth, which was wrapped around the groin; it was basically underwear. The second piece of clothing was the tunic, which was much like what we call a “dress.” It was a single piece of clothing worn against the body that covered the chest, the torso, and hung down over the legs. The third piece of clothing was the cloak, which is basically what we call a “coat.” It was the outermost piece of clothing which was also used a blanket at night, and for that reason, Jewish society gave people a virtually inviolable right to keep their coat.

            If the ancient Jews had had a Declaration of Independence, it would have said, “all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life and the right to hang on to your cloak.” According to Exodus 22, if I gave you my cloak as collateral for a loan, you were required to give it back to me at night so I could sleep in it.

            Yet Jesus tells His audience, “Don’t hold even your right to your cloak so tightly that you will not be willing to give it up rather than stoop to the level of an evil and unjust person.” Remember that Jesus is not saying all that could be said about lawsuits or about rights in a republican form of government like ours; rather, He is telling us not to consider our own rights to be all-important. There are goals like honoring God for which we should be willing to sacrifice our rights if the other alternative means dragging God’s name through the mud.

            Once again, our greatest example of this attitude is Jesus Himself. Philippians 2:5-8 describes the extent to which He humbled himself to carry out the plan of salvation: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped [in other words, something to be held on to at all costs], but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

            Think about Jesus’ rights as the Creator of all things. He has the right to the worship and gratitude of His creatures. He has the right to display His glory as God. He has the right to execute judgment against our sins, yet He laid down His own rights to knowingly and willingly endure the greatest injustice the world has ever seen.

            We are to hold our own rights in a similar way. There is no right that we can place into a special category and declare that the violation of that right somehow gives us permission to take revenge. As Philippians 2:5 says, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.”

3. No people are exempt from this command (vv. 41-42)

            Jesus goes on to mention two kinds of people whom we’re often tempted to think are taking advantage of us—those who rule over us and those who ask us for help. First, the Lord says in v. 41, “If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.” The land of Israel at that time was ruled by the Roman Empire. The Jews hated that fact, of course, but there was little that they could do about it. Under the laws of the Empire, soldiers had the right to force private citizens to give them all kinds of assistance, which included carrying their gear up for a distance of up to a mile.

            Now, just imagine if the United States was conquered by a foreign nation and foreign troops lived right here among us and had the authority to make us serve them. You can imagine how deeply we would despise that, so you can imagine how the Jewish people felt as well. But the Lord said that even in that situation, we should be willing to extend generosity and good will. We should be willing to go above and beyond to show kindness even to those who don’t show the same treatment toward us.

            Well, its one thing when someone can force you to help them, but its another when someone simply asks you for help, which is the situation that Jesus mentions in v. 42—“Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.” Once again, remember that Jesus is not saying all that could be said about the subject of giving. Clearly, Jesus is encouraging us to be generous; in fact, I think He’s saying that our default response toward others should be generosity.

            We should not have to be coaxed into helping others, kicking and screaming the whole way. Rather, we should respond with a generosity that has to be reined in so that it is not reckless and actually harmful. This is not an easy attitude to cultivate because it is so easy to think that people are taking advantage of us when they ask for help, and that’s the link that connects this statement to the rest of the paragraph. Whether we suffer real injustice or we’re only tempted to think that others want to take advantage of us, we are not to respond by doing evil. Instead, we are to overcome evil with good.

            Now the reason that we are ever tempted to take revenge on others is that we feel like the person who has done us wrong is going to get off the hook if we don’t do something about it. If we don’t carry out “justice,” we fear that justice will never be served. But the Bible tells us that that simply is not true. Romans 12:19 states, “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.’” Again, the Lord Jesus is our perfect example. To return to 1 Peter 2:23, it says, “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.” This is the way to squash that desire to take revenge—to remember that God will sort everything out in His time. Our role, then, is to do good to those who do evil to us, in the hope that they might repent and embrace Jesus.

            There was once a farmer who was a very ungodly man. He rejected God and mocked the Christians in his community, yet he consistently had better yields from his farm than they did. One year in particular he had a bumper crop, and like usual, he was telling all the Christians how stupid they were for worshiping God. But one wise old farmer simply told him, “God doesn’t settle all of His accounts in October.” Remember that my friends; God will one day settle all of His accounts, and He will see that justice is served. He doesn’t need us to do it for Him now, and He won’t need our help then. Until that day, let us not repay evil for evil, but overcome evil with good.