Theology in the Raw - Love Your Enemies

Episode Date: May 21, 2018

This is a sermon that I preached at Park Hill Church in San Diego, CA. The text of the message was Matthew 5:38-48. The title: Love Your Enemies.

Hello, friends of Theology in the Raw. Thanks for joining me on this episode. What you're going to hear is a sermon that I preached a few weeks ago at Park Hill Church in San Diego, California. My good friend, Evan Wickham, recently planted a church in, I guess it would be, well, it's actually in the Point Loma area in northern San Diego. And I was down in San Diego with my son. We had a weekend away. We're hanging out. And Evan's like, hey, why don't you come over and preach at my church? And I said, okay, let's do it. So I preached a sermon on loving your enemies at Park Hill Church. And what you're going to listen to is the audio of that sermon. Now, the sound quality is not the best. It was a big, tall kind of roof, a little echoey inside, and I was using a handheld mic. It sounded great when you're listening to it in the...

If you're listening to it live, I think it did. It sounded good to me, but then again, I was the one speaking, so what do I know? But it's a little echoey, a little tinny, if that makes any sense. But I really wanted to put this up on the podcast. I think you'll enjoy it. It gives a good kind of overview of my thoughts on loving your enemies. And I guess my thoughts on nonviolence as the general rhythm of Christianity. Now, I think sometimes when we talk about nonviolence, we can get lost into, you know, various scenarios like the killer at the door who's busting in to slaughter your family. Or we can, you know, ask other, what about this? What about that situations?

And, you know, my main concern is not really with what I call absolute nonviolence, although I do hold to that position. That's not my main concern. My main concern is that I do believe that there is a profoundly militaristic spirit that pervades evangelicalism, that we are not known for loving our enemies, that we are not known for having a nonviolent rhythm woven throughout evangelical Christianity in America. That's my main concern. My main concern isn't really with these sort of, what about this? What about that? Theoretical situations. It's with the general rhythm of Christianity. So I think this sermon captures a lot of my heart on that topic. So without further ado, here is my sermon on loving your enemies at Park Hill.

It's an honor to be at Park Hill. I've known about you guys longer than you've known about you guys. When this was just like an idea in Evan's mind, we were sitting there three years ago in Portland and you were like, here's my vision for starting a church. And I remember a mutual friend of ours was like, ah, I don't know if that'll work. What about this? What about that? What about this? And you're like, I'm going to do this. We're going to do this. This is something Jesus has laid on my heart. We're going for it. And three years later, here we are. This is really amazing. amazing. Probably the most in shape church I've ever seen. Churches don't look like this in the Midwest, by the way. I've lived in Ohio and you guys are

really, we just keep going with that? Is that, okay. In 1999, I had chased a baseball dream down to Chula Vista, California. I grew up in Fresno, California, and had been raised in kind of a Christian home, but wasn't really living it out. Went to Chula Vista, California, and for a young 18, 19-year-old kid who's not really walking with the Lord to be living on your own in the greater San Diego area was not really good for me. And I spiraled just downhill.

And I remember in spring of 1999, I was faced with the decision of either living out this verbal confession that I had, but was a life that didn't reflect it. I had to either decide, am I gonna live this stuff out, or, and the true story, or am I gonna move to PB and just live it up? Because that's where I used to hang out.

We'd commute from Chula Vista to get involved in all kinds of debauchery and PB. I came this close to making that latter decision to just, to bend my confession around the way I was living, which was not like Jesus at all. But God broke into my life in 1999 through a friend, a simple friend who just said, you say you're a Christian, but you're not living like it. And I made the decision through the power of Jesus to go full on into this Christian thing

and haven't looked back since. So this is really a cool time for me to be back in the hometown where Jesus met me in really special ways. where Jesus met me in really special ways. I want to read to you the text that was, in many ways, given to me. I mean, this is the one date that I can come down and speak at Park Hill Church. This happened to be the text that you were going through, right? I mean, this wasn't manipulated, I don't think. It was, this is just the way it worked out. This happens to be a text that has been a challenging passage and in many ways a life-altering, life-shaping

passage in my life. So let's read it together. We're gonna read from Matthew chapter five, verse 38 to 48. I wanna read the whole thing and then I wanna come back and unpack, not every single word here. We don't have time to go through every single word, but unpack kind of the gist, the thrust, the rhythm that's flowing throughout this passage.

Let's read it. Matthew chapter five, verse 38. You have heard that it was said, eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth, but I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt,

hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks. Do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. 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 children of your father in heaven. Because he causes the sun to rise on evil and good, and he sends rain on the

righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Do not even tax collectors do that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect. Therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect. Father, we pray that your spirit would invigorate our hearts, that it would convict us and bend our values around your word rather than bending the word around our values. In Christ's name we pray, amen. This is a tough passage. It raises a lot of questions.

And if I can be totally honest, it is a bit ironic that I am going to speak on this passage and try to unpack what I think Jesus is getting at here. Because, I mean, there's nothing in my, if I can say my emotional or if I can even say my political or even religious upbringing that agrees with much of what is written here. You see, I was raised, and I don't know where it came from, but it's just this sort of subculture or just raised breathing the air that says that you should destroy your enemy? That if somebody slaps you on the cheek, you cut his heart out with a dull spoon and go after his family. I remember growing up as a kid, and for some reason, I hated Germans. Because I was raised on a steady diet of World War II films.

Then somebody took me aside and says, well, you know, you're actually part German, right? Which I am. And there's this thing called the Cold War, and now the Russians are the bad guys. So I started hating Russians. Cold War and now the Russians are the bad guys. So I started hating Russians. I remember cheering for all of my might during Desert Storm in 1991 because I was so excited that I got to live through a war where we get to annihilate the bad guys. where we get to annihilate the bad guys. In 2011, when 9-11 hit,

I remember thinking, let's just nuke the entire Middle East and let's just wipe everything clean out there because that's where the terrorists, oh sure, there'll be some collateral damage, some babies that will be destroyed. Who cares? Let's just go overpower with more excessive power. I can never even imagine.

And this is the thing, like I was raised, again, with kind of a Christian environment. And in my mind, it was unchristian to love your enemies and not destroy them. You know, loving your enemies and not destroy them. Loving your enemies was only for pacifists and pansies and pot-smoking hippies who couldn't win a fight anyway. A real Christian, a real manly man, a real godly man destroys his enemy and then goes after their family to prove a point. But over the last several years,

I've been truly confronted and challenged and in some ways compelled by the counterintuitive, countercultural nature of the Christian life where there is an otherworldly power that moves through perceived weakness. You cannot read the Gospels and walk away being challenged by the very bewildering things that Jesus says. by the very bewildering things that Jesus says. And so this morning, I wanna,

let me just, some of you are gonna really resonate with what I'm saying. So for some of you, I may be preaching to the choir. Some of you may be like, oh, man, that's challenging. I need to think about that. Some of you may be really resistant to what I'm saying. And here, as a guest speaker,

my job is not to say thou shalt must believe this or do that or whatever. Here's my challenge to you is I'm gonna read a lot. We're gonna go through a lot of Bible today. I'm gonna hide behind the scriptures. I will make a lot of comments that try to draw out the meaning of the text. So here's, you need to wrestle with and consider and think through

the interpretive things that I'm gonna say. And you're allowed to wrestle with that. And you're allowed to kind of say, oh, is this really what this text means? Oh, is this really how it applies to today? But you're not, if you're a Christian, you're not allowed to disagree with the Bible. So I'm gonna just, I'm gonna read a lot of scripture.

You're not allowed to disagree with that if you claim to be a Christian. If you're not a Christian, you could disagree with the entire thing. That's just what it means to not be a Christian, right? But with the way I'm going to draw out some of these passages, you're allowed to wrestle with that.

And you can email Evan afterwards and say, don't ever have this guy back, or hey, let's consider these things or whatever. So what is Jesus talking about here? You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. That actually comes from the Bible. That comes from the book of Exodus. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. It's called the law of retaliation. Now, in the ancient context, the point behind eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth was designed to limit the level of retaliation that somebody could legally take to somebody that attacked them.

Now, in the ancient world, the context was very, it wasn't trying to give a free license to retaliate. It was trying to limit the level of payback somebody could take. Because in the ancient context, if somebody poked out your eye, you can poke out both of his eyes and maybe cut off his ears. You pay back excessively if somebody harmed you. So eye for an eye, tooth for tooth in the Old Testament context was trying to limit that. So the spirit of eye for an eye, tooth for tooth was to limit the level of violent retaliation, not to allow for it, not to encourage it. Okay. You see that? So I think Jesus is going back to the original spirit of the original law and he takes it to an even further extreme. And

he goes on to say, do not resist the evil person. Now that, that sounds almost theologically incorrect. And it might be if you don't understand what Jesus means by the term resist. The term resist, enthystemia, not that it matters, but that's the Greek word, just so you know that I know what I'm talking about. I don't I hate when preachers throw around Greek words and just like, oh, look at me. But this one actually matters. Like enthystemia is often used in the Old Testament to refer to violent military resistance, like killing your enemy. It's used throughout Josephus, first century Jewish writer. Whenever Josephus would write about kind of first century revolts, where people would like try to slaughter the Romans who were oppressing them, he would use this word.

So it has built in it, not just resisting categorically, but a certain kind of violent resistance. N.T. Wright, who's a New Testament scholar, the dude's so brilliant, he like made his own translation of the New Testament. And he translates this verse, do not use violence to resist evil. And I think that's what draws out the main point that Jesus means here when he says don't resist evil. He's not saying, Jesus is not saying don't stand against evil. He's not saying don't confront evil.

He's not saying don't oppose evil. I don't even think he's saying don't resist evil in the sense of the English term resistance, which is just very broad. He's addressing a certain kind of resistance. There are worldly ways of resisting evil. And then there are Christian ways of resisting evil. And then there are Christian ways of resisting evil. And in order to draw this out, Jesus gives five examples of what this non-violent resistance could look like.

Now these aren't exhaustive. could look like. Now these aren't exhaustive. And I don't even think they're meant to be kind of a legalistic like prescription of here's five commands that are really the main point. Jesus is just kind of giving a, if I can, pun intended, a shotgun of examples of here's what this could look like in your context. So the focus isn't so much on the individual things he's gonna give here, but these are just kind of illustrating what this could look like on the ground. But the main point is don't violently resist evil,

which is connected to loving your enemies, which we'll get to in a second. So for instance, just a few of these examples that he gives. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn them the other also. And this one's really tough, really tough. But again, it's underneath the overarching idea of don't violently resist evil.

This is still a form of resisting evil. This is not passive cowardice, but aggressive, counterintuitive, nonviolent resistance. There's a story about Martin Luther King. He was given a speech one day, I forget the exact year, but he was on stage giving a speech and a Nazi walked forward, walked up on stage and boom, decked Martin Luther King in the face. Martin Luther King stumbled back and then he stood up. Boom, got hit again.

Walked up, looked the man in the face, face to face. Boom, and then finally the people rushed the stage, got the guy, threw him in the face, face to face. Boom! And then finally, people rushed the stage, got the guy, threw him to the ground, hauled him off to another room. They're ready to just call the authorities or whatever. Martin Luther King comes in with a bloody face to the room and said, we're not gonna press any charges. You're free to go.

And you are, you're forgiven for everything that you have done. You can go your way. Grabbed a bag of ice, held it to his face, and walked up on stage and finished his speech. Let me tell you, there's no doubt in anyone's mind in that room who won the fight. You see? mine in that room who won the fight. You see? Opposing evil with nonviolence has power in perceived weakness. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, give him your coat also. The coat is this outer garment that was way more valuable than your shirt, okay? So, because in that day, like, the coat was like a trench coat almost, where it can double as like, you know, almost like a sleeping bag if you were found, you know, halfway on a journey and you had to sleep outside. The coat was like super, super

valuable. Here, it's like someone wants to take something that's of lesser value than give him something that is of more value to you. Go the extra mile, which is actually exactly what he says in the next verse. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. In first century, it was common for the Roman soldiers who were occupying Israel,

they had these huge heavy packs and they would often make their subjects, in this case it would be Jews, to carry their very, very heavy pack to the next station about a mile away. It was really a way of shaming the people that you're ruling over. And Jesus says, don't let that happen.

They're not shaming you. You turn around to that person trying to shame you and you serve them and see what happens. And you take that pack and after the guy's snickering and laughing and saying, all right, I'll take my pack back. You can say, you know what? I'll carry this with you for another mile. It doesn't make sense.

These commands are designed not to make sense. These don't make sense. It looks like you're losing. But in God's world, you're actually winning. It doesn't feel good, and in the eyes of the world, you lose. But through the lens of Jesus' death and resurrection, on behalf of his enemies, you win because you've already won.

Because Jesus has won. He is sitting at the right hand of the father precisely because he chose to submit to a violent attack. He chose to suffer, and according to Philippians 2, it was because he suffered that God highly exalted him to reign above all kingdoms of the earth because he met violence with suffering. And he diffused it, he destroyed it, and he burst forth through the grave because he first suffered. There's perceived, there's strength in perceived weakness in God's kingdom. Service is authority in God's kingdom. Remember when Jesus knelt down and washed the feet of his disciples, including Judas? Took upon the form of a slave. He got down into a loincloth, knelt down and washed those dirty, grimy feet.

And again, there is no question from anyone in that room that night who was in charge. This is not passiveness. This is not passiveness. This is cross-centered, cruciform self-giving that manifests the power of heaven. And it contains an otherworldly power that you will not know until you try it.

Jesus goes on to say, you have heard that it was said, love your neighbors and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be children of your father in heaven. Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Where did that come from? Well, it kind of has some Old Testament roots. Leviticus 19.18 says, love your neighbor as yourself. That wasn't, Jesus didn't invent love your neighbor as yourself. That comes from Leviticus. There's no verse in the Old Testament that says hate your enemy. But if you've read the Old Testament recently, you can get that impression that we're supposed to hate, you know, Canaanites because they slaughtered them. And the Psalms, the Psalms can be really violent. I remember reading the Psalms the other day to my kids.

You know, there's that one, Psalm 139, you have knit my inward parts. You have formed me. And it's just a beautiful passage, but right after it says, you know, may you dash the enemy's children against the rocks. My kids were like, um, um. I'm like, no, it's time for bed.

You gotta go. And there's other Psalms that come kind of close to hating your enemy, at least it feels like that. But the exact phrase, hate your enemy, isn't anywhere in the Old Testament. But it seems that this, because there is, you could kind of get the idea that maybe we can hate our enemy in the Old Testament.

It seems that in the first century, it became kind of a Jewish slogan. Love your neighbor, but hate your enemy. And Jesus says, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. This command becomes one of the most distinguishing features of Christianity for the first 300 years. The love your enemies is not some subsidiary virtue floating on the fringe of Christian behavior, Christian ethic. This becomes central to the Christian faith. I want to

prove that to you, because that really is one of the most important things I'm going to say this morning, is that this love your enemy isn't just, well, okay, that's that verse over there. Yeah, it's kind of hard, but well, who's our enemy? And you kind of, you know, excuse it. This love your enemy becomes woven throughout the very fabric of christianity it's what makes christianity christianity and there's other there's other important things okay but i'm saying that this is a is woven throughout the heart of what christianity looks like jesus says in luke 6 i'm just going to go through a bunch of these you know do good those who hate you, bless those who curse you,

pray for those who persecute you, and two more times in Luke 6, he says, you shall love your enemies. On the night when Jesus was betrayed, Peter took out his sword and chopped off the dude's ear. Remember, he's trying to arrest Jesus, he chops off the guy's ear, and Jesus says, put your sword away, Peter. He who lives by the sword will die by the sword. In Luke chapter nine,

Jesus and the disciples are going through the land of Samaria and they were rejected from the village. Like, nope, you can't stay here. And James and John pulled Jesus aside and says, hey, do you want us to call down fire from heaven and just consume them? Oh, sure, there'll be collateral damage,

but hey, they rejected us. They deserve it. Let's just burn down the whole village because they treated us wrongly. Oh, that resonates. That resonates with some Christians I talk to and hear Christians talk about how we should treat our enemies.

Let's burn down the whole village. Let's overpower power with power. And Jesus hands them a swift rebuke for their spirit. Before Pilate, on the night he was betrayed, he stood before Pilate. Actually, this is in the morning sometime, a Friday. And Pilate hears that Jesus is a king and he gets a little nervous because in the first century, the very idea of king meant overpowering others with military might. The very idea of kingdom. The very idea of the term kingdom. And even salvation meant you achieved salvation. You established a kingdom through overpowering

everybody else with more power. Let's burn down the whole village and establish our kingdom. And before Pilate, Jesus says, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would be fighting. Yes, I have a kingdom, but it's a kingdom that's very different from your kingdom, Pilate. Yes, I have a kingdom, but it's very different from a couple hundred years before Jesus when the Maccabees overthrew the Greek overlords through excessive use of force. Yes, I have a kingdom, but it's very different from your kingdom, Pilate,

because you overpowered power with power. Look, you got a lot of power going on here. The Roman military machine was invincible. My kingdom's very different. Oh, I could call down the authorities if I wanted to. Don't you take my non-resistance as weakness. Oh, I can make a phone call right now and wipe out everybody because I'm not going to do that

because my kingdom is not of this world. It contains a different power, a more powerful power that's going to end in crucifixion in absorbing the violence that you're dishing out. And I'm gonna burst through the grave and establish my kingdom on earth and it's gonna look very different than anything else you have ever seen.

It's gonna contain foot washing servants who are going to love their enemies and not kill them. And it's through that that we are going to conquer the world. Jesus' last words on the cross, forgive them father, they know not what they do. Some form of enemy love was also shot through the rest of the New Testament. I keep using violent metaphors, shot through. It's just in me, it's in my blood. First Peter chapter two, to this you were called because Christ suffered for you,

leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps. So some people could say, oh yeah, you know, Jesus, he had to get crucified because he had to die an atoning death for the sins of the world. And that's true. That's true. Jesus was unique and he had to get crucified and some people say therefore we don't need to follow jesus's life in that in that regard but peter first peter disagrees he says yes yes it contains atoning atoning value for sinners and it forgives our sins but it also jesus also laid down a pattern for us to follow to this you recall were called because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example. This is 1 Peter 2, 21. That you should follow in his footsteps. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate. When he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted

himself to the one who judges justly. Paul in Romans 12 repeats all kinds of stuff from the words of Jesus he says bless those who persecute you bless those who curse you repay no one evil for evil if your enemy is hungry feed him if he's thirsty give him something to drink never avenge yourselves but leave it to the wrath of God for it is written vengeance is mine I. See, that's also an important piece here. We can exhibit perceived weakness. We can be defeated because we have the ultimate hope that God will dish out perfect justice in the end. We don't need to take justice against our enemies

in this day and age. God will settle that in the end. justice against our enemies in this day and age, God will settle that in the end. The book of Hebrews, in Hebrews chapter 10, this is, I don't know what this author was smoking here, but this passage is so counterintuitive. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 32, he's writing to probably Jewish Christians in the first century in first century Palestine and after Christianity had been around

for a couple decades there was a lot of persecution from Jewish people to the Christians a lot of animosity and the author whoever it is you know is encouraging them in their suffering. He says in chapter 10, verse 32,

you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction and sometimes being partners with those who were so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property. Since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. and an abiding one. That is so un-American. Who joyfully accepts the plundering of our property since, not because I couldn't do anything about it.

He had a bigger gun. I tried to stop him, but he got away, ran away with my flat screen. No, no, you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property because you have a better possession. We have a better hope. This world is not our home.

We are exiles in Babylon. If the Babylonians want to come and take their stuff, we're like, it's cool. We have a better possession and an abiding one. Stephen in the book of Acts echoes the words of Jesus. He says, do not hold the sin against them as he was getting stoned. Not smoking dope. I got to clarify that in California. People in Idaho where I'm from know what I'm talking about. He was getting rocks thrown at him. Lord, forgive them of what they are doing. Revelation chapter five. I got it. Oh man, this, okay. The book of Revelation, because some people say, oh, what about Revelation? I'm like, Revelation, the book of Revelation is,

everything I'm saying, I think, is written throughout the book of Revelation. I mean, the book of Revelation is about a bunch of Christians conquering the world and conquering Satan through martyrdom. In Revelation chapter five, verse five, John is, he sees this vision of heaven, a scene of heaven, the curtains are pulled back

and he looks and in the context, everybody's weeping in heaven because there's a scroll. There's a scroll and nobody has power to open the scroll. And there's a debate about what does a scroll and nobody has power to open the scroll and and there's a debate about what does the scroll represent it's got writing on the inside and outside and and a lot of scholars think that the scroll represents like the the title deed of creation like whoever can open the scroll has power and authority over all creation And everybody's weeping because nobody has that power, but then steps forth a lion of the tribe of Judah,

the root of David, and because he has conquered, he can open the scroll and break its seven seals. Now, when you think of lion, you think of a ravaging beast. King of the jungle, right? A powerful animal that crushes and destroys anything else, anyone else. And it says that he has conquered.

The word conquer, it comes from the word where we get the word Nike. It's Nikao. In fact, the noun is Nike. And it's almost exclusively used of overpowering power with power, of conquering others through destruction, through annihilating them.

And here it says, this lion has conquered, but then John hears about the lion that is conquered and then he turns around and he sees a slaughtered lamb. A lamb standing as though it had been slaughtered. This is one of the most profound sort of blending or mixing or offsetting metaphors of the power of the person and work of Jesus Christ. He

is this authority over all authorities. He is this powerful king like a lion and he has conquered. He has destroyed. How? By being a slaughtered lamb. Power in perceived weakness. He became a lion because he first became a slaughtered lamb. In Revelation chapter 12, we get to participate in this. Revelation 12 verses 10 and following. I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, Now salvation and power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of Christ have come. Don't you think those terms are awesome? Salvation, power, kingdom, authority. For the accuser, Satan, has been thrown down. He's been destroyed.

He accuses people day and night. Jesus, power and a kingdom and authority bringing salvation has destroyed Satan. And those who follow him have conquered, verse 11, how? By the blood of the lamb. They conquered because Jesus was conquered by being defeated and it's through that suffering that he gained heavenly power and now reigns from on high. They conquered him by the blood of the lamb.

We have conquered Satan because Jesus was submitted to death and by the word of our testimony because we loved our lives not even to death. Martyrdom. our lives not even to death. Martyrdom. You know, the first 300 years of Christianity,

the early church actually believed this stuff and they lived it out. By the end of the first century, Christians made up 0.02% of the Roman Empire. 0.02%. That's a tiny fraction of Rome, the Roman Empire, that was committed to Jesus. And it's in the next 200 years, from about 100 to about 300 AD, they were brutally persecuted, burned at the stake, torn apart by wild animals, eaten by lions, quartered by horses.

You know what quartering is? They were literally grilled and toasted alive. They were skinned alive, crucified upside down like St. Bartholomew. What I love about this is it wasn't just the dudes that were getting martyred. There were many women who went to the stake, like Perpetua, this famous female martyr when the soldier was coming with the sword,

she was tied up, coming with the sword, and he was going for her throat, and he was about to miss. And Perpetua, this godly woman following Jesus, took the sword and redirected it to her heart because she knew, she knew that her death contained more power than her life. She knew that her death would actually expand the mission

and further the kingdom of God. At the end of those 200 years where Christians are brutally persecuted and killed, the church grew from 0.02% to 10% of the Roman Empire. You can kill us. You can kill us. You can torture us. You can take our stuff, step on our toes,

plunder our property, cause pain and suffering, but you cannot kill us. You cannot destroy us. You cannot stop the mission because God has infused this world, he's infused the kingdom with this weird ingredient of suffering

that the more we suffer, the more God's kingdom overpowers the world. The more you kill us, the more you torture us, the more we grow. We're like a starfish. Is that where you cut it off? That was on the fly, okay?

The more you try to destroy us, the more power we get. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the early church, says Tertullian, early church father. You know what the most quoted verse in the early church was? The verse that they went to the most quoted verse in the early church was? The verse that they went to the most, the John 3.16 of early Christianity was love your enemies. It's quoted 28 times by 10 different authors in the first 300 years of Christianity. It was the favorite verse among early Christians. It was the first thing that came to mind

when the Roman Empire thought about Christians. Oh, you heard about those Christians next door? Oh, they're having a house gathering? Oh, those Christians that we just killed a couple of the other day? What comes to mind? Love your enemies. That was the thing that signified Christianity more than anything else.

So my question to you is, is that true today? When the world thinks of, let's just say, American Christianity, is the first thing that comes to mind, oh, those are the people that love their enemies. those are the people that love their enemies. It hasn't been in my experience, if you travel outside America especially,

and say, oh, when you think of American Christianity, do you think suffering and do you think, oh, those are the people that love their enemies? Now, some of you are thinking, okay, okay, let me just, I got to clarify this. Some of you are thinking, okay, okay, but when do we get to kill the bad guys? What about the guy breaking into my home, dead set on killing my family? Can I at least shoot her? Oh, yeah, it's always a guy, right? Look, my main, please hear me.

My main point is not that we all need to become like pacifists. It's not my main point. I don't even think it's the main point of what Jesus is saying here in Matthew 5 to be clear could there be space for violence as a last resort lesser to evils rare situations where somebody is coming coming into your home just dead set on on killing your family he's got no moral agency he's just I'm gonna shoot and the only way you can stop him is by killing him go ahead blow his head off let's I'm not here to argue that in these kind of, whatever,

as a last resort. Here's my main point, the point I will take a bullet for. Non-violent, non-retaliatory, counterintuitive, countercultural, sacrificial enemy love should be the dominant, most pervasive rhythm of evangelical Christianity. That should be the river that is flowing throughout the heart of evangelical Christianity. And yet it's not. We clearly live in a culture where loving your enemies is absurd.

It's absurd. It's absurd. It doesn't make any sense. There was a poll that went out in December of 2015, and it wanted to get kind of political perspectives, and it asked Democrats and Republicans. One of the questions on that poll was, should we bomb Agrabah? Do you think we should bomb Agrabah?

And 30% of Republicans says, yeah, I think the right move here is to bomb Agrabah. 19% of Democrats says, yeah, I think we should go ahead and bomb Agrabah. Agrabah is a made-up city in the cartoon Aladdin. We live in a country where a decent percentage of its population is ready to bomb a city because it has an Arab-sounding name. That's frightening. You cannot get more polar opposite values than New Testament Christianity in terms of how to respond to evil or perceived evil or cartoon cities with Arab names.

And what our culture says about how to treat our enemies. Andrew Bosovich is a Vietnam vet. He's a military historian. He's not a Christian. He might be Roman Catholic, I think. I'm not even sure. And he's a world-renowned military historian who served in the military. He's not against military at all.

I mean, every country needs a military. He's not against serving in the military. He served in the military, Vietnam vet. What he's troubled by is the over-fascination and misguided trust and hope in this massive, historically unprecedented military machine that we have here in America. And in a book titled The New American Militarism, where he says, I don't think this is healthy, this over fascination with military might. And he says in that book,

and I quote, were it not for the support offered by several tens of millions of evangelicals, this kind of militarism in this country is inconceivable. I'm not talking about having a military, I'm not talking about serving in the military, I'm talking about a militaristic spirit that says the best way, the first way to conquer evil is by an aggressive use of worldly power. Jerry Farwell Jr., the Christian leader of the largest Christian institution in the history of Christianity, that's a fact.

He told his students to bring guns to chapel so that they can kill the Muslims before the Muslims kill us. So word to the wise, don't bring your Muslim friends to chapel at Liberty University. I have to wonder if the values of American Christianity have trickled down and shaped our value system more than the counter-cultural, counter-intuitive spirit of New Testament Christianity. And what's more is I feel it in my own life. There's not a day that I wake up

when I don't feel the press and the pull of wanting to overcome my enemies with more power. And so let me take this down to just real nitty gritty earthy stuff, okay? So last summer, I've got this, just this jerk of a neighbor. And he's one of these guys that his God is his private property. And I kid you not, if his weed grows up over my fence and starts bending over my fence and I cut it, he gets really upset. I can't believe you would just violate my private property. It's a weed. It's coming over my fence. My kids built this tree fort and it wasn't

the most safest thing. I gave him hammer and nails and said, go for it. It's just kind of how we parent. They'll figure it out. And he comes out taking pictures of the fort like, hey, what are you doing, man? Oh, I don't want one of your kids, you know, falling over my fence on my property and, you know, you might sue me, you know. He's more interested in being sued than my kid breaking their neck. He's taking pictures and all that. He's just a not nice person. I was going to go somewhere else. But one day my, my rule, just rules and private property and, you know, my stuff and get away from my stuff. And we were walking our dog one day and we have a shock collar around him.

I don't need, this is how Idahoans do it. I don't know if that's like horrific if you're an animal that is shocked. I don't know. Is that, we don't use it a lot, but he, you know. So we don't put him on a leash. We have a shock collar. And apparently there's a law

that you're supposed to have him on a leash. And it's like, come on, it's Idaho. We don't really obey laws up there and my wife and kids were taking the dog on a walk and he stands out front put your dog on a leash put your dog on a leash I wasn't there I was I was on a run I was running screaming at my wife and children I've got three daughters and a son sitting over here. My wife's kind of a fighter. She yells back, trim your trees because he's overgrown.

So I go home from my run. I'm all sweaty. And my wife says, hey, the neighbor was like yelling at me about putting my dog on a leash. And I was furious, furious. And this surge of adrenaline goes through me. I make a beeline to his front door. He's out there doing some stuff.

And I got up in his grill. I didn't physically use violence, but I dismantled his humanity and lost my Christianity for about five minutes face to face. Don't you dare talk to my wife that way, you coward. You have something to say to me. You come to me.

Do you understand me? Well, she put my, I don't care. I don't give a rat's. I was swearing. I was. I'm not a pastor, so I can swear. My goal was to dismantle his humanity and overpower with verbal power. I came back. I was shaking. It took about a week for that to wear off. And then I came back, I was shaking. It took about a week for that to wear off. And then I was like, he doesn't know Jesus. Was that at all even close to the gospel?

I don't like the fact that he talked to my wife that way. There's got to be a more Jesus way to go about that conversation. So I got this idea. He loves to work with wood and I'm like, I'm going to go to Lowe's and I'm going to buy like a $50 gift card and give it to him and say, you know what? I'm really sorry I talked to you like that. And every time I drove by Lowe's, I was like, I'll do it tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow. I drive by again. I'll do it tomorrow. I even told my kids I was going to do this, you know, and they got all excited. Kids love, they, Christianity is just way more easy. They're just like, yeah, of course you should do that, dad. I can't believe you yell at them, you know, like, yes, I'd come home. Dad, did you do it yet? Did you buy him the car? No, no. And then I was away speaking last summer, July in Denver, and I was talking to my wife

and she says, hey, I want you to know that the ambulance just came and they hauled away our neighbor in a body bag. He was working on his little gazebo he was making and he fell flat on his back. He died, I think I've cried. I'm not a crier to my own fault. Again, I was raised with this thing that men don't cry. That's not biblical. Okay? It's just, in me, it's hard for me to cry.

And I bawled my eyes out, screaming out to God, why, why was I so quick to overpower power with power and so slow to respond with this otherworldly grace and forgiveness that would have been way more effective and had way more power than screaming in his face. So some of you have a neighbor, a friend, a relative, an enemy. Maybe it's not an uppercase E enemy, but maybe it's a lowercase E enemy. Don't delay. I still wake up with this,

why didn't I just choose obedience? Why did I wait? Don't wait. Because he who loves their enemy is no longer left with enemies. They're left only with neighbors. Let's pray. Christ, thank you for loving us when we were enemies. Thank you for not destroying us when we were enemies. Thank you for loving us

when we were enemies. Thank you for dying for us to submitting to power when we were enemies. Thank you for loving us with the most perfect counter-cultural, counter-intuitive enemy love. God, give us the strength of your spirit to echo the rhythm of your son. Amen. Bye.