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MATTHEW 5:43-48

"AGAPE YOUR ENEMIES"

I. PHARISEE'S TEACHING "LOVE NEIGHBOR, HATE ENEMIES."
        A. Where in O.T. Law was basis?
                1. Truly law taught to love neighbor - no command to hate.
                2. The idea of hate your enemies, from God's command to wipe out inhabitants 
                   of land.
                        a. Or perhaps David's imprecatory Psalms.
                        b. In both cases this was judicial not a personal individual affair.
                                1. David's attitude toward Saul.
                                2. David's enemies - are those opposed to God   speaks of 
                                   them as general not individual.
                                3. Christ denunciation of Pharisees in Matt. 23, again 
                                   Judicial pronouncements of judgment.
        B. What Pharisees taught.
                1. "Love thy neighbor."
                        a. Who is my neighbor?
                        b. They taught only the Jewish your neighbor.
                        c. Jesus parable Samaritan.
                2. Hate your enemies.
                        a. Your duty to hate all who were not Jews.
                        b. O.T. commands to show kindness and love toward stranger ignored.

II. WHAT JESUS TAUGHT. "LOVE (AGAPE) THY ENEMIES."
        A. Next few statements so difficult that volumes have been written to explain it away.
        B. Jesus illustrates "love your enemies by."
                1. If you are cursed - bless.
                2. Do good to those that hate you.
                3. Pray for those who dispite fully use you and persecute you.
        C. God's love to set example.
                1. He makes sun to rise on evil and the good.
                2. He sends the rain on just and unjust.
                3. "But God commendeth His Love toward us."
                4. "If when we were enemies of God."
                5. Had God not loved sinful, rebellious, hating world, where would we be?
        D. God's perfection to be our goal. "Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father in
           heaven is perfect."

III. HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO OBEY CHRIST'S COMMAND?
        A. We must be detached.
                1. From the actions of other.
                        a. Else we are prone to react.
                2. From ourselves - for until you are detached from yourself you can never be
                   detached from what others do to you.
                3. Death to self again imperative.
        B. We must be filled with His Spirit.
                1. "Now the fruit of the Spirit is love."
                2. Love is a part of the nature of God.
                3. To love an enemy is a impossible command to a natural man.