Matthew 5:38-48 | Retaliation and Love Your Enemies

Sermon Notes

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Preacher: Joel Fair
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Matthew 4:17
From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Matthew 5:17 & 20
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them…For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven

Psalm 51:17
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise

Psalm 34:18
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit

Deuteronomy 6:4-6
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

RETALIATION
Leviticus 24:17-20
Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death. Whoever takes an animal’s life shall make it good, life for life. If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him.

LOVE YOUR ENEMIES
Leviticus 19:17-18.
You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.

Who can walk in the way of the King?
A. Only the king has walked it perfectly
B. Jesus the King was humiliated and suffered it without resisting
C. Jesus bore our sin and shame all the way to the cross.
1. He was slapped in the face before the High Priest
2. He was stripped naked and bare by the soldiers outside Pilates court
3. He was conscripted to carry his own cross to his death
4. Even on the cross he was begged of by the dying thief and he did not
withhold but offered grace for his belief
D. Now we too can walk in the way of the King

Hebrews 10:12-14
But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.