Judgement

Summary:

The sermon explores the contrast between the hurried pace of modern life and the slower, more intentional rhythms of the kingdom of God. It emphasizes practices like observing the Sabbath and the church calendar, particularly during Advent, as times for spiritual reflection and preparation. The teachings of Jesus on the narrow path are highlighted as guiding principles that lead to a life filled with love, joy, peace, grace, and contentment. Instead of getting entangled in political or societal issues, the sermon encourages focusing on Jesus’ teachings to foster true unity and understanding.

Personal anecdotes underscore the value of seeing every human interaction as an opportunity to embody the gospel through love and service to others. The sermon stresses the importance of loving one’s enemies, praying for those who persecute you, and avoiding hypocrisy and echo chambers. It advocates for genuine love and forgiveness, contrasting Old Testament justice with Jesus’ path of compassion. The role of the church in helping those in need and spreading God’s message of salvation is emphasized, along with the encouragement to trust in God over earthly figures.

Reflecting on Psalm 23, the sermon invites inclusivity, welcoming everyone to God’s table, even in the presence of adversaries. It concludes with a prayer by William Meninger, centered on love and forgiveness, and personal reflections on the challenges of living out these teachings.

Transcript:

The kingdom of God moves at a different pace. Would you agree or disagree? I agree. All right. Good thing we're all on the same page. Life moves quickly. You kind of wake up one day and you look back and all of a sudden, you know, the stereotypical things.

Your kids are grown or they're growing or they're much older than they were. Your hair is more gray or gone and you kind of look around and think like, what in the world is going on?

Time just moves so fast. In the beginning of scripture, we read of the story of the world being created and ordered. There's the story of the world itself popping up into existence and the functions of worlds with the light and darkness, water and land. The animals are around and present and people are there. And in this good and wonderful creation, there is perfect peace and harmony with God, with one's self, with one's neighbor, and with creation itself. And it's this beautiful picture of the grace and goodness of God filling the hearts and lives of people, filling the hearts and lives of the world, and just this peace that ensues. And part of that creation is a pace of life where we are able to move and do and work, but do so at a pace in which we are also able to be present, to be present to God, to be present with ourself, for God to be present with us.

And what we read is that on the seventh day, if you know the story, you know that God rested. That seventh day would come to be known as Sabbath. Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments. It's something that the people of God have been, has been a part of their lives from the beginning and throughout history. The early Christians practiced Sabbath. And it's this idea that God moves at a different pace than the rest of creation and the rest of the world. One of the ways that we practice Sabbath here at is by, or practice a different pace of life, is by leaning into the church calendar. And the church calendar is a little different than our regular calendar, being that it actually begins, or the new year of the church begins with the season of Advent, which is four Sundays before Christmas.

And the whole idea of Advent is to wait and to prepare. And so as has become tradition here at Journey, we lean into that season, which is usually full and going from one thing to another without any real time to stop and to pay attention and to reflect on the significance of the season that we are in. And we want to do whatever possible to slow that time down in order that we can focus in and be present to the Holy Spirit as we move through the Advent season and prepare for Christmas. One of the things that we do in order to accomplish that is that on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, which this year happens to be November 23rd, we gather together for a brunch and a time of celebration and preparation as we talk about what does it mean to celebrate the season of Advent individually as our family units, whatever that unit might be, and also together as a church. And so I want to invite you to mark your calendar for November 23rd. We are going to gather here for a great brunch for good company. We're going to build Advent wreaths together, or if you built an Advent wreath, you can bring yours that you have and spruce it up.

And then you'll receive a guide in order to be able to celebrate Advent at home that connects with how we're celebrating Advent here as a church. And it is a great time. So put that on your calendar. Plan to be here for that. If you want more information about what does that look like, let us know and we will be sure to get that to you. But for now, we are winding down our series in the Sermon on the Mount. Today, we're talking about loving our enemies.

Next week, we're talking about the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray in the Sermon on the Mount. And then we'll bring it to a conclusion. But as we have been talking about this Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, we have noted that this is the foundation for what does it mean to follow the way of Jesus. What does it mean to be the people of God? What does it mean to have our allegiance in the kingdom of God? Faithfulness to the Sermon on the Mount is the definition of what it means to be followers of Jesus. As Jesus called it, he highlighted that this, being obedience to this teaching, is being on the narrow way or the narrow path.

And so that's what we have been talking about, is how do we live on the narrow path, and then what results from that. And the promise of Jesus, the compelling vision of Jesus, is that for those who are able to live on the narrow path, which, remember, this is not talking about Christians versus non-Christians. This is talking about people who are living on the narrow path versus people who aren't. This is not about belief. It is about a way of life. Jesus is highlighting patterns that we employ in our lives, empowered by the Holy Spirit, that lead to expanding love, unending joy, increasing peace, deepening grace, and fulfilling contentment. Those are the properties that become true in our lives as we follow down this narrow way. And I want to point out, because of where we are currently in the life of our country, that as Jesus compelled us in this narrow way, as he proclaimed these truths in the Sermon on the Mount, he never once mentioned the role of politicians.

He never talked about election results or the direction of a nation. In fact, when Jesus highlighted the narrow way, he talked about how it would put people on it in conflict with both the self-righteous religious folk and the people who lived in the culture at large. And Jesus called his followers to navigate this narrow way that leads away from both of these camps into a totally different way of living and understanding and existing in the world that we live in. And that is good news for all of us. Jesus invited us individually and collectively as the church to live into the realities of the kingdom of God, regardless of what is going on around us, regardless of what our society is doing and the direction that it is going. Now, that doesn't mean that the way that our society is going is unimportant or not of interest to the people of God. It just means that we are living on the narrow way, which is a way that is different from the direction that everyone else is headed.

I find it interesting that, and I've noticed this for sure the last several years. First of all, our country, just speaking of the political climate of our country, we are very divided, right? It doesn't matter what side of the division you fall on, but literally half of the voting public think that the other side is their enemy, right? And what we have in our country is the two sides growing further apart and a different view of what does our country look like, what should we be working towards. And the biggest problem with moving farther in opposite directions is that it means that the common ground or the middle place becomes more difficult to get to. And the reality for all of us is that if we are going to coexist and move forward together, there has to be something that brings us together, some kind of middle ground that we can agree on and try to navigate towards. So I find it interesting that once a candidate for office gets elected, generally in our country, they have spent however long their campaign time was, they have spent that talking about how wrong, sometimes, not sometimes, a lot of times, how evil the other side is.

And then the first thing that comes out of their mouth once they have been elected is, we need to unify our country, right? And it just is this unrealistic thing that happens time and again in our country. It's this illusion that all of a sudden, now that the votes have been tallied, we are all going to come together. And that hasn't happened. I'm not going to say that won't happen, but that normally is something that is touted, but it doesn't come into fruition. And here is why, is that in our current day, unity often gets confused with conformity. Unity gets confused with conformity.

We won, so you need to come and be like us and do what we say. And the problem with that is, obviously, we can see that it's not something that is realistic. It's not going to motivate people on an opposite side. It is only going to, when we stick to our corners, it only draws the division deeper. And the reason why I bring that to our mind today is that I believe that this creates a unique opportunity for the church to influence our society in a unity that is actually possible. And that's not a unity that's based on conformity. It doesn't mean everyone looks the same, acts the same, thinks the same, votes the same.

It is a unity that is so much deeper than that. It is a middle ground where we can come together and say, this thing that binds us together as the church is the way of Jesus. It is this narrow road where we are acting in ways and living in ways, according to our obedience to the Holy Spirit, that irritate the self-righteous religious folk and irritate the people who are a part of the broken order of the world. And all the while, it paints this wonderful picture of how the gospel can come alive in our lives and turn us into people who love our neighbors and do everything that we can to leverage our abilities to bless those around us. And that is the role of the church that it has always been. Sometimes we get away from that, but that is where Jesus, I believe, is calling us. Just so you are aware, I do not speak for the church as in the big capital C church.

I only am speaking about our church because this is all the influence that we have is right here in our sphere. And it is my desire that we would be people who unite so closely to the way of Jesus that it confounds all onlookers because there is no real rhyme or reason by the ways of brokenness or by the ways of self-righteousness that this group could be so focused on their neighbor, but yet that is what the spirit is producing. And that, I believe, is where God is calling us. Recently, I had an interaction with someone that was forced. It was not an interaction that I sought out. It was not an interaction that I was really looking forward to. I had to do it, and therefore, I did it.

But I made some prejudgments about this interaction. I did not particularly enjoy what I had heard or seen so far from this particular individual. Don't worry, it is none of you here. You are not connected with our church. I thought that I did not really have anything to offer this person, and I thought that they did not have anything to offer me. But I decided that I would go ahead with the meeting, and I planned an exit strategy. You got to have a way out in case your suspicions are true.

And I sat down with them, and to my surprise, was truly delighted that all of my judgments about this person were incorrect. They were wrong. All of the things that I assumed about them were wrong. Now, we are not necessarily best friends now. We still have some differences between us, but we were united on the thing that we were conversing about, and it led us to a point to where that time that I got to spend with them was a true gift. And I have been thinking about that a lot, about how sometimes we make judgments about people, or in today's topic, we paint people as our enemy, so much to the point to where we won't even be able to engage with them. And we at times do that, and we do it and miss out on a gift that is interacting with another human being. And that's what I want to capture for myself and for us as a church, that we begin to see that every interaction that we have with people around us is a gift and an opportunity.

The fact that we are here on this earth at this moment with everyone else who is here on earth in this moment is an opportunity for us to share space together. And whether our interactions with people are deep and intimate, or whether they are superficial and surface level, it is truly a gift that we have the ability to interact with one another. And my prayer is that as the people of Jesus, we would seek to use that gift that we have in order to bless our neighbors and to be present with them. We have talked a lot about reading the Psalms, and I think it's a great practice for everyone who is a follower of Jesus to at some point during the day, pick up your Bible and read through one of the Psalms or multiple Psalms. I'm not a person who just opens the Bible and starts reading. I have a reading plan that I go through that I'd be happy to share with you if you're interested. But Wednesday morning, I woke up and I opened up my prayer book, and it instructed me to turn to Psalm 146. Okay. And I want to read that to us.

I even wrote on I know you can't read this, but I wrote on here, read the morning after the 2024 presidential election. And I wanted to share this with us. It says this, Psalm 146, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, my soul. I will praise the Lord all my life, and I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. Verse three, do not put your trust in princes and human beings who cannot save. This is my prayer for the church that as we move forward in the realities of today, that this would be our verse. We will not put our trust in princes and human beings who cannot save, but our trust belongs to God and God alone, who is the only one who is able to save us.

Verse four says, when their spirit departs, they return to the ground. On that very day, their plans come to what? Nothing. Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord, their God. He is the maker of heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them. He remains faithful forever. What kind of work does this God do?

Well, he upholds the causes of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free. The Lord gives sight to the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow. He frustrates the of the wicked.

The Lord reigns forever. Your God, O Zion, for all generations, praise the Lord.

So what do we do now? Whether you are rejoicing or you are downcast, whether you are excited about the next four years or terrified, what is the role of the church? Well, it's what the role of church has always been. Picking up those who are downcast, feeding those who are poor, living for those who are broken, and proclaiming that God is the one who saves. So let's talk today, with all of that in mind, about Jesus's words on loving our enemies. Now, this morning, I was backing out of my driveway. I have an old car.

My defroster doesn't work that great. The gaskets around my doors let the moisture in. And when it's cool outside, it's hard for me to see out my car, right, when I first started up.

You guys have all probably been there. So I roll down my windows. I turn on my defroster. I wipe my windshield wipers so that I can try to see a little bit. And this morning, I did that, and I started backing out of my driveway. And I looked and noticed that there was someone driving down my street. And so I did the thing that you're supposed to do.

I backed up really quick and got in front of them. No, I stopped, and I waited for them to drive past. Well, they approached and got pretty much in front of my house, and they were looking in the complete opposite direction as where they needed to be looking to see me. And so I waited for them as they just sort of stopped and slow rolled in front of my house, impeding my way out of my driveway. And it was probably realistically 10, maybe 15 seconds at the most. But the thought that I had in my mind is, what is wrong with these people? Can't they see that I am backing out of my driveway?

Can't they see that they are impeding my progress? I have to get to the donut shop. If I don't show up at a certain time, our donut lady gets a little bit worried and nervous about it. And so I don't want to disappoint her, and I got to get to my schedule and all of the things. What is wrong with these people? And it reminded me of something that has become very common in our society, is that we tend to paint people as our enemies or impediments to us or difficult just simply because our lives intersect. And they are sometimes knowingly, but a lot of times unknowingly in our way.

And we make enemies of them. And that's, I think, what Jesus is inviting us to consider here. But I want to offer a disclaimer to us as we get into this message. Some of us with us deep wounds that we have suffered at the hands of other people. And as a result, this conversation about loving our enemies can cause a lot of anxiety. And so I want to recognize that. And I want to also point out that Jesus here in this conversation is offering us an invitation. And the invitation is to trust him and to trust the realities of the kingdom of God above and beyond our personal experience.

And our response to this invitation that Jesus is offering us should never be flippant or hurried. We should recognize the realities of situations that can cause deep pain in our lives. And instead of just rushing through this or writing it off, we should offer these areas of our lives to Jesus in order that he can work in us at the core of who we are. And I wanted to share this thought with us today, that inviting Jesus into our unbelief or inability is one of the holiest prayers that we can pray. So if you're sitting here today and you think this person has hurt me too deeply, this wound is too fresh, or this wound is insurmountable in my life, I think what the Holy Spirit might be challenging us to if we are in that place is not to jump off the deep end and act like everything is okay, but just to invite Jesus into that space. One of the holiest things that we can do is invite Jesus into our unbelief. So with all that in mind, let's read Jesus's words.

What Miss Mary read was from Luke chapter 6, very similar Luke chapter 6 to Matthew 5, 6, and 7. Luke chapter 6 is called the Sermon on the Plain. In Matthew, it's the Sermon on the Mount. What we've been saying is that these themes are very common in all of Jesus's teaching, but I want to read today what Jesus said from Matthew in tandem with what Miss Mary read earlier from Luke 5, 43 of the book of Matthew. Here's what it says. You have heard it said, this is Jesus talking, 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. He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are you not, are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even the pagans do that. Be perfect therefore as your Father is perfect. So Jesus is saying to us that loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you is paramount when it comes to being the children of the Father of heaven. He says that very straightforward.

The reason why you love those who are pray for your enemies and love those who persecute you is so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. If we are wondering how serious is Jesus about this, we need to look no further than his last words before he died on the cross. In his last, with his last breaths on earth in Luke chapter 23, Jesus cries out, Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. In the midst of all that was swirling on around Jesus as he hung on the cross, the prayers of forgiveness even towards those who drove the nails into his body, those who spewed insults at him, those who conspired against him, praying for them was his final response. That's how serious Jesus is about this teaching. And I want us to notice something here, and this is a little bit tongue-in-cheek if you aren't able to tell. Jesus did not pray for his enemies and then turn around and curse them on social media, right?

Jesus did not pray for his enemies and then turn on cable news and listen to the pundits degrade his enemies. One of the dangers of our current society, which is a relatively new danger, and it really does challenge our discipleship into the way of Jesus, is that because of technology, with social media, with artificial intelligence, and all of the marketing schemes, it is very easy for us to find ourselves in an echo chamber where all that we hear is how those who believe like us and act like us and do like us are great, those who disagree with us and don't act like us and aren't like us are bad, and we can begin to have those ideas reinforced in these echo chambers. And then there's the algorithms, and we don't have enough time to get into this. I don't even know enough to explain the details of it, but what I know is if you say something with an earshot of your phone or a device in your home that runs the technology of your home, it will more than likely show up when you begin to search the internet for other things, right? Our technology is listening to us. It knows us in many ways better than we know ourselves, and we just have to be aware of that because if not, we can be caught up in algorithms that lead us into places that we don't want to go. And all of that's to say this, that our prayers are a ruse if we curse our enemies following our amen.

If we say amen after praying for somebody and we turn around and curse them, then our prayers are a ruse. Unfortunately, from what I have seen, there have been moments where the church, instead of leading our culture and loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us, we have followed suit and either actively joined in in degradation, or at the very least, we have allowed ourselves to be privy to it when others do it. One cannot degrade their neighbors and love them. And if we truly love someone, we won't keep company with those who talk down on them. You want to do a little experiment? Go find a parent after service today and say something about their child. You cannot truly love someone and listen to someone else constantly degrade them.

My hope for our church, both in our neighborhood and in our collective society, is that we could be a clear alternative to the existing arrangement. That instead of being complicit in enemy making at the worst, or at the least sitting idly by as our culture turns on one another, that we would instead be a loving for our enemy and praying for them community. Now, it's easy when we hear a message like this to just sort of shrug our shoulders and say, well, I don't necessarily have any enemies. I just have people who irritate me. Or we think about our enemies as like a global enemy that lives in some other country and has some other customs, and we'll never see them. So we'll just offer a prayer on their behalf. And I think that what Jesus was talking about is something that is much more practical, much more relational, and much more immediate.

If you look up the word enemy in the dictionary, you'll find a definition similar to this. It's a person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something. And maybe some of us have people like this in our lives. And we certainly need to trust Jesus in this arena. But what I think Jesus is really leading us towards is to understand when he's talking about loving our enemies, that he's talking about loving anyone that we have a difficult time loving. Anyone, when Jesus is talking about enemies, he's talking about anyone who we have a difficult time loving. Think in terms of that coworker who you're always in competition with, the neighbor who continually does something to irritate you, an ex who has betrayed you, someone who has conspired against you.

Jesus is offering us here instructions of how to think about and treat these people, and he's calling us to love them and pray for them. Jesus is not talking about niceties and platitudes here. This isn't the, oh, that person is ridiculous, but God bless them, those kinds of things. This is a call to be a clear alternative to the existing arrangement. Now, in the Old Testament, when it comes to the law, we read about this as the saying goes, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And there is a reality in which that is an Old Testament pursuit of justice, right? But God's people were never instructed ever to hate or to degrade or to act hostily towards their enemy.

Hate and bitterness towards someone else is something that we have learned that comes from the broken order of things. And you say, well, Jonathan, you've been talking about reading the Psalms, and you've talked about how that's a great thing, but there are some Psalms that are pretty graphic when it comes to someone expressing their anger, right? There are Psalms about calling calamity down on your enemies. Well, that is true. Those Psalms actually have a name. They are called imprecatory Psalms. That word imprecatory means spoken curses.

And those are Psalms that are in the Bible. You can read them. But what I think about those Psalms is that they express a normal experience, me backing out of my driveway and being impeded by someone and thinking bad thoughts of them, right? That's a normal experience. Us being offended by someone, being hurt by someone, being harmed by someone. It is normal in rage or grief or anger to want them to have some form of justice, to want them to get what goes around, comes around, do want them to suffer or at least know the depths at which they hurt us. These Psalms also invite the Holy Spirit into what is real and raw.

You know, sometimes we do the Christian thing and if someone hurts our feelings or gets us upset, we think, oh, well, you know, it really wasn't that bad and I forgive them. But really, there's a deep wound in there or a harm that has been brought on us that we just refuse to address or write off as for some sort of spiritual reason. But these Psalms that we read, they are inviting God into the real, honest truth about what's going on inside of us in response to difficult situations. And they are included in the scriptures, but they are never recommended as a way of life. They are never recommended to be the way in which we live. There is always a better way. And that is the narrow way, a way that satisfies our souls and heals our wounds at the depths of who we are.

But this is a hard thing, right? You can't just say, Jesus tells me to forgive, so I'm going to forgive. And those wounds that are deep just magically go away, right? You can't just pray a prayer and all of a sudden you love your enemies and you never get offended by anyone or you never judge someone. We have to instead, as we follow Jesus and respond to the Holy Spirit, there has to be alternative ways that replace within us what is broken and aligns us in the way of Jesus. That's where Jesus calls us to prayer and loving even our enemies. And when we learn to trust Jesus and the way of the kingdom of heaven over the ways of brokenness, we are invited into a new reality where in response to the Holy Spirit, we are able to be obedient to what Jesus is calling us to.

And it's not just obedience for obedience sake. Remember, this is about expanding love and joy that passes understanding and walking in ways that lead us to the peace of the kingdom of God. I want to wrap up with two thoughts. Number one, I have always had a struggle with Psalm 23, which is problematic because that's one of the most famous Psalms. Anyone who has died at their funeral has probably had a version of Psalm 23 read. And the reason why I struggled with it is not just because I learned to recite it in King James version and no one understands that anymore, but because towards the end of the Psalm, and we'll put it up here for us, it says this, that you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Right? This is a familiar thing, probably to most of us.

I have felt like for a long time that this Psalm is calling on God to sort of mock our enemies. Like if you're my enemy, you're God's enemy. But as I have studied and understand the theology of the table and the table of Jesus, and what does that mean? And what does that look like? I think it means something much different. When God sets a table, the thing about the difference between God's table and all the other tables is that at God's table, there's always room for one more. And when God sets a table before us in the presence of our enemies, I don't think there's any mockery going on.

I think it's an invitation for them to come and sit and eat of the fruit of the kingdom of God. And that I think is what the church should be in our society, a place where there is room for all. We can agree or disagree. We can be similar or not similar. We can vote for different people. We can have different opinions about things, but we come together. And what unites us is that we have all taken a seat at Jesus's table.

That's the role that I want us to lean into as a church. But then practically, I wanted to offer these words that come from a monk named William Miniger, and he was offering these as a way for us to pray for our enemies. And I want to close with this. If you want to snap a picture, it'll be up there long enough for you to do that, or we can also send this out to you. But here is the prayer that he encourages us to pray for those we have a difficult time loving. May you be free.

May you be loving. May you be loved. May you experience God's deep and profound love for you. May you receive and grow in the fullness of the grace that Jesus has won for you. May you know his peace that passes all understanding. May all good things be yours. May Jesus's joy be in you, and may that joy be complete.

May the Holy Spirit fill and permeate your entire being. May you see his glory. May you be forgiven of every sin. I forgive you, or will try to forgive you, of every wound and hurt with all my heart, and may God's goodness and mercy follow you all the days of your life. Jesus, today I don't want to speak for everyone, but these words personally are hard for me. They're hard at a superficial level as we interact with people who at times irritate us or confound us. And it's hard for me personally because of those interactions with people who I once held dear, and for whatever reason, there now remains a deep wound in replace of those relationships.

And God, I'm assuming that for my friends in this room today that we probably all have similar experiences when it comes to this. And so God, it's my desire today and my prayer for all of us that we would seek in this conversation to trust you, and that we would look not at the world around us, but to you and to your kingdom, and that however you see fit, you would work in our lives to lead us to be people who do love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. May it be so today. I ask it in your name and for your sake. Amen.