“Hi. How are you, enemy?”

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Matthew 5:43-47

The Sermon on the Mount is a very challenging sermon. This was the sermon that Jesus preached to His followers. (5:1) His aim was to show them how He fits into Redemptive History (5:17) and how they are to understand the revelation of the law in relationship to Him. (5:19-20) It’s in His sovereign interpretation of the law (5:21-47) that we are seriously challenged with His demands.

Perhaps the most difficult command is, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (5:43) This command is contrary to our human nature. Our natural desire is to fight back against our enemies. It is to be silent to them unless we are engaging in an argument. The last thing on our mind would be to love them. So what does it mean to love our enemy?

Jesus does not just give us a vague command to love. He defines it. We are only going to look at two aspects of what loving our enemies looks like in this passage. The first is a board concept, the second is very practical.

First, loving our enemy is a matter of the heart. This is the running theme throughout verses 21-47. Murder is not only committed with our hands, its also when we are angry with our brother (5:22). Adultery, likewise, is not just an issue of sleeping with the wrong person. It’s lusting after another; looking and longing for someone who is not ours. (5:28) It’s in this same vein of heart obedience that Jesus forbids divorce, except on the ground of sexual immorality (5:32) and commands that we not take oaths at all. (5:34) It is also for this same reason that we are not to seek after revenge or even resist someone who is evil. (5:39)

Obedience, therefore, is not only a matter of the things that we do. Jesus is concerned that we don’t physically murder or commit adultery, but He is not pleased when this is all that we do. He wants our hearts as well as our hands to be engaged in obeying Him.

Therefore, loving our enemy (5:43) must also be an issue of the heart.  Jesus commands us to really love them. This means that we have to forgive them in our hearts. We have to not count the things that they have done to us against them. Love is not merely doing things. It is true that love will act, but ‘love’ is not actions. There is something in our hearts before we do anything to our enemy. Loving our enemy does work out into the way we treat them, but it is ultimately a matter of the heart.

Secondly, love will say, ‘Hi.’ to our enemy.  This is in verse 47: “And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” The way of the world, and of the Gentiles, is to greet only the people who we are on friendly terms with. If someone is close to us we say, “Hi” to them. This is what our human nature does. Jesus, however, calls us to greet our enemies. Doesn’t this seem so insignificant? It seems that anyone could say ‘hi’ to their enemy. It doesn’t take someone special to do that.

The natural way for us to act toward our enemy is to be quiet and cold towards them. We only want to open up to them if it means that we get to insult them. Jesus is calling us to greet them, to welcome them, to speak kindly to them. How difficult is it to do this? It’s impossible apart from having a work of grace in our hearts that enables us to forgive and love them.

This is the way that our mouths are meant to act towards our enemy when we really love them. It works its way out into very simple ways. Could you imagine what our enemy would think if we greeted them? They would be surprised and wonder why we would do that. Maybe we need to ask ourselves the same question. Why would we greet our enemies?

“ Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” (5:44) We do this because it confirms our sonship. Jesus is not teaching us that we will become children of God based on our obedience. Rather, He is teaching us what we are to be like God’s children because we already are God’s children. His point is that children act like their parents. There isn’t anyone in the universe that best demonstrates loving their enemies than our Heavenly Father.

We were once enemies of God and He did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up so that we might not be His enemies, but be His children. We ought to love our enemies just as God has loved us. We are people who have all present and future blessings grounded in the great reality that God loves His enemies. How are we supposed to hate them and be cold to them when God has loved us and been so warm to us while we were against Him?