Love Your Enemies (Sermon)

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/2c3ec5_8be169418ca64589a2b7d9c90688154a/480p/mp4/file.mp4

Video Context: I am crying at the start of my sermon because my friend at College reminded me of Jesus Christ

Location: Faith Community Church

Date: 19th February 2026

Sermon Title: Love your enemies? Why should I?

There once was a young teenage boy. On all accounts, he was quite a fortunate young man. He was from a lower middle-class family. He went to a decent school and had good friends there. And he would sometimes go to church on the weekend with his family. He was very blessed.

But then one day, he had a bad day at school. Furious, the young lad stormed into his room and slammed the door shut. His face was red with anger. Fuming with rage, he looked up toward heaven.

What he did next was just shocking.

Out of his mouth, he started cursing and cursing and cursing the God who made him and blessed him.

Cliffhanger~ We’ll get back to the story later.

Let’s turn to the passage.

Matthew 5:43 – 48 (most important to read slowly)

Love for Enemies

⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor^[i] and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ⁴⁶ If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? ⁴⁸ Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Alright.

Some context.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew, Jesus’s Disciple, records Jesus going throughout Galilee, teaching people, healing people and casting out demons out of people.

Then large crowds started to follow Him, from Galilee, Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan. (pause)

So imagine crowds from Joondalup, Ellenbrook, Fremantle and Rockingham all coming to see this new, mysterious, preacher rabbi performing miracles around Perth. (pause)

Then Jesus, when He saw the crowds, went up on a mountain and sat down on the mountain. And he began to teach them. This is the famous Sermon on the Mount. Because it’s Jesus giving a sermon on a mountain. Wow, who would’ve thought.

Jokes aside, it is the longest and most famous record of Jesus’s moral and ethical teachings. It serves as a guide for how the citizens of the Kingdom of God should live. Whisper: That’s me and you, by the way!

And this teaching of “love your enemies” is part of the sermon on the mount. Did you know, this teaching has so impacted the world, that Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. cited the sermon on the mount as deeply influential to their non-violent political movements?

Alright, context given.

Now to the most important thing: the message itself.

Let’s go through it slowly together:

So why did Jesus start with “you have heard it said: Love your neighbour and hate your enemy”?

Well, what is important about the sermon on the mount is that Jesus said He had not come to abolish the Old Testament laws given by Moses, but rather, to fulfil it.

In every previous teaching, he starts off in a similar way, by quoting the law of Moses, and then correcting the crowds understanding of it.

For example, right before this passage, He teaches “You have heard it said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth! -  but I tell you, don’t resist an evil doer.”

That eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth law? He was actually quoting from Exodus 21:24.

HOWEVERRR, interestingly enough, this time, Jesus didn’t directly quote from the law. No where in the Old Testament writings, was it written “Love your neighbour and hate your enemy”. Perhaps this was a general teaching at the time from the Pharisees and the Jewish Religious Leaders. We know that the Pharisees were incredibly against people who were known sinners (like prostitutes and adulterers) and saw them as enemies of God and encouraged their disciples to hate them because of that.

Okay, but here’s Jesus’s counterpoint on that. Jesus said:

“BUT I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”.

But why? Why should we do that? Well, Jesus then gives the explanation:

“THAT you may be children of your Father in Heaven.”

And what does our Father in Heaven do? What is He like? Jesus said:

“He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (pause)

Wow. Let that sink in. What an incredible fact of reality. God gave Adolf Hitler the blessings of rain and sunshine. That mass murderer ate 3 meals a day from the hand of His Creator. (pause)

 And woah - so did Mother Theresa. (pause)

Then Jesus says:

“If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? 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 pagans do that?”

Let me re-contextualise that for us. Are not even the satanists loving their own friends? What separates you from the Hindu guy down the road? Are we only loving the kitchen aunty at FCC, because she’s been feeding us food every day at Arrows College? C’mon, even non-Christians can do that.

So, Jesus says, in conclusion:

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect.”

Now, let’s go back to that young boy who was cursing God in his bedroom.

Would the Pharisees have been right to condemn this boy? Was he a blasphemer? Was he an enemy of God?

Yes, he was.

But did God hate the boy?

No, even more shockingly, God continued to love him. God caused the rain and the sunshine to pour down on him. God was good to him.

And eventually, many years later, God saved him.

And he stands before you today.

As it is written:

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

And

For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

And why was God so good to this evil person? He was good to him, in hopes that he would turn back to God and accept Jesus’s sacrifice for the forgiveness of his sins.

As it is written in the book of Romans:

Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

The truth is, there is no difference between the Adolf Hitlers and Mother Theresas of the world. Both need the Cross of Jesus Christ. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus”.

We were all born in sin, as sinners. As David said, “I was born in iniquity”. We have all been an enemy to God in one way or another. You know it. God knows it. But can we testify that God has loved us, with a perfect love, though we hated Him? And Our Lord wants us to love our enemies in the same way.

Through faith in Jesus Christ, we can love perfectly like our Father in Heaven. Let’s love those who hate us, the same way God loved us when we hated Him.