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Right after Jesus pronounced the blessings and woes,He continues to expand our understanding on what the people of the Kingdom are like."But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To him who strikes you on the cheek offer him the other also. From him who takes away your coat do not withold even your shirt. Of him who takes away your goods do not ask them again. As you wish that men would do to you,do so to them. Jesus is pointing out how people of the Kingdom react and behave toward their enemies. He call s for a reaction of action, by actually doing good to them instead of paying them back in kind. doing good is expressed in blessing them and praying for them. This goes against all the norms of human nature. The natural man does not and often cannot respond in the way Jesus is telling the people of the Kingdom to respond. Jesus even goes beyond doing good and encourages his hearers to not prevent someone doing harm to them as in hitting them or taking something of theirs. Even to the point of not asking for your goods back from those who hate and abuse you. Jesus is going far beyond Moses law and is asking of His people radical reaction to their enemies. Indeed it is a radical thing to take up your cross and die to yourself and live in obedience to the King of all Jesus!! Jesus goes on to point His people to be completely and totally different to the pagans. He tells us if we only love those who love us,it is of no credit to ourselves, because we are acting the same way the pagans do to each other.He is expanding on the first part of his discourse of doing good to your enemies and loving them.The same goes for doing good,if we only do good to those who do good to us we are just like pagans and sinners. If we behave like them, it is no credit to us. Jesus then gets very close to what many hold so dear. Their goods and money, He says lend not expecting to receive anything back. The reason Jesus says if you lend expecting to receive the same back we are just like pagans who do the same. Only if we lend and don't expect it back then we are different to pagans and it is a credit to us. So Jesus has shown us how to love our enemies and do good to those who oppose us. Jesus says if we act as he says to our enemies we will will have great reward and we will show ourselves to be the people of God. For that is how God is to the ungrateful and merciless. Elsewhere we are told God gives rain to the just and unjust. The people of God are to have mercy in their hearts and act as God does. This is a radical message indeed. It is about living to please God also knowing that He gives us incentive to behave unlike people of the world, for He promises us great reward. Jesus continues his sermon of how to be different from the pagans around us. The people of the Kingdom are to have a generosity of spirit in their attitude to others.We are not to judge or condem lest we ourselves be judged and condemned. Forgive and you too will be forgiven. That is why Jesus teaches us to pray ,forgive us our sins as we forgive those who trespass against us.We are to be generous in giving not just to be receivers. It would seem that as we do to others as we would have them do to us. God also will generously bless us beyond what we could ask or imagine. Jesus promises when we take on this generosity of spirit that God will give to us good measure, pressed down,shaken together and running over will be put into our laps. The measure we give will bve the measure we get back. So then if we are of greedy and hard hearts with no generosity not heeding the words of Jesus.We cannot expect to be blessed with the promises of these rewards. These promises are for the people who act on what Jesus has taught them. Jesus then tells us a parable to reinforce what he has taught. He tells of a blind man leading a blind man. They will both fall into a ditch.If we claim to be people of God in Jesus and don't do what He says then we are as blind as the sinners we seek to lead into the light. A disciple is not above his master,in otherwords we cannot ignore Jesus teaching, but if we are teachable then we will come to maturity and be like our teacher Jesus. As if we think that Jesus had not made his point to us already, Jesus continues. He says failure to adhere to His words will make us hypocrites, like when we point out a speck in someone elses eye but not notice the sin in our lives or the log in our eye. In otherword we can't tell someone not to do some sin if we have the same sin in our lives. It is not that we may never point out someone elses sin for then we could never call people to repentance. Rather it is the case where we may tell someone to get rid of sin as long as that sin we point out is not in our own lives!!let us beware lest we hear Jesus call us hypocrites instead of sons of the Kingdom. Jesus continues to build on the last bit of not being found to be hypocrites and says how people will recognise us as the people of Jesus is by likening us to a tree and the fruit it bears depends on the state of our hearts. So what is in a persons innerbeing will come out in the words which they speak. Finally Jesus brings all that He has told us down to "Lordship" He puts it very simply in terms that noone can ever misunderstand. He says you cannot call him Lord if you do not do what He says. You cannot say master to someone if you will not obey him. You cannot say boss to someone if you will not submit to Him. To say Lord to Jesus is to recognise His supreme rule as you would to a president or prime minister of a country. Either you keep the law of the land or if you don't you will be known as an outlaw. The same goes for Jesus as supreme ruler and God over all. We cannot call Him King if we will not submit ourselves to His will . But to those who will submit to Jesus and obey His words. Jesus likens such to a builder who builds his house on a good and solid foundation. Then if we who obey are established on Jesus' solid foundation then we will be able to face the world and all adversities that can be thrown at us, to move us away from the foundation of King Jesus.Jesus promises such that they will be upheld and stand but those who hear and don't obey when adversity comes will come to ruin and their ruin will be great. So in conclusion these aren't different sayings of Jesus put together but it is rather a sermon from start to finish. It is about the radical difference between the people of Jesus and those of the world. It is about identifying the people of the Kingdom by radical allegiance to King Jesus. Also the conclusion of the sermon is the challenge to radical obedience to Jesus. This is the radicalness of those who seek to be a part of the Kingdom of God. There is no middle ground either you follow and obey.The sermon is also about the obedience of faith. If we say we believe it cannot be apart from obedience. Obedience must follow faith and allegiance to Jesus. |
