Matthew

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We all know the emotions that consume us, the thoughts that race through our minds when we’ve been wronged.
2. When wronged, what thoughts have filled your mind? What words have come out of your mouth? What actions have you taken? How do you respond to your enemies?
3. In Matthew 5:38-48, Jesus explained what He expects from His disciples when they’re wronged so that love wins!

Matthew 5:38-48

Context
1. In Matthew 5:20, Jesus declared that perfection is the standard for entrance into the kingdom of heaven. He said, “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
2. The scribes and Pharisees were hailed as the standard of righteousness. But Jesus said their standard was not good enough because they only focused on an external obedience to the Law.
3. God’s standard examines the heart! God desires true righteousness where obedience flows from a heart that is filled with faith because it has been transformed by His love and grace through Jesus.
4. Now we come to what has been called the highest point of the Sermon on the Mount; verses that are the most admired and most resented because they challenge us to love when wronged. How do we love when wronged?

I. Seek the Highest Good (38-42)

• In verse 38, Jesus quoted from Leviticus 24, regarding the legal recourse a victim had against someone who injured them.

Leviticus 24:19-20, If a man injures his neighbor, just as he has done, so it shall be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; just as he has injured a man, so it shall be inflicted on him.

• This is the called “Law of Retaliation”, lex talionis.
• This and other commands were given to help Israel’s judges render just judgments.
• The goal was to protect the innocent and ensure “the punishment fits the crime”.
• “The Law of Retaliation” also prohibited taking the “law into your own hands”; personal revenge.
• Jesus confronted the scribes and Pharisees because they wrongly applied the “Law of Retribution” to personal relationships to justify personal revenge.

A. Do not seek your own revenge
1. The scribes and Pharisees should have known personal revenge was forbidden in their Law.

Leviticus 19:18, You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people… I am the LORD.

2. Jesus elevated the standard in verse 39 when He said, “do not resist him who is evil”.
a. “Resist” means to “oppose” or “to set oneself against someone or something”.
b. Here, “evil” means a person who is evil; an “evil one”, not Satan or a “concept” of evil.
c. What was Jesus teaching? Jesus was not commanding us to sit by while we or a loved one is threatened. Self-defense is permitted to subdue the one who seeks to harm us until the authorities have arrived.
3. In verses 39-42, Jesus provided four real-life scenarios to clarify His point.
a. If an evil person slaps you on the cheek, turn the other cheek. (39) In that culture, getting slapped on the cheek was the highest form of insult and was punishable by a very heavy fine.

ILLUS – Today, in many Arab cultures, the most extreme insult is having someone throw their shoe at you.

APPL – To turn the other cheek does not mean that we forfeit the right to call out the injustice and seek an apology. Notice how Jesus responded when struck by an officer of the high priest.

John 18:23, Jesus answered him, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify of the wrong; but if rightly, why do you strike Me?”
APPL – It means that we must not exchange insult for insult. Don’t add fuel to the fire. Seek the highest good!

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