"Be Mature and Love Your Enemies." -Johnny Asevedo

Pastor Johnny shares a word on living a life that loves your enemy. Enjoy!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Destiny Church and Throne podcast. We pray that stirred you into a deeper relationship with Jesus and equips you to live a heaven-on-earth lifestyle daily. Enjoy. And then he kind of you ever like talk to the Lord about something specific, and then like the next day you come face to face with the thing that you've been talking to the Lord about. You know what I'm saying? Like he's got to like kind of like test that word or test that faith in you. You know what I mean? Like you're like, oh Lord, I pray for patience. And then like the next morning, you're like, I need patience. You know? It's true. It happens. It really does. Um, I was talking to the Lord about uh the Beatitudes, and in fact, me and my coworker about a week or so ago were talking about the Beatitudes and just the things, the Sermon on the Mount, the things that Jesus talks about in Matthew 5, and the length of the things that he shares. Go read them, they're beautiful. But I've always found that when you pray for something or you talk to God about something, that uh uh it's like the the very next day or the very next moment, whatever it is that you are praying about, uh, you know, God shakes to see if what you've been talking about is there. You know what I mean? Like he does, he does it. He's so good at doing that. And uh so he goes in and he shakes. So there was something that was on my heart, right? And then uh I had to put the word to the test. And I'm not gonna go into too many details, but I want to share something with you that the Lord has been talking to me all week about. And um, it goes hand in hand with the way that you treat and the way that you see people. And so I just want you to follow me on this because I just want to quickly I want to talk about Matthew chapter 5, verse, starting in verse 43. And this is a very profound thing that Jesus is about to say that all of us in the church should grab a hold of when it comes to treating people and loving people. But Matthew chapter 5, verse 43, Jesus opens up and he says this, you have heard that it was said, so he's quoting the Old Testament, Leviticus. He says, You've heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. And they're probably all like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Leviticus, hallelujah. Yeah, God, yeah, Jesus, you're right. Love my neighbor, hate my enemy. And he goes, Uh, but I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. And everybody's like, What? He says straight up, he says, You've heard, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. And Jesus then says, But I say to you, love your enemies. And they're like, Okay, we've got to love your enemies. Jesus is like, I'm not done yet. Bless those who curse you. So I gotta love them, I gotta bless them. Jesus is like, I'm not done yet. You gotta do good to those who hate you. And they're like, okay, so you're telling me that that I gotta bless them, I gotta love them, and I gotta do good to the people that hate me. He's like, hold on a second, I'm not done yet. Then I want you to pray. I want Jews? I want to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It says, then I want to pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. So there's a beautiful moment here with Jesus doing what Jesus does, doing what he only knows to do, and he says, You've heard it. But he goes on to say, in so many ways, I'm calling you to do more than what the law had said years ago. Because this is this is this is the beautiful thing about where you and I are today, is that God is looking at the way that we treat people, and not just the way that we treat people that we love, but the way that we treat people who are our enemies, who curse us, who spitefully use us, who talk down about us. Amen. I believe that this is something that we will be judged on. The way that we loved our enemies. If it was profound enough for Jesus to stop and talk about it, the Sermon on the Mount, as he's teaching and discipling, who knows how many people are there and how many people even followed him afterwards, but he tells them this. He said, You heard it said that you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. I want to read this to you. When he says, But I say to you, shall love your neighbor, you shall love your enemies and bless those who curse you. When he says love, it is the word agape. It is to love the way that God loves. He loves with a love that is unshakable, with a love that is, I don't care what you do to me, kind of love. I'm gonna love you and love you and love you. When he says to love your enemies, he's saying you have to love them the way that God loves them. Right? God's love doesn't shift whether you're a bad or a good person. Okay? God's love doesn't shift if you are the worst of the worst or the best of the best. His love doesn't shift. I say this often. His love is the same for me right now, teaching all you fine folks, as it was when I was lying in my throw up in a ditch somewhere. He loves me the same. Okay? We got that? Our love, let's be honest, our love can change with people depending on what they can do for us, who they are in our lives, are they strangers, or have they done something to wrong me? Our love as humans can change. We know that. It's very conditional. Amen. It's based on the conditions of the moment. That's just, that's why I say, oh Lord, I'm thankful that you don't love like man loves, or that I don't love, you know, like you love. You know what I mean? That I can love like you love. That I can love others the way that you love them. I loved people before I knew the Lord, but I didn't love them the way I love them today. I did not love them. God changed my heart to love people the way that He loves them when I said yes to Him. I didn't always love people the way I love people now. Man, I love people. I don't care who they are, what they've done, what they said about me, how many knives they put in my back, I love them. I want to help them. I want to do whatever I can to serve them. One of the main reasons we started this church was for outreach and mission reasons and purposes. To serve the people. You know, we've served many of people in this facility right next door who have said some pretty bad things about me. But I gave them a plate of food. Because God is telling me to love those who curse me. He is telling me to do good things to those who hate you. That's a complete rewiring of the way that we are taught all of our lives. Do good to those who hate you, they don't deserve it. Neither do we. Neither did we. The Bible says, While you were yet an enemy to God, rebellious, far from him, cursing him, he had a plan to send his son to bring you closer. So at one point in our lives, the extension of this scripture was made towards you and I. Because we were enemies with God. Right? At one point in our lives, I am thankful for myself that God wasn't like, you're my enemy, I want nothing to do with you. And then I'm like, no. But he says, Do good to those who curse you, do good to those who hate you. And so I want us to understand something here. If we are going to love and change the culture and our city and see heaven on earth, it's got to start with us loving our enemies. All right? Let me go a little deeper. So he says, you know, love your enemies, love like God loves. Love like God prefers is one of the ways that that word translates. The way that God prefers to love, that's the way he wants you to love people. Sacrificially, laying his life down, not holding things against one another. Okay? God's not holding your mess ups, your mistakes, your sins, your faults, your failures. He's not hanging it over you and saying, Well, if you want to be better, remember what you did yesterday, right? That's not our God. Okay? That's the enemy. It says here in Scripture, it says, do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. That word spitefully use in the original context means to falsely accuse, to mistreat, to insult, to slander, or to abuse someone with words. That's a lot. Spitefully use you. I um I think one of the most uh wildest things is um hearing the way that church people talk about each other. I'm not talking about here. You guys know me as well as anybody else. If that comes up, we're confronting it. You guys know that. Don't play that. But I remember there was this one time, I'm not gonna name any names, but there was an individual, this is about probably about four years ago. There was an individual that was coming to this church, and they said, Um, I really like this church, but my old church that I went to, they told me that this wasn't a real church and didn't preach the real gospel. I was like, Really? They said that. They said, Yeah, I got the screenshots. I was like, what? They're like, Yeah, like, you know, I made sure because I wanted to ask you what gospel y'all preached. And I was like, oh my goodness, okay. And I was like, oh yeah, I mean, I know this person. I know, you know, they were they're a leader in a church close by, and I was like, okay, okay, okay, well. I said, um, I, you know, all I can say, because I'm not gonna be like, oh, well, who is this person? Who would they think there is? I'm a child of God. God has called me, touch not thy anointed, blah, blah, blah. No. I said, Well, I think that maybe that individual, because like you should, the text was like, it wasn't like, I don't know what they preach, I'm not really sure. I've never been there. It's no, they preach a different Jesus, it's a different gospel, you shouldn't go to that church, all this kind of stuff. And uh, there was stuff about me as well. And uh I said, Well, the gospel that we preach is the gospel that you see in scripture. Like, that's that's the gospel that we preach. And I took this individual through what we believe, how we believe it, and and then I ended up calling that individual. And I called him and I said, I said, Hey, somebody just came to our church. This is what they said. I'm not mad, I'm not angry, I just want to know what's going on. And they began to say, man, they started repenting. They were like, I'm so sorry, I should have never said that. I was actually just kind of jealous because we've been losing people at our church. Dang, man. So you're telling me that you gossiped about me because people were leaving your church. Church people are weird sometimes. But in this moment, there was somebody that was spitefully using me. They were slandering my name. In that moment, they were using abusive words towards me about the ministry and all this other stuff. And my reaction was not that of, oh, bless God, I'm gonna call them and I'm gonna rebuke them in the name of Jesus. It was, hey, bud, can you help me understand a little bit about what's going on right now? That's it. I'm not here to defend me. You're not here to defend you. You were here to love those who curse you. You were here to love and uplift and do good to those who hate you. The next time you hear about somebody using you or talking bad about you or whatever it may be, ask the Lord, how can I do good to that person? Because that's very hard because within our human nature, we immediately want to defend ourselves. Amen? Immediately want to defend ourselves. It's what we want to do, it's where we want to go. If you're my enemy, right? What's the what do they uh what do the kids say? Haters are my motivators. Like, like, that's the thing about it, is is those that hate you, and there are people that hate the church. You may have somebody in your life that's coming against you, somebody at your workplace, whatever, somebody that said something about you, whatever. Handle it in love. I'm all about confrontation. I believe that confrontation is needed and necessary because confrontation done in love promotes growth. Now, either that person's gonna be like, Yeah, you know what, let's talk about it, or they're gonna flee. Either way, that's not your that's not your decision. You were just called to be accountable to what Jesus told you. And he said, Love those who hate you. Love your enemies. He goes on at the end of Matthew 5, verse 48, he says, Jesus says, Therefore you shall be perfect just as your father in heaven is perfect. What that word perfect translates to is complete or mature. You want to talk about maturity in the kingdom? Maturity in the kingdom is not preaching conferences all the time and having a huge following, going to the best Bible school and doing this Christian stuff for decades. That's not maturity. Maturity, it's doing what Jesus is telling you to do every day. That's maturity. Maturity looks like obedience. You want to be obedient in your walk with Jesus? Do what he's telling you to do. And he says, he says, be perfect. You shall be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect. Just after he talks about loving enemies. He's saying, you want to be mature in the kingdom, love those who hate you. You want to be full grown in the kingdom? Love those who persecute you. You want to truly be a Christian or a mature believer? Do good to those who are using you. Do good to those who are cursing you. Maturity in the kingdom of God, it looks like obedience, but maturity in the kingdom of God looks like loving your enemies. He says, What good is only loving those who love you? Even the tax collectors do that. Even those who come to people and take what is theirs that's not their own. Even those who were in culture known as the worst of the worst, even they love only those who love. And Jesus says, Don't just love those who love you. That's huge, guys. It's easy to love my friends. It's easy. Right? It's easy for me to love you guys. I love y'all. Y'all are my friends. I love y'all. But whenever I hear someone's talking about me, I'm not perfect. I'm not like, yippee! I get to love somebody who cursed me. I'm like, Jesus, you need to help me right now to understand what's going on and how to respond to this situation. We just had something pop up this week. Jesus, I need your help to understand what's happening and how to respond to this. I wasn't like, yes, persecution. Somebody's talking about me. Woo! It's Lord, how can how am I going to be able to love this person who clearly does not love me? Right? Sometimes the hardest things in relationships is giving of yourself to someone who seemingly does not want to give you anything. I like to believe that I can wear my heart on my sleeve, loving so much that it's okay if I get hurt. That's the way that I want to love. I don't want to love with walls up. I don't want to love like, oh, what if they do something? No. I don't want to love out of any love that protects myself, and a love that's like, mmm, yeah, I'll love you if. Because that's not the way Jesus loves. If I only love those who love me, what good is there in that? Even sinners do that. The worst of the worst, love those who love them. Jesus says, I want you to love those who curse you. I want you to love your enemy. I want you to understand really quick. I want you to really, really, really, really, really, really understand what is an enemy. An enemy is someone who is an adversary to you that wants to cause you harm, that wants to come against you, that doesn't want to see you succeed, that wants in every step of the way, wants to see you fall flat on your face. An enemy is one who is in opposition to you. So let's say you're trying to move straight, they're this way, trying to push you back. That's an enemy. Think about this for a moment. What is an enemy? It's one who doesn't like the way you look, the way you dress, one that attacks you, one that verbally assaults you, one that comes against who you are in Christ. It's one that preys on your downfall. They want to see you defeated. And Jesus says, I want you to love them. But not just love them to tolerate them, like, okay, I'll love them. He wants you to love them the way he loves them. And how does he love them? He sent his son to die on a cross. He loves them sacrificially, he loves them with a laid-down type of love. I believe one of the greatest marks of love is if we are able to lay our lives down for our enemies, for those who have done us wrong. That's huge. Jesus did it. That's the way God loves. You feel me on this? That's the way God loves. For those who hurt us, double-crossed us, gossiped, whatever it may be. I pray that if you know somebody in your family, in your life, and most of the time, most of the time, it's people that are close to you. It's family members. I don't need an amen for that. Most of the time it's close ones. It's those that you see often. It's those that are related to you. He's saying, love them the way that God loves them. Sometimes we think that, well, I remember there was a there was an old preacher, he used to say, uh, God tells me to love them, but I don't gotta like them. And I never agreed with that. I never agreed with that. Because I'm like, Jesus both loves and likes his enemies. Because to like something means to me personally, like I'm gonna invest in it. I like being around this person, right? Like, yeah, I can be there for you. Yeah, absolutely. I don't believe that there's any kind of like, you know, I believe that when he calls us to love them, he's also calling us to invest into them and be willing to lay our lives down for them. If your enemy came to you, if the person who's been talking the most about you came to you and they said, Hey, I need a place to sleep, I need some food. Well, remember that screenshot I saw that you text about me? Get out. That's what we want to say in our flesh. Let's be real, right? Oh, now you come to help me. Now you come, you need my help. Oh, I see how it is. Funny you call when you need something. But he's saying, Jesus says, I want you to do good. I want you to do good to those who hate you. So, beloved, if we're gonna be mature in the kingdom, we've got to be obedient, but we've got to love our enemies. We've got to love those who persecute us. We've got to love those who gossip, backbite, and all that kind of stuff. And when I hear, if I can just say, just for one moment, I've shared this story before. I hope you never get tired of hearing it. I'm gonna share it again. It's a beautiful example, but it's not about what happened, it's about what come, what came after. But we had a moment, somebody came up here, they rebuked me, they came after the church. I've shared it before, you know, all this different stuff, Jezebel, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, because I didn't kick people out of the church because they thought they were witches, yada, yada, yada. They rebuked me. We've spent time with their family, sat down with our family, had meals with their family, walked them through discipleship, wisdom, loved on them, all that kind of stuff. But because I didn't do what they said, I was I was a witch. Whatever. After that, after that happened. There were two individuals that came to me, one of them, they're not here today, but they go to our church. They said, Johnny, one thing I will never forget for the rest of my life is the way that you handled that situation that morning. They said, You handled it like Jesus would handle it. There was another person who, in the midst of that moment happening, days later said, Dude, I could have never handled it the way you just handled it like that. And they said, You handled it the way I believe Jesus would have handled it. Now that for me was an immediate expression of his heart. It was a byproduct of loving him. I saw this person who was hurt, and I just wanted to love on him. Stand with me. Jesus. The enemy wants a church that hates its enemies. The enemy wants a bride that curses those who curse it. Jesus says, You heard that it said to love your neighbor and hate your enemies. He rewrote it all. He rewrote it all. A mystery. Why should we love those who are our enemies? He not only talked about it, but he did it on the cross. Remember when he said forgive them for they know not what they do? There were two thieves beside him on the cross. Two people who were worthy of the punishment that was taking place. One mocked Jesus. The other sought his face for redemption and restoration. And Jesus could have said, I'm not giving either of you anything. You're the reason I'm up here. You're the reason that my father is punishing me. Right? Because he was bruised for our transgressions. You know, next Sunday is Easter, and all churches all over are going to be preaching the gospel. And I love that. I love that. But the story in the moment of the cross is a moment that we can truly see the love of God executed more than him just talking about it. Because up until that point, all we knew is what he talked about. Up until that point of Judas' kiss and him being apprehended by guards, him being beaten, spit on, punished, punched, up until that, we had just heard and read about the love of God. But I tell you now, because of Jesus, we can rightfully walk in a love that loves and does good to our enemies. I'm going to say it again. Be perfect because your Father in heaven is perfect. If you want to be a mature believer, be obedient. And if you want to be a mature believer, love your enemies. Bless those who curse you, who spitefully use you and wrong you. This is huge for us, guys. As the message of the cross gets preached next Sunday morning in an evangelism service, I bet all over church is speaking about the cross. It's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful thing. But the cross is so much more than just a story of what Christ did. The story of the cross is an invitation for us to walk in that same lifestyle Jesus did here, right now.

unknown 25:12

Thank you, Lord.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Let's hold our hands out and receive right now. Jesus, I pray that you give us a love or help us love those who curse us. We want to love them like you love them. Lord, I also pray if there's any areas in our heart of unforgiveness towards people who have wronged us, I pray that there be forgiveness right now, that we would not hold their wrongdoings against them. Thank you, Lord, that you are calling us to love those who are in opposition to us, that you are calling us to do good to those who spitefully use us, to those who persecute us, slander us. Thank you, Jesus, that we can love like you love. It's easier that way. I don't want to hold anything against anybody. I don't want to hold a grudge against anybody. I don't want to hold anything against them that they did when they didn't even know they were doing it. I don't want to spend my life like that, Jesus, but I want to love like you love. So we just pray right now that we would receive that revelation of your love, to be able to walk in it, to be able to know it. We want to love our enemies. We want to bless those who curse us. We want to do good to those who spitefully use us, Lord. We want to be mature in the kingdom. We want to love our enemies. We don't want to just love those who love us. So we just receive right now, Lord, we receive just that fresh knowing of the way you love. Help us to love the way you love. May that be our prayer, Lord, to love the way that you love. Lord, I pray blessing over the people that are here, your sons and your daughters. I pray that if there's areas of things that they've been believing for, hoping for, I pray for a continued hope, Lord, that they would just keep leaning and resting on you, Jesus. Lord, help us to see and know your love. To love like you love, to care like you care, to show grace and mercy like you do. For they know not what they do. So we just hold fast to that, Lord. We want to love those who curse us and love those who are our enemies. May we walk in that. Test that. Test that in us, Jesus. Test that word in us, Lord. We thank you. We love you in Jesus' name. Thank you, Lord. Amen. Um, red bucket back there, give, give unto the house.