I preached to a group of middle and high school students this week for a chapel service in a private Christian school.  My message came from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount where he commanded his followers to love their enemies.

Here’s the audio:

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I worked through the text rather quickly (only preached for 18 minutes!) because I wanted to save time to ask the question of why we should obey this command.  Why should we love people who treat us bad, call us names, wish us ill, and take advantage of us?

I told the students that we should obey the command because Jesus tells us to, sure.  That should be sufficient enough reason to obey.  However, it was a perfect opportunity to teach them that when God commands his people to do things he has reasons for doing so, and that those reasons, like him, are good.  Further, he has given us many of those reasons in his Word.

Here are five reasons why we should obey Jesus’ command to love our enemies:

1. It demonstrates a saving relationship with God (Luke 6:35, 43-45)
2. Is shows that we love Jesus (John 14:15)
3. It shows that we trust God to take care of us no matter what (Matt. 6:33)
4. It models to the world how God has loved us in his son, Jesus (Rom. 5:7-8)
5. It shows that we love others more than we love ourselves (Phil. 2:3-4)