Trinity Baptist Church

Making the Best of a Bad Situation

Why You Need Your Enemies and Your Enemies Need You, Part One

Jeremiah 29:7

 

I suppose the hardest commands in the Bible to obey are those that instruct us to love and pray for our enemies and those that mistreat us.  Do you find that hard to do?  It’s hard to pray for God to bless them because prayer is the last thing we want to do for our enemies. There are a lot of other things I’d like God to do to my enemies, but blessing them is way down the list!

But notice what the Lord says to His people in

Jeremiah 29:7

Remember the background. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had attacked Jerusalem and sent many of the people into exile. It was a humiliating experience for the people of God. It was also a punishment from the Lord because of their rebellion. In a real sense, they got what was coming to them–70 years in captivity in a foreign land, ruled by pagans who did not worship God all because they forsook their relationship with God.

 

Not all of the Jews were taken to Babylon. Jeremiah was one of those who were left behind. Chapter 29 records a letter he sent from Jerusalem to the exiles in Babylon in order to encourage them. I doubt that anyone was expecting God’s prophet to say what he said here in verse 7. 

 

They might have expected God to say, “Helpis on the way!  I’m about to even the score. Just stand still and see what I do to Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians.  But instead, His counsel is “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because what happens to it will be what happens to you.”

 

I find in that instruction a very profound thought.  God put the Israelites in Babylon for a purpose. And even though they were humiliated and discouraged and angry, God was up to something and in order to realize it they were going to have to pray for the peace and prosperity of Babylon.

 

Notice that last phrase of verse 7.  “For in its peace you will have peace.”

 

There is a message from God for all of us in that. There are lots of folks who live in the midst of a bad situation.  It might be at work or at home or at school. For some it is the relationship with their spouse or parent.  Someone has hurt you deeply and it’s all you can do not to strike back.

 

It takes everything you’ve got to keep from getting bitter and resentful.  And some of it sloshes over the top now and then. In fact, some of you are so hard to get along with and you seem to delight in being that way.  And there is so much animosity in your heart you couldn’t pray for your enemies if your life depended on it. But God says to do it anyway. That’s the whole point of Jeremiah 29:7.

 

 

 

In fact, “shalom”, the Hebrew word for peace, is used three times in this verse. Besides peace, it means blessing, wholeness, completeness, the absence of conflict, prosperity.

 

Now drop yourself down into the sandals of one of these Jewish exiles and try to imagine how shocking it must have been to hear that God was tying your blessing as His child to the blessing of the Babylonians. 

 

That is just so wrong on so many levels!  The exiles were God’s people and the Babylonians were pagans. He is really saying that they were better off in Babylon, and Babylon is better off because they were there. This is the Old Testament version of Jesus’ call for believers to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16).

 

And when you think about it, what God was saying was “You need Babylon and Babylon needs you!”

 

It’s not hard to imagine what was going through the mind of these Jews as they thought about that:

 

“Lord, these people are pagans!  They invaded our land.  They destroyed our city, Your city!  They burned down the temple we built to worship You.  They’re vile people, Lord!  They’re terrorists and heathens and killers and rapists.  Why in the world would you want us to pray for them?  They don’t deserve it.”

 

And all of that is true!  The Babylonians were not nice people. You can spin it any way you want to, but it’s hard to put a good face on being a barbaric killer. There is no such category.

Their goal was to control the world and they would do whatever was necessary to accomplish that goal.  They were ruthless, and if anyone dared to oppose them, they paid the price.  Life was cheap, death was easy and torture was a means of sending a message to future foes.

 

And suddenly God says to his displace, discouraged people, “I know you don’t like it here and you want to go home, but that doesn’t matter. You’re going to be here for a while so settle down and make the best of it. Don’t treat the Babylonians as they treated you. Seek to bless and be a blessing. And pray for the Babylonians. They need the prayers. And you need to pray. And as you pray, I will bless them. And in blessing them, you too will be blessed.”

 

Nothing seems more natural than to hate those who have mistreated us. But here we learn a better way. Listen:  Everything the world says about human relationships is wrong!  Everything you feel naturally and humanly is opposed to the way God does things.  If it feels right,, it probably isn’t.  Living the life God desires is always uncomfortable and uneasy.  It stretches us and reshapes us and forces us to be different from who we are and what we are. 

 

We need to pray for our enemies—and they need our prayers.

 

After all, if we don’t pray for our enemies, who will?

If we don’t pray for our enemies, how will they ever change?  If we don’t pray for our enemies, how will we ever be free from bitterness?

 

Every time we are faced with people who mistreat us, we have three options:

 

1) We can hate them with total hatred. That accomplishes nothing.

2) We can struggle to hold back our anger. That will emotionally exhaust us.

3) We can pray for God to bless them. That opens the door for God to bless us as well.

 

So with Jeremiah 29:7 in mind, I want to ehlp us think through what it means to pray for our enemies so God can bless us. 

 

 

On a human level, there are many answers to that question. Sometimes our enemies come from those closest to us. Sometimes people turn against us because of foolish things we do. Other times we may suffer at the hands of someone against whom we have done no wrong or don’t even know.   

 

It’s amazing how many black people hate white people in our country today just because of the color of our skin.  And there are just as many white folk who hate people of color and other ethnicities. 

 

People may hate us because of our appearance, our background, our personal beliefs, our ethnic origin, our skin color, our position in life, our money (or lack thereof), or for a million other reasons. They may think we are boring, empty, trivial, a bother to them and an impediment to their career. They may be prejudiced against us for no good reason. Perhaps they dislike us because we have succeeded where they failed. Who knows? Enemies rarely explain themselves.

 

But I want you to think about something you may have never pondered and it surfaces from this text.  Did you ever realize your enemies may come from God?  He allows them to enter our lives for reasons that are rarely apparent to us at the time.

 

Not too long ago we looked at the life and experiences of Joseph and his brothers in Genesis 37-50.  When his brothers threw him into the cistern and then sold him to the Midianites, they had only evil in their hearts.

 

When Potiphar’s wife falsely accused him, she lied because of her injured pride. When he was thrown into jail, no one could foresee that eventually he would be the Prime Minister of Egypt, second in command only to Pharaoh.

 

And even Joseph himself had no idea what it all meant until years later, during the great famine, when his brothers approached him, thinking he was an Egyptian, not recognizing him, believing him to be long dead. Then and only then did God’s plan come into focus.

 

That’s why three times in Genesis 45:5-8, Joseph declares to his brothers that God had sent him to Egypt to put him in a position where he could one day deliver his family and preserve a godly heritage on the earth.

 

Years later Joseph utters these famous words that sum up his understanding of God’s sovereignty in what his brothers had done: “You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). Only a man with a deep belief in the sovereignty of God could utter those words after suffering so much mistreatment.

 

In the same way, the Babylonians meant to conquer the Jews and humiliate them, but God meant it for good. And not just the good of the Jewish people but also the good of the Babylonians.

 

So where do your enemies come from? They may think they are settling a score or getting even with you or doing whatever it is they think they are doing, but in reality, they come from God.  And if he didn’t allow it, your enemies could not trouble you.

 

So,

 

 

In the broadest sense, an enemy is anyone who turns against me. The dictionary defines an enemy as “one who feels hatred toward, intends injury to, or opposes the interests of another.” It’s not just the terrorists in the Middle East who are our enemies.  It’s wrong to limit our understanding of the word to that definition. 

All of us have some personal enemies who are much closer to home. In fact, home is the first place to look for your enemies. Jesus himself said in Matthew 10:36, “A man’s enemies will be those of his own household”.  Then He goes on to specify three very close relationships that go sour:

 

A father and his son,

A mother and her daughter,

A mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law.

 

And we don’t have to stretch the meaning of the passage to apply that to any close relationship we have, including parent-child, husband-wife, and on out to grandparents, uncles, aunts, and then to various distant relatives.

 

It includes people at work and those who attend church with us. The enemies we are told to love usually are not people in Iraq or North Korea. Most of us will never visit those two countries. But we do have to go home every day to face people who may or may not be glad to see us.

 

Every week we work with people who may dislike us. We may even come to church and see people we would rather not see. But if this teaching of Jesus is going to work, it must work first in the relationships closest to us.

 

Did you ever notice that God places inside every family some people who rub us the wrong way?  If you can’t think of who that might be, guess what?  It’s you!  God puts in every family people whom he uses to prepare for leadership in the world.

 

That’s why your closest friends, your strongest supporters, and your biggest critics will probably all come from your own flesh and blood. You have to learn to deal with the people closest to you before you can impact the world around you. Let me be more specific:

 

Your children could be your enemies.

Your husband could be your enemy.

Your wife could be your enemy.

Your parents could be your enemies.

 

Certainly your ex-wife or your ex-husband could be your enemy. It isn’t just people “out there” somewhere—nameless, faceless, anonymous evil people who are our enemies. Sooner or later people we love will hurt us deeply and at that point, and for at least that moment, they have become our enemies.  And if we are honest enough to admit it, we have become their enemies too.

 

Something like that had happened to the Jews in exile. They hated the Babylonians with a fierce hatred.

 

Listen to the closing words of Psalm 137.

 

Verses 8-9

 

Ever prayed like that? “Lord, may their babies be dashed against the rocks.” There is no way to soften those words or to dim the anger they express. The Jewish exiles are asking God to send someone to invade Babylon, to do to them as they had done to Jerusalem, and then to take their babies and dash them against the rocks.

Can you imagine the worship service of the Jews when that song was the special music?  It’s hard to imagine that this prayer was a part of their worship, and yet there it is in black and white in the inspired Word of God! 

 

Isaiah 13 contains a prophecy of God’s judgment against Babylon. Verses 15-18 explain how God answered the prayer of Psalm 137:

 

Isaiah 13:15-18

 

Even though the prayer of Psalm 137 seems extreme, God answered it literally, and he did it by using one pagan kingdom (the Medes) to judge another pagan kingdom (the Babylonians). Thus does God’s judgment come on those who so badly mistreated his people.

 

It’s not as if we have to choose between loving our enemies and hoping they are someday punished. If we do our part (loving them), God can certainly take care of judging them. And in the meantime, we will be blessed if we work for the prosperity of our enemies and pray for God’s blessings upon them. If that sounds confusing, then just remember this.

 

If we remain bitter, we cannot get better.

If we try to get even with those who hurt us, we are mostly hurting ourselves.

If we try to punish our enemies, we are usurping God’s authority.

 

 

 

 

But if we love them and bless them and pray for them, things will go better for us and for them. And we can then sleep well at night, knowing that if they need punishment, God can take care of it in his own time and in his own way. That’s the real meaning of Jeremiah 29:7.

 

Of course, it is easier to talk about this abstractly. It is much harder to love our enemies on a daily basis. We are to love those who despitefully use us and abuse us and victimize us again and again. It’s not easy to do this in any case, but it is much harder to love when we feel deeply and repeatedly violated and our trust has been destroyed.

 

Yet the command remains: “Love your enemies” (Luke 6:27). We cannot escape it. This is a key part of our own spiritual journey from bitterness to forgiveness to freedom. To say it another way, we cannot be set free until we set them free to be blessed by the Lord.

 

That’s as far as we’ll go for the moment. In Part 2 of this message, we’ll talk about seven specific ways we can love our enemies.

 

Let’s pray.