OF THE KINGDOM SEASON 2 | Week 7 — Matthew 5:38–42

Greetings to the church at 10.30. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I bring greetings from the saints at 5. They love you all. They pray for you and they send their thanks for how faithfully you labor in this place. It makes it easy for us to step into the presence of the Lord in the afternoon amen. So if you've never seen me before, I do come here. I do love the Lord but you just won't see me unless you know I have been requested by way of order to up here. As I have been requested today, so we are in week seven of the seven on the Mounts. How many of you are having a fantastic time? Woo. These five over here. I know it's been tough. It's been really tough and I'm sorry to let you know that today is not going to be any easier. I am going to be all up in your business. I'm going to be all up in your grill. I'm going to be touching all your buttons. I'm going to be stomping on your studio. The word of God unfortunately requires my apologies in advance. If you're new, come and find me after I owe you a coffee. The rest of you, I think this is just part of the process that the Lord is taking us through. We are, as I've said already, speaking on revenge and retaliation and the text for that is found in Matthew 5, 38 to 42. And it reads as follows. You have heard it said, and I for an eye and a truth for a truth. But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, they didn't have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles, give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. Father, this is your word. Thank you that you have given it freely to us. Forgive us this day, our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. The title of my message this morning is Jesus ups the ant. Jesus raises the bar. Jesus takes things to the next level. In slang, they would say Jesus takes it to the streets. Essentially we arrive here at a culmination of things that Jesus has been saying that have been constantly escalating the situation. Constantly escalating the expectations of those who would have been listening to him as he delivered the sermon on the mount. We find ourselves in this particular text where Jesus is using the fifth of the sixth entities that he is using in this particular passage. So if you have heard me at Bryanston before, you know, I always like to throw in a little bit of reading and a little bit of extra information. And so this is what I found for us today. So Jesus uses a rhetorical and a literary device very beautifully that we've seen throughout the weeks. And being able to contrast for us and to juxtapose some ideas that he's putting together in a way that ideas wouldn't ordinarily fit. So prominent or popular examples of such use of antithesis that you would probably know up on the screen at the moment, Alexander Pope for instance, to to is to is human to forgive is to is divine. So he's got those two contrasting ideals next to each other. I was very disappointed in the morning that no one seems to have read a tale of two cities. So I hope this is service has more. I'll praise the Lord more readers than the service. So yes, it was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom. It was the age of foolishness. Right. And so you see the beautiful use of those literary devices pulling together these. Contrary thoughts, these juxtaposing thoughts to to create for us this point or to augment and strengthen the argument for us that Jesus is making in this particular passage of scripture. And he does it so effectively that we're able to see basically the reality of two truths living next to each other, but two truths also being true at the same time. So when he says you have heard it said, but I say to you essentially he highlights to us that there are these two ideas that live next to each other that look as if they're contradictory but actually work together to make the point that I am presenting to you. So there are six of these overall in the seven on the mountain. We're looking at the fifth one today and in it is a specific presentation of these counter cultural principles that are rather radical. We think when we hear the text today that you know the people that were listening to the seven on the mount sort of sat there and clapped and thought that Jesus was delivering a really powerful and impactful word. In fact, they were probably just as surprised as we are when reading the text. It was really radical for him to use some of this language. It was unexpected and it was very likely the first time that they had heard such a high expectation of them in this particular area. He uses this essentially as this writer says almost to set this new revolutionary ethic for Christians. So he's not going about run of the mill preaching or ordinary teaching. It's revolutionary content that they're hearing for the first time that's pressing up against them that's making them feel a little bit uncomfortable and getting them to see the space or the gap rather between these two juxtaposing ideas that he's presenting to them. Ultimately, what we realize as we read all six of them and they keep escalating up until the climatic and to the seas you see right at the end is this righteous calling. He's calling us to live a righteousness that is higher than the traditional teachings of the Pharisees. He's essentially setting an entirely new standard. He's saying, guys, I know what you know, but this is what I'm here to say. And that raises the bar in a way that people haven't heard or seen before very much in the way that we find it challenging us as we read the text even in 2026. So given how challenging and how difficult to digest some of this is particularly when you think of turning your cheek or handing over your tunic or having to suffer an eye for an eye, there are these three kind of groupings of scholars and theologians that are formed around how they interpret or how they see this particular passage of scripture. So the first group reads the passage that we've just read and walks away saying, this is impossible to do. No one can actually achieve this. It cannot be done in addition to that it's highly impractical and essentially for the divine. So in the order of Jesus and above, those are the people that we are supposed to respond to this text. Then there's a second group of people that say, well, actually, this is possible. It's impractical, but possible and exceptional people can do it. So, you know, people with high laurels and PhDs and Bible scholars and saints, those people can do this, but not every day people like the rest of us. And then finally, there is a third bucket of people and these people interpret this or see this text presented not only as possible, but practical and normative. So these are the three ways in which you can approach the text. And I think often that's how we come to it as well. You can read this and think, anybody got a tab for an eye for an eye, or you can say, who is going to turn there at the cheek? Or you could think of it as, why would I hand over my cloak to somebody who's already taken my tunic? That is for special Christians or only Jesus can fulfill this expectation in the text. So even when we search our own hearts, it's very obvious to us sometimes where we find ourselves. So as you are thinking about where you might locate yourself in those three buckets or which of those three options appeals to you or resonates with you, I want you to consider that if you're struggling with the possibility or the element of possibility around whether or not it is possible for this text to be practiced on earth, you potentially have a faith issue. If you are contending less with the possibility and more with the practicality to say, it is possible. But I mean, if you work where I work and you're in the family that I'm in, it's really impractical to think that I can live like this, then you my friend potentially have a trust issue. Simply not trusting that God and doing the word of God will yield the results that the word of God says that it will. And finally, if you are struggling with the relativity of this, like whether it should only be Jesus that we expect this of or whether it should be the special few or whether it should be all of us, then you possibly have a submission or a surrender issue. And so we'll think a little bit more and reflect a little bit more about this at the end, but all of us in coming across this. across this passage of scripture, face some of these realities. And we need to ask the Holy Spirit to help us to see where it is that we need His grace and being able to receive the text and its fullness and be able to apply it wholly in our lives. So if you've been coming to Renation Brinston for a while, you know that our general school of thought is a congregation largely falls in that third bucket. We believe that Jesus said what He said. And He meant what He said when He said what He said. And so not only is it possible, but we believe that it is practical and normative for us as believers as well, to live according to the standard that He sets for us in the sermon on the Mount. So this is not just for some, but it's for each and every one of us and its application as well. So if you continue to grapple as many of us are grappling through this text, an encouraging passage that I found from one of the scholars says that one of the things that makes this practical or the fact that the arguments by suggesting that Jesus is providing practical guidelines that are effective in transforming the life of the believer are paraking vicious cycles of greed, judgment, lust, hatred and violence. So a prerequisite to your ability to be able to see these as practical guidelines is your expectation for transformation. If you expect to say the same, then these guidelines cannot be practical for you. They'll remain in practical suggestions made by the Word of God for the special few to which they apply. But if you are looking to see the transformative work of God in your life, if you have an expectation for practical transformation, then these are guidelines that become normative and everyday because it is through these that the transformation is actually driven and affected in our lives. And so sometimes the problem is not the text, the problem is the veil we wear as we approach the text. And it's important to be able to introspect in our own hearts as to how we are approaching the text and what we're believing for when we sit in front of it. So for me, one of the questions I walked away with immediately when I started studying this was, who is the you who said you have heard it said? Or not rather the one who said you have heard it said, but who said it in order for Jesus to say you have heard it said? Who is it that said this that started us off on this path that it seems impossible to come back from? Who opened Pandora's Box? And so many of the scholars believe that it was the Babylonian King, Hamurabi, in the second century BC, who puts all of this together, including this particular concept of an eye for an eye in the Babylonian code. The Babylonian code was then integrated into all aspects of life, including the Roman text and the biblical text. And so it would have been pretty standard and expected in this time for an eye to be a well-known, well-accepted, practiced concept that no one was really disagreeing with. That the concept itself was called Lex Tallyonus and it means the law of retaliation. It was so common that there was a law around it so that it could be practiced in such a way that it met the societal expectations. Now, before you think that they were a rogue and hinged bunch, I want to just say in their defense that this law, or the law of retaliation, was not put in place so that if I knocked out your tooth, you were then encouraged to come and knock out my tooth as well, but rather it was said in this way so that if I knocked out your tooth, you wouldn't then come over and cut off my ear, for example. So it wasn't to encourage that people retaliate, but rather it was to address the natural desire for retaliation in people and to restrain them in their practice of revenge. So it was less to instruct and more to contain the situation that was already prevalent because if there's one thing we know, about the human heart, it's that we love and equal score. And we will find a way of getting an equal score. And unfortunately, as we're trying to pursue that equal score, we always somehow find a way of seeing ourselves in a somewhat better light than everyone else. We always see ourselves as more wronged and more harmed than the person next to us. And so we have this tendency when reciprocating to overdo it sometimes when even if we had done perhaps exactly the same thing, we would expect a slightly more understanding type of treatment because we judge ourselves by our intentions, but we judge others mostly by their actions. And so here it is in the actual Bible outside of the Babylonian codes in Exodus 22. I mean, it's 21, 22 to 25 that we find it. I'm just going to read from the bottom there where it says, "But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, I for I, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe." Pretty much. I mean, living in this kind of world must have been insane. One of the things that I think also really caught my attention as I was reading this is that it often didn't matter if you had done something purposefully or not. So if I accidentally knocked out your tooth, you could still come and purposefully knock out my tooth. There was no culpability associated with this practice. It was just ensuring that we reach a level of proportionality. We need to make sure that even the playing field, we need to settle the score. And so constantly people are going off their eyes and teeth and feet and lives and burns and wounds, always very uncomfortable society. And so even in Leviticus 1921, we see it coming up again there where it says, "It shall be a life for life, and I for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, or a foot for a foot." Now most of you are sitting here thinking, "Well, I've never taken anybody's sports, and I've never harmed anybody's hand, and I certainly have nothing to do with taking a life." But I want to put it to you that if we were to maybe fast forward the Bible into 2026 and have it written in today's language for everyday Christians like ourselves, it would probably read a little bit like this. A "mise for a "mise," a block for a block, a "diss for a tooth," a "blutic for a "blutic," a "betrayal for a betrayal," a "live for a lie," a silent treatment for a silent treatment. I cancel for a cancel, a spicy email for a spicy email. Because just in case you thought that Lex Teliones died in the second century BC, I want you to know that actually it is alive and well here at every nation, Brinston, all over South Africa and all over the world. People, we, in our own ways, are pursuing our own kinds of vengeance, our own kind of self-directed retaliation, even from the comfort of our own phones. And knowing that this is the case, Mahatma Gandhi has said to have said that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. In the same way that a foot for a foot would make the whole world lame, and an ear for an ear would make the whole world deaf, and a heart for a heart would make the whole world dead. There is something inherently wrong with the way that we think we should practice justice. There is something inherently flawed about our own appreciation and our own understanding of what it means to make right a wrong. So I'm going to invite you for a second to join me, Don Mimri Lane, into economics. Some of you loved the subject and you can help us. Some of you maybe didn't enjoy it all that much. This is a safe space. There will be no multiple choice questions. However, I do think that some of the principles will help us to unpack what Jesus actually means and what he's actually saying in this particular passage of Scripture. So I hope that we have an economist in this service. We did it in the first service and they just helped to maintain law and order in the room. But if you need any help, try your neighbor out. I'm sure that they will be able to point you in the right direction. So let's go and kick it off immediately. Are we ready? At this point, we should all be on the same page. I see a couple of people experiencing PTSD. Pray for me. for them, pray for them. It won't endure too long, but work with me. Let's follow. So at this point, what you're seeing is a simple supply and demand curve. We're all on the same page. Does it look familiar? At least to most, I hope. And so this is what I'm calling utopian justice economy. So in our utopian justice economy, we have the people's demand for justice. They're demand for vengeance. They demand their appetite for retaliation. And then we have what the law makes available to them as right of recourse or compensation. And where these two meets, essentially, is where we find our moral equilibrium. It's where, when I have done to you, what I think is just meets what the law has made available to me. And we land in that sweet spot that we're coining the moral equilibrium. The issue with the moral equilibrium is that we tend to be heavy handed in our demand for retaliation and vengeance. We tend to not be great at actually being fair in our ability to balance the scale. And so often, this was happening in 2 BC all the way up to the time that Jesus eventually preached the sermon on the mount. And so when that happens in economics, when the markets are overheating as it were, and they are running a little bit out of control, what we try to do is to subject them to some controls. If you are a canes and economists, I'm very sorry, because we will have to violate laissez-faire for this to work. So work with me. We are going to say that in this economy, because we need to control some of the measures that we're actually experiencing, we are going to need to put in place some regulation. So let's take a South African, current South African example. The fuel price. The fuel price is doing way, way, way too much. Have you seen it? The fuel price is out of hand. I think we can effectively categorize it as overheating. So if our government, Lord help us, was to be kind and say, our poor South Africans have endured way too much, we need to cap how much they can pay by a liter of fuel. We need to just ensure that we protect them from the expenses that they're currently facing. We're going to cap fuel at 25 randl. Just like that, we're just going to cap it, and going forward, they can only pay 25 randl, effectively what they would introduce as a price ceiling. And the price ceiling works very much like how our religious ceiling will work in this particular example. In the sense that it will serve as a cap for the application of retaliation in public spaces. So because people are getting overzealous, because they're doing a little too much, we then decide, let's put in next-talionist, it will help to restrain the demand and the activity of people. No one will exactly be happy because we won't be at equilibrium. People will feel like they've got more demand for justice than they is supply of restitution. But actually we'll get to a place where we can bring everything under control again. We will create a ceiling to help us manage the situation. And then Jesus comes in and says, "Unfortunately, the level at which you have set the standard is insufficient. When I compare the standard that you have set with the principles of the kingdom, I need you to up the ante. I need you to reconsider who you are in need and how that allows you to respond. And because of that, as Jesus, I'm gonna raise the bar and put in a new floor into our economy. And our new floor, more or less, will work like a price floor, which in economic terms would be if the government was not kind to us and did not protect us by capping the economy or capping the fuel price to 25 ran per litre. But rather said, "You know what? These guys are doing great. They're getting promoted. They're happy at work. They love going in every day. We're gonna take the fuel price to 40 ran a litre minimum." And so they would hike it all the way up there, which is how you would effectively create the floor. And from then onwards, everyone would charge us 40 ran a litre because we can effectively afford it. And so what you see when those concepts or those principles are put next to each other, is that where people had been behaving at the time of the sermon on the Mount was at the religious ceiling. And Jesus effectively comes in his sermon and he says, "I am calling you upward to the kingdom floor." There is an upward call from Jesus pertaining to how we view and how we see and how we respond in situations of revenge and retaliation. It's simply not enough to take the boxes of fulfilling the law. It's simply not enough to have satisfied what I think is the right measure of recompense. It's simply not enough to set my own standard or live by the public standard, but Jesus calls us to the public standard. Jesus calls us to the righteous standard. And the righteous standard is effectively where we operate. And so from here on out, when Jesus says, "But I say, know that every single time he is upping the ante," know that every single time he is raising the standards, know that every single time he says, "But I say he is inviting us to an elevated place in himself." And so as children in his kingdom, we can only operate above the kingdom floor. There is no going back for us. There is no living below for us. The equilibrium and the religious ceiling are simply insufficient to live up to what Jesus has done for us on the cross and where that has placed the kingdom ceiling. Now, responding to the upward call can be challenging. In fact, many people when approaching this passage of Scripture experience a number of conflicting feelings. One of them often is this perception around Jesus supporting pacifism or abuse. They are also often writers that think that they are contradictions in the text. If Jesus was indeed this turner of the right cheek, if Jesus was indeed this hinderover of cloaks, if he was indeed this constant borrower, how was he overturning tables in the temple? And then finally is this perception of weakness and strength. What are we practicing when we respond to the upward call? Are we opening a door for ourselves to be treated as dormats? Are we inviting in a view that says we have no voice and we have no ability to respond? Are we allowing ourselves to be trampled on by people outside of the kingdom? These are some of the tensions that we'll explore. So in Matthew 5, 38, Jesus states, do not resist an evil person. And this, for most people, is the start of the contradiction because Jesus has constantly been resisting evil by confronting it directly throughout his ministry and throughout his teaching. And so in this space, we experience a little bit of dissonance. Some people who have read the scriptures and studied the scriptures have suggested that the commentary, for instance, is limited to legal principles and legal application. By and large, most scholars agree that that's not the case, but that is one of the views that you'll find in the scholarship when reading on this particular issue, the ones that I liked, that tend to be the dominant schools of thoughts suggest that what do not resist an evil person actually means if you look at the Greek translation is do not resist by evil means. So instead of simply do not resist, do not resist by evil means. So if I steal your cell phone, don't come back and steal my car. The other option for that is do not render evil for evil. Do not repay evil for evil. Let's not get into a tennis match of reciprocity around who can be more evil when we are practicing resistance. Let's not take the standard ever lower in our attempts to outdo each other in evil, which is often the case when retaliation and revenge are being applied. The bar just gets lower and lower and lower. And so we're faced now with these two realities around resistance and what resistance looks like for us as God's children in this particular text. Where is he calling us? What is the meaning of resistance? What is resistance look like? And there are two types of resistance that I want us to consider, particularly when we are thinking around weakness and we're thinking around passivism. The first type of resistance is a passive resistance. And you'll notice that a lot of this language is political in nature because the people that Jesus was preaching to were experiencing a political subjugation. And so the world over, we see this language around resistance movements and teachings around resistance. And so often the convention, particularly around passive resistance, is that it refers to non-violent forms of corpse. to an unjust authority, often where the response is inactive. So we do not participate by not acting. The peaceful resistance element on the other hand is a little bit broader and a more modern umbrella and that encompasses an active, still non-violent opposition. So the difference is action or inaction. And so for every time you've read the text and thought that we were being called to a place of inaction, you would have misread the scriptures. Because actually in every single one of those examples in 38 to 42, there is an action that Jesus recommends. There is an action that Jesus positions when he speaks about how we ought to resist. He says, if you are asked to go a mile, go to instead, you are acting. He says, if they take your tunic, offer them also your cloak, you are offering, you are acting. There is a part, there is a role that we have to play in this kind of resistance, we're not just lying down and taking it. We are responding as advised by the principles of heaven. So we are peacefully resisting. Some of us find it difficult to consider peace as a form of resistance. Romans 12, 17 to 19 says, repainal evil were evil, but give thought to what is unruble in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God for it is written. Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. I want to highlight at this particular point that no way do we see that you are not wronged in any of these examples. If anything, you are wrong. If anything, the reader should see themselves as the offended and not the offender in this particular text. Although there are many, many instances in where we would be the offender, but currently where we're reading, we are the offendered. And yet, despite being in the position of the offendered, we have no right to be right. And boy, do we love our rights to be right. It's what gives you that extra juice when you start typing up that spicy email, because you are right. It's what gives you that confidence to turn off your phone so that you don't respond because you are right. It's what entitles you to your silence so that you don't have to respond when spoken to, because you are right. It's what justifies your blue-taking, because you are right. And yet, it is very clear in the text that even our right to be right, the subject to the principles of the kingdom. And how we practice our right to be right should be in submission to the teaching of the servant on the mount and the upward call to which we are constantly responding. And so for those of us who struggle to see peace as power, I want to remind us of the full armor of God, the full armor of God which we find in Ephesians 6, the full armor of God which has its foundation in the shoes on our feet, which represent the gospel of peace. So often we think that peace is just this lovely warm feeling we get inside when we're anxious, or when we're nervous, or when we're expecting some bad news. We don't often think of it as part of the things that we use in our armor. Or even when we do, we think it's the soft part of the armor, the part that makes everything comfortable and fit together. We don't see it as the offensive tools in the way that we see the sort of the spirit. And yet nothing allows you to stand even with all your armor on if you are not wearing your shoes. And so the foundation of the armor is peace, the place from which you put everything else on, the place from which you move, what will determine the effectiveness of your movement when wearing the armor is peace? I would go as far as to say that your ability to use the sword will purely be dependent on how effective the sandals are on your feet. Because if you can't get to where you need to use the sword because your sandals are dysfunctioning, it won't be effective to you. And so peace is a critical element of our armor. Peace is a critical part of our military attire in Christ. The amplified says, "And having strapped your feet, or having strapped on your feet, the gospel of peace in preparation to face the enemy with firm footed stability and the readiness produced by the good news, the gospel of peace." There is an enemy to be faced. Often when we think of having peace, we think that there is no enemy, there is an enemy to be faced. And you can only face that enemy if your shoes are in the right state. You can only face that enemy if you have the requisite amount of peace to allow you to stand in front of your enemy. So often we're worried about charging forward as opposed to worrying about standing. And I want to remind us this morning, what our true assignment is. Ephesians 6 says, "Therefore put on the complete armor of God so that you will be able to successfully resist and stand your ground in the evil day of danger and having done everything that the Christ demands to stand firm in your place, fully prepared, immovable, forious." We are so ready, so often, to charge out as part of our resistance. As part of our resistance, we're so ready to take them down. When actually the text does not say to advance, the text says to stand, to stand in your place immovable, unshakable, to stand in your place so that you are able to effect resistance, to stand in your place so that you are victorious after you have done everything to stand. Basiloni, we cannot stand if our feet are not shot in the gospel of peace. And so as we approach the cheek and the coat and the mile and the loan, all of which are referenced in the text, we need to approach it with this particular position of being able to stand. It is only when you are able to stand that you will be able to resist them temptation to respond when someone slaps you on the right cheek. If your peace is failing, your response will fail as well. And so when we think of this or when we study this particular section and it refers to the cheek, the cheek or an affront on the cheek was not supposed to be symbolic of violence, like a beat down or a smack down or like a punch. No, this particular area is speaking to an insult, a very serious insult. If someone gives you like a young backhand, you just, it does something to the inside of you, man. I know nobody's backhanded you because you guys are all washed in the blood and going to to every nation, Brianston and going to your connect groups. But some of you may be before you are saved, well remember that in the streets, backhand goes a long way. It speaks to respect. It speaks to how people see you and how they perceive you and it speaks to worth. And so in a high, high on a high shame culture, this was a serious offense. You could take somebody's, you could take a year's worth of wages from someone because of this kind of offense. And Jesus says when faced with this kind of offense, when faced with this kind of public embarrassment and ridicule and disrespect, simply turn the other cheek. Exercise the kind of peace and discipline that the ordinary person simply would not be able to conceive. In turning your other cheek, make it clear to that person that actually, they should slap you appropriately on the other cheek as well. They should afford you the dignity of receiving the kind of slap that equals deserve. You correct them by inviting them to offend you once again. It's not me, but it's not Jesus. There was a rule also in the day regarding the mile. So Roman soldiers were wearing this heavy armor and they were tired and they'd be walking 25 miles a day. And so they could ask anyone at random to come and help them carry elements of their armor. And this was a law and you couldn't say no. And so I would just come to you and say, "Mam, it's been a rough day here." And you would have been obliged then for one mile, carry those items without complaint. At the end of that mile, you would then obviously be able to say, "I'm going home now." I almost said, "Thank you." But I don't think that came out very often. But Jesus says, "When you are conscripted, into that service. When you are asked to come against your will to carry this baggage for a mile, in the same way that Simon of Cyrene was conscripted to carry the cross of Jesus, he says, "Except the opportunity." And don't only go the obligated mile, but go an extra mile as well. So when you get to the point when they are now thinking, "You know what? This person is about to put the stuff down and head out. Say to them, "I'm very happy to walk with you another mile." And in that moment, you create an invitation for the person to see you differently. You present a self that is not angry or offended or duties in your service of the mile. Instead, you present a self that is open and willing and in service. And it transforms the nature of the relationship from conscripted to volunteer. You voluntarily inconvenience yourself that your service might minister to someone. The coat and the loan are very similar principles. So you only wore two pieces of clothing back in the day. It was your tunic underneath and your coat on top. Most people had one coat. So I mean, this is kind of essential apparel that you're wearing here, especially if it's cold. Your coat, your coat would have been slightly thicker. Your tunic would have been relatively thin. If you owed someone something, they could take your coat for the day and hold it. What are those things that they hold basically like a lay-by situation? But they had to give it back to you at the end of the day because it was cold. So you needed your cloak that much that even when we're using it to hold in place of what you owe us, you still have to come and take it in the evening. That's how much you needed it. That's how important it was. So if now someone is taking your tunic, you must understand you don't have clothes anymore, right? Because you only had two. And they're coming up to your tunic, which would have been really, really brashed for the day because you don't have much to go on. And already we know that your cloak is protected because you needed at night. But if someone's coming for your tunic, they're coming for the essence of you. They're really trying to get to you. They really trying to prove a point. They really going out, they are out of their way to stand on your toes. And so in that moment, Jesus says, "Hand over, hand over your cloak as well." Stand before them, bear, so that they can see the extent of what they're asking of you. Confront them in very real terms with the depth of their ask. Let everyone around see how ridiculous this appeal is that they're making of you. You can respond anyway. Appeal to them using the shock vector. Shock them into realizing what they're asking of you. But use the generosity as a tool to inspire a thought or inspire a response. Romans 1220, "To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him, if he is thirsty, give him something to drink, for by so doing you will keep burning colds on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but be overcome with God. Let us constantly use our actions to inspire the kind of response that makes someone wonder, what kind of person is this? What kind of reaction is this? Because often, the people who have committed these acts would know what they have done. They would know that they've slapped you. They would know that they have offended you. They would know that they've taken your tunic. They would know." And they're expecting a particular type of response out of you. They're expecting a worldly response out of you. And so when you turn the other cheek, you invite them into a different conversation. You show them how high the bar is that has been set for your life. It's an opportunity to minister and to witness peace is our witness. Even in its peaceful, resistant, nonviolent way, it is our strongest witness. Ephesians 2 reminds us about Jesus saying that he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. Jesus preached peace to us. And in the same way, we are to preach his peace to others. The reminder from the Beatitudes is blessed are the peacemakers, where they will be called children of God. This is how they'll know. They're not going to know because of the bumper sticker on your car. They're not going to know because of the sign on your office door, your WhatsApp statuses with all your Bible verses. They're not going to know from the music playing in your car. They're going to know because you're a peacemaker. They're going to know because you have a de-escalating capacity within you. They're going to know that you are the kind of person that can be called when things are out of hand because you have the ability to bring them back in hand. They're going to know because you leave a different taste in them out. We are called to be peacemakers. But we cannot be retaliating peacemakers. We cannot be vengeful peacemakers. We are called to be reconciliatry peacemakers, even to the point of extending ourselves beyond the remit of our comfort, beyond the remit of our expectation, beyond the remit of our own convenience. We are called. There are two types of justice, as I close, that I want us to consider. The first is the type of justice that's practiced day to day, every day in our world, in our modern world. And that's called a really tribute to justice. You do something wrong. We call it lawyer. We get a judge. You get sentence. You get punished. You go to prison. We fix it. Hopefully you get rehabilitated and you come the other type of justice is less practiced in our conventional society. It's considered to be restorative justice. The purpose of the justice is to restore the relationship between the offender and the offender. The purpose of the justice is to fix things, not to simply punish the wrong duor. It is a collaborative process. It is an active and participatory process in which both the offender and the offendered participate. I would put it to you that that is the kind of justice that Jesus calls us to. That is peacemakers. This is the restoration that he seeks to achieve through us. That this is the purpose for which we are called to come to the table and offer ourselves and lay down our comforts and our convenience and our urge to respond to that email with another email and our urge to portray the person who betrayed us the way they betrayed us and our urge to do to them what they did to us. Instead, Jesus invites us to respond to his upward call. He calls us to the kingdom floor. He offers us the opportunity to minister different. He presents the opportunity to us to bear witness through peace. May we receive his invitation this morning. May we wear him well where we travel. May we represent him as chief makers in our families, in our offices, in our boardrooms and our businesses, in our sports fields and wherever it is that he may call us. May we be a sweet fragrance of peace to all those around us. We're going to take communion this morning. And as you're looking for your communion or searching for it or raising your hand so that someone might assist you with the element, I'd like you to go back to the thought that we started with in the beginning. When you consider your heart posture around revenge and retaliation, do you struggle with the possibility of sacrificing yourself that another might experience the kingdom? That is your struggle. Perhaps this morning you can pray for faith to believe that in Christ it is possible. If you are contending perhaps with the practicality of how realistic it is to do in your cutthroat office environment where it is an eye for an eye, a foot for a hand for a hand and you're worried about your own hand. Perhaps what you need is trust in the Father this morning that he will protect you, that he will cover you, that he will be your vengeance. Finally, if it's relativity that you are confronting this morning, this idea of exceptionalism among believers, the idea of exceptionalism even in the kingdom that certain parts apply to some but not all, perhaps this morning you can consider praying for surrender and submission to the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit would allow you to lay down your life. that you would give up the sense of self that allows you to see yourself as less than, without the Holy Spirit as it is impossible to do any of these things. So as you pray this morning, don't you invite him to fill you a fresh, that he would empower you in his making and reconciliation, that the experience of you would be a fragrance of the kingdom.