Most people are intensely conscious of their rights. We hear a lot about personal rights. Lawsuits abound in our society and many of them are challenging the infringement of someone’s perceived rights.

Rights, according to Webster’s Dictionary, is something to which one has a just claim, the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled, and something that one may properly claim as due. There is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family it is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. It establishes that everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. It states that no one shall be held in slavery or servitude; no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law. That’s the rights of just being human-beings.

There are civil rights and political rights, as well economic, social and cultural rights. There are women’s right, gay rights, and religious rights. There is what is called Miranda Rights, which states even if a person has committed a crime and you know with out a shadow of doubt that they are guilty, they have rights, before they can be arrested they are informed of their rights. If they are not informed of these rights before hand it could lead to the dismissal of the case and they could be set free even though proof has shown that they are guilty.

Authentic Christ followers should always be asking how to interpret the culture in light of the scriptures. Cultures come and go but the word of God does not change. Depending on the current disposition or direction of the world at any given time in history Christ followers have often found themselves in a juxtaposition that doesn’t always align with convention wisdom or even political correctness.

The Sermon on the Mount is one of the clearest teachings and definition of what a Christ follower should be. Jesus has been using contrast as a means of showing that the righteousness He demands supersedes anything the Pharisees or scribes were teaching.

He now addresses personal rights.

38 “You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’[p] 39 But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also. 40 If you are sued in court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat, too. 41 If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile,[q] carry it two miles. 42 Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow.” Matthew 5:38-42

What are our rights as a Christian? Do we have a right to success or wealth? Do we have a right to a home or a family? Should we demand to be respected or to have a good name in society? These verses that I just read seem to suggest that indeed we have no rights!

How are we supposed to act toward personal offences?

Think about the order of what we have already learned in the teachings of Jesus. We have already heard and received the word of the kingdom, and that anger, contempt and absorbing desire have been dealt with so that our lives are not being run by them. If they occasionally test us that is natural but they do not control us and leave us unable to reliably and happily carry through with our sober intention to do what is good and avoid what is evil. (Willard)

IF that is true and we are living and pursuing the surrendered life with Christ, we will live with a larger view of God and our place in His world. We will see ourselves in God’s hands even when we are in the place of personal injury or insult. We will see ourselves in His bigger picture even when we are in a place of loss and personal trouble. We view the one who is troubling us through the eyes of our Savior and it enables us to pray these words and mean them: “Father forgive them, for they do not really understand what they are doing.”

1. Rights, Rules and Responses

I want to address the scripture directly before backing out and looking at the overall thought for today. Today’s sermon is really simple but like we are finding out about the entire Sermon on the Mount, it is hard to hear. It is hard to hear because of all the noise of society which points us in a completely opposite direction. Jesus mentions four different types of responses to personal affronts, injuries and impositions.

Responding to an insult: This all about tuning the other cheek. (Matt. 5:39) This is about remaining vulnerable. This is about checking yourself before you respond to defend yourself in anger. This teaching is about defending yourself alone. The bible never suggests that we turn someone else’s cheek. It means you would allow yourself to be injured or hurt rather than injuring the would be injurer. The instinct to retaliate lies deep in the heart of human beings. We believe and embrace the idea of “settleing the score” or “giving the other person what they deserve.”

Jesus clearly teaches that we are to overcome evil with good. (Rom. 12:19-21) You will be abused if you are a Christ follower. Paul wrote, “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Responding to a rip-off: “Let him have your coat” (Matt. 5:40) This teaching is about being sued under Jewish law. It went something like this. You could be sued for many layers of undergarments or clothes worn under your heavy outer coat but you could not be sued for that which would keep you warm in the winter. Jesus is saying to those listening that in His kingdom that while the law might protect your “rights” you were not to be controlled by your rights to your possessions. There is a higher and more godly way. This is tough stuff isn’t it? Now you know why much of the church world and the evangelical church world in particular doesn’t find it very appealing to really study and understand what the Bible really says!

Responding to forced labor: 41 If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile,[q] carry it two miles. Again context matters. The people that Jesus was addressing were living in an occupied country. They were in their homeland but it was being run by outsiders who could demand anything at anytime. I believe that the closest we come to this is probably having our time demanded by someone who doesn’t know how to make an appointment or that one who doesn’t understand personal space. You know what I am talking about. Interruptions that challenge our emotional state! Jesus is saying in essence, ‘Don’t be a jerk about it. Do more than you have been asked.’ I think this is about slowing down and embracing the moments even the ones that we didn’t have on our calendars or our to do list.

Responding to borrowing: 42 Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow.” At first glance you might be tempted to wonder about this one. All of us have lost something because against our better judgment we let someone borrow something and sure enough we didn’t get it back. Have you ever noticed that the personal who is the most concerned about their stuff, the most stingy or demanding about getting their stuff back is the most lax about your stuff? Let me tell you what Jesus is not talking about. He is not talking about the professional beggar. Unfortunately, we have those in our society who don’t want to work a real job but find it easy to prey upon strangers, churches and others for money.

I want to respond to legitimate need. In fact that is what we are trying to be about as a church. We want to be giving but we will not do it in such a way that enables or causes people to not be self sufficient. Notice that this verse deals with borrowing not just giving.

John Ballenger is going to take a few minutes and look at:

2. The Right to our Time and Money

I have asked John to help us zoom out for a moment and take a look at this passage from a truly Christ following perspective.

John: To me, Matthew 5:38-42 is Christ’s fundamental challenge for our culture. The very foundation of our society is built on our personal and communal rights. We have come to the place, over the past 200 years of our country’s history, where we rarely think critically about the direction of our culture as opposed to the direction of our faith. Certainly we may recognize blatant morality issues or obvious instances of evil, that isn’t the problem. The problem often comes when we buy into something that seems right but when held up in the light of the gospel runs contrary to the kind of life God calls us to live.

If we work hard for our money, we have all grown up believing that it is our right to have a nicer home, car, or television than the one we currently have. We say things like, “I want my kids to have better than I did.” Our kids in turn grow up believing in their right to have more and better things than their parents had. It is our right to have more. It is our right to get ours. We deserve it.

Never mind the fact that most of us have now bought into this idea that we deserve it so much that we live at or above our means. Never mind the fact that we have larger and larger homes that we spend less and less time in because we have to work longer hours to pay for them. Most of us can’t respond to needs with our time or money because our lifestyle doesn’t permit it. Henry David Thoreau asked this question of our culture: "Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man's real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death.” At the heart of that quote is the idea that we can live in a kind of society that allows us to thrive and have all the comforts we could want and all the while it is killing our spirits.

For us… for our culture, we face two monstrous and yet subtle facts: Our society is based on personal rights and material gain while the words and actions of our Lord warn us of the dangers of both. The Church isn’t immune to the draw of rights and material gain. We decry our rights often more loudly than anyone around us. Some of our most well known leaders and preachers write books and speak openly about your “right” as God’s children to more money, more possessions, better jobs, and a better life. Something as benign and seemingly as good as standing up for our rights and the rights of others can be perverted in the hands of our enemy to blind us from the truth of the gospel.

3. Absolute Rights: Bearing the Cross and “Eating Loss”

A China Inland Mission missionary wrote about learning this lesson a long time ago. “You know’ he began, ‘There’s a great deal of difference between eating bitterness (Chinese idiom for ‘suffering hardship’) and eating loss (Chinese idiom for suffering the infringement of one’s rights’).

Eating Loss

Eating bitterness is easy enough. To go out with the preaching band, walk twenty or thirty miles with posters, and spend several weeks in a strenuous campaign of meetings and visitation – why that’s a thrill! Your bed may be made of a couple of planks laid on saw-horses, and you may have to eat boiled rice, greens, and bean-curd three times a day. But that’s just the beauty of it! Why, it’s good for anyone to go back to the simple life! A little healthy “bitterness” is good for anybody.

“When I came to China,’ he continued, ‘I was all ready to “eat bitterness,” and like it ... It takes a little while to get you palate and your digestion used to Chinese food of course, but that was not harder than I had expected. The hardest thing was “eating loss.” I found out that I couldn’t stand up for my rights – that I had to “eat loss!” I couldn’t even have any rights! I found that I had to give them up, every one, and that was the hardest thing of all.”

This is the heart of what Christ was teaching. This lesson must be learned by every Christian. The apostle Paul learned it for he wrote to the Corinthians, “Don’t we have the right to food and drink? Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brother and Cephas? Or is it only I and Barnabas who must work for a living?...But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ...Though I am free and belong to no man. I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.” I Cor. 9:4-6, 12, 19

We know the Declaration of Independence. There was a time in our public school system when you had to memorize certain lines of this historic and classic document. I don’t know if people still do that or not. For over 200 years it has been the foundational piece of truth that our country was founded on. It was incredibly well written and certainly deserves the honor we give it. This however is where it gets sticky for the authentic and serious Christ follower. I pledge allegiance to my country every week at Rotary. I fly a flag on my house nearly all summer long. I love the movie The Patriot and I even used to ride my bike in the Fourth of July parades when I was little.

Let’s refresh our memories for a few moments today. Remember these famous words penned by Thomas Jefferson:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...

I’ve been thinking a lot about those words this week. I’ve been thinking a lot about the Word of God and what Jesus had to say about my rights! What does God the Creator have to say about life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

Life:

“35 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it. Mark 8:35

24 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.” Luke 9:24

22 Then, turning to his disciples, Jesus said, “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food to eat or enough clothes to wear. 23 For life is more than food, and your body more than clothing. 24 Look at the ravens. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for God feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than any birds! 25 Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? 26 And if worry can’t accomplish a little thing like that, what’s the use of worrying over bigger things?” Luke 12:22-26

Liberty:

“17The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 18"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” Luke 4:17-19

“31To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:31

13You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature[a]; rather, serve one another in love. 14The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself.” Galatians 5:13-14

“5Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5

“16Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.” 1 Peter 2:16

The Pursuit of Happiness:

11 “God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you[c] and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. 12 Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way.” Matthew 5:11-12

14 When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other.” Ecclesiastes 7:14

15 Happy are those who hear the joyful call to worship, for they will walk in the light of your presence, LORD. Psalm 89:15

14 So be happy when you are insulted for being a Christian,[a] for then the glorious Spirit of God[b] rests upon you. 1 Peter 4:14

10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. John 15:10-12

“33 Some times you were exposed to public ridicule and were beaten, and sometimes you helped others who were suffering the same things. 34 You suffered along with those who were thrown into jail, and when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy. You knew there were better things waiting for you that will last forever.

35 So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you!” Hebrews 10:33-35

You see they got it right in the end of the Declaration of Independence:

...And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

It is after all about sacrifice and being willing to give up our rights.

The best illustration I’ve read about this comes from the world of black evangelist Tom Skinner. He came to Christ while he was the leader of the largest and toughest gang in New York City, the Harlem Lords. His conversion was so real that he left the gang the next day, turning from a life of fighting and violence to preach the gospel. There was an immediate victory over hate and bigotry which was alive and well during those days. There was an immediate victory over crime and cruelty. Several weeks after his conversion he was playing a football game in which, as his assignment on one play, he blocked the defensive end while his own fullback scored at touchdown. As he got up from the ground to head back to the huddle, the boy whom he had blocked jumped in front of him in a rage and slammed him in the stomach. As he bent over from the blow he was hit across the back. When Skinner fell the boy kicked him, shouting, “You dirty black n.....! I’ll teach you a thing or two.”

Skinner said that under normal circumstances the old Tom Skinner would have jumped up from the ground and pulverized the white boy. But instead, he got up from the ground and found himself looking the boy in the face and saying, “You know because of Jesus Christ, I love you anyway.” Skinner later said that he has surprised himself but that he knew that what the bible had promised was true. He was a new creature in Christ and it was no longer necessary to operate on the old level of tit for tat or an eye for an eye.

When the game was over the opposing defensive end had some time to think about it, he came to Skinner and said, “Tom, you’ve done more to knock prejudice out of me by telling me that you loved me than you would have if you’d socked my jaw in.” Before we leave I want us pray this prayer together. Really it is more of a declaration and you will find it on the back of your sermon notes page:

The unanimous Declaration of Surrender of Newark Naz,

When in the course of our spiritual lives, it becomes necessary for us to break the traditional expectations of what it means to be a Christ-follower, and to assume the very nature of Christ Himself, we must declare that we have separated ourselves from the world’s values and mindsets that state we are entitled to certain ways of living.

We hold these truths to be set forth by God through His Word, that all Christ-followers are created to live their lives in the footsteps of the One for whom they are named. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable responsibilities, that among these are laying down our lives, giving up our rights and the pursuit of those who have lost their way, no matter what the cost to our personal well-being. That to secure these responsibilities, God has given us a perfect example in the person of Jesus Christ.

We, therefore, the representatives of Christ, do solemnly declare that we are willing to lay down our rights, as well as our lives, our liberty and our pursuit of happiness.

Keep that in your Bibles and read it occasionally as a reminder and a guide to keep following Jesus.

As you leave today remember the admonition of the apostle Paul: “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” Col. 3:2