We started this series talking about the impact of salt and light because before we could talk about the places where our faith collides with the culture around us, we needed to know who we are. Since then, we have walked through two collisions together. We talked about marriage, and last week we talked about truth. We saw that the truth is not something we invent; it is something we receive, and it has a name.

That leads right into this week. If truth is real and if we have been given it, then a hard question follows. How do we hold that truth around people who do not believe it?

Today we are going to talk about tolerance, and here is the trouble with that word. Everybody uses it, but it means different things to different people. You can ask ten people on the street what tolerance means, and you will get ten different answers. But most of them will land close to this: tolerance means treating every belief as equally true, equally valid, and equally worthy of respect. And so if you push back on someone’s belief, if you say out loud that you think they are wrong, the culture has a word for that. It is not disagreement; it is intolerance.

The interesting thing is that I’m not that old, and I know that is not what the word used to mean. For most of history, tolerance meant putting up with something you disagreed with. You might tolerate the heat or tolerate your children’s behavior… at least for a little bit.

But just think about this for a moment. You cannot tolerate something you already agree with. If I love coffee, I am not going to say I tolerate coffee. And so tolerance only makes sense when there is real disagreement or disapproval. So, when the culture says the only tolerant person is the one who agrees with everybody, it has actually made the real definition of tolerance impossible.

That modern definition, our contemporary culture's definition of tolerance, definitely did not come from Jesus. When we hold it up against the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the one who is the truth, it does not hold up.

Now, before you brace yourself for the collision, I am not here to defend being harsh toward other people, but know that Jesus doesn’t go easier on us here either. In fact, he doesn’t lower the bar for how we treat people who disagree with us; he raises it higher than our culture ever imagined. At the same time, he asks us to hold onto what is true more seriously than our culture ever would.

The apostle John begins his gospel describing Jesus this way.

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).

Not half of each. Not grace on Monday and truth on Tuesday. Full of both, at the same time, and all the time. And so, I want you to hold onto those two words this morning, because that is what biblical tolerance looks like.

Turn with me now to Matthew chapter five. Before Jesus ever told his followers they were salt and light, he began his sermon with the Beatitudes, describing the kind of people who live in his kingdom. In verse nine, he says this.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God" (Matthew 5:9).

Just a few verses later, Jesus tells those same people that they are the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matthew 5:13-14). And that order matters because before he sends us out to make an impact, he shapes who we are. And so, one of the first things he says his people are is peacemakers.

Now, our culture often gets this wrong because a peacemaker is not the same as a peacekeeper. A peacekeeper avoids conflict at all costs. He says nothing, ignores hostility, and lets tension sit because he doesn’t want to stir up trouble and dealing with it feels risky. A peacemaker, on the other hand, walks toward the tension, initiates that difficult conversation, and does the harder work of building, restoring, and reconciling. And so, being a peacemaker takes far more courage than being a silent peacekeeper, not less.

The greatest example of this is Jesus. He didn’t come to keep the peace between us and God by pretending sin was not a problem. He came to make peace, proclaiming,

“The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15).

And it cost him his life.

A little further into chapter five, Jesus shows us what the posture of a peacemaker looks like in practice when someone comes against us. In verse 38, he said,

"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles" (Matthew 5:38-41).

Now, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth came from the Law of Moses to keep punishment fair in the courtroom, but the people had turned it into permission for revenge.

Jesus answers them with three quick illustrations. A backhanded slap on the right cheek was not a physical attack, but an insult meant to humiliate. A cloak was a poor man’s coat and blanket, something the law allowed him to keep. And a Roman soldier could force any Jewish man to carry his gear for one mile.

In every case, Jesus says you do not have to get even. When you are insulted, taken advantage of, or pushed into something you did not choose, you can respond with kindness, generosity, and helpfulness that surprises people. That is the opposite of what our culture trains us to do, where every disagreement becomes a fight to win, but Jesus is describing a strength that doesn’t need to win every exchange.

Then, Jesus takes it one step further in verse 43,

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous" (Matthew 5:43-45).

In other words, the law of Moses said to love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18). That part was the unchanging truth of Scripture, but the part about hating your enemy was never in the Bible. The teachers of the law had added it, and over time they shrank the word neighbor down to almost nothing or no one. Neighbor came to mean someone who looked like you, thought like you, and worshiped like you. So if somebody fell outside that circle, you owed them nothing, and you could hate them with a clean conscience.

But God had never drawn the circle that small. In fact, in the very same chapter of Leviticus, he said this about the outsider:

"The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself" (Leviticus 19:34).

And so, when Jesus said, But I tell you, he was not declaring a new standard. He is restoring the one God gave all along, as he said,

“Until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished” (Matthew 5:18).

Then Jesus takes that small circle they had formed and blows it wide open. He doesn’t tell us to tolerate our enemies or just put up with them. He tells us to love them and to pray for the people who are working against us. That does not mean praying that God will crush them, but that God would show them grace, the same grace he has shown us.

That is important because here is the truth about every one of us. The Bible says,

“If, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!" (Romans 5:10).

That is a much higher bar than our contemporary understanding of tolerance. Our culture says stay quiet, do not offend, and let everybody do their own thing, even if they are offending you or your beliefs and we will all get along fabulously.

However, Jesus asks for something far more costly; he says,

"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:44).

Loving those who are trying to hurt you is not passive tolerance. That is sacrificial love, agape love, aimed at people who have done nothing to deserve it, but that is exactly how God aimed his love at us.

You might think that's enough for one sermon, but Jesus keeps going. And in chapter seven, he says something many people love to quote, but few understand, and even fewer read all the way to the end.

"Do not judge" (Matthew 7:1).

If there is one verse from the Sermon on the Mount that gets used as a weapon against Christians, more than any other, it is this one. People will quote those three words at you and walk away as if the conversation is over. But that is only part of the sentence, and Jesus had much more to say.

Look at what Jesus actually says:

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:1-4).

Notice that Jesus never tells us to ignore sin in another believer's life or to never say anything about it. What he says is this.

"You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye" (Matthew 7:5).

Jesus makes his point by exaggerating. He paints a picture of someone with a piece of lumber, a plank, sticking out of his own eye, while he squints and peers past it, trying to point out a tiny speck of sawdust in somebody else's eye. The goal is not blindness. The goal is a clarity that starts with yourself, so you can see clearly to help your brother or sister.

In this passage, Jesus is condemning a specific kind of hypocrisy: the attitude of a person who is more comfortable pointing out other people's sin than dealing with their own. He is not asking us to stop believing anything is right or wrong. He is asking us to stop pretending we are above everyone else, as if we have some moral high ground where we can look down on others as judge and jury.

That changes how we engage with people we disagree with. Not from above, but from beside. Not as someone who has already arrived, correcting someone still on the road, but as someone who was rescued, walking next to someone who needs rescuing too. And the plank in our own eye does not come out by trying harder to be a better person. It comes out when we let the Holy Spirit search our hearts and do his work of making us more like Jesus.

Up to this point, it might sound like everything Jesus has said supports the culture's idea of tolerance. Be a peacemaker. Turn the other cheek. Love your enemies. Deal with the plank in your own eye before you judge anyone else. If that were all Jesus said, you could leave here thinking he wants us to accept whatever anyone believes, as long as we are kind about it.

But Jesus is not finished. What he says next doesn’t let us stop there.

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it" (Matthew 7:13-14).

And so, there it is. In the same sermon where Jesus tells us to love our enemies, he tells us the road to life is narrow, and most people are not on it. He does not say that many roads lead to the same place. He does not say that as long as you are sincere, every path will eventually lead to God. He says just the opposite.

That is about as exclusive a claim as anyone can make. And Jesus makes it himself, right in the middle of the very sermon people quote to prove he would never say anything so narrow. You cannot have the Jesus who says love your enemies without the Jesus who says the road is narrow. He is the same person, saying both things, in the same message, to the same crowd.

Now, when some people hear the word narrow, they picture a religion full of rules, where you have to be good enough to squeeze through. But remember what we saw last week. The narrow road is not a list of rules. It is a person. Jesus told his disciples that he himself is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through him (John 14:6). The narrow gate has a name, and his name is Jesus.

Think about it this way. Imagine you go to the doctor, and the tests come back showing something serious, like cancer. But your doctor does not want to upset you, so he smiles, tells you everything looks fine, and sends you home. Is that doctor being kind? Is he being tolerant? Absolutely not. He is being cruel in the nicest possible way. Real love tells the truth, because real love wants you to live. A good doctor tells you the hard news with compassion and then shows you the way to get well, and that is exactly what Jesus does when he points us to the narrow gate.

But Jesus does not stop there. He keeps pressing the point.

"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves" (Matthew 7:15).

In other words, Jesus expects his followers to weigh what they hear and tell the difference between true teaching and false teaching. He expects us to notice when something that looks harmless on the outside is leading people somewhere destructive. That takes discernment, and discernment only works if some things are actually true and other things are actually false. You cannot spot the wolves if you have already decided every animal in the flock is basically the same.

And notice how Jesus says we can tell the difference.

"By their fruit you will recognize them" (Matthew 7:16).

The apostle Paul tells us exactly what that fruit looks like.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23).

The mark of a true follower of Jesus is not how loudly they can win an argument. It is the fruit the Holy Spirit grows in them. Truth spoken without that fruit does not sound like Jesus, no matter how accurate it is.

So here is where that leaves us. Biblical tolerance and cultural tolerance are not the same thing wearing different clothes. Cultural tolerance says the way to love people is to stop believing anything is exclusively true, because certainty causes conflict. Biblical tolerance says almost the opposite. Hold on tightly to what is true, and hold on just as tightly to the person in front of you, even when, especially when, they are on a completely different road. That is what it means to be full of grace and truth.

Living that way is harder than either extreme. It is easier to pick a side. Some believers pick truth and let love grow cold, and they turn into the very hypocrite Jesus described, with a plank in their own eye, quick to point out everyone else's speck. Other believers pick love and let truth grow soft, until narrow becomes wide because narrow feels unkind. Jesus refuses to take either exit off the narrow road.

Picture Jesus sitting at the table with tax collectors and sinners, the very people the religious leaders had written off (Matthew 9:10). He loved them without pretending their sin was not sin. Or think about the woman caught in adultery and dragged in front of him. Her accusers were ready to stone her, until Jesus told them that whoever was without sin could throw the first stone (John 8:7). One by one, they dropped their stones and walked away. Then Jesus asked her if anyone was left to condemn her, and she said, "No one, sir."

"'Then neither do I condemn you,' Jesus declared. 'Go now and leave your life of sin'" (John 8:11).

That is the whole message in one verse. Grace for the person. Truth about the road. That is what it looks like to be full of grace and truth.

Now maybe you are thinking, Pastor, I can't do that. I can't love the person who hurt me. I can't pray for the people who mock what I believe. And when I do try to speak up, I either freeze or come out swinging.

You are right. You can't do it on your own. But that is exactly why God did not leave you on your own. Let me show you what I mean.

In Acts chapter six, the church chose a man named Stephen to serve, and Scripture describes him as a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit (Acts 6:5). In chapter seven, Stephen stood before the religious council and preached the truth about Jesus without backing down an inch. It made them so angry that they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. But Scripture says Stephen was full of the Holy Spirit, and he looked up and saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:55). As the stones were falling, Stephen did something only the Spirit could produce in a human heart.

"Then he fell on his knees and cried out, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them'" (Acts 7:60).

Stephen held on to the truth, and it cost him his life. Yet he loved his enemies with his last breath. That was not personality. That was the power of the Holy Spirit.

And here is something amazing. Standing there that day, guarding the coats of the men throwing the stones, was a young man named Saul (Acts 22:20). Just two chapters later, Jesus met Saul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3-6). The man who watched Stephen pray for his enemies became the apostle Paul, the same Paul who later wrote about the fruit of the Spirit.

The same Spirit who filled Stephen is the Spirit Jesus promised to you. On the Day of Pentecost, Peter said that promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far off (Acts 2:39). He is the Spirit of truth, who guides us into all truth (John 16:13). When the early church prayed for boldness, he filled them and empowered them to speak God's Word without fear (Acts 4:29-31). And he makes love possible where love seems impossible.

"God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us" (Romans 5:5).

You do not have to work up that kind of love on your own. You get to be filled with it.

So let me bring this down to where you live this week. Maybe it is a coworker who believes nothing like you believe, or a family member on the other side of the very things we have talked about in this series. Biblical tolerance does not ask you to pretend you agree, and it does not ask you to stay quiet just to keep the peace. It asks you to deal with the plank in your own eye first, love them the way God loved you, and be a peacemaker who holds on to what is true the whole time.

So let me ask you plainly. Is there someone in your life where you have picked a side, truth without love or love without truth?

Maybe you have gone cold toward someone who disagrees with you, and you know there is a plank in your own eye. Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you with his love for that person.

Maybe you have gone soft on something you know is true, because standing on it feels unkind or costly. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you the same boldness that he gave the early church.

And maybe you know you are still on the wide road. You have felt people's judgment more than their love. Hear this. Jesus walked the narrow road all the way to a cross so the gate could open for you. That is not condemnation. That is an invitation. If you want to come home to Jesus today, would you call on him? He sees you, and he is welcoming you in.

Graphics, notes, and commentary from LifeChurch, Ministry Pass, PC Study Bible, Preaching Library, and Sermon Central. Scripture from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.