Jeff Miller

June 8, 2025

The Heart of the Law

Love Like God

Jeff Miller

June 8, 2025

The Heart of the Law

Introduction:

Leviticus 19:18 – You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.

Leviticus 19:34 – You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

I Love My Enemies... (Matthew 5:43–48)

...because of WHO I AM. (Matt 5:45a)
...by WHAT I DO. (Matt 5:45b)
...because I Am CALLED TO BE DIFFERENT. (Matt 5:46–47)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:00-00:03
Open up those Bibles to Matthew chapter five.
00:06-00:20
As we go through our series, the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter five, verse 43, Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said." Stop there for a second.
00:21-00:30
This whole section that we're in right now, if you've been following this series at all, I'm sure you've noticed that that has come up.
00:30-00:32
What is it, like six total times, pastor?
00:32-00:48
Like you have heard that it was said, but I say to you, what Jesus is dealing with here is correcting some garbage beliefs.
00:50-00:57
And I've shared with you before, that's my biggest concern for this church, is the area of discernment.
00:59-01:09
We live in a day that there is so much bad teaching out there, and thanks to the internet, we have access, right?
01:09-01:20
And look, I'm not saying it's all bad, but I'm saying probably for every good teaching you can find online, you can probably find 10 other garbage teaching online.
01:20-01:25
And my concern for the church is people not knowing the difference.
01:27-01:31
And it gets back to what did Jesus actually say?
01:31-01:35
It's the issue that he was dealing with in his day, lack of discernment.
01:40-02:09
Last week we saw Jesus said, "You've heard that it was said, "an eye for an eye and Jesus, no, no, no, no, no, no." Jesus, I say to you, I'm paraphrasing, He goes, "Do not retaliate." And you can walk away from last week's message and say, "Got it, don't retaliate." So, I'm just gonna ignore the people that I can't stand.
02:12-02:13
Well, let's keep reading.
02:16-02:21
Verse 43, "You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
02:22-02:38
"But I say to you, "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Oh no, no, don't ignore your enemies.
02:39-02:43
You have to look for ways to be good to them.
02:45-02:47
You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
02:48-02:57
You're saying that I not only don't get to get even with them, but I have to proactively love them?
03:00-03:02
Yeah, that's what he said.
03:04-03:05
All right, it's a hard word.
03:06-03:09
So I think we should just stop and pray right now, shouldn't we?
03:09-03:22
I'm gonna ask that you would pray for me to be faithful to communicate God's Word accurately and clearly, and I will pray for you to have a heart open to receive what our Lord is teaching us in this part of his sermon.
03:22-03:24
All right, so let's pray.
03:32-03:52
Father in heaven, as we go through This sermon from our Lord, it's just wave after wave of things that really confront our selfish, sinful, fleshly tendencies.
03:52-03:56
And I don't know of one that's bigger than this one.
03:57-04:20
I'm asking, please God, please by the power of your word, Father, by the power of your spirit, that you would change our minds today, Father, change our hearts and that we wouldn't just leave here knowing some things, but we leave here deeply convicted and moved to do some things.
04:22-04:26
For your glory and honor, Father, we pray in Jesus' name.
04:27-04:33
And all of God's people said, "Amen." All right, let's break this down here.
04:33-04:43
Jesus says, verse 43, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'" You have heard, you have heard.
04:44-04:45
That's what we've seen in this series.
04:45-04:49
The scribes and the Pharisees in Jesus' day did what's still happening today.
04:50-04:56
They twist verses in the word of God to justify whatever it is they wanna justify.
04:57-04:59
For them, Jesus called them out.
04:59-05:01
They were justifying their lust.
05:02-05:04
They were justifying their hatred.
05:05-05:07
They were justifying their getting even with people.
05:11-05:12
Calls them out again.
05:13-05:17
You've heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
05:20-05:23
That's what the scribes and the Pharisees said.
05:25-05:27
And you're like, well, is that in the Old Testament?
05:31-05:36
Well, the first part was, kinda.
05:38-05:39
Here's what I mean.
05:39-05:41
Here's what's actually in the scripture.
05:42-05:43
Leviticus 19, 18.
05:44-05:44
Look at this.
05:44-05:52
"You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge "against the sons of your own people, "but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
05:52-06:01
"I am the Lord." So you see, with the way that they sort of restated that, They ran into four problems.
06:03-06:04
Four problems.
06:04-06:08
The first problem is, the scribes and the Pharisees left out the as yourself part.
06:08-06:09
Did you notice that?
06:11-06:17
Well, I love my neighbor, but as myself, that's a bit too much.
06:19-06:20
Let's keep it vague.
06:21-06:25
Because if we keep love vague, then whatever we do, we can just say it was love, right?
06:25-06:27
So keep it vague.
06:27-06:28
God never kept it vague.
06:29-06:30
That was their first problem.
06:30-06:34
Second problem is the scribes and the Pharisees redefined neighbor.
06:36-06:40
And their definition of neighbor was, those I choose to love.
06:41-06:42
That was their definition.
06:43-06:46
So do you realize, the reason I'm laughing is, do you realize what that made the command?
06:47-06:51
God's command is, love those you choose to love.
06:53-06:54
That's convenient.
06:56-07:01
Third problem, the scribes and the Pharisees Totally added the hate your enemy part, right?
07:02-07:03
Totally added that.
07:03-07:05
You're not gonna find that anywhere in the Old Testament.
07:06-07:09
My vague love is for my Jewish neighbors.
07:10-07:12
What about the foreigners?
07:13-07:14
Hate 'em.
07:15-07:18
And that leads us actually to the fourth problem.
07:19-07:40
Because that whole love your neighbor as yourself, that was in Leviticus 19, 18, But if you go down a few verses to verse 34, it says, "You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall," dun-dun-da-da, "love him as yourself.
07:41-07:42
For you are strangers in the land of Egypt.
07:43-07:57
I am the Lord your God." See, the scribes and the Pharisees, They thought that they were honoring God by hating foreigners.
08:00-08:02
And we get asked this question a lot.
08:02-08:03
Well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
08:03-08:10
In the Old Testament, didn't God tell the Israelites to exterminate the nations that were living in the promised land?
08:11-08:13
And don't we have all these imprecatory Psalms?
08:14-08:15
Like, what's up with that, huh?
08:15-08:15
Huh?
08:17-08:17
Well.
08:20-08:24
It's like the eye for an eye thing that we talked about last week.
08:26-08:34
The scribes and the Pharisees took a thing that was designed for Israel as a nation and they turned it into a personal thing.
08:36-08:40
So the whole exterminate the enemies in the promised land, yeah, absolutely.
08:41-08:44
Israel's wars weren't personal vendettas.
08:44-08:51
They were commanded by God to wipe out those nations, because those nations did horrible things.
08:52-08:55
And God says, "You are not going to pollute "my nation Israel.
08:56-09:13
"So Israel, you're gonna wipe them out." And if you have a hard time with that, I would just like to lovingly remind you that God is allowed to make those calls, because vengeance belongs to Him.
09:14-09:15
Okay?
09:16-09:23
And God's whole purpose in that was to protect Israel as a nation in that land.
09:23-09:30
That's why when you turn to your New Testaments, you don't see any imprecatory language in the New Testament.
09:31-09:32
It's for Israel.
09:33-09:42
But individually, and we're talking about personally now, what about the people that hate me?
09:43-09:46
What about the people that are my enemies?
09:49-09:50
Love them.
09:51-09:51
Love them.
09:51-09:52
Look at verse 44.
09:52-09:57
Jesus says, "But I say to you," pretty clear, isn't it?
09:58-10:25
"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." You see, the whole loving your neighbor command includes everyone around you, including your enemy. I'm breaking this down when he talks about enemy, he's talking about your personal enemy. Okay? It's not this collective group idea. It's somebody who personally hates me.
10:27-10:39
And Jesus says our response is to love them. That's the word agape. That is the highest form of love. That's self-sacrificing love. That's the kind of love that we should have for our enemy.
10:40-10:42
And the verb tense here is constant.
10:43-10:44
It's continually.
10:44-10:49
You need to continually love your enemies.
10:51-10:53
And you're like, well, who is my enemy?
10:56-10:58
Who is it that hates you?
11:00-11:06
Who is it that you know that if you tried to call them, they wouldn't answer the phone?
11:08-11:14
"If you sent them a text, they wouldn't reply." Or vice versa.
11:17-11:41
"Who is it that has been slandering you, "making accusations against you?" Jesus says, "We not only love our enemies," but you notice he ratchets it up even more when he says, "Pray for those who persecute you." Those who persecute you, those are your worst enemies.
11:42-11:47
Here Jesus is speaking about your enemies who they don't just hate you.
11:50-11:52
They actively hate you.
11:52-11:59
They, these are the people that make an effort to show you how much they hate you.
12:02-12:12
And as we've been going through the Sermon on the Mount, We see that a true believer in Jesus Christ is someone who is defined by the Beatitudes.
12:12-12:17
And if you were here for the Beatitudes series, you remember what the last one was?
12:18-12:25
The highest rung on the ladder of following Jesus Christ is when we're persecuted.
12:28-12:33
And here's the part where we stop and ask, "Are we persecuted?
12:37-12:42
Are we really persecuted?" Because here's the thing.
12:43-12:53
I think for a lot of us, our knee-jerk reaction to that would be, "I'm not persecuted." But the reality is you probably are, but you just haven't realized it.
12:53-12:54
Here's what I mean by that.
12:54-12:55
Here's what I mean.
12:56-13:13
doesn't just mean somebody physically attacks you, somebody murders you, somebody gets you arrested, thrown in jail, those, yes, that is persecution, but those are the most graphic manifestations of persecution.
13:13-13:18
The word persecute literally means to pursue.
13:18-13:19
That's what it means.
13:19-13:20
And listen, listen to this.
13:23-13:57
Persecute means somebody is chasing after you constantly criticize and condemn you. So I imagine most of you are being persecuted right now according to the true definition of persecution. Think about it this way. Was Jesus persecuted? If you're like, "Oh yeah, when he was crucified, of course!" But no, he was persecuted his entire ministry because what were they constantly doing?
13:58-14:06
The proper definition, they were constantly, read the gospels, they were constantly pursuing Jesus.
14:06-14:08
They were, how would we say it?
14:08-14:09
They were out to get him.
14:10-14:11
That's what persecution means.
14:12-14:14
I mean, read your gospels.
14:14-14:19
They were constantly looking to criticize Jesus, insulting Jesus, accusing Jesus.
14:19-14:27
Yeah, you're just on the Sabbath and you shouldn't be doing healing this way and your disciples didn't wash your hands and what's up with the fasting?
14:27-14:31
They were constantly, constantly, constantly after him.
14:31-14:32
That's what persecution means.
14:36-14:44
And if you really follow Jesus, you have people pursuing you in that way too.
14:49-15:07
Don't shout out any names, But do you have somebody at your workplace, for example, that's always watching you, always looking to get their little remarks in, get their little digs in, always looking to criticize anything you say or anything you do.
15:08-15:10
That's persecution according to the proper definition.
15:12-15:14
They're pursuing you.
15:15-15:22
Maybe you have that family member Never approves of a thing you do.
15:24-15:26
The bum just can't do anything right.
15:26-15:32
And they're always vocal about it, getting their little shots in, their little passive aggressive comments.
15:33-15:35
They're always out to get you.
15:36-15:37
That's persecution.
15:40-15:41
Maybe it's on social media.
15:41-15:48
You know, anything you post, you know that person's gonna show up with their snarky little comment.
15:49-15:51
That's pursuing, that's persecution.
15:56-16:00
Jesus says we need to pray for the people that do that to us, the people that are out to get ya.
16:01-16:02
Jesus said pray for them.
16:05-16:08
So, when was the last time you did that?
16:12-16:20
I don't know about you, but I have a list of people that I regularly pray for.
16:24-16:31
When was the last time that you loved your enemy?
16:34-16:41
And you're like, why in the world would I do that?
16:43-16:44
Well, let's keep reading.
16:45-16:59
Jesus says in verse 45, "So that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven." Why would you love your enemy?
17:00-17:03
Why would you pray for people that are constantly out to get you?
17:06-17:08
It's not because of who they are.
17:10-17:11
It's because of who you are.
17:19-17:22
That's the sermon that our Lord gives.
17:24-17:28
That you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.
17:28-17:30
It's not because of who they are.
17:32-17:33
It's because of who you are.
17:38-17:51
Can we just confess that so much of our lives, our attitudes, our moods are determined by other people?
17:53-17:54
Good or bad?
17:57-18:01
People have a way of just like governing our lives.
18:02-18:03
Here's what I mean.
18:05-18:14
After service, you go over to Giant Eagle into an old friend that you haven't seen in years, "Oh, that puts you in a good mood.
18:15-18:18
Oh, it was so great catching up." That's going to put you in a good mood for the rest of the day, right?
18:21-18:34
Or, somebody makes a really jerky comment to you at work, intentionally wanting to get under your skin.
18:35-18:38
Doesn't that just like wreck your day?
18:39-18:46
And you're in a bad mood for days over one jerky comment.
18:50-19:25
And I would bet if you had a bad day last week, if you could point to a day last week and you're like, "That was a bad day." I would be willing to bet that it had something to do with people. You're laughing because it's true. And Jesus here is saying, "My people don't react to people. My people act according to the Word of God." So let's unpack this for a few moments, shall we? On your outline, I want you to jot some things down.
19:25-19:26
I love my enemies.
19:28-19:28
Can you say that?
19:29-19:30
You're like, not now.
19:30-19:31
You will in a few minutes.
19:32-19:34
I love my enemies, number one.
19:36-19:37
We already touched on this.
19:37-19:39
We're gonna drill a little deeper here.
19:39-19:42
Number one, I love my enemies because of who I am.
19:43-19:44
Look at this again.
19:44-19:47
This is Jesus' whole rationale.
19:47-19:49
Why would I love my enemies, Jesus?
19:49-20:03
Lord, Lord, why would I pray for the people that are constantly out to get me, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven." This is where Jesus starts your identity.
20:04-20:08
You love your enemies, not because of who they are, but because of who you are.
20:11-20:20
Jesus is, in essence, saying, "You love your enemies because it's a family tradition in our family." You got family traditions.
20:22-20:23
Do you have family tradition?
20:23-20:24
You know what I mean.
20:24-20:30
Every family has on-brand things that they do, right?
20:32-20:35
Like some families, they're like, "We're campers, we go camping.
20:36-20:39
Yes, we have a house, but for a while, we like to pretend that we don't.
20:39-20:41
That's just what we do in our family.
20:42-20:49
We live in a canvas enclosure in the wildlife." Okay.
20:50-20:52
But that's your family thing.
20:53-20:56
For some families, it's like we're beach people, we love the beach, our family loves the beach.
20:57-20:59
We love the beach, that's our family thing, right?
21:00-21:10
Some families are sports families, like oh, we're baseball, we're a baseball family, we love the box and we're on the church softball team, and we're like, we love baseball.
21:11-21:13
Every family's got their thing, right?
21:15-21:19
I mean, I remember growing up, our family, our family had our thing.
21:19-21:25
I remember when we were teenagers, Erin actually came over to our house for Thanksgiving.
21:27-21:32
And they had the stuffing out and the turkey and all the dressing and all that stuff.
21:33-21:39
And I just remember our family was passing around the table a bag of Funyuns.
21:41-21:45
And I just remember Erin sitting there going, she looked like she saw a ghost.
21:45-21:49
I'm like, "What's the matter?" She goes, "Why are you passing around a bag of Funyuns?
21:50-21:55
"It's Thanksgiving." And I'm just like, "What's Thanksgiving without Funyuns?"
21:56-21:57
(congregation laughing)
21:59-22:01
Like, we're not the weird ones here.
22:02-22:03
(congregation laughing)
22:04-22:06
And then I got older and realized that we were.
22:09-22:11
Every family's got their thing.
22:12-22:13
That's what Jesus is saying here.
22:14-22:18
Like, hey, hey, hey, we're in God's family.
22:19-22:21
So do you know what we do in God's family?
22:21-22:21
Do you know what we do?
22:22-22:23
We love like God.
22:25-22:29
And God, God loves his enemies.
22:31-22:35
You're like, well, like, who are God's enemies?
22:40-22:40
Everyone.
22:42-22:43
Do you realize that?
22:46-22:55
Literally, every single person on the planet is an enemy of God until they are reconciled to God in Jesus Christ.
22:56-22:59
That's what Paul said in Romans 5, right?
23:00-23:13
"For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son." See that's the glorious reality of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
23:13-23:28
When you receive Jesus Christ by faith, when you believe that He died to take away your sin, when you believe that He rose from the dead to give you eternal life, when you turn from your sin and receive Him, God changes you from an enemy of God to a child of God.
23:30-23:38
And now we are a child still living among enemies of God.
23:40-23:41
Child of God.
23:43-24:01
You know, Ephesians 4, spilling over to Ephesians 5, says, "Be kind to one another, "tenderhearted, forgiving one another "as God and Christ forgave you.
24:06-24:15
"Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children." This is what we do in our family.
24:16-24:17
We love like God.
24:20-24:24
And as his children, we imitate our dad.
24:26-24:27
Do you ever notice that kids love to imitate?
24:28-24:29
Do you ever notice that?
24:30-24:32
Kids love to imitate adults.
24:32-24:36
It was made painfully aware to me, oh, many, many years ago.
24:36-24:39
A couple decades ago at this point, we had foster kids.
24:41-24:43
Before we had any of our own kids, we had foster kids.
24:44-24:52
And I remember one little boy, he was five years old, his name was Walter, and we'd be playing the PlayStation, and we're sitting there, you know, playing the PlayStation.
24:53-25:02
And look, I was a perfect gamer back in the day, but sometimes the stupid game would glitch or something and my guy would get killed.
25:03-25:21
And when that happened, I remember I'd put the controller down and I'd be like, "Oh, for Pete's sake." Well, Walter would be playing video games with me and I remember he'd be playing a video game and he'd just randomly throw his controller down and go, "Your pee stinks."
25:21-25:24
(congregation laughing)
25:28-25:30
Like, no, no, no, no, no.
25:32-25:36
No, it's for Pete's sake.
25:39-25:42
But he was, it never clicked with him.
25:42-25:47
He was constantly commenting on the smell of urine.
25:50-25:51
Your pee stinks.
25:53-25:54
Why did he do that?
25:56-25:57
He was just imitating me.
25:58-25:59
Right, kids love to do that.
26:01-26:12
And as a child of God, we naturally, we supernaturally want to imitate him.
26:15-26:25
So when that guy at work is constantly out to get ya, and you love him, and you repay his nastiness with kindness.
26:26-26:29
And then somebody else comes in and says, "Whoa, whoa, what are you doing?
26:29-26:31
"You love that guy?
26:31-26:41
"That guy's a real jerk to you." And your response is, "Yeah, I get that from my dad." You see, I see people as dad sees them.
26:45-26:50
Lost, blind, slaves to sin, heading to hell.
26:50-26:50
hell.
26:52-26:54
You know what my heavenly dad taught me?
26:55-27:01
He taught me that I don't need to retaliate.
27:02-27:05
And my heavenly father taught me I don't need to ignore them.
27:05-27:09
My heavenly father taught me that people like that need compassion.
27:14-27:17
And I know right now somebody's thinking, "Yeah, I love your enemies.
27:18-27:19
I see it, I hear it.
27:21-27:25
Pastor Jeff, you don't know what this person said to me.
27:27-27:29
You don't know the horrible things that they said to my face.
27:29-27:31
You don't know the horrible things they said behind my back.
27:33-27:39
Pastor Jeff, you don't know, this person for years has been just out to get me.
27:42-27:46
Look, you're right.
27:48-27:49
They don't deserve it.
27:51-27:51
You're right.
27:53-27:54
They've been miserable.
27:56-27:58
But you, you love them.
27:59-28:04
Not because of who they are, but because of who you are.
28:05-28:06
You're a child of God.
28:07-28:11
And your heavenly Father, He loves His enemies.
28:12-28:12
All right?
28:12-28:14
So I love my enemies because of who I am.
28:15-28:17
Secondly, number two, write this one down.
28:17-28:20
I love my enemies by what I do.
28:23-28:24
I love my enemies by what I do.
28:31-28:35
And you might be sitting here going, ah yeah, this love your enemy thing, I ain't feeling it.
28:36-28:37
I ain't feeling it.
28:38-28:39
And I would say that's okay.
28:41-28:42
You don't have to feel it.
28:44-28:45
But you do have to do it.
28:47-28:56
Because look, when the Bible talks about love, agape love, it's not an emotion.
28:59-29:06
Listen, you don't have to like them, but you do have to love them.
29:08-29:10
And biblically, love is an action.
29:13-29:14
Here's what I mean.
29:15-29:16
Love is an action.
29:16-29:22
1 John 5, 3 says, "For this is the love of God, "that we keep his commandments." Jesus said the same thing.
29:22-29:23
What is it?
29:24-29:40
John 14, 15, Jesus said, "If you love me, "you will keep my commandments." John 15, Jesus said, "Abiding in him "is keeping his commandments." Notice the Bible never calls us to stir up some kind of emotion.
29:43-29:49
Loving God is a choice. And yes, we worship God with our emotions in song and worship.
29:50-29:56
Yes, but that is the fruit of a choice to love God.
29:59-30:03
The proof that you love God isn't based on your feelings.
30:04-30:10
The proof that you love God, according to our Lord, is based on your actions.
30:11-30:16
And listen, church, love works the same way with your enemies.
30:16-30:20
You are not called to love your enemies by conjuring up gushy feelings.
30:25-30:27
You're called to love them by your actions.
30:29-30:32
You're called to love them by actively blessing them.
30:33-30:34
Why?
30:36-30:37
Because that's what God does.
30:39-30:41
Look at verse 45, the rest of it.
30:44-31:06
He says, "For he makes his son rise on the evil "and on the good and sends rain on the just "and on the unjust." God is so kind to sinners.
31:07-31:09
Did you ever stop and think about that?
31:14-31:23
Have you ever stopped to just marvel at the glorious truth that somebody can live their entire life and completely ignore God?
31:26-31:28
And they can still have a pretty good life on the earth.
31:30-31:31
Isn't that astounding?
31:33-31:42
Isn't it amazing that somebody can live their entire life hating God, speaking against God, speaking against God's people, speaking against God's truth.
31:42-31:47
They can live their whole life and do that, and they can still have a good life on the earth.
31:50-32:01
In God's kindness, He still lets them have sun and rain and a million other good things.
32:04-32:13
You can hate God and still have food, and friends, and laughter, and family, and health.
32:14-32:27
And yeah, the hard-hearted may refuse to be thankful or acknowledge this, but regardless, God does it anyways.
32:31-32:35
God's kindness says little about them, but it says much about Him.
32:38-32:43
And Jesus says, "Take note, children of God.
32:45-32:48
You show love for your enemies by what you do for them.
32:50-33:02
You show love for enemies by actively seeking their good." Like, "Well, what does that look like, Pastor Jeff?
33:02-33:08
What does that look like?" Okay, so you've got a nasty older family member who's always hated you.
33:12-33:13
Go do her yard work.
33:17-33:23
You got a jerk co-worker always looking to get their little shots in on you?
33:26-33:29
Look for ways to sincerely and genuinely compliment their work.
33:34-33:35
You got a nasty neighbor.
33:39-33:42
Find out what they like and treat them.
33:44-33:52
"Hey, I saw your garden, and the other day I was at the store and I saw that there was this magazine about gardening, and I picked it up for you.
33:52-33:55
I thought you might be interested." I don't know.
33:58-34:05
Just get on your face and ask God to show you how you can show kindness to your enemy.
34:09-34:17
Romans 12 20, Paul quotes from Proverbs 25, he says, "If your enemy is hungry, feed him.
34:19-34:39
"If he is thirsty, give him something to drink, "for by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head." When I was a young Christian, when I read this, I had this idea that if you do good to people that aren't good to you, like if you meet their needs, they're going to have this like mini Sodom and Gomorrah experience on their head.
34:39-34:43
Like, I'm gonna be nice to you and it's gonna rain lava on your head.
34:44-34:45
Ah, I'm burning!
34:45-34:47
Like, that'll show them.
34:50-34:53
And then I learned that that's not what that means at all.
34:56-34:58
It was actually an Egyptian symbol.
35:00-35:05
That they would put hot coals in an insulated pot and carry it around on their head.
35:07-35:09
it was a sign of repentance.
35:10-35:12
See, Israel had the sackcloth and ashes.
35:13-35:16
Israel had the pot of coals on their head.
35:19-35:22
And that's what God's word is driving us to.
35:25-35:28
Because no one's ever been one to Jesus.
35:30-35:32
Because a Christian matched their pettiness.
35:35-35:39
No one's ever been one to Jesus because a Christian just flat out ignored them.
35:42-35:45
It's kindness that leads to repentance, according to Romans 2.4.
35:48-35:48
Show love to them.
35:53-35:57
Actively show love to them.
35:59-36:00
Why would I do that?
36:03-36:06
Because it's not about who they are.
36:07-36:08
It's about who you are.
36:10-36:10
And one more.
36:13-36:16
I love my enemies because of who I am by what I do.
36:17-36:19
Three, we get to another because.
36:20-36:24
I love my enemies because I'm called to be different.
36:27-36:29
Look at verses 46 and 47.
36:30-36:37
Jesus says, "For if you love those who love you, "what reward do you have?
36:38-36:40
"Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
36:43-36:48
"And if you greet only your brothers, "what more are you doing than others?
36:49-36:54
"Do not even the Gentiles do the same?" Stop there.
36:57-36:59
You know, if you're like, "You know what?
37:01-37:03
I love the people that I like.
37:04-37:16
I love the people that I like." Well, then you do what people who don't even know Jesus do.
37:18-37:31
And our Lord here is saying, "What's so special about that?" "Oh, so you think you're great because you do what's normal.
37:32-37:33
Well, hang on a second.
37:33-37:44
Let me shine up your participation trophy." Why is it that we want applause for doing what's expected?
37:47-37:48
Here's an example.
37:49-37:52
Erin and I, we always look at each other and kind of laugh.
37:52-38:01
When we hear a dad say, "Yeah, I had to babysit my kids last Monday." Did you ever hear somebody say that?
38:02-38:03
You're not gonna say it anymore.
38:06-38:11
"I had to babysit my kids last Monday." I believe that's called being a father.
38:13-38:14
You didn't babysit your own kids.
38:15-38:17
Did your wife pay you $10 an hour?
38:20-38:25
Like, look, I'm not giving you a cookie because you did what was expected.
38:27-38:28
That's what our Lord is saying here.
38:33-38:42
You're expected to be different because Christians have something that no one else in the world has.
38:42-38:43
Do you know what that is?
38:44-38:46
It's like the Bible, not everybody has that.
38:48-38:51
Like compassion, no, a lot of people have that.
38:51-38:53
Christians have something that nobody else in the world has.
38:53-38:54
You know what that is?
38:56-38:57
God living in them.
39:00-39:02
In other words, you should be different.
39:06-39:08
I mean, anybody can go one mile.
39:10-39:11
That was the law, that's expected.
39:12-39:16
Anyone can give up a shirt that they lost legally in a lawsuit.
39:16-39:17
That's expected.
39:19-39:24
And here our Lord is saying, "Anybody can say hi to their friends." That's expected.
39:26-39:37
But God expects and empowers us to do more, to be like Him.
39:39-39:46
So do you do what the world expects, or do you do what God expects?
39:46-39:48
Because God's called you to be different than the world.
39:51-39:52
Do you have a heart like God?
39:55-39:55
We'll find out.
39:57-40:04
We'll find out because it's revealed not in how you treat your friends, it's revealed in how you treat your enemies.
40:06-40:14
We love them, not because of who they are, but because of who you are.
40:16-40:17
Oh yeah, there's one more verse.
40:23-40:27
One of the most deeply convicting and challenging verses in the whole Bible.
40:28-40:35
Jesus says, "You therefore must be perfect, "as your heavenly Father is perfect."
40:37-40:38
(exhaling)
40:41-40:46
In the context of this teaching, obviously, he's talking about the way we love, right?
40:47-40:51
You must love perfectly the way your heavenly Father loves perfectly.
40:52-40:53
That's what Jesus is saying here.
40:54-41:03
And look, you and I, we look at that verse, and we say, I failed.
41:06-41:07
I've failed.
41:09-41:09
We all have.
41:11-41:17
And actually, remembering the Beatitudes, step one and two of the Beatitudes was recognizing that you failed.
41:19-41:21
And you're like, man, I'll never be perfect.
41:23-41:25
But God says you must be perfect.
41:28-41:29
Do you know what that means?
41:32-41:33
It means I always have room to grow.
41:37-41:39
And today we're talking about loving your enemies.
41:40-41:43
And maybe right now you're saying, you know, I knew that.
41:44-41:49
I knew that, but today I'm encountered by this calling in a fresh way.
41:49-41:52
And I realize now I need to grow.
41:52-41:54
I want to grow in this area.
41:57-41:58
It's grace.
42:01-42:01
It's grace.
42:02-42:07
God has made us perfectly righteous in Jesus Christ.
42:08-42:14
God has adopted us as his children, and he is constantly changing us.
42:18-42:27
We don't deserve anything, but God has given us everything, even though we were his enemies.
42:30-42:30
It's grace.
42:33-42:34
Do you get that?
42:36-42:41
Then, like your Father, give it.
42:44-42:47
In just a moment, we're going to be gathering around the Lord's table as a church.
42:51-42:58
And it is the Lord's table that reminds us that we are grace people.
43:01-43:21
Because in essence, what we are remembering, what we are celebrating, what we are declaring when we take the Lord's Supper together is the Lord is saying, "I saved you." Not because of who you are, because of who I am.

Small Group Discussion
Read Matthew 5:43-48

What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
What does it mean to be persecuted? When Jesus said we must pray for those who persecute us, what / how exactly should we pray?
Can you genuinely love your enemy if you don’t really feel like it? Why or why not?
Explain Romans 12:20. How exactly does loving your enemy lead him to repentance? See also Romans 2:4.
What did Jesus mean in verse 48 when He said we “must be perfect”?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

Jeff Miller

July 28, 2024

Intentional Love

How to Love Difficult People: How to Love Those Who Hurt You

Jeff Miller

July 28, 2024

Intentional Love

Introduction:

How can I love someone after a hurt? (Genesis 45:1-15)

When I trust God is at work...

I reject Revenge . (Gen 45:1-3)
I recognize God redeems wrongs . (Gen 45:4-8)
Romans 8:28 - And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
I release My resentment . (Gen 45:5,9-13)
Genesis 41:51-52 - Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh. "For," he said, "God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house." The name of the second he called Ephraim, "For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction."
I run After reconciliation . (Gen 45:14-15)
Romans 12:18 - If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

01:15-01:15
Well, good morning.
01:17-01:20
If we haven't met yet, my name is Justin.
01:21-01:25
I'm one of the elders here, and I am blessed to be able to share God's word with you today.
01:27-01:39
This month, we've been going through a series on intentional love, and I hope that like me, you've been encouraged by hearing Dan, Pastor Taylor, and Pastor Rich preach these past few weeks.
01:40-01:52
I have the very unenviable task We're following all of them today to conclude the series, so it seems as prudent as ever to go to the Lord in prayer as we begin.
01:53-02:03
So as is our tradition, if we could take just a moment and you would pray for me to faithfully represent God's word, and I will pray for you to receive it.
02:09-02:09
Amen.
02:12-02:19
Many years ago in college, several of my friends enrolled in a flag football elective.
02:19-02:25
Now, we had done other sports previously, but this one didn't fit my schedule.
02:25-02:32
So for the next few months, I kept hearing about all the fun they were having, football story after football story.
02:33-02:37
And they're like, Justin, you have to join next time.
02:38-02:41
So that spring, I signed up.
02:41-02:44
And I was really excited.
02:45-02:45
Like, how excited?
02:46-02:51
I went out to the store and actually bought some receiver gloves, right?
02:51-02:54
Because that's definitely how seriously I should take this.
02:56-03:08
And I was in my apartment actually visualizing myself flying through the air, making contested one-handed catches, and my teammates surrounding me after a touchdown as I'm doing some cool pose.
03:10-03:14
Well, then came the first day of class.
03:15-03:16
It's the first series.
03:17-03:18
We had the ball.
03:18-03:21
We drew up the play on the quarterback's chest.
03:22-03:26
I'm going to streak down the sideline and run a post across the middle of the field.
03:28-03:29
We lined up.
03:30-03:31
I restrapped my gloves.
03:33-03:37
And as the ball was snapped, I took off like I had a jet pack on.
03:38-03:44
full speed, plant my foot, cut in, and as I turn up to look for the ball, wham!
03:45-03:48
I got lifted on my feet and slammed into the ground.
03:48-03:49
I never saw him.
03:51-03:55
And that guy was also going full speed.
03:56-03:58
It was supposed to be flag football, right?
03:58-03:59
Meaning no tackles.
04:00-04:02
But he didn't see me either.
04:03-04:04
So I got lit up.
04:08-04:09
I was laying on the ground.
04:10-04:12
I destroyed my shoulder.
04:13-04:21
And I was rehabbing it for months, so I didn't play another snap that day, nor have I played another snap of football in the 15 years since.
04:22-04:26
But a doctor did recently ask me, like, what happened with my shoulder?
04:26-04:30
So I did get to say, oh, you know, it's an old football injury.
04:32-04:33
(audience laughing)
04:34-04:41
Okay, Justin, but what does you getting hurt have to do with intentional love?
04:42-04:49
Well, today we are talking about a pretty tough topic, how to love after you've been hurt.
04:50-04:55
And this month we've talked a lot about love, but what do I mean by hurt?
04:56-05:02
To be clear, if you're in an abusive situation of some kind, you need to contact our pastors immediately.
05:03-05:10
But there are so many other ways that we hurt each other relationally, we can't even list them all.
05:11-05:20
Like, for example, how do you love someone after they said something that hurt so badly, you still think about it even years later?
05:21-05:24
Or how do you love someone who betrayed you?
05:25-05:30
Someone who you trusted and they suddenly turned on you with their actions?
05:32-05:36
Or how do you love someone who fills your life with empty promises?
05:37-05:40
In that case, the inaction is what hurts.
05:41-05:43
We could go on, of course.
05:44-05:51
Well, I shared the football story because when I got hurt playing, it was because I never saw the defender.
05:52-05:54
I wasn't looking in the right place.
05:56-06:00
And oftentimes, after a hurt, we aren't looking in the right place.
06:01-06:08
And what I mean is, typically, after I've been hurt, I'm completely consumed with the hurt itself.
06:10-06:17
All of my focus is on how I was offended, or how I was mistreated, or how I was disrespected, whatever it is.
06:18-06:23
I'm looking right at it, as I guess most of us naturally do.
06:24-06:35
But we can't stay focused there, because as we're going to see from the passage today, overcoming hurt in order to love, it starts by looking to the Lord.
06:37-06:51
If I condense the sermon down to one of those church Burger King signs, it might say, "To see past your hurt, you must see God at work." But we can go into a little bit more detail this morning.
06:52-06:57
If you would please open your Bibles with me to Genesis, chapter 45.
06:59-07:01
We're going to be reading from the account of Joseph.
07:01-07:05
So, as you're turning there, let's quickly review his story.
07:06-07:09
It begins back in Genesis chapter 37.
07:10-07:17
Joseph was his father Jacob's favorite son, and he kept having dreams that someday his brothers would bow down to him.
07:18-07:27
His brothers were very angered by this, So they attacked and nearly killed Joseph before selling him into slavery and tricking Jacob into thinking he was dead.
07:29-07:37
Years passed and Joseph was wrongfully imprisoned in Egypt, but shortly after being thrown in jail, he was appointed Egypt's prime minister.
07:37-07:40
This is a very abbreviated summary, by the way.
07:41-07:48
Fast forward and there was widespread famine, but under Joseph's leadership, Egypt had reserved plenty of food.
07:49-08:04
So Jacob sent his other sons there to buy some, but they didn't know that the man in charge questioning them and testing their character was Joseph until Genesis chapter 45.
08:06-08:08
So how can I love someone after a hurt?
08:09-08:17
On your outline, when I trust God is at work, number one, I reject revenge.
08:18-08:22
So let's start, Genesis 45, verse 1.
08:24-08:29
It says, "Then Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him.
08:30-08:38
He cried, 'Make everyone go out from me.' So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers.
08:39-08:43
And he wept aloud so that the Egyptians heard it and the household of Pharaoh heard it.
08:44-08:48
And Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph.
08:49-08:58
Is my father still alive?" But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence.
09:00-09:03
They were dismayed at his presence.
09:04-09:07
Yeah, imagine being one of the brothers.
09:08-09:13
Together, you sold Joseph away and faked his death, and now you're at his mercy.
09:14-09:19
And with Joseph's power at that time, any type of vengeance was on the table.
09:20-09:23
Imprisonment, execution, court jesters, anything.
09:25-09:35
And imagine being Joseph, the people who hurt you more deeply than you thought was possible, are now in front of you and you can get justice.
09:37-09:39
But Joseph wasn't thinking about getting even, was he?
09:41-09:43
Your Bible says he could not control himself.
09:44-09:48
And he wept so loudly, everyone around heard him.
09:49-09:55
That uncontrollable emotion wasn't from rage though, it was from compassion.
09:56-09:58
He still cared for his family.
09:58-10:12
He said, "I am Joseph, is my father still alive?" He could have said, "I am Joseph, now it's your turn to suffer." or I am Joseph, do you realize what you've put me through?
10:14-10:19
But Joseph rejected revenge, despite what he endured because of his brothers.
10:20-10:23
He chose intentional love.
10:24-10:32
And we'll see more of that love throughout this passage, but let's focus on how Joseph denied that instinct of payback.
10:33-10:38
It's like if someone put a box of donuts in front of a child.
10:39-10:42
Is their first instinct to have one?
10:43-10:44
No way.
10:45-10:46
Not for kid Justin.
10:47-10:49
I would have had another and another and another.
10:50-10:52
And if you don't believe me, you can ask my parents after service.
10:54-11:03
But as adults, we can reject that initial response and limit ourselves to just one delicious chocolate frosted treat.
11:04-11:05
I'm very pro doughnuts.
11:06-11:07
(audience laughing)
11:07-11:12
My point is, taming an initial reaction isn't just for donuts.
11:13-11:16
It's common to so much of the Christian life.
11:17-11:24
Reject the sinful response, and through Christ, make the more difficult, but ultimately better choice.
11:25-11:31
Reject the desire for revenge, and as difficult as it may be, choose love.
11:32-11:34
And you might be thinking, well, check.
11:35-11:36
I reject revenge.
11:37-11:43
Joseph didn't send his brothers to a dungeon, and I've never issued a dungeon sentence or anything like that.
11:45-11:48
But revenge looks a little bit different for us.
11:49-11:54
We have some classic revenge moves, like the passive aggressive move.
11:55-11:57
Hey, hey, are you still upset about yesterday?
11:58-11:58
Me?
11:59-11:59
Never better.
12:01-12:03
Why would being insulted like that make me upset?
12:03-12:04
I'm good.
12:06-12:08
Or what about the silent treatment?
12:10-12:11
We get revenge without saying a thing.
12:13-12:15
Or on the other end, venting.
12:16-12:23
I'm so offended and you hurt me so bad, I'm gonna raise my voice until I feel like we're even.
12:25-12:26
All of that is revenge.
12:28-12:40
In our sinful flesh, we love to hold others accountable for their wrongs, we certainly don't want that treatment when we're wrong, but we don't usually think about that.
12:41-12:51
The other path here is rejecting the instinct for revenge and intentionally choosing love, being patient, listening, giving grace.
12:53-13:04
When we get that urge to retaliate, we first have to be aware that it's even happening, and then ask the Lord to move our focus away from the hurt.
13:05-13:08
Because as we just read, Joseph didn't retaliate.
13:09-13:12
So we have to ask, why not?
13:14-13:17
I'll tell you, he wasn't looking at the hurt.
13:18-13:20
Joseph was looking up.
13:22-13:26
Point number two on your outline, how can I love someone after a hurt?
13:28-13:34
When I trust God is at work, I recognize God redeems wrongs.
13:35-13:38
Let's continue reading in verse four.
13:40-13:44
It says, "So Joseph said to his brothers, "come near to me, please.
13:46-13:46
"And they came near.
13:47-13:51
"And he said, I am your brother Joseph, "whom you sold into Egypt.
13:52-13:56
"And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves "because you sold me here.
13:57-14:00
"For God sent me before you to preserve life.
14:01-14:09
For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest.
14:10-14:17
And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to keep alive for you many survivors.
14:18-14:22
So it was not you who sent me here, but God.
14:22-14:32
He has made me a father to Pharaoh and Lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt." Pause there.
14:34-14:40
So continuing his speech, Joseph detailed the reason he rejected revenge.
14:40-14:41
Did you see that?
14:42-15:01
Verse five, "Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here for God sent me before you." Verse seven, "And God sent me before you." Verse eight, "It was not you who sent me here, but God, what does that mean?" What does he mean?
15:03-15:07
Joseph knew, and we know, that his brothers were wrong.
15:08-15:15
The book of James tells us that God tempts no one to sin, so Joseph's brothers were 100% guilty.
15:16-15:19
They sinned against Joseph by their choice.
15:20-15:32
The reason, though, that Joseph kept saying, "God sent me," is he understood a wonderful truth about our God, which is also the key to this entire sermon.
15:33-15:37
God can bring something good out of something evil.
15:39-15:44
God does not cause wrongs against you, God redeems wrongs against you.
15:46-15:58
So Joseph's brothers sent him to Egypt with the intention to destroy, but God sent Joseph to Egypt with the intention to save, among others, to save the very people that betrayed him.
16:00-16:06
So, did God send Joseph to Egypt, or did his brother's betrayal send him to Egypt?
16:08-16:08
Yes.
16:09-16:11
Can you fully explain that to me?
16:11-16:12
No, I can't.
16:13-16:15
That is the mystery of God's providence.
16:16-16:20
But if you have more questions about that, Pastor Taylor will happily answer them after service.
16:23-16:28
See, Joseph understood it's not possible to stop God's purpose.
16:29-16:40
Like, have you ever taken a vacation or even heard of a vacation with these two elements, a long drive and a dad?
16:42-16:51
Let me ask you, when that dad purposes in his mind to travel on this vacation, is there anything that can stop him?
16:52-16:55
Weather, traffic, bathroom breaks?
16:55-16:56
We'll just cancel those.
16:57-16:58
Dad, do you know what I'm saying?
16:59-17:01
We are going to get there, right?
17:02-17:13
One year, we were about to drive home from North Carolina, and somehow, all the windows on the car, including the moon roof, got stuck open.
17:14-17:15
and it was raining.
17:16-17:17
(Laughter)
17:17-17:26
We were with other families, so my mom, my sister, and I got distributed into other vehicles, but my dad didn't go to a repair shop.
17:27-17:30
He didn't duct tape garbage bags everywhere.
17:31-17:45
No, as the cars pulled out, I looked over and saw my dad driving with all the windows still wide open, a huge grin on his face, and swim goggles over his eyes.
17:46-17:47
(Laughter)
17:51-17:57
As a kid, when I looked at my father that day, I knew nothing could stop my dad.
17:59-18:06
And when Joseph looked at his heavenly father, he knew nothing could stop his dad.
18:08-18:11
Obviously, there are so many ways this analogy breaks down.
18:12-18:14
I love my dad, but he doesn't rule over the universe.
18:16-18:21
And not just my dad, but all of us as humans are sometimes caught off guard.
18:22-18:23
But God's never surprised.
18:24-18:42
God never thinks, "Oh no, what am I gonna do now?" But we have to know that God's plan is unstoppable because trusting that God is at work in your life is the critical step to loving someone who hurts you.
18:44-18:45
Because bad stuff happens.
18:46-18:52
People get hurt, offended, ignored, cut down.
18:54-18:59
And don't leave thinking that being hurt in itself is good, because it isn't.
19:00-19:02
The world is messed up.
19:03-19:06
If you're dealing with hurt right now, I am genuinely sorry.
19:07-19:14
and whoever hurt you was wrong, someday in heaven we'll be free from sin and from hurt.
19:16-19:24
Until then, we have to trust that God is at work even in our bad situations, like Joseph's.
19:25-19:31
And like we read in Romans 8.28, it's a familiar verse to many of us.
19:32-20:08
It says, "And we know that for those who love God, "All things work together for good "for those who are called according to his purpose." This does not say that all the things that happen to you are good in themselves, but this verse does say, "For those in Christ, God works together all things, "the good things and the bad things for your good." So even in the bad times, recognize that He redeems wrongs.
20:10-20:16
And in regards to intentionally loving those who hurt us, by recognizing that, we can even forgive.
20:18-20:22
Point number three, how can I love someone after I hurt?
20:23-20:28
When I trust God is at work, I release my resentment.
20:30-20:35
Forgiveness, we're talking about forgiveness, but that doesn't start with an R.
20:38-20:52
We saw that Joseph forgave his brothers in verse five, but we can read this passage and even the whole story of Joseph and still not take in the magnitude of what's being forgiven.
20:54-21:00
Joseph was hurt so deeply, he named his children out of his pain.
21:02-21:06
I'll jot down Genesis chapter 41, verse 51.
21:07-21:08
I think we have that, yes.
21:09-21:32
It says, "Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh, "for he said, 'God has made me forget all of my hardship "'and all my father's house.' "The name of the second he called Ephraim, "'for God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.'" decades of pain at the hands of his brothers.
21:33-21:39
So keep that in mind as we continue reading in verse nine.
21:42-21:52
Joseph said, "Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, "Thus says your son Joseph, "God made me lord of all Egypt.
21:53-21:55
"Come down to me, do not tarry.
21:55-22:04
"You shall dwell in the land of Goshen "and you shall be near me, you and your children "and your children's children and your flocks, "your herds and all that you have.
22:09-22:18
"There I will provide for you, "for there are yet five years of famine to come, "so that you and your household and all that you have "do not come to poverty.
22:19-22:24
"And now your eyes see, "and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see "that it is my mouth that speaks to you.
22:25-22:31
You must tell my father of all my honor in Egypt and of all that you have seen.
22:31-22:34
Hurry and bring my father down here.
22:35-22:40
So despite his hurt, does that sound like someone holding resentment?
22:41-22:48
No, Joseph forgave his brothers and completely provided for them too.
22:48-22:51
He was like, you guys, you gotta tell dad.
22:51-23:00
We're gonna live over here in the best land and just hurry and move in, and God sent me to get this already, and now you're coming, and did you tell dad yet?
23:01-23:04
Joseph is so selfless here, it's easy to forget.
23:05-23:07
He's talking to the people that ruined his life.
23:09-23:13
Forgiveness like this makes no sense.
23:14-23:16
It's intentional love.
23:17-23:20
But you might be thinking, I still don't see the connection.
23:21-23:27
How does trusting God as at work lead me to forgive?
23:29-23:32
Joseph saw God's higher purpose.
23:33-23:43
God raised him to his position in Egypt so that he could rescue countless lives, including those of his own family, God's chosen people.
23:45-23:50
Looking at that instead of the hurt led him to forgive.
23:50-23:59
Because when you really believe God is working all things together for your good, you are free to forgive.
24:00-24:02
Just rewind for a minute.
24:03-24:08
We are free from revenge because we know he handles the justice.
24:10-24:15
We are free from focusing on the hurt because he redeems wrongs.
24:16-24:21
And because he redeems wrongs, We are free to forgive.
24:22-24:27
We can let go of grudges because we know he is at work.
24:28-24:39
When God is going to use this for good, how God is going to use this for good, we often, almost always, don't know in the moment, but we know he will.
24:41-24:50
And sure, you might not need to forgive anyone right now, But any relationship of any significance requires forgiveness.
24:50-24:56
So, assuming you ever interact with another human again, you will need to forgive.
24:58-25:03
Others might say, "Well, I was hurt, and I want to forgive the person.
25:03-25:04
I really do.
25:04-25:10
But, to be honest, I'm struggling to let it go." Is that you?
25:12-25:18
Or are you more like the person who would say, I was hurt and I don't want to forgive that person.
25:18-25:20
You don't understand what they did.
25:21-25:22
They don't deserve it.
25:25-25:28
And I'm not here to minimize anybody's hurt this morning.
25:30-25:36
But you have to remember that even at our worst, God is intentionally loving us.
25:38-25:41
And you cannot love without forgiveness.
25:42-25:48
Forgiveness doesn't mean everything always goes back to the way it was for many reasons.
25:49-25:49
It might not.
25:50-25:53
But it does mean that you let it go.
25:55-26:04
For example, have you ever been in an argument and brought up a time that the other person hurt you in the past?
26:05-26:07
We all know that's a really bad idea.
26:08-26:13
but it also reveals you haven't released that resentment.
26:15-26:18
Because releasing it means I don't bring it up anymore.
26:19-26:21
They're forgiven and it's done.
26:22-26:31
Releasing it means even if it does come back up in my mind, I ask God to help me think of something else because it's over.
26:33-26:39
That's only possible through the renewal of our hearts and minds by Jesus Christ.
26:40-26:47
And if we look to the forgiveness we receive in him, our relationship with God is better after forgiveness, right?
26:47-26:51
When we forgive someone, the relationship should get better.
26:52-26:53
Let's go after that.
26:54-27:02
If you get in a disagreement with a friend, or a relative, or a spouse, change the fight.
27:02-27:05
Fight over being the first to ask for forgiveness.
27:06-27:08
Fight to be the first to forgive.
27:10-27:14
Because that's how the, excuse me, let's try that again.
27:14-27:17
That's how the relationship is reconciled.
27:18-27:24
And if we want to love after a hurt, we need to run after reconciliation.
27:27-27:32
Conveniently, point number four, when I trust God is at work, I run after reconciliation.
27:35-27:37
Let's continue in verse 14.
27:39-27:45
Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, and Benjamin wept upon his neck.
27:46-27:49
And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them.
27:49-27:52
After that, his brothers talked with him.
27:54-28:04
So we see that after Joseph's speech, he and his brothers were reconciled, Though I have to laugh at after that, his brothers talked with him.
28:04-28:18
Obviously they were terrified at first, but after Joseph gave a dissertation on God's providence and a Mount Rushmore forgiveness speech, at the same time, they were like, okay, yeah, yeah, we can talk.
28:19-28:30
Through Joseph's recognition of God working in his life, he forgave and loved his brothers, reuniting the family and preserving God's people.
28:31-28:38
Do you see the impact of Joseph's intentional love on his family, on a nation?
28:40-28:45
But what does running after reconciliation look like for us?
28:47-28:55
Well, we have to start by acknowledging that the goal, if possible, is reconciliation with the person that hurt you.
28:56-28:57
Where do I get that?
28:58-29:00
Take a look at Romans 12, 18.
29:02-29:19
It says, "If possible, so far as it depends on you, "live peaceably with all." Notice the phrase, "So far as it depends on you," because the reality is, one person cannot repair a relationship on their own.
29:20-29:25
Even if you have forgiven someone, they may refuse to restore things.
29:26-29:28
Some of us are living that right now.
29:29-29:33
That's why we say run after reconciliation.
29:33-29:40
Obviously, it plays out differently depending on the nature of the relationship, but are you pursuing peace?
29:41-29:46
Are you showing that person intentional love in whatever form is appropriate?
29:47-29:52
If at all possible, Are you trying to build the relationship back up?
29:53-29:59
And you can't say, well, it's not at all possible because it's their fault.
30:00-30:11
I wish I could say the reward of reconciliation is certain if you intentionally love whoever once hurt you.
30:12-30:13
But I can't say that.
30:14-30:21
But we still run after it because we We are called as believers to represent Christ.
30:22-30:30
We must reflect the way he pursues reconciliation with us, knocking on the door of our hearts.
30:32-30:41
And as we start to close, I'd add that every one of the points today reflects our Lord Jesus Christ.
30:43-31:13
When you choose to reject revenge, reflect the way Jesus chose love for his enemies, us, over giving us what we deserve. And of course the supreme evidence that God redeems wrongs is found in Jesus' death and resurrection because he was killed out of jealousy and hatred in the hearts of mankind and yet God's will to save was accomplished.
31:13-31:18
The absolute worst is simultaneously the absolute best.
31:19-31:39
And forgiveness, I mean, when you forgive someone who hurt you, someone who doesn't deserve to be forgiven, you are bringing them face to face with Jesus Christ because forgiving someone who doesn't deserve it is exactly what he does for us.
31:41-31:45
Through that forgiveness, Jesus reconciles us to the Father.
31:46-31:51
If you don't have a relationship with him, he is running after reconciliation with you.
31:53-32:02
And if you do have a relationship with him, he enables you to trust that he is at work, 'cause we cannot do that on our own.
32:04-32:07
Look not at the hurt, look to him.
32:10-32:19
And if you've been with us through this month, let's zoom out for a moment, because each week of the Intentional Love series really had the same point.
32:21-32:25
We have to be intentional about unconditional love.
32:26-32:28
Loving our neighbor, right?
32:28-32:35
Loving those who we disagree with, loving our enemies, and loving those who hurt us.
32:36-32:40
Frankly, the world is telling you to despise these people.
32:41-32:50
But this month, we saw that despite what the world says, God's word tells us that we must love.
32:51-32:53
We must love our neighbors.
32:54-32:57
We must love people while disagreeing.
32:57-32:59
We must love our enemies.
33:00-33:03
And we must even love those who have hurt us.
33:05-33:10
That requires intentionality and the transformational love of Jesus Christ.
33:11-33:18
So our prayer is that this series has been an equipping for that kind of intentional love.
33:19-33:20
Let's go after it together.
33:21-33:22
Will you pray with me, please?
33:28-33:32
Lord God, we thank you for your word.
33:34-33:44
And God, those of us in this room who have come to a relationship with you know the incredible power of your love.
33:46-33:50
We know the impact of your intentional love on us.
33:52-34:06
And so God, even as we, over this month and specifically this morning, as we went over, God, how to act with the same intentionality towards those who are difficult to love.
34:08-34:11
We do that knowing that it's only possible through you, God.
34:13-34:21
We humble ourselves before you and ask that you would work through us to love everyone in our lives, God.
34:23-34:30
And we pray that those who don't know you would come to a saving knowledge of what you have done in your love.
34:32-34:37
All these things we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Genesis 45:1-15

What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Why is our natural reaction to hurt that we should “get even”?
Have you seen God redeem wrongs against you? How should seeing God at work free you from carrying resentment?
As difficult as forgiveness can be in some situations, why are we called to continually forgive?
Why do we “run after” reconciliation?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

Guest User

July 21, 2024

Intentional Love

How to Love Difficult People: How to Love Your Enemies

Guest User

July 21, 2024

Intentional Love

Introduction:

Who Are My Enemies?

My enemies are people With bad intentions .
My enemies are Who I say they are .

Jesus's Example (Romans 5:8-11)

Romans 5:8,10-11 - but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us... For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Titus 3:3-5 - For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy...

To Love My Enemies:

I must prepare To be humiliated . (Luke 6:27b-30)
I must see that Reciprocity is not love . (Luke 6:32-34)
I must Intentionally love them the way God does . (Luke 6:31,35-36)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

01:15-01:18
Open your Bibles to Luke chapter 6.
01:19-01:23
We're gonna be looking at verses 27 through 36 this morning.
01:24-01:26
This is one of the hard teachings of Jesus.
01:27-01:35
He says, "Love your enemies." He's our master, we are his slaves, so we must obey his commandments.
01:36-01:39
And we're his friends when we keep his commands.
01:41-01:53
This one is tough, but we must love our enemies we don't, we slam the door on the gospel, we become a hindrance rather than a help to our enemy's salvation.
01:54-01:55
That's the sermon.
01:56-02:07
We must love our enemies because living out the gospel before them is more important than our pride, our reputation, and our drive for self-preservation.
02:09-02:11
But there's exceptions to every rule, right?
02:13-02:14
Right?
02:14-02:15
Nobody agreed?
02:15-02:16
There's exceptions to every rule.
02:17-02:20
So, let's pray.
02:22-02:30
Our gracious, loving Father, all this month, we are looking at how to love difficult people.
02:32-02:37
Perhaps none so difficult as those we believe to be our enemies.
02:40-02:42
Perhaps no one needs to hear this sermon more than me.
02:44-02:46
I am not a master of these things.
02:46-02:48
I have by no means arrived.
02:51-02:56
I am just the messenger this morning of your truth.
02:58-03:10
And I pray your people hear, not me, but we hear from you that your word brings deep conviction.
03:12-03:36
and out of conviction, sorrow, and out of sorrow, repentance, and out of repentance, love, reconciliation, friendship, that our lives might be a living witness to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
03:39-03:42
Lord, it's in your name we ask that you do this.
03:45-03:48
Luke 6.27, are you there?
03:49-03:55
This morning I don't have an amusing story or anecdote to start us off.
03:56-04:01
I don't think I have any clever or amusing illustrations to interject along the way.
04:02-04:11
It seemed best to me to deal with this scripture straight up and not smooth it over or make you feel at ease with it.
04:11-04:15
I am aiming for conviction and not contentment.
04:17-04:21
The setting for our text is known as Jesus' Sermon on the Plain.
04:22-04:27
He had spent the previous night in prayer on a mountain after which he appointed his 12 apostles.
04:28-04:41
And as he comes down from the mountain, he's met by a great crowd of disciples and a multitude of people, Jews and Gentiles from all over, from Jerusalem, Judea, and the seacoast cities of Tyre and Sidon.
04:42-04:48
They came to be healed of their diseases, to be delivered from their demons, but also to hear Him.
04:50-05:00
We pick up at verse 27 where Jesus says, "But I say to you who hear," let's stop there, what does He mean, "you who hear"?
05:00-05:49
It's like another phrase Jesus often used, "Let him who has ears to hear, hear." Jesus is pointing out that this next part is not going to be accepted by everybody, including his disciples. It's going to be so different, so difficult, that people are going to reject it. They're going to say, "He doesn't really mean that. It's something we should try to do, but Jesus doesn't really expect us to do this. Oh but he does. Jesus never says anything like, "I strongly encourage you to do this," or "Hey this is a key life hack for all of my disciples." No, Jesus means what he says and he says what he means. And what he is about to say is for those who are willing to hear.
05:51-06:53
It's going to be a difficult teaching and people, many people, are going to reject it. What about you? Are you going to have ears to hear this message? Are you willing to say right now, "I'm going to listen to every single thing that Jesus says in this passage." And what's the first thing that he says? "Love your enemies." Really? Really? Love my enemies? Notice he doesn't say, "Don't have enemies or try not to have enemies and he doesn't say love your enemy he says love your enemies enemies are a fact of life and we all have more than one and Jesus says we must love them let's break this down a little bit further we've looked at the definition of love already in this series this is a gap a love love that is selfless, sacrificial, unconditional.
06:54-06:58
It's the highest form of love, the love that God has for His people.
07:00-07:02
And His love is defined in 1 Corinthians 13.
07:03-07:07
It's a verb, an active, doing love.
07:08-07:09
And who is it to be lavished on?
07:11-07:11
Your enemies.
07:13-07:27
Now you might be like the lawyer that we studied in Dan's sermon at the beginning of the month, who wanted to justify himself and said, "Who's my neighbor?" You may say, "Well, who are my enemies?" I don't think I have any enemies.
07:28-07:32
Since I don't have any enemies to love, I'm going to think about something else for a while this morning.
07:34-07:35
But you do have enemies.
07:36-07:38
Let's look at how we define them.
07:40-07:45
First, my enemies are people with bad intentions.
07:47-07:50
An enemy is someone who wants to harm you or hurt you.
07:50-07:53
An enemy wants to take something from you.
07:54-07:55
They may want to destroy you.
07:57-07:59
Now, I need to insert a caveat here.
08:01-08:03
The rule of law still applies.
08:04-08:07
We have laws and police officers and judges in court.
08:08-08:15
The whole counsel of God tells us that these authorities exist to deter and punish wrongdoers.
08:16-08:21
You have a legal right to self-defense in our nation.
08:24-08:35
And to defend others from criminal acts, prevent grievous bodily harm, or to lay down your life for others demonstrates great love and mercy.
08:37-08:44
So do not think I am saying you must roll over if someone is invading your home in the dead of night.
08:46-08:49
or violently trying to harm you or another person.
08:50-08:52
Why we have trained security here?
08:52-08:54
To protect people.
08:57-09:07
But you know, despite sensational news stories and tragic events, the probability of those things happening especially where we live, is low.
09:08-09:17
So our focus this morning is primarily on people who are enemies in our day-to-day relationships, and particularly because of our faith in Jesus.
09:19-09:23
For example, the communist Chinese government is an enemy of Christians.
09:25-09:29
They surveil them, they deprive them of jobs, and imprison them.
09:31-09:33
Followers of other religions may be enemies.
09:34-09:40
Try to preach the gospel or become a disciple of Jesus in an Islamic country and see what happened.
09:42-09:47
In the last four years, we've seen pastors arrested for keeping their churches open.
09:48-09:55
We've seen pro-life advocates arrested in nighttime SWAT raids for maximum shock effect and then prosecuted.
09:57-10:03
We've seen Antifa openly attack Christians holding a public prayer service.
10:04-10:11
We've seen Christian bakers and photographers relentlessly persecuted for their deeply held convictions.
10:12-10:20
And if radical groups will assault Jews on college campuses, could we imagine they would not do the same to Christians?
10:22-10:25
So yes, we do have real enemies in this world.
10:26-10:31
Now again, statistically, few of us are going to face these sorts of bad actors.
10:33-11:00
But at one time or another, we've faced bullies despise us. We encounter people who hate us because of our color, our religion, our ancestry, our economic situation, or our perceived privileges. And there are many ways an enemy can seek to destroy us with gossip and lies, rumor-mongering, backstabbing. Enemies can wreck your reputation. They sow seeds of mistrust.
11:01-11:05
They may try to tear you down to your face or in front of others just to build themselves up.
11:07-11:31
They may be so angry at you that they lash out verbally. They may smash or destroy your property. They may even assault you. But look, rather than me try to answer for all of us the question, "Who are my enemies?" A better indicator would be this, "My enemies are who I say they are.
11:33-11:33
That's right.
11:34-11:36
Your enemies are who you define them to be.
11:38-11:40
They could be family members or former friends.
11:41-11:45
They've stabbed you in the back or done something you consider unforgivable.
11:46-11:47
They've lied about you.
11:47-11:50
They've broken confidences and broken faith.
11:51-11:54
You loan them something, and they never returned it.
11:55-11:56
They're ungrateful.
11:57-11:58
They take advantage of you.
12:00-12:02
Your enemies can be anyone with whom you find fault.
12:03-12:06
You don't like the things they say or the way they say them.
12:07-12:20
Maybe they've called you out on something or told you what you needed to hear, and instead of humbly accepting that truth, you justify yourself instead and put them on your dirt list.
12:22-12:31
Your enemies are the politicians you despise, people who hold a different political viewpoint, and the people you rail against on social media.
12:33-12:39
Maybe you're angry or bewildered at such people, and you wonder, how can people be so hateful?
12:41-12:48
The same people who rightly decry mass shootings one week are this week wailing, the assassin missed.
12:49-12:49
And you know what?
12:49-12:51
It's his own fault he got shot anyway.
12:53-12:57
Well, you know, such hypocrisy, we can't let that go unchecked, can we?
12:59-13:03
All week there have been plenty of people jumping in and verbally thumping their enemies.
13:03-13:04
Did you get your licks into maybe?
13:06-13:09
Those people, those people, who do they think they are?
13:10-13:14
Their big egos and their boastful and hateful ideas.
13:16-13:26
You despise their values and their positions on abortion and human sexuality and welfare and immigration or innumerable other subjects.
13:26-13:30
In your thinking and your imagination, they are all enemies.
13:34-13:38
Perhaps you've defined your enemies by what you've done to them.
13:40-13:56
Maybe you haven't returned what was owed or done what was right and found it more convenient to jettison the relationship and find fault with the other person than to confess and ask for forgiveness and seek reconciliation.
13:58-14:08
Maybe you are the giver of unsolicited sage advice and it was rejected and pride has led you to reject and break off the relationship.
14:11-14:30
You've been the gossip, the liar, the rumor monger, backstabber. You've spitefully used others, exchanged harsh words, or acted in your own self-interest. You haven't just burned the bridges, you've blown them to smithereens, and all your enemies are self-made.
14:32-14:45
However you have come by your enemies, however you define them, Jesus says you You are to love them, love them sacrificially, unconditionally, selflessly.
14:47-14:48
Does he really mean that?
14:49-14:54
It would be good to look at Jesus' example, see if he really means what he says.
14:56-15:00
Let's look at Romans chapter 5, verses 8 and 10 and 11.
15:02-15:08
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
15:11-15:23
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, how much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life?
15:25-15:36
More than that, we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." Think about that for a moment.
15:37-16:08
Before we repented and believed in Jesus, we were all enemies of God. We indulged in high-handed sin against him and against others. Titus chapter 3 verses 3 through 5 says that we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and other pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
16:10-16:21
When the goodness and loving kindness of God appeared, our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy.
16:23-16:27
That's a good description of people living as enemies of God and people, isn't it?
16:28-16:34
Passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
16:36-16:40
There's a great deal of malice and hate flying around right now.
16:42-16:46
But God, but God, aren't those the best words?
16:46-16:53
But God saved us and reconciled us to himself while we were his diehard enemies.
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Jesus did that out of great love and mercy for us.
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And what did that look like?
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What had to be done to destroy the hostility between us and God?
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Well it required the death of Jesus.
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It involved betrayal, a nighttime arrest with force, an abandonment and denial by his friends.
17:21-17:26
The betrayal led to assaults, beatings, and an illegal trial by his enemies.
17:28-17:52
And it led to the full force of an indifferent, cruel, but civilized world power that mercilessly flogged him and subjected him to a brutal and humiliating death a cross. Rome used the cross as the most agonizing and protracted method of punishment to humiliate the convict and to terrify others.
17:54-18:21
We should not sentimentalize Jesus on the cross. Some churches will display an empty cross or a crucifix with Jesus bleeding a little bit and a cloth wrapped around his ways, but the reality is he hung up there naked and bloody in front of his mother, naked in front of the women who followed him, in front of the religious leaders who hated him, and for all the world to see.
18:23-18:35
The Son of God, naked and humiliated and covered with shame for you when you were his enemy. Write this down in the margin of your notes. My Jesus.
18:37-19:00
My Jesus naked and humiliated for me. Underline humiliated. It'll be a handy reference point for the rest of this message. You see, when Jesus says love your enemies, He knows the full measure of what it means and what it involves.
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So let's proceed and get the full extent of what Jesus wants us to do.
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Look at verses 27 through 30.
19:11-19:50
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To the one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also. And from the one who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from the one who takes away your goods, do not demand them back." I thought about the ways I could make this next point. To love my enemies, I must prepare to do the unexpected, or to love my enemies I must prepare to act contrary to my own self-interest.
19:52-19:55
But those don't do justice to what Jesus is saying.
19:56-20:10
To love my enemies I must prepare to be humiliated. Not just humbled, not just act with humility, but outright humiliation.
20:11-20:27
Such an idea is so foreign and abhorrent to us that our response is almost immediately, "That can't be what Jesus meant." Although we have all been humiliated one or more times in our lives, it wasn't willingly.
20:28-20:39
Our drive for self-preservation rejects humiliation. When we're wronged, when someone does something bad to us, we want to strike back. We want revenge.
20:39-20:55
but look at the examples that Jesus uses. Far from retaliation, Jesus says we're to do good to those who hate us. We're to bless in response to cursing. We're to pray for those who abuse us.
20:57-21:04
Just like Jesus, naked and humiliated, said, "Father, forgive them.
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They don't know what they do." He says to offer your other cheek to the one who strikes you.
21:12-21:17
Now, we aren't accustomed to getting slapped in the face all that often, I hope.
21:19-21:29
But the picture here, it's a humiliating slap to the face in the ancient world, such as a master slapping a servant.
21:31-21:34
But in our day, it might look something like this.
21:34-21:38
A superior deliberately insulting a subordinate in front of others.
21:38-21:46
It could be a snide remark or a sarcastic comment calculated to make you feel foolish or look small.
21:47-21:51
It's a snub intended to cause you maximum embarrassment.
21:53-22:08
Jesus says, "When that happens, don't retaliate." Allow yourself to be humiliated and bear the insult with self-control, and you will display a kind of dignity that is foreign to this world.
22:10-22:13
Jesus says if someone takes away your cloak, don't withhold your tunic.
22:15-22:25
Now in the first century, people would wear this loose linen garment next to their body as a tunic, be pinned or sewn at the shoulders, and then they might wear a cloak over top of that.
22:27-22:31
You could compare it to the way we wear a jacket over a t-shirt and a pair of jeans.
22:33-22:39
Jesus says if someone takes away your cloak, either by force or to collect a debt, give them your tunic too.
22:40-22:43
Go the extra measure, go the extra mile.
22:46-22:48
Basically saying, be willing to strip down to your underwear.
22:50-22:53
We all know how embarrassing or humiliating that might be, right?
22:54-22:59
How many of us have had the dream of waking up, of going to school in your underwear?
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But seriously, what Jesus means here is this.
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Your willingness to be humiliated by your enemies will lay down a bright line between your behavior and theirs.
23:16-23:21
While they're doing something wicked, you will be a living illustration of the gospel.
23:23-23:31
We had a sermon a few weeks back on suffering because really this kind of response to our enemies is going to involve suffering.
23:33-23:46
But in the passage from Philippians 1, Paul wrote that living a life worthy of the gospel is a clear sign to your opponents or your enemies of their destruction, but your salvation, and that from God.
23:48-23:57
You see, it seems counterintuitive, but our willingness to suffer humiliation for the gospel can produce conviction in our enemies.
23:58-24:27
For instance, when one of the Roman soldiers who threw dice for Jesus' tunic saw how he breathed his last, he said, "Truly, this man was the son of God." Last, Jesus says, "To everyone who begs from you "and from one who takes away your goods, "do not demand them back." We get mad when we loan stuff to people and they don't return it.
24:27-24:31
Jesus goes a step further, says, "Don't ever ask for it back.
24:34-24:38
"Don't demand back what people take from you." We see this with kids, right?
24:39-24:51
Children playing with toys, a child grabs a toy from another, and the immediate response is, "Give that back!" And there's tussling and fighting and a big disturbance.
24:54-25:00
In adult life, it could be something as simple as Someone takes away your parking place that you've been patiently waiting for.
25:02-25:06
Someone grabs the last item off the store shelf, that item you wanted.
25:07-25:08
Remember Black Friday?
25:10-25:13
People cut in line, they take the job that you wanted.
25:14-25:15
They get the bonus you deserve.
25:17-25:20
They take the plum project you needed to get promoted.
25:22-25:25
They take away your family and your friends.
25:26-25:30
They seek to steal away those you love through slander and lies.
25:32-25:42
When you respond to such injustices with patience and self-control, your behavior produces conviction, and it may very well lead to your enemy's salvation.
25:45-26:14
We see this in Scripture with Paul, who approved of Stephen's stoning and heard him cry out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." Jesus met Paul on the road to Damascus, Jesus made it clear to him that he wasn't persecuting believers. Paul was persecuting Jesus himself. We need to understand that when people attack us, especially for our faith in Jesus, they are in reality attacking him.
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Whether we are attacked for our faith, We're insulted or others take something from us, our response is to be the same.
26:25-26:35
We are to give way for the sake of Christ. We live out the gospel by dying to our pride and our self-interest for the sake of our enemies.
26:37-26:50
And we trust that God will make all things right on our behalf. We need to make room for God to redress the wrongs done to us and to not take matters into our own hands.
26:52-26:56
Now you may be thinking to yourself, "This is crazy talk.
26:59-27:02
This is not what I signed up for when I gave my heart to Jesus.
27:05-27:10
This isn't what I agreed to when I made Jesus the Lord of my life." Well you're right.
27:11-27:31
You think you have any ability to make the sovereign of the universe Lord of anything and that you can tell him which of his commands apply to you and which ones don't? You will misunderstand the gospel. While you may be listening, you're not hearing what Jesus is saying.
27:34-27:40
You may instead be thinking, "Sprunk, you are out of your ever-loving mind if you think I'm ever going to stoop before my enemies.
27:41-27:44
That's not the Christianity I signed up for.
27:45-27:45
No, no, no, no.
27:46-27:50
I believe in a robust, aggressive faith wrapped in patriotism and the flag.
27:51-27:56
I want a religion that lets me fight back when my enemies insult me or my god.
27:56-28:03
I want a religion that lets me bust my enemies' heads, unleash righteous reprisals on sinners and heretics.
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Plenty of those kinds of religions out there if you want them.
28:11-28:14
And unfortunately, the church has a history of that kind of behavior too.
28:16-28:18
But such behavior does not represent Jesus.
28:19-28:22
And that's not what Jesus is teaching here.
28:23-28:28
The one who hung naked and humiliated for you says we are to love our enemies.
28:29-28:35
And if I'm going to love my enemies, I must see that reciprocity is not love.
28:37-28:46
Let's look at verse 32, where Jesus points out that reciprocity in our relationship with others is a worldly standard.
28:49-28:53
He says, "If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you?
28:54-28:56
For even sinners love those who love them.
28:57-29:01
And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you?
29:01-29:03
Even sinners do the same.
29:04-29:09
If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you?
29:10-29:13
Even sinners lend to sinners and get back the same amount.
29:15-29:19
So much of what we do in our lives is based on reciprocity.
29:20-29:22
You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.
29:23-29:28
You do something good for me, I'll do something good for you, and we'll get along just fine.
29:30-29:31
This isn't even love, really.
29:32-29:34
It's just transactional living.
29:35-29:38
It's just business, so to speak.
29:39-29:44
How many of your relationships are purely transactional?
29:45-29:46
Just reciprocal?
29:47-29:48
Your marriage?
29:50-29:51
Your family relationships?
29:54-29:55
Your relationships here at Harvest?
29:58-30:48
Jesus points out that reciprocity is not the same loving your enemies. As I said reciprocity doesn't even qualify as love because that's the way the world operates. It's what sinners do for other sinners. You do something good to those who have done you a good turn or you only do good because you hope they will do something good for you. Well, you're just like everybody else. And if we're only being kind and generous and forgiving with others who are kind and generous and forgiving with us? We look just like everybody else in the world. There's nothing in our lives or our testimony that makes us distinct from unbelievers. Jesus says there's no credit in reciprocity, no benefit whatsoever.
30:49-31:09
He says if you lend to others expecting something in return, what credit is that? Now while we may think of someone loaning money to another expecting repayment the real sense here is we give things away we do things with an expectation of return.
31:11-31:54
The real sense here is creating obligations. For example, I did you a favor now you owe me a favor in equal measure. I stuck up for you during that meeting I took your position I advocated for you now you owe me politicians and dealmakers do this all the time but Jesus says if that's how you operate you look just like the sinners who support other sinners as we'll see shortly Jesus calls us to a different and higher standard but before we get to that I'll briefly touch on reciprocity with our enemies Did you think I was talking about enemies?
31:54-31:56
No, I was talking how we deal with each other.
31:56-31:57
That's how we deal with friends.
32:00-32:02
But we engage in reciprocity with our enemies too.
32:05-32:15
See, while we engage in favorable reciprocal behavior with those we love and like, when it comes to our enemies, we tend to engage in aggressive or passive reciprocal behaviors.
32:17-32:19
When someone wrongs us, as I said, we wanna fight back.
32:19-32:21
We wanna respond in kind.
32:21-32:24
We want to lash out and justify ourselves.
32:24-32:26
We want eye for eye.
32:26-32:27
We want tooth for tooth.
32:28-32:38
We want to satisfy our pride and be able to say, "I showed him." And when we respond in kind, that person remains our enemy.
32:39-32:41
And we've denied the gospel.
32:42-32:44
We've closed the door to reconciliation.
32:47-32:53
The other tendency is to step away and have no further dealings with people whom we consider to be our enemies.
32:54-33:05
Of course, if someone is being physically or emotionally abusive, then yes, there absolutely needs to be physical distance from that person.
33:08-33:12
But recall our earlier conversation about the reasons relationships break.
33:13-33:18
Lies, pride, mistrust, selfishness, backstabbing, and so forth.
33:20-33:25
When someone deals with us in such ways, we typically cut off all contact with that person.
33:26-33:36
Rather than being guarded in our future dealings with such people, we think it better to write them off completely. And we typically don't stop there, do we?
33:38-33:48
We want everyone to know what they did to us and what we think of them, So others will view my enemies as their enemies.
33:51-34:37
I had two aunts, both professing believers in Jesus, who would get into loud and angry fights over petty things, and they would not speak to each other for months at a time, sometimes for a year or more. And they would belittle one another. They would belittle each other to other family members, seeking allies and approvals, and "oh you poor thing, of course you were right" justification. You can well imagine how such antics affected the rest of the family. And guess how many family members came to faith in Jesus Christ because of their example.
34:40-34:52
What if Jesus had treated us reciprocally for our sin and rebellion instead of dying for us when we were his enemies? We would still be alone and without God in the world.
34:53-35:05
We would be without hope. We would still be passing our days in malice and envy, being hated by others, and hating one another. We would still be subject to God's wrath.
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No, our Savior loved us while we were His enemies.
35:13-35:20
And following Jesus' example and command and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are to intentionally love our enemies.
35:23-35:30
If you're treating people the same way unbelievers treat one another, how do you prove you're a genuine Christian?
35:32-35:36
Is there enough evidence to convict you of being a disciple of Jesus?
35:37-35:45
of being a slave of Jesus Christ, would someone point to you and say, there goes another hypocritical Christian?
35:46-35:54
Or would they say, she doesn't act like anything like my image of a stereotypical Christian.
35:55-35:58
There is something really different about her.
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Well, let's turn next to what that difference must be.
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to love my enemies, I must intentionally love them the way God does.
36:12-36:14
Jesus returns to where he began at verse 35.
36:16-36:21
But love your enemies and do good and lend expecting nothing in return.
36:22-36:23
And your reward will be great.
36:24-36:31
And you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
36:32-36:35
Be merciful, even as your father is merciful.
36:37-36:39
Jesus calls us to a much, much higher standard.
36:40-36:44
There is so much in these two verses that we don't want to do.
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You may have noticed I skipped a verse.
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I purposely saved it for now because it helpfully frames what Jesus commands in verses 35 and 36.
36:56-36:57
Look back to verse 31.
36:58-37:02
"As you wish what others would do to you, Do so for them.
37:04-37:06
This sums up how we are to love our enemies.
37:07-37:09
You probably know this is the golden rule.
37:10-37:15
It's an idea expressed in other cultures and religions around the world from ancient times.
37:16-37:24
But it was typically stated in the negative as, don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you.
37:25-37:29
There's a difference between do to others and don't do to others.
37:29-37:42
"To do to others you must act, "but don't do requires no effort at all, "and no engagement with people whatsoever." How do we share the gospel if we don't engage with people?
37:43-37:55
If we only engage with people who have already heard the gospel, with people we like, we aren't loving our enemies.
37:58-38:13
Paul said he made it his ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written, those who've never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.
38:14-38:21
Remember, unbelievers are living as enemies of God, no matter how moral and upright they may seem.
38:24-38:30
Just as the Father sent Jesus, He sent His disciples, He sent Paul, He sends us.
38:32-38:35
We're glad someone shared the gospel with us, are we not?
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And they did so because they obeyed Jesus' command to do to others.
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That was love.
38:44-38:49
Whereas the negative form, don't do to others, puts us right back at reciprocal living.
38:50-38:51
It's not love.
38:53-38:57
Have you been practicing a don't do to others version of Christianity?
38:59-39:01
You know who lived like this?
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The Pharisees.
39:03-39:08
They acted like they were on the moral high ground, but they hated everyone who wasn't like them.
39:09-39:13
Jesus said to them, "But woe, you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
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For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces.
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For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in." Would Jesus say that of us?
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Would he say, "Instead of loving your enemies like I told you to, you treated them hatefully and shut the kingdom of heaven in their faces.
39:34-40:21
Your behavior caused them to despise me and the gospel, because you behaved hypocritically." We must understand that Jesus' command to love our enemies obliterates living as we know it. We cannot continue to live the way we have been. You and I must intentionally love others, including our enemies. We are to affirmatively do to others what you would have them do to you, without being asked, without expectation of return. Indeed, you should not expect any kind of return from others. Now Jesus gives us some very practical ways to love our enemies by doing what we wish they would do for us. Look back at verses 27, 28, and 35.
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First he says, "Do good to those who hate you." Are you treating people with respect? Do you honor everyone?
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As Peter says we are to do in 1st Peter 2 .17.
40:39-40:45
Are your interactions with unbelievers characterized by civility and kindness?
40:47-40:50
Is there some good deed you could do for an enemy?
40:50-40:56
Some yard work, a meal perhaps, contribute financially if he or she has need.
40:58-41:05
And Jesus says, "Bless those who curse you." Do you respond to curses with curses?
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Or can you let it go?
41:07-41:24
Are you responding in kind to hateful angry comments online or are you giving a soft answer that turns away wrath? Are you able to resist answering a fool according to his folly so that you don't become like him or her or yourself?
41:26-41:32
Jesus says pray for those who abuse you. When was the last time you prayed for an enemy?
41:34-41:41
This is both the easiest and hardest thing to do, and I confess I have seldom prayed for my enemies.
41:43-41:44
But we can pray.
41:44-41:55
We can pray for repentance that leads to salvation, for reconciliation, and for guidance from the Lord how we might change the relationship.
41:57-42:01
Then Jesus says, "Lend, give stuff away, it's only stuff.
42:02-42:07
You can't keep it, your kids don't want it, and ultimately it's all going to burn.
42:08-42:13
But Jesus says you can make friends for yourself by means of unrighteous wealth.
42:14-42:17
Through generosity, you can make friends out of enemies.
42:18-42:22
And through that open door lies the opportunity to share the gospel.
42:24-42:27
Finally, Jesus says be merciful and extend forgiveness.
42:28-42:28
Why?
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Why, because your heavenly Father is merciful forgiven you.
42:35-42:38
Do you want others to grant you mercy and forgiveness?
42:40-42:41
Of course you do.
42:42-42:45
Forgive, even if your enemy hasn't asked for forgiveness.
42:47-42:55
Why? Because it will set you free from bitterness. I have some personal experience with this.
42:57-43:04
And if you've wronged someone and made them your enemy, seek forgiveness if it's possible to do so.
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Jesus says we should expect nothing in return, but also why we are to do these things.
43:13-43:21
Because our reward will be great and we will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
43:24-43:45
It should convict and astonish us that God has been merciful and kind to the evilest people who have ever walked the earth. He gave them breath and food and covering, senses to experience creation, and yet they spurned his great provision and did evil horrible things.
43:48-43:52
We may get nothing from our enemies in response to loving them.
43:52-43:59
They may remain ungrateful and evil, but we will have a reward from our Heavenly Father.
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And we will be sons of the Most High. Yes, ladies, you too.
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This is the greatest position anyone can have. Greater than president, greater than CEO.
44:15-44:28
To be a son of God is to be esteemed by Him, to be embraced in His love and protection, and to enjoy all the temporary and eternal benefits bestowed by your heavenly Father.
44:30-44:34
As the worship team returns to the stage, we're going to conclude where we began.
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We must love our enemies, because living out the gospel is more important than our pride, our reputation, and our drive for self-preservation. And remember, Jesus doesn't say, "Love Or, "Love your enemies, except when..." No, there's no exceptions to the command.
45:02-45:11
When we intentionally love our enemies, we show that our salvation is not about us, but about Jesus' love for his enemies.
45:13-45:19
In a sense, our salvation isn't even really for us, but rather for others.
45:20-45:23
Certainly, we enjoy all the benefits of salvation, do we not?
45:24-46:09
The love of our Abba Father, reconciliation with Him, adoption, joy, peace, rest, eternal life, and many more things. But if we just turn inward with our salvation and only love and do good to those who love us and are like us, we're missing the Great Commission and the point of salvation. We are saved to proclaim the gospel to the world, to our families, our friends, and to our enemies. Just as Jesus' love for us when we were his enemies led to his suffering and humiliation for our salvation, intentionally loving our enemies proclaims the gospel.
46:10-46:16
It may lead to our suffering and humiliation, but it may also lead to our enemy's salvation.
46:18-46:24
Hating our enemies does not lead to salvation, nor does reciprocal living.
46:25-46:33
Only intentional love, selfless, sacrificial, humble to the point of humiliation can do that.
46:35-46:41
That is how Jesus loves us. Now we must go and do likewise. Let's pray.
46:44-47:02
Almighty, loving God and Father, we praise you and I pray, Father, you transform our hearts, transform our minds, transform our actions by your holy word.
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Move us, use us to love one another, to love our enemies, just as you do.
47:15-47:18
We ask in your great name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Luke 6:27-36

What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
What are obstacles we face in loving our enemies?
Think of a time you were humiliated by someone – how were you wounded (physically, mentally, emotionally, or in your concept of self)? How is it different if we are humiliated for Christ (i.e., is there a greater purpose for our suffering)?
What are some ways you live reciprocally with others? What changes will you need to make to move beyond reciprocal living?
What can we do to love our enemies?
BONUS QUESTION: What is the reward for loving our enemies? Is that reward valuable to you?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

Taylor Brown

July 14, 2024

Intentional Love

How to Love Difficult People: How to Love People I Disagree With

Taylor Brown

July 14, 2024

Intentional Love

Introduction:

How Do I Love Christians That I Disagree With? (Romans 14:1-12):

I must continually Humble Myself . (Romans 14:1-4)
1. By embracing those who are Different Than Me . (Romans 14:1a)
2. By avoiding arguments about Non-Essentials . (Romans 14:1b)
  2 Timothy 2:14 - Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers.
3. By refusing to give myself over to Hatred . (Romans 14:2-3)
4. By remembering that I am not the Master of Anyone . (Romans 14:4)
I must not hold them to My Personal Convictions . (Romans 14:5-9)
Colossians 2:16 - Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
I must entrust them to God and Focus on My Own Walk . (Romans 14:10-12)
John 21:22 - Jesus said to him, "If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!"

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

01:15-01:27
Alright, you can turn your Bibles to Romans chapter 14 Romans chapter 14 as you turn there I just want to get one thing out of the way But many of you may be thinking about what is going on with your leg, right?
01:28-02:15
And some of you already know but I guess I'll tell you the story even though I've told it I don't know how many times at this point But I wish I could say it was something cool like I pushed an old lady out of the way from getting hit by a truck and the truck ran over my foot or I fended off an intruder with my kickboxing skills, but that is not what happened Stilts were brought into the office last week and I tried to get on the stilts and the first attempt great went really well Second attempt. Well, you can see didn't go so well. I actually fractured my fifth metatarsal in my left foot So I'll be in this boot for a little bit and I used to pride myself on not having broken a bone in my entire Life and the Bible says pride goes before a fall. I just never thought that fall would be from stilts So anyway, I hope I'm not too distracting.
02:15-02:20
I maybe won't move as much as I usually do, but hopefully you won't laugh at me too much whenever I do.
02:20-02:22
All right, let's get to the task at hand.
02:23-02:29
You know, I was thinking this past week that disagreements are an unavoidable fact of life, especially in the church.
02:31-02:39
There is a long list of things that we should all agree on if you are a member at Harvest or a believer in this room.
02:40-02:41
God created everything out of nothing.
02:42-02:46
Every single person in this world is sinful and in need of forgiveness.
02:46-02:48
Jesus Christ is the one and only Savior.
02:49-02:51
The Bible is the inspired word of God.
02:52-02:57
And I could go on and on and on with things we must agree on.
02:58-03:03
But there's an even longer list of things that we do not agree on.
03:04-03:08
And this list ranges from important to very unimportant.
03:09-03:14
And if you don't believe me, I'm going to conduct a quick poll to prove it to you.
03:15-03:26
I'm going to bring some hot button issues that rage online, and I'm gonna ask you to participate by raising your hand to show which side of the debate you agree on.
03:27-03:29
And to be clear, you have to participate.
03:30-03:34
You can't ride the fence, otherwise you're gonna totally ruin the point I'm trying to make.
03:34-03:35
You don't wanna do that, do you?
03:36-03:36
All right, good.
03:37-03:44
All right, first up, What is the best way to eat leftover pizza, cold or reheated?
03:45-03:50
I told you we'd really touch on the major issues that we face in 2024.
03:51-03:54
Who believes that right out of the fridge, cold is the best way to eat leftover pizza?
03:55-03:55
All right.
03:56-03:57
Who says reheated?
03:58-04:00
Oh, I don't understand you people at all.
04:00-04:01
Oh man.
04:03-04:05
I already know Pastor Jeff's answer to this next question.
04:05-04:06
Which do you prefer?
04:07-04:09
Pencils or pens?
04:10-04:12
Who's a Pastor Jeff and says pencils?
04:13-04:13
Oh, Jeff.
04:15-04:17
That's not looking too good.
04:21-04:22
You can't change your answer in the middle of it.
04:23-04:24
Who says pens?
04:25-04:28
All right, the vast majority, I'm sorry about that, Jeff.
04:29-04:30
Jeff thinks very different.
04:30-04:31
Jeff, it's okay to disagree.
04:31-04:33
That's the whole point of this sermon we're about to do.
04:36-04:37
All right, how about this next one?
04:37-04:39
should you make your bed every morning?
04:40-04:41
Who makes their bed every morning?
04:43-04:45
Who left that chore behind when they became adults?
04:46-04:47
I'm with all of you freedom fighters.
04:48-04:50
What is the point of making my bed?
04:50-04:51
No one sees it besides my wife and I.
04:52-04:52
I just don't get it.
04:54-04:59
This next one is very timely for the temperature issues that we experience in this building.
05:00-05:03
Very often, we've experienced both sides of the spectrum.
05:04-05:07
What's better, to be too hot or to be too cold?
05:08-05:09
Who says too hot?
05:09-05:10
You'd rather just sweat it out.
05:13-05:16
Who says I'd rather be too cold and put layers on?
05:17-05:20
All right, well, you'll experience both at Harvest Bible Chapel.
05:21-05:21
(congregation laughing)
05:23-05:27
And this next one really is gonna show us who's who in this church.
05:28-05:32
Which is better, cats or dogs?
05:33-05:35
Who's brave enough to say cats?
05:38-05:39
Not many courageous people here today.
05:40-05:43
Who's gonna say the obvious answer and say dogs?
05:43-05:45
All right, good to know.
05:46-05:52
Well, has it become clear that we hold different opinions and disagree on a whole host of issues?
05:53-05:57
Now, obviously these are trivial issues that we can argue about with smiles on our faces.
05:58-06:06
Unity isn't in danger of being broken at harvest over food tastes, temperature preferences, household chores, or preferred pets.
06:07-06:14
But our unity will be tested when it comes to disagreements that are a bit more serious and hit closer to home.
06:15-06:18
What about educational opinions?
06:18-06:25
Is there a moral obligation to homeschool your kids rather than send them to public or private school?
06:26-06:31
Should Christians steer clear of any secular entertainment, all social media at all costs.
06:33-06:35
Alcohol is a big issue that divides Christians.
06:36-06:40
Are Christians free to drink or is it even wrong to drink in moderation?
06:42-06:43
Here's a big one, politics.
06:45-06:48
That word is even heavier after yesterday, isn't it?
06:50-07:00
Are believers biblically mandated to vote and be as involved as possible in the political realm or is there freedom not to be highly engaged on that front.
07:01-07:06
Don't worry, I'm not gonna ask you to raise your hand and conduct a poll with these questions 'cause that would be awkward.
07:07-07:09
These things are uncomfortable to talk about, right?
07:11-07:18
We often do not consider the impact that these kinds of issues can have upon our view of fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
07:19-07:27
Without even realizing it, we can allow these differences to stir up anger, pride, and even bitterness in our own hearts.
07:28-07:33
These kinds of disagreements can make love very challenging and very messy at times.
07:34-07:39
It's really hard to love someone that I think is wrong about something.
07:40-07:47
It's even harder to love someone who thinks that I am wrong about something, because I tend to assume that I'm always right.
07:49-07:56
It is way easier to retreat and separate in our own cliques than it is to come together and unite as the body of Christ.
07:58-08:03
We're in the second week of our latest series, Intentional Love, How to Love Difficult People.
08:04-08:18
Dan Thompson kicked off this sermon series last week with a message on loving our neighbor, which includes anyone and everyone that we come into contact with on a daily basis, even those people who frustrate and annoy us.
08:19-08:28
This morning, we're gonna narrow our focus by studying Romans chapter 14, verses one through 12, where Paul answers this vitally important question.
08:29-08:32
How do I love Christians that I disagree with?
08:33-08:37
How do I love Christians that I disagree with?
08:38-08:48
So before we dive into Paul's answer, I'm gonna pray for you, that you'll be faithful and submitting to God's word, and I ask that you pray for me, that I'll be faithful in preaching God's word.
08:48-08:49
Go to the Lord.
08:52-08:56
Father, this passage we're about to study is very challenging and very convicting.
08:58-09:04
I pray that you would do a great work this morning, that this passage would bring us together and unite us rather than push us apart.
09:06-09:11
I thank you that your Holy Spirit is at work and he will preach a much better sermon than I ever could.
09:12-09:14
I pray that he would do the work that only he can.
09:15-09:17
In Jesus' name, amen.
09:19-09:22
So our question for this morning, how do I love Christians that I disagree with?
09:23-09:27
First on your outline, I must continually humble myself.
09:29-09:32
I must continually humble myself.
09:34-09:39
The key to experiencing loving fellowship at Harvest Bible Chapel is mutual humility.
09:40-09:44
I have to humble myself and you have to humble yourself.
09:45-09:46
It is the only way.
09:47-09:53
This means that your ultimate goal cannot be to put yourself first and have your preferences met.
09:53-09:58
Your supreme desire has to be honoring the Lord and blessing other people.
09:59-10:07
On the priority list of your life, God is to come first, others finish second, and you finish dead last.
10:08-10:10
It shouldn't even be a contest for the Christian.
10:11-10:17
And we have to go against the grain to reverse the order that we naturally gravitate to, right?
10:18-10:23
which is me at the front, others far behind, and God at the very back.
10:25-10:29
And at this point you may be thinking, okay, Taylor, I get it, I have to humble myself.
10:29-10:31
What does that even look like?
10:31-10:33
What does it mean to humble myself?
10:34-10:48
Well, I'm so glad you asked because in verses one through four of chapter 14, Paul lays out four specific actions of humility that will promote love and calm the raging storms of disagreement that will flare up in the church.
10:49-10:59
So I must continually humble myself, letter A, by embracing those who are different than me, by embracing those who are different than me.
11:01-11:05
Let's read the very first part of verse one of chapter 14.
11:06-11:14
Paul writes, "As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him." What is Paul talking about here?
11:14-11:15
Who is the weak in faith?
11:16-11:19
He's not talking about someone who doesn't have faith in Christ.
11:19-11:27
He's talking about someone who has faith in Christ, but has a weak grasp of how that faith should play out in their daily lives.
11:28-11:36
This refers to someone who is brand new to the Christian faith, and they're unsure of how they can use their newfound freedom in Jesus.
11:37-11:46
They are sincere, they're passionate, but they don't possess the wisdom that comes from years and years of walking with Christ.
11:47-11:54
As we'll see in a few verses, Paul is specifically zeroing in on two groups of people who were weak in faith back in his day.
11:55-12:02
First up, Jewish believers who were wrestling with letting go of all the rituals and ceremonies of the old covenant.
12:03-12:10
You know, Christ completely fulfilled the ceremonial law of the Old Testament through his death on the cross and through his perfect life.
12:10-12:13
So believers are not expected to keep it any longer.
12:15-12:21
Those sacrifices, those festivals were simply a foreshadowing of all that Christ would accomplish.
12:23-12:31
But those regulations, those rituals were burned into these Jewish believers' brains and it would take time to let these things go.
12:34-12:38
Pastor Jeff preached a bit about the second group that Paul was referring to a few weeks ago.
12:39-12:49
Gentile Christians who came out of a pagan background and refused to eat meat because they were afraid that maybe this meat was sacrificed to a false God at some point.
12:51-13:01
They were worried that this would be dishonoring to the Lord, even though the New Testament is so clear that Christians don't need to concern themselves with the history of their food.
13:02-13:05
But this is a big hurdle for many of these Gentiles to jump over.
13:07-13:12
As you notice in verse one, Paul doesn't say to rebuke the weak in faith.
13:13-13:19
He doesn't tell the strong in faith to grab the weak in faith by the shoulders and shake them to snap out of it and tell them to cut it out.
13:19-13:20
What does he say instead?
13:21-13:22
What does he say to do?
13:24-13:25
To welcome him.
13:27-13:33
In other words, be patient with those who are newer in their faith as God has been patient with you.
13:34-13:38
Extend to them the same grace that has been shown to you.
13:39-13:50
And Paul's command to welcome the weak in faith is an important word for how we should treat anyone and everyone in the body of Christ, even those we disagree with.
13:52-13:55
This welcoming isn't a base level tolerance.
13:56-14:02
It isn't a posture of keeping people at an arm's length, but drawing them in for a loving embrace.
14:02-14:08
It isn't plastering on a fake smile when they're around and then rolling your eyes at them whenever they walk away.
14:09-14:17
You find these people a place in your heart and on your prayer list because you know that they're your brothers and sisters in Christ.
14:19-14:33
You know, you are by no means obligated to be best friends with every single person at Harvest Bible Chapel, but you are biblically commanded to love every single believer as one of your own family members because they are.
14:34-14:34
(audience laughing)
14:35-14:38
I'm gonna share something with you that I'm not very proud of.
14:39-14:47
Sometimes I'll be out and about at the grocery store, Lowe's, Chick-fil-A, and my eyes will come across an acquaintance.
14:48-14:51
Maybe it's a family friend, someone I went to high school with, whatever.
14:52-14:54
I'll think to myself, oh yeah, that's so-and-so.
14:55-14:59
Ah, I don't really feel like talking to them right now.
14:59-15:02
I'll have to catch them up on my life and I'll have to hear about their life.
15:02-15:03
I just don't have time for that right now.
15:04-15:04
Okay, good.
15:04-15:05
They haven't noticed me.
15:05-15:08
I'm just going to sneak away in the opposite direction before they notice me.
15:09-15:14
I then ninja away in the opposite direction to enjoy my solitude, which was much easier before I had this boot on.
15:15-15:17
This hasn't happened yet with the boot on, so we'll see how that goes.
15:18-15:19
But who else has done this?
15:22-15:22
(congregation laughing)
15:24-15:25
All right, I'm going to give you one more chance.
15:25-15:26
I'm in a good mood this morning.
15:26-15:28
Who else has done this?
15:28-15:34
If your hand's not in the air right now, I guess I'll believe you, but I have a really hard time believing you.
15:36-15:44
On a much more serious note, are there any Christians here at Harvest that you actively avoid because they're difficult to love?
15:47-15:54
Are there people that you blatantly ignore due to a difference of opinion or disagreement of some kind?
15:55-16:01
Maybe you steer clear of them when you see them coming, or you jump into their conversation to escape them.
16:02-16:05
Maybe you sit on a totally different side of the auditorium from them.
16:06-16:12
Maybe you specifically didn't join a specific small group because you knew that person would be in it.
16:13-16:19
Maybe you intentionally leave them out of fun fellowships and hangouts, even though you know this person would love to be a part of these times.
16:21-16:24
Let me ask you a question with a very obvious answer.
16:24-16:25
Is that welcoming?
16:26-16:27
Is that loving?
16:27-16:32
That is extremely unwelcoming and unloving.
16:32-16:36
That is the way of the world, not the way of Christ.
16:37-16:43
In the church, we have to deal with our issues like mature grownups and not mopey children.
16:44-16:51
If we cannot love each other at Harvest Bible Chapel, what chance do we have of loving people outside these walls?
16:52-17:01
If we can't accept fellow Christians that we have minor disagreements with, How can we possibly welcome unbelievers to faith in Christ and to join our fellowship?
17:02-17:10
If we can't get this right, we may as well pack it in and go home because our fellowship is meaningless and phony.
17:13-17:18
I must continually humble myself, let her be, by avoiding arguments about non-essentials.
17:20-17:22
By avoiding arguments about non-essentials.
17:24-17:25
(pages rustling)
17:27-17:41
In verse one, after giving the positive command to welcome the weak in faith, Paul gives the negative command to not quarrel over opinions and your copy of God's word may translate opinions as doubtful things or disputable matters.
17:42-17:47
You know, Paul isn't saying that we should never argue, that we should never stand up for what we believe in.
17:48-18:02
He teaches all throughout his letters that true Christians should fight for the purity of the gospel, correct false teaching, lovingly call out sin in the church, hold each other accountable, and stand firm on what God clearly teaches.
18:03-18:11
On the other hand, Paul is saying that we should not get into verbal wrestling matches over things the Bible is not as clear about.
18:13-18:21
Can we agree that Christians are great at majoring in the minors, and making a big deal of things that the Bible does not even focus upon.
18:23-18:27
Paul gives a very similar command in 2 Timothy 2.14.
18:28-18:47
He writes, "Remind them of these things and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers." There is a kind of arguing that is not only unhelpful, that is not only unproductive, but is actively destructive and deadly.
18:48-18:55
An argumentative attitude is contagious, it spreads very easily, and it ruins lives.
18:57-19:02
I've seen Christian friendships broken over the stupidest disagreements over secondary matters of theology.
19:04-19:07
Churches across this country have split over the dumbest reasons.
19:08-19:11
Like we couldn't agree on what color the carpet should be in the sanctuary.
19:12-19:12
Who cares?
19:14-19:17
We couldn't agree what the bulletin board should be used for in the lobby.
19:18-19:19
(congregation laughing)
19:20-19:22
We couldn't agree on what to call the coffee ministry.
19:23-19:25
These aren't even made up examples.
19:25-19:27
These are actual things that happened.
19:28-19:33
Let me ask you, how did those churches get to the point of broken unity?
19:34-19:52
This pot didn't just start immediately boiling, but it started over time steadily as the leadership and the members kept dialing up the temperature with useless argument after stupid debate until one day, the scalding water poured out on everybody in the congregation.
19:54-19:57
Listen to me, the church is not a debate club.
19:57-19:58
The church is not a courtroom.
19:58-20:01
It is not a Facebook comment section.
20:01-20:07
This is not the place to air all of your grievances, bash one another and pick each other's opinions apart.
20:09-20:12
Let me ask you, what is the better use of our time?
20:12-20:22
Debating one another about things that don't really matter or working together to fulfill our God-given mission of making disciples, which supremely matters.
20:23-20:25
Why are you even here?
20:26-20:28
Are you here to get your way?
20:29-20:30
Are you here to win arguments?
20:32-20:38
Are you here to follow the ways of God, build up the church and win lost souls for Christ?
20:40-20:46
I must continually humble myself, let her see, by refusing to give myself over to hatred.
20:48-20:51
By refusing to give myself over to hatred.
20:52-20:55
Let's continue on with verses two through three.
20:56-21:01
Paul writes, "One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables.
21:01-21:24
Let the one who eats not despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him." So Paul brings into focus the issue that I mentioned earlier, some Jewish and Gentile Christians refusing to eat meat out of fear that they might break the Old Testament law or commit idolatry.
21:25-21:33
They chose to eat only vegetables while other believers in the same congregation felt the freedom to eat whatever was put before them.
21:34-21:36
And Paul speaks to both sides of the issue.
21:36-21:40
He says, "Hey, don't let this be an opportunity "for division.
21:40-21:43
It will only become an issue if you make it one.
21:43-21:47
Remember, God has welcomed both of you into his family.
21:48-21:50
You are on the same team.
21:52-22:00
And Paul uses very harsh language to describe how damaging it is to look down on fellow believers who hold different opinions than you.
22:01-22:06
He says you are not to despise one another or pass judgment.
22:07-22:12
When you examine the original Greek, It really ratchets up how serious Paul is taking this.
22:13-22:16
Whenever he says despise, this communicates utter hatred.
22:17-22:19
You are viewing someone as a total non-entity.
22:20-22:23
You are superior and they are inferior.
22:23-22:26
They are next to nothing in your estimation.
22:27-22:29
Past judgment has a legal meaning.
22:29-22:34
It refers to charging someone guilty of a serious crime.
22:35-22:39
You are turning a matter of opinion into an unforgivable offense.
22:40-22:45
You are treating their personal preference as a personal attack against you.
22:46-22:52
If left unchecked, these judgmental and prideful feelings will turn into hatred.
22:55-22:57
I know what some of you may be thinking at this point.
22:57-22:58
Come on, Taylor.
22:58-23:00
I think you're taking this a step too far.
23:00-23:02
I certainly don't hate anybody here at Harvest.
23:02-23:05
There's no believers in my life that I hate.
23:05-23:10
I mean, sure, there are some people I extremely dislike and I avoid them at all costs.
23:10-23:11
They stay away from them.
23:11-23:12
That's not a big deal.
23:13-23:14
Huh.
23:15-23:18
That sounds like a nice way of saying you hate certain people, doesn't it?
23:19-23:26
We can be so polite with our hatred in the church and dress it up to make it look respectable when it is anything but.
23:27-23:43
I encourage every single one of you to examine your hearts this morning, to check for those roots of bitterness, to check for the rotten fruit of hatred, because if you don't, you will cause a lot of serious damage not just in your own life, but the lives of so many sitting here.
23:45-23:54
"I must continually humble myself," letter D, "by remembering that I am not the master of anyone." I'm not the master of anyone.
23:59-24:02
Paul comes in hot and asks a strong question in verse four.
24:02-24:09
"Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another?" In other words, who do you think you are?
24:09-24:11
What gives you the right?
24:11-24:12
How dare you?
24:14-24:19
Paul is saying we're not qualified on any level to condemn other believers.
24:20-24:21
That is not in our job description.
24:21-24:23
That is not in our wheelhouse.
24:25-24:28
He goes on to explain why in the second half of verse four.
24:28-24:34
It is before his own master that he stands or falls, and he will be upheld for the Lord is able to make him stand.
24:35-24:41
Paul is saying, hey, you're not anyone's master in the church, that's God's job, not yours.
24:42-24:47
You don't have the authority to reject a person who God himself has accepted.
24:48-24:55
You are completely unable to condemn someone whose sin has been forgiven by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
24:57-25:08
You know, passing this kind of judgment on other believers as ridiculous as going to someone's place of work and trying to give them a yearly review or evaluation.
25:08-25:09
I mean, just imagine it.
25:10-25:16
Imagine I come to your place of work this week and I give you my unfiltered thoughts about how you're doing on the job.
25:17-25:20
Would that affect your standing in the company one bit?
25:21-25:24
Not at all, because you do not work for me.
25:25-25:31
The approval of your boss matters way more than the approval of someone you do not even work for.
25:33-25:39
In a much greater way, God's approval of you matters infinitely more than the approval of mere human beings.
25:40-25:45
In fact, if God approves of you, it doesn't really matter who disapproves of you.
25:46-25:53
My opinion of you does not affect your standing before God, and your opinion of me does not affect my standing before God either.
25:55-25:59
God is not a fickle teenager whose opinions are swayed by the judgments of another.
26:00-26:05
God's up in heaven thinking, ah, you know what, I really loved Taylor until I found out he's wrong in all these different ways.
26:06-26:08
I'm not really sure how I feel about him anymore.
26:09-26:11
In fact, God has no opinions.
26:12-26:16
He simply declares what is true and commands what is right.
26:16-26:25
And if he declares someone holy and righteous in his sight, then nothing and no one can possibly change that firm and fixed reality.
26:27-26:31
We have to get a grip on who we actually are and who we definitely are not.
26:32-26:35
We are not God, we are not the boss, we are not in charge.
26:36-26:39
We are simply fellow slaves of Jesus Christ.
26:40-26:43
So let us choose to humble ourselves before the Lord and one another.
26:46-26:48
So how do I love Christians that I disagree with?
26:49-26:52
Secondly, on your outline, I must not hold them to my personal convictions.
26:54-26:57
I must not hold them to my personal convictions.
26:59-27:08
In verse five, Paul goes on to give another case study and personal preference that made love very difficult 2000 years ago and still does so today.
27:08-27:09
Let's read verse five.
27:10-27:15
One person esteems one day is better than another, while another esteems all days alike.
27:15-27:19
Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.
27:20-27:26
You know, keeping the Sabbath was and still is a big deal for many Jews because it was one of the 10 commandments.
27:28-27:34
But it's the only one of the 10 commandments that is not reissued and reinforced from the mouth of Jesus or in the New Testament.
27:35-27:36
Now, why is that?
27:37-27:44
Because similar to the ceremonial law that we discussed a few moments ago, Jesus is the one the Sabbath pointed to.
27:45-27:47
The Sabbath is all about rest.
27:47-27:59
And through his death on the cross and his resurrection from the grave, Jesus is the present and eternal rest for every single person who places their faith and trust in him alone for salvation.
28:01-28:03
But Christians still debate about the Sabbath.
28:03-28:05
They still disagree.
28:05-28:19
On one side of the issue, people will say, "I'm convicted to keep the Sabbath "and not work at all on Sundays or do any chores." On the other side of the issue, people will say, "You know, I'm gonna go to church on Sunday and worship.
28:19-28:22
"I am free to do chores around the house.
28:22-28:27
"I'm free to work if I have to." Well, which option is right according to Paul?
28:29-28:32
Neither, neither or both are acceptable.
28:32-28:45
He says, "Each one should be fully convinced "in his own mind." In other words, come to your own conviction about this issue and stick to it, but don't belittle others who come to a different conviction than you.
28:47-28:59
And Paul reinforces this command in Colossians 2.16, "Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
28:59-29:14
These are the shadow of things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ." And Paul's teaching in these passages extends far beyond the Sabbath and touches other matters of opinion as well.
29:15-29:23
You know, to attend the seminary that I graduated from several years ago, I had to sign a document that I would not drink a drop of alcohol during my time as a student.
29:24-29:28
Even if I was off campus, even if I was an online student in a totally different state.
29:29-29:32
I remember receiving this document and being, I shouldn't be bothered by it.
29:32-29:37
Now to be clear, I was not bothered because I wanted to go to parties and get drunk.
29:38-29:40
Everyone nod your head if you understand, that's not what I'm saying.
29:41-29:42
Okay, good, I feel a lot better now.
29:43-29:55
I was bothered because I believe that my seminary was binding the conscience of those who believe that drinking is acceptable and mandating a moral command that is not in scripture.
29:57-30:04
In my opinion, that part of the contract was legalistic and in sharp opposition to what Paul is talking about in this passage.
30:06-30:12
Again, to be clear, I am not having this sermon become a beer commercial where I say we should all get on board with alcohol.
30:13-30:20
Maybe you've wrestled with addiction in the past, or you've seen alcoholism destroy people that you care about.
30:21-30:26
Maybe you're convicted that the wisest choice is to steer clear of alcohol because it's not worth the risk.
30:27-30:33
Maybe you're convicted that you should abstain from alcohol for health reasons or for the sake of your witness.
30:34-30:34
That's great.
30:35-30:48
That is a great personal conviction, but it is not a good thing to push that personal conviction on other believers and hold them to a standard that is not spelled out in the word of God.
30:49-30:56
The Bible is so clear that getting drunk is a sin, that causing other people to stumble with your drinking is a sin.
30:57-31:01
The Bible doesn't say that drinking in of itself is inherently sinful.
31:02-31:09
So it is unbiblical and unloving to say that you cannot be a strong Christian and drink alcohol at the same time.
31:10-31:16
On the flip side, it is not loving to make fun of Christians who don't drink and act like they're boring prudes.
31:17-31:19
Drinking is not essential for a fun and full life.
31:20-31:27
And if you think otherwise, I encourage you to do some self-reflection because you may have a serious issue that needs to be addressed.
31:28-31:31
Let's move on from alcohol and talk about some other examples.
31:32-31:38
Maybe you're convicted that you should never watch any movie that is above PG-13 under any circumstances.
31:39-31:47
Great personal conviction, but it's not great to say that you cannot be a Christian and watch any R-rated movies.
31:48-31:49
Here's another one.
31:51-31:55
Maybe you're convinced that homeschooling your kids is the best option for education.
31:56-31:58
That is an amazing decision that I fully support.
31:59-32:01
Do you know what I don't fully support?
32:01-32:07
Is looking down on other Christian parents who don't have the interest or bandwidth to do the same.
32:08-32:12
Maybe you're convicted that you should wear your Sunday best to worship.
32:13-32:15
Again, great decision, I fully support that.
32:17-32:20
But I do not support looking down on fellow believers who don't feel the same.
32:21-32:24
Looking down on others who wear jeans or shorts to church.
32:25-32:32
What you wear on the outside on Sunday does not actually communicate fully what's happening on the inside.
32:33-32:36
You can be dressed to the nines and not have the right attitude.
32:37-32:41
You can be dressed like you're about to go to the beach and fully worship the Lord.
32:43-32:47
I can go on and on with other examples, but I think you get the point.
32:48-32:54
In verses six through nine, Paul gets to the heart of the matter, which is the matter of the heart.
32:55-32:58
He writes, "The one who observes the day "observes it in honor of the Lord.
32:58-33:06
"The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, "because he gives thanks to God, "while the one who abstains, "abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.
33:07-33:10
For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.
33:11-33:14
For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.
33:15-33:19
So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.
33:19-33:25
For to this end, Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and of the living.
33:27-33:32
So the core of this issue of personal conviction is the intention of the heart.
33:33-34:05
What matters most is your desire to please the Lord him honor. So let's go through the examples I just gave a personal conviction and see if it's possible to honor the Lord with each one. Can you honor the Lord by abstaining from drinking alcohol? This is the participant, yeah participation. Can you still honor the Lord if you drink in moderation and away from those who can stumble in his presence? Can you honor Honor the Lord if you avoid all secular entertainment and social media.
34:07-34:11
Can you honor the Lord if you engage entertainment and social media with wisdom and caution?
34:12-34:15
Can you honor the Lord if you homeschool your kids?
34:16-34:19
Can you honor the Lord if you send your kids to private school?
34:20-34:23
Can you honor the Lord if you send your kids to public school?
34:24-34:27
Can you honor the Lord if you wear your Sunday best to worship?
34:29-34:32
Can you honor the Lord if you wear your everyday clothes, everyday clothes to church?
34:34-34:35
Everyone take a deep breath with me.
34:38-34:39
Don't you feel so much better?
34:40-34:41
I know I do.
34:42-34:46
There's so much freedom in the Christian life, but let's not abuse it and take it too far.
34:47-34:52
Let's not throw our freedom in other people's faces and flaunt our personal convictions.
34:52-34:53
That's not loving.
34:54-34:58
On the other hand, there are a lot of restrictions in the Christian life.
34:58-35:04
Let's not add expectations onto others that God himself does not command in his word.
35:05-35:09
That is the way of the Pharisees and not the way of Christ-like love.
35:10-35:14
Finally, how do I love Christians that I disagree with?
35:15-35:19
I must entrust them to God and focus on my own walk.
35:20-35:23
I must entrust them to God and focus on my own walk.
35:27-35:36
So Paul gives one final reason why we should choose the path of love rather than the path of judgment when it comes to preferences and minor disagreements.
35:37-35:41
In verses 10 through 12, he writes, "Why do you pass judgment on your brother?
35:41-35:44
Or you, why do you despise your brother?
35:44-35:46
For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.
35:47-35:54
For it is written, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God.
35:54-36:01
So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.
36:04-36:08
Paul already taught us that God is the ultimate master, not you or me.
36:09-36:13
Now he's teaching us that God is the final judge, not you or me.
36:14-36:18
One day I will stand before the judgment seat of God with no one by my side.
36:20-36:21
And the same is true for every single one of you.
36:22-36:27
You will give an account for your life and I'll have to give an account for my life.
36:28-36:30
God will not have me stand beside the judgments.
36:30-36:32
He is one of his pastoral advisors.
36:33-36:40
He will not call you forward to testify on my behalf or give a PowerPoint presentation of my personal convictions.
36:41-36:48
In light of this future reality, let us resist the urge to be judge, jury, and executioner right now.
36:49-36:55
in a culture of outrage and canceling people, let us go in the opposite direction.
36:56-37:03
When you go online or turn on the news, you just see this desire to constantly knock people down and destroy them.
37:04-37:07
That cannot be how we operate in the church.
37:07-37:11
We have to be people of unconditional grace and intentional love.
37:13-37:23
Let us entrust one another to God and believe that he will do what is right He will do what is good both right now and on that final day.
37:25-37:29
You know, one of my favorite parts of any of the gospels is found at the end of John.
37:30-37:35
You know, Jesus has arisen from the dead and he's spending time with his disciples before he ascends back to heaven.
37:35-37:39
And he takes Peter aside to let him know he will one day be martyred.
37:39-37:41
He will die for his faith.
37:42-37:45
That's a heavy bit of news to have dropped on you, isn't it?
37:45-37:46
While you're standing on the beach.
37:48-37:50
And there are a lot of different ways to respond to that kind of revelation.
37:51-37:54
And Peter responds by playing the comparison game.
37:55-37:58
He immediately points to John and says, "Lord, what about him?
37:58-37:59
"What about this guy?
37:59-38:04
"What's gonna happen to him?" And Jesus immediately shuts down this line of thinking.
38:04-38:09
And he says, "If it is my will to hear a man till I come, "what is that to you?
38:09-38:14
"You follow me." In other words, that is none of your business.
38:15-38:17
Just do what I have commanded you to do.
38:19-38:20
That reminds me of my son, Sam.
38:21-38:27
Whenever I give him a compliment and say, "Sam, you're being so good today." He always says, "Oh, is Emmy being bad?" Talking about his sister.
38:29-38:35
We're all like, "Sam, you're not being good right now." "Oh, is Emmy being good?" And I always say the same exact thing.
38:35-38:37
Don't worry about what your sister is doing.
38:37-38:39
Worry about what you're doing.
38:41-38:43
But it's so easy to play the comparison game, isn't it?
38:44-38:46
To obsess over the lifestyle of another.
38:47-38:51
to bash the opinions and choices of others.
38:52-38:58
Do you know what's one of the most loving things you can do for other followers of Christ?
39:00-39:04
Focusing on your own walk and becoming who the Lord has called you to be.
39:06-39:07
Does any answer surprise you?
39:08-39:10
It sounds counterintuitive, doesn't it?
39:11-39:12
But think about it.
39:12-39:16
You cannot truly know the heart and intentions of another.
39:16-39:18
You can only know your own.
39:19-39:23
You cannot change the mind of anyone else besides yourself.
39:24-39:30
You cannot control the actions of anyone in this room besides the one sitting in your own seat.
39:31-39:38
The people sitting next to you need to see your godly witness rather than listen to your ungodly critiques.
39:39-39:45
They need to witness your burning hot passion for the ministry rather than suffer through your cold hearted complaints.
39:47-39:55
The people sitting next to you need your love for the Lord to spill out onto them so that they can become who God has called them to be.
39:57-39:59
Please bow your head and close your eyes.
40:01-40:04
I encourage you to do some self-reflection for a minute or two.
40:06-40:11
Ask yourself, am I truly loving those I disagree with?
40:13-40:16
Do I continually choose to humble myself?
40:18-40:21
Or do I exalt myself by pushing away those who are different than me?
40:22-40:24
By arguing about things that don't really matter?
40:25-40:27
By holding on to feelings of anger and bitterness?
40:29-40:32
By forgetting my position and putting myself in the place of God?
40:34-40:38
Do I stand strong on my personal convictions or I force them on others?
40:39-40:42
Do I unhealthily pry into the lives of others?
40:42-40:45
Do I focus upon what the Lord has commanded me to do?
40:47-40:50
Honestly answer these questions and then repent of what you need to repent of.
40:51-40:59
Ask God for his help so that you can intentionally love everyone, even those you have a hard time seeing eye to eye with.
40:59-41:00
I'll close this in a final prayer.
41:03-41:11
Father, your word is so clear that the greatest and best way for the world to see you as for our love for one another.
41:13-41:22
And when we come to you and we admit that we so often fail to love one another, we fail to show others the same grace that you have given to us.
41:25-41:33
Lord, I pray for every single person in this room that you would cut us to the heart and reveal the ways that we don't love our brothers and sisters in Christ.
41:34-41:42
And you call, that would lead us to seek restoration, to seek peace, to do better from one day to the next.
41:44-41:49
The Lord, our natural reaction would be love and grace, not criticism and not judgment.
41:51-42:10
For those in this room who do not know you, I pray that you'd convict them that they're in need of salvation and that they can become a part of this family if they simply turn to Jesus Christ by grace, through faith.
42:11-42:13
Lord, we thank you for who you are.
42:13-42:15
We thank you for all that you do for us.
42:16-42:17
In Jesus' name, amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Romans 14:1-12

What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
What are some issues of opinion/preference that you see Christians arguing about and dividing over?
Why is it so hard to love people that we disagree with?
What does it look like to welcome one another at Harvest Bible Chapel? Is there a time and a place for debating issues or discussing disagreements?
Why is it wrong to hold other Christians to your own personal convictions that are not clearly laid out in Scripture?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

Daniel Thompson

July 7, 2024

Intentional Love

How to Love Difficult People: How to Love Your Neighbor

Daniel Thompson

July 7, 2024

Intentional Love

Introduction:

  
    Questions to Answer To Love Your Neighbor (Luke 10:25-37):
Why Should We love our neighbor? (Luke 10:25-28)
        When we love others, we Show Our Love For God . (1 John 4:20-21)
When we love others, we Are Most Like God . (1 John 4:7-8)
When we love others, we Live . (Luke 10:28)

Who is our neighbor? (Luke 10:29-37)
       
WHat Do We Need To love our neighbor? (Luke 10:33-37)
        Awareness – See the need. (Luke 10:33a)
Ccompassion – Feel the need. (Luke 10:33b)
Tactile Action – Meet the need. (Luke 10:34-37)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

01:15-01:15
Well, good morning.
01:16-01:17
My name is Dan Thompson.
01:17-01:20
I am one of the elders here at Harvest.
01:20-01:24
And my beautiful wife, Alicia, and I have been married for over 15 years.
01:24-01:26
We have three wonderful daughters.
01:28-01:32
Picking and choosing which one got which genes from which parents is always interesting.
01:33-01:37
But there is a distinct trait about myself that I'm seeing develop maybe in them.
01:38-01:41
By school and by trade, I am an engineer.
01:42-01:49
And I've preached about the struggles of being an engineer in the past, but I'm an engineer that works at a company of mostly engineers.
01:49-01:51
So that's a lot of my mindset.
01:52-02:01
And in engineering, especially mechanical engineering, which is what I studied, we had to take a lot of physics classes, right?
02:01-02:05
At its core, physics is the study of how and why different objects interact with each other.
02:06-02:09
You probably heard of Newton's laws of motion.
02:09-02:15
Most people know the third one, which is that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
02:16-02:18
Now, if you don't have much love for physics, just hang in there with me.
02:19-02:24
But if you ever did take a physics class, you probably remember a lot of time was spent talking about forces.
02:24-02:28
You might even remember a force diagram like this one up here.
02:29-02:30
Remember those things?
02:31-02:31
Yeah, painful.
02:32-02:34
But one of the forces on there is gravity, right?
02:34-02:40
Gravity is what pulls us down to the earth, but really gravity is objects interacting with each other.
02:40-02:42
Everything in the universe is pulling on everything else.
02:43-02:51
And early on in physics classes, these problems are simplified, such that they don't reflect reality, but it makes the math easier, so everybody likes it.
02:52-02:55
But eventually you need to do real problems.
02:55-02:56
You need to operate in reality.
02:57-03:04
And one of those annoying realities in physics, and in life, is the constant presence of friction.
03:05-03:09
Friction is the rubbing of one object against another.
03:09-03:23
Friction is the force that says, "No, I'm not going." Friction is the force that says, "Hey, slow down." Anytime you're solving a physics problem, friction is always there to waste energy.
03:24-03:29
And while that's true for physics problems, that is also true in human relationships.
03:30-03:35
Friction is always present when two or more people are involved.
03:36-03:42
Another definition of the word friction is a conflict between two people, a clash.
03:43-03:46
Friction is inevitable in every human relationship.
03:47-03:48
So what does that mean?
03:48-03:56
Well, it means that in order to have effective communication, in order to keep things moving well, we need to overcome this friction.
03:58-04:00
And how do we overcome friction in human relationships?
04:01-04:02
We do it through love.
04:03-04:07
But remember, the friction is an inevitable force of nature.
04:07-04:13
So overcoming the inevitable force of friction requires intentional love.
04:13-04:16
This year at Harvest, we have been getting intentional.
04:17-04:33
Intentional with missions, intentional faith from the extremely practical book of James, intentional hope from Jesus' teaching on end times in the book of Matthew, and we just studied intentional wisdom in various passages about how to have discernment.
04:34-04:39
And now we are gonna spend the next four weeks about intentional love.
04:40-04:48
Now you can make a case for the importance of those prior subjects, but when it comes to faith, hope, and love, the Bible says that the greatest of these is love.
04:49-04:52
So maybe of all the things we've studied so far, this is the most important.
04:54-04:58
And remember, being intentional means doing something on purpose.
04:59-05:06
Intentional love is critical because, contrary to Disney movies, love doesn't happen by accident or automatically.
05:06-05:07
Love takes work.
05:08-05:11
Love isn't the natural way we tend towards one another.
05:11-05:14
No, the natural way we tend towards each other is friction.
05:15-05:19
So we must be intentional to effectively love others the way that God calls us to do that.
05:21-05:26
And it takes even more intentionality to love other people that are difficult to love.
05:27-05:30
So before we get into the text, let me pray for us.
05:31-05:36
Father God, you love us with a love we can't even really comprehend.
05:37-05:40
We praise you, God, for all the ways that you provide.
05:41-05:45
You show your love even when we are very difficult to love, Lord.
05:46-05:59
And I pray, God, that through this passage that we would see your heart, your character, and then that would inspire us, motivate us to change and to act like our Heavenly Father because, God, you empower us and you command us to love others.
06:00-06:04
So I pray that you would speak through this passage, that you'd speak through me, Lord.
06:04-06:13
I pray that you would remove distractions, distractions from my speech, distractions from this room, distractions from our heart, Lord, and help us to focus on loving you and loving others.
06:14-06:16
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
06:17-06:20
So you can open your Bibles to Luke chapter 10.
06:21-06:26
Today we are talking about loving our neighbors and who is my neighbor?
06:27-06:29
All right, we'll answer that question in the text.
06:30-06:34
But I wanna start with the right frame of mind because in reality, who is your neighbor?
06:34-06:35
That really could be anybody.
06:35-06:37
That's a very broad category.
06:37-06:41
And this series on intentional love, we're talking about loving difficult people.
06:41-06:45
So I want you to think of a difficult to love neighbor.
06:46-06:46
Right?
06:46-06:49
We said friction happens at close quarters.
06:49-06:51
Proximity can breed contempt.
06:52-06:54
Just being near a person bothers you.
06:54-06:57
But you can come up with any number of difficult to love neighbors.
06:58-07:08
Like as a purely hypothetical, imagine you were at your parking spot where you're gonna watch the fireworks display and some person pulls up at the last minute and blocks part of your view.
07:09-07:14
And they're playing Katy Perry really loud and they can't figure out how to turn their headlights off.
07:14-07:16
And they may or may not have a New Jersey license plate.
07:17-07:19
Like it's a purely hypothetical person.
07:20-07:26
Or maybe it's the person, the man that lives next door with that annoying barking dog that he can't keep it from barking.
07:26-07:28
You won't mourn when that dog dies.
07:28-07:31
Maybe that kind of difficult to love neighbor.
07:32-07:37
Or maybe it's the woman at work who regularly leaves her dirty dishes in the shared kitchenette for all to enjoy.
07:39-07:43
Or maybe it's the kid kicking the back of your seat on that red eye flight.
07:44-07:47
Or maybe it's the waitress who messed up your order again.
07:48-07:55
And just to make sure we've covered all our bases here, it could even be that car driving right on your bumper when you're already at the speed limit.
07:57-08:06
Today we are talking about people near you in any aspect of your life, especially those who for any reason you can justify, I don't need to show love to them.
08:07-08:08
That's the difficult to love neighbor.
08:09-08:15
And if none of those examples landed for you, I'm sure you can think of somebody in your life that is a difficult to love neighbor.
08:16-08:20
So with that in mind, let's read Luke chapter 10.
08:20-08:22
I'm gonna start in verse 25.
08:23-08:31
"And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said to him, "What is written in the law?
08:31-08:43
How do you read it?" And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have answered correctly.
08:44-08:47
Do this and you will live." So let's stop there.
08:48-08:49
Here's the scene.
08:49-08:53
It's one of those moments where Jesus interacts with the Jewish leaders.
08:54-08:54
Friction.
08:55-09:05
Most of the time when Jesus interacted with those Jewish leaders, whether it was the Pharisees or the Sadducees, the scribes or here, this guy's referred to as the lawyers, they were against him.
09:06-09:08
It was regular friction.
09:09-09:20
So in this interaction, is this guy asking a genuine question because he's trying to learn from Jesus or is he just trying to trap him like that happens in other passages?
09:21-09:22
Well, it isn't super clear in the text.
09:22-09:29
We don't get his motivation, but the Greek word that's used here for put him to the test is only used three other times in the New Testament.
09:29-09:33
And every time it's used, it's do not put the Lord your God to the test.
09:34-09:38
So I'm gonna say he's got some suspect motives here about what he's asking Jesus.
09:39-09:45
But even with those suspect motives, this seems like a pretty typical interaction between a rabbi and a student.
09:46-09:51
Student asked the teacher a question and the teacher responds by asking the student a question right back.
09:52-09:54
So what's the lawyer's first question?
09:54-09:59
He says, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" So is this a good question?
10:00-10:07
Well, there's some good in it, but putting do and inherit in the same sentence sure doesn't seem to make sense.
10:08-10:11
What must you do to inherit your parents' estate?
10:12-10:15
Nothing, the inheritor doesn't do anything.
10:15-10:25
So he sort of starts off with a flawed question with potentially suspect motives, but it's definitely a good thing to talk to Jesus about eternal life, because he knows a thing or two about that.
10:26-10:31
But since Jesus doesn't give the answer for eternal life here, how does Jesus define eternal life?
10:32-10:46
Well, in John 17, verse three, Jesus says, "And this is eternal life, that they know you, "the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." Knowing Jesus and the Father, that is eternal life.
10:47-10:52
But most of the time when we think of eternal life, We ignore this part of life and we think of the next life.
10:53-10:57
But based on Jesus's definition, eternal life can start now and last forever.
10:59-11:06
When you study what Jesus says about eternal life, he talks more about having eternal life than inheriting eternal life.
11:07-11:14
Eternal life is something that we can have right now, but it's only there for those who believe in him, as it says in John 3:16.
11:15-11:22
So it's good for us to want eternal life Jesus about it, but no one else needs to die for us to have it.
11:24-11:29
Anyway, Jesus answers his question with a question in verse 26.
11:29-11:31
He says, what is written in the law?
11:31-11:32
How do you read it?
11:33-11:42
Jesus, as the perfect teacher, redirects him to the most reliable source of truth, the place where the answer to all of life's most important questions can be found.
11:43-11:53
He points him back to God's Word and the lawyer lives up to his name and he uses his knowledge of the law to answer the question correctly, which Jesus says.
11:54-12:09
The lawyer answers similarly to how Jesus answered the question when someone asked him, "What's the greatest commandment?" In verse 27, the lawyer says here that eternal life is really about loving God and loving others.
12:10-12:20
And so let's dig into that a little bit more as the message for today and true to a rabbi form, Let's look at a few questions on how to answer how to love your neighbor.
12:21-12:22
So here's the first question.
12:23-12:26
Why should we love our neighbor?
12:27-12:28
Why should we love our neighbor?
12:28-12:36
Well, there are plenty of motivations for loving our neighbor out there, but let me offer three reasons for why we should love our neighbor.
12:37-12:42
Letter A, when we love others, we show our love for God.
12:43-12:52
1 John 4 20, as Pastor Taylor read some of that section, "If anyone says I love God and hates his brother, "he's a liar.
12:53-13:03
"For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen "cannot love God whom he has not seen." The Apostle John in his old age was a straight shooter.
13:03-13:07
He says that if you don't love God, you hate your brother.
13:08-13:18
Meaning, I'm sorry, he says that if you claim to love God but you hate your brother, meaning you hate somebody that you're supposed to love, then the Bible calls you a liar.
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And he lays it out pretty clear.
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It's not about talking about hypothetical loving God.
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It's about, can you live it out in practicality by loving the people that are right in front of you?
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So do you love God?
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Well, do that, show that, and impart at least by loving your neighbor.
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The second motivation, letter B, When we love others, we are most like God.
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A few verses earlier in that same letter by 1 John, he says, "Beloved, let us love one another, "for love is from God.
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"Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
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"Anyone who does not love God does not know God "because God is love." The apostle John makes another very clear distinction about love.
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God doesn't just know how to love.
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He is the definition and manifestation of what love is.
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If not for God, we would have no concept of love at all.
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And as amazing as it is of how God has shown his love to us, he extends an invite and a command to us to be just like he is.
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When we love people, we are acting most like God.
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Think about this with me for a minute.
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There's a lot of things that we need to do as Christians.
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We need to die to ourselves.
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We need to confess our sins.
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We need to repent.
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We need to ask for forgiveness.
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We need to hope for the future.
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We need to have faith.
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But God doesn't need to do any of those things.
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None of those things apply to God.
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As important as all of those things are to the Christian walk, God doesn't do any of them.
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But one thing that he definitely does do is he loves.
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In fact, this verse says that he is love.
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So when we love, we are doing something so like God, so consistent with his nature, don't you want to be more like your heavenly father?
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We should want to be like him.
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And this is actually the reason that we were made.
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When God made Adam and Eve, he said he made them in his image.
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And part of the image of God is this capacity for love to be like God.
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The band Switchfoot has a song called "Native Tongue," and it gives a vivid picture of love being part of the image of God.
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The song encourages people to speak their native tongue.
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No, not English and not some pre-Babel one world thing that everybody spoke.
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He's talking about love.
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Our true native tongue is the one that God taught Adam and Eve in the garden.
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And from that point forward, love is the language.
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Love is our native tongue.
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So why should we love our neighbor?
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Well, we should do it to be like God in all the right reasons of being like God.
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not the ones that got us in trouble in the first place.
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We need to operate in line with the way that we are created and be like our creator.
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And one last motivation here, when we love others, we live.
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So the lawyer gets the answer correct, Jesus says that.
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And then afterwards, Jesus says, do this and you will live.
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He adds further motivation, you will live.
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Jesus has a way of simplicity that is extremely compelling.
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Jesus knew that this passage of, "You shall love the Lord your God and you shall love your neighbor," comes from Deuteronomy and from Leviticus.
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And when Moses gave those commands that came from God, he offered the people a choice.
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Love God and love others and do it God's way and live, or don't, do it your own way and don't love people and die.
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He offered them a blessing or a curse.
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So the implication here that Jesus says is, if you don't love God and love people, you will die.
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So that escalated pretty quickly.
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But with such a strong response from Jesus, what should the lawyer's response be?
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What should our response be?
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Maybe a confession of guilt.
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The fact that we don't love God perfectly and we don't love other people perfectly.
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Potentially some sign of repentance, Like I want to change and be different.
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Or maybe he could have asked another question like, well, can I still inherit eternal life if I mess this up inevitably?
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I already have.
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By the man's own answer, he sets the bar for eternal life so high that no one can possibly achieve it except for Jesus.
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But does the man absorb it that way?
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No, no, like lawyers of our day, he looks for a loophole.
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Which brings us to the next question.
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Who is our neighbor?
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Let me read verse 29.
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But desiring to justify himself, he said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" So the text does tell us something here about this man's motives.
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He tells us something that only God can see.
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The lawyer's next question was spoken because he was trying to justify himself.
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What does it mean to justify yourself?
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Well, this man thought he was doing pretty well.
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And so he was going to show and demonstrate why he was doing so well.
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He's building the case for his own righteousness as we so often do.
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There is a self-righteousness that each one of us are susceptible to.
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And it's that self-righteousness that wants us to define the question of who is my neighbor as narrowly as humanly possible.
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Because if my neighbor is only the people that are easy to love and I can ignore those other people that I don't really wanna love anyway, then maybe I'm not doing so bad at loving my neighbor.
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If I only have to love certain people, maybe I'm on the right track.
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And when the lawyer asked this question, he assumed that the only people that this command applied to were good Jews.
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The Jewish scholars at that time taught that love was only due to righteous neighbors.
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So love had to be earned.
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In fact, unrighteous people like sinners, tax collectors, and certainly Samaritans, they had earned hatred, not love.
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To the Jews of Jesus's day and to any self-righteous of any day, part of that self-righteousness includes hating the unrighteous.
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But that's not God.
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God's not like that.
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Even though God chose Israel for himself, it is clear that his love extends to all of his creation.
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And even though he commands each of us to be righteous, his love persistently extends to us and to others, even when we are unrighteous.
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So this passage here, we know this famously as the parable of the Good Samaritan, right?
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But ironically, the text never says that it's a parable, so it could even be true.
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And the Samaritans never even called good in this passage.
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In fact, a few chapters later in Luke, a rich young ruler is gonna ask Jesus almost the exact same question about inheriting eternal life.
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And when the rich young ruler, he says, "Good teacher, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" And Jesus says, "Oh, you call me good.
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"There's nobody good but God." So let's look at the potential parable of the Samaritan who's not as good as God.
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Jesus tells this story to answer the question of who is my neighbor.
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And he uses the unexpected events to shatter their expectations of who we are commanded to love.
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'Cause the shortest and simplest answer to who is my neighbor is anyone.
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You don't have any excuse for excluding love to give to somebody else.
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There's nobody you could say doesn't deserve it, doesn't get it.
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Again, though, for today, let's focus our mindset on the difficult people that come across our paths.
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We are called to love them with intentionality.
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So let me read the rest of the passage and then we'll break it down.
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Starting in verse 30, Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, "and he fell among robbers who stripped him "and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.
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"Now by chance, a priest was going down that road, "and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
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"So likewise, a Levite, when he came to the place "and saw him, passed by on the other side.
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"But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, "And when he saw him, he had compassion.
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"And he went to him, bound up his wounds, "pouring oil and wine, and then set him on his own animal, "brought him to an inn and took care of him.
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"And the next day he took out two denarii "and gave it to the innkeeper saying, "Take care of him and whatever more you spend, "I will repay you when I come back." So which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?
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He said, "The one who showed him mercy." And Jesus said to him, "You go and do likewise." So because we don't live in first century Judea, let me give you some context to the story going on here.
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The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was about 17 miles, and those traveling in that time, and especially traveling on that route, knew that it was very dangerous.
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So someone getting attacked by robbers is not very unexpected.
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Presumably this man was Jewish, but it doesn't actually tell us that.
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But he's traveling on a dangerous road by himself, which is not a wise decision.
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I mean, we could even say that what happened to him was his own fault.
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And Jesus does say though, that they left him half dead, meaning that he wasn't dead, but left to himself, he would be dead.
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In fact, you might even say he's as good as dead, and that'll come up in a minute.
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After the robbers interact with him, there are three other people that come across his path.
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The first one is the priest.
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These are the descendants of Aaron.
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They were set aside to do the sacrificial work of God in the temple.
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And you can kind of think of priests as our modern day pastors.
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Priests were the religious leaders who were expected to show mercy, maybe more than anyone.
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In addition to all the religious duties of the temple, priests also had many medical related duties to treat and cleanse God's people.
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So more than anyone, The priest had both an obligation medically and religiously to come and help this guy.
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The second guy that passes is the Levite.
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These are the descendants of Levi, who was an entire tribe of Israel that was dedicated to God for the work of God, supporting all the work that the priest did in the temple and tabernacle.
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Like the priests, the Levites had to stay clean by following the requirements of the law, but they were assigned different religious duties.
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And they were more hands-on, moving, construction, cleaning, serving with their hands.
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You can think of the Levites as the church deacons, the ministry leaders.
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These are the religious workers who should always be ready to do the work of God.
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In both cases, they were going down from Jerusalem, which presumably means they really didn't have religious work going on that they could claim was their excuse for why they didn't help them.
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They were going away from the temple.
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The third person that comes across is the Samaritan.
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He's the hero of the story, but he would not have been the hero to the hearers.
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Nobody in that day would have wanted to have been associated with this Samaritan.
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It's easy for us 'cause we know him as the good Samaritan.
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He's clearly the hero, but it's hard to fully comprehend just how much total hatred there was between the Jews and the Samaritans.
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The infighting among the tribes of Israel went back as far as when it was just Jacob and his sons, almost 2000 years before Jesus.
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The Samaritans didn't really form a nation until after the kingdom was divided after the reign of Solomon, which is about 1000 years before Christ.
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That Northern kingdom had its capital in Samaria, which is why they're referred to as Samaritans.
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And after 200 years of wicked kings and ignored prophets, God gave that kingdom over into pagan captivity.
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And as a result of that captivity, foreigners moved into the land.
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The people of the Samaritan people intermingled with and intermarried with those foreigners and intermingled their religion.
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So now they're this half breed cross that just was at odds with Judaism for about 500 years.
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So the Jews and the Samaritans had no love for each other.
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In fact, they had good reasons to hate each other.
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Josephus records a time when the Samaritans snuck into the Jewish temple and decorated it with corpses.
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Not very kosher, I don't think.
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But to be fair, the Jews had already destroyed the Samaritan temple by that point in time, so you know, maybe it was even.
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So there's centuries of racial, political, geographical, and religious hatred on both sides.
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This is a level of animosity that we're talking about here.
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This is deep seated hatred, obnoxious neighbor feuding at full force.
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So when Jesus introduces the Samaritan as the hero, this was totally unacceptable.
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In fact, the Samaritans were so repulsive that the lawyer doesn't even say Samaritan when he answers which one was the neighbor to the man.
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He just mutters out the one who showed him mercy.
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In his use of the Samaritan as the hero, Jesus is not condoning the Samaritan way of life or their religion.
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He's just trying to shatter the expectations and reorient us with a completely unexpected person doing the work that God has called us all to do.
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In order to overcome the friction that naturally occurs between neighbors, we need God's help, because we don't have this capacity naturally within ourselves.
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So this brings us to the last question, and our application for today.
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What do we need to love our neighbor?
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What do we need to love our neighbor?
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So not only does Jesus answer the question of who is our neighbor with this story, but the Samaritan provides a great example of how we should love our neighbors.
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Here's three things that we need that God can provide for us to effectively love our neighbors.
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First one is A, awareness.
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See the need.
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Awareness is the ability to have conscious knowledge of something.
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As a society, we talk a lot about awareness.
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We have medical research movements for cancer awareness.
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Pop psychology makes a big deal about self-awareness and social awareness.
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Nonprofit organizations are always launching some awareness campaign for whatever their cause is.
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In all of those things though, there's one common fact.
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If you don't know about the problem, you can't and you won't do anything to help.
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And you can't love someone if you aren't making an intentional effort of being aware of what's going on in their life.
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Loving someone means looking out for their needs.
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But even as aware of awareness we are as a people, we live in an age where we aren't connected or in community.
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As social media and other avenues may give us lots of surface level facts about people, we're missing their true needs.
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And why is that?
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Why aren't we seeing the needs of other people?
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Well, here's a few reasons why we're not seeing the needs.
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First of all, we're too busy.
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Our plate is too full.
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We have somewhere I need to be.
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Life is a constant rush from one thing to the next.
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And as soon as free time is known, it's used.
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And this is where I live.
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I'm probably living in the busiest season of my life.
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At least that's what it feels like.
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I'm sure there's people with more wisdom that will tell me, yeah, you'll feel like that later too.
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But I'm too busy to see other people's needs.
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Or maybe we're too self-focused.
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I'm dealing with my own issues here, right?
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I'll be able to look around once I finished getting through all my phone notifications.
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I got a bunch of backlog.
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Even when I'm walking around, maybe my thoughts are someplace else.
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I'm thinking of what's the next thing to do.
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I'm completely distracted and not in the present.
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So we won't see other people's needs.
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If we're too busy, if we're too self-focused, or maybe we're just unwilling to look.
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Like I don't really wanna get involved, right?
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If I ask you how you're doing, can you just say fine and let's move on?
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Like don't actually give a real answer, please.
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It's really awkward and messy getting involved in other people's issues or getting into big issues.
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In the past, I've preached against the evils of abortion.
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And for many Christians, this is just too horrible of an issue to even look at.
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I just can't even look at it, I just need to move on.
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But if we're unwilling to look at how evil it is, what actually happens, and who has destroyed the babies, the women and the men by this industry, how are we possibly gonna act to see the needs that it leaves behind?
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Or maybe as a lesser extreme example, how can I know what my neighbor's needs are if I never see them or spend any time with them?
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What kind of love can I offer if I don't know them at all?
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If all we're doing is waving and saying hi and talking about the weather, what kind of intentionality is that?
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We live in a pretty quiet, semi-rural, rectangular loop of a neighborhood of about 30 homes.
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And we lived there for about six years now.
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And sadly, and I have all kinds of excuses for why, I really don't know the first thing about most of my neighbors.
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You know, I might recognize which car is theirs, and I probably know their mowing patterns, but I don't really have an awareness of their needs.
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And so putting this message together, I had a heavy conviction that I am a pathetic, lame neighbor in just the most vanilla American sense, not even holding it up to the standard of God.
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So as a first step toward building community and awareness, I wrote a short letter and delivered it to my neighbors, in some cases, introducing myself for the first time, apologizing for failing as a neighbor and providing them my cell phone and an open invitation to say, "If you ever need anything, reach out." It was awkward for sure, but I can already see how God can and will use this for good and that was really only a first step.
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So we'll see where it goes from there.
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But how can we increase our awareness?
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How can we better see the need?
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First, start with prayer.
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We have to ask God to help us love like him and to see people like he sees them.
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We cannot love the way that God loves without the Holy Spirit daily filling us to love like he does.
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We need God's wisdom to discern what people's needs actually are and how we can best help.
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Second, we need to open our eyes.
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How many of us have seen the person walking around like this?
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Yeah, I'll help you, yeah, yeah.
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How often have you been that person?
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We're too distracted by other things.
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We have to take intentional action to open our eyes and look around us, seeing where the needs are, 'cause it's not that hard.
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If you see a person walking with a bunch of things approaching a door, what do they need?
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At least somebody to open the door, maybe someone to help them carry the stuff.
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Or maybe if you see somebody that looks like they've been crying, they look like they've been upset.
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You might say, "Well, maybe they just need personal space." That's an excuse.
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They probably just need somebody to come up and ask them if they're okay.
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We must look for needs.
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They are all around us.
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And lastly, we pray, we open our eyes, and we gotta slow down.
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We live in a very busy world where busyness is the badge of honor of society.
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How busy are you?
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Oh, I'm busier than you.
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But it's powerfully convicting to see that with everything that Jesus did, he never hurried.
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He was never in a hurry anywhere that he was going.
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And we need to follow his example, fighting against the societal norm of busyness and leaving room to see the needs and help others.
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But in our story here, Jesus said that both the priest and the Levites saw the need, but they did nothing to help.
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So how can this be?
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They saw the need but they didn't feel the need enough to do anything about it.
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So that's the second thing we need to love our neighbor. We need compassion.
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We need to feel the need.
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Anybody in here have one of those robot vacuums, Roomba?
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I love those things. Fantastic. In 15 years of marriage, the robot has done more vacuuming than either of us. It is awesome.
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We have a wise robot. But let me ask you, as helpful as those things are, do they care if your floor is clean?
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No, they don't. In fact, do they care if they're running through a pile of cat puke?
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Dragging it all over the room. No, they do not. In fact, they've done that Do they even care about you as the owner their provider the one that is the source of electricity for them No, they don't care. They don't even care about themselves They don't have the capacity to do that But as we talked about earlier, we do have that capacity to love and to care for people because God Created us in his image and he gave us that capacity So when we serve and love other people, we are not supposed to be like the Roomba helping but not caring That's not how God loves And we're hearing a lot about Artificial intelligence these days right AI is gonna bring huge improvements to our lives In fact, the drawing of the three people that I chat GPT did that for me So we're gonna have chat GPT Alexa Siri Gemini. I think Amazon's named Rufus for some reason Those things are gonna keep coming Coming and being helpful, but never caring about you Thankfully God does not help like that and neither are we supposed to do that God loves with compassion What is compassion? Well, compassion is feeling a need so deeply that we must take action Compassion is not a hard concept to understand. I promise you that everyone in this room Understands compassion. We all know how to feel a need deep within us that compels us to take action When we were in Thailand Teaching the evangelists there I taught about this concept of compassion using it using an example that they were all very familiar with tamarind tea a Tamarind is a tropical fruit that has many nutrients that are antioxidant antifungal antibacterial antiviral But probably the first thing you'll notice if you have a tamarind or tea made from it is it is that it is it is an extremely powerful laxative drink tamarind tea, it won't be long before you feel a need that compels you to take action.
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This is just like compassion. We must feel the need to the point where we have no choice but to take action. And this is actually literally what the Greek word means. It means to yearn in your bowels, because that's where the Greeks thought love came from. But I promise you, you deep that it forces you to take action. And when you look at the Gospels and look specifically at Jesus's life, the Bible says something almost every time right before Jesus does a miracle. It says he had compassion. When he saw the people suffering with diseases and demons coming to him, he felt their need and he acted. When the blind men cried out to him to have mercy, he felt their need and acted. After teaching the 5,000 and the 4,000 people for hours, he felt their need for food, and he acted by miraculously feeding them.
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He also told us stories about how to have compassion, like this one about the Samaritan, and in a different story about the prodigal son, at the end when the father sees his son returning from home, he has compassion on him, and that's what compels him to run to his son and hug him.
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The Samaritan has compassion here.
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He feels the need so much that he has to act.
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So like the Levite or the priest, how come we don't feel the need even when we see it?
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I think most of the time, it's just 'cause we have a cold heart for people.
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Whether we've been burned by others in the past or jaded by the suffering of, there's always gonna be people suffering in the world or overwhelmed by our own troubles.
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We just don't care enough about other people's needs.
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It is a very sad state of the world, and it's an indicator of how far we are from God.
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So we have a cold heart.
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Or maybe it just seems too hopeless, right?
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This guy was half dead.
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What could these guys possibly do?
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There was probably nothing that they could do to save him, they thought.
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The problems are just too big for any one person to do anything about.
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He's too far gone.
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We can't save him.
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Well, when Charles Spurgeon preached on this passage, He said, "I never knew a man refused to help the poor who failed to give at least one admirable excuse." That's what we're all good at doing, coming up with admirable excuses for not helping.
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Or maybe we just rationalize that this was his own fault.
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He brought this trouble upon himself.
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Who is this guy to go on a dangerous road by himself?
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Is he stupid?
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I mean, isn't this exactly what he should have expected was going to happen?
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So why should I go out of my way to help over-correct his foolishness?
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Or maybe, I mean, sure, my neighbors are elderly, but don't they have their own children that can come and help them?
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I, yeah, I see her struggling with her kids over there, but she's really been gossiping about everybody.
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So it's kind of like getting what she deserves.
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When we're talking about our difficult to love neighbors, we don't want to feel their needs.
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We shut ourself off from it.
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We don't want to care.
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We don't want to get our hands dirty, and we can do this individually, or we can do it collectively as the holy huddle, where we're gonna help our people within, but anybody out, forget it.
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It is a dangerous world when the church behaves like the Levite or the priest, where we walk on the other side of the road and refuse to get our hands dirty.
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See, God's people failed this man.
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So where are the areas today where God's people are walking on the other side of the road, refusing to get involved?
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Is it the dirtiness of politics?
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I don't like any of those guys.
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Is it social controversies?
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Well, that's too touchy.
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I don't wanna talk about that with people.
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Is it the hurting of broken families?
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That's just too messy.
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I don't wanna get involved.
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Look, if we want to love God, we need to want to see the needs of others and help them.
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In order to do that, we need to have compassion like this.
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compassion that drives us to feel the need and then take action, which is the final point for today.
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Tactile action.
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Meet the need.
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So you might say, "Tactile? Really? What are you doing?" Full disclosure, I wanted the sermon application to be summarized by the acrostic of "act," A-C-T.
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So that is the simplest thing I could encourage you to do, is each one of us to be a neighbor. We need to act.
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Jesus says it in verse 37 go and do likewise. It's pretty simple go and do We don't spend enough of our time intentionally loving others by going and doing So to get act I needed a T here But even more than that, I really like the word tactile and let me explain to you why it fits very well here So there's different learning styles, right? And most of us have heard the difference between auditory learners and visual learners, right?
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Are you, do you absorb information more by sound or by sight?
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Who are my visual learners?
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Any visual learners in here?
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Just a few of you.
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How about auditory?
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Who's more auditory?
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Right?
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Well, there's another main category called tactile learners.
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That's what I am.
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It's an engineer in me.
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Tactile learners learn by touching, putting their hands on it, doing it.
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They have to put their hands on it to figure out the solution.
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So, when it comes to being tactile, you're touching things to feel.
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When it comes to loving others, we need to be tactile by getting our hands dirty.
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We have to be tactile in taking action towards the needs of others.
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It's not just enough to say, "Man, I really feel bad for that guy." It's not enough to say, "I'll pray for him.
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Do something about it." And this is what the Samaritan does.
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He goes to the man, he binds his wounds, he gives him medicine, and he takes him where he can get further help.
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The Samaritan does all of this at his own expense.
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But there's also an implied sense of urgency here.
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We need to take hands-on action right away.
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Proverbs 3, 27 and 28 says, "Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, "when it is in your power to do it.
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"Do not say to your neighbor, "go and come again tomorrow, I will give it, when you have it with you now.
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We should not wait to help others.
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And the Samaritan didn't wait for the man to ask him for help.
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So where are you seeing needs in your life that you could help with?
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What tactile action to love your neighbor is waiting to be done in your life?
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Pastor Jeff taught last week that we need to have discernment to be able to know how to best help needs.
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Not every problem is a hammer solution, right?
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But in each of those situations, there's some sort of hands-on action.
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admonishing the idle, encouraging the faint-hearted, helping the weak, jumping in and taking action.
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How we should act is the question, but not whether or not we should act.
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Tactile action is assumed.
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We must always seek to find the best way to love our neighbor.
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Yes, but the need for discernment cannot be an excuse to do nothing.
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The concept of love as an action verb is all throughout the Bible, but one of the clearest displays on what love looks like is in 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, read and often ignored at weddings all around the world.
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1 Corinthians 13, 4 through 8 says, "Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast.
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It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful.
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It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. Now don't think of this as some theological definition, some theoretical concept of love. This is the description of the perfect picture of what God did for us by sending his son Jesus. And this comes across really powerfully when you replace each use of love here with Jesus's name. Instead, Jesus is patient and kind.
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Jesus does not boast or envy. Jesus is not arrogant or rude. He does not insist on his own way. Jesus is not irritable or resentful. Jesus does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Jesus bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Jesus never fails. And as powerfully true and amazing as that concept is, it's highlighted in even more contrast when you substitute your own name instead. And I'll spare you that by putting my own name, but it works just as well with yours. Dan is patient and kind. Dan does not boast or envy.
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Dan is not arrogant or rude. He does not insist on his own way. Dan is not irritable or resentful.
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Dan does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Dan bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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Dan never fails.
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This is painfully false with my name in there and it would be with yours as well.
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But thanks be to God that it is perfectly true with his son's name.
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Over the next part of this month, we are going to talk about some extremely difficult people to love, people far more difficult to love than just your obnoxious neighbor.
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But we live in a world that wants to divide us against each other.
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We live in a world of inevitable friction.
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Look, I don't know the story between you and your difficult to love neighbor, but the truth is is that I don't have to know it.
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Because I know the greatest story, the story of where the love of God overcomes the difficulty of loving us.
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And it is the same love that God has given to us that will overcome any amount of friction you experience in your life towards others.
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God demonstrated perfect love towards us by offering his son in our place, and through his Holy Spirit, he empowers us to love exactly the way he does to other people.
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Eternal life starts now if we know God and know his love.
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And as an outpouring of God's love in our life, we must love our neighbor.
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In our universe, powerful forces are always at work.
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Within the laws of physics, everything without exception operates with friction as an inevitable force between two things, abrasively rubbing against each other.
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But it is the creator of physics and our universe that has overcome inevitable friction with his intentional love.
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So love God with all your soul by loving like he does.
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Be aware of the needs of your neighbor, show compassion and feel compelled by their needs.
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Take tactile action to meet their needs with your hands and at your own expense.
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go and do likewise.
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Let's pray.
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God, I thank you for your example of love.
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God, your goodness that is on display through your son, through the cross, Lord, and through a perfect life that was given for us.
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Lord, we are so unlovable, God.
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We are difficult to love even in our best days, Lord.
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And that thanks be to God that you still love us, You still show us mercy and love, and you invite us to be like you and to show love to others, God.
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I pray that you would provoke in us a sense of awareness, a sense of compassion, and the opportunity to take some real action to help other people, Lord.
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I thank you for this passage, Lord, that you have preserved through all of time for this day.
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And I pray, God, that these ideas that we have absorbed and understood, Lord, that we would not just keep them in our heads, but that we would live them out outside of this room.
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In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Luke 10:25-37

What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
What motivation is most compelling for you to do a better job of loving your neighbor?
Which of your neighbors do you need to show love to?
Which of the ACT steps are you missing? Awareness? Compassion? Tactile action? Make a plan to do something different.

Breakout
Pray for one another.

Love Like God

Introduction:

I Love My Enemies... (Matthew 5:43–48)

How to Love Difficult People: How to Love Those Who Hurt You

Introduction:

How can I love someone after a hurt? (Genesis 45:1-15)

When I trust God is at work...

How to Love Difficult People: How to Love Your Enemies

Introduction:

Who Are My Enemies?

Jesus's Example (Romans 5:8-11)

To Love My Enemies:

How to Love Difficult People: How to Love People I Disagree With

Introduction:

How Do I Love Christians That I Disagree With? (Romans 14:1-12):

How to Love Difficult People: How to Love Your Neighbor

Introduction:

Questions to Answer To Love Your Neighbor (Luke 10:25-37):

Upcoming Small Group Questions CLICK HERE

How much of the Bible have we covered since 2011?

Introduction:

I Love My Enemies... (Matthew 5:43–48)

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

Introduction:

How can I love someone after a hurt? (Genesis 45:1-15)

When I trust God is at work...

Audio Transcript

Introduction:

Who Are My Enemies?

Jesus's Example (Romans 5:8-11)

To Love My Enemies:

Audio Transcript

Introduction:

How Do I Love Christians That I Disagree With? (Romans 14:1-12):

Audio Transcript

Introduction:

Questions to Answer To Love Your Neighbor (Luke 10:25-37):

Audio Transcript