Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Greeting & Welcome

We have been working through a series on the Fruit of the Spirit, which we find in Galatians 5...

So far we have studied love, joy, peace, and patience.

This morning we will look at kindness, as we try to understand how to take on more of the character of Christ as we live our daily lives.

This morning we’ll be studying the Bible in Luke 6...

[pray]

We could go on.

This passage continues with other lessons that expand on the concept.

However, I think our selected text for today gets the point across and continuing would take us into more profound areas than we have time to explore today.

I promise we’ll come back to this another time.

This passage is from a message that Jesus gave that has some remarkable similarities to the Sermon on the Mount.

However, this sermon is called the Sermon on the Plain.

It is either Luke’s retelling of the same event that we find in Matthew 5, with the word plain referring to a plateau within a mountainous area or Jesus gave similar messages in different locations.

For our purposes here today, we are more interested in the content of the message rather than the location in which it was delivered.

While our theme here today is “kindness” and this word does not appear in this passage, I believe that this passage, with instruction from Jesus on how to live the Christian life, gives us some of the best insight into living with others in a way that our grandparents called, “the Christian way” and that would teach us how to live with the character of Christ’s kindness.

The word “kindness” in Greek...

χρηστότης chrēstotēs; from 5543; goodness, excellence, uprightness:—good(1), kindness(9).

… is “a quality of being warmhearted, considerate, humane, gentle, and sympathetic.”

The word “goodness” in Greek, we’ll study in more detail next week...

ἀγαθουργέω agathourgeō; contr.

form of 14; to do good:—did good(1).

… and is “a quality of moral excellence; especially noted as being active in working itself out” in daily life.

These concepts are similar and connected.

I could have easily tried to wrap these up into a single sermon, but I did not want to cheat you out of a sermon dedicated to each Fruit of the Spirit.

Each of these fruits (???) are important enough to stand on their own and each of them deserve our attention.

Background

As I mentioned to you earlier, this is an alternate version of the Sermon on the Mount.

I wanted to take a moment to back up and look at the beginning section with the beatitudes from Luke’s perspective.

Any time you see a list of “blessed are you who...” statements, we call these “beatitudes.”

When we say “The Beatitudes” it refers to the “blessed are you who” statements in Matthew 5, from the Sermon on the Mount.

However, we can find several places where Jesus used these statements.

I have a friend that calls them the “be-a-tudes” because these describe the way that we should be with each other and with those around us who are in the world.

Let’s look at these in Luke 6...

The introduction is filled with blessings and woes that are either characteristic of the Christian Life or characteristic of those who find their value in other things.

The key point is here in verse 23.

When Jesus says “Take note” the disciple would be wise to pay attention and… well… “take note.”

This is about rewards that are found in heaven and in spiritual things.

These blessings are about the spirit of the disciple, where the woes are about the flesh.

When we allow our fleshly ways to satisfy our hearts, then we are in danger.

However, when we walk in the blessing of the Spirit, it can overcome the things that would normally sidetrack us from spiritual formation.

Now, let’s focus for a few moments on the center of this message, beginning in Luke 6:27...

I. Loving People Like Christ Loves People

This section provides some wise life advice.

Let’s take another look at it...

A. Dealing With Your Enemies

Verses 27-29 focus on how we interact with those we consider to be our enemies.

I see several principles here...

Principles

1. Love Your Enemies

2. Show Your Enemies What Good Looks Like

3. Pray for Your Enemies

4. Refuse to hate others.

(James 1:20)

If we could truly apply these rules to our dealings with our enemies, how would that be different for them?

How would it be different for us?

How would the world be different for the changed emotion?

B. People Are More Important Than Things

We have heard this before, “people are more important than things.”

But how often do we act like this?

Things seem to gain a power and a control over us.

The more things we have, the more anxious and worried we become about them.

When we lose control over our things or over our environment, we can often become obsessed about what we have lost and the more unhappy we can be.

I have known people that lost control of their personal possessions: house, car, finances

I have known people who lost control over a relationship, whether it be a friend that fails to live up to the expectations of the “friends contract” or a marriage relationship where one spouse begins to break their vows.

I have known people that lost control at work when a new owner or a new boss came in and they began to feel a growing anxiety and tension in the workplace because of change.

This particular principle can extend way beyond loaning $20 to a friend and it has the potential to destroy us if we let it.

But Jesus said to give it up.

Don’t ask for it back.

You know, as a pastor, we see this somewhat in the church.

We have people who come to us asking for things.

Usually they want money, but people ask for food, for help with paying bills, perhaps with purchasing medicine.

On a well-traveled road like Ridge Road, we might see a few people show up during a month asking for something.

We can’t always help everyone and when we do, we have to help them without any strings attached.

That’s the hard part.

We, as humans, always want to attach strings to the things that we do for others.

But Jesus says not to do that.

When we help others, we are doing it with the kindness of Christ.

C. Practice the Golden Rule

The Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Jesus taught this rule, that we have dubbed “golden” as a way to break the selfishness of the human heart.

He borrowed this from Leviticus 19:18

Jesus was leveraging a universal principle that most humans love themselves.

Jesus took something that we know naturally and used it to teach us how to love others—that is, as much or more than we love ourselves.

Now of course, we all know that some people have a really hard time loving themselves.

In fact, many due to their own sins or the sins that others have inflicted upon them will go so far as to hate themselves.

But this creates a whole other set of problems that compound the problems that they experience in life.

How does this play out in daily life?

If you wish to be respected, then give respect to others.

If you really need a kind word today, give a kind word to others.

If you hope that someone appreciates you for what you have done, then show them some appreciation for their own efforts.

If you want love, then refuse to heap coals on the head and give unconditional love instead.

Instead what we often do is withhold these gifts from others because we have hatred or anger in our hearts toward them.

The Golden Rule requires love and this is part of what we’re about here at FBC Pharr.

I tell people we are 1 church, we speak 2 languages, and we have 3 loves: Love God, Love Others, and Love the World.

If we can learn to act on these three loves, then FBC Pharr will be sweeter than honey on the lips.

D. People Are More Important Than Money

This one echos the previous advice about things.

We all get a little bit funny about money.

But Jesus is saying not to let money take place before ministering to people.