Sermon Tone Analysis

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Being part of a church means much more than showing up for the worship service on Sundays.
We are church members, and so Sunday mornings are an essential part of our lives.
Here we worship God together, find ways to encourage one another, receive teaching from the word of God, and pray together.
On Monday through Saturday, we still live our our faith.
Over these two weeks, we are looking at what does it mean to love God with our heart, soul, mind and strength and how can we love our neighbor as ourself.
Today’s message has got a lot of takeaway instruction.
We have some practical ways to love our neighbours.
This message is not just to make us smarter, it is to help us learn from God’s word how to love.
My prayer is that for each one of us, that God would put one or two very practical ideas from this teaching at the front of our minds this whole week, and we would be more loving as a result.
The command to love your neighbor can be found throughout the New Testament.
I will read you a list, and as I read, remember that for New Testament congregations, the Old Testament was the only Bible that they had.
Our message today will be from Leviticus, and that is the portion of scripture that would be going through the minds of the first century church as they were taught and instructed on how to love our neighbours.
When Jesus says that this is the second greatest commandment, he is quoting Leviticus 19.
And so to better understand what is being said here, we are going to learn from that portion of Scripture.
Let the Bible interpret the Bible.
I’ve categorized the way that we can love our neighbor from this passage into 3 different categories, which all start with the letter R.
The 3 R’s of loving your neighbor, (and no, its not reduce, reuse and recycle.)
The categories are Responsibility, Reputation and Relationships.
Responsibility (Leviticus 19:9-10, 13-14)
There are people who depend on you.
People that you are responsible to God for.
When we think of who we are responsible for, our minds first go to family and good friends.
Yet God’s word teaches that we are also responsible for the poor, vulnerable and disadvantaged in our society.
foreigners, the orphan and the widow, the poor, those with disabilities
An example of this is found in the way that the Israelites were to harvest their crops.
They were to leave the corners of their crops untouched, and if some of the grain was dropped during the harvest, then leave it on the ground.
Then those who were in need, could come and glean from what was left.
This is what Ruth did.
She was in a very disadvantageous situation.
Her husband and father in law had both died, and now she was living as a foreigner with her mother in law Naomi.
In order to survive, Ruth went to the fields of a man named Boaz, and there she would work all day to gather grain.
How were Ruth and Naomi provided for, because Boaz carried out his responsibility to his neighbour.
In this way Boaz loved God and loved his neighbour.
There are two principles at work here.
Its right to work for what you get.
Ruth worked all day gleaning the food.
2. Leave the corners for the poor
Don’t consume all of your earnings.
Allocate some for others.
This shows that you are taking responsibility for your neighbor.
A practical way to love your neighbor as yourself is to make it possible for a portion of your income to be seen as seed to help the vulnerable or disadvantaged.
Set a portion aside and think about, pray about and talk about how it can be used for others, maybe God will give some of us creative ideas for how we can put this into practice.
Verses 13 and 14 also speak about taking responsibility for our neighbours.
Have you ever done a job, and then not been paid for it?
Have you ever done your part of a contract, and then had your partner fail to do their part, leaving you on the hook?
There is more than one way to oppress and rob your neighbor.
The obvious way is to bully and steal from others.
The less obvious way is to withhold that which your neighbor has earned.
If those being addressed by the Levitical law did not pay their hired workers at the end of the day, then those workers would go to bed hungry, and their families would have no food.
God forbids this.
This is not love, to withhold what is due another.
If you have made a deal, then honour that deal.
How does this apply today?
We are to be responsible for those who we hire:
people we employ,
in our business.
those we contract
people we hire for services
I include here the people who serve you in restaurants and coffee shops.
You have a responsibility to not only pay them, but to treat with with all kindness and love.
The way that you would want to be treated if the roles were reversed.
You responsibilities to love your neighbor include the poor, the vulnerable and those who you hire.
Reputation (Lev 19:12,15, 16)
What does it mean, to swear falsely by God’s name?
Make a promise or a commitment and use God’s name as your collateral.
ex: “I promise to help you move next Saturday, so help me God.”
now what happens if you don’t show up on Saturday to help?
Was God unable to help you?
A better promise is, “I will help you move next Saturday”.
But there is a more subtle way that we can profane God’s name.
If people know that we are Christians, and I pray that they do, because loving God out to be a part of our personality, then they will associate our behaviour and our attitudes as being Christ like.
If you profess Christ with your lips, then live for him.
It should be that if someone asks you, “How does a Christian live?” that you will be able to say to them, “Follow me for a week and you will see how a Christian lives.”
If you are called a Christian, then represent Christ well.
It is loving to our neighbours to represent GOd’s name well.
We also have a firm duty to guard the reputations of our neighbours.
Do you ever hear a news report about a court case and immediately come to the conclusion that justice was not served.
I do, I hear about people getting away with terrible things, or maybe receiving a sentence that is far to easy for the gravity of the crime that was committed.
When I see that, there is a part of me that cries out for justice.
I am not part of our judicial system, and so I have a very limited influence there.
I do know that in time, all people will give an account to God, and that ultimately justice will have the day.
Yet, in every situation where we do make a judgement, we must do so as fairly as possible.
Have you considered how slander and gossip can be in the same grouping as judging.
The way that we speak about others when they are not present impacts the opinions and judgements that your community make about the reputation of whom you speak.
The Bible is very clear on this issue.
Here is a poem called “Remember Me” about what gossip is and does (from Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul 2)
My name is Gossip.
I have no respect for justice.
I maim without killing.
I break hearts and ruin lives.
I am cunning and malicious and gather strength with age.
The more I am quoted the more I am believed.
My victims are helpless.
They cannot protect themselves against me because I have no name and no face.
To track me down is impossible.
The harder you try, the more elusive I become.
I am nobody’s friend.
Once I tarnish a reputation, it is never the same.
I topple governments and wreck marriages.
I ruin careers and cause sleepless nights, heartaches and indigestion.
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