Sermon Tone Analysis

First a question!

If God is Love...

why do so many Christians Hate?

I don’t want to preach this sermon!

Evangelical church leaders have said some really stupid things!

In the Wake of the Attacks on 9-11 2 prominent Evangelical leaders had this to say.

"[T]he pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way all of them who have tried to secularize America,I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it."

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it."

He added that he did not believe Venezuela would stop exporting oil if that were to happen as Chávez suggested.

He again called Chávez a "terrific danger" to the U.S. with the potential to hurt the country "very bad[ly]" and concluded: "We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability.

We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator.

It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

Where does the idea that God is Love come from?

The Word love appears in approximately 22590 times in the Bible.

It’s a safe bet that Love is an important part of God’s plan for humanity, the idea thought that God is Love can be found throughout the Old and New Testament.

We find God reaching out to broken humanity over and over again.

It’s difficult at times to reconcile God loving humanity when we read some of the stuff that went on in the Old Testament, but one only has to spend time reading about God blessing all the nations through Abraham, Of him sending Jonah to a city full of people not just antagonistic but downright hostile toward anything remotely resembling morals, allowing for a Moabite woman and a known prostitute to be part of the line of his son.

The list doesn’t end there.

God continually reaches to humanity in love.

A Tale of Two Christians

American Christian

LYNCHBURG, Va.

— At Liberty University, the conservative Christian school founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, talk these days in hallways, cafeterias and arenas flows easily from God to guns.

University President Jerry Falwell Jr. kick-started the conversation with a fiery call for the campus community to take up arms to deter terrorist threats following the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif.

“Let’s teach them a lesson if they ever show up here,” Falwell told thousands of students here Dec. 4, with an unsubtle reference to a pistol in his back pocket.

Five days later, he announced plans to let qualified students store guns in residence halls for the first time.

[Falwell urges students to get permits for carrying concealed weapons]

Many students, faculty members and administrators said they agreed with his views.

Hundreds said they planned to take free classes from Liberty police on gun safety, a step toward obtaining a state permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Among them were 21-year-old students Alvonta Tarrant and Dominique Richburg.

“It never hurts to be prepared,” said Tarrant, a commercial music major from Detroit.

He and Richburg, a biomedical-sciences major from Westminster, Md., had just finished bacon burgers one recent evening in a student dining hall.

They said they felt totally safe here.

“But anything could happen,” Richburg said.

[Liberty to allow guns in dorms]

Falwell’s comments on guns — including pointed language about “those Muslims,” which he later said was referring only to Islamic terrorists — put a fresh spotlight on a fast-growing university with a distinctive blend of cultural conservatism, religious faith and academic ambition.

Liberty aspires to be a flagship for the nation’s evangelical Christians, a position that would offer power to influence society far beyond the campus.

Politicians already recognize the potency of Liberty’s stage, which can reach the nation’s evangelical audience on a mass scale.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.)

launched his presidential bid here in March, and Lynchburg is a regular stop on the GOP campaign trail.

A Democratic hopeful, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), addressed Liberty students in September.

Well aware that his politics are far to the left of most students here, he told them that “it is important to see where if possible, and I do believe it is possible, we can find common ground.”

American Christianity the words define for the world over what it means to just not understand.

We live in a nation that is full of privilege, we have the freedom to worship how want and who we want.

We have money, power, possessions, and somewhere along the way people have bought into the lie that all the stuff that we have is a blessing from God. It’s easy to be a Christian in our country.

Contrast with the refugee crisis now and the Syrian refugees and the work done with them.

Authentic Christ Follower

Our brand of Christianity is far removed from the type of Christianity practiced by the people who started the whole thing, in fact Jesus had some interesting words for what people who followed him could expect.

He talked of turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, not repaying evil for evil.

He told Christian to count it joy when times were hard, when they were persecuted for his name.

He asked people to sell all and follow him, he told people they could expect trouble.

He told them to Love people more than they loved stuff.

To greet each other in Love, to reach to a world, to remember that the word Whosoever is important.

I love what John writes here it shows us a better way.

It shows us what it means not to be just a Christian but what it means to be a Christ Follower…

Christians are to be known for their love, but not just any love!

Unconditional Love

a. Unconditional Love

Loving someone who loves you back is easy.

It’s fun to share life with other human beings, it’s easy to do it when you have things in common, when you like each other, when spending time together is what you are all about.

Loving someone that loves you and you know will return that love is a no brainer.

The kind of love Christ followers are supposed to evidence though is something different all together.

gives us a picture of what unconditional love means….When it says not that we loved God but that he Loved us.

God set the plan for reconciliation in motion and then didn’t compel a single human to accept that plan, God didn’t mandate that humanity love him at all, that humanity choose him at all, he simply loved us and made a way for our sins to not be held against us.

But here’s the harder one for us.

Intentional Love

This is what intentional love is all about.

Actively choosing to do what’s best for another person even if they don’t want it even if they don’t accept it, even if they are hostile to it.

Intentional love is actionable.

It see’s a need and meets a need because in doing so, especially when a Christ follower does so they are acting like God, he is able to perfect his love in us when we exercise that love.

Sacrificial Love

Love that gives when there is seemingly nothing left to give.

The ultimate example of course is Jesus dying for humanity, knowing full well that they may or may not even care that He did.

But how does this play out in our world today.

Sacrificial love gives not out of abundance but out of lack.

Sacrificial love not only puts another ahead of yourself, but chooses to do so when others would stop, when it makes no sense, through pain, and poverty, and starvation, sacrificial love always sees others before it see’s the person doing the loving.

So Back to that Question

If God is love why do so many Christians hate?

They operate under the wrong definition of Christian

They see possessions and problems instead of people

They are more concerned about their needs than they are about the mandate that was given by the person they claim to follow.

This Week’s Challenge!

Find the person that makes you uncomfortable, that is not like you that you would never hang out with or talk to and do the following.

Pray for them

Write them a note and email a card

Listen to them

Pray for them again