Perfect Love
Notes
Transcript
Announcements
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Our sermon will be on Matthew 5:43-48
We have a website: https://tahlequahworshipcenter.com/
We have started Sunday School
Prayer requests:
Sue
Georgey
Billy and his Dad
Dorcus
Songs
Love Lifted Me - 335 - G
Amazing Grace - 230 - Eb
Love Never Fails - Bb
Perfect Love - Introduction
We have been studying the Sermon on the Mount. In it we find the great moral teachings of Jesus. I don’t think there is a better set of moral teachings that exist anywhere.
We first learned about what us Christians should look like. He teaches us that the moral teachings in the 10 Commandments were intended as principles and didn’t only apply to out-ward actions, but to internal thoughts as well.
So hate is murder, lust is adultery, divorce was meant to be a last result, we shouldn’t take oaths, but instead everything we say should be true, and retaliation is not for the individual.
These teachings point us to a better way.
There are many who want to get rid of Christianity. Richard Dawkins is one of those. He considers faith—belief that is not based on evidence—as "one of the world's great evils"
So I propose to you, what would the world look like without Christianity.
Before we do that, I want to tell you something about me. I’m a bit of a nerd.
I’m a Star Trek TOS fan. I’ve seen all the episodes and movies. As well as all of TNG too.
The only reason I don’t watch any of the newer stuff is because Cristy does not like ST.
So, back to what the world would look like without Christianity.
Did you know that ST did a thought experiment about that?
The last episode of season 2 is called “Bread and Circuses” - that is a reference implying a populace that is distracted from greater issues by the base pleasures of food and entertainment.
Watch the episode sometime. It’s good.
The idea of the episode is that what if Rome still existed?
What if gladiatorial games still existed?
What if the story of Jesus was delayed?
All the details are not important to what we’re talking about, but let me give you the main idea:
The monitor communications and pick up a TV signal. They see a gladiator killing someone. Lt. Uhura winces.
A landing party comes down and is captured by Sun worshippers(they are surprised that they speak English)
The leader of the Sun worshipers mildly gets on to his followers and tells Captain Kirk and the others that they are non-violent.
They head to the city where they are put into the games, but escape in the end.
When they get back Spock is surprised that a sun worshiping cult is preaching universal brotherhood, saying they are usually primitive superstition.
Lt. Uhura, who was monitoring the planet’s communications this whole time, says “You have it all wrong. It's not the sun up in the sky. It's the Son of God." The Captain is astonished: "Caesar and Christ. They had them both. And the Word is spreading only now."
Do you understand the point of the episode? Gene Roddenberry, who wrote the story, is acknowledging the impact of Christianity on the world.
The Gladiator games started at 3rd or 4th century BC - they lasted until about the 6th century AD. that’s almost a thousand years.
The whole system of games was corrupt. Only lower classes could be in them. The average life of a Gladiator was 27 and that’s the ones that were buried.
Christianity teaches that we are all the same in Christ, there are no classes and that human life is sacred. It is valued. We are to love one another.
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,
45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
47 And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so?
48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
What People say
What People say
Jesus repeated what many people said in that day: ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
I don’t know if people say that today, but that’s definitely how they act. The political climate is such that if you aren’t of the “party” then you don’t matter. I see this all the time.
Or if you don’t wear a mask, then you are bad. If you don’t get a vaccination, or if you do.
One group is better than another group and on and on.
It’s always been this way, it’s just that the word gets around faster now.
In a world without Jesus, you have not only the hating of groups, but you have the killing of groups. Mao Zedong killed about 60 million, Stalin about 40 million, and Hitler about 30 million.
We hear these numbers and yet we don’t acknowledge that there have been over 60 million murders in America since 1963. Does that number surprise you? I’m talking about abortion. That’s the slaughter of a class of people and it’s legal.
Some people say that religion is bad. Richard Dawkins considers faith—belief that is not based on evidence—as "one of the world's great evils"
Well, I’m sorry Dr. Dawkins, you don’t have an accurate definition of faith. Like you, we observe faith, we test faith, and we decide our conclusions.
We may not be able to take instruments and analyze the data like in most scientific experiments, but we can test the truth claims and see if they are true.
So lets look at:
What Jesus says
What Jesus says
44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,
Does that ring as true? Does that sound evil? Dawkins has it wrong. When I was talking about crimes against humanity, I didn’t mention who could have been in 4th place. King Leopold II of Belgium is said to be responsible for 1-15 million deaths. Consensus is growing to around 10 million.
This man was not Christian, no matter what religion he claimed. He was considered Roman Catholic. He had many mistresses throughout his life. Some of his policies in the Congo were horrendous including the cutting off of hands and feet of those who didn’t process or harvest enough rubber.
Let’s go back to what Jesus said. We are to love our enemies. We bless those who curse us. We do good to those who hate us. We pray for those who use us.
Jesus was asked what are the greatest of the commandments in Mark 12. Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:4 which is to love God and then he quotes Leviticus 19:18 and says that we are to love our neighbor.
Then in John 15
12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
What Jesus says
That’s how we are to act as Christians. Love everyone like Jesus did and sacrificial love for one another.
But some of us Christians chose not to love like this.
We show hate toward certain people. There are Christians that show hate toward people of other races.
There are Christians that show hate to people of different religions.
There are Christians that show hate to people involved in certain sins.
Carey Nieuwhof wrote a blog that came out today that talks about the one thing that should characterize every Christian leader - and that is Love.
He states that there are 2 kinds of leaders:
There are truth people
And then there are grace people
Carey Nieuwhof
The truth people stand up for what’s right
The grace people are more about love and relationship
The truth people think the grace people have no spine.
And the grace people think the truth people have no heart.
Here’s the truth: Jesus was all about Truth and all about Grace
Carey’s conclusion:
what if we Christians were actually known for our love?
What do We say?
What do We say?
What do we say to this? Is it Amen or oh me?
It’s not Amen for me!
I have my faults, I have logs in my eye
We need to be praying Lord, remove the logs out of our eyes.
If you don’t want to grow, if you don’t want challenges to your beliefs, then you are in the wrong place.
Everywhere Jesus went, he was challenging what was commonly held in belief.
Now, let’s turn back to the last verse in our scripture for the day:
48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
What this is telling us is that we need to be perfect.
Are you perfect?
Jesus said himself that there is none good
18 So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.
What do We say?
The problem is that we can’t be perfect, and like Jesus said in verse 20, which I quoted a couple of weeks ago:
20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
What do We say?
Here’s what I say:
Do we talk about the sins of the world? Yes. Do we tell others they are in danger with their actions? Yes.
Do we speak the truth in Love? You better believe it.
That’s what’s missing in Christianity.
What do We say?
So I’m going to give you the Truth in Love:
There is none perfect
However, God who is perfect, came down in the form of Jesus
He died so that we could be declared perfect if we believe in him.
If God showed us that kind of love, shouldn’t we show others love?
and the last question I’ll leave you with is the same one that Carey asked:
what if we Christians were actually known for our love?