Supernatural

If You Love Me

John 14:15 LSB

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

John 14:23–24 LSB

Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him. “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.

we are going to look at some impossible commandments

but these commandments Jesus has given to us to follow

and if they are impossible how can we do them?

and if we don’t do them we don’t love Jesus

so we have a problem

1 John 5:3 LSB

For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.

if they are impossible ??

how can a commandment be both?

before we get to our scripture this morning we need to find out how to do the impossible

after Jesus told His Apostles do my commandments

He said This

John 14:16–19 LSB

“And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate, that He may be with you forever; the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him. You know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. “After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also.

The Holy Spirits supernatural enabling

Every command in the New Testament is an opportunity to get rid of our self reliance and yield to the supernatural enabling of the Holy Spirit

Charles Swindoll morning prayer

This is your day, Lord. I want to be at Your disposal. I have no idea what these next twenty-four hours will contain. But before I sip my first cup of coffee, and even before I get dressed, I want You to know that from this moment on throughout this day, I’m Yours, Lord. Help me to lean on You, to draw strength from You, and to have You fill my mind and my thoughts. Take control of my senses so that I am literally filled with Your presence and empowered with Your energy. I want to be Your tool, Your vessel today. I can’t make it happen. And so I’m saying, Lord, fill me with Your Spirit today.

For the world the commands of Jesus are impossible to do but, for a child of God they are enabled though the power of the Holy Spirit

so lets look at these commands

read Luke 6 27-36.

Love Your Enemies

V 22

all of these people who hate you as a christian

V 27 -29

there are no hard to understand Greek words here to decipher

V 30-36

the hard part is the doing

is following Jesus in these trials

we would rather just say they are enemies. Im going to go over there and stay out of their way

but what does Jesus say to do?

the Impossible

love them Lend to them expecting nothing in return

if they steal, let them keep it

do good to them

be merciful

why would I ever want to do that?

are you crazy?

this goes against everything in me

this can only be done by the power of the Holy Spirit

Only Supernatural

these things the writers of the epistles took up also

Hebrews 13:16 LSB

And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

Romans 12:20 LSB

“BUT IF YOUR ENEMY IS HUNGRY, FEED HIM, AND IF HE IS THIRSTY, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING COALS ON HIS HEAD.”

1 Thessalonians 5:15 LSB

See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all people.

this kind of love is radical

like Jesus laying down his life for a friend

all of these commands call for action

they are not just feelings

it is one thing to say I love my enemies

but it is another to do them good

and love always does good

1 Corinthians 13:3–7 LSB

And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind, is not jealous, does not brag, is not puffed up; it does not act unbecomingly, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered; it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

the love that we have is a supernatural love

Romans 5:5 LSB

and hope does not put to shame, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

J C Ryle says

to His disciples "Their love was to be like His own towards sinners—unselfish, disinterested, and uninfluenced by any hope of return. What was to be the manner of this love? the disciples might ask. It was to be self-sacrificing and self-denying.

John MacArthur

MacArthur - When believers face hatred, they are to respond by seeking the welfare of those who hate them, thereby reinforcing their supernatural message with supernatural love. The credibility of the gospel is at stake and believers must love the lost evangelistically.

Be A Revolutionary —Luke 6:27 Our Daily Bread

People who can love their enemies are revolutionaries. A graduate student named Jack became such a revolutionary, in spite of himself. One summer he asked God for a ministry. He contacted several organizations but found no openings. Finally he had to take any job available. He ended up driving a public transportation bus in Chicago. A street gang rode his bus every day without paying and made threats against him. One day they dragged him off the bus and beat him unconscious. In the hospital, Jack was bitter toward them and God. “Lord,” he complained, “I prayed for a ministry and all You gave me was this lousy job and a beating!”

Jack pressed charges, and the gang members were arrested, brought to trial, and found guilty. But during the trial, God began replacing Jack’s bitterness with compassion and love. When the judge pronounced the sentence, Jack asked for permission to serve their combined jail time. Stunned, the judge said, “There’s no precedent for this!” “Yes, there is,” Jack replied, explaining that Jesus died on the cross for a guilty world. Jack’s request was denied, but he began visiting the young men in jail and saw most of them come to know Christ.

When we love others in that way, it’s revolutionary!

Doing good to those who hate us, Lord, is difficult to do; Help us by Your grace to love them, Praying they will turn to You.  —Sper

To love a friend is natural, to love an enemy is Christlike.

Do you have enemies?

Do you need supernatural love?

Do you want to be Christ like?

It is time to confess and repent

its time to call on Jesus to give you grace