Sermon Tone Analysis

The Bible calls us to a Radical kind of love

Last time we were hear together we talked about how the bible calls us to a radical, extravagant kind of love to our neighbors and we also defined our neighbors as anyone and everyone around us.

It has been important to set this ground work because to go any further it is imperative that we know what the bible expects of us in regards to our neighbors and how we treat them

The Man in the Mirror

But before we go any further in looking at our neighbors its a good idea to first look at ourselves, because our willingness and capacity to care for others grows naturally out of our walk with God

In other words.

the closer you are to God the more you will love the people around you.

Why? because you simply cannot Love God and not love ALL of His people!

So when we look at the man in the Mirror we must ask ourselves one question.

Do we love the things that God loves?

Do we love the things God loves?

And what is it that God loves?

I think that Jesus is pretty clear about this so we’ll look once again at His example in the Bible.

Now when Jesus teaches in the Bible we usually see this formula: Someone asks a question or challenges him and then we see him tell a story or parable.

BUT there is ONE time where Jesus breaks this mold and does something different!

so one might imagine that He thought this was an important topic.

Let’s look at this section of scripture very quickly found in

Luke 15:1–32 so we can see what is is that Jesus take so seriously.

What Does God Love?

So there we have it… 3 parables all about the EXACT SAME THING.

This is an example of a technique used all around the globe, by parents from before Jesus time and I’m sure on into the future.

Repeating yourself to make sure that you are understood to your children.

(I do it all the time)

anicdote about repeating things to Isaac)

I think it’s probably pretty obvious looking at this passage that Jesus’ heart is for the lost his heart is for those outside of the establishment outside of the church.

Had Jesus come for the established church of the time…

He would have been doing temple tours.

He would have visited the temple members who were the biggest tithers

He would have visited and dined with the top temple priests and Levites

He would have brought new programs or temple goers, and done appeals for renovations

He would have preached that temple attendance is the most import part of being an Israelite, and that they should work to attain status in the church… I mean temple...

Instead

he ate with Tax Collectors and sinners

he visited prostitutes

He healed the leapers and the blind

In fact he spent by far the majority of His documented time Outside and away from the temples.

He openly shunned and even mocked the pharisees at times...

Instead of blessed are the pharisee for they have done good work for me, it s was

Blessed are the meek… for they will inherit the earth!

See Jesus was a radical!

And He was simply about his fathers business… and since Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and God are one we can infer that what Jesus Loves, God Loves too.

God Loves All People and wants to see them all saved

God Loves all people and wants to see them all saved!

It’s the central thesis of our faith isn’t it?

that

So as those who profess to love God it’s obvious that we too must love what God loves.

God Loves the lost and wants to see them saved.

it is our Job to also Love the lost with a desire to see them saved.

Now i’m pretty sure that I haven't said anything yet that we all cannot agree on.

as far as Christian faith goes, this is Spiritual milk.... its nutritious and easy to digest.

Yet some how we seem to fall down on the execution of the premise... :

We all say: Yes, I want to see the lost saved… but I don’t want my worship to change...

We all say: Yes, I want to be a light unto the world… but when there’s work to be done at church it’s I’m too busy

We all say: Yes, I want my neighbors to know the love of Christ…but we’ve never invited them to church....

And this isn’t said at all to condemn you, but to cause to you to think

And to evaluate your Christianity… because as I mentioned… and this is the point of the sermon.

Our willingness and capacity to care for others will grow naturally out of our walk with God.

Our Willingness and capacity to care for others will grown naturally out of our walk with God

Now that we have finished our milk.

Lets start chewing on the word

(When you chew on the word you are digesting assimilating, etc)

So here we go:

If your faith doesn’t include an active drive to bring those outside of the church into it, maybe it is time to evaluate your walk with God.

Now this isn’t meant to make you feel bad.

We all need to evaluate our faith constantly, because not one of us is perfect.

Paul in the book of Romans tell us that

So even though we are all falling short, you can measure the health of your walk with God by how much you care about the things that God cares about.

God cares that there are people right now that have never heard the word of God!

measure yourself right now, by how that makes you feel

Does it make you feel angry?

Sad? Indifferent?

Uncomfortable?

Maybe you feel indignant that I would even ask...

Here is another one:

There are people that may be walking by right now. that God wants to be members of this church.

How does that make you feel?

Excited?

Scared?

Mad?

Even more uncomfortable?

Lets try one last one:

There are people with major sin in their lives that God wants to work on through THIS church

How does that make you feel?

Uneasy?

challenged?

excited?

Whatever your answer, the good news is.

that it’s OK… We are all on the same journey and while you may not be at the same spot as the person beside you, as Christians we are all moving towards the same goal, which is Christ-likeness and that means that the Holy Spirit, if you let him, He’s going to continue to form your heart to look like Jesus’ and soon you will find that your burden for the lost will increase.

And it’s this thought that brings us to our next text.

For as I mentioned it is the Holy Spirit that increases our capacity to Love our Neighbors.

Let us read in Galatians 5:16-25

A Tale of 2 Lists

So Paul is talking to us about walking with the Holy Spirit (which is walking with God) And he makes 2 lists one is a list of things that we Don’t do when walking with God and a list of things that we DO when walking close with God (the HS)

We don’t have a problem with the majority of the list of things that we don’t do… and we are good at decrying the ills of Sexual Immorality, Sorcery (oh do we love to talk about witchcraft) and the like… but we kind of gloss over the ones at the end of the list.

certainly the ones at the top of the list are the important ones (the Biggies) and the ones are the end where Paul just filling the space to make a good list… maybe he wanting to finish the page on the parchment he was writing on (waste not want not, right?)

NO

Everything on this list was important.

and it’s the ones at the end that I would argue affect how we treat our neighbors the most.

Enmity,

Causing strife amongst people in the church or outside (there are some people in the church that are great a stiring stuff up),