Radical Love
Radical Love • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 21 viewsChanging the world only happens when the world is filled with the love of Jesus
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Play song
I’m thankful to be in the fellowship of brothers and sisters in Christ. Tonight’s scriptural text will come from .
A guy comes over his buddy’s house to roll out. While buddy was getting changed, the guy sits on the couch near where his buddy’s grandmother appeared to be sleeping. While sitting there, he sees this plate of peanuts and begins eating them. He starts thinking “these are the best peanuts I’ve ever had!” It gets so good to him, he begins tossing them in the air and catching them in his mouth. He gets a bit carried away and one misses, bounces off his face and hits grandma. When she wakes up, he shamefully apologizes for hitting her and eating all the peanuts, but then lauds them as the best he’s ever had. He asks, “where did you get these? I have to get some more.” Grandma turns red, and bashfully said, “baby, I’m not sure how to tell you this. But I really like chocolate. But when I don’t have my teeth in, I suck on the chocolate and spit the peanuts out.”
There was a crisis of identity! He was eating something different than what he thought it was. This is the condition of the world we live in today. There are a lot of people walking around calling themselves Christians with eternal addresses in a place called hell. A Pew study found that 75% of Americans identify themselves as Christian. I think about how divisive things are even in our country, and wonder “how could that even be?” I scroll through social media pages and see the vitriol spewed at one another and know that this isn’t what God wanted from us. What’s worse, is that often times, I can’t tell the believers from the nonbelievers!
Before I get there, when I listen to the words of the song that was just played, I can’t help but think about the condition of the world we live in today. I think about how divisive things are even in our country, and wonder “will we ever come together?” I scroll through social media pages and see the vitriol spewed at one another and know that this isn’t what God wanted from us. What’s worse, is that often times, I can’t tell the believers from the nonbelievers!
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
A little earlier, it said:
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
Bottom line: those that spew hatred and divisiveness are rooted in hatred and divisiveness. When we talk about their fruits, what do we mean?
Galatians 5:22
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
Let’s focus on this love thing:
Ephesians
Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:
The greatest example of this love is that of our God. Now, we can read the topical text:
And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.” For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.
Hosea 3:
Hold up! Go and love again, a woman who’s adulteress? God’s tripping! First of all, doesn’t he grant divorce in the case of adultery? Exactly, so what God is advocating for is a certain amount of grace to be extended to someone that’s wronged this man.
Let’s give you a little backdrop. First, God tells Hosea to marry a prostitute back in chapter 1, verse 2.
When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.”
The word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.
When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.”
Hosea 1:
Back in around 931, BC, due to Solomon’s sin, God divided Israel into two parts after Solomon died: the northern kingdom of Israel and southern kingdom of Judah. From that time until 400 BC, the prophets continued to call on Israel and Judah to return to God. But most of them trusted the surrounding nations and their false gods. Hosea picks up between 766-722 BC.
After King Jeroboam II died, the next three decades saw six different kings sit on Israel’s throne. Only one died from natural causes; four were assassinated, and hostile outside nations were threatening to destroy the nation. It was at this time the northern kingdom turned even more forcefully to pagan gods, grasping at any straw that might save them from destruction. They continued to turn FROM God.
This is why God told him to marry the prostitute.
By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”