Rants on Life, God, and Pastoring

This is the fourth and final week of this awesome series for our church.  We looked at what the Scripture teaches about how to love in our everyday relationships.

How do we follow Jesus’ instructions to Love others the way that He loved us?

You can Click Here to watch the Video.

Here are my sermon notes:

—God showed us how much He loved us by sending His son as our Savior

This was the greatest love the world has ever seen

—He then invited us to experience His love and allow it to give us strength and joy through what Jesus did for us on the cross

Ephesians 3 : 17  Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him.  Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 18  And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19  May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

—Experiencing the Love of God comes from Loving God and staying connected to Him through his commandments and His plan for our lives…

And Loving Others the way that Christ has Loved us

Loving others with the Love of God will cost you something

It means being willing to sacrifice and not expecting anything in return

Today I want to look at scriptures that are specific to our daily relationships

I don’t know that I have a lot of input … I Just want to lean in to the Scriptures 

Let’s start with the most difficult one and get it out of the way…

Loving Our Enemies and the people that don’t always love us back…

Matt 5 : 43  “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. 44  But I say, love your enemies!  Pray for those who persecute you! 45  In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven.  For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. 46  If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that?  Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. 47  If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else?  Even pagans do that.

Persecution in those days meant torture and death!

Jesus told them to pray for and love the people who wanted to kill them

That doesn’t seem very fair does it???

If He instructed them to love the people who wanted to murder them …

then that definitely covers all the people who say mean things, take us for granted, abuse our generosity, try to destroy our families, make up lies about us, cut us off in traffic, and post mean things on facebook about us … 

even if they didn’t say our name we know they were talking about us.

He went a step further and said that loving the people that love us back is what pagans and sinners do…

Followers of Jesus must go the extra mile and selflessly LOVE our enemies

This is Agape Love … Giving Love and expecting nothing in return

Let me help you out here … 

It does not say we have to enjoy it or spend all our time around these people!

But it does say that we must Love the People that want to Persecute us

This means that we can’t avoid them, return fire with our words, or stoop to their level

James 1 : 19  Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. 20  Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.

Our Goal is to Grow Closer to God…Don’t let People distract your Progress

Speaking of Enemies … What about your boss and your coworkers

What does Scripture say about the Love of Christ in Our Work Relationships

Ephesians 6 : 5  Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear.  Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. 6  Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you.  As slaves of Christ, do the will of God with all your heart. 7  Work with enthusiasm, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. 8  Remember that the Lord will reward each one of us for the good we do, whether we are slaves or free. 9  Masters, treat your slaves in the same way.  Don’t threaten them; remember, you both have the same Master in heaven, and he has no favorites.

The principle of Slaves and Masters applies to your Job!

–Work with enthusiasm as though you are working for the Lord

–Do your job unto the Lord … Not just unto the man or woman you work for

How much would that change your attitude about your job?

How would that affect your work flow and effort on your job?

Let’s look at how God intended Love to play out in Our Marriage

Ephesians 5 : 21  And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22  For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23  For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church.  He is the Savior of his body, the church. 24  As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.

Submit … What a dangerous word to use in 2015 with all of you self sustaining, strong willed, independent women out there!

“I don’t need a man … I am woman, hear me roar”

Let’s look at that word “Submit” and break it down

1.  accept or yield to a superior force or to the authority or will of another person.

(That’s the part of the definition that could get us in trouble!)

2.  subject to a particular process, treatment, or condition.

3.  agree to refer a matter to a third party for decision or adjudication.

The Original language meant to Obey or Support

The wife is the support system and helper of the husband

Wives are to Submit to the Man who is supposed to be the Spiritual Head

I want to point out that Verse 23 fits together with verse 25 Perfectly…

25  For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church.  He gave up his life for her 26  to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. 27  He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish.  Instead, she will be holy and without fault. 28  In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies.  For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. 29  No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church.

33  So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

To be a man is to be a Spiritual Leader of your Household

To Love your wife Sacrificially and Expecting nothing in return

God intended marriage to be a partnership of Accountability & Spiritual Growth

Each partner’s goal is to help the other become more like Christ

That Love translates to how we raise our kids and love our family

Ephesians 6 : 1  Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do. 2  “Honor your father and mother.” This is the first commandment with a promise:  3  If you honor your father and mother, “things will go well for you, and you will have a long life on the earth.” 4  Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them.  Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord.

We never out grow the command to Obey and Respect our Parents…

The Promise of a long and fulfilled life continues all of our Adult days

Parents…We never have the right to provoke or respond in Anger to our Kids

This doesn’t mean that we don’t discipline and lead them in the right direction

Proverbs 13 : 24  Those who spare the rod of discipline hate their children.  Those who love their children care enough to discipline them.

We train them up when they are young so that their future is focused on God

Proverbs 22 : 6  Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.

All of these Relationships in our life have One thing in common when we connect them together with the Love of God…

We are to love everyone in our Life as much as God loved us and Love them the way that we trying to show love for God

Stop looking at the Person you are trying to Love… 

and start seeing the hope and potential that God sees in the relationship.

Aren’t you Glad that God saw past your issues and flaws and loved you like the person He knew you could become?

That is the way we are to Love others… And our love can help them see all the promise that God has in store for them.