This sermon was delivered to St Oswald’s in Maybole,
Ayrshire, Scotland on the 5th September 2014
(a Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries).
Summary: Loving others is so much under stood. The world walks over Christians, and we simply let them. Jesus didn’t, so neither should we. Read on and be blessed!
Exodus 12:1-14 Psalm 149 Romans 13:8-14 Matthew 18:15-20
“Please join me in my prayer.” Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength, and our redeemer. Amen. (Ps. 19:14)
Romans 13:8-14
Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet"; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, "Love your neighbour as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light; let us live honourably as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Introduction:
This week again I have been instructed to based the sermon on our New Testament reading from the Book of Romans. Verse 8 reads, "Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law". Have a guess what today's sermon is about, take one guess. That’s right it is about love others.
As you know, I normally get the difficult readings, but today is different as there is so much we can say on the subject of love; and worse, everyone here knows this subject well, so what do I do to give you that is new? I don't know, so here is an anecdote to get us going.
We will start with a story from General Robert E. Lee whom after he retired became president of Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia … and while he was president, a new student came past his office one day to ask for a copy of the school’s rules and regulations. Lee simply replied that the school had no such rules printed, but he said, “Our only rule is kindness”.
How great is that? Kindness is certainly something good to live by. If we all live a life of kindness to others what a different country this would be; and if all countries around the world would practice this kindness, what a different world this would be! … LOL.
This is typical of the rubbish the Jehovah Witness spout, yes this would be a different world …we all know that, but this would be impossible, as we have an adversary that is making sure that we live in turmoil. That is his job, but … Jesus through the apostle Paul, shows us how to live in this world, with this adversary called Satan; as Jesus was the only man to conquer this world. How then does Jesus tell us to proceed, well verse 8 again reads, "Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law"
The world is against us … yet Jesus is telling us to "love one another". I do not know about you, but the more I have tried to fulfil the law, the more I have failed … and to love one another, well as you know, that only lasts for a while; … as we all know how easy it is to fall out with someone … normally over something trivial.
Yet Luke 6:31 says “Do unto others as you would have them do to you”. Ok, we try, but the world twists this, and says, “Do it to others before they do it to you.” That’s the modern way … but it’s certainly not the way of Jesus.
Then we are told that all the laws of the Old Testament are summed up in verse 9, "You shall not covet’; and any other commandment, is summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law". So if you think about it, if Jesus is God, then Jesus is love, as God is love, and so Jesus as love fulfilled the law here on this earth as it was written … and … he wants us to do like wise. Simple really.
Verse 8 again, "Owe no one anything, except to love one another".
The one debt that we will never fully pay back however is the debt of love to all mankind that Jesus made for us before we were born; the debt of salvation, and we will owe him this debt until the day we die. And to pay back this debt, we are required to love him in return, and keep him commandments. We are not however; … to keep his commandments in the chance that he may accept us … or even love us in return; no, we are to keep his commandments because we love him, we are in turn return that love for him, him who loved us first.
Verse 8 again reads, "Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law". Now, as you know, there are over 600 laws in the Old Testament that we must to fulfil. By the time I have finished this service, I will probably have broken at least 5 of them. Will God then disown me, no, why, because of what Jesus achieved on the cross, but I say this to let you know that we can never fulfil the law by trying to live within the 600 laws, as they are just so impossible to keep, and you could say that they are the "smaller" laws.
What about the larger 10 commandments, “Do not commit adultery”, Do not murder”, "Do not steal”, etc. what about them; well they too could be summed up in verses 9 and 10, "Love your neighbour as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilment of the law".
But verses 9 and 10 are only a summary of God’s 600+ laws; it is the Janet and John version to make it easier to understand, and therefore keep. Will we therefore now break God’s of love? Of course we will, I just hope I can get home first, and cook my bacon rolls for breakfast before I do. …
Because he loves us, we love him, and so we keep his commands out of love. Jesus then tells us to love our neighbours, and so we do our best … not to get them to love us in return, but because we love him and obey his commandments; and by doing so, we make no further attempts, nor plans to do anyone any harm … nor steal from them nor cheat them.
Harming others is not a part of our new lives; as it is not in our new nature. Jesus saw to that. … We may hurt others unintentionally, but not deliberately. Question, since knowing the Lord, have you hurt someone on purpose? Question, did you feel good after it. … No, because it is not in your new nature. Instead, we live for the good of others, and we do our best to treat them with kindness, and love.
And talking about our neighbours, and bacons rolls and harming others - an old Jewish Rabbi was on an empty train when a sexy, beautiful woman walked right into his empty carriage, carrying a bacon roll. She proceeded to sit down opposite him, and just relaxed and smiled. After ten minutes of embarrassingly trying to avoid looking at this gorgeous woman, the train came to a sudden halt and a voice came over the tannoy explaining that the Five Minute Warning has just gone off … and that soon the whole of the UK will be under nuclear attack.
Shocked at this dreadful and sudden news, the Rabbi's thoughts quickly turn to the fact that he will probably be dead within the next five minutes. However, instead of taking comfort from his faith and religious training, he began to consider all the things he never did in his life, and all the experiences he missed out on due to the religious life he had lead.
He then quickly realised that he is going to die a virgin too, as he never married, and feeling close to despair at this thought, and all the other opportunities he wasted in his life, the Rabbi looked at the sexy woman opposite … and thought, why not?
Why not … after all those years of leading a relatively good life and trying to obey all those laws of God, why shouldn't I enjoy the last five minutes of his life on earth? Surely God would forgive me five minutes of pleasure … five minutes of sin after many years of obedience.
With this thought in his mind, the Rabbi decided that he is going to just go for it … and forget the consequences and enjoy his final five minutes on earth. He then looked at the girl, and began to grin and the grim turned to a leer, and although feeling a little strange at this highly unusual and unexpected situation, he gently leaned towards this stunning woman and said, "Excuse me Miss, but are you going to eat that bacon roll?"
You see for a Jewish Rabbi, eating that bacon roll would be a sin against God. Of course, it would have been a sin if he had done the other thing as well, which you were all thinking about; both would be a sin and against God.
But love is the fulfilment of the law. Love means that we do what we know God has said to us in His Word. Love is a matter of obeying God’s Word the best way we can. And I am sure, like me you are always doing your best, even though … we are all guilty of a certain amount of disobedience. We have therefore all failed to love as we should, and this is where his grace comes in … to forgive us, so we can get a second chance to learn. … For example, think on some of the things you have done in the past that you are ashamed of. Now let the shame sink in.
Then think … had God not corrected you, you would not be ashamed of what you did … and you would still be committing that type of deed … unaware of the damage you were doing. Instead, God has stopped us in our tracks and put us straight. We now do not need to be afraid of the shame, because we know it was merely a correction from God in order for us to move forwards. Had God not loved us, he would leave us to continually act in that manner.
Yes the correction was painful, and it was a slow recovery, but we are better off. Do you see where God’s love has entered our lives, and set us a different, but much better road; a road where we do / do our best, to love God … and we cannot but help … in growing in love for others. Loving others therefore is not something we can force ourselves to do, it is something that God is doing in us … and he is changing us … and giving us the ability to love others. This we cannot do on our own as we all know; we need him.
To move on … this is all very good, but the world sees this love in Christianity as a weakness. The world will knock lumps out of us with the excuse that we are "supposed to be Christians", and that we forgive and forget … and that we should love one another. They then think it is their right to walk all over us; do you know what I am talking about?
I personally hate the expression, “do not worry, he will come round". Let me tell you, do something bad to me, something calculated and deliberately, and I can assure you that I will not come round. Our God is very much as God of common sense, and our God is a God of discipline as well as a God of love, an as such, he expects us to be the same.
However … unlike the world, we discipline in love. Imagine having a big dog, and every now and again it would bite you. It would be absolutely stupid for you do nothing about it. You would be naive of you to say, "I am a Christian and I will love that dog just the way it is", like the song, “I will love you just the way you are”. Naw, you would discipline that dog, both for the dogs good, your own good and God's good, that way, the dog learns to behave when it is with others, and that way no one will get hurt.
And we must take the same, mature, sensible, attitude with others who would walk over us. We need to learn to say “No, I am not putting up with that, I am not accepting that”. This then is a form of discipline … but disciple in love, and not anger. We are not to put up with abuse, “turning the so called cheek” as some would have us believe. “Turning the other cheek” by the way is to be done in humility, humility as an act of strength, and not an act of weakness as we are allowed to defend ourselves; but we do so driven by love.
I have seen so many Christians let others abuse them, by letting them think that God is displeased with them if they retaliate out of turn. No no no, God is more displeased if we let these people walk all over us, after all we are his child, and we belong to him. If we do not respect him, we do not respect ourselves, or vice versa. We are his, and we are not our own as scripture says.
Look at the times Jesus rebuked the Pharisees, he certainly did not put up with their non sense. Remember Andrew talking about WWJD, what would Jesus do? I could not help thinking about Jesus turning the tables in the temple. He certainly wasn’t turning the other cheek that day; bird escaping, flapping their wings and causing mayhem, money being thrown all around, and animal running everywhere out of control. Stand up for yourself, stand up for the one who loves you, and defend yourself from the one who does not.
Little Johnny had been misbehaving badly. Not only had he misbehaved but he also very cheeky to his mother, so his daddy turned him over his knee and spanked him. With tears in his eyes he ran to his mother, saying, "Mum, you should have married Jesus. He just loves little children!" While it is very true that Jesus loves little children, Jesus approved of a loving discipline, because it was ultimately for the Childs own good.
Proverbs 13:24 "He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him." And Proverbs 3:11 "My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father delights in his son." We are therefore, … allowed to stand up for ourselves against any tyrant, while loving them at the same time; because we are disciplining in love, that way, discipline is in control; … whereas in anger …, we lash out in revenge. Proverbs 10:12 says, "Hatred (or anger) stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs." In hatred or anger we often speak the wrong words … but love somehow, overcomes wrong.
I Corinthians 16:13-14 says "Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. Do everything in love." That about says it all for this sermon, except for Ephesians 5:1 which says, "Be imitators of God, therefore … as dearly loved children … live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us … as a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God".
Amen, Let us pray.
Father we thank you for Jesus, we thank you that proved his love for died all those years ago by dying on the cross that we may be a son or daughter to him.
We now pay as written in Colossians 3:12-14 "Father, as your chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe us with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Let us bear with each other, and forgive whatever grievances we may have against one another. Let us forgive in strength as you forgave us; and Father, over all these virtues let us wear your love, love that will bind us together in perfect unity."
Father you word in I Peter 4:7 say that "The end of all things are near. So enable us to be clear minded, and self-controlled, so that we can pray and speak to you; to enable us to love each other deeply, as love covers a multitude of sins."
Father let us discern those who would do us wrong, and empower us to stand firm against them, in your almighty name.
Father we pray also for Steve Shepherd and his congregation, whose inspiration helped me start this complex sermon.
Amen.
Note to the reader:
If you have been blessed by this sermon, or any of my sermons, I would be greatly honoured to receive an e-mail from you saying so; I like so many others need encouragement.
I often feel that to deliver a sermon one time to my congregation is such a waste; where as many more could be blessed by its message, after all, it is not for my glory but for his. I would therefore like my sermons to bless more people, preferably internationally and not only in a small part, of a small country called Scotland.
Simply let me know where you are in the world … and any other information you may want to share or be prayed for. I would also take it as a compliment for you to use my sermons in order to bless others in his almighty name. I do not even need acknowledged, but he does, and I will receive a blessing directly from him.
Thank you for taking the time to read, and I wish you "all the best" as we say in Scotland … and I pray that your endeavors in the Lord are equally blessed. Yours in Christ, Gordon McCulloch, Scotland.
Compiled By: Gordon McCulloch (Worship Leader),
St Oswalds Episcopal Church,
Maybole. Ayrshire.
Scotland. UK
KA19 8KF
E-Mail: gccmcculloch @ aol.com or through Sermon Central
