This sermon was delivered to Holy Trinity in Ayr, Ayrshire, Scotland on the 24th July 2016 (a Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries).
Note: This is a revised version of an earlier sermon aim at a larger congregation.
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:
Romans. Verse 8 of Romans 13 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 loving others; and there is so much we can say on the subject of love; and everyone here knows this subject well, so it is difficult to give you something new? So here is a wee 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 wonderful world this would be!
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, because we have an adversary and he 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 ever 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; … 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, "‘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, because 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. Quite simple really???
Verse 8 again, "Owe no one anything, except to love one another".
The one debt that we will never fully pay back 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. But to pay back this debt, we are required to love him in return, and keep his commandments. We are not however; … to keep his commandments in the chance that he may accept us … or maybe even love us in return; no, we are to keep his commandments because we love 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; they are just so impossible to keep, and then you could say that they are the "smaller" laws.
And what about the 10 larger laws or 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". And if we love our neighbour, we do not want to do these things to them.
Knowing this, will we now break God’s law of love? Of course we will.
Because the Lord loves us, we try to love him in return, and so we try to keep his commands out of love. Jesus then tells us to love our neighbours, and so we do our best, and in doing so, we make no plans to do anyone any harm … nor steal from them nor cheat them.
Because harming others is not a part of our new Christian lives; as it is not in our new nature. Jesus saw to that. … We may hurt others unintentionally, but not deliberately. Ok, let me give you an example, question, since knowing the Lord, have you hurt someone on purpose? … Of course you did, but did you feel good after it. … Generally no, because it is not in our new nature. Instead, we live for the good of others, and we do, do our best to treat them with kindness, and love even though we often fail.
Love is the fulfilment of the law. Love means that we do what 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. … I will give you an example, think on something you have done in the past that you are ashamed of. Then think … had God not corrected us, we would not be ashamed of what we did … and we would still be committing that type of deed … unaware of the damage we were doing. Instead, God has stopped us in our tracks and put us straight.
Had God not loved us, he would leave us to continually act in that manner. He does not do it all at once, but he is continually changing us.
And our correction can be painful, and it can be a slow recovery, but we are generally 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 where 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. He is the one who changes our hearts to enable us to love others.
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 must forgive and forget … and that we should love one another regardless, and this somehow gives them the 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", after someone has done something nasty to me. Let me tell you, do something bad to me, something calculated and deliberately, and I can assure you that I will not come round, “easily”. 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, and as such, he expects us to be the same.
However … unlike the world, we discipline in love. Imagine owning a big dog, and every now and again it would bite you. It would be absolutely stupid for us do nothing about it. It would be naive of us 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 own good, and our own good, that way, the dog learns to behave itself 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
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 ourselves, we do not respect him. We are his, and we are not our own as scripture says, we belong to him.
Look at the times Jesus rebuked the Pharisees, he certainly did not put up with their non sense. Remember Andrew talking a few years ago about WWJD, what would Jesus do? I could not help thinking at the time 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. We therefore must stand up for ourselves, stand up for the one who loves us, and defend ourself 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 Jesus loves little children, Jesus approved of a loving discipline, because it was ultimately for the Child's 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." In light of that verse, we can honestly say that God truly loves us.
But we are 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 the 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." And 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 he proved his love for us all those years ago by dying on the cross so that we may be a son or daughter to you.
We now pray the verses 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 your word in I Peter 4:7 also 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 we ask humbly in Jesus mighty name.
Amen.
