Sermon Document:
Pre-Introduction:
I praise God for this opportunity, and I thank the Elders and you all for it as it gave me a chance to look at the famous passage in the Bible about loving your enemies. I was also humbled as I found that the challenge was to preach on a topic that you my august audience have trained your self in practising this word of the Lord and to bring a new look at it while being true to the text. And I praise the Lord for helping me do this
Introduction:
Oliver twist of Charles Dickens fame was asked for more gruel a thin liquid oat meal boiled in milk or water. He was asking to show a more consideration of love for his hunger. He was in a work house run by the church and he had asked this of the church officer in charge. The famous words “Can I have some more”. In return he got outrage for having dared to ask for more and the church officer and the members of the board decided to sent him away. They sent him to an undertaker where things were worse. Today our Lord Jesus Christ is asking like Oliver. “Can I have some more” consideration of Love even for your enemies.
The Title of today’s message is “Can I have Some More”: The Sanctity of Love (The Holiness, Blessedness, The Sacredness, The Purity Of Love), . Luke 6:26-38 This is one of the most famous passages in the bible and has one of the most famous axioms a Christian is to follow; turn the other cheek. Let us read the passage and in a minute, you will see why I chose the title of the message. Come let us observe some contrasts in the passage. First Jesus begins His teaching in this passage with the conjunction, BUT indicating He is connecting it to what is before. The context of the passage is that He is speaking to a mixed bunch of a multitude on a plain. He just chose the twelve Apostles and with them is a great multitude. And Just before this He pronounces woes on the worldly. And now he addresses all those who hear and all those who are His disciples. He says But I say to you who hear Love your enemies and then in the rest of the passage he qualifies what loving your enemies is. And here are the contrasts He makes, with sinners
1. Do good 2. Those who hate
3. Bless 4. Those who curse
5. Pray for 6. Those who abuse
7. Strikes a cheek 8. Offer the other cheek
9. Takes cloak 10. Give tunic also
11. Give beggars or Borrowers 12. Do not expect (Demand) it back
God is Holy and His call is “Be Holy as I am Holy”. Holy has with a sense of exclusiveness. “The completely other”. He is One of a Kind. And love is an Unchangeable attribute of God. He IS love 1Jn 4:8,16; it does not say he loves he is loving but His very attribute is love and Jesus ends the passage by saying that The Father Shows His love by being Kind even to the ungrateful and the evil. He sustains their very life though he can destroy the latter in a wink. But He shows mercy to all. It is His breath of life that He has put in them that keeps the both the righteous and the wicked alive. So Loving even your enemies if being like the Father and practicing it in kindness is being unlike sinners but being holy
Our Lord is Calling today “Can I have some More”: The Sanctity Of love. Are you Up to it?
For the simplicity of remembering the nature of the Sanctity of Love. I have four “Esses”
i. The Three Sources of Love: What is the foundation, Bases, Bedrock of Love?
ii. The Submission of Love How? How do we practise this?
iii. The Sanctity of Love. Why? Why Should we practise this?
iv. The Surety of Love. So What? So What is in it for us if we practise it?
These do not come naturally to us and needs supernatural empowerment and in the melee of our daily walk and the deceitfulness of the world we forget and the Love of many has grown cold. Each one of us needs constant reminders Hence the Call of God today. To a world hungry for Love; He is asking us. Whether it is the beggar at the signal when you are driving your car or your neighbour in your community or in the office place, the someone who gets your goat and irritates you no ends. Or your boss who hates you for no apparent reason … He is Calling “Can I have some more? Not anyone else but His church! Like Oliver asked in the pain of Hunger to the Church officer in charge of dispensing gruel. He is calling for more because of the Sanctity of love. Practising love is practising holiness.
In the book of Leviticus when our Lord made know to man His Civil and moral laws His call; for us to be holy because He is holy; is repeated about 5 times 11:44, 11:45, 19:2 20:7, and 20:26, and is reiterated in the New testament in the 1 Peter 1:16.
If practising love is practising holiness we must understand where it stems from what the source of it is! Of course we know the source supernatural empowerment comes for the Holy Spirit, but Our Lord makes no mention of Him here and His audience is everyone, also His disciples who have not yet been empowered by His Holy Spirit. Hence all can do it and more so we His Church now that we are endowed with His Holy Spirit. Let us then examine the source or the fountain head of Love in the community in which Our Lord has placed us. We are but channels or instruments of it.
i. The Three Sources of Love 27,28
The other words for Source, is bases, foundation, springs. And for this base or source our Lord enumerates three things GBP
1. Good Acts
2. Bless
3. Pray for
Our Lord is not a God of confusion very simply he is telling us that the Source, the foundation on which Loving Your Enemies Stands, which is practising Holiness is doing the opposite of what comes to you naturally. Doing Good to those who hate, Blessing those who curse and praying for those who abuse you, praying for those who falsely accuse you, people who mistreat you. In His book, Mere Christianity CS Lewis points out a practical way to do this. In situations like these he says there are always two impulses it is usually the weaker one that is right.
These three things encompass both public and private life Good acts is what we need to do publicly, blessing we can do publicly or privately, simply saying God Bless you can diffuse many things, and prayers privately.
What can illustrate this. Good acts is not acts of charity that as Jesus points out later even sinners do it. But it is relational, how we relate to others. Today we use our phones a lot. It is a boon and can be used for the furtherance of His kingdom yet the best tool in the hands of the devil is a scrooge for unprepared hearts. WatsApp is horrible. Everything is known what time you last saw a message, it tells you whether the receiver has seen the message or not but has not responded to a message you have considered important. I am in the midst of organizing a meeting for the Gideons and I am constantly irritated. I can see the secretary has seen a message I have sent but he has not responded. My strongest impulse at that moment is to shoot of a curt text but then have been trained by mistakes and learnt the hard way, the weaker impulse is to be patient and wait for a response. I had to exit a WatsApp group that had all Christians on it. I was appalled at the behaviour of the saints of God
These are little things but what about real conflicts. There are very few people that you know that may really hate you but even if there are, the call is to do Good even to them. Bless them if they are a neighbour in your community Bless them send them something special that your wife has made today or better still call them over for a meal. Praying for those you are having a difficult time with always helps to practise doing good and blessing.
The Source the first Ess, the bases, the foundation of Loving your enemies is GBP Good acts Blessing and Prayers. This is the bedrock that will set you apart and the appellation of the Word Saint, that is being holy, will truly fit you.We have seen What is the Source of the Love that Jesus is calling for in relation to everybody more so your enemies. “Can I have Some More He says”: The Sanctity of Love
That bring me to the Second S the Submission of Love. (Eph 5:20) giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, (Eph 5:21) submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
ii. The Submission of Love 29-31
Our Lord points out four things RADD. This is best understood with a few illustrations
1. Retaliate not. Cheeky
2. Abundantly Give
3. Demand Not
4. Doings.
Retaliate Not: The Dandi March in 1884 from the 12th of March to the 6th Of April 1884. Was a Satyagraha against the British monopoly on salt by the Salt act of 1882. It is vividly portrayed in the Movie Gandhi by Richard Attenborough. Gandhi Played by Bens Kingly. The Salt March launched the civil disobedience movement for Indian Independence giving the Independence movement by the INC a huge impetus. It had the principle of non-violence and not retaliating, or turning the other cheek in other words. Gandhi used a Christian principle against a Christian Empire. Many were beaten up by the British. The Movie shows the wives of the men participating in the satyagraha with first-aid kits to bind their wounds. It was a cheeky move by Gandhi. No Retaliation, no violence, Turn the other Cheek. India got its independence. Can you see the power behind the teaching of Jesus Christ Our Lord.
Coming to present day history. A major grouse of the Hindu Nationalists against us Christians is that we are Beef eaters. Food is a cause of conflict very often. In the early church also many people with different food habits than those of the Jews were coming into the church and it prompted the Apostle Paul to even write about it.
In His letter to the Colossians he writes,
ESV (Col 2:16) Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. (Col 2:17) These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
To the Romans he writes
ESV (Rom 14:17) For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. (Rom 14:18) Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. (Rom 14:19) So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.(Rom 14:20) Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. (Rom 14:21) It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.[3]
Imagine if we have a Gandhi in our community who unites the Christians to Draft a Pledge Not to eat beef print and frame it and as a body of believers march from Bangalore to New Delhi to hand it over to the PM or whoever at the same time reaffirming our right to profess our religion as enshrined in the constitution in Article 25. We will knock the wind out of their sales
Jesus Christ is asking, “Can I have some more” The sanctity of love. It will set you apart and you will be sons of God
Abundantly Give: Pastor David gave testimony of why they are serving the poor in our church last month. A thing gaunt boy knocked at the door and Taru his wife was at home. The boy asked her to give him some food because he had not eaten for days. She took pity and called him in and gave him what was there. He finished it and asked her to have some more. They keep puffed rice at home, so Taru went and prepared it for the boy. The boy ate that also. She took the dishes to the kitchen and came out but the boy had disappeared. She ran out and asked some people there if they had seen a boy come out. No one had seen a boy.
(Heb 13:2) Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
Next time you see a beggar at the signal give him something. Never know it may be an angel
Jesus Christ is asking, “Can I have some more” The sanctity of love. It will set you apart and you will be sons of God
Demand Not: One of the commonest causes of conflict is money. Not Forgive and forget but Give and forget. In my previous church there was a poor family dealing in bottled drinking water. The Man sent his son to a brother’s house and asked this brother to lend him a sum of money. This brother was better off but it was still quite a sum of money. What should this brother do? Can he Demand his money back? Yes or No? What Jesus is teaching here is that He should not demand it back. The brother did not demand it back I know this brother well. He truly followed what Jesus is teaching here. Here it was a case of brothers, but Jesus says we must do it even for our enemies
Jesus Christ is asking, “Can I have some more” The sanctity of love. It will set you apart and you will be sons of God
Doings: Do unto others as you would have them do it unto you. In the two illustrations we have just seen. Taru did for the boy what she would expect the boy to do if the things were reverse. The man who asked for a loan should return the money of his own accord as he would expect the same of someone who had borrowed money from him
Remember the parable of the wicked servant who was forgiven his debt by his master but who went out and started beating another servant and even put him in prison because he did not repay what he owed the wicked servant. What did the master do? He threw the wicked servant into prison where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth locked him up and threw away the keys.
Do unto others as you would have them do it unto you.
Jesus Christ is asking, “Can I have some more” The sanctity of love. It will set you apart and you will be sons of God
Now we come to the third S
Sanctity of Love: Why should we do what we are called by Jesus to do? Jesus put it very plainly to distinguish ourselves from sinners. To give a good testimony of our personal life. To demonstrate that we are living a life in relationship with our God, Our Lord Jesus Christ. The way of the world is transactional. Your Scratch my back and I will scratch yours. The price for love is love, the price for good deeds is an expectation of good deeds in return and the price for giving is an expectation of reciprocation. This is the way of the world and not the rule of the kingdom. The Kingdom principles for Kingdom subjects is exactly the opposite. The sole driving force is Love. And doing the opposite of what sinners are likely to do sets you apart. You will be saints practicing holiness. You will be like none other. Doing what Jesus is asking us to do is imitating the father who as we observed is kind even to the unrighteous and the evil and merciful to all.
Jesus reiterates three things, LDG, promising that your rewards will be great
5. Loving the undeserving
6. Doing Good to the Undeserving
7. Give and forget
The same Gandhi said do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends! Our Lord has given us the road map. This S the sanctity of Love the practise of which is the practise of holiness. Being unlike unholy sinners has in its body the first two S’s. At the Source it is GDP, encompassed in it is Submission RADD to be true holy sons of a holy Heavenly Father
We come to the Last S the Surety of Love RSL
iii. The Surety of Love
1. Rewards
2. Sons
3. Like Father Like son
We have already seen that Loving, more so your enemies is being unlike unholy sinners that is what Jesus says; explaining, the holiness or the Purity, The Sacredness the blessedness; all Synonyms of the word Sanctity; of love. Holy sons of a holy father, like father is holy the son who practises this is being perfected in holiness towards.
But let us dwell on the Surety of rewards. Actually, if I were dividing the passages I would include the 37 and 38 also in Loving your enemies as it includes some more things to do which Jesus asks us to do. 1. Do not Judge and he qualifies that next by saying do not condemn, left unsaid is (“Judging without condemning”) and 2. Forgive. And he come the rewards that He speaks of, (Luk 6:38) ESV give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you." The two things in the context of what Jesus is saying is as clear as day. To say that giving means monetary giving and monetary returns, in having a very narrow view of this verse that is poignant with meaning. And So I will paraphrase a summary
The Source of Loving even your enemies is GBP Good acts, Blessings those who curse you , Prayer for those who abuse you, The measure of yourself you give in doing these things it is in that measure you will get back the same, The Submission of Love or The measure with which you submit of yourself to others, not retaliating , Abundantly giving, Not Demanding that which you have given back and doing to others as you would have others do to you, it is that same measure with which you do these things that it will be returned to you. You will be unlike sinners. You will be true holy sons like a holy father always in His favour.
Jesus is asking “ Can I have some more”: The Sanctity of love. Give me more of this and see your life change. In will be given to you, (Luk 6:38) ESV give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you."
