"can I Have Some More" The Sanctity Of Love

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.