What's Love Got To Do With It? Series

WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT!

Matthew 5:43-6:4

S: Love one another

Th: Seeing the Unseen Christ: How His Presence Transforms Life

Pr: WE ARE TO LAVISH HIS LOVE ON OTHERS.

?: How? How do we do that?

KW: Challenges

TS: We will find in our study of Matthew two challenges on how to lavish Jesus’ love on others.

The _____ challenge on how to lavish Jesus’ love on others is to…

I. LIVE THE TOUGH WAY TO LIVE (43-48)

II. GIVE THE TOUGH WAY TO GIVE (1-4)

RMBC 3/04/01 AM

INTRODUCTION:

DRAMA

Aren’t you glad that at least I am a little better than that guy?

Don’t you think I am better?

Please?

Do you think we would be better as a “Zero Tolerance Church”?

Neither do I…

It is amazing…the church can be so concerned about being right that it fails to be right.

You see, the only law that really counts is the law of love.

TRANSITION:

But I have come to a conclusion…

1. People do a lot of talking about love, but they do little about it.

ILL Lawton Brooks

In one of the Foxfire books that were popular 20 years ago, there is a monologue from an old North Carolina mountain man named Lawton Brooks. Here is what he says:

I’ve seen lots of changes in my life. I’uz just wonderin’ if I could live as long again as I have, what kind of a world we’d be in. But I just know the world is different from what it used t’be. Back then, when people had more time, they thought lots more of each other than they do now. Yeah, they did, they thought more of people than they do now. They’s lots more people than they used to be. Now that’s got lots to do with it... They goin’ s’fast, that they ain’t got time to take up with you. They ain’t got time to take up with me. They goin’ so fast. An’ that’s what makes th’difference. Used to be all ever’body had was time. They had plenty of time....

Back then, they wasn’t no such thing as a car—you couldn’t hurry... Seems like now if you can’t go t’Atlanta an’ back in th’same day…you way behind. You ain’t got time t’fool with it. People livin’ s’fast you got t’keep up with it in order t’stay up with things... You can’t slow down like we used t’do. I can’t either.

I’ll tell y’what—people enjoyed life better then than they do now. Because ever’body thought s’much more of each other... If you got down sick, people’d come askin’ about your eating supply. If you didn’t have it, here’d come somebody with a shoulder of meat... somebody with a ham—throw it right down there on your table. See that you had somethin’ to eat on. An’ then expect no money for it. Now tell me now who’s gonna come...when you’re down an’ throw you a good country ham down on your table—without any money. Now you show me one. Not never expectin’ t’get a dime out of it... We done it because we loved th’people, an’ the people loved us. That was just a habit that we had.

They’s a lot of changes. They’s as much difference in people now as they is in day an’ night. People don’t care for people no more like they used to. Use t’be if anybody got sick in th’community, why people’d go see about em, not just pass’em by. If you lived in our community, even if you was seven or eight mile away, when we hear you’uz sick, we’d go see about you... Nowadays you can get sick an’ people ain’t gonna go see about you t’ask how y’are, let alone do anything for you. You’d freeze t’death ’cause they ain’t gonna get you no wood.

People loved people better in them days. I know so. People cared for each other more. Nowadays they’re livin’ too fast. They ain’t got time t’take time with you. That’s true. That’s as true as it can be... Believe me, we was happier then than we are now.

This monologue has spurred some thinking in my own mind.

I think…

2. We possess a superficial view of love that does not reveal its true depth.

What gets defined as love today ends up having more to do with “What can I get out of it?” and “What will you give me?”

When people enter into relationships, there is a self-centeredness that pervades.

Lawton Brooks gets at our real problem when he says that we have loss the ability to look out for others.

You know…Jesus is here.

We often forget that.

Every Sunday, He is our Unseen Guest.

And I believe, He is insisting that we love one another.