Sermon for the week of July 17, 2016 by Pastor Steve Hopkins:
Audio of sermon:
Scripture: “But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: ‘Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?’ Jesus replied, ‘You must love the lord your God with all your heard, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are base on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:34-40, NLT)
- Love is the Fulfillment of the Law
- “And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:5, NLT)
- Ten Commandments (1-4)
- “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 19:18, NLT)
- “Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” (Romans 13:10, NIV)
- “Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.” (Romans 10:4, NIV)
- Jesus is the Fulfillment of Love
- “So now that I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove the world that you are my disciples.” (John 13:34-35, NLT)
- “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” (Matthew 5:17, NRSV)
- “We love because God first loved us.” ( 1 John 4:19, CEB)
- “So the Word becomes human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing grace and truth. And we have seen his glory of the Father’s one and only Son.” (John 1:14, NLT)
- God’s Holy Love is over all
- “If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, ‘Jump,’ and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake the be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3, MSG)
- “If we are not renewed in the spirit of our mind by ‘the love of God shed abroad in our heard by the Holy Ghost given unto us,’ we cannot enter into life eternal.” (John Wesley, On Love – Sermon 139)
- Our Response
- Do I usually try to obey the letter of the law or the spirit of the law?
- What is my motivation for doing mission? Coming to church? Is it an obligation to rules or a deep, abiding love?
- Where in my life do I have room for growth of both God and neighbor?
- Remember, no matter your answer to these questions, God radically loves you!