With Rev. Lonnie Dawson
This study will focus on the essential theme.
Had we gotten through to chapter 11, we would have discussed what was accomplished this analogy of Judaism and Christianity. The whole thing was to bring them to faith.
Faith unto righteousness with those who were faithful to live it out.
Chapter 12…we would have talked about Jesus being the example of suffering we can expect when we are striving to live out our own faith. While it is a way of joy it is a way of suffering.
Chapter 13:1-25
James 1:22
Be doers and not hearers only. “Righteous living is not what we say, but what we do.”
Philippians 3:12
Supreme marks of Christian conduct.
Living needs to come up to learning or we just wasted a lot of time.
Our main mission is that Christ be glorified.
We’ll focus on 13:1-8 tonight.
1. Let brotherly love continue. This comes from everywhere in the NT. I can commend this congregation for showing a real, distinct, unusual level of unity. This is what Christ prayed for…for them to be one. This one thing that can be very difficult for us. Christians are in the only army that shoots it’s wounded. We have to give a lot of attention to how we ought to love one another. That’s what draws us to say we repent and that we love one another.
Romans 12:9 “Let love be genuine” You can’t fake it. It is highly transparent. Keep it together as the Lord would have us do. Learn to go to one another and seek right relationships. Rejoice (v 14). You really care about people.
A donkey can’t kick and pull at the same time.
You can’t go around loving others when you have envy and jealousy.
All men will know you are my disciples by how you love on another.
IT should the characteristic mark of all followers of Jesus. Also, this exhortation is what hits the mark for the Hebrews. They were being exhorted to live it out.
Love isn’t just something that you just have as a feeling or a thought process. It’s actually doing something about it. It’s an action. It’s taking care of needs. It’s service.
Barb: reading currently that 40% of people are in some spiritual small group for spiritual growth, but they are on the whole not experiencing agape where people are laying their lives down for each other.
Our call as Christians is to lay our lives down for others. Lonnie: That’s the total foundation of our faith. Right through the Son and the Church. . . the purpose is to share his love.
Rich: it’s a radical commitment to stay with the other person.
2. Hospitality
A negative connotation: we sometimes fail to be as kind to one other as we are to outsiders. We come to times when we even are unkind to each others.
But I find this word hospitality throughout the church. We thrive on this. We need people to be kind to people. This is one of the tools of evangelism: kindness and hospitality.
You may be entertaining angels. You never know who you are meeting. We have a certain expectation of people we meet. Your perceptions can be so distorted. The Bible doesn’t teach sinners how to love you. If it did, they still wouldn’t know how because they don’t read the bible. We have the 1st responsibility to love them. That’s not always easy to love the unlovely. Learn how to love people who may be addicted.
This past Sunday, a young lady came and gave her testimony. “I’ve been waiting a long time to come to this church. I was in prison for 13 years. This church gave to my children every Christmas and I came to say thank you.” We handled this in a way of demonstrating love. And when we love people we will show hospitality.
Our duty and responsibility is to those who have need. It’s not to get the attitude that “they ought not to have done it.” What turns it around is someone loving them. Looking beyond themselves and seeing their needs.
We need to always see that if it wasn’t for the grace of God, we could be the woman or man of the street. We have no right to look down on anyone. God has placed the responsibility on the church to love others.
You never know who people are.
Sometime in our lives we’ve been down. We understand what it means to have a kind word.
#3. Service-helping, the prisoners & the mistreated.
#4. Purity in marriage. Love your wives. Respect your husband. To violate that covenant is the most grevious act that can take place. When you go there it is a life-time conviction. You never forget it and the longer you wrestle with it, the less significant it was. Why did I do that. . .an unlovely. The thing is that you know it and that’s where the pain is. You can’t hide from yourself and you can’t from the Lord.
#5 Contentment. Let our conversation be without covetousness.
We can want someone’s things to the point when it ruins our relationship. By being free of covetousness, envy, jealousy…and having God’s continuous presence and help…
#6 Remembering your leaders: it’s in order to give those whom God has called to receive great honor, demonstrating love and respect.
a. Those faithful to the Word
b. Those whose faith should be followed
c. Those who will be with God
#7 Remembering your Source of life $ power—Jesus Christ.
