Sermons on Love
Last week, we were studying from the first half of Galatians 5. We learned that we have freedom in Christ, but that there’s a paradox in that the freedom we have in Christ is the freedom to do what is right. The problem is that we often choose to do what we want rather than…
In the book of Galatians, Paul is addressing the issue of false teachers called Judaizers. In this text, Paul is encouraging them to stand against these false teachers because they were not called out of slavery to sin to become slaves to legalism. Rather, they were granted freedom in Christ to be able to love…
As we continue in our study through the One Another commands of the New Testament, we will focus our attention on the positive command to “stir one another up to love and good works” in the book of Hebrews. This idea of “stirring one another up” is a positive command, but in Ephesians 6 we…
We are studying from Ephesians 4 and we want to focus specifically on the one another statement here in this chapter. In order to do this, we have to spend time looking at everything else in the chapter. We must always understand a text within its context, because a text cannot mean what it never…
Brennan Manning pointed out, “One of the most shocking contradictions in the American church is the intense dislike many disciples of Jesus have for themselves. They are more displeased with their own shortcomings than they would ever dream of being with someone else’s. They are sick of their own mediocrity and disgusted by their inconsistency.”…
As we embark on this journey through the “One Another” Commands in the New Testament, I want us to not lose sight of the prevailing goal of this series —we want to Unite People to One Another. In order to make that happen, we must learn how to get along with one another. The first…
So far in this series on Connecting People to God, we have talked about showing people the light of Jesus Christ and pointing them to the truth of the gospel. As we continue this series, we’re going to focus on teaching people about the love that God has for each and every one of them.…
God said that this was the most important thing in the entire Bible—love Him with all our heart, soul and might. Learning to love God teaches us how to love others! The problem is that we have a skewed understanding of what it means to love one another. The three Hebrew words used in Deuteronomy 6:5 (translated heart, soul, and might) provide a clear biblical definition of love: Love is an act of the will accompanied by emotion that leads to action on behalf of its object.
“People hear your words of truth, but the feel your words of kindness… I am defining kindness as being a loving and respectful person” (Before You Hit Send page 63). Our first concern in communicating with others is to be truthful; but when you communicate truth without love and respect, you are not communicating at all because people will not listen to someone who is disrespectful and rude. In this message, we will look at several motivations for communicating with kindness.
Tolerance has become a buzz word in the twenty-first century. In a study prepared by Probe Ministries International, Scott Scruggs wrote, “In response to a survey concerning beliefs about God, a sixteen-year-old girl replied, ‘In my mind, the only people who are wrong are the people who will not accept different beliefs as being, well, acceptable.’ This girl believed that the only real sin is to not accept or tolerate other people’s beliefs.” If tolerance is respecting someone’s beliefs, does that mean that we are being intolerant if we attempt to convince someone to be a Christian? Does the Bible teach us to be intolerant?