(V) -SERMON ON THE MOUNT - AGAPE LOVE

Pastor Carolyn Sissom \ May 5th, 2010 (7288 views)

(V)- SERMON ON THE MOUNT – AGAPE LOVE

 

            Mother’s Day Sunday – May 9, 2010

 

(Matthew 5:43-44)

 

Preached by:  Pastor Carolyn Sissom

  

GIVING, TOLERANCE, IMPARTIALITY

  

Before I deliver the message today to honor our mothers, I would like to give a report to the church of our trip this past week to Washington D.C. for the National Day of Prayer.

  

At the invitation of Sara Ballenger and the Capitol Hill Prayer Group, we were invited to join their team at 9:00 a.m. in room 121 of the Canon Office Building for communion and prayer prior to the gathering in the Gallery  hosted by Shirley Dobson and Chaired by Franklin Graham.

  

Each time I go to D.C., I come back encouraged at the powerful Christian leadership resident at the national level of government.  If we listen to the media, we could be deceived into thinking that all levels of government are either liberal or moderate at best. 

  

I heard powerful and anointed speakers.  The Rev. Barry C. Black, Senate Chaplain, spoke with a powerful anointing.  Ricky Skaggs sang a song on Prayer.  During the song, a Spirit of Prayer fell on the whole assembly.  Franklin Graham’s message was clear and without compromise.  He boldly declared that he is a Christian and as a Christian it is his belief there is only one way for salvation and eternal life and that is through accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

  

After the meeting in the Gallery, we were escorted by Sara’s team to a caucus room adjacent to the gallery and there continued in prayer.  That afternoon we again gathered in Room 121 for worship by B. J. Harris.

  

Then at 5:00 p.m. we gathered with the Capital Region Pastors on the West Lawn of the Capitol for worship and prayer.  This, too, was amazing in beauty and power.  In the procession there were eight beautiful crowns proclaiming that Jesus Christ is King of all the Kingdoms of the earth.  On the program is written,   “We assemble to proclaim – His Majesty, Sovereignty, Worthiness, Goodness and Truthfulness.”  Terry MacAlmon led worship along with several other worship ensembles. 

  As Sandra and I were leaving, a young man stopped us and began to tell us his burden for the nation and his personal mission of placing three crosses in the back of his pick-up truck and attending events in the Capitol.  He commented that at the immigration demonstration, there were thousands on the Capitol lawn and at the National Day of Prayer there were a few hundred.  This reminds us that there is a remnant church in the United States that is totally committed to follow our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.     

This remnant church that we were honored to gather with are passionate believers and they are people like you and I who will not be moved.

  

Matthew 5:43-44: “You have heard that it has been said, you shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.  But I say to you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”

  

The word Love here means agape, divine love, the nature of God in 1 John 4: 7-8:  “Beloved, let us love one another for love is of God, and every one that loves is born of God and knows God.  He that loves not knows not God, for God is love”

  

To bless means to speak well of, to praise, to invoke blessing upon a person.

 

Curse means to pray against, to intensively wish evil upon a person.  Despitefully means to accuse, revile, abuse or insult.

  

In this principle we are to have nature of the Father and Son.  This LOVE nature is manifested through the Body of Christ manifested to us and through us. 1 John 3: 10-16: “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil; whosoever does not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loves not his brother.  For this is the message that you heard from the beginning that we should love one another,  Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother.  And why did he slay him?  Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous. Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hates you.  We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren.  He that loves not his brother abides in death.”

  

We have received His nature and by nature we are:

  

1. Giving – the principle of love is giving. 1 John 3:16:  “Hereby we perceive we the love of God, because he laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”  Love delights to give, to bless and to be a blessing.

 

1. Tolerant – This is “mother’s love”.  This love is manifested as mercy, compassion, and patience.  I watched this in action this weekend as Kelly and my grandchildren were here.  One moment she is bringing correction and the next one she is forgiving and offering forgiveness.  I saw this in action when my niece Lisa visited Sandra and me in D.C. with her boys.  One moment she was giving directives with correction and the next she was speaking words of acceptance and approval.  As they were exiting the hotel room, she turned around to Sandra and I and said, “Raising children is just like herding turtles.”  I was able to pass that Word of Wisdom on to Kelly yesterday.

  

However, acceptance in mother’s love is not always approval.  I took my grandchildren to see the movie, “The Diary of a Wimpy Kid”.  I only recommend this for boys in the sixth grade and parents of boys and I suppose it would be helpful to sisters of boys.  Families, who do not have boys, would be grossed out with this movie.  I suppose if you are married to a boy, you might also be able to relate.  At least no one spoke profanity or blasphemed the name of the Lord. 

  

The mother in the movie was a perfect example of a mother’s love of tolerance and acceptance, but not giving her approval.  She somehow managed to run a household with tolerance of a teenage boy (who did not behave like John Boy), a sixth grader, and a toddler.  The movie gave a whole new meaning to “herding turtles”.  

   

Eph. 4: 1-3:  Therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, I beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation (being a mother wherewith you are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

  

This tolerance of Mother’s Love is to be balanced with the firm respect of “father’s love.”  Therefore a man and a woman rightly related reveal the image (Nature=Love) of God.

  

3. Impartiality – We do not choose whom we Love.  Like the Lord, we are no respecter of persons.  Acts 10: 34-35: “Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:  but in every nation he that fears Him, and works righteousness, is accepted with Him.”

  

We have all heard or even felt that Mother loved our siblings more than us.  Could it be at the time we did not feel the Mother approval, we were accepted.  Perhaps our siblings had earned approval.  (Smile)

  

We like the mother in the movie, The Diary of a Wimpy Kid” are not biased or prejudiced.  The heart of the Mother is always accepting and loving even if she is not always approving. 

  

5: 45-48:  “That you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.  For if you love them which love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the same?  And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more than others? Do not even the publicans so” Be you therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”

  

Perfect = “teleios”.  This means complete, fit for a certain task, mature, a certain task, mature, a certain end attained through growth, to bring to termination, to fulfill; perfect in love.

  

This is the heart and soul of every mother to see her child grown in to maturity, being happy and complete in love, purpose and destiny walking with the Lord.   This principle is the heart and soul of the Sermon on the Mount, for in every one of these principles there is a reproduction of the nature of the King.  The very pulse of the Father’s purpose in Christ Jesus is to have many sons like their older brother. The simplicity of this purpose is in Genesis 1:16-27:  “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and  over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.  So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.”

  

1. Kind begets Kind:  Jesus is the express image of the Father Heb. 1:1-3: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke tin time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His son, whom He has appoint heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds.”  The Father is no respecter of persons.  Jesus is accepted and approved.  He had the mind of the Father.  What the Father is to His Firstborn Son, Jesus, Jesus is to us as His many brethren.

 

1. The very purpose of the Father is to conform us into the image of His son Jesus. (1I Cor. 3:18)  “Be we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”  In His high priestly prayer of John 17, the Lord stressed becoming One which will be brought about through this principle of reproduction.

 

1. There will be people who will imitate the Father and Son in Giving, Tolerance and Impartiality.  The Father and Son are merciful, are not prejudiced, but love all men even the evil and wicked. 

 

1. The attributes of God will be reproduced in the sons of God.  This principle of imitation stresses the example of the Father, for the Father is modeled by the children and is linked to the reputation of the Father.

 

1. We are to imitate the “hand (Eph. 4:11) that imitates Him.  We are not talking about parrots or “yes” men, but we are saying that the children of God are to follow the principles that are exampled by the Son of God.

  

We Thank you Lord for Godly mothers who are tolerant and accepting of their children.  We thank you for their self-lessness in never giving up on us.  We thank you Lord for placing this special agape love in the hearts of the woman and bringing the fullness of agape love to the home as the mother and father are rightly related in the Love of God.

  

Tonight The Rev. Jill Mitchell O'Brien will be ministering and sharing about her recent ministry trip to South Africa. 

  

Carolyn Sissom, Pastor

 

Eastgate Ministries, Inc.

 

www.eastgateministries.com

 

Scripture from K.J.V. Text from Sermon on the Mount by:  Kelly Varner.  Comments and conclusions are my own.

 

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