AUSTRALIAN BIBLE CHURCH January 12, 2014
A Presbyterian Church following the Bible without Qualification
and the Lord Jesus Christ without Compromise by Faith
LIVE IN THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
Luke 6 with Romans 6
I THE LORE OF LOVE
i) Social and Emotional Issues
Luke 6:20-23
Find travails in your labours and smartings, as He did in your ransom if you are His, and your reward is in the results of His presence, then! Overcome trials in the negative responses and hatred you receive, for it is pure norm for fidelity to the faith in a corrupt world. Battles are for victory, not blisters.
ii) Turning the World Upside Down
Luke 6:24-36
Take the rich, the full and the most acknowledged. What do you say ? 'Oh you poor thing, burdened so with riches, and so well accepted. I DO sympathise! How atrocious to be bowed to, kowtowed to, honoured by what is so dishonourable in itself! Buck up! Live as you would without it, and use it for the kingdom with wisdom; but never rest in it. After all, these things are like drugs: they tend to molest reality, and attract death.
There is a spirit that is different in all these things: lend and ask not again! is followed by 6:31: "Just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise." It is the spirit of the thing which is chiefly in view. I would sometimes like people to remind me if I failed to return something, sparing me embarrassment later: provided it was done in a friendly spirit. It is the grasping possessiveness which is wrong, and well understood occasion for goodwill and work is not the point here. In other words, don't SUMMON for return, but have a kindly spirit of co-operative approach.
BUT ...
Does the old song, 'It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it!' speak the whole truth ? or is it just a necessary reminder that the atmosphere of grace, and kindness and quality of concern, a spirit of thoughtfulness and consideration is a key element in human relationships! It is the latter: a kindly murder (based on some medical concoction) is not really so acceptable! Taking life is not so good when you cannot give it back : is it not stealing ?
2 THE CORE OF LAW
Romans 3:31; 6
The SPIRIT of your actions is vital; but their substance, then, is not unimportant. Is it the case that teaching children about aboriginal history in science makes it right ? Not according to changing thought now! THEY NEED to know with vigour and address, not wander in and out of all sorts of things in all sorts of places, in order to become mediocre at best, inadequate at worst, as recent educational results, comparing different nations in different subjects strongly suggest.
There is work to be done, diligence to be shown, direction to be maintained. In fact, there is much more than that: there is truth to be sought. How on this earth you can expect to educate children in biology and related spin-off subjects, by refusing to tell them the empirical facts, and fastening like leeches onto barren, naturalistic ideas, things that are never visible in operation, enemies of the empirical, contrary to scientific law, in a possessive, convulsive and clutching attack on their lives and souls, is a problem indeed! It is a common practice in educational institutions, but is uncommonly detestable.
How can you feel happy whether you starve their stomachs; or steal their souls with adventitious flirtations with fancy, that assault young minds with fallacy, not in order to correct it by due scientific method, but to steal the thunder of never successfully contradicted divine truth (cf. The gods of naturalism have no go!), which the Bible has faithfully publicised for millenia, while different evolutionists castigate each other for follies of their own
Liberty and truth are friends, not enemies! You can't educate by devious demand.
So it is with morals. Having a gracious spirit does not delete God, or cancel His principles, ways or indexes for our behaviour with the equipment which He made. Sodom sank because morally, before God, it stank. Perversion in I Timothy 1, is linked with murder as to a type listed!
Justice is not a gift for the fortunate, but like the soil, something you walk on, being devastated if the chasms become earthquakes. With truth, justice needs to be held in high esteem, as you need to hold in high esteem the God who made YOU just so, and what is needed, for the same. There is what belongs and what does not; and there is one's own belonging to God above all that. Sure, you can hate Him, and He has allowed for that; but hatred of love is unhallowed. The love of God delights in gifts, their use and maintenance, the spirit in which they are used, fidelity and reliability, and in the knowledge of Himself (Jeremiah 9:23-24).
Paul is led to put it masterfully in Romans 6: "What shall we say then ? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound ? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it!" Are you forgiven sin, through Christ when you receive His paid up ransom, so that then you can act as if He did not really need to die anyway, for you do not really sin anyway! That is not just simply like saying that one and one are one, but that one and one are nothing, and adding, 'There is nothing to it!' ... a mere mouthing of monstrosities.
3 THE CHILDREN OF THE MOST HIGH Luke 6:35ff.
Do not make personal psychic judgments:
Illustrate Fruitfulness by what You Do
Rule out non-Rock as a FoundationGrace with truth then! And what are some of the ways of this Kingdom of Heaven, which has none to compare, because the heart of God is in it, with His wisdom and eternal provisions ?
First, not survival but revival is desired. It is never a matter of keeping yourself with lies and fraud and pretence and becoming a vulgarian, for example, because your being alive in this world surpasses all else. Even in a cursed creation (as in Romans 5), parents routinely (if not always) do far better than that, often sacrificially, and they are an important component, without which various creations would simply die out! Imitating a curse as a condition of your life is like imagining that caning is the way to live, since it was used in your old school! It is simply a punishment and correction for follies which can possess the thoughtless, often later highly valued by those who 'suffer' it.
In fact, said Christ in Luke 6:35, "Love your enemies ... reward evil with good, and your reward will be great, and you will be children of the most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. THEREFORE", He continues, "be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful."
THIS is the way with God (cf. Amos 2:14-16, II Samuel 26:9-11, Luke 7:42, Matthew 18:28-33): not might but mercy is sought; might is present, but pity is preferred. It is to be sought like diamonds, and it gleams with light, like them.
One application is this: Being merciful, loving your enemies, this is not a matter of negligence, when you COULD squeeze life from them, but a matter of the very nature of God the Creator, of the spirit of working with Him; and nothing less will work, for what works in the end, is He who made us that way in the beginning; and what compares with that amid the lying, crawling, boastful, deceptive and self-assertive, self-preening or desolate ways of men!
SO do not indulge in the psychic slating and sledging of your opponents in a combination of malice, hate and self-exaltation! (Luke 6:37-42). JUDGE NOT. That CANNOT mean, 'Have no morals,' since these very items are emphatically emphasised: if you see a murder, call it such. It DOES mean that you make sure you are not talking in a spirit of envy or idle malice of heart. Indeed, ignoring your own deficiencies can ruin your judgment of others, like a plank swinging along with your eye, knocking out your victims: by your own dynamic distortions! Likewise (Luke 6:24ff., cf. Matthew 7:3-5), do not shrivel when the full blast of hatred, ill-will and contempt is poured out on you, for Christ's sake. They KILLED Him!
What do we say then ? You BREATHE in this world; but LIVE in the Kingdom of Heaven. There is nowhere like it, and it is His, and He is yours if your trust is in Him, and His saving work! (Romans 3:23-27, Titus 2-3, Romans 10:9). Live then not for survival, rats do that! Live with the endurance of the best in mind, not survival of the fittest (for what!), as you quest to savour and follow the Lord of life. Study to be fit for the Day; do not live in the devil's pay, and he often uses the post to formalise subjective agreements! Pre-occupation with the ways of a curse is scarcely a way for creative living; but HE is - John 10:10. Follow Him then, and act as one for whom heaven is home (Philippians 1:23, I Thessalonians 5:24). And if you are His, it awaits you! (John 14:1-3, 10:27-28).