WHERE THE RUBBER MEETS THE ROAD: LOVE
TEXT: Luke 10:25-37; I Cor. 13
INTRODUCTION:
1. Read Poem, "Just Next To Me."
Just Next To Me
Our preacher sure did pour it on,
But he just let me be.
He took the starch all out of them
That sat just next to me.
You should have heard the things he said;
It was true as it could be;
He burned the seat from under them
That sat just next to me.
He hit the nail square on the head;
With him, I did agree.
He trimmed the dead limb off them
That sat just next to me.
And when I got to thinking
I felt sneaking as could be;
And when I turned to look at him
His guns were turned on me.
2. One of the significant weaknesses of much of our preaching is that much of it lacks application. No, I’m not saying preachers are failing to point out the application of the lesson. I’m not even suggesting that people are failing to apply the sermons to others. I mean that we often fail to make practicle application of what we have learned to our own lives.
3. We have no problem applying it to others. It self-application that becomes problematic.
4. Mark Twain once comented that it wasn’t the parts of the Bible that he didn’t understand that caused him trouble. It was the parts that he understood.
a. This problem with self-application shouldn’t surprise us because Jesus dealt with the same problem in the conclusion of the sermon on the mount.
Matthew 7:26-27 "Now everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall."
4. Occasionally, we preachers have created the problem by a tendency to dwell in the ether. We are going to do our best to stay out of the ether and get down to where the rubber meets the road.
5. THE MOST IMPORTANT SUBJECT EVER PREACHED was the Cross of Christ, But Today, we are going to discuss THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION EVER ASKED, under the title "Where the Rubber Meets The Road."
DISCUSSION:
I. An exposition of the text. Luke 10:25-37
A. Luke 10:25 answers the greatest question ever asked.
Luke 10:25 And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"
1. Matthew 16:26 ""For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?"
B. Since the man’s question was insincere, Jesus turned the question on him.
Luke 10:26 He said to him, "What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?"
1. He was a lawyer who should have known the answer without asking.
C. The answer to the most important question ever asked.
Luke 10:27 So he answered and said, "’You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ’your neighbor as yourself.’"
1. Heart =
1b) denotes the center of all physical and spiritual life
2a) the vigour and sense of physical life
2b) the center and seat of spiritual life
2b1) the soul or mind, as it is the fountain and seat of the thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes, endeavors
2b2) of the understanding, the faculty and seat of the intelligence
2b3) of the will and character
2b4) of the soul so far as it is affected and stirred in a bad way or good, or of the soul as the seat of the sensibilities, affections, emotions, desires, appetites, passions
D. Jesus’ answer to this question must appear odd to modern man - DO THIS not FEEL THIS.
E. Discuss the words translated love.
1. EROS
2. STORGE
3. PHILEO
4. AGAPE = ’s Preference for or supreme concern for the welfare of another.
F. The Bible never commands PHILEO but it does command AGAPE.
G. AGAPE is something you will to do, while all other forms of love are reciprocal emotions.
H. When the lawyer tries to avoid the application, Jesus tells him, "where the rubber meets the road" with the parable of the GOOD SAMARITAN
I. Expose the text and note we are never told what the Samaritan felt, just what he did.
J. EXTREMES
1. Doctrine only or love Only (devined as a warm feeling about Jesus).
1 John 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments.
K. Many are waiting for a chance to be an A.M. Burton.
L. Man in Denton Texas who struck oil.
M. Princeton Seminarians who stepped over a dying man to preach about the Good Samaritan.
II. Let’s get down to the application, to where the rubber meets the road.
A. Our husbands and wives.
1. I Cor. 13 toward your mate.
2. Describe the scene on the way to church.
3. Brenda and the blender.
B. Your children.
1. Deut. 6:6-7 "And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart; you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.
2. Heb. 12:5-12.
C. Our fellow Christians
1 Thessalonians 4:9-10 But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; 10 and indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more;
1 Peter 1:22 "Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart,"
1 John 3:11-12 "For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous."
1 John 4:7-8 "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love."
1 John 4:11-12 "Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us."
2 John 1:5 "And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning: that we love one another.
D. Have you ever wondered why John wrote so much about loving one another? The church he is writing to is the Ephesian church (Rev. 2:1-7).
E. The Ephesian church was good at hateing but not very good at loving.
F. Our fellow man.
1. When no one sees.
2. Peter in Jno. 21:15 ff.
3. Acts 2 & 3.
4. Read the words to the song You never mentioned him to me.
