This video addresses the issue of where a Christian needs to focus their attention and attitude. Both Jesus and Paul gives us excellent advice on how to become a mature Christian. It has become too easy to get distracted by the evil that exists in the world today. However, we must not become absorbed into the troubles of the world, but become lights for the world by showing it the goodness of God through our own behavior and character
The Power of Positive Thinking?
What Is Faith?
What Is Truth?
James: Faith and Works
James: On The Religious Life
James: Trials of Faith
The Meaning of Baptism
In this audio sermon/lesson I explain the true meaning of baptism as given by Paul in his description found in Romans 6:1-12. Please leave comments so that I can continue to provide quality audio and video material on subjects that are of interest to you.
Beyond Faith
Most of what we hear today from pastors is about having faith in God or in Christ. Even Luther and other reformers spoke almost exclusively about faith and how this was our primary means of salvation. We haven’t come much further from this message although it might surprise you that both Paul and Christ did not consider faith to be the ultimate goal.
For years Paul’s statement in I Corinthians 13 troubled me as to how faith was not the greatest way to perfection. But even Jesus gave us a clue that we needed to look deeper into the gospels and the letters to find the perfect way beyond faith.
According to Paul it was love and not faith that was the greatest thing to seek after (1Cor 13:13) and Jesus taught that the greatest commandment was not to have faith in God, but to love God with all of our heart, soul and mind, which was recorded in all three synoptic gospels (Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27).
Why is this distinction so important? I have seen over the years that many believers struggle with their faith. “Faith alone” has created many ethical conflicts in people’s lives as well as in my own. I have also seen people who appeared to have great faith but were missing something that prevented them from growing spiritually and becoming more Christlike. What was missing in them was love, but this is not some ordinary love. It was divine love (Agape Love). It is the love that binds God to man and man to God. This is why 1 Corinthians 13:13 tells us that love is greater than both faith and hope. Love is what actually transforms us into Christ. This is not to say that faith and hope are not necessary, but as Jesus teaches in Matthew 7:21, one might have great faith and still not make it into his kingdom. How is this possible?
Faith enables us to do mighty works, i.e., healing, miracles, conversions, etc., but these are not our works, they are the works of God. It is love that transforms us by allowing us to take God’s love and give it to others. It is this process that God’s love flows through us like a mighty river, transforming us into his sons and daughters.
How then do we transcend faith and reach divine love? I do not believe that we can simply create love for God. The source of love is not actually in the lover, but in the beloved. It is the quality of the Beloved that draws us towards him. Have you not heard the scripture that says, “We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19)? God loved us by giving us the life of his only Son. This is a two-pronged love; for the Father gives us his Son, but the Son gives us himself. The two are inseparable.
But it is not just this act of God’s selflessness that draws us to love God. It is the very character of Jesus that completes our love for God. It makes it possible to love God in the fullness of his personal character as seen in Christ. But where do we see this character? In the Sermon on the Mount. It is here that we get insight into the very character of God in Christ. This is the Christ that we must love and we do this by loving everything that he teaches. If we exclude these teachings, we diminish the very source of our love.
So, why is love greater than faith? Because love transcends faith. Faith cannot take us where love can because love fulfills faith.
Matthew 22:36-40 (KJV)
36Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38This is the first and great commandment.
39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Read this carefully and notice the order of love. We must first love God before we love our neighbor. Why? Because we cannot love our neighbor with God’s love unless we are first filled with His love. It is a misunderstanding to think that we love God by loving our neighbor. Although many today believe that self-love is necessary for divine love, this is not the message of Christ.
So, the whole teaching of Jesus is that you must have faith in order to enable you to come to a fullness of love for both God and men. For you cannot have divine love without first having divine faith and you cannot fulfill divine faith unless you also have divine love.
Summary of the Sermon on the Mount
After reading the Sermon on the Mount you might be thinking to yourself that no one can achieve the perfection that Jesus teaches here, but if you are thinking this, you are missing the point. We are not here to judge ourselves or others as to whether we are perfect or not, but whether we really love the one who is perfect. Paul understood exactly what Jesus was teaching and reflected it in his writings to the Philippians:
Philippians 3:12-14 (KJV)
12Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
13Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
14I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
We are called to strive toward the upward call of God in Christ. The truth remains that we cannot accomplish the goals set for us in this sermon by our own willpower nor achieve it by the use of self-help books. But such weakness is not an excuse for our failure. Realizing this brings us much closer to understanding Jesus’ teaching. What Jesus expects from us is to love the character that he just described in his sermon. This character is, in fact, a profile of Jesus himself. If we say that we believe in Jesus, this is the Jesus that we must believe in. This is the true Jesus who lifts us out of sin by his own character through love.
The Sermon on the Mount cannot and should not be reduced to one idea or simplified into a cliché. It is complex and speaks to us differently at different levels at different times in our lives. Today, many have taken Jesus’ teachings and transformed them into a behavioral psychology in order to satisfy man’s psychological needs. We see this frequently when pastors take the words of Jesus and conform them into motivational techniques in order to publish best-selling Christian self-help books. These are mere imitations of the true teachings of Jesus. We must understand that what started out as divine teaching has now been transformed, conformed, and finally adapted to the needs of humanity as a technique to improve the quality of life and not the divine teaching of God that brings eternal salvation.
PHILOSOPHY & CHRISTIANITY 