The message today is A Beautiful Resistance – Fasting.
This Sunday, March 27, is the Second Sunday of Lent.
This week’s sermon will be: Knowing the Enemies of Your
Soul – The Flesh pt. 2
This week’s readings are:
Luke
15:1-3,11-32 (This link includes all of Luke 15)
Message:
Devotion to Charity
What do you think of when you hear the word charity?
- Helping the poor and needy.
- Giving money.
- Doing good for others.
1 Corinthians 13:13 – KJV – And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
ESV – So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Devotion to Charity flows from passages like 1 Corinthians 13 and Jesus’ words in Mark 12 when we are called to, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
This is a specific kind of love that is spoken of in these passages: agapé.
- Desiring God’s blessings and His good and gracious will for others.
Devotion to Charity might look like:
- Donating to help refugees.
- Feeding the hungry in your community.
- Advocating for justice for people who are mistreated.
- Helping a neighbor with a need.
- Much more.
- Anything you are committed to do because of your love for your neighbor can be a sign of Devotion to Charity.
There is a danger
- Confuse earthly blessings and good with God’s blessings and good.
- They can overlap.
- Christian Charity leads to Christ.
- This is sometimes forgotten. (Resounding gong and clanging cymbal.)
- From the world’s view this might be our most important contribution to the world.
There is also opportunity
- When we love our neighbor, we will want them to know Christ and his forgiveness. The relationships we form as we love our neighbors can lead to natural moments to share the hope we have in Jesus.
- The reason this can happen is we are displaying not only our own love, but the love of Christ by our actions.
o
Recognize a person’s value beyond what they have
to offer.
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God cares about the physical needs of his
people, including issues of justice.
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Psalm 68:5
- We reflect what we have received – 1 John 4:19
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