Luke 6:23-38 How to live…

The hymn is under worship at the end now

 24-26 Four warnings; (The rich, the full, those who laugh, the praised.)

²⁴ “But, the end that is waiting for the rich will be terrible. They have already rewarded themselves with more than enough, now. ²⁵If you are full now, watch out, for you will be hungry later. If you laugh now, your laughter will be wiped off your face later. ²⁶If all men speak highly of you, you are in real trouble. The men who lived before you that you try to copy, that you call your fathers, also praised the false prophets.

27-38 How to live

²⁷“I am speaking now to the wider audience; love your enemies and do good to those who hate you, ²⁸give your blessing to those who curse you, pray for those who are nasty. ²⁹Turn the other cheek, when they hit you. If someone steals your overcoat, offer them your jacket too. ³⁰Give away whatever anyone asks you for, and don’t ask for it back. ³¹Behave to others the same way you would want them to behave towards you. ³²If you only like people who like you, how are you any different from anyone else? Everyone loves to be with those who like them. ³³If you help those who have helped you, what have you done that is so great. Everyone does that much. ³⁴If you help people who you want to use for your own gain, what have you done that is so good. You were just feathering your own nest, like everyone else.

³⁵Instead, go out of your way to do good to your enemy, not hoping to get anything back and you will be rewarded greatly and be one of God’s children as He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. ³⁶Be merciful as your Father is merciful. ³⁷Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. ³⁸ Give and it will be given to you; generously, and then added to, in fact much more than you will ever need will be given to you. As you have given to others, it will be given to you”.

39– 49 Picture language

• a). blindness

³⁹And He used picture language, saying, 

“Can the blind show the way to other blind people? If they tried to, don’t you think that they would both fall over? ⁴⁰The student is not above the teacher, but you will be like your teacher when you are perfect. ⁴¹How can you point out the spec of dust in your brother’s eye but do not see the eye disease causing blindness in your own eye? ⁴²How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take a piece of dust out of your eye’, when you cannot even see out of your own eye? Those of you who are not the real thing and are not what they pretend to be, first remove the blindness in your own eye, so that you can see clearly to remove the spec of dust in your brother’s eye. 

• b). Fruitfulness

⁴³A good tree does not have bad fruit, nor does a bad tree have good fruit. ⁴⁴You know what a tree is like by the fruit it has. For example, you don’t go to a thorn bush to find figs, or to a bramble bush to pick grapes. ⁴⁵A good man, out of the goodness that is in him, does good things, and an evil man shows the evil that is in his heart by doing evil. Whatever a man’s heart is filled with, comes out of his mouth when he speaks.

• c). Foundations 

⁴⁶How can you call me ‘Lord’ when you do not do what I ask you to do? ⁴⁷The person who comes to me to listen in order to obey, I can tell you now ⁴⁸is like a house builder, who dug down deep to find the rock first; and then when the floods came and the storm beat against the house, it made no difference to the strength of the building as it was built on a solid rock. ⁴⁹However, the man who hears but doesn’t obey is like a man who builds his house just on top of the earth and this time when the water rose up, it washed it away the house and the house simply fell down”.

—-Summary

⁴⁹However, the man who hears but doesn’t obey is like a man who builds his house just on top of the earth and this time when the water rose up, it washed it away the house and the house simply fell down”.

• Today’s Verse… Who is Jesus?

⁴⁶How can you call me ‘Lord’ when you do not do what I ask you to do?

• Today’s Challenge

⁴⁹However, the man who hears but doesn’t obey is like a man who builds his house just on top of the earth and this time when the water rose up, it washed it away the house and the house simply fell down”.

Prayer, Praise and Worship

“… He went up on a mountainside by himself to pray.” Matthew 14:23. 

Jesus taught His disciples what we call ‘The Lord’s Prayer’; (Luke 11).

Listen here to Albert Malotte’s ‘The Lord’s Prayer’. 

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, 

thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 

Give us this day our daily bread. 

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. 

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever;- Amen.

Prayer suggestions;-

1. The world. (ie ‘For those in authority.’)
2. The ‘suffering church.’ https://barnabasfund.org/nz/pray/daily-prayer/#previous-dates
3. Your own situation. (Suggest ‘needs’ rather than ‘wants’.)

Pray along with this hymn… We believe in God the Father… (Graham Kendrick).