Automatically Generated Transcript

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We've been travelling through the Beatitudes and are at the final of six Reverent places in Jesus talking to how his teachings are different from the Old Covenant teaching – in particular the exposition of that that the travelling spenders, Pharisees and those who represented the leadership of Judaism had been teaching the people. He contrasted his teaching with theirs. And in this final sixth place which finishes up with the verse about the fact that He wants us to be perfect, like the heavenly Father is perfect. Now, this morning I've got two purposes in mind and one is to bring out what Jesus meant here.

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When He says, you've heard that it was said you should love your neighbor and hate your enemy, that's the teaching of the rabbis. But I say to you love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your Father, who is heaven." And the idea of being the Son of the Father, or of being like God the Father, is what Jesus is saying to us all in terms of how we live out our Christian lives. The interesting thing that we're discovering is that's where Jesus speaks here about love your enemies and a bit further down he uses the words in verse 46, 11 If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same. He is speaking about a general human phenomenon

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of people who socialize in groups developing a natural love within that group. 12 It is something that non-Christian people do just as we do also. is something that happens within families. But there is one thing that you need to know about the culture of the Jewish people that really is informative of how to understand what Jesus is getting at. And that was the antipathy, the anger the angst, the difference between how they saw their fellow Jews as brothers and how they saw everybody else as someone to hate and They often call them derogatory terms, and they call them dogs or pigs, or something that showed the disgust that was in their minds, and the lack of fellowship that it was once you didn't have Jewish brothers. And Jesus here is sing about their teaching.

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Now as I mentioned previously, he wasn't contradicting the Old Testament. Jesus was sticking up for it's truth, never to be undone but he was teaching something at a deeper level, and the deeper level is that we're to aim not just at the letter of the law but we're to aim at being more like God. And so he uses the word that really is about God's love mostly, a love that we can have yes but love is called agapè or gapè depending on how you think you pronounce the old languages. Agape, or agape, love is love which comes from God, for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. And it's a love, in fact, that really only God is able of himself to have. And this love he contrasts to the love which just loves your brothers.

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The phenomenon of having brotherly love is none the less taught in the Bible as a normal thing to have brotherly love. In fact, many of you will have heard previously that there are five or there are four or five words for love. I'm going to introduce you to an extra one if you know Agape, Filios and some of the others. But there's an extra one that most people don't know. Sometimes we can count them as six. But the thing about these words for love that Agape is the only one, that you need God to do.

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naturally with human nature. But what the scriptures teach is that there's a connection between how you even should have brotherly love. And here Jesus is commenting on how the love of God should come down to how we have the normal human love as well. I'll get on to that. I've got three biblical passages to take you through. This is the first one where he has this stark contrast and finishes up were pointing out that the end result of you following his teaching will be that you'll become like the Father, and also that the aim as we've gone over in previous Sunday morning's, the aim is that he wants you to be developed to be personal, personally developed. He wants you to become perfect, and the word for perfect was Teleos which means having arrived at the telescoped end, having arrived at the direction that God wants for our sanctification

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to achieve. And so when that happens, we are going to be able to love our enemies, and we're going to be able to pray for those who persecute us, which is very different from normal brotherly love. Now, on these different messages in the mornings, Sunday mornings, been actually chasing a number of goals, some of which I have been telling you, and some I haven't and now it's time for me to give you a disclosure and the disclosure is. When it comes to interpreting scripture, which is, what we're doing here in scriptures in Morning Services, when you get to exposet the bible, one other thing is that you do come across spots in the scriptures where you're not sure exactly what is meant. And so So people have different interpretations that often they bring with them and there can be quite a lot of different understandings.

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You'll see it also illustrated if you've got a paraphrase instead of a literal translation and the paraphrase often achieves a lot more easier English to understand, but sometimes by an approximation of what the original language said. And so paraphrastic translations can lead us to a different understanding and you wonder how come the different Bible translations seem to be saying different things. Now, this has helped out. When you understand a Scriptural principle, and this is now ... I'm disclosing what has been a bit of a task of mine, to illustrate for you, the one way that you can learn to interpret the Scripture, and know that you've got it accurately, is that you let Scripture interpret Scripture?' it's an adage, it's a saying that you let the Bible

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interpret the Bible itself. How you do that is that you bring other passages to bear on the one that you're looking at. And I've been doing that on the Sunday mornings. Remember that we had the story that had to do with the name Nathanael, and how Jesus strangely said about Nathanael when he he was seen by him, he said, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile. 2 And I told you how I'd scratched my head for many years not knowing why Jesus called Nathaniel an Israelite, because he wasn't sneaky. Having no guile is talking about being straightforward and transparent and being someone who says what he means, what you mean. And so here we have Nathaniel called an Israelite who has no guile.

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Now, the answer to that, the understanding of that, is if you go back to the Old Testament – and so we had a Sunday morning where we laboured on this – and see that Jacob, the original fellow on to discussion, his name meant deceiver. It meant trickster. Someone who walked it got to the front of the – of the row when he didn't deserve to be there. Top why he divided them all. 17 Jacob has an awful lot of problems in his life, and God has to discipline him, even though this was the longing time.

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18 Yet God offered to work on people in the time the Old Testament single-minded was in the world, to get them to have character change. KA he got what is the equivalent in the New Testament to getting sanctified. He got that his character was changed and then he had his name changed from Jacob to Israel. And the name Israel really means prince with God, someone that is bestowed from God what he then has. He doesn't have to trick anybody to get it.

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And that's the meaning of Jesus when he sees Nathaniel and says, behold an Israelite in whom there is no guile and uses him as some of us an example of how we are meant to be if God gets a chance to work on you. Has God been working on you? Have you had surprise things happen? Was there suddenly a moment when things went wrong and your carb broke down? Oh, they happened to me yesterday. I went to the graduation service from the college and my car kept quitting on me and the only way I can get it to start again is to pull over, let it cool down, start the motor, and a course that ran me late. But I got to the meeting in the end and as soon as it was over I raced outside to see if my car would start again, because sometimes the batteries renew themselves. And anyway it did and I got home. Now sometimes

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things go wrong. It stopped me being on the platform. I was rather glad actually, and And maybe there'll be some other spin-off of my being late. But you know, God can be in the things that go wrong just as much as he can be in the things that go right. And that was the lesson of Nathaniel, being having a name, that Jacob had to go through a lot of problems to get. And, so that was how we brought to the teaching of Jesus, what was the illustration from Nathaniel's name. And then another morning we had the question that took us back to the story of- I think it was an evening- story of Solomon Gamora, and the judgment of God, and all the different

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aspects that lay behind the rescue of the family of Lot. He didn't deserve being rescued, in my opinion. He was a bit of a person that changed colors, depending on the group he was with. But he still tried his best to live out the some of the ideas he had of being someone who believed in God, but anyway, we saw how Abraham's prayers for him with those involved in being the context of God sending the angels to rescue Lot. And we can learn an awful lot about when God brings people to Christ and what He does in our lives when we understand the broader context that sometimes there are folk who are praying for us. And it colored the whole of the understanding of where we brought that Solomon- specialists story to.

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Then, that was an evening and another occasion we've been doing things, and I've been bringing to the passage we look at, especially in Matthew when we've had the six little snippets of behaviors, where Jesus is showing how he wants us to be perfect. Of course, he's talking about what happens in our sanctification. Not only are you saved in the sense when you come to Jesus by being forgiven, not only are you saved by having what we call regeneration, where God makes you new, you're born again. Regeneration is just the theological language for being born again. Regeneration not only is that you got in the door and you're going to go to heaven because you are forgiven because the forgiveness is something that's total and it's you're not ever going to be unforgiven when you've come to Christ but you can see that salvation continues through the next step of salvation where the Bible

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says work out your own salvation and fear and trembling but it's not talking about going to university and trying to understand it all. That's what I was taught when my first with the university by some Christian people that says you got it would get intellectual. But it's talking about, let the salvation that's begun in you continue to work in you, and that's your sanctification. This is the will of God – even your holiness – or the word can be translated, sanctification. Hagiasmos is the Greek word for holiness or sanctification and God's purpose for you is a bigger purpose than just whether or not you end up living in this place or going to that job or doing that bigger than those things that we normally look at to be the will of God. This is a will of God the 1st Thessalonians says, even your sanctification. And that's what Jesus was

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working on in his Beatitudes. Talking about the fact that the purpose that he's upgrading the ask as to what you are being called on by God to be what he wants you to be is higher what the Pharisees said because He doesn't just want you to fulfill the letter of the law, He wants you to be like the Father. And each of the six places we've gone through and we've come to the last one is one where He wants us, like the Father, to have love that changes everything. Now I told you that there are four or five words for love. Let's do a little bit an experiment and see how many of these should I hold my book in case I forget. Probably I should have, but I'm going to come and ask, give me one of the Greek words for love. Ah, well, you have agape.

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He's jumped in, the one that we were all hoping no, and it's agape – agape right? It's hard to know how to pronounce it, it's a dead language. You know, I mean the way it was back then, it's a live language in Greece Um Agape, I wonder whether you know another of the words of love Eros Eros ok now Eros is a word that means a different type of love, but it is love Tell me what does Eros mean? I Don't know

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Alright, we'll go down the road. That's okay. We'll get one of these Where will I go? Big little sisters pointing to a bigger sister. Well I'll give you a clue. I'll give you a clue. Who, ah, this is where all the fount of knowledge comes from in that family. Yes? Is it romantic? Yes, it's a part of romance. It's actually, um, sexual love or feelings love.

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It's broader than just a kiss on the cheek, but it is the idea of attraction between people – eros. And so we have erotic is a word that comes from it. Okay. Well we've got so far agape and eros, where should I look for another one? I'll get one out of him. Filia. Filia. Thank you, he even got the next one on the list. Filia.

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And filia is a unusual word because there's a lot of words that we're probably used to, but you didn't realise why it meant what it meant – philharmonic orchestra. Now the philia is a word for love. And harmony will come to the word for music. So the love of music, and particularly orchestra produced, gives us the word philharmonic Put your hand up if you knew Philharmonic, where it came from, put your hand up. One man does, he's been to college, that's why. So we've got so far Eros, Agape, Eros, Philia. And philia is a word that usually means like family love, brotherly love. Brotherly love is given a name to a town in America that was very important in

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the constitution of the United States let's see who we should ask where's someone that is a person that's a little person it's a teacher welcome back by the way in your holidays hey Philadelphia exactly Philadelphia was one of the main cities that had to do with getting together the Constitution of the United States I know these are details but some history of us will tell us more later. But Philadelphia means love are brothers and a part of the idea of the Constitution of the United States had to do with there being a brotherhood in the nation. Something that Americans have, we have our own style of it. We might call it mateship. But Philadelphia is where the name comes from and it merely means the love of brothers. Adelphos is a brother, so Philadelphia

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is the love of brothers. So, we're going through these names for love. Now I've given you so far Agape, Eros, Philia, the one that Alan told us. I'll pick on someone else. Is there another one? Is there another one? Storge. Storge. Okay I bet that's one that few of you would come up with, Storge, we don't know exactly how's the right pronunciation of the ancient Greek and but Storge is not in the Bible, which is why I wasn't expecting anyone be able to know. It's not a word used in the scriptures". So there we've so far had ... Is that four? Alright. But I told you there's another one and it's the one I don't think anybody knows. Most Christians they only, when you read the books from Kl Arong on this, they haven't gotten to this other one usually. Or, he raised an eyebrow. Does that mean you know this? Okay. What about down in

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this row. Should I ask him? He probably knows. No, he doesn't. But as I say, it's not commonly known among Christians the extra word is Xenia. Xenia, yes, it was like an X. Sounds like a Z or an X. Xenia. And where does that word come from? But it's used of the love of strangers. Xenia, and then you put in the word for stranger. But when the Bible's translated, this is something of interest, let's see who would know this, what comes out when they put those two words together the love of strangers, and then it gets translated into English. Now, who should I pick on to know? Put your hand up if you know what. Putting Xenia and then word for Ooo, did those. Hospitality? Yeah.

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Hospitality. Okay. And it's strange, I didn't know this, that the word for hospitality is love of strangers. Now we went to the talk about Solomon Gomorrah and there was one person who did display the of strangers' in a very good way in the storyline who knows the story well enough to know who's the person that displayed the love of strangers not Abraham I know he did when the angels came to visit him but who in the in the city of lot displayed this love of strangers using in the word for stranger. No one knows. Could you? When you go home you'll say, I learned something today. Well, it was Lot. He was sitting at the gate and had become one of the elders of the city and along came the angels pretending to be humans. And as they came,

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Lot greeted them at the gate, which was what the leaders of the city back in those days would do. And he immediately said to them, are you going to stay the night or what? And they said, yes, we're going to eventually, I said, we're going to stay asleep in the city square. And Lot insists they must come home to his place and don't go anywhere else. Now we know he has a reason for that because it's a terrible city and whenever strange men came they got raped a place was given over two terrible sexual problems and it wasn't safe to be sleeping in the city square so he insists that they come back to his home and he was displaying what was an Eastern custom of always trying to give hospitality to strangers. Now want us to turn to another Bible passage the Bible passage I'm turning you to is in Hebrews chapter 13 and

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verses one to seven and Hebrews chapter 13 and verses one to seven is a spot which uses the words that we've some of them we've been talking about and what's of interest to me just now is that it's not going to champion on the word Agape, like the other passages I have. I've got one other passage, it's all about Agape but this one here says, let brotherly love continue. And brotherly love is the Philadelphia word, let brotherly love continue. I wanna tell you that this passage has been jumping out and hitting me in the face as I've been going over it again and again this week let brotherly love continue the first thing that's been hitting me in the face it goes on to say do not neglect to show hospitality and that's the word the love of strangers do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers that's in one word lover love of

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strangers as the word used. And what I wasn't seeing reading this passage and sometimes I read it over and over and wonder what on earth is it trying to say. And what gave me the clue was to suddenly realize that back in the ancient world they were very much given to the love of family and they were given the love of strangers brotherly love they weren't sorry they weren't given to the love of strangers they were given to what was more the advice of the Pharisees is that you love your brothers and you hate your enemies and the Jewish people

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generally with all their derogatory descriptions of the Gentiles as pigs or dogs or whatever the hatred was a part of what was normal for them and the same was actually true for people who came as strangers people who came as travelers they weren't necessarily loved they didn't get in the warmth of the fellowship of the group there's something that I think all of us do that somewhat I was going to say naturally but naturally sinfully naturally but we preserve our love for the special people of our family. We don't necessarily spill it out to undeserving ones and in the ancient world that was usually

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everybody else who was a stranger. So when it says, let brotherly love continue, is one more little connection here I'll give you in a minute, but it's contrasting the brotherly love which is natural to us, that's the affiliate one and we all know what that's like. Where there is a love of family and my My telephone bill is going to be very, very big soon because the people of our family are, one of their brothers is overseas and I paid the bill just reminding you wherever I can see Frindley of that phone and she has long talks to him brother and he's presently in another city, and that's a moment of brotherly love. But it's natural and you've all got your own families where you understand it. But the contrast is – the scripture is saying that in contrast we are also to show hospitality which is a lover of a stranger. Now do you get the weight

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of the comment of this scripture. But there's one extra word in there. Now I didn't quite, it took me to realize about this. Well, see that word continue? Let lovely brotherly love continue, it's the word which means to remain. Sometimes intensify by Anna, continue Anna meno, is the word, and sometimes it, but it means don't let it stop. Don't let the brotherly love that you have naturally with the groups with whom you're in stop, but let it spread to those whom it normally doesn't get to. Something I noticed when I was in high school was the different groups of people people in my high school, it was a college majored in sport. So if you played in a team, you were sort of a bit of a hero. But there were teams that were considered to be the thing that was the prime adulation of the school. The rowing club was that. Every year the head of the river at our college usually won. And boy, did they work hard at making

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sure they would at next time. And the teacher, who is in charge of the coaching of the rowers, he was a big...he was a hero. He wasn't very big but he was a hero. I couldn't do rowing because I was too tall to sit on my back and cramp my legs up and be a cox. No, I was too skinny to be thought of as doing the rowing. And so I didn't do that sport but all the boys who did, they were in a special club and that included them and didn't really need to bother with anybody else idea. Maybe it wasn't always the case, but that's it appeared to me. I did have one connection in the sporting world and that was to the cricket, because I was the captain of the team I was in. In this cricket team, we weren't all good players, we were getting a game and I have one lad who was a Christian boy he later became a Baptist pastor, and he had sort of

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bend over crunch in his back. He was, we called him the Green Boy because we thought he had a green looking face. Um and he wasn't, you know, he wasn't succeeding at getting into the higher circles, let me put it that way. He was in my team and I used to play him at square leg. Square legs is when the the batsman he's like this and if he whacked as hard as he could around to this side if you're right-handed. That square leg sometimes the umpire stood over there somewhere and they had to move around to dodge the hard hits. Well, I had him there and he was a bit scared and he used to sit there not sit there, he'd stand there crunched over.

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And one day one of the opposite team who was a very strong basmen came in and started whacking balls and he whacked it straight into square leg and this fellow my friend Graham his name was didn't move and the ball went straight into his hands and he caught it! That was a maze! We all were amazed actually, you know, the Greedboy had caught out this good basmen and he makes his reputation. Now something else about that theme the person, the teacher, who was the lowest of the low in view as far as the teachers brotherly love, was the chaplain. The reason why is because he used to tell the truth about lots of things and people didn't like his reprimands, he was English as well which made him, also, never mind, and this fellow, the chaplain they gave him my team to be the coach

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off and so I related it to him. And he had a couple of Christians me and the fellow from Squareleg called Graham. Well there came a time when the chaplain put on a camp for the school. When he put on a camp it was a bit hard to drag the boys to go to this Christian school because of the whole idea of Christianity this is back 1960-something this whole idea of a Christian thing it was not exactly where you got to be popular. So at least me and Graham went to the camp and the other kids that he got there are a few different average kids but mostly they were the overseas students. And on the camp for a whole week one lad from overseas, who was away from home, who had just come, he got very badly sick, and the rest of the camp were off, doing the activities planned,

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and he would be vomiting in his dormitory in the little room. And the only two people, was Grabe, and me, who went to him. and we missed out on some of the games but we looked after him, helped him when he regretted it, he says get rid of the smell. It eventually got him to eat a little bit and keep it down. And boy that fellow was overmised at people who went beyond what was the normal brotherly love of high school students. And I took notice of Graham and his care. He later became a pastor and continued to serve the Lord and his sense of caring for people beyond whom you might normally do.

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And when this says, Let brotherly love continue, the word, mixer, has the idea of don't stop it. Don't withdraw your love because they're not in your family don't just have your friends and when you've got enough of them that's enough for you, you don't need to add any extras. Rather it's meant to continue on into what will then be showing hospitality which is when you are doing what's not expected, because a stranger, or someone who doesn't have anything to offer for you. You're not going to get anything out of being friendly to them. Show hospitality to strangers. Can you feel the weight of it? And the Bible, God's command, is telling you, . . . That word Continue is don't put the shutters down at a certain point.

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Do not just do 8 And Jesus, in his Beatitude, He says If you love your fellow brothers, you are no better than the Gentiles. They are the ones that others would tell you you should hate. They love each other. Even the tax collectors 30 had a party. Matthew's party was a tax collector's party. And only

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offside the authorities got to be there. But I look around our society I can find it in the Baptist Union, I can find it in churches, I find it in ourselves if we're not careful, I can find that somehow or other we aren't obeying that word Continue. Where to let it keep on continuing, Don't stop your brotherly love. Now what's the brotherly love? You know the brotherly love, there's not the agape word there, but I'll show you one spot where the brotherly love is mentioned, and it's not only new brotherly love, but it's God's love.

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So brotherly love is Philadelphia love, right? But the brotherly love that now Jesus is wanting us to have is the love of the Father. Let's go to our third passage which is in John's Gospel. And in John's Gospel where we have a final scene near the end of the Gospel, and the Lord is dealing with Peter, subsequent to Peter's denial of him. … Peter might have been� no others might deny the LORD he wasnyty going to. Produced at the time after the resurrection of Jesus, Peter also said, âI am going back fishing!î Other people went with Peter and was in a backslidden state, one fe dollar to being in backslid, as

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they would literally drag other people with and soak feet with water sand squared over its eaves. 12 And so Peter went fishing back to his old haunts, and he is there and Jesus turned up. This must have been a big shock, because Peter's last engagementů about Jesus was when he denied Him in the cock-crow as Jesus said it would. And Peter had broken down and wept pitifully. So Here He is. He has been fishing and somehow God had allowed an event in their history, where they fished all night and caught nothing and got repeated again and Jesus turns up on the shore and it's just that some stranger they couldn't quite work out who is that fellow, he looks familiar to me. Jesus called out to them put the nets on

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the other side. When they did all the other fish were caught and then they had to drag them in. Then Jesus takes Peter, a bit of a walk I suppose and as they're walking he says, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these. It's on the screen there, verse 15. And there, the word love, is the word agape love. It's the love that only God can produce. We can have it, but not by our doing. We can have it when we walk with God and are filled by His Spirit. We can have the agape love because God can produce it.

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loose him, and when he sanctifies us, when he changes our character, he can change what might be a character to be rather snobby, or all different things that we have about us, that are different from one person to the same. But God can change our character so that His agape, Love, comes out of us. And it has not come out of Peter. And so Jesus says to him, Simon son of John, do you love me more than these? Peter boasted that even though everybody else would deny him he wouldn't, so then these I take for the disciples. 7ation2 Jesus replies, Yes, Lord, you know that I filia you. He drops back to the second love, and then Jesus takes his answers and says, feed my

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lambs. Peter to be a leader in the Christian group to come, he said to him, Yes, Lord, you know that I failure you. And Jesus said, Well, that's something and feed my lambs. He said to him a second time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? He asks it with the agapei wort. He's, I think, rubbing it in that Simon Peter doesn't have any capacity to have the love of God of himself. he has proven that and the failure and his denial of Jesus. And he says to him, Do you love me?

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He has to repeat again, Lord you know that I love you, and he fits back the failure and you don't. And then the third time Jesus asks, at this time is very very a part of the exposition to understand. He said tend my sheep so he is continuing to give Magunezy in his things. In verse 17 he said to him the third time, Simon son of John, Do you, and you know what Jesus did, he dropped back a word to Philia? Do you Philia me? And Peter was grieved, put up the next one, Peter was grieved

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because on this third time he asked even if he Philia'd him. What is going on? You can have Philia absent from Agape, and that's one thing. Or you can have Philia like in the Hebrews passage where it's a brotherly love, Philadelphia love. But it has somehow been spread to go to those who don't normally get it. The strangers. Remember back in their culture, they'd love their brothers and love their Israelites, but they didn't love you all the rest of the world.

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And but the Bible says to let that brotherly love flow over if you like not be stopped from continuing to the strangers. And if you do that, it'll be the agape love, really, it doesn't say that in Hebrew spot, but in reality, when God's love gets into our humanity, it comes out as an expression through us of his love to those who need it. And God has got in the crosshairs of his telescope, to word it that way, because it's you gradually getting more perfect, teleos- perfect, in the crosshairs of his telescope, every

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one of you, that you might become more like the Father who loves the entire world who loves the outsiders just like the insiders who you don't have a limit on your love stopping it the last of the brothers, but it goes to everybody and that's the nature of the connection of these five words. That if you let God's God's love take prominence. It will be expressed in all the other areas. The advice that Jesus gives with regard to marriage, with regard to other relationships where people have harmed you, we've been going through different scenarios, all of that is changed when the love of God is the influence that is taking over. That is what it is, to be the Christian, that Jesus is aiming us to be. He calls it being perfect and we probably won't achieve it perfectly until we get to glory. That is why he doesn't just want you to be forgiven, he wants your

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sanctification to be progressed. work out your own salvation means know that the sanctification proceed aim at holiness, which is perfection from God's point of view. Is what he asks of us as Christians and he's wanting you Jesus by his beatitudes is asking you to lift your game to raise your aim and let his spirit do what you cannot do. I did have one final verse to finish on, well, not verse, it's in the book of Psalms. And the book of Psalms even though it's a New Covenant possibility to be done by the Holy Spirit, when we have the Holy Spirit in them way more than they did in the old Covenant days.

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They sometimes had him but we have him in a special way living within permanently the Holy Spirit. back, 28 But when the Holy Spirit is in you, He can produce this, and so you�ll find that even people like David, who wrote much of the Psalms and MATHA realized playing the music or the taste of the oil, understood the truth, that God loves to have blamelessness� you could use the word sinlessness, but He doesn�t just come and hold this right as you should be and then fail and feel terrible. look at Psalm 18 and it's a bit, not quite so quickly clear but let's put up this verse, it says in verse 30, This God, his way is perfect, as many a person has become a Christian and then stumbled because they couldn't quite handle

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what they realized was the aim of being a Christian, and they felt, oh boy I'm a failure. This God, his way is perfect, that's true it is, and it's not lessened by Jesus. 4 The word of the Lord proves true. He is a shield for those who take refuge in him, even though you're not perfect. 5 Then verse 31, for who is God but the Lord? And Who is a rock except our God, the only person who can be rocky,

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the only person who can be the building-pling? 6 And then it says, The God who equipped me with strength. It's not that visible but suddenly it stands out to me. The same one who sets perfection for you to come up to is saying, I'll give you the strength. I'll help you. God not only comes and says, here's the name. Jesus ups the ante of the Beatitudes and says He's making it perfection. He is not only the one that sets the bar of the high jump.

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He is the one that says, I'm gonna be the one. You just take a run at the bar. don't know whether you ever done high jump it's a thing of confidence you know you've got to somehow believe you're going to do it and and you run at it and just make the muscles work lo and behold over you go if you're you if you're successful and but in the high jump that God's asking you to jump He's going to have an angel to grab an elbow and you're going to go soaring in ways that will amaze you because He's the one who'll equip you with strength and He's going to be the one to help you to achieve it and after many failures, and there's been many a Christian

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who discovered this truth about Christianity that though we fail we have to come to a place and say God, I can't do it And then he says, as though he says, he says, I've been waiting for you to find out. Now, trust me to do it in you. And when you come to the place of saying, I don't have it, but Lord, you do, and I'm looking to you like Peter walking out of the boat, he couldn't walk on water.

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He just had to keep his eyes on Jesus. Don't listen or look at the fears and the faces of the other disciples, which when He's looking into the storm. Take your eyes off the storm! Look at Jesus only! And know that He's not only the one who asks you to up the ante of your aim. He's the one that's planning to do it. And you rest back in Him. That's the secret of the Christian life. If If you just get a grip of it, he not only has a blameless standard, but he's the one who will equip you with strength to be able to tackle it. Isn't that fantastic? And that's the spot in the book of Psalms.

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So we've had those three or four passages. One was the Beatitudes, where we're called on to believe that our love can go further And we can pray for those who persecute us. Ask me later. I can tell you a few stories of people who had to learn to do that. And we've also had the passage in John's Gospel about Peter and Jesus. Peter finding out that he didn't have it. But that's the start of him being able to trust Jesus to make him become that great apostle of the Christian church. He says, feed my sheep, he says, tend my lambs.

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And then we've had Hebrews that talks about brotherly love, not to be kept back from spreading to the strangest. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank You for these passages, I thank You that we've been able to give an example of the passages, other parts of the Scriptures giving us help to understand Jesus' description of becoming perfect or being aiming at being perfect and not being discouraged because we don't have it of ourselves. Thank you for the experiences that you let us have that we find out what we don't have and help us just lean on you for what you will do of us. Lord bless every person here listening to me, for whatever it might be the circumstances

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of their life, and for the challenges of these days, may they discover in the strong arm of Jesus that He's there to give us the strength. We pray in His name, Amen.