Your best Pathway to Health 2016: His Transforming Love

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Your best Pathway to Health

Sebastien Braxton

Extraordinary

I don't know about you, but Just to see what the Lord has done is something that, for me, makes me sit at my visitor's home here in California.

I bring you greetings from North Carolina and say to myself that Jesus has done it again.

Somehow the Lord has used us in spite of ourselves.

What a blessing to hear all the experiences and even the ones we have not heard yet.

God has to save some testimonies for heaven.

I must tell you that I firmly believe that when we look at the past week of what God has done, these past 6 days, 5 days, I believe that God is pleased.

But I also believe that God is not satisfied.

You know, I never thought it was possible for someone to be pleased and yet not satisfied until I met my mom.

Come home and say, you know, mom, English is not my subject, but, you know, I got a B plus.

And My mom said, I'm pleased, but I'm not satisfied.

And I believe that God currently holds that emotion when he looks down upon Los Angeles on this week and says, I am pleased by what I have seen.

I am pleased to have found 4, 400 vessels that I could use to communicate my love to a city rife with all kinds of issues and to communities to receive things they would never receive unless you made yourself willing but yet God is not satisfied.

The Bible tells us that Jesus wants this gospel to go to all the world.

God doesn't want Pathways LA, God wants Pathways Earth.

That is exactly what God is looking for and I believe that we have seen firsthand the power and the transforming nature of human love.

But I believe that as transforming as human love is, it is a response to his transforming love.

Tonight, I want to speak to you about God's transforming love.

Under the title, Extraordinary, Let us pray together.

Mighty God, Everlasting Father, we are so grateful for the gift of life.

We are grateful to have the privilege to gather in this place and to sit at the feet of Jesus.

Lord, we have not come to hear the words of a man, just as we did not serve this week in order to show them human love, but to show them divine love.

Lord, we pray that you would speak to us 1 more time.

And we ask that you would take this man who is but dust in your sight, that you would speak through him and you would speak to him.

We thank you for these gifts and we offer this prayer from our hearts in Jesus's name.

Let all of God's people say extraordinary.

I want you to take your Bibles and go to the book of Matthew chapter 5.

We're going to begin in verse 20 with our message, extraordinary.

If you're not there, just say have mercy.

The Bible says in Matthew chapter 5 and verse 20, Jesus said these words, For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven." Jesus is teaching on the mount, and as he's teaching this sermon on the mount, Jesus looks at the crowd, this multitude of people, and he says, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means, that means there is no other way for you and I to enter the kingdom of heaven except by means of a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees.

Jesus says, unless, That means there is no exception.

God doesn't like things to be in disarray.

We read the words that order is heaven's first law.

God is a God of order and God is a God of simplicity.

And he says there is no other way unless your righteousness exceeds their righteousness.

But The question is, what does that righteousness look like?

And so Jesus goes back to several different teachings in the next several verses to Show them what is the righteousness of the Pharisees and the scribes, and what is the righteousness that is necessary in order to enter the kingdom of heaven.

The Bible says, You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder and whoever murders will be in danger of judgment.

The Bible says, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery.

Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.

Verse 38, you have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

And in verse 43, 1 last time, Jesus says, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

Jesus recognizes that when he's speaking to his audience, he already knows what they have heard.

Jesus is familiar with what they have been teaching, but the question is, how does Jesus know what they have heard?

How is Jesus aware of what they have been told that was told to their ancestors so many years ago?

Well the Bible reminds us in Luke chapter 4 and verse 16 that Jesus' custom was to go into the synagogue on the Sabbath day.

But not only was that his custom, the Bible also reminds us, take your Bibles, go to Luke chapter 2.

The second chapter of Luke, beginning in verse 46.

I want you to notice what the Bible tells us about how Jesus would know what the Jews have heard, the multitudes have heard.

Beginning in verse 46, keep your finger in Matthew 5 because we're going right back.

He says in verse 46, now so it was that after 3 days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the whom?

The teachers both listening to them and doing what?

It goes on to say, and all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and his answers.

You see, the Bible tells us that when Jesus was 12 years old, he was hearing things in church that brought some questions to his mind.

There Jesus was in his young, impressionable, holy life.

There was that young, pure mind Listening to the Pharisees and the scribes and as they were talking Jesus was like wait, wait, wait I have a question because what you're saying is not making sense to me and so Jesus was asking questions and he was giving answers and Everyone that heard him was amazed at his understanding Jesus from since he was 12 years old, had heard these things that he's talking about in Matthew chapter 5.

He had heard them tell them that, yes, You should love your neighbor, but you should hate your enemies.

And Jesus says, that's not what I understand as the righteousness that God is calling us to in order to enter the kingdom of God.

You see, in order for Jesus to listen to these words, Jesus understood something.

You see, in order for them to say, you have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, this particular teaching as with all the other teachings, These teachings catered to the natural disposition of humanity.

This catered to the natural desires of a man.

You see, if this teaching is really what the law is about, then man is already righteous.

Because we naturally love those who love us and we naturally hate those who hate us." He says, listen, if that's the case, then right doing, then the law, then the righteousness that they are recommending is that which is a reflection of your own nature.

You are already righteous because you hate the Romans.

You are already righteous because you hate those who do not know God and are fighting against His people.

He says, the law, therefore, is simply a portrayal not of the character of God, but of the character of man and of his nature.

It was to institutionalize hatred inside of the nation of Israel.

And Jesus recognized that, no, this is what you have heard.

And if this is really the truth Jesus says then these teachings they put no difference between the children of men and the children of God they put no difference between those who believe in God and those who are atheists.

They put no difference between the Jew or the Gentile, between the Christian or the atheist, those who know God and those who do not know God.

It suggests that we could actually hate someone who is our enemy.

It suggests that the knowledge, the experience, and the exposure to the love of God leaves no different behavior, nor different mind, nor different spirit.

It is the very fact that we are just the same as a stiff-necked scorner or a recalcitrant sinner.

His love, we know it, but it is not transforming.

We may know his love, but it is not transforming.

And so Jesus says, this is what you have heard, but this is what I say unto you.

The Bible says in verse 44, But I say unto you, love your enemies.

Back to Menu

Extraordinary

Transcript

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

The Hyve Podcast Season 2, 2022

Healing Chronic Wounds

30m

The Divine Prospector

42m

The Three Angels' Message for the Millennial Generation

6. Keep the Commandments of God and Have the Faith of Jesus

50m

3. The Last Bride

49m

GYC 2008 Plenary Sessions

Message or Method?

43m

A Dollar Each Way

33m

WYC 2012 Morning Devotional

Fruits and Gifts, Part 2

43m

Getting Through to God

14-Eternal Life Now?

27m

The Parables

The Two Sons

40m

It Happened Because of Prayer

Give Him Not Silence

42m

Sound Doctrine