Sermon on the Mount

And if you have a bible, you might want to grab that and turn to Matthew chapter 5. We're gonna be reading from verse 1 to 32. That will also come up on the screen. But if you have a Bible, feel free to turn to it as well. Matthew chapter 5: 1.

Now, when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him and he began to teach them. He said, blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Bless it are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.

Bless it are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in hearts for they will see God. Bless are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad because grace is your reward in heaven for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world.

A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people like to lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophet I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. Therefore, anyone who sets aside 1 of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, you shall not murder. And anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.

But I tell you that anyone who is angry with her brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, Raqqa is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, you fool will be in danger of the fire of hell. Therefore, If you are offering your gift at the altar and there, remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First, go and be reconciled to them, then come and offer your gift.

Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way or your adversary may hand you over to the judge. And the judge may hand you over to the officer and you may well be thrown into prison. Truly, I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery, but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

If your right eye causes you to stumble gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose 1 part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose 1 part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. It has been said, anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce, but I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for sexual immorality makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Pete, Thanks, Rory. That is the way to read the sermon on the mount, actually, just out loud and really read up the whole thing because you get a real flavor of what Christ is is about. Let me pray. Father God, we pray, please, that you would help us listen to our lord's words. This is the 1 who created the world created us, made us in his image, knows how we tick, knows what is best for us, better than we know what is best for us ourselves.

This is the lord of all creation, the word of life, humble us, help us to listen, help us be aware of just applying it to other people and not to ourselves and our situation. That we may be people who listen to the word of life and live. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. We're looking at those little verses verse 31 and 32, and it's under the title of divorce. And we're gonna try and think.

Not everything about divorce today, but we're gonna try and think about how that applies to us today. Even if we're married or not married. In in 2001, a man in Dubai divorced his wife by sending a text message to her phone. I think it was news because I think this was the first divorce by text message. That ever happened in the world.

The wife had failed to turn up to cook his tea, and so he text her and said, you're late. I divorce you. Now, to be fair on the man, it was the third time he had said, I divorce you to the woman. It wasn't just the first time. And under Islamic law, if you tell your wife, I divorce you 3 times, it's done.

It's legal. She's out. That's it. The woman couldn't believe that he could divorce her by text message. So she took him to the Islamic Court and the Islamic Court upheld the man's right.

Any Muslim man is allowed to divorce his wife by just saying, I divorce you 3 times. I divorce you. I divorce you. I divorce you. And you can do that by text.

Now to treat divorce like that is bringing it down to the level of canceling your Amazon order, isn't it? It's just I cancel you. It's it's divorce is necessary sometimes, but never like that. Never like that. The pain of divorce is often unbearable, and perhaps some of you have suffered that or suffering that.

Some say they would rather a death than divorce. Because when it comes down to hit, divorce is just like a sort of poche word for brokenness or the death of a relationship, isn't it? Divorces more than just separating assets, dividing up belongings, is actually severing something that once was strong that's that's founded on deep feelings and close physical intimacy. The end of a marriage is 1 of the most emotionally painful human experiences, levels of rage, of vindictiveness, of grief, of despair. They're just very high.

The latest statistics that I could find about marriage in England and Wales is that 42 percent of marriages end in divorce. 42 percent of marriages end in divorce in England and Wales. 42 percent Now that's 42 percent of people that have made a public binding commitment. In marriage to someone. They've made those promises and now they've broken them 42 percent.

So who knows the number of couples that didn't make that public commitment of marriage that have broken up? 42 percent. They're just statistics. They're cold on the page. Aren't they?

Cold figures. But underneath the rubble of those cold figures, are crushed lives of men and women and children thousands upon thousands upon thousands of them. Some of you know that pain. Divorce is not just a word. It is not just a statistic.

It is the wrenching apart It is the relational trauma that has deep psychological and emotional effects And, of course, if you bring children into that, there's even more pain, isn't there? And then you could add the parents of the divorced couple, and the grandparents of the divorced couple, and the nieces and nephews and cousins and Sendless almost. Divorse has a profound effect on us. And every reader of culture says that, financially, emotionally. 1 of the reasons are we have a housing crisis.

There's not enough houses, it's because of divorce. Financially, emotionally, morally, spiritually, socially, criminally, children of divorced parents are more likely to be criminals. It's just the facts. But it's not just the facts, is it? It's the painful reality.

It's interesting. It interests me anyway, the readers of our culture seem to be very surprised and very puzzled at the amount of mental health issues, young people are are suffering today. But could it be? As these young people look around at relationships and and this lack of commitment and this easy clauses and get out clauses in supposedly public committed relationships could it be that there's an underlying insecurity? Even with kids that are actually in good families that don't divorce, perhaps there's an underlying insecurity that is causing all kinds of problems.

For a man to divorce his wife because she's late in cooking the dinner says a lot about him. He is a fool. He is a wicked man. He is a shameful human being and brings shame upon his supposed God. For a man to divorce his wife over text message, only goes to show who he is.

He doesn't understand marriage, and he belittles women. Marriage to him is nothing more than hiring a servant, And if that servant doesn't come up to the job, then he can fire her. Now, we're listening very carefully by the way, you can smell the sausages coming in. So that will cheer you up. We're deliberately spending a long time this evening because there's a season finale that we're gonna go over into.

We are listening carefully to Jesus. What an amazing thing this sermon on the mountain just reading, you know, part of it was just great to hear it all read like that. And what Jesus is doing is he's teaching us the very heart of Christian living, and the very heart of Christian living is to get your heart right. That's the heart of Christian living. And and we've been seeing that when we come to Christ, when we become followers of Christ, we're entering into his kingly rule.

And his kingdom means completely different to the world's kingdom. Everything is different. There are new priorities, new values, new orientations. There are new influences and it results in the followers of Jesus Christ being different to the world. We are to be salt, Jesus said, to the world.

We are to be light in the world. We stand like a city on a hill that cannot be hidden Now, in every area, Jesus wants us to have a heart dealt our heart dealt with, and including the area of sex, and including the area of relationships. And that's what he's dealing with. In verse 20, you get the key verse, I think of this sermon. He says in chapter 5 verse 20, for I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the pharisees and the teachers of the law, who were meticulous about laws funny enough, but unless your righteousness is better and surpasses theirs, you certainly will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

You're not in my kingdom. So he's comparing the righteousness of these pharisees that love the law, with his followers. Now, the pharisees, their righteousness, was based on outward obedience to the law, If they did things outwardly, that's okay. Jesus wants a righteousness where God breaks into a life. Where God comes and plants his wonderful word and his laws in the heart so that you are have a heartbeat for God and living for God in the way that God wants us to live and and being like God, being made in the image of God as it were.

Right to the heart. So we've seen in in verses 21 and 25. Jesus brings up the law of do not murder. Do not murder. Now the Farah's righteousness, as we've seen, was minimalistic.

If they hadn't physically killed someone than they hadn't murdered. They had obeyed the law. Jesus applies you shall not murder, to the heart and says just being angry at someone could make you a murderer. And then he maximizes it as Chris was showing us and says, actually, you need to be a peacemaker. If you're not a peacemaker, you're a murderer.

Do you see how Jesus treats the law? He wants the heart to beat like God. Real disciples realize they have a heart problem, and they know that blessed are the pure in heart. And so they come pouring spirit. The first beatitude.

They come and mourn their sins. They come with hunger and thirst to have Christ's rightness transform them inside in their inner being. They're not looking for ways around the law. They're not looking for outward obedience. They want their hearts transform, to be pure, to be like God, to be like the lord Jesus Christ.

In verse 27, we were seeing last week. Jesus brings up the law, do not commit adultery. The pharisees outward righteousness said, well, if I haven't had sex with another man's wife while I'm married, then I haven't committed adultery. It's not adultery if I'm not married and I have sex with another woman, and she's not married. Do you see how they they make the law?

What does the law say? What is adultery? Adults must be that I have to be married, and the woman has to be married, and they're not It's extraordinary. They minimalize the law. If the woman's not married, then it isn't adultery when I have sex with her.

Some of you are too young to remember a bloke called Bill Clinton. I asked Safran. Safran, I shouted from my office, You ever heard of Bill Clinton? She said, no. Who's he?

So Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was in fact, the president of America. I didn't tell you what I'm telling you now, between 19 93 and 2001. He was the president of America. And there was a scandal around him that he committed adultery with a woman called Monica Lewinsky.

She had her fame, Monica Lewinsky. He absolutely said a hundred percent, he did not have sex with her. Even after he was convicted and it was It was shown he had sex with her 12 times. He still said, oh, it depends what you mean by sex. And he said this, and this is how he treated her, by the way, wouldn't even call her by her name.

He said, I did not have sexual relationships with that woman. Only 12 times, he did everything but intercourse 12 times, but he didn't have sexual intercourse He didn't do the business. It was just everything else. He's a pharisee. That's how pharisees work.

Jesus says in verse 27, you've heard it was said, if you commit adultery, you heard it said you shall not commit adultery. But I tell you, anyone who a woman. And what that word means is with the intent to lust, and it also means not only with the intent for me to after a woman, but to get the woman also to lust after me, anyone who looks at a woman with the intent to lust and to cause her to lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If only Bill Clinton read the bible, he would understand that he had committed adultery. The most powerful sex organs that we have are not in our underwear, they're in our minds and in our hearts.

That's where most of the powerful sex drives originate. The root of sexual unfaithfulness is not found in the genitals, but in the heart. And the mind. Bless it are the pure in heart. That's where Jesus is aiming at.

Lust, of course, just dehumanizes the person. It makes them an object. It makes them a non person. It exploits and demands possession. It distorts what relationships are really about.

It's about what excites me. It cheapens sex and gives birth to adultery, and in the end will lead that person if undealed with into hell. That's what Jesus says. So Jesus is about heart surgery. Not messing around with the laws pretending that you're righteous.

He wants to know what's going on in the heart blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. So we're back to our verses eventually. Verse 31 and 32. It has been said anyone who divorces his wife must give her a a certificate of divorce. But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for sexual immorality makes her the victim of adultery and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Most of my sermon was in the introduction. Now, let's just have a look at this. The first point I want to bring up is people games. Do you see what's going on here? People games.

What the pharisees are doing in their righteousness and their outward righteousness is playing games with people. Listen, can I say this, right at the start, whoever you are, people are not there for you to hold on to or to let go on a whim, on a text, on a feeling? The Faracy's minimalistic approach to divorce was if they gave the certificate of divorce they were doing good, You see it? Verse 31. It has been said.

Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce. As long as they were giving the woman this piece of paper, then they thought they were doing right by the woman. We're obeying the law. They were actually trying in their thinking to take seriously a law in Deuteronomy 24, a law of Moses in the Old Testament part of the Bible. In actual fact, they were perverting the whole meaning of that passage.

It's interesting. Jesus in Matthew 19 and verse 8, it explains why the law of deuteronomy 24 was actually given. Now listen to his explanation of why it was given. Moses, Jesus says, permitted you to divorce your wives, why? It doesn't come up.

Sorry. Moses permitted you to divorce your wives, why? Because your hearts were hard, it was not this way from the beginning. Men were divorcing their wives, you see, for any reason they wished, any reason. So these laws were there to regulate the sinful hearts and actions of men over women.

That's why they were given. Because you see, adultery in the days when deuteronomy 24 was given, was punishable by death, adultery. So if a man divorces his wife, How do we know that the wife hasn't committed adultery and therefore could be subject to death? So in order to help her from that danger, we give her a certificate of divorce. See how helpful we are?

So, the woman is being treated right, by having a certificate of divorce, so she won't be subject to death, while her husband is treating her wrong. You see what's going on? They're obeying the law. I gave her a certificate of divorce, so it's okay, isn't it? That's what the men were saying.

But hold it, just to add to this, this is always unbelievable as the way our hearts work. Their hearts were so hard. There's another reason why deuteronomy 24 was needed. What was happening was they were divorcing their wives for any reason they they liked and therefore gave them a certificate of divorce or or rather that's why the law came in. So they were divorcing their wives for any reason they liked.

And then sometimes after they divorced their wife, they would remarry the that same woman. Yeah. Now, this is their thinking, I I guess. Audultery, sin, mustn't sin, Mustn't sin, fancy another woman. Whoa.

Want sex with the other woman? No. Mustn't have sex with the other woman? Why? I'm married, but I'm adultery is sin.

So I mustn't have sex with her. Ah, I'll do the legal thing. I'll divorce my wife, Then I can have sex with this other woman, and I'm not an adulterer. And then, of course, when I wanna go back to my wife, I'll go back to my wife. I met a bloke at once in Leicester Square that was doing exactly that.

I was doing some open airs many years ago. I started speaking to this bloke from another religion. And he said, I I just asked him. I just said, what are you gonna do? What are you actually doing now tonight?

He said, I'm just going off to go to a prostitute. I said, oh, that's honest, you know? Right? Okay. But you I thought you told me you were married.

He said, well, I am. I said, what does your God think of you? Going to do that. He said this. This is what he told me.

Oh, when I go with the prostitute, God turns his back. Yeah? And it's as if I'm not married, have sex with her, then when I've done that, he turns his front, and then off I go back to my wife. Extraordinary, isn't it? Just try and picture the sort of God that that you're following like that.

The sort of God that would be happy with that lifestyle. What is that God like? Imagine someone saying, I want to look at your life to see what your God is like, and this is how we're treating people. It would not be a God of faithfulness, would it? It would not be a God who is committed to his word It would not be a god who enters into binding covenant at great cost to himself.

It would be a fickle god. Who has passions that overcome him, and Ghosn can do what he likes. But as long as he's outwardly following the law, and there are loopholes in the law, then he can do what he likes. That's what the God would be like. Jesus is saying, unless your righteousness is better than that, you can't be in the kingdom of God.

He's saying these legalists, these minimalists, they think they're godly, they think they're righteous, they think they're upright followers of the law of God, but they don't follow the God of marriage, the God of covenant. They think they're being kind to women because they give us certificate of divorce. They have no understanding of Yahweh, the God of the Bible. They have no understanding of love, They have no understanding of covenant keeping. They are sinful idolaters, prostituting themselves to their own selfishness.

I tell you, says Jesus. They are adulterous men, and they are treating women as if they are adulterous women, and they sin and they cause others to sin. He is so strong. Or don't you play with people like that pretending to be godly? In matthew 23, Jesus rams home what he thinks of these pharaces by woe after woe upon them.

It's a curse upon them, woe to you teachers of the law and pharisees, you hypocrites. You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces You yourselves do not enter nor will you let those enter who are trying to. Woe to you teachers of the law and pharisees. You Hippocrits You travel over land and sea to win and win a single convert. And you and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.

Woe to you blind guides. Stop playing with the law of God. Stop playing with people. Stop pretending that you're doing a righteous thing. Selfishly wanting your cake and eating it.

That's what Jesus is attacking in these verses. In the next section, which I forget who's preaching on next week. Jesus says that you are yes, yes, and your no be no. Don't play with your marriage vows. You said yes to 1 woman and you said no to every other woman.

Now, of course, sometimes divorce is necessary, abusive marriages, unfaithful spouses, neglectful spouses, cruelty, humiliation, desertion. Sometimes people need protection of the law and particularly protection of the law of divorce. But we don't use the law of divorce like they were using for adultery. Divorce is not there to encourage marriage or breakdown. It's there to preserve the sanctity of marriage.

You can't just send a text message. What sort of God would allow that? Certainly not the God of the Bible. If separation is to happen, you've got to take it as seriously as when you went into it. I mean, it's quite an interesting thing, isn't it?

You know, you get a marriage invitation and lots of people come to the wedding. Is public. In 1 sense, would you come to my divorce ceremony? Where I break my vows publicly? Now, of course, you can't do that, and there would be dangers or all kinds of dangers in doing that sort of thing, of course.

But you see, these laws of divorce are to protect the vulnerable the weak, and I guess children from selfish people who have the power to do what they want to do, pretending to be godly. That's what they're there for. Followers of Jesus says Jesus, up their commitment to people. They don't play games with them. They're merciful towards them.

They learn to forgive. There beacons in this dark world, their cities, lit on a hill to redirect people to love and life It's very interesting, isn't it? That even anti royalists and people that don't care about the queen and and prince Philip, love the idea, even, you know, in our world, still the idea that a man and a woman were married for 73 years. Was so good, wasn't it? Tomorrow with 35 years.

Is it 35 years? I'm only halfway. To be able to say to your wife in your old age, We made it together. We obey God. Together is an amazing thing, isn't it?

And perhaps in church, we should celebrate wedding anniversaries a lot more than birthdays. That's my first point. Here's my second. Do you play people games? Do you play people games?

Think about our world. We live in a society that is unashamedly allows individuals to determine everything that's right and wrong for themselves. That's the world we live in. So therefore, in the realm of sexual behavior and relationships, it's really down to me what I want, my preferences. It's all about what I feel, what I want to do.

And if I call it love, then you shut up. You stop telling me off because I do what I want. And if it's love that brings me to someone and love that separates me from someone, then it's love and self love is a major thing. Find what is true inside you. It's interesting that there are really only 2 laws and 2 rules taught in sex education as far as I can see in schools.

Only 2 laws There are only 2 laws. They are about pressure and protection, or I would put consent and condoms pressure and protection, consent, and condoms. It's important not to be pressurized into sex, and it's important not to pressurize anyone anyone else in into having sex. Something they don't wanna do. That is all that is being taught, boys.

And we wonder why they can't cope with it. So pressurize is the big thing, and then make sure you wear a condom. Safe sex. I remember talking to a woman at I gotta be careful now because it's can get a little bit gruesome. But a woman at Fresh's Fair who was on the condom stand, giving out condoms.

And she was treating condoms as a great savor of the world. Amazing isn't it? A condom is the savior of the world. You know? Is it a plane?

Is it Superman? No. It's the great condom. He'll save the world. It's extraordinary, isn't it?

The nonsense that we're taught. There's nothing bigger than those laws, consent and condoms, pressure and protection. Now, listen, particularly your young ones, you need to know the world we live in because it preaches to you constantly. It influences you it mold you in its ways of self determination. Most of you here haven't grown up in a world that didn't have an iPhone in it.

You can't remember a time without an iPhone. Now Steve Jobs that invented the iPhone and the Apple computer people, they just totally understood the unchained individualism of our age. That's why they call it the iPhone. They didn't call it the r phone relationship phone. It's not the r phone or the r pod, or the r world, it's the iPhone, the I pod, the I Max, its I world.

It's not the j phone, Jesus phone, Jesus pod, Jesus world, It's I. They understood it. That's the world you are influenced with. You sniff, you listen to. It's the world everywhere being pumped into you.

You've got to understand it. If you're gonna be followers of Jesus, you need to understand the influences that flooding in, the I vote, I, I, I, marriage, I lust, I, church, I, life, I, I, I, me, me, me. So let's apply these Jesus words. Don't play with relationships, Jesus, is saying. Think of lust, the stuff we were thinking about last week.

Treating people as an object or making them treat you as an object is I, lust, I. Wouldn't it be lovely? You blokes could treat the girls in the church as sisters and mothers, mothers and sisters. What a beautiful thing that is when churches are running like that. That's my sister.

I'm not just out for her. I'm not just on the hunt. That's my sister. I wanna love Some of these girls have to walk home at night. What what earth are you allowing that to happen for?

You don't have to chat them up, but you could walk them home or drive them home? Because they're your sister. How are you treating women blokes? Oh, it's interesting, isn't it? Sometimes, I mean, it's just remarkable.

I've met blokes that have been engaged or going out with girls for years, and they they they're not moving towards marriage. What sort of bloke is doing that? You're stirring up the feelings of the girl. That's what lust is. You're stirring up the feelings of the girl and you're not committing to it.

How dare you? You need to stop that relationship now or marry her. Now, of course, sometimes there are reasons why you can't do that, and you're aiming towards marriage. But if you're not in any intention of marrying her, stop it. I lust.

Just think of lusting and causing people to lust. What sort of God would that be? An ugly God. It's like it's it's like the it's like the Krishna, isn't it? If you know anything about the bhagavad gita where comes becomes a man.

And he what's he doing? Well, it's 1 of the stories where he sees women bathing, and he thinks, oh, what? Nick, they're closed so I can see them naked. That's the sort of god you'd be following if you follow lust, isn't it? A pathetic god that's about himself spying, eyeing up, taking, not a God that comes as a man and gives himself and dies on a cross to save the world, not a God that's giving his life.

Men, that's what we want in relationships, blokes that give themselves for women. Well, think about marriage. Examamine yourself. Don't apply this to your spouse. That's what we do, isn't it?

I mean, it's interesting that the pharisees even use the word of Jesus sometimes. I've had this I I I remember a bloke talking to me. You know, tell my wife to come back to me. You know, shouldn't divorce. I haven't been sexually immoral.

There's a context to marriage, which is to love and cherish, which is which is to love like Christ loves the church. And and and here is a man who's been telling his wife nearly every day that she's ugly, and he specks her to come running back to him. There's a context to marriage. How dare you? You change man.

You change, you cherish, you love, you've never done that in your married life. How can you expect that to thrive? Jesus gave his life, to make the church beautiful and spotless. What does your God look like in the way you treat marriage? Is it like the Muslim God?

I mean, I don't know how the Muslims are utterly mean. It just shows you what that God is like, isn't it? Just on that 1 issue. That you a man can just say to his wife, I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you, and God is happy with that. He thinks that's good.

What sort of God is that? It's an ugly, brutish, unfeeling, uncovenanted, unloving, vicious pagan dead to relationship God, isn't it? When the world looks at your marriage and sees you and how you treat marriage, what's the God look like? God who gives and loves and forgives. Well, let's take cancel culture.

Cancel culture. It is amazing that in our culture that we have a thing called cancel culture, You upset me. Out of my life, we storm out, slamming doors, angry so quickly, We need to learn to forgive. What does your God look like in relationships with people if you're canceling them all the time. 1 little disagreement Don't quite agree with me on something.

I cancel you. It's extraordinary, isn't it? Or think about church. What about church? How many people cancel church?

Here's some, only some of the reasons people have told me they're leaving church. These are true. Yeah. I I know you'll think I'm exaggerating. 1 woman said, I'm not coming to Cornerstone because I don't like the smell of the coffee.

I hope you're listening. I don't like the smell of the coffee. Well, what about the sausages then? Yes. In the back, they like that because stinks in there.

They're all crying their eyes out, not at the sermon, but at the the burning. Coffee smell. Honestly, I was told we're not coming back to this church because we don't like the coffee smell. I actually said, can we talk about that? But honestly, We could change the coffee, we could think about it.

No. I've had people leave church because it's too committed. To what? Too committed to God? There was someone who wrote me a letter and said, you don't believe in prayer.

This person never ever came to the prayer meeting, ever. She was asked, but she would refuse to come. She never joined a home group. Where we prayed. It was, we don't believe in prayer because she wanted to stand up and she wanted to be the 1 that prayed in the morning service.

And because we didn't sort of go with that, although, actually, she could have done. We never really talked about it. She just wrote me a letter, don't believe in prayer. I Church Had another person who wanted the elders to publicly discipline someone they didn't like, just because they didn't like them. This is extraordinary, isn't it?

I hope all these people are watching. Someone says we didn't care for them. It was hard to care for them because they never cared for anyone. Too evangelistic. I've heard that several times.

Church is too evangelistic, pastor wears a hoodie. Just for that person. Someone upset me. Of course, they did. It's probably me.

You've upset me. This was 1 of the worst we met in a disabled school. I couldn't believe this 1. I can't tell you all the details because it's too horrible. He said, what sort of school is this?

I said it was a disabled school. Oh, gosh. Oh, dear. Don't wanna meet here. I said you don't like disabled people?

No. I said you're not welcome. I'm not welcome. I don't wanna come. We don't want you to come.

That was the conversation at the door. No. I don't want to come. No. We don't want you to come.

I remember sitting next to if these all seem to be women, I'm sorry about this. I remember sitting next to a woman in another church. And she only came once a month oh, no, once every 3 months because this church did communion every 3 months. Comunion get the hint. Every 3 months, I sat next to her.

I said, oh, I I don't know you. I was a pastor of the church. I didn't know them this woman in Tasmania. I've never met you before. Oh, yes.

I'm a member of the church. Are you? Really? I've been here for 3 years. I've never met you before.

Yes. I know I come at communion. Oh, great. That's really good. Are you coming to the church lunch?

No. I would never go to a church lunch to be sitting next to people like you. And so do you come to communion? I said, I'm not allowing you to take communion. She said, you can't do that legally and went through the courts of church.

What does your church look like, you see, I church person? Where's the commitment? Do you use all kinds of laws to get out of ships. Jesus says you've got to be better than that. Does your heart reflect the God of the Bible love, commitment, forgiveness, patience, caring, future helping each other move to the future and grow.

We all need to grow. We're all going to blow, you know, blow it with each other. We're relationship people, and we make mistakes, and we say wrong things, and we upset each other. But that's where forgiveness and love comes in, isn't it? What church do you want?

What relationships do you want? Paul says, love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not self seeking. It is not easily angered.

It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does delight in evil but rejoices in truth. It always protects. Always trusts. Always hopes.

Always preserves, love never fails. Father God, We pray, please that you would help us in this age of the I, I age. Not to live like that, but to take seriously the heart challenging truths of the Lord Jesus Christ. That we wouldn't be arguing over little laws to get out of our commitment to love each other. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.