5 THINGS: Love and Righteousness - October 5, 2025

5 THINGS: Love and Righteousness - October 5, 2025

INTRODUCTION

Would you say that people know you are a Christian by your love?

In this sermon series, I will be sharing with you thoughts on these issues.

The love of God - September 14, 2025

Love according to the Word - September 21, 2025

Love in the Kingdom - September 28, 2025

Love and righteousness – October 5, 2025

Love yourself – October 12, 2025

Love is righteousness.

Romans‬ ‭12‬:‭9‬ ‭NIV‬‬‬‬‬

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.”

‭‭ Romans‬ ‭12‬:‭9‬ ‭NIV‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

Love showed us righteousness.

C. S. Lewis captured the Cross event in a poem:

"Love’s as hard as nails,

Love is nails:

Blunt, thick, hammered through

The medial nerves of One

Who, having made us, knew

The thing He had done,

Seeing (with all that is)

Our cross, and His."

I.  LOVE AND RIGHTEOUSNESS

A.  The Old Testament frequently places “love” and “righteousness” in the same context.

Psalm 85:10-13 NIV

“Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other. Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven. The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest. Righteousness goes before him and prepares the way for his steps.”

‭‭Psalm‬ ‭85‬:‭10‬-‭13‬ ‭NIV‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

Psalm 89:14 NIV

“Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you.”

‭‭ Psalm‬ ‭89‬:‭14‬ ‭NIV‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

B.  Love and righteousness bring blessings.

Proverbs 21:21 NIV

“Whoever pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity and honor.”

‭‭ Proverbs‬ ‭21‬:‭21‬ ‭NIV‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

C.  God’s love and righteousness fill the earth with His love.

Psalm 33:5 NIV

“The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.”

‭‭ Psalm ‭33‬:‭5‬ ‭NIV‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

For Love of Jim

Jim and Jack were the best of friends. Devoted. Inseparable. So when Jim lost both his legs in a railroad accident, Jack did everything he could to help. At first Jim was certain his career with the railroad was finished. Then the company gave him another job, signalman. His outpost was to be a lonely little stop more than 200 miles from anywhere. Jack went along to be whatever help he could be. After all, what are friends for?

Jim had barely recovered from the trauma of a double amputation when the RR had given him the new assignment. He would live in a little wooden shack about 150 yards from the signal tower. It was going to be lonely out there. And there would be many difficult adjustments. But Jack would help long enough for Jim to overcome those initial adjustments.

In the beginning Jack stuck around mostly for company. He swept out the shack and pumped water from the well and tended the garden - all things that Jack could not do. There was a little trolley, a single seater that led from the shack to the signal tower. Jack pushed Jim on that trolley several times a day and stood there while Jim operated the big levers in sequence. Eventually, Jack got so familiar with Jim's routine that he began to walk out and operate the signal system himself.

Sure enough, pretty soon, in addition to house-cleaning and the rest, Jack gradually began to take over all the duties for the railroad - though officially he was not an employee! There was a lot to remember on that job, a lot to be done. Daily responsibilities at the signal tower included working the levers as well as the tower controls that opened and closed siding switches. But Jack never complained. After all, Jim was his friend. It was the least Jack could do.

For more than nine years Jack kept house for Jim. For more than nine years he made the daily trip to the tower to operate the heavy equipment - until one day when he died of tuberculosis.

In all those years, Jack never made a mistake, never threw a switch incorrectly, never sided a car in error. Not one accident or even a narrow miss was reported on that line.

Jack is buried in Cape Colony, South Africa, not far from the outpost where he worked for almost a decade because of  his love for a friend. His grave is a silent testimony to selflessness. Oh, by the way, I don't think I mentioned that Jack, Jim's devoted friend, who cleaned house and pumped water and tended the garden and manned the switch tower was not a man at all. He was a baboon.

Now if an ape can demonstrate that kind of love, can't we who call ourselves Christians be known for our love more than anything else? Love blesses. Love demonstrates the righteousness of God.

Bruce Howell, Sermon Central, February 5, 2005.

II.  LOVE AND THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD

A.  We know God’s righteousness through His love.

John 3:16-17 NIV

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

‭‭John‬ ‭3‬:‭16‬-‭17‬ ‭NIV‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

1 John 4:7-12 NIV

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭4‬:‭7‬-‭12‬ ‭NIV‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

B.  We can know God’s righteousness by loving.

Romans 13:8-10 NIV

“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭13‬:‭8‬-‭10‬ ‭NIV‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

John 14:15-21 NIV

““If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.””

‭‭John‬ ‭14‬:‭15‬-‭21‬ ‭NIV‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

Pastor Joel Gregory tells the story of a seminary professor who taught the Christian graces of love and forbearance for forty years until he retired.

Occupying himself in his retirement years, he poured a new concrete driveway to his house. 

Finished, he went in to rest and get a glass of ice tea. Returning later to view his proud achievement, he discovered that the neighborhood kids were putting their footprints all in the wet concrete. The angry professor chased the kids down in a rage and beat the tar out of the ones he could catch.

Hearing the commotion, the professor’s wife rushed into the yard, saw the angry professor thrashing the kids, and began to reprimand him: "What a shame," she said. "For forty years you have taught love, forgiveness and forbearance. Now look at you. You’ve lost your testimony." To which he replied: "That was all in the abstract. This is in the concrete."

III.  LOVE AS RIGHTEOUSNESS

A.  No love for people, no love for God

1 John 4:19-21 NIV

“We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭4‬:‭19‬-‭21‬ ‭NIV‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

B.  No love, no righteousness

Galatians 5:6 NIV

“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”

‭‭Galatians‬ ‭5‬:‭6‬ ‭NIV‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 NIV

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭1‬-‭3‬ ‭NIV‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

C.  The righteous fruit of love

John 15:9-16 NIV

““As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.”

‭‭John‬ ‭15‬:‭9‬-‭16‬ ‭NIV‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

I want to tell you of a modern day Damascus road experience that some of you may find hard to believe. It is reported in an article by Fred Markert in the current issue of Pray Magazine. Fred is the International Director of YWAM’s Strategic Frontiers, a group that focuses on witnessing for Christ among mostly Muslim nations where it is not always easy for Christians to go.

Fred is living in Afghanistan, & he relates this story about a Muslim woman, a university professor, attending an English class taught by YWAM volunteers. Listen as she later tells her story to one of them:

“I started to go to sleep & suddenly my bedroom filled with light. At the foot of my bed stood Jesus, & I knew He had come to kill me!”

You see, the day before, she had stormed out of the English class after the teacher had begun to answer questions & to speak about Jesus to his students. As she stormed out she cursed the teacher.

“I cursed you all the way home,” she told him. “I went home & I lay in bed & I was praying, ‘Allah, I want you to kill those people because they are not English teachers – they are missionaries & I want them out of my country! Kill them!’”

It was then that she saw the vision of Jesus standing at the foot of her bed. “I knew He had come to kill me because I was asking Allah to kill His workers. So I got out of bed on my hands & knees. I was trembling & I crawled to the feet of Jesus, waiting for Him to slay me.”

“As I was trembling at His feet, I started to feel warm all over. I started to feel love wash over my body – love & mercy. I looked up at Him,” she said. “Jesus was so beautiful, I had to give Him my heart.”

Pray Magazine, Sept-Oct, 2002, pg 17.

CONCLUSION

Romans 12:9-20 NIV

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.””

‭‭Romans‬ ‭12‬:‭9‬-‭20‬ ‭NIV‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

I have heard some say that we should do good to those who do us harm to bring pain and sorrow upon them (“heap burning coals on his head”). We are not to “repay anyone evil for evil.” This passage reminds us that vengeance is God’s, not ours. What are we to make of this “heaping of burning coals” then? We are to place the burning coals of love upon those who wrong us. Not so that we get back at them, but that they might get right with God. Love

INVITATION

It is our custom to offer an "invitation" following the preaching of the Word.  You may want to follow Jesus.  You may want to proclaim your faith.  You may want to repent (stop doing ungodly things and start doing Godly things).  Perhaps you want to be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins     and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Possibly, if you have already responded to God’s call in these ways, you would like to become a member of Kenwood Church.  If you have been moved by the Holy Spirit to make a decision in your life, you can come forward now.  If you would like, I would be honored to speak with you following the service about what God is doing in your life.