[This is a link to the clip Pastor is referring to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIhWBO_5x2E]. Sometimes probably doesnt cut it. Youre ready to jump out of an airplane, Everything packed right? Is it good? Probably. You want to hear, Yes, its ready to go, 100 percent. Sure, everythings fine, before you jump out of that airplane because your life is on the line. Paul gives a stern warning to believers. He said, When you pass into eternity, you need to make sure that what youve put your hope and trust in is reliable. You need to make sure that its strong, that its true, that it will stand the test. So he says in Colossians 2:8 (page 1166 of pew Bibles), See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. He says there are some philosophies out there-there are some teachings out there-that will lead you astray, and the time when you need them the most-when you enter into eternity, you need to make sure that when you pull that ripcord, there is something of substance thats going to save you and deliver you on the other end. Dont be duped. Dont be careless with your soul. He gives us that admonition, so thats what were trying to do-go through some of the philosophies and traditions of this world and talk about them, examine them one by one. You may not have known some of the names or the labels that we attach to those world views, but youre learning them. Its helping us to go, Oh, thats what thats called, and you know that these are still very prevalent in our world today. We talked about antinomianism which means against the law. Its as old as the Garden. You do your own thing; be your own boss. Adam and Eve tried to set their own course, make their own rules. Judges said every man did that which was right in their own eyes in the dark days of the Judges in Israel, so that very much exists today-people who believe there are no moral absolutes, you and I make up our own rules as we go. Then we talked last week about a form of generalism called utilitarianism. Thats the end justifying the means; all is well that ends well. What is the greatest good is whats good for the most people. Thats what we need to do. Whatever is the right thing-there are no absolutes. There are no moral laws; just do what is right for the most people. This morning, were talking about a Third World view, ethical world view, called situationism. Situationism says that the decision that is right depends on the situation, and there is one guiding absolute. There is an absolute, but there is only one. Its summed up in this popular Beatles song. Were going to hear a couple seconds of it right now, so go ahead and play this song. Youll all recognize it. (Playing is All You Need is Love.) I like the song, by the way, but is that true? Is that true? Some of you would rather the song just continue. I understand that, but you know we have a job to do here. All You Need is Love, thats what the situationist says. Thats all you need. There is one moral absolute in the universe, and that is the law of love, so you do whatever the law of love dictates in a given situation-not just any kind of love. Theyre very specific that it must be agape love. In the Bible, in the Greek, there are three kinds of love. There is Eros, which is sensual love, and usually its concerned with your own pleasure. Then there is Phileo, love or brotherly love, and that is a mutual reciprocal love; and then there is Agape love, and Agape love is a selfless love. Agape love seeks the highest and best for another whether or not that is reciprocated, so the situationist says, We need to love one another with an Agape love. We need to seek the highest and best for other people and make sure that the golden rule is followed. It sounds really good, right? They say, Listen, people are never a means to the end. You dont use people. You use things. So people are preeminent, and we are called to love people. The Bible extolled the virtue of love. In 1 Corinthians 13 (page 1137 of pew Bibles), if you give your body to be burned but have not love, youre nothing. Didnt it also say that faith, hope, love-these things remain, but the greatest of these is love? Didnt Jesus teach that if you love the Lord, your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself, those are the commandments right there. So Jesus lifted up love. The Scriptures seem to lift up love, so what could be wrong with a world view that has this as its mantra, All you need is love. Even complicated situations are supposedly resolved by this. There was a situation in Wisconsin where a husband killed his ailing wife. She was terminally ill and was going to die, so out of mercy-he was tired of seeing her suffer-he took her life, so he was charged with murder for that; but a situationist would say he acted in love. Murder is not a universal law. Its love, so because he acted in love, thats okay. If we take a poll here and say, Well, is adultery wrong? pretty much every hand would go up; but a situationist would say, Well, there are situations where adultery is okay if love is involved. Theres an example the situationists liked to use in World War II where a German prisoner was held in a Russian camp. It was a woman, and she learned the law that said, If you are pregnant, you will be dismissed because youre seen as a liability. She had met a friendly guard, and she asked him to impregnate her so she could be released from prison and be united with her husband and her children. The situationist says, That's fine. That was love. A situationist would say, If two people love each other and want to just live together, do what they want to do-as long as they love each other, they can do what they want to do, so theres this freedom as long as youre loving. Its kind of a perversion of what Augustine said. Do you remember what Augustine said? He said, Love God and do what you will. In other words, if you love God, everything else is going to be fine. The situationist says, Just love and then do what you will. Its a good thing in that its one law. There are a lot of laws in here to know, so its less complicated if all I have to know is one law and live it, but there are some problems-just like these other world views weve talked about-there are some problems with this one too. What about when what is loving is not so clear? There is a movie clip we are going to watch right now of some parents who found out their little daughter has leukemia [This is a clip from the movie, My Sisters Keeper. Unfortunately, there isnt a link at this time.] What are they going to do? How are they going to save her life? Imagine the desperation of this mom and this dad knowing that their little daughter may have a year, two years at the most to live? What would you do in their situation? Lets watch this clip. Its a little more difficult, isnt it? An act of love, she is considering bringing a child into the world to be an organ donor to her living child. Whats right there? What do you do there? Is that ethically right to bring a child into the world simply to be an organ donor to save the life of your living child? Things get a little messy, dont they, if there are no other laws in the world, if there is only the law of love? The problem isnt love. The problem is you and me. The problem is sometimes our love is misguided. Lets go back to Matthew 16 where we talked last week about Peter. Lets look at it from just a little bit of a different angle this time. Remember Jesus asked the question, Who do you say that I am? Peter said, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Jesus said, Youre right. Flesh and blood does not reveal this to you, but by My Father in Heaven. From that time on-Matthew 16:21 (page 973 of pew Bibles) says that He began to teach them that He was going to go to Jerusalem, He was going to suffer, be killed, and on the third day be raised to life. Peter takes issue with this, and he pulls Jesus aside privately and says, This will never happen to You. This isnt going to happen to You. Im going to see to that. Peter doesnt want that to happen for two reasons. Number one, Hes the Messiah. He has read his Bible, and he knows the Messiah abides forever. Therefore, what Jesus is saying apparently is against the Will of God because Hes talking about laying His life down whereas the Bible says He abides forever. His kingdom never ends, so Peter is correcting Jesus. Number two, Peter loves Jesus. Its personal. This is his friend, his master, his teacher. Hes living this adventure. Hes now discovered who Christ is, and now its going to end? Peter says, No, I will be your bodyguard. I will prevent that from happening. What was the motivation for not wanting Jesus to go to the cross? He loved Jesus. He loved his master and friend. He didnt want Him to suffer any more than youd want a loved one to suffer. Youd try to prevent it if it was in your power to do so. So he loved, but his love was misguided because if Peter has his way, then mankind-including Peter-is lost for eternity. If Christ does not go to the cross, He does not bear sin. If He does not bear sin, God does not offer it in the pardon of grace through faith in His shed blood. What Peter was asking was for the damnation of the entire human race, but he did so out of love. How many of you in this room have ever thought you did something out of love, and it turned out it was the wrong decision? Let me see your hands. A lot of you werent paying attention because half of you didnt raise your hands. Either you werent paying attention or you just have a really bad memory. Many times we do things that we think are loving. Parents do things for their children, trying to protect and help their children, and they end up hurting their children because their children dont experience the law of reaping what theyve sown. Spouses will help their spouses and try to protect them and cover up for them, and it ends up being a co-dependency, an unhealthy, dysfunctional situation. They think its love, but its actually not. Its actually hurting, so sometimes we love, but our love is misguided. Its like the Disciples in Luke 9. Would you flip there please? They are to prepare a place for Jesus to stay in a Samaritan village. We pick up the story in Verse 51 (page 1027). It says, As the time approached for Him to be taken up to Heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And He sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for Him; but the people there did not welcome Him, because He was heading for Jerusalem. There were ethnic differences; there were prejudices, so racial and religious prejudice existed between the two cultures of people. The Jews wanted nothing to do with the Samaritans, and vice versa, so when they find out that this person is going to the territory of their enemy-the headquarters of their enemy-they will not receive Him, and James and John are ticked off. They have a few unkind words to say. They probably said, Oh, you dont know who youre messing with. You have no idea who youve just turned away, but youre going to find out because were going to go back and were going to tell our boss that youre not going to let Him stay here, and you are going to get nuked. You are going to be gone. Youre going to pay. They go back to Jesus with this wonderful idea. They come back, theyre ticked off, and they have a solution. When the Disciples James and John saw this, they asked, Lord, do you want us to call fire down from Heaven and destroy them? This is our solution. Theyve rejected You, and because we love You, we want to destroy them. Thats their idea. Yeah, that will make it all right. Its not in here, so I cant say for sure, but Jesus probably went, What? What?? What do you mean-destroy them? See they were exercising their free will, and they had every right to do that. Just as the Disciples exercised their free will to follow Jesus, so could the Samaritans exercise their free will to reject them. He was not going to destroy them for that. If He was going to destroy them for not following the Will of God, Hed have to destroy the Disciples too because the Disciples were sinners just the same. There were times the Disciples did not do what Jesus wanted them to do. We cry out justice for the other guy and mercy for ourselves, right? Forgive me, nuke him! That's kind of how we do things. Jesus said, It didnt work that way. If I call down fire from Heaven for their sin, I have to call down fire from Heaven for your sin. These guys know Jesus can do anything, so theyre asking Him to reenact the miracle of Elijah on Mount Carmel. Instead of consuming a sacrifice, consume these people. We know You can do anything, and we believe. We have confidence. You just say the word, Man, and well be like Elijah, and we will call down fire from Heaven. Jesus rebuked them. Look at the footnote. Some of your Bibles will have this in your translation itself, and others of you will have it in the footnote at the bottom of the book. Some transcripts have this; some manuscripts dont. It says, And He said, Jesus, You do not know what kind of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy mens lives but to save them. You dont know what spirit youre of. They loved Jesus. They loved God, but that was in violation of Gods moral laws. There are terrorists who blow themselves up on a daily basis because they love their god. They love their god so much theyre going to destroy people who dont serve their god. Theyll blow themselves up in villages, in shopping centers, on buses, and in hospitals because they want to show their love for their god and be received in Heaven as a martyr. Love can be misguided. Its putting way too much confidence in man if you think that we should be the judge and jury about how love looks and how love acts. Were going to learn in the next story that love does not negate the law, but love fulfills the law. Lets turn in our Bibles to John 8. In this Passage, Jesus is going to the Mount of Olives to teach. Verse 2 (page 1059 of pew Bibles) says, At dawn, He appeared again in the temple courts where the people gathered around Him, and He sat down to teach them. Notice Jesus sat down to teach them. That has nothing to do with the sermon, but I just wanted you to know that He sat down (congregation laughing at Pastors insinuation). The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. Because its just the woman, most scholars believe this is a setup because the mans not there; so wheres the guy? This is a married woman-where is the man she committed adultery with? Because hes not there, she was probably a pawn. She was probably used, taken advantage of for this very purpose. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. So shes there. Shes shaking. Shes afraid for her life. Shes ashamed, embarrassed, and crying. The law of Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do You say? They were using this question as a trap in order to have a basis for accusing Him, so the woman and her fate really didnt matter. What mattered was this plan was fool proof. This would not be the first time they tried to trap Jesus. It would not be last, but, boy, this was a good one. Whoever came up with this plan got high fives. What if… He tells his plan, and theyre like, Obadiah, you rule. That is a killer plan. Its fool proof. High five, and everybody is cheering on this plan because we have Him no matter what He says, no matter what He does. If He says, Stone her, then theyll say, Oh, wait a second. Dont You teach love and forgiveness and all of that? Which is it, Jesus? Law or love? If He says that, theyll say, But you know Rome says we cannot kill people, so are you against Caesar now, Jesus? If He says, Let her go, they theyre going to say, Oh, so youre against Moses, ha? Youre against the law, ha? So no matter what Jesus does or says, they have Him. They have Him, and they know they have Him. Theyre excited because after they ask the question, the Bible says, …Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with His finger. We got Him. Hes stalling. He doesnt know what to say, so Hes doodling. Jesus is down, so they think Jesus is scratching, going, What am I going to do? Lord, help me out here. Im thinking. But, you know, the thing of it is in the Greek, we read it, and it says, Write, but in the Greek, it uses a different word. He uses the word katagraphin. Graphine means to write; and kata means against, so Hes writing a word to write a charge against someone. Hes not just doodling. Hes writing a specific charge in the ground, in the sand. Now you understand when He stands up that He probably points down to the ground at what Hes just written in the sand and says, The one who is without win, if any of you are without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her, and He stooped down on the ground and began to write against one more time. They looked down and they seen their sins, things that they were ashamed of that nobody knows about, yet somehow Jesus knows. Theyre embarrassed and ashamed. They realize they are just as guilty-if not more so-than the woman who they have accused. One by one, they begin to drop their stones and walk away. Obadiahs probably slapped in the back of the head, Stupid plan! To finish, Jesus stands up, and He says, Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? Has anyone thrown a stone at you? No one, Sir, she said. Neither do I condemn you, Jesus declared. Go now and do whatever you think is best. God loves you no matter what, so live anyway you want to live. Is that what He says? He has this perfect balance of law and love. He says, Go now and leave your life of sin. To sin means to miss the mark. He says, Stop missing Gods mark. Stop living in contrary to Gods law. She had broken Gods law, and that needs to change; so Jesus lifts up the law and extends love at the same time. In Johns Gospel, Chapter 14:15 (page 1068), we read this from Jesus, If you love Me, you will obey what I command. To me this is an assertion of deity. He doesnt say, If you love Me, you will obey what God commands. He says, Youll obey what I command. In other words, He is making it sound as though the Commandments of God and His commands are synonymous. Verse 21, Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me. How will you show your love for God? By obeying His commands-plural. There is more than one law. Its not just the law of love. There are more laws that we are to abide by that are revealed in His Scripture. But love is the fulfillment of those laws. It does negate law, but it fulfills law. Same author, different book-the Book of 1 John 5:2 (page 1210), John says these words, This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out His commands. How do we show love? By obeying laws-plural. Obeying His commands shows our love for God. It shows our love for our fellow men. So this world view is in direct conflict with Gods Word. Gods Word says, There are many universal laws. Live a life of love and you will fulfill them, but it does not negate them. We come to the point where we rejoice in the laws of God because they keep us from hurting ourselves, hurting others, or squandering our one and only life. We come to see that laws are our friend, and theyre a way that we demonstrate our love for God. Would you join me in prayer this morning? Father, it sounds so good when you hear it espoused. You know all we need is love. That's the one thing we need, and we dont need anything else; but when it comes down to it, life is complex. Ethical decisions sometimes are complex. As finite men, we sometimes dont know what love is and how it should be demonstrated. We need Your laws to guide us as we make decisions. Lord, sometimes weve come to see law as something that is against us when actuality it is something that is for us. Its there for our benefit. Its there for the benefit of others. It is a tangible way that we express our love for You and for our fellow men. If we will live a life of love, we will fulfill the commandments, not negate them. We thank You for the demonstration of this in John 8, this perfect balance of love and law that we see in Your example of the adulterous woman; so, Lord, might we take these teachings, these principles, apply them to our hearts and lives at the discernment and leading of Your Holy Spirit. In Jesus name, we pray, Amen.