Loving Confrontation

Covenant Series VII

Review
God is a covenant making and keeping God Covenants are around lifes most important relationships: God, Marriage, the Church Many of Gods secrets are in the covenant Covenants reveal: character, motives, plans Covenant reveals the loving kindness of God: His strength, steadfastness, and love

 And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the childrens children to the third and the fourth generation. Ex.34:6-7

 Last week we saw in covenant relationship the need for the counsel of a friend. Today: The need for LOVING CONFRONTATION

 God gives us MODELS more than messages For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. Romans 5:6-9

 ACTIONS speak LOUDER than words! Man remonstrates God DEMONSTRATES! Look briefly at what sin is and has done to us:

 Behold, the Lords hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, And your fingers with iniquity; Your lips have spoken lies, Your tongue has muttered perversity. Isa. 59:1-3

 Sin, separates us by its very nature. Sin is relation breakingGen.3 death IS separation and the first sin was the first break in relationship Cains sin was a break not just against God but against his brother. Gen.4

 Sin is the fracturing of ALL our relationshipswith God and others. Love is the opposite of sinlove is the repair of the breach between two parties. in while we aere yet sinners.Christ died

 Love counteracts sin and its effects All of the law can be summed up in love
Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

 This love thing has been overlooked in lieu of religion. Its easier to perform an external, religious act than it is to love. But Jesus didnt get religious when it came to our sin and separation, He got REAL. My sin wasnt an inconvenience for HimHe had to die!

 Why because LOVE demands a relationship! Love seeks out and lays down its own will and comfort for the need of another. Love says NO! to separation, it will not allow anything to break the bond it shares with another. We are ok with separationGod is not. He is JEALOUS!

 So what do we do about separation in our lives? In our walk with God? In our relationships? Our marriages? Our children?

 Leviticus 19 speaks to relationships and how they are tied to the law of God. You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. V.17 This is parallel with love thy neighbor as thyself

 It takes great love to confront someone. It takes great wisdom to speak to the sin, and not reject the sinner Turn at my rebuke; Surely I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you. Pr.1:23 The mechanics of confrontation