Raising the Bar: Loving Beyond Boundaries

1) "But in pole vaulting, like when Kenzie runs, she's going to hit that pole in the ground. She's going to fly over the bar. And if she makes it over the bar, what happens? What do they do? You know? They move. They move the bar, right? They raise it up. She does it again. She clears it. They raise it up again. They go higher and higher and higher, raising that bar. Almost anything you do, like athletics -wise, like in high school, there's this idea of raising the bar, right? You go freshman team, then JV, then varsity. And it's a... It's different, higher level." [02:12] (37 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "So this evening, we're going to look at a passage of scripture because Jesus has a great conversation. And we're going to look at that conversation. It's a couple of verses. I'm trying to find where it's at for myself. Where he challenges people, hey, you're going to have to raise the bar. But before we get to where he challenges people, if you've got your Bible, I'll put the verses up on the screen. If you've got your Bible, though, I want you to go to the Old Testament book of Leviticus. It's a book that nobody reads because it is so hard to read." [04:20] (31 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "So what this says here is, hey, if someone at church hurts your feelings, you are not to seek revenge. if someone at church does something and wrongs you and maybe it's a big deal you've got to figure out how you are not going to hold a grudge like that's the expectation of the law they they understood that hey I can't hold a grudge because here's what happens today and some of you guys I mean you might experience this I have in my life like somebody at church hurts your feelings so what do we do we just go to another church all right I don't like that person anymore so I'm just gonna go to church over here it's just it's an easy exit strategy." [06:36] (42 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "The bar was love your neighbor. No grudges, no revenge, figure it out. And then Jesus comes in and he raises the bar. Not just love your neighbor. I expect you to love your enemies as well. But what we see here in this passage, we see a couple of things. We see one reason why it's really important. It's really important that you're here. It's really important that you read your Bible on your own. It's really important that you find a church on a Sunday morning, that you find a service, that you find a small group, that you find people around you to speak truth into your life." [11:06] (31 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "Practice loving your enemy. Practice loving the person that you don't love. Practice loving the person that you don't like. Because one day you're going to be challenged because you're going to be in a church somewhere. You're going to be in a relationship with somebody, and they're going to hurt you. And you're going to have to figure it out. So start practicing now. The person, maybe it's not an enemy. Maybe it's just somebody at school that irritates you. Maybe it's the person that walks into the room, walks up to your group at lunch, and you're like, oh, my goodness. I just. wish they weren't here." [15:59] (29 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "Pray for your enemy. That's what Jesus says. He says, I say, love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Like maybe that's where you need. And here's what I'm saying. Don't just walk out of here going, okay, yeah, I'll pray for them. There's some people that you don't like. You're just in relational conflict. I'm going to challenge you to go home tonight and somewhere by your Bible, someplace where you put your phone in, write their name down. If it's somebody that lives in your home, write a code word. And leave that. I'm going to start praying for them. Pray that your heart changes." [20:42] (35 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "If a year from now I'm lifting the same weights, not a good sign. If a year from now you hate the person you hate just as much as you hate them now, that's not a good sign because you haven't grown spiritually. Jesus comes in and raises the bar. So I'm going to pray for us. And then we're going to go break into our small groups. Amanda will come up and kind of give you some directions. We're going to talk about this. So you're talking about loving your enemy. This isn't a place to name names, obviously, because that just creates gossip a lot of times. But we're going to talk about how to love your enemy." [23:48] (31 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)