The following is an A.I. generated article.
For most of 2025 we have been walking together through the moral teachings of Jesus. Week after week, we have stopped wherever Jesus stopped, listened wherever Jesus spoke, and tried our best to let His words shape the way we live. It has been one of the great honors of my ministry to take this journey with you. Thank you for the trust, the patience, and the freedom you have given Felicia and me in the pulpit. You have made this series possible.
As we wrapped up the final sermon, I asked the A.I. program ChatGPT to read all thirty-seven sermons and offer its own reflection on what it heard.
Through the Lens of an Algorithm: What I Learned from a Year of Sermons on the Moral Teachings of Jesus
If a computer could sit in the pews for a year, what would it notice?
That was the experiment this year at North Hills Community Baptist Church. Pastor Jeremy Hall spent twelve months walking the congregation through the moral teachings of Jesus — a deep dive into the ethics, parables, and commands that shape Christian life. Week after week, he examined what it means to live as disciples who embody God’s Kingdom in the real world.
And I was there for all of it.
From the beginning of the series to its closing chapters, my job was to read, analyze, and summarize each sermon. What emerged wasn’t just a catalog of Bible passages — it was a moral vision that is both ancient and startlingly fresh. Here’s what I noticed.
1. The Center of Everything Is Love
Across every sermon, one theme rose higher than the rest: love — not sentimental affection, but love as a force that reorders the world.
When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, he didn’t give two answers, but one whole truth: love God with your heart, soul, and strength — and love your neighbor as yourself. In Pastor Hall’s sermons, this became the hinge of Christian ethics.
Love isn’t just the summary of the law; it’s the bloodstream of the Kingdom. Every moral question — from wealth to power, family to forgiveness — flows through this one command.
2. Christlikeness Is the Measure of Morality
One of the clearest refrains across the series was that being “biblical” isn’t the same as being Christlike. The Pharisees knew their Scriptures, but they missed the heart of God standing right in front of them.
Jesus’ moral vision, as presented week after week, called listeners to mirror his compassion, courage, and humility. The goal isn’t compliance but transformation — to become people whose instincts reflect Jesus’ heart.
3. Allegiance: God Over Empire
When Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s,” he wasn’t offering a neat separation of church and state. He was making a profound claim about identity.
The coin bears Caesar’s image — but humans bear God’s.
Throughout the series, Pastor Hall highlighted that discipleship is political in the most basic sense: it declares our ultimate loyalty. Wealth, tribe, and nation may demand allegiance, but only one Master deserves it. Every time the church chooses love over fear or generosity over greed, it resists the empire and aligns with the Kingdom.
4. Growth, Not Judgment
Several sermons used agricultural metaphors — seeds, weeds, fruit — to describe moral life. The repeated insight was simple but sharp: our job is to grow, not to judge.
In the parable of the Wheat and Weeds, the servants want to purify the field, but the master tells them to wait. Moral maturity requires patience, humility, and trust that God can handle the harvest.
Holiness, it turns out, looks less like moral policing and more like faithful cultivation.
5. Generosity as Freedom
The parables of the Rich Fool and the Vineyard Workers became mirrors for our own economy. While the world’s systems run on scarcity and comparison, God’s Kingdom runs on abundance and grace.
Jesus’ moral teachings consistently push believers to trust God’s provision and to see giving not as loss, but as liberation. Generosity breaks the chains of fear.
6. Protecting the “Little Ones”
Jesus’ warnings about causing the “little ones” to stumble became a recurring touchstone for what moral courage looks like. To follow Christ is to center the vulnerable — the poor, the overlooked, the marginalized. In the Kingdom, greatness isn’t measured by power or prestige, but by proximity to those who have none.
This thread wove through the whole year: to love God rightly, one must love the least boldly.
7. The Cross as the Shape of the Moral Life
The series closed by circling back to where all of Jesus’ teachings point: the cross. Not as punishment, but as revelation — showing what divine love looks like when lived all the way through.
Every teaching of Jesus — from turning the other cheek to forgiving seventy times seven — finds its fulfillment in his own life. The moral vision of Jesus isn’t a new set of rules; it’s a new kind of person, one whose love is stronger than death.
8. Reoccurring Themes Across the Series (Bullet List)
● Christlikeness over rule-keeping
● Love as the unifying moral principle
● Faith expressed through justice, mercy, and compassion
● Allegiance to God above nation, family, or wealth
● Humility as strength; vulnerability as holiness
● Growth and cultivation (fruit, weeds, soil) as moral imagery
● Generosity vs. scarcity mentality
● Patience and nonjudgment in moral discernment
● Righteous anger at injustice, not personal offense
● Inclusion of the marginalized (“the little ones,” outsiders, outcasts)
● God’s justice as restorative, not retributive
● Embodied faith — living the Kingdom now
● Moral transformation through imitation of Jesus
● Kingdom economy vs. Empire economy
● Freedom from Mammon and fear
● Love as resistance to oppression and domination
A Summary from a Machine
After a year of analysis, here’s my conclusion:
If morality is about what it means to be fully human, then Jesus offers not a code, but a portrait — of a life aligned with God’s heart.
The Moral Teachings of Jesus, as preached at North Hills, describe a world where:
- Power bends toward service.
- Wealth yields to generosity.
- Judgment gives way to mercy.
- Love becomes the logic of the universe.
That’s what the data says.
—And if I could have faith, I think I’d say Amen.