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Do you have the Lord's love or
a Valentine's love? Let me read to you these verses.
1 John 4, beginning at verse 7. We could start at the beginning,
but really we get to verse 7 through 21 is where we want to be tonight.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God. Whoever loves has been born of
God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does
not know God because God is love. In this, the love of God was
manifest among us that God sent His only Son into the world so
that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we
have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us,
we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If
we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected
in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us because
He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify
that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus
is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we
have come to know and to believe that love, the love that God
has for us. Here's that statement again.
God is love. And whoever abides in love abides
in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with
us. so that we may have confidence
for the day of judgment, because as He is, so also are we in this
world." This is an interesting statement. There is no fear in
love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do
with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected
in love. We love because He first loved us. If anyone says, I love
God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not
love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he
has not seen. And this commandment we have
from him, whoever loves God must also love his brother." Now whenever
you think about this subject topic called love, it's really
a subject that as a pastor you just Think about how would you
try to express the love of God. I read a story about someone
said to Mrs. Albert Einstein, do you understand
your husband Albert's theory of relativity? And she said,
no, not in the least. But I understand Albert and he
can be trusted. Well, if you're talking about
the love of God, it's kind of like that. Pastor Larry, or I
could ask you, do you feel like you understand this knowledge
or the subject of God's love? And probably you would say no,
not nearly as much as I would like to. Love is a funny world,
a word. That one word can make the heart
flutter uncontrollably, can make the toughest man blush, Johnny
Cash. wrote a song six foot six he stood on the ground weighed
235 pounds but he saw that giant of a man brought down by thing
called love to make the toughest man blush it can make a grown
man cry can make a woman jump for joy the world is almost obsessed
these days with this thing called love and this friday this coming
friday is valentine's day And we're going to hear a lot and
read a lot about Valentine's in the next few days. Silly little
poems and ditties that go with it. I read some of them this
week and I laughed. A lot of them are humorous and
they deal with an emotional type of love that doesn't really deal
with commitment or problems or depth, but just the fluffy side
that makes you smile and laugh and kind of referred to as puppy
love. A couple of humorous little things
I read about Valentines were as follows. They dealt with some
soul-searching, profound questions. Example, what do farmers give
their wives for Valentines? Answer, hogs and kisses. I like this one, what's the best
part about Valentine's Day? And the answer was the day after
when the chocolates go on sale. The reason I ask if you have
the Lord's love in your heart as opposed to a Valentine's love
is because there's a huge difference between the two. Valentine's
love in my mind is a, and I'm not against it, don't think I
am, but it's a different type of love than what we're talking
about tonight. Valentine's love is a speakeasy. carefree declaration,
sometimes sweet but shallow and superficial of what can be called
surface love. The love of God, however, is
a whole different picture. It's not a speakeasy love. It's
not carefree. It's not fluffy accolades, nor
is it a mile wide and an inch deep. It is not. It is, in fact,
the direct opposite of those things that we're talking about
tonight. Psychiatrists, and I think I
put it up on the board, psychiatrists mentioned that there are three
different needs. The greatest needs that we have
is individuals, the need to be wanted, the need to be needed,
and the need to be loved. We all talk a lot about love
and yet we know really so little about it. In fact, the person
who does not know Christ or the Bible will never get a concrete,
clear definition, understanding of what love is apart from the
Bible and apart from Christ. The world we are living in today
knows very little about love and the only reason there's any
understanding or any examples of love in the world today is
because the Holy Spirit is still here and God's people are still
here. But when they're gone, there will be no further manifestations
of love in this world. You and I know tonight that the
Bible is God's love letter to man. And the Apostle John is
the expert on love in the Bible. Paul was the apostle of faith.
If you wanted to know about faith, talk to Paul. James was the apostle
of works. He emphasized how our works have
to come and keep up with our profession. Otherwise, this is
just hollow without the works that go with it. Peter was the
apostle of judgment. He talked a lot about that in
first and second Peter. But John, John is the guy that
you go to if you want to know about love. He can tell you more,
perhaps, than the others combined. No one in the Bible speaks of
love with more depth and detail. than he does. So in this message
tonight, we're just going to look at it through the eyes of
John and try to just grasp a hold. You know, I don't know how you
would bulldog an elephant. I really don't. You know, if
you watch rodeo, you can see how they can bulldog a steer.
You grab a hold of horns. They're close together. You tip
him over if you're strong enough. I don't know how you would bulldog
an elephant. I don't know how you would bulldog
a hippopotamus. There's just hardly any place
you could get a hold of them to do that. It's too big and
you wouldn't be strong enough and you couldn't secure a hold
on it. I kind of feel like that when
you talk about the love of God. It's just almost too big to even,
it's trying to kind of like get your arms around a weather balloon.
It just can't happen. You can only have a little bit
of it. But let's start out by talking just about the evidence
of love. We're calling it love's sure
evidence. Someone said this. Love is the
thermometer by which you can take your spiritual temperature.
Love is a thermometer. And when we talk about love tonight,
I'm thinking of it in the context of love for God and God's love
for us. Love is the thermometer that whereby you can take your
spiritual temperature. If you were put on a trial for
being a Christian, love is the one indisputable evidence that
would convict you of being saved. People would say, I know there
have to be a Christian. I know they are a Christian because
they don't respond to situations like other people do. They act
different in crisis. They treat even people that differ
with them and people that they differ with, they treat them
differently. Yeah, they're a Christian alright.
Because there's something inside of them that shows forth no matter
the circumstance, no matter the situation. They're different. And it's that quality called
love. The Bible tells us that one of
the evidences of love in verses 7 there is that If you have love,
it's an evidence that you are in the family of God. God's children are loving children. When you and I were born into
this world, we took on the sinful nature of our parents and of
the human race. But when we are born into the
spiritual world, we take on a the nature of God. We take on, as
it were, a divine nature. In fact, 2 Peter 1, verse 4 says,
through the promises of God, we become partakers of what? The divine nature. When I was
born physically, I took on my earthly father's human nature
and acted naturally and sinfully. But when I was born spiritually,
I take on my heavenly Father's nature. And from then on, God
expects me to act supernaturally. What is God's nature? Well, it
tells us right there in verse 7. I hope you'll keep your Bibles
open because we're going to be looking at it. It tells us there
that God's nature is love. Beloved, let us love one another.
How can I do that? Why should I do that? What's
my example? For love is from God. You cannot reverse that statement.
Someone has put it this way. Love does not define God, but
God defines love. That is, all that God is and
does is motivated by love. I want you to think about that
because I'm going to give you a statement here in a couple
of minutes that's going to challenge you on that. God created this
world purely out of the motive of love. The Bible tells us that
he saw that what he had made, it was good, but he wanted something
additional. He wanted something more. He
wanted something that he could love and that would love him
in return. The animal world wasn't capable
of that. God saw that there was a need. And so God created man
out of pure love. He created you and he created
me so that he could love us. God created heaven so that He
could have a place where we could love Him and each other for all
of eternity. And God created hell out of a
motive of love as well. Hell was originally created for
the devil and his angels. It was created so that His children
might be forever separated from those who rebelled against Him. You say, well, why then would
a loving God send anybody to hell? God doesn't, I think, as you
have heard me say and other pastors say many times, God doesn't send
people to hell. I'll never believe that if I
live to be 450 years of age. people consign themselves to
hell by rejecting God's offer of salvation. Last night came out on the prayer
chain of a lady that was requesting prayer for her daughter because
she lives right next to some individuals in the apartment
complex. Remember that, those of you that
are on the prayer chain? Those individuals are very unruly. They're druggies. They threaten
her. She's afraid for her life at
times. Now, the mother that sent that request out was deeply concerned
over the welfare of her daughter. If she was able, what would love
enable her to do in a time like that? Love would say, I'm going
to take you out and away from that, from those who don't love
you, from those who reject you, from those who don't want you
around, from those who don't share your values. So when I
say that it was actually a motive of love whereby God created not
only heaven, but he also created hell. so that those who did not
want to be with God or around God or share God's nature, God
in love separated those out, His people out from those that
don't want that. And therefore we have that place
called hell. Follow this logic. God is love. Those who have been born again
are the children of God. God's children share God's nature. God's children, therefore, will
love. You follow that? I'm going to
go through that again. But I want you to see the logic of that. God is love. Those who have been
born of God are the children of God. God's children share God's nature.
We just read that in 2 Peter. First Peter, that he has given
unto us, we're partakers of the divine nature. And therefore,
if we are partakers of the divine nature and that divine nature
is love, therefore God's children will love. So one of the thermometers
of your soul can be, if you are a child of God, you can know
that you are in the family of God. Secondly, that brings you
into fellowship with God. Verse eight tells us that. It
says there, anyone who does not love does not know God because
God is love. Now that word know there has
a lot deeper meaning than intellectual understanding. In fact, it's
not even referring to mental knowledge. It's referring to
an intimate knowledge of the heart. It's kind of, it has a
concept there that goes clear back even in Genesis when it
said Adam knew Eve. There was an intimacy, a physical
intimacy, and this is talking, this know here is talking about
a spiritual intimacy. That if we know God, then we
are in fellowship with God where first of all that makes us part
of the family of God and it brings us into fellowship with God.
And if you want to know how well you know God, if you want to
know how close you are to God, then ask the question, how much
love is in your heart? How much love is in your heart
for Him? How much love is in your heart for others? If the love of God is not springing
up as a flowing river within your life, then you need to clear
away that which is clogging the drain. Because to live a life
in which you feel no emotion, no love, no lasting love. Sometimes we can humanly love
if people are nice to us. But how do we respond to those
that have hurt us to the very quick of our soul? How do we
respond to those situations that we don't understand, that are
tragic, that go beyond our ability to even grasp it? I spent about
an hour this afternoon on the telephone with a couple that
I married a number of years ago back in South Dakota. This couple now has a daughter
that recently was married, several months ago, a year ago maybe.
Maybe it's been two years ago the daughter was married. This
month she lost, she miscarried her five-month-old baby. And her, this couple that I married,
this girl's mother, Her mother-in-law, she was calling me and she said,
you're going to have to explain that one to me because right
now I'm really mad at God. I'm really mad at God. I hope
you have some good answers for me. And I need to tell you, I
prayed earnestly. I prayed sincerely because I
can see that in some ways that lady's faith, she's not a strong
Christian. She would be a professing Christian. But I don't know if
she's ever moved. I'm not judging. I don't know
how far she's moved from the entry level on into the things
of God. And when something like this
happens, it really cares at the very fabric of your faith way
down deep in your soul, even if you're an established Christian.
So I spent about an hour explaining and praying to her, sharing verses.
I knew she was going to call because she contacted Dory last
night and said, can I talk to him today? So we set up the time
today. And I've been praying. In fact,
I got some stuff from Pastor's Message this morning and ran
that off after service and shared some of the things that that
man had given us there about adversity and tied that in with
the Scripture and prayed earnestly. And while I was talking to her,
she would hardly respond. But I thought unless she interrupts
or she begins to reject what I'm saying and I need to elaborate,
I'm just going to seize this opportunity to present the love
of Christ as I know it. And in this time when she's questioning
God's love, I'm sharing with her the love of God and that
we choose to love God. even when we cannot see any reason
in a certain situation as to why we should love God, when
it may even look like God was acting adversely toward us. When we were all done, she thanked
me. I prayed with her. But I want you to know there
is an evidence of love. The first evidence of love is
that you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that you have
Him, receive Him as your Father, that you're part of the family
of God, and then that causes you to enter into the fellowship
with God. Where do we get this example
of God? Point number two. This supreme
example of love. Well, notice where that comes
from in verses 9 through 11. In this, the love of God was
made manifest among us. And here's where we get this
big, beautiful example that God sent His only Son into the world
that we might live through Him. The word manifested there means
to come out in the open. It means to make a public display. The cross is God's flashing neon
sign that God loves you. We're not too far now from Easter.
And we'll hear more about the cross in that time. The cross
is God's flashing neon sign that He loves you. That person is
a fool who doubts two things, either the existence of God or
the love of God. The man who doubts the existence
of God is a fool because the Bible says, the heavens declare
the glory of God. And the man who doubts the love
of God is a fool because the Bible said, for God demonstrated
His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, He died
for us. Let me tell you quickly some
things about love, the manifestations of it. True love is a sacrificial
love. True love is a sacrificial love. Something I discovered or thought
I knew when I was preparing this message. Love is not only defined
by the sacrifice of Jesus. But here's the truth. Here's
what came to me so powerfully that I don't know that I had
ever seen before. Love is not only defined by the sacrifice
of Jesus, but it's also defined by the giving of the Father.
You know, sometimes I don't know that I had appreciated that as
much as I had appreciated the second fact as much as I had
appreciated the first. You know, that Jesus gave Himself. Oh, what a love! I came to realize
this week and to appreciate this week more often that just as
much as Jesus showed His love by being willing to come, God
showed His love by being willing to give Him, to send Him. If you put yourself in that place
of offering up the dearest one to you for somebody that didn't
care a snap of the fingers, For somebody that might even look
at you and sneer at you and say, you are the biggest fool that
ever lived. And yet, you could look beyond
that rejection and that scorn. You could look beyond that stigma
of being thought a fool and give that which was the dearest to
you. Not a possession, but a person. I don't know that I really dawned
on me until this week, and I'm not sure I've absorbed it all
yet, that the sacrifice of love, the sacrifice was not only in
Jesus giving Himself, but in God sending His Son to do that. I don't know if that grips you
like it has gripped me. It stayed with me. It was a sacrifice
for the father to send the son and a sacrifice to pour out the
judgment we deserved upon that son. In the chapter that comes just
before that chapter, 1 John 3 16, by this we know that he laid
down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for his
brothers. Is it any wonder that God turned His back, as it were,
when Jesus was on the cross? He turned, as it were, spiritually
away from that horrendous scene. This is my own conjecture. Even as Jesus said, if there's
any other way to do this except I have to go to the cross, I
wonder if in that time of when Jesus was enduring the things
that he was enduring, and God Almighty seeing the suffering
that he was experiencing, of course keeping in mind that Jesus
and God are one, but there's a sense in which they're also
separate entities. But I wonder in that time if
even in the mind of God Almighty, there wasn't something that he
was searching his mind to make sure he had done the right thing. We know God doesn't question
Himself. But the point of it is, I never saw so much till
this week about the sacrifice. This is sacrificial love. I want
to tell you something. I want to tell you something.
Years ago when I was young, there were hippies who used to go around
and talk about free love. Make love, not war. so stoned
out of their mind they couldn't have done either. But the point
of it was that love was free. I want to tell you something. If it's free, it's not love.
And if it's love, it's not free. Because love costs. You have
to pay a price to love. And if you're a mother, or a
dad, You don't need any explanation of that. You pay the price. You do what
you have to do in that moment if you love. Years ago there
was a man, I've used this illustration, but when it talks about what
love is, a man by the name of Dr. B.H. Faup. He was the first
president of a Wesleyan church. Before that there had not been
organized as a denomination and they'd had superintendents. But
here they had the first president. Now they have superintendents,
etc. But at that point in time they
had presidents, just one. And Dr. B.H. Faulk was the first
president of the Wesleyan denomination. He was a great man of God. He
came and spoke to us theologues at college. had such profound
truths. He was such a humble man and
yet such a capable man. Intellectually a giant and spiritually
a great man of God. He was just elected president
a few weeks when it was discovered that his wife had stage four
cancer. His job was going to require
him to travel all over the world as the church's representative.
And I remember full well going into class one morning and one
of our professors saying, Dr. Faulk has resigned as president
of the denomination. And part of his resignation speech,
it was very brief, the words that he penned, but part of it
showed his great love for God and his great love for his spouse.
He said, after much prayer, In consultation with my Heavenly
Father, I am tendering my resignation. It has come to me that many men
are capable of being the president of this denomination, but no
other man is capable of being the husband to my wife that she
needs in such a time as this, except myself. I hereby tender
my resignation. It wasn't out of fatalism. It
wasn't out of bitterness. It wasn't out of placing his
wife ahead of the will of God. But Dr. Faub understood that
love has to be prioritized and it costs. And he was right. Another man was elected president
of the denomination. But Dr. Faub ministered to his
wife. Love always costs. It's a sacrifice
to it. It's selfless. True love is selfless
love. Real love always seeks to meet
the need of someone else. Real love always seeks to meet
the need of its object, of that person. When I was in darkness,
God sent His light. When I was in deadness, God sent
His life. When I was in doom, God sent
His love. You see, the death of Jesus,
friends, was not an accident. It was an appointment. He did
not die as a weak martyr. He died as a mighty conqueror.
Jesus died that we might live through Him, that we might live
for Him, and that we might live someday with Him. It was a selfless
love. It's a satisfying love. Verse
10, I see that. It tells me there in verse 10,
in this is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us
and sent His Son to be the propitiation. That word propitiation is a strange
word. It comes only a couple times in scriptures. But its
basic meaning is one of the most beautiful words in all of the
Bible. It means a satisfaction. It means we are told in John
1, verse 5, God is light. Now that light refers to purity.
It refers to the holiness of God. God's love is holy. But
God did not want to give us death. He wanted to give us life. So
He sent His Son to take our place to be the satisfying factor for
the penalty of our sins. That's what that word propitiation
Though it's spelled propit, it's propitiation means. Someone has well said that if
a judge lets a guilty man go free, the judge himself is condemned. And if God had not dealt with
man's sinful nature in a righteous way, a way that could satisfy
divine requirement, then he would have ceased to be righteous.
That's why he sent his son so that he was the only one capable
of shedding his blood to make a one-time payment for that.
So he became our propitiation, the satisfaction factor that
God could look on and say, paid in full, paid in full. So it
is that kind of a love. It's a sharing love, a satisfying
love, a selfless love. And we could go on there. When it comes to that word sharing,
I heard about a man who was preaching, a pastor who was preaching a
series of stewardship sermons. And after one sermon, a man walked
out of the church who really loved his money and he hated
it every time the preacher talked about stewardship. Went right
down and just ate it to the cancer of his heart. And he told the
pastor on the way out that he didn't really care about God
or the church. He got sick and tired of hearing about sermons
and preachers talking, give, give, give, give. And the preacher
looked at the man and said, Sir, thank you for the best definition
of Christianity I have ever heard. Give, give, give, give. It goes far beyond money. Far
beyond that. You see, you can give without
loving. But you cannot love without giving. A man who does not give
joyfully and generously to the work of God on the financial
level probably does not understand Christ. He does not understand
Christianity and he does not understand the cross. So the
evidence of that is God's love is we're in his family. We have
fellowship. The example of it is God gave us that example in
sending His Son, and Jesus manifested that example in coming through
His love, sacrificial, selflessly satisfying, and a sharing love. Let's look at number three. I
don't know if we'll even go to number four. I'm more interested in
us getting what we get rather than just in the quantity here.
But I want you to see the essence of love, love's essence. What
does it mean, love's essence? We can talk about the evidence
of love and the example of it, but what is the essence of love? What's it comprised of, in other
words? It bears repeating that the kind of love that we're speaking
about is marked not so much by natural, but as supernatural
characteristics. Now, when I went through this,
I think every one of us knows, oh, I need to love. I want to
love. But how do you quantify it? How do you even know if you
have the love of God as opposed to just a good feeling or you
just try to do good every day? Is that love? If you just try
to do good every day, if you just try to follow, if you try
to read so much and you try to pray so much and you try to do
a kind deed, is that love? Could be. Might not necessarily
be. Let's look in verse 12 and 13.
No one has ever seen God A lot of people claim they have,
but that verse right there says they haven't. If we love one
another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us. Now, here's where we get this
essence of love right here. By this we know that we abide
in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit."
That, point A, is love's provision. It's the Holy Spirit. The only
way that you and I can love is through sharing the nature of
God. And when we become Christians,
The Holy Spirit takes up residence within us. He is the one then
that helps us, enables us to honestly and sincerely love. Now, God has given us His Holy
Spirit, but here, now get this, follow this closely in closing.
John is not talking about the gift of the Holy Spirit as much
as he's talking about the Holy Spirit's gift to us. We sometimes
get so caught up in the gifts of the Spirit. Oh, my goodness.
Whole denominations have been spawned over that one. The gifts
of the Spirit, what they are, what they are not. But let me
read that to you again. John is not here, I don't think,
talking about the gift of the Holy Spirit, but he's talking
about the Holy Spirit's gift to us. You see, love is not something
that's naturally produced in us. Love is something that is
supernaturally produced in us. Love is not something you work
up through resolution or intention or declaration. Love is something
that God works out. through you. You don't work up
love. The Holy Spirit within you is
love, and thus God works out His love through you. That's
why you can act, and that's why you can say what you do and act
like you do, when if you were in the flesh it would be 180
degrees different from what you normally would do. You follow
that? Because you're allowing God's
love to flow out from you and through you. So this essence
of love is the Holy Spirit. That's the Lord's provision. And then the love profession. Look in verses 14 and 15. Here's
the profession. Whoever confesses that Jesus
is the Son of God, there's the profession of genuine love. Whoever confesses that Jesus
is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God. The man who is full of the Holy
Spirit will not only love God, he will also love Jesus and will
profess that Jesus is the Son of God and the Lord of all. Because
the same Holy Spirit who gives a man love for God will also
give a man love for Jesus. That's why Jesus said, If you've
seen Me, you have seen the Father. How sayest thou then, Show us
the Father? Knowest thou not that I am in the Father, and
the Father in Me? He said in John 14. And in 1 Corinthians
12. He said, No one can say Jesus
is Lord except the Holy Spirit. You know, there's a movement
still around today where they try to separate they'll say,
God yes, Jesus no. Or try to make Jesus, try to
make Jesus into an inferior being, into an individual conceived by God through
intimacy with Mary. I want to tell you that's blasphemy. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing else. And nothing but
blasphemy. Jesus. No one, 1 Corinthians,
can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. And then
lastly here, love's possession. Love's possession. Do you see
it the latter part of verse 16? We'll close with that one. So
we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
Now here's the position. God is love. And whoever abides
in love abides in God, and God abides in him. John is simply
saying where you live in your understanding of God's love for
you depends on how much you love God. If God's love is in you,
you possess God and He possesses you. You belong to God and God
belongs to you. God lives in you and you live
in Him. But friend, I want you to remember this tonight as you
leave here. God will not live where love is absent. God will not live. And I know
every one of us can look to someone or some event and say, do you
mean I'm supposed to love so and so? Do you mean I'm supposed
to love this thing, this situation the way it turned out? What I'm
saying to you is that God can give you You might not ever be
buddy-buddy. You might not ever be best friends.
I'm not even implying that. I don't think that's the kind
of love we're talking about here. But what I'm saying is that even
no matter how much you've been hurt or devastated, you cannot
go around with a compartment in your spirit or heart in which
there is hatred that you allow the devil to just work up in
your system all the time just like a yeast, and it's always
in your system. You know what it'll do? It'll
make you a hard-faced Christian and it'll make you a hard-hearted
Christian. If you look at people, sometimes
you can almost look at the face of individuals and tell that
they have been angry or bitter for years by their countenance.
Did you know that? There's something about it. You just look at them and you
know that inside there's an angry person waiting to spring up or
to spew out in just a moment. Just boom, boom, boom. And every one of us has had individuals
like that. Failed friendships. Failed marriages. Failed jobs. failed events, failed
expectations, where you can go around just as bitter and as
full of gall. But what you have to do, not
talking about saying, well, that never happened. I'm not talking
about denying the hurt or the pain, but I'm saying, Let the
love of God flow through you to where even though that is
a memory in your mind, it's not a cancer in your spirit. Does that make sense? And the reason it cannot be is
because God is love. And he that says that he loves
God but hates his brother, hates his former boss, hates his former
professor, hates their former spouse, hates the former whatever
or whoever or wherever. Sometimes you can hate a place.
I've had people tell me I hate Rock Springs. I wouldn't live
there for nothing. Don't let any hatred in your
heart for any reason. God is love. And He expects us
to abide in His love. Let's pray. Lord, it's easy to
talk about love and it's easy to hear about it. And I don't
know that we've even scratched the surface. I think we could
have a thousand preachers preaching at the same time a thousand different
sermons. And we would at times feel like
we were drinking from a fire hydrant All we know, Lord, is
at times we're very unloving. At times we can act more like
the devil in hatred than a God who's filled with love. And so,
Lord, I pray that You would search my own heart tonight. Deliver
us. Deliver me from that spirit of
judgment, from that spirit of censoriousness, From that spirit
whereby somebody doesn't agree with me, he must be wrong. Whereby
somebody doesn't treat me kindly, he must be of the devil. Whereby
self is so easily hurt and so quickly pampered, and we forget
that the greatest example of love was selfless and sacrificial
and sharing. O God, conform us to the image
of Christ. Take our hearts and blot out
that which is evil and wicked and self-seeking And even as
Janelle shared with us tonight, those works of the flesh that
reflect sinful, selfish love and replace them with the fruit
of the Spirit that manifests the love of God. Love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control. Blot out, clean out, stamp out
every attribute that is ungodly and replace it with the blessed
Holy Spirit. And we shall begin to understand
what it means to share and to be a partaker of the divine nature. Seal these words to our hearts,
we pray in Jesus' wonderful name. Amen. God bless you. Thank you
so much for your presence tonight.
Do You Have The Lord's Love Or A Valentine Love?
Listen as Pastor Larry contrasts "Valentine Love" with the Godly love presented in John's First Epistle.
| Sermon ID | 210141215540 |
| Duration | 46:28 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | 1 John 4:7-21 |
| Language | English |