Latest / Sermon Podcast at Cartersville1st / Let Us Love

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Let Us Love · Sermon Podcast at Cartersville1st

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You would take your Bible and make your way to 1st John
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chapter 4 verses 7 through 12. First John 47 through 12.
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Today, as we arrive at this passage, we are.
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Coming to what is. Perhaps the most well known and
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probably also most loved portion first John.
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And as we do, John is returning to a theme now for the third
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time that he just won't let go. Of and he won't.
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Let go of us until He has hammered this into us with
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absolute assurance that we get the message.
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That he's going to speak. To us about today the title of
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the message is let us love because this is the simple
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command and instruction that John is going to give us
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returning to the theme of love for the third time in this
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letter y'all it has been said that the failure of power in
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many modern. Day churches, much like the.
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Failure of an electrical current is often due to the failure.
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To love. I agree with that.
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I think one of the things that can be missing amidst all the
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things of the way we do church in the modern era can be a
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failure to truly love one another like they first did in
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the New Testament era. John is going to call us back
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now for the third time to this idea of love as God has loved.
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Us and that love being. Shown through us to one another.
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But just how important is the singular ingredient of love
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that. Quote may sound great, but.
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Is there any Bible behind that? Well, let me turn.
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You don't have to turn there, but I want you to listen to
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another biblical author by the name of Paul, who in the most
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famous chapter on love, First Corinthians 13, speaks of how
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critical this singular ingredient of love is in our
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lives as believers. Listen.
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To this. He says in verses one through
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three of First Corinthians 13, if I speak in the tongues of men
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or of angels, but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or
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clanging symbol. He says if I have the gift of
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prophecy and fathom all mysteries and all knowledge and
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I have a faith that can move mountains but don't have love, I
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am nothing. If I give all I possess to the
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poor and give my body over to hardship that I may boast but do
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not have love, I gain nothing. Worship help me out here.
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Minus love equals preaching minus love equals adult Bible
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fellowship or Sunday school that hopefully you just got through
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doing. Minus love equals missions,
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minus love equals discipleship, minus love equals benevolence in
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our community, Minus love equals Should I keep going right?
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How important is love? Well, without love, Paul says
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you don't have anything. In fact, we're nothing without
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love. No wonder John under the
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inspiration. Of the Spirit returns to this
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theme. This simple.
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Incredible singular instruction he gives.
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This over and over. So if I I think if John were.
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Here. If he could look us in the eye
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this morning. He'd simply say this.
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He'd say CFBC. Carter's well, first.
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Family you must love 1. Another.
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You must, if you don't, no matter what else you do, will
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mean anything. Without this one ingredient, you
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have nothing. I want you to listen to what he
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actually says. First.
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John 4, verses 7 through 12. Beloved, John writes, Let us
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love one another for love. Is from God, and whoever loves
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has been born of God and knows God.
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Anyone who does not love does not know God.
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Because God is love. In this the love of God was made
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manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world so
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that we might. Live through him.
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And this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he
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loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
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Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love 1.
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Another. No one has ever seen God.
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If we love one another, God abides in US and His love is
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perfected in us. We must love one another.
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Church family. First of all, because John says
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God is love. We must love one another because
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God is love. This is verses 7 and 8.
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Before John gives us the instruction again to love one
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another, he addresses us with another terminology expressing
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love. He says, beloved, I, I tend to
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think of that like he'd say like this, Hey, you who've been loved
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by God. Hey, you who've received this
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love that I'm going to ask you to show.
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Hey, you who are covered and saturated and surrounded and
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your life's been changed by the love of God.
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Hey, beloved, let us love one another.
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What exactly is he asking? Us to do when he says to love.
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One another well, we've talked about this this be review for
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some if not, hopefully this just allows it to sink in deeper,
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right. The word for love that he uses
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this is the word agape. Remember the Greek language had
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multiple words for different types of love.
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And so just to give you some reminders on that, Eros is the
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Greek word for romantic love. That's not what he's talking
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about. Another word for love is filia.
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That's a friendship or brotherly love.
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That's not what he's talking about.
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Another Greek word for love is store gate.
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That's family love, parent to child, child to parent, brother
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to brother, sister to, you know, that's not what he's talking
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about. What he's talking about here is
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the 4th Greek word used for love in the New Testament for God's
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love, which is the love that we've received, we're now asked
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to show, and that's agape love. It's not an emotion, it's not a
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feeling, it's not a response love.
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It is a choice decision of the will to love.
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It's a gift kind of love with no strings attached kind of love.
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You see human love, Eros and Filia and Storgay to some degree
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or another. They're all loves that are based
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on human response. So typically Eros has been
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described as an all take. Kind of love and then.
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Filia and Storge is like a give and take, but agape is an all
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give kind of love. But human love is almost always
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a response, right? She's so beautiful, I love her.
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He's so handsome, right? They're so wonderful.
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Human love is almost always a response.
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That's not agape love. Agape love is when you choose to
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give unconditional love and what that love is.
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What I mean by that is you choose to unconditionally act
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for the good of another, regardless of what it costs.
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You. So that's agape love.
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You want a dictionary definition.
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It is choosing to act for the good of another sacrificially,
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even if it costs you. So this is a this is a type of
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love that God. Has shown to us.
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And So what John is saying is, beloved, let us let we must act
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unconditionally, act for each other, for each other's good, no
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matter what it cost us. Why is that?
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Well, let's breakdown John's reason.
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He gives us three right here in these.
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First couple verses number. One, we love each other because
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love is from God. Love is from God.
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So he's talking to us as the people of God.
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Now just remember what being the people of God in Bob's right.
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We've been born of who born of God.
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We've been loved by God, born of God, made alive by God, saved by
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God. We've come into a personal
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relationship with God. We are here to worship God.
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We're indwelled with the Holy Spirit of God.
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We're ambassadors of God. We're sent out by God on world
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to make disciples for God. He said, hey, people of God,
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love because love comes from and you're the people of God.
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So we love because love is from God, right?
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And then he says #2 he says love because whoever loves has been
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born of God and knows God. Now just this one, he gets a
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little point blank, black and white with all right, Whoever
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loves, John says you can be sure knows God.
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Whoever doesn't love you can be sure does not.
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Know God, in fact. He says agape one another
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because whoever agape's has been truly saved and is truly in a
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personal relationship with God. But watch out what he says next.
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Whoever does not agape, John says, has not been truly saved
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and is not in a. Personal relationship with God.
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Now John and. Jesus are on the same.
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Page The words of Jesus out of Matthew 7.
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Jesus says something like this. Not everyone who says to me,
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Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the
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one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
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Many will say to me on that day. That's the day that we either
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breathe our last or Jesus comes back and we see Jesus face to
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face and stand before him for the judge.
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Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy
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in your name and in your name? Drive out demons out in your
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name and before many miracles, and I will tell them plainly,
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Jesus says, I never knew you away from me, you evil doers.
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John and Jesus are both warning against the incredible eternal
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danger of being what I'm going to call an unsaved Christian.
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Can I use that terminology? Does that make sense?
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What's an unsaved Christian? Someone who thinks they're a
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Christian. Someone whom everyone else
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thinks is a Christian, but God knows they're not.
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John says how do you know the difference?
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Do they have agape? Love in their life or not,
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whoever agape has been born of God and knows God.
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Whoever does not agape does not know God and has not been born
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of God. You don't really get.
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Much more clear than what John tells us there. 3rd Because God
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is love, John says we ought to love one another to love and let
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us agape one another because. God literally is agape, he says.
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That's an amazing statement, that God is agape.
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What in the world does that mean?
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Well, what it doesn't mean is that it is true to say God is
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agape, but it's not true to say that agape is God.
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You can't reverse it. Does that make sense?
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God is Spirit God, John is saying, in his essence and in
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his being as a part of the necessity of who he is.
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He is totally and completely saturated and permeated by agape
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love. This is part of his nature.
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You can't separate God and love. God is always loved and you can
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never be without love. I want you to think about God
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and love like white. And.
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Rice like water and wet like sun and light like blue and sky like
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fire and heat. You don't get one without the so
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God is God is agape means that everything God does love is not
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just like one thing on God. 'S To Do List.
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For the day everything God does 24/7 is infused with His love.
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So when God creates, he creates in and when God judges, even he
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judges in love when he rules and when he creates and when he
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guides and when he saves. And even whatever God does is
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informed by and motivated by ultimately a God who is agape in
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all that he is and in all that he does.
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God is love. God is agape means so much.
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More than just God loves you. I want.
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To see if I can to help bring that to life with some insight.
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That you may have never. Thought about before and for
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some of you in the room I prayed this is self because some of you
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in the room are watching online. Maybe struggle with the fact
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that God could love you. You just really haven't
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wrestled. That one, you haven't gotten
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your mind and heart around that yet.
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Why? Because maybe of past mistakes,
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maybe of a lifestyle you've lived, maybe if things you've
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done, things you've said, people you've heard, I mean, you name
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it, whatever, whatever it is, right?
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You just got this mountain of stuff that's blocking your view
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and ability to process the love of God for you.
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And I think here this truth of the Bible will help set you
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free, the fact that God is love and loves you.
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And here's the deal. And this will kind of mess with
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you a little bit. But listen, God loves you, hear
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me close. Not because you are you, but
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because God is God. There's nothing in me or you and
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us that's naturally lovely in the eyes of God.
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We're sinners deserving of separation from God and judgment
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of God. You can't earn on the days you
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feel unlovely and like God couldn't love you.
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You're thinking about it the wrong way.
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The sun doesn't shine on the earth because the earth is the
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earth. It shines because the sun is the
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sun. God loves you because God is
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agape, not because you're worthy of agape.
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Don't you see how? The amazing reality of the
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character and nature of God changes everything for us.
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Now it's. True that we are the crown of
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God's creation. We are the only ones on the
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planet made in the image of God. You can sit and behold whatever
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sunset wherever around the world you want to, and God looks at
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you and believes you're more beautiful and valuable to him.
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You can find any creature on the planet, no matter how cool they
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are. God looks at you and you're the
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only one that bears His image as a human being made in the image
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of God. You're different, but God loves
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you because God is God, ultimately.
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Don't forget that. That'll help you on certain
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days. CFPC let us love one another
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because God is love #2 We must love one another because God has
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loved us. Verses 9 through 11.
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How so? John tells us two ways in love.
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Number one, God sent his Son to give us life, to give us life.
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1st 9:00. God sent his only son into the
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world, John says, so that we might live through him.
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If John 316 is too many words for you, that right there just
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puts it more concisely. John 316 says For God so loved
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the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever
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would believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting
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life. And in first John, John just
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says God sent his Son into the world, that through him we might
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have life. This is the best news 1 you
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could ever hear. This is the good news of the
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Gospel that John brings out here, this reality that if you
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need a little bigger context and kind of step back to understand.
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Why it's such good news? Is we understand the Bible says
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God created all. Things by the word of his power.
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Literally, He spoke everything into being and after He put
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everything into being and He made mankind and He gave us His
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instructions for how to live and how to honor Him.
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We, of course, mankind did what we typically tend to do somebody
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they just went first. They turned their back on God.
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They did what they wanted to do instead of what God said to do.
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They didn't honor God and that's called sin in the Bible.
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Sin is when we fall short of the glory of God.
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When we do that which is unrighteous in God's sight,
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whether we think it, want it, say it, or do it.
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It's all that stuff that doesn't honor him.
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When we sin, that open the door wide for the curse of sin to
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come into our. World Why are there?
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Natural disasters why is there disease?
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Why is there all sorts of death and destruction?
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All that is because of the curse of sin in our lives.
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Why is it we do things that don't bring US life?
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Because we're sinful? Because we're born in a world.
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Full of sin, God sent His Son into the world that we may have
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life. Because of our sin, we
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experience the effects of physical death.
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He knew what that is. When you breathe your last, your
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body and your soul are going to separate.
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And because of sin, we don't just face physical death, we
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face spiritual death. And what that is, is not a
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separation of body and soul, but of separation from soul, from
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God, forever in eternity. Jesus came that we might have
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life through him, that we might reverse the curse of sin.
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The Bible says if anyone would believe on Jesus by faith and
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receive his love, his forgiveness, and the life he
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offers, they can be rescued out of the death from our sin.
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That we deserve. The death we deserve.
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Both now and forever and experience life.
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This is why Jesus came. Can I just ask you, have you
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understood that message to the point you gave your life to
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Jesus Christ in faith, receiving His love and forgiveness in the
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life He offers? If not the.
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Love of God has not changed you yet the right response to the
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love of God is receiving it by faith in His Son who came that
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we may have life, but Jesus not only came that we may have life
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in love. God has loved us a second way
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that He sent His Son to give us freedom.
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See, this is another aspect of what God has saved us from, and
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it's based on that word propitiation there you see in
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the text. Look at verse 10 again.
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And this is love. Not that we love God first.
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We didn't go first in this deal, but that he loved us and sent
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his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
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That's a word John is used in this little letter twice now.
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I love this word because it's the essence of the good news of
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the Gospel and what Jesus has done for us.
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You say God, what in the world does that mean?
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Right. God gave us send his Son to give
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us life. And now with the way we're going
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to put it is God sent his Son to give us freedom from God's
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wrath. You say God's wrath.
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God, that sounds kind of crazy. What in the world do you mean?
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And what are you talking about? You see, it's not just that
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because of our sin that we're headed towards physical and
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spiritual separation from God. That's true.
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But you see, the other result of our sin is not just a
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separation. There is a suffering coming
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under the just judgment of the wrath of God against sin.
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That's in addition to our separation.
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It's not that just God is going to send us to hang out forever
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separated from Him if we don't trust Christ.
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It's that we're under His just and holy judgment against sin if
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we choose to refuse Christ. Do you see both John's saying
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that Jesus came not just to give you life and make you alive and
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bring you back together with the Father, but to rescue you from
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the eternal collision with the wrath of God that's coming for
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you if you refuse Jesus as your Savior.
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This is why Jesus came to give you freedom from that.
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Propitiation is a fancy word. It simply means to atone for
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wrath to appease wrath for sin. The Bible says equals God.
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'S wrath. Because God is holy, He knows no
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sin and he's righteous. He's a good judge, so we must
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judge sin. Praise God that Jesus provided
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the atonement for the wrath of God as our propitiation to set
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us free from what we would collide with and experience
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forever if Jesus did not give us a way of escape.
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Have you been saved? That's why we use the word saved
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saved. From separation.
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From God saved. From suffering under the
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righteous judgement of God, some people.
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Hear the judgement of. God or propitiation.
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And they think man God must be some angry, nasty, volatile,
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violent God in the sky. No, no, no.
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You've just not understood the heinousness of sin to a holy,
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holy, holy God, God who is holy, righteous, always.
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And yet he must judge sin. So here's a question we often
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don't like to ask or have a hard time wrestling with.
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Can God both love sinners and be angry at them at the same time?
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Yeah. You know the proof?
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The cross. Because on that cross where
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Jesus died, as the song says, the wrath of God was what?
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That's propitiation. If it just sounded better, we'd
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put it in the song. On that cross where Jesus died,
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the wrath of God was satisfied. On the cross, the love of God is
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on display because God solved the problem by sending His Son
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for you to take it all for you. And yet God didn't back away
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from his righteous just judgment.
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He poured it out on Jesus so you, by faith in Him, could
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receive life and escape. Escape forever.
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The judgment we deserve, that Jesus took in your place.
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Has your life been changed? By the love of God.
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If you have not trusted. Christ, you've not rightly
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responded to the love of. God, I heard a.
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Preacher once say this is not an encouraging statement, but I
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think this is often true. Human beings are often more
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moved by the love of their dog than they are by the love of
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God. Has the love of God changed your
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life? It's given you life.
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It's given you freedom. We ought to love because God has
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loved us y'all. Here's some descriptions that
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might help it bring it to light for you even more.
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The King died for traitors to his Kingdom.
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The Creator died for his disobedient creation.
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The betrayed offer himself in the place of the betrayers.
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Who does this? A God who is loved and who is
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righteous and must judge sin. He did it all for us through
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Christ on the cross. No wonder verse 11 then says,
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Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to what?
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My goodness, if the love of God has given you life and then
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ought to change the way you live toward one another, this ought
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to characterize every interaction and every thought
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and every deed and every motivation and the way you do
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life and living, especially among the family of God.
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So again, John says, let us love one another unconditionally and
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act for the good of one another no matter what it cost us,
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right? So how does that like
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practically play out? What would you say Pastor Kyle
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would say would look? What would that look like in our
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lives if we embraced loving one another among the family of God?
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Like God has loved. Us.
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Well, let me give you a few practical things.
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You just may. Not have thought.
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About #1 the love of God ought to change why you come to
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church. Why is that?
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Well, let's be honest, most of the time when we think about, am
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I going to get up and get dressed and set my alarm and am
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I going to go to church today? Who are we thinking about?
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Me and myself. When you came to church today or
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when the average Christian came to church today, most of the
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time for most people going to church, they're not thinking
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about going to church for anybody.
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Else but for who? Is if this what they want to do?
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Are they? Is it going to be worth it for
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them? Are they going to be ministered
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to? Are they going to receive?
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Are they going to get? Are they going to?
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But the way if John said, if this is true, what John says now
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the love of God ought to change the way we relate to one
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another, then it ought to give us a whole nother reason why we
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show up not just for ourselves, but for who?
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One another. OK, Kyle, how does that then
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practically look like? Well, it's going to look like
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things like this. What about simple things?
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When you show up, and it's not just about you, you're probably
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going to be open to looking and trying to meet people you don't
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know. How many times, though, do you
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come to church? And you're really not worried at
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all about meeting anybody new. It's just looking for people you
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already already know or what. About the people that you.
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Do know, and just watching the expression on their face and
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wondering, my goodness, it looks like they could use a word of
24:15
encouragement. Sure looks like they could be an
24:19
arm put around their shoulder and prayed for.
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But how often? For us to pray for one another,
24:25
do we have to do it as an official thing in the service
24:27
and not just as the normal operation of life in the church,
24:31
in the church hall, or in the welcome area?
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Right it this ought to change. Why you?
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Come and it ought to change what you do when you.
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Come. So think about it like this, but
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it ought to change your. Posture.
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Now I realize I'm talking to people sitting right now, all
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right, so I know. I know.
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But if you're coming to. Church.
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For reasons that don't just involve you, then all of a
24:54
sudden there's going to be a lot of one another kind of going on.
24:57
And it means if you're coming, then you're probably.
24:59
Not just going. To be a posture of sitting, but
25:01
you're going to be a posture of serving because if you're coming
25:07
and it's not just about you. And you have to.
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Be in a position to actually seek the good of somebody else,
25:15
even at your own expense. You can't do that completely
25:18
totally just in the posture of sitting.
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It goes from sitting to serving. And then the love of God ought
25:25
just not change. While we come to church and what
25:27
we do while they're at. Church at all to also ought to
25:28
affect. How we treat each other outside
25:30
of church. But again, in the modern day, we
25:34
often do Church of like, well, those.
25:35
Are the people I see on. Sunday, but it bears no.
25:37
Often impact in our lives between Sunday to Sunday.
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Does it? I had the instance come up where
25:45
I had breakfast with a guy this week in our church.
25:47
We were at Waffle House down the street and the guy walked up to
25:50
be our waiter and I recognized him from church and it was his
25:53
first day on the job at Waffle House.
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I was like, man, in your pastors like your first?
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I don't. He was the first person.
26:00
That he served, but we just were able to put a hand on him and
26:03
pray over him right there in Waffle House.
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This ought to. And I don't say that.
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I mean I any of y'all would have done that too.
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But I'm saying this ought to change the way you relate to
26:12
people that are part of your faith family even in the normal
26:16
to and fro of life. Maybe who you check on and who
26:19
you text and and who you pray for and who you send an
26:22
encouraging text message to or make a phone call to to check in
26:25
or stop by or ask what needs you can meet.
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We ought to relate to one another differently than if just
26:30
were any other Joe out there now.
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We're supposed to even love our. Enemies and love those that we
26:36
don't know, but there ought to be something.
26:37
About the family of God, if people look at it and be like
26:39
what is? That.
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What is that? That's not.
26:43
Natural. Ought to change how we relate,
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but we ought to love one another.
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Let me give you one more reason we ought to love one another,
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that you may not think about this command in the Scripture
26:59
and this reality that God is agape and that we ought to love
27:03
because God is. Love is the Achilles heel.
27:07
Of atheism, agnosticism and philosophical naturalism.
27:12
Now if that doesn't make any sense what I just said.
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What I mean is the viewpoint that all is random and
27:19
cosmically things were thrown in a dryer starting with microbes
27:22
and it spit out all of the order of photosynthesis and
27:27
mitochondria and protoplasms and and all the ocular functions of
27:31
your eye. If you threw that in a cosmic
27:33
dryer and believe it, just spit it out and it all works.
27:37
If that's what you believe, you've got.
27:40
No explicable reason why love is a thing or a good.
27:44
Thing you've got no rationale. Or why you?
27:48
Shouldn't just walk out of here and take somebody's life or hate
27:51
them or do what you want to if. It's all the survival of the
27:53
fittest and randomly. Chaotically.
27:55
Just hurling through the universe.
27:57
There's no reason for right or wrong.
27:59
In fact, there can be no such. Thing as right or wrong.
28:01
Or true morality, and you've got no reason, no reason why love
28:05
should even matter. Unless God is agape, unless God
28:13
has made you in his image to agape, unless we've been loved
28:17
1st and then told to love 1. Only the gospel has that reason
28:23
why doesn't mean an atheist can't love and be somewhat
28:28
moral. They certainly can be.
28:30
Why? Because they're still made.
28:31
In the image of God. And they can operate.
28:34
With a remnant of that. While they deny that God, they
28:36
say they don't believe in and walk and live in a little bit of
28:39
that image that still remains and argue for something they
28:43
can't explain. God is agape changes everything,
28:50
changes the way we ought to show up at church, what we do while
28:53
we're here, what we do when we leave, and our reason for those
28:57
that want an answer for our faith.
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Because God is agape #3 love one another because love makes God
29:05
visible. I'm going to go quick on this
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one. Love one another because love
29:09
makes God visible. This is verse 12.
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I'm going to read it again. No one has ever seen God.
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That is. Fully face to face yet?
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If we love one another though, God abides in US and His love is
29:20
perfected in US, God abides in us.
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If we love one, that means the Holy Spirit truly indwells us.
29:25
God truly is living through US and in US in the presence of God
29:28
permeates us. And even further than that, if
29:30
we love one another, God's love, the Bible says it's perfected in
29:33
us. That means its purpose comes to
29:36
full fruition. The goal or objective is
29:38
achieved, and that goal is as though God, though is invisible.
29:42
His plan is for His love lived out of His people makes Him
29:45
visible to a lost and watching world.
29:49
When they say love, it brings it to life.
29:52
It brings it to light. It pierces the darkness and
29:55
opens people's eyes. Oh my goodness, that doesn't
29:58
make sense. Where does that come from?
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The love of God in our lives makes God visible.
30:05
If we love one another, God who is invisible is made visible
30:07
through US. Let me tell you a little.
30:08
Story about that. Of God's.
30:10
Love being made visible and received as we close.
30:12
His name is Jacob Deshazzer. He was one of the members of
30:16
General Jimmy Doolittle's crew who bombed Tokyo.
30:21
In World War. 2 So he was captured by the Japanese and he
30:25
was put in prison. He absolutely hated his Japanese
30:29
captors, and his Japanese captors feared James to Shazzer
30:33
because he was so violent and hateful back to them.
30:37
They put him in solitary confinement and they feared him.
30:39
It didn't matter what they did to him.
30:41
He just got meaner and meaner. And meaner and would.
30:44
Lash out against him, but in a remarkable way.
30:46
Jacob obtained a copy of the Bible while a prisoner of war
30:51
and began to read it all alone. In the loneliness of his cell,
30:54
he came to realize the life that Jesus Christ offers.
30:58
Him an amazing. Change came over him.
31:02
His hatred while a prisoner of war of the Japanese totally,
31:06
completely went away. They were astonished.
31:08
He became like the most docile, eagerly cooperative and kind of
31:13
their prisoners, even back to his captors.
31:17
Eventually the story of James's change of heart was written up
31:21
in a little track and it was distributed after the war
31:23
throughout Japan. It fell into the hands of a
31:27
young Japanese captain by the name of Mitsuo Fujita, the man
31:32
who, by the way, led the air raid against Pearl Harbor and
31:36
who gave the command to drop the bombs on December the 7th.
31:40
This man returned from that mission.
31:42
He was a war hero, obviously, in Japan, and yet he writes about
31:45
how his heart was completely empty.
31:48
Somehow he had read the track, though, that told of James
31:52
Deshazzer's story, an amazing change of heart.
31:55
And he was arrested by the story, but he was puzzled by he
31:57
didn't understand. Again, this is an out of this
31:59
kind of world kind of change. He obtained a copy of the New
32:02
Testament. He began to.
32:03
Read it with. Growing interest in amazement
32:06
and at last he came to the. Story of the crucifixion.
32:10
When he read the Lord's. Words from the cross, Father.
32:12
Forgive them, for they know not what they do.
32:17
His heart broke and he realized this One who could love his
32:22
enemies and pray for those who persecuted him and despitefully
32:27
used him was manifesting a quality of life that no natural
32:32
human being could possibly show. Why?
32:35
Because Jesus was putting the love of God on display.
32:39
And he saw it. Fuchita became a Christian.
32:43
The man who gave. The command to drop the bombs on
32:45
Pearl Harbor on December 7th became a Christian.
32:48
Did you realize he became a preacher and an evangelist,
32:50
travelling the Japanese coast, telling people of a love that
32:54
had the power A. Love.
32:56
That had the power to change the human heart.
33:04
When we love, we make. God.
33:06
Visible for others to see. CFBC, we must, We must love to
33:13
one another. John and Praise team are about
33:15
to come. Here's what I want to ask you to
33:16
consider number one. Here's the simple basic question
33:19
I've asked you already. Has the.
33:21
Love of God changed your life. If it's not changed your life,
33:30
you haven't grasped the love of God.
33:36
When I say. Changed your life.
33:37
I mean the way that happens, it's just like the Japanese
33:41
captain realized Jesus, Jesus did for you what no one or no
33:48
one else could possibly do. He died for your sin.
33:54
He defeated death, rose from the grave to offer you life.
33:58
Have you received life and love from Jesus Christ by faith?
34:03
If not, I'm asking you this morning to step out from where
34:06
you are when I stand right here, because I stand waiting for you
34:08
to simply say pastor. Kyle, I'm ready to.
34:10
Receive the love of Christ. I want to trust Jesus.
34:14
I'm not waiting another day. Would you come now?
34:19
Christian, let me talk to you. If you've received the love of
34:21
Christ, Is the love of Christ changing the way you live?
34:25
Is it part of the reason you come to church?
34:28
Is it changing what you do? While you're at church, is it
34:32
changing what you do outside of church toward one another and
34:35
toward even your enemies and the people that if you don't like,
34:38
but God's called you to love, is God?
34:41
Is God's love changing your life?
34:43
Is God being put on display in your life because you're
34:47
choosing to love when it doesn't make sense?
34:51
Somebody's going to look at that and say, no natural human being,
34:53
you got something supernatural. What is that?
34:56
What is that? You can have a chance to say
35:01
God. God is love.
35:04
He's loved me and I can't help now but show his love.
35:09
I'm going to ask you if the love.
35:10
Of God needs to change your life for you to step out and come,
35:13
whether it's to talk to me or get on your knees or stand and
35:15
just say God, I'm responding to your love today in a way that I
35:19
have not before. I'm going to ask you to come
35:22
after we pray in Jesus name. I ask, Father, that you would
35:25
allow us by your Spirit to say yes to you, Father, that you
35:29
would have your way, and God, that you would speak to our
35:32
hearts in this moment. Help us.
35:35
To not let anything hold us back by obeying in faith.
35:38
In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
35:39
Would you stand with me? Would you?
35:42
Come as the Lord leads you, as we worship.
35:43
Let's sing together, and you come.