What's Love Got To Do With You?

Good morning. It is so good to be with you this morning. I think I am rested. As you know Dixie and I took Sydnee, Alex and Declan to camp this past week. What a blessing but that is hard on an old man. Seriously though it was an amazing time and was so good. Everyone experienced God and made decisions and was such a joy. From the kids and Dixie and myself to you the church

thank you.

Thank you for sending us, it was truly a blessing.

Today we begin our Bait of satan series. As I said I pray this series grows you. I pray it convicts you. I pray it encourages you. If you are lost I pray it helps you see Jesus calling you to repentance and salvation through the Holy Spirit.

Lets Pray

START OBS

What’s love got to do with you?

Everything.

It is what defines eternity and should be what defines you as a Christian

This week and next week we will dive into love. What it is, what it is not, why it is important.

Society says that love is physical

Love is an emotion

Love is tied to sex

The world has love and lust confused

Love is not physical

Love is not an emotion

Love is not sex

Lust is not love

God has clearly defined love in this way

Jesus fully God came to earth to be fully man

to live and love and teach and serve and die for your sins and my sins and the sins of the whole world

All while you and I were still sinners....God’s enemies....lost

Jesus loved His enemies by dying to offer them true forgiveness and true life

Both of those, forgiveness and true life are things we will also look at down the road in this series

Our text for this morning is

I John 4:7-21

I am not going to read the text as a whole but rather this morning I want to look at several baits of satan contrasted against the Truth of God using this text and others.

Bait: Love is physical and human and must be earned

Truth: God is love

I John 4:7-10

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“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

Love here is Agape love.

God’s love

Jesus on the cross love

Comes from God and God alone

You may have an infatuation or a crush or feel some sort of human affection or emotion but only God is love

Without believing in Jesus

Romans 10:9

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“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

Without that salvation you do not have true, Agape love

Look at vs 8 of I John 4 He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love

God goes even further

I John 4:9-10

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“In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

God loved you

God loved me

God sent Jesus into the world

WHEN you didn’t love God,

WHEN I didn’t love God

WHEN you didn’t earn it

WHEN I didn’t earn it

WHEN you didn’t deserve it

WHEN I didn’t deserve it

It had nothing to do with you

It had nothing to do with me

It had nothing to do with physical sex or feelings

God sent His son Jesus to deal with our sin problem

God sent His Son Jesus to show us how to live

God sent His Son Jesus to show us how to love

God sent His Son Jesus while we were enemies to give us the opportunity at eternal life and forgiveness of sin

What a wonderful gift....the gift of love

A gift from a loving Father!

Bait: Love yourself and your family and friends and forget everyone else

Truth: God loves us so we must love others

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I John 4:11-12

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“Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.”

Do you love others

If you love God you must love others

You must truly love others

At camp this past week there was a missionary there who serves in Laos

He was talking about others and said something that really hit me

Here is how most American Christians define others:

My: Self

My: Children

My: Family

My: Community

My: Tribe

My: Country

Those are others and you are to love them but that is not the only others that Jesus was referring to

You spend so much time and energy loving your circle that you have nothing for the lost

Nothing for unreached people groups around the world

Nothing for those that are broken and hurting and lost living all around you right here in Nevada Mo

It reminded me of

Luke 6:32-33

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“For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.”

We will cover this scripture in more detail later in the series but look at the wording

You love those who love you, your others, so what?

Sinners do that

You aren’t special because you love your family

You don’t know love can’t be earned?

If you only love those who love you you don’t love with agape love

No you love with human.....evil love

Church this world is dying to be loved

The addict wants loved

The narcissist wants loved

The greedy want loved

The mean want loved

The selfish want loved

My co-leader at camp in our family group made this statement, that again we will get into in more detail later in this series but he said this “Hurting people hurt people”

That is so true.....

people hurt people because they lack love.....

they are desperate for love....

they long to be loved and love others they just don’t know how.

Will YOU show them?

Bait: How you live and love doesn’t matter…you do you

Truth: How you live and love testifies the Gospel is powerful and Jesus truly saves!

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I John 4:13-17

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“Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.”

God is love

Christians are to be known by their love

The love of Christ coming through you

Your love is made perfect so that you may have boldness

You are to be bold in the world

No on ever questioned where Jesus stood

He loved

He ministered

He served

He rebuked

He taught

He met needs

He healed

He laughed

He cried

He was bold in all that He did

He always pointed to the Father!

No question where He Stood

He was bold

What about you?

Are you bold?

Are you defined by the love of Jesus?

Camp was amazing. Many young people made decisions for Christ.

13 baptisms in total for the week

Praise God!

However, the enemy has infiltrated the church.

This session of camp was lead by a large church in Springfield, in fact they brought two charter buses full of students, again Praise God!

I had a virtual meeting prior to camp with the youth pastor who was in charge of this week’s camp and during that meeting he said that he was relying on college students to be the deans of camp and help lead it. He said that is wonderful and scary at the same time.

They are young and full of energy

They get an opportunity to grow and serve and minister

however they are young and will make young mistakes

I was very disappointed in their mistakes.....the camp was very wordly in some aspects.

Lots of secular music at meal time and game times

Lots of focus on secular people and artists

Not in a you should worship them type of way but in a way that showed that they were far too much of the world not in the world

It showed to me just how important it is to be in the world not of the world because God’s love is not of the world.

In fact

James 4:4

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“Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”

enmity is a Greek noun meaning reason for opposition; hatred

You can’t love the world and love God

You can’t be friends with the world and love God

You can’t be worldly Monday through Saturday and then claim to be godly on Sunday

It doesn’t work that way......

satan wants you to work that way but God is very clear

Friend of the world enemy of God

That should prick most of us right in the heart

That should convict most of us

That should move most of us to tears

That should lead most of us to the altar

Why

Because just like some things at CHURCH camp showed the enemy is great at what he does and most of us have areas we are friends of the world!

I John 2:15-17

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“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”

Your walk matters

Your priorities matter

How you spend your time matters

Your social media matters

How you love matters

Who you love matters

You must love your enemy, again another issue we will tackle in this series

You must love God and the things of God

If your toes haven’t been stepped on yet

If a concert gets cancelled it may disappoint you but it shouldn’t really matter to you

If church gets cancelled it should hurt you

Concert is temporary

Concert is of the world so who cares

Church is fellowship

Church is preaching and teaching of God’s Word

Church is worship

Church is God being proclaimed

Church is eternal

But for most it is the opposite

Concert gets cancelled you melt down and freak out

Church gets cancelled you are more than happy to sleep in and don’t think about it again

Church is a building

Church can be an idol

It is the heart that I am trying to illustrate.....

a worldly heart craves and longs for worldly things and if those things are taken away it mourns worldly things

Christians should ignore worldly things and crave and long for the things of God

There will be Christians, maybe even some here this morning that will come face to face with Jesus and hear away from me I never knew you because of your love for the world

If you love the world you do not love the Father

If you don’t love the Father you are not saved

If you are not saved you don’t know Jesus and will not go to heaven

Church this matters

I love each and every one of you and I want to spend eternity in heaven together

Worshiping God and Jesus and Holy Spirit face to face

I pray you love God

I pray you love Jesus

I pray you have truly confessed with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead

I pray you hate the world and love God!

Bait: It’s okay to live a life in fear. Fear keeps you safe

Truth: Perfect love casts out fear

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I John 4:18

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“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”

fear here is from the Greek word phobos it is a noun that means alarm of fright; be afraid; terror

The enemy loves fear

This world loves fear

Institutions and religions love fear

You should only have fear if you are unsaved

Fear of death

Fear of hell

Fear of being separated from God for all of eternity

This fear is not what happens when you startle Tommie....jump scares

It is more than fear of heights or snakes

No this is a paralyzing fear

An anxiety, worry causing fear that doesn’t allow you to move forward or think or grow

God and His love casts out fear. Why?

Romans 8:31

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“What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?”

If you are a Christian God is for YOU!

There is nothing to fear because you are secure in God

You are saved

Heaven is your home and one day you will be called home Praise God!

The enemy wants you so afraid you can’t grow in Christ

I want to say that again

The enemy wants you so afraid you can’t grow in Christ

Look at society today

They are comfortable with superficial things

They are comfortable with surface level feelings and thinking

As soon as it starts to dig deep

As soon as it gets real

As soon as conviction starts

As soon as God begins to move in their hearts

They run

They push away

They act out

They want nothing to do with it

That is the enemy

That is satan pulling them away from God

What about you?

What do you do

When It starts to dig deep

When it gets real

When conviction starts

Do you live in fear and run, or push away, or act out

or

do you run to the cross

Cling to Jesus

Look for other believers to help you walk the way God calls you to walk in Jesus

God casts out fear and the enemy controls by fear!

If you are fearful today

seek God

Ask Him to drive out that fear with His perfect love!

Finally this morning

I John 4:20-21

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“If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.”

God’s Love

Jesus’ Love

Meant Jesus leaving heaven....

being born in a barn…

being rejected by the very people He came to save...

being beaten beyond recognition...

being nailed to a cross and dying

All WILLINGLY

ALL BECAUSE HE LOVES YOU

He ate with sinners

He spent time with lepers

He tended to the sick

He sought out the lost and broken and hurting

Remember earlier I said that hurting people hurt people

If someone hurts you they are hurting themselves

Forgive them

Pray for them

Love them

Serve them

Return their hurt with goodwill and love

Love always costs you something

Love is a choice

Love is an action

God is love

One can only truly love through God!

Next week we will look at what love looks like

what it sounds like

We will look to understand how to truly love

This morning I am going to play a song they played at camp and it talks about the rejuvenating power of Gods love

How through the love of Christ you become a new person

Through the love of Christ you grow into who God created you to become here on this earth!

As it plays come if God is leading you to come

STOP OBS

Invitation

Springtime