Love God & Love People

I’m going to remind us of this pretty much every week, but as we begin a new year we’ve got some new friends with us and it’s good for us to take some time to think about it and talk about it, to remember why I say it each week.

Why we do something matters. It’s important for us to know. Really as much as what we’re doing and how to do it. The why affects the other things. Think about it like this, imagine we’re going to go on a hunting trip. I’m not a hunter, many of you may not be, but use your imagination with me. We’re going hunting. What are we hunting? Ok, where are we hunting it? Alright so we’ve got that figured out. But here’s the catch, we have to make our own bow and arrows. How are you going to make your bow and arrows? If I’m going hunting then I want to bag the big one! I’m getting a good piece of wood…

Now lets change the scenario up a little bit. You still have to build a bow and arrow for a hunter. But the hunter is not you, it’s someone else. But you’re still involved in the hunt. You are the most dangerous game. That changes the way you build the bow and arrow right?! I’m not building it the same way…

Why we are doing what we do matters! Why we do the things we do in our ministry matters! It shapes what we do! It should motivate us for what we do!

We are here to love God and love people.

Mark 12:30–31 ESV

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

In our ministry we strive to love God and love people. We do that by proclaiming that Jesus saves us and guides us.

pray

love God

With all our heart, soul, mind, and strength! Every part of us.

What does it mean to love God? It means a lot of things and there are a lot of verses we could look at to talk about it, but I picked out two for us tonight.

John 14:15–16 ESV

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,

If we love Him, we trust Him. If we trust Him, we obey Him.

We can’t obey his commandments if we don’t know His commandments.

If you don’t think his Word is good, his commands are good, then He’s a liar and why would you love Him?

It’s not easy to obey Him all the time! It’s hard! But He sends us a helper, the Holy Spirit.

love people

Galatians 5:13–15 ESV

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

Serve one another! You can do what you want, but you should want to serve others!

This fulfills the whole law!…

But if we don’t, bite and devour one another, what does that mean?

He says if you do that you may end up consuming one another. Does he mean someone is going to eat you? Alive??

So we are here to love God and love people. We love Him by obeying his commandments. We love people by serving them, not trying to devour them. We don’t just use people, we seek their good.

The greatest good someone can receive is salvation in Jesus. The greatest thing we can do for them is point them to Jesus…

Gospel and prayer.