Rooted in Love Series: Loving God like a Child

Introduction

Greeting

Welcome everyone, its always a honour to share the word of God and i just want to prayer we position our hearts with humlity and holy spirit to give us revelation.

Why

We choose this series becuase when we are rooted in Gods love vertically, we can hortizontally love Neighbors, The church, the world. I was mainly focus tonight on how do we love our father in heaven?

Scripture

Mark 12:28–34 NIV

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 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: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

Scripture Commentary

The Experts of the mosiac law were called scribes and this man pretty much asks Jesus to prioritize the number 1 law in the old testament becuase they have 613 laws that they had to obey. Then jesus Takes two passages from the old testament Deut 6:4-9 & Lev 19:8 He summarizes them and put them to together to get at the foundation of the commandments which is Loving God and Loving People with our whole Heart. The heart in ancient isreal refer to the inner person, you emotions, will, intelliegence and strength. That to Love God requires your mind becuase to love god requires discernemnt & Knowledge, it requires stenghth becuase it easy to fearful but hard to be couragous, it requires your emotions to feel for him what he feels for us.

Transition

I wanted to give a practical message of what it could look like to love God with all our hearts and what would please him from his vantage point as our Heavenly father?

Scripture

Matthew 18:1–5 NIV

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

Scripture Commentary:

Jesus teach his disciples that greatness in the kingdom of Heaven is measured by humility and without humility we will not enter the kIngdom of God because humility is a per condition for salvation and spiritual growth. In Gods Kingdom the culture is childlikeness and in this passage he emphazis that humility is what grows us in Gods Kingdom? The thing im learning more and more about Gods culture in his kingdom is its a culture of childlikeness not childishness but childlikeness. That if we are to love our father the way he wants to be loved we have to change and humble ourselves and become childlike. I want to describe three main charcteristic we must adopt to express our love for our father in heaven?

Transition Story

I remember when i jsuted started following the Lord and i barely know anything doctrine or apolgetics but my sister was so curosity so she would depend on me for information i was her personally google anytime she had a question? I wouldnt mind it anytimes because i enjoyed answering her questions but at times it would frustrate me alot because she had like 10 follow up questions for her orginally question. Here is a example I dont i know God exist? Look at creation it ref;ects his creation? Why cant i see him? Because he isnt a material being? Why isnt he a material being? Because God must exist outside of creation to be a creater? How did he create the world technially?

Child like Dependance & Curosity

Loving God with our Mind

My sister didnt just refelct cursoity but something deeper which is dependance? Childern depend on others for knowledge, nurshiment, protection and in the same way we show love to God when we humbly acknowledge we are not suffiecent on our own but were also not insecure because we have him but we need him for wisdom, protection, provision. But the scriptures tels us to love God with our intellect that word in mark means to practice discerment to know Good from Evil to have understanding and even in both those scriptures the crowds were amazed and dared not to ask him questions becasue of jesus wisdom.

Story of Rachel Husband

i was talking to this elder once and he passively said to me dependance is actually easy when your suffering, its actually becomes hard when your successful.

Childern Vs Adults

Children exhibit a high degree of neuroplasticity, meaning their brains are particularly adaptable and capable of forming new connections. This plasticity allows them to rapidly acquire new skills, especially languages, motor skills, and foundational cognitive processes.

Adults have reduced neuroplasticity compared to children. However, they aren't devoid of it. Adults can still learn new skills, but often at a slower rate, especially when it comes to areas like language acquisition.

Children are typically in environments conducive to constant learning (e.g., school, extracurriculars) where they are continually exposed to new information.

Adults, depending on their life circumstances, might not be in such learning-rich environments. However, they often have the agency to seek out learning opportunities as needed.

Children are generally more fearless learners. They aren't as hindered by the fear of making mistakes, which can accelerate learning.

Adults might be more cautious or self-conscious, especially in group learning settings, which could slow down the learning process.

Transition

Loving God isnt pasive it active and we can activly Love God when we seek knwoledge and wisdom from our father, when we want to learn his values and truth. Let us become like childern and ask more questions then we give answers.

Child Like Faith

Story

When i lived in with some of the leaders back in the back, there was times where we all got blessed from our tax returns and life was good and there was winter times where we couldnt pay the electricly bill and we all came home to a dark house and cold showers. But i would forget biniam these man would be consistent and he had a childlike faith to him. He trusted that God would provide, God loved him, God is Fundmental Good dispite the circumstances. He modled this child like faith in God.

Teaching

If God wants us to love him with all our hearts the fondation of any relationship is faith, you trust the another person will be and do certains like in a marraige you trust they will be faithful and loyal, in a business relationship you trust that your partner will fulfill there terms of the agreement, in a frienship you trust that your friend will keep things confidanly. The whole enconmic is based on trust majority of the money in the econmony is cerdit meaning the banks trust you based off your history with certain amounts of money and they enter a relationship with you. Society cant function without faith but in the same way our relationship with God cant function properly without faith. Child model not shallow faith but deep faith, they trust what there parents promise

Questions

Do we honestly belive God loves us?

Do we belive God is Good?

Do we believe God is different in the old testament then the new testment?

Do we belive we the work on the cross is finished and you will inherit salvation?

Do we belive God likes you?

Do you belive God trusts you?

Transition

The way we strengthen our faith isnt by trying hard but its by knowing Gods word and charcter and placing our certainity in him and his word like childern who place there faith on there parents words and deeds.

Child Like Imagination

Story

The qaulity that i admire about childern is there imgaination there was a kid who was playing outside and they have a whole kitchen set and they take mud and make it pizza and cake and they cook it in the kitchen and whats amazing is childern are visionary.

Teaching

Vision isnt seeing what is but its seeing what could be, Vision isnt seeing with your eyes but its seeing with your heart. All humans have these capablity and i find as we grow older we use our imagination for what are the worst things that can happen. We paint 5 different picture on what things can be horrible and that is nessery at time but if we dont have a vision for life that exciting we lose displine. The scriptiures tell us people perish without vision childern are natural visionarys. We need vision we need to look into teh future with God. If we dont cultivate a vision with God, we lack displine, we lack purpose, we beome idle. If we are to love God as childern he must comsume our imagination, our faith, and our mind.

Conclusion

Lets envision what we want for our lifes, family, ministry, business.

Lets represnt to God our vision and seek his will and agreement

Write it down