God pursues a loving relationship with you
God pursues a loving relationship with you!
Matt 22: 37-38
1 John 4:7-10
Intro:
God created us for one purpose and only one. To have a relationship with him that will give him glory.
It is GODS choice to choose us to have a relationship with Him we did not wake up one day and say, “I think God will be blessed to have me on his side”. No friend God has been pursuing you even before your birth. God said, I knew you before you were born,
He has known your name and he loves you (john 3:16)
The question is not “does God love me” it better put this way “do I love God”?
(John 14:21) John 14:21 (NABWRNT)
21 Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”
[1]
God did not create us for a one sided relationship. He wants us to be in love with him.
l. the love of God has been manifested to us in Jesus
John 3:16 John 3:16 (NABWRNT)
16 For God so loved the world that he gave † his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
[2]
A. God openly shows his love towards us
It was not hidden from the eyes of those he loved.
B. in Jesus we find all we need to have a new life
1. he is the propitiation the one that made it possible for sinful man to be with a Holy God.
C. the holy God loved us so much that he made a way for us to receive that love Jesus.
D. since God is open with his love towards us he has said, 1 John 4:7 (NABWRNT)
7 † Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. 1 John 4:8-10 (NABWRNT)
8 Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.
9 In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.
10 In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.
[3]
The character of God is Love at salvation we received his love So that it can flow from us towards others.
1. Our relationship with God will be seen by the we love others.
How will you know if you are in a love relationship with God? Ask yourselves are those around me better being with me are they growing in Jesus.
[4]
A. the Christian cannot know God and live a loveless life.
B. God is Spirit therefore can’t be seen by humans
So then, the Christian is to love and in that, loving God is revealed to the world. We be come “little Jesus’ to the world.”
C. the Spirit of God lives in the Christian giving them the gift of the spirit I Corinthians 13 Love.
D. God is the prefect love he loved us
We are going to have times when love is not produced out of or life
----
[1] Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. Board of Trustees, Catholic Church. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, & United States Catholic Conference. Administrative Board. 1996, c1986. The New American Bible : Translated from the original languages with critical use of all the ancient sources and the revised New Testament. Confraternity of Christian Doctrine
† Gave: as a gift in the incarnation, and also “over to death” in the crucifixion; cf Romans 8:32.
[2] Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. Board of Trustees, Catholic Church. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, & United States Catholic Conference. Administrative Board. 1996, c1986. The New American Bible : Translated from the original languages with critical use of all the ancient sources and the revised New Testament. Confraternity of Christian Doctrine
† [7–12] Love as we share in it testifies to the nature of God and to his presence in our lives. One who loves shows that one is a child of God and knows God, for God’s very being is love; one without love is without God. The revelation of the nature of God’s love is found in the free gift of his Son to us, so that we may share life with God and be delivered from our sins. The love we have for one another must be of the same sort: authentic, merciful; this unique Christian love is our proof that we know God and can “see” the invisible God.
[3] Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. Board of Trustees, Catholic Church. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, & United States Catholic Conference. Administrative Board. 1996, c1986. The New American Bible : Translated from the original languages with critical use of all the ancient sources and the revised New Testament. Confraternity of Christian Doctrine
[4] Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. Board of Trustees, Catholic Church. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, & United States Catholic Conference. Administrative Board. 1996, c1986. The New American Bible : Translated from the original languages with critical use of all the ancient sources and the revised New Testament. Confraternity of Christian Doctrine