Remember your first love
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Giving your heart to Jesus
Giving your heart to Jesus
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
It is the end of the first month of the year and we are all planning or thinking about what we are going to do in this year. We just had a staff meeting to plan for things that we are going to do this year too. But in the midst of thinking about the new year, we wonder if the year will turn out well for us. We still have some fears. We fear that we will not be able to do what we plan to do and fail. We plan our year around what we think we can do. When we listen to this, it doesn’t sound very encouraging. It sounds like we just think of some thing that we want to do in the new year and try to plan for it and hope that all things go well. Is life suppose to be like this? sometimes it feels like we are all alone trying to make our lives work and we struggle to get through life. But God did not intend for us to live life like this.
When we become Christians, we learn about Jesus dying on the cross for us and paying the price for our sins and giving us eternal life. Does knowing this change our lives? No. We say that the gospel changes lives, so what is the gospel? Is the gospel about doing what God calls us to do so that we can have eternal life? No. It is not about a transaction. The gospel is about a loving God who gave up his son to save us who cannot save ourselves. God shows us his love in that while we were sinners, Jesus died for us.
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
The gospel is that God loves us and has redeemed us back to him. So that we can know his love for us. Do we know the love of God?
Do you know when we see people change in shocking ways? When people fall in love. They start doing things that they did not like to do before. Like some people who do not like to eat vegetables will start to eat vegetables when they have a girlfriend who likes to eat vegetables. When I was dating my wife, she likes to take photographs. I did not like to take pictures. But I went with her to take pictures when she went. Why? Because I love her. I wanted to know her better. I wanted to spend time with her. I wanted to be with her. When I’m with her my priorities change. I am concerned with what she wants to do more than what I want to do.
It is the same when I came to know that God loves me and Jesus died for me when I did not love him. In fact when I did not know God, I was a man who cursed God for allowing me to be born. When someone told me that God loves me and has a plan for my life, I felt the love of God touch my heart, because no one had told me that they love me and would give me a plan for my life. And God says that God has loved me with an everlasting love and that God has continued to be faithful.
11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
3 the Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.
21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
Jn
It is only the love of God that can change our lives. Our lives are not changed when we only know that Jesus died for us but do not acknowledge that Jesus died for us who did not deserve his love and sacrifice for us. When we realise that we are sinful and that someone still loves us and gave up everything to save us, this is when our lives will change. Because we begin to know that the good things that we have we do not deserve , but was given to us freely. Do we know this love of God? Do we love God for what he has done for us? Or is it just a responsibility that we feel we need to fulfil? I think this is a very important question to answer because if we only serve God out of responsibility and not love, in the end everything will not make sense.
So how do we come to know the love of God?
Jesus promises us that he will be with us
In the beginning of the sermon i talked about planning for the new year but sometimes we feel like we are just making plans for the year and hoping that things will go well. We don’t even know if the plans that we are thinking about are good plans. Some years we feel like a failure because none of our plans succeed. But God did not leave us to live life like that with no direction. God knows that we have no future and hope without his direction. So he sent Jesus to come to us to show us the love of the father. Jesus came to show us that God loves us and has a plan for our lives. We do not have to walk around in the dark and keep falling down.
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. 18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
John 14:15-18
In this verse, it says that if we love God we will obey his commandments and Jesus will ask the father and the father will give us another helper to be with us forever. This helper is the spirit of truth which the world does not know because the world does not love Jesus and does not obey him. We will know the helper because he will dwell in us and Jesus says he will not leave us as orphans, Jesus will come to us. When we read this verses, what do we feel? We read that Jesus cares for us and sends us a helper when Jesus is gone. he sends us a helper who will be with us forever who will tell us the truth. Jesus promises that Jesus will not leave us as orphans, Jesus will come to us.
Many times we live our lives like orphans. We live like no one cares for us and no one understands us and no one will take care of us. But when we read these verses, is this true? No, Jesus has come to show the way to God and when he left to be with the father, Jesus send us the Holy spirit who will help us forever. There are people who are physical orphans who do not have parents or whose parents do not care about them. But when we come to know the love of God, we are no longer Orphans. God has become our protector and defender. In God we know who we are. It is the loneliest thing in the world to not know who you are. But when we become God’s children, God reveals to us that we are loved and precious to him.
2. We will obey Jesus if we love Jesus
Giving your heart to the right person is very important. Give your heart to the wrong person and the person will take your heart and step on it and break it. give your heart to the right person and the person will take care of your heart and make it grow. Who have we given our hearts to? Have we given our hearts to the one who loves us and has given his life for us? Or have we given our hearts to the one who never keeps his promises to us. Jesus who gave up everything for us to know God promises that he has a plan for our lives. Satan promises us that the desires of the world will satisfy our desires. but in the end when we pursue the things of the world, we are not satisfied.
When we love someone, when the person asks something from us, most of the time the answer will be yes. If we know that the promise of Jesus is to help us and Jesus sent us the Holy Spirit to help us. How will we respond to God. Will be obey because we know that God loves us and has good things planned for us? Or will we obey our flesh? If we obey our flesh, it shows that we do not trust nor desire God’s love or plan for our lives. Putting our trust in our own flesh and strength will lead to a broken life in the end.
19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
Jn 14:19-
We get to experience the love of God when we obey what Jesus has commanded us to do. It is only when we obey what Jesus commanded us to do that we come to realise that the promise of God’s provision and hope for us is real. And we will only be willing to obey God if we love God. We will see God and have life when we obey God. Let us come before God and really come to know the love of God in our lives by obeying God. Then we will really know the goodness of God because we experience it not just know it as knowledge. The instructions of the Lord is to not to make us better Bible students but better people. It would be better to not have heard the teachings of Jesus then to hear it and not obey it.
Jn 1
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. 18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.
3. When we keep God’s commandments, God loves us and will come and do his work in our lives.
3. When we keep God’s commandments, God loves us and will come and do his work in our lives.
22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.
In this verse, Judas not Iscariot asked Jesus why Jesus showed himself to the disciples and not to the world. Interesting question. Why did Jesus Jesus reveal himself to the disciples rather than reveal himself to the whole world in 1 day?
Because when the disciples come to know the love of Jesus and obey him, they will bring the gospel to the ends of the world. When the disciples love God, God will come in and make his home in us and we become God’s instrument to do God’s work.
Jn 14:
Then we might ask, is that a good thing? Is God coming into our lives and using us to do his will a good thing?
27 To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
God’s glory is revealed in our lives when our lives are transformed by God. This is when we no longer live for ourselves and our plans and live for God’s purposes. We begin to do things outside of our comfort zone and we begin to experience the power of God working in our lives and enable us to do things that we could not do in the past. We find out who God made us to be when we allow God to use us. In the past without God, we are limited by our preferences and fears. these things stop us from exploring who God has made us to be and we never really grow. But in God, we find perfect love which casts out all fear and enables us to trust God. When we do what God calls us to do. Our lives will expand, we will be able to do more and be more effective in our lives.
18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
So God loves us and wants to grow us to fulfil our destiny that he has given us. And this is the greatest joy that we can have as a person that we did what we are suppose to do in the time that we have on this earth. And that destiny for us is to use our lives as a testimony of the greatness of God to the the world to tell the world that God is real and wants to give them a life that is really fulfilling.
When I was not yet a Christian, my life was hopeless. there are so many things that thought that i could not do. I had many fears. I was afraid to talk to people and share my thoughts. Afraid of talking to big groups, afraid of leading. Many limitations. But when I came ot know God and God began to work in my life, my life began to change. When God called me to lead a Cell group, I told him that i cannot. But I still tried and obeyed God. In the end after some years of doing it, I got good at doing it. Then God told me to lead worship, I was so afraid because the church was about 500 people big and i was afraid of big crowds, but i tried and failed a few times but in the end I got good at it. The same with preaching and speaking in thai.I couldn’t do it but God gave me the grace to do it when I trusted in him. God changed my life. God has grown me and given me talents to do his work and this is what has made my life full of purpose and meaning. What is the purpose and meaning you are looking for in your life?