The Greatest Love - 02/06/2022

Grace Place Atlanta COGBF 4700 Mitchell Street Forest Park, GA 30297 Website: atlantacogbf.org Email: info@atlantacogbf.org Phone: (404) 241-6781 Wayne D. Mack, Pastor Pastor Wayne D. Mack Sermon Notes February 6, 2022 The Greatest Love. Why is Jesus’ Love the Greatest Love? Good morning, GP. Welcome to February. Time is moving. The month of February is traditionally considered Love Month. So, for GP it presents an opportunity for us to celebrate LOVE in many ways including the preached Word and creative Deeds and Activities. By the way, please hurry and text your ideas to Sister Vicky (404) 2768985 (please include your name.) We’ll select the most doable one or several. Activities will serve as an opportunity to connect our church family for a time of fellowship. Over the next four weeks, I want to minister around a theme of love. The first installment will focus on LOVE as the greatest gift. In the following three weeks, I will use a few popular love song titles and correlate them with the truth of Scripture. This morning, I want to begin our Love Month talking from a message entitled . . . The Greatest Love. The primary focus will be on the question: Why is Jesus’ Love the Greatest Love. Our text will come from various select text. I want this lesson to serve as a refresher and a reminder to Believers of the great love our heavenly Father has bestowed upon us; and for those who have not experienced God’s love – I want to stir your hearts to action in coming to experience the most important love of all of life. As we begin to answer this statement, I must confess, that I as began typing in the final notes for this message, out of the blue, one of my favorite songs from 1977 popped in my head: “The Greatest Love of All” – a song recorded by George Benson, then later on Whitney Houston. I remembered that this song was originally written and recorded as the main theme of the 1977 film The Greatest, a biopic of the boxer Muhammad Ali. Of course, Ali is my all-time favorite boxer but his greatness is not to be compared to the Greatest Love of Christ. [The Lover of our souls]. 1 In our learning about Why is Jesus’ Love the Greatest Love, I first want to remind you of three things we are told to do as followers of Christ as we grow more and more deeply in love with Him: First, we are told to BEHOLD! That is to “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! 1 John 3:1. Here, we are call upon by the Apostle John to stop and take careful note of the wonderfully marvelous love that God the Father made available to us to bring us into His family as children. Second, we are invited to scrutinize and cross-examine the depth and strength of the greatness of God’s Love toward us. According to Romans 8: 31-34 , we are given a series of questions to answer in route to discovering the gift of the greatest love freely given to us by God. Listen to what it says: 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” 37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. Because we are more than conquerors More Than, God’s greatest love places far beyond being defeated in life by tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword [which means death]? Thirdly, we are challenged by God to experience the love of Christ outside of our comfort zone. Matthew 5:46 poses the challenge: it reads: 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? In full context, Jesus is saying raise the bar of your demonstration of love to the level of greatness that I have given you power to walk in and be about. Come out of your comfortable place and do something beyond the natural and up to the supernatural. Here it is: 2 Verses 43 – 48 -- Jesus said: 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? 48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. With those foundational pieces in place, I want to give you FIVE solid reasons as to Why Jesus Love is the Greatest Love of All. Reason Number 1 . . . 1. God the Son, Jesus Christ is the source of all love. Without Him there is no love or any such thing as true love. Christ’s Love is a requirement in order to be related to God? 1 John 4:7-9 says . . . 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested [revealed, demonstrated] toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. You are not God’s kinfolk if the source of your love is not found in Christ. And neither if we love one another without having the seed of God’s agape love in our hearts. Listen again to the keys presented in this passage: 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested [revealed, demonstrated] toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Reason Number 2. Why Jesus Love is the Greatest Love of All 2. Jesus’ Great Love through God is the Hope of Life in a Dying World. The most famous Scripture verse of all time reveals this truth. John 3:16 - it says: 3 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. This verse expresses the supreme love of God for the evil, sinful dying world of humanity that is in rebellion against Him. However, the word “SO” changes everything. God “SO” loved the world that He gave His everything: Jesus the Christ. The word “SO” emphasizes the intensity or greatness of His love. Listen to this passage in wider context starting with verse 15 . . . 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 1 John 3:16 says: 16 By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. God the Father gave His beloved Son to die on behalf of sinful men. No greater love exists in the all the earth that our Lord would lay down His life for sinners. Reason Number 3. Why Jesus Love is the Greatest Love of All 3. Jesus’ Love Supplies the Believers Ability and Capacity to Love. What this is saying is “We are made capable of loving Jesus because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:10 reminds of this: 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. Also, John 13:1 13 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. Finally, there’s the famous Love Chapter, 1 Corinthians 13 where we learn that without love, we are nothing; and nothing we do is equal to anything no matter how amazing it may be; and without love, everything collectively is NOTHING. 1 Cor. 13: 1-7 4 13 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. 4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. The greatest of Christ’s love requires us to both do and be guided by love. Fear is the opposite of love. Fear is impatient and unkind. Fear is jealous, boastful, proud, and rude. Fear demands its own way. Fear is irritable and it keeps a record of being wronged. Fear rejoices about injustice but does not rejoice whenever the truth wins out. Fear always gives up, always loses faith, is never hopeful, and does not endure through any circumstance. I Cor 13: 4-7 Reason Number 4. Why Jesus Love is the Greatest Love of All 4. Jesus’ Love is the Great Unifier. It is His love that secures the unity of the Saints in the bond of peace. John 13:34-36 teaches us this best . . . 34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples if you have love for one another.” Reason Number 5. Why Jesus Love is the Greatest Love of All 5. Jesus Perfects Our Love. 1 John 4:17-19 says: 17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. 19 We love [c]Him because He first loved us. 5 John isn’t suggesting sinless perfection, but that Jesus matures, develops, and grows our love to the point that in life we can face all of life – no matter what we face – with the confidence and assurance that Christ’s great love will sustain us. Confidence is a sign that love is mature – so in moments of testing, trials, and temptations – as He is, so are we. FIVE Solid Reasons Why Jesus Love is the Greatest Love of All. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. God the Son, Jesus Christ is the source of all love. Jesus’ Great Love through God is the Hope of Life in a Dying World. Jesus’ Love Supplies the Believers Ability and Capacity to Love Jesus’ Love is the Great Unifier Jesus Perfects Our Love The Greatest Love. Why is Jesus’ Love the Greatest Love? 6