Celebrating Our Love - 03/06/2022

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 March 6, 2022 “Celebrating Our Love” I John 4:20 20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 21 And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also. Love is still in the air. For everyone who has followed GP’s services through the month of February, then you know that we celebrated the month as Love Month. During that time, in the spirit of love, we did a few commemorative things around the love theme – one of which was to celebrate love from the virtual pulpit by taking a popular mainstream love song and relating it to a message of spiritual significance. Customarily, the last Sunday in February would have ended our formal celebration, but leading up to the final Sunday . . . I received a suggested love song submission that I thought was so moving and so timely to our celebration until I’m compelled 1 to hold over Love Month one more week and use that song title as a fitting close to this year’s Love Series. This morning, the love song of choice is one presented by Sister Felicia MillerLowe. Her song suggestion is: OUR LOVE by Natalie Cole! (Thank you, Sister Felicia). The focus of this song, from Natalie’s perspective, is about a strong, mutually shared love between her and her significant other. It was a love considered to be unbending and mighty good. One that she said “would never die” “because that’s the way it should be”. A taste of the lyrics goes like this . . . You're my morning star shining brightly beside me And if we keep this love We will last through all eternity Just the way we are I love it, love it It's just the way it should be 'Cause our love will stand tall as the trees Our love will spread wide as the seas Our love will shine bright in the night like the stars above And we'll always be together, our love My love is surely one thing You can surely depend on In times of darkness and fear, I go to you I know you'll make me strong You're gonna make me happy You're gonna make me smile 2 In the spirit of today’s message, the theme, OUR LOVE, is a reminder to the GP Family and the universal Family of God that we [as brothers and sisters] have been brought together [not by happenstance], but by God’s plan through Jesus Christ to make us one loving family. He has given the family members a love to call our own – our love! Our Love is a theme that serves as a wakeup call to every Believer to take note of the precious love the Father has bestowed upon us so that we should be called the children of God -- worthy to claim His Love as Our Love. Such LOVE is the place where every member in God’s family confesses that “Father it is YOUR Love that gives life and legitimacy to OUR Love. We are living in a time where it has become so easy to take Family of God love, church family love, for granted – and to treat it like another day at Flat Rock. It’s so easy for us to throw in the towel and become critical as to whether we feel loved by our church family or not. Unfortunately, we draw wrong conclusions about the love Christ has called us to in the Body of Christ and the local church. Rather than depending on Christ to establish His love in us, so often the people of God erroneously misjudge one another by using a worldly standard to determine if they are loved or if anyone cares. The love Christ secured for us and bestowed upon us runs deeper than that. His expectation is that we first come to personally experience His deep, rich unconditional love which trumps misdirected “oh woe is me feeling sorrow for self” fake love. It’s fake because it is driven by emotions and feelings. We learned from another message that love is more than just a second-hand emotion. If our love isn’t first His Love, God’s Love, then we can never comprehend how to be loved or give love to others. 3 The Bible says in Ephesians 3:18 that a believer cannot understand the fullness of God’s love apart from genuine, Spirit-empowered love in his or her own personal life. We are called to celebrate the love our God bestowed upon us and to celebrate our love for each other that Christ made possible. After God has shown us so richly and so freely His love -- even when we were dead and trespassed in sin and while we were yet sinners, He demonstrated His love toward me and you; He drew us near to Himself to impart to us a love we could and should demonstrate on our own toward one another. That love is the essence and epitome of OUR LOVE. How did God do it? Romans 5:5, 6 is the answer: Romans 5:5,6 5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. 6 For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. God poured love into us. He poured out of His Love vat, into our emptiness an unconditional love for us. In Him we find true love. That love is not found within ourselves but comes fully from God. 4 But we need to be reminded that “our love” begins with Christ who first loved us. Without His love, we have no love for ourselves, for God, nor anyone else. In the Book of First John 4: 7-11 we are reminded that God loved us First. 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 toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation (appeasement) for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. Jesus said of this Love the world would know what family we belong to. In John 13:34-36 (New King James Version) we are reminded of the importance of loving one another. Jesus said “our love” for one another is a sign to the world of who we belong to. Listen to what it says: 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.” An old commandment identified people with God by things like circumcision, eating special foods, celebrating certain holy days, and even being from a certain culture or ethnic group. 5 But Jesus said I’m now introducing a new commandment for how followers of God would be identified. Again, it is this: 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.” Then the Apostle Paul brought the essence of OUR Love full circle in Ephesians 3 by saying a prayer for us and explaining the vastness of OUR LOVE. Paul’s encouragement is that we should be celebrating the Love of God – that love which was poured into our hearts – which made and still makes us capable of loving one another in a way that is beyond our comprehension. The power and strength to love comes from God as He has made room in our hearts to receive the deposit of love Christ promised. Listen to Paul’s prayer for us regarding the greatness of the love that is termed OUR LOVE: Ephesians 3:14-21 NLT 14 When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, 15 the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. 16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. 17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in Him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 18 And may you 6 have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. 20 Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. 21 Glory to Him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen. The Bible has a lot more to say about Our Love. But here’s what I want you to remember today in responsibly acknowledging the gift of love with which Christ has blessed every believer in His Body. Embrace the challenge to do three things today and beyond with regards to OUR LOVE: Courageously Protect Our Love Joyously celebrate Our Love Proudly Live Our Love CELEBRATING OUR LOVE 7