Sermon Tone Analysis

Northside Church

What is love

4/24/22

Jamey Mills

Jamey Mills

April 24, 2022

What is love

Good morning… My name is Jamey Mills and I am the lead pastor here at Northside.

Gary Eaton has officially been confirmed as a member of our mt here at Northside… so be sure to pray for him and the rest of the mt… here at northside.

This is my last week with you guys for a couple of weeks.

1.

Next week you are blessed to hear from Pastor Steve Lee…

2. And on the week after that, on Mothers day, Pastor Matt Kimmell will be sharing.

a.

And that’s about as subtle as I can be in my reminder that Mother’s day is two weeks away…

b.

We will have something here for our moms on that day…

I wanted to start off today by saying… DID YOU SEE THAT…

WHOA… last weekend… Easter weekend was incredible.

GF service was packed…

And Easter service (picture)... how amazing is that.

The Northside Story… continues to just absolutely amaze me.

We launched just over two years ago… one of the words we’d use to describe it is… change.

Two weeks in… it seemed like everything and everyone broke… for a while…

We moved online and then from place to place… and even though there were encouraging signs… It was hard.

I think our lowest church attendance in all of that was around 50… and last Sunday we had about 480 give or take a few… we had over 65 volunteers making it all happen… and stories… TONS of stories coming out of that weekend about what the Lord was and is up to.

Over 50 Northsider cars parked out on the road to make room for guests… and maybe that seems small… but I believe it reflects the huge heart that Northside had to reach our community for Jesus.

I absolutely love what God is doing here… and I love being able to walk this with you guys.

What is the greatest way another person has shown you that they care?

Love is a word that we sorta fling around these days…

Picture… face only a mother could love…

I love ____

In our culture… ic

(NLT)

7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.

10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

11 Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.

12 No one has ever seen God.

But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

13 And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us.

14 Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

15 All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God.

16 We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.

God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.

17 And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect.

So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.

18 Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear.

If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.

19 We love each other because he loved us first.

20 If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?

21 And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their fellow believers.

John is known as the disciple that Jesus loves… and I think this passage reflects a lot of the reason… if you were to read all of what he wrote… I think you see that John seems to reflect the essence of God… or at least understand it… more than most.

That passage is absolutely full… John has a heart for the people…

One of the foundational truths… that I want every single one of us to know and know well… whether we are here, online, have been a believer for a long time, or are still on the fence… it's life changing… mind changing… powerful truth.

You were intentionally created, you are intimately known, and you are perfectly loved.

Do you believe that?

Do you live like you believe it?

How would your life be different if you really were able to grab ahold of that?

One of the major truths John shares with us here… is that love comes from God.

Real love… and what it means to know real love… and what it means to really love… come from God.

It was God’s idea… it doesn't come from the minds or definitions of humanity… but real love comes from God… it’s defined by God… it originates with God… the source of it is found in Him.

So much so, that John literally says that God is love (twice).

He’s not saying that God is an emotion (love is not just an emotion, in fact real love transcends emotion)... what he is saying is..

God, in His very essence is love.

What that means is… everything that God does… comes out of the reality or the essence of who He is.

One author said it like this… Even God’s wrath and discipline are firmly centered in… His love for you and humanity.

As a parent you might get that… Some of the most loving things we do as parents is direct our kids in ways that don’t always feel like love… I hate that part of parenting… but I love my kids enough to be that guy.

One of the reasons we have a hard time seeing God’s love through wrath and discipline is that our cultural view is completely broken.

If we came up with a definition that sort of encompasses what it means to love someone in our culture… what would it be?

Could we say it in church?

I could have things like… Sex, not disagreeing with them, not disagreeing with what they do, enabling even unhelathy behavior…

What I came to is sort of self centered… make me happy in the moment kind of a thing… it's dangerously affirming or enabling.

It reminds me of what a pastor friend of mine shared with me a long time ago…

… The world says… you do you… you be you…

And the message of Christianity is… you die to you

One author says it like this…

Love is seeking what is truly best for another at your own expense.

Real love will always involve self sacrifice… giving for yourself… for what is truly right and good for another… NOT just making them happy… being seeking God’s best for them.

1 Cor 13 is one of the best passages in all of scripture where God talks about the heart… his heart behind what love really is…

(NLT)

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.

3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind.

Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude.

It does not demand its own way.

It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.

6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

He goes on to say… 13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

It’s so easy… to get caught up in the counterfeit nature of it all… were we give and receive it in ways that may feel good in the moment… that may encourage people for the moment…

Or where we are listening to all the wrong voices and paying attention to the wrong things… where we measure our life… our value by the wrong standard… that will always make you feel like you're not enough… feeling completely shipwrecked and worthless…

It’s one of the ways that I believe… Satan has been incredibly successful… if you get people to question their value… if he can get them to the place where people feel like they have to earn it in the eyes of God or in the eyes of men… the list of things that people will give up… compromise on… is not small.

And it is why God goes so far out of His way… to express His love over you.

Just this passage alone… do you hear it?

It is so important… that you understand… believe… and live in God’s unthinkable love over you…

You are intentionally created… intimately known… and perfectly loved by the God who created it all…

The Bible is God’s self revelation to humanity… it reveals those things God wants you to know… and God has left nothing undone… It’s literally like God was thinking… how in the world could I show them how much I care…

It’s literally EVERYWHERE.

You cannot read the bible and come to any other conclusion…

Just some examples…

Romans 8 says that