2022 Wk 18: Lesson 1 "Loud & Large"
True Love: The kind worth LIVING for. • Sermon • Submitted
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Updates
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Open each Sunday 10am
MidWeek
The Chosen season two Continues
National Day of Prayer May 5th, 12noon
and yes a Women’s event is coming late summer
Generosity Moment
You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure. “For God loves a person who gives cheerfully.”
Sermon Intro
Early church was not perfect
it was all new
formulating, calculating, implementing was challenging.
disciples jockeying for position and
establishing The Church in Persecuting times!
I AM SURE THEY WERE ASKING THEMSELVES,
“HOW ARE WE GOING TO MOVE FORWARD NOW SINCE JESUS’ RESURRECTION?”
Key Points
Key Points
In this series “True Love,” we will discover by the Spirit, that the days we live in are not much different than that of the early church or ARE THEY?
The Early Church disciples were found to have:
Gave their all
Died for the cause of Christ, and
LIVED Loud & Large.
ARE WE DOING THAT TODAY?
Giving our ALL?
Dying for the Cause?
Living Loud & Large by Faith / NOT grumbling loud?
ONE THING
There is one thing that we know the early church was doing and it should motivate us to do the same.
Key Verse
Key Verse
Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.
True Religion is...
caring for orphans
caring for widows in their distress, and
caring for yourself (refusing to let the world corrupt you)
Investigate / Application
Investigate / Application
This TRUE LOVE series is about those three words…
PURE — GENUINE — RELIGION
Fatherless
= those bereft...
deprived or robbed of the possession or use of something
Fatherless = those robbed of a teacher, guide, guardian. Such as an orphan.
Widow
= the idea of deficiency; a widow (as lacking a husband), literally or figuratively:—widow.
A metaphor. a city stripped of its inhabitants and riches is represented under the figure of a widow
Corrupted by the World
= untainted character or without defect such as a perfect gem or diamond.
pert. to being of untainted character
NOW LET BACKUP
Let’s pick up at the beginning and not start at the end.
The action of serving is just that serving.
So let’s examine:
WHO or WHY we serve,
the ATTITUDE we serve, and
WHAT gives meaning to the service we provide.
In this keynote scripture we find a word that is often overstepped… Religion.
Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.
Religion
= religious worship, esp. external, that which consists of ceremonies religious discipline, religion.
But what is True/Pure — religion?
= clean, pure, clear physically but not only physical.
purified by fire in a way that represents a vine cleansed by pruning and so fitted to bear fruit in a levitical sense (in a sacrificial way)
clean, the use of which is not forbidden, imparts no uncleanness ethically
free from corrupt desire, from sin and guilt free from every admixture of what is false, sincere genuine blameless, innocent unstained with the guilt of anything
To the Jewish people Religion was keeping the Law.
Not just the 10 Commandments
Keeping the other laws of special washings, special sacrifices, special days. Some 700+ laws.
When Jesus was asked about the Law
—he quoted two commandments... for in these two all of the law was fulfilled.
Matthew 22:37–40 (NLT)
Jesus replied, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”
The man answered, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”
“Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”
Make it personal
Make it personal
The action of serving is just that an outward action that can be seen as a work…Doing Something!
I don’t think that Jesus was talking about WORKS since he came to start a dispensation based on GRACE.
The Age of Grace that we continue to live in today.
SO, examine these points:
WHO or WHY we serve?
Why do you serve?
Is it out of duty? Guilt? Peer pressure? Obligation? Shame
Because you feel you owe God for saving you?
We need to ask the Holy Spirit to search us...
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life.
Matthew 22 says, “We must Love the Lord”
this gives us both the Who and Why.
It all starts with a relationship with Jesus.
Jesus taught us that you can not have two masters.
Matthew 6:24 (NLT)
“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.
Money is defined at Mammon:
A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (μαμωνᾶς)
‘food, maintenance, provisions’ ‘wealth or property’
We serve because we love him!
Our service is a form of our worship to God.
Beloved friends, what should be our proper response to God’s marvelous mercies? I encourage you to surrender yourselves to God to be his sacred, living sacrifices. And live in holiness, experiencing all that delights his heart. For this becomes your genuine expression of worship.
Our worship is an expression of how much we love, honor and glorify God.
Worship, GREAT OR SMALL OR NOT AT ALL— reflects our degree of love.
What ATTITUDE do we serve with?
Have you heard of this saying?
“Your Attitude determines your Altitude”
You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
Christianity is not a club for snobs
Christianity is not us four and no more
Christianity is a living and breathing organism
“living stone”
“the Body of Christ”
Christianity is a Family of Royal Priests
But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.
Yes, Royal Priests who are compassionate to engage, love, help, reconciliation, and restore those who like us were in darkness and now living in the his wonderful light.
Yes, we are Christ’s go to Team of ambassadors...
So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.
Our Attitude must be that of Christ
longsuffering, tenderhearted, filled with peace for we are God’s hands and feet—and his MOUTH!
WE SERVE
because we love God, thus we worship him.
with an mind set that is in line with Christ, one of humility thus we are ambassadors of his love not Sargent-of-Arms to enforce conformity to mere rules and regulations.
WHAT gives meaning to the service we provide?
We said that it all starts with relationship.
“LORDSHIP”
We acknowledge the fact that:
we live under His sovereignty and providence.
He is our Creator, our Redeemer and our Sustainer.
He is our master, and we are his servants.
It is therefore imperative that we submit to his authority
Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom.
Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil.
We honor God
we fear and respect Him
we turn away from evil and serve NO other.
we obey him because we love Him
But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him.
Closing
Closing
WE SERVE
because we love God, thus we worship him.
WE SERVE
with an mind set that is in line with Christ, one of humility thus we are ambassadors of his love not Sargent-of-Arms to enforce conformity to mere rules and regulations.
WE SERVE
holding to a confession founded in the blood of Jesus, that we submit to his authority and fearfully honor him with high regards.
WE SERVE
out of obedience because we love him.
Yes, WE SERVE
each other plainly as John says...
We love each other because he loved us first.
So are you serving?
Are you giving a hand to the cause of Christ
Are you loving, caring, and developing your Worship unto God.
Or are You
Wrapped up in mere Religious works?
or
is there a desire to discover what Jesus has done that has brought us freedom? Such as pure worship, truth filled religion—founded in selfless love, and serving one another?
Let’s LIVE LOUD & LARGE everyday to declare our love for the Lord...
“Love the Lord you God will all your heart, soul, mind and strength!”
Next Week
Andover, KS tornado...
Caring for those who have lost their way, their, foundation… the Fatherless
WEEK FOUR:
caring for yourself (refusing to let the world corrupt you)
Undefiled
= not defiled, unsoiled
free from that by which the nature of a thing is deformed and debased, or its force and vigour impaired
Affliction
= pressure (literally or figuratively):—anguish, burdened, persecution, tribulation, trouble.
Unspotted
= spotless
metaphorically--free from censure, irreproachable free from vice, unsullied
