Blogger's Note: On Sundays, I will be copying and pasting on this blog notes I take in my phone from sermons at the church I attend. I'll be sharing sermons from the current week. On Wednesdays I'll also be sharing sermon messages dating back to October, when I first began attending my current church. Because of the backlog of sermons, I will be running posts on Wednesdays until sometime in May. My goal on Sundays is that sharing these sermons will theoretically be perpetual, or until I feel God nudging me to do something different. I want to also clarify that these are not my sermons, but rather the bullet point notes I put together. I enjoy our pastor's messages very much, and more importantly he preaches the Word of God as-is, which means the Spirit of God is imparting wisdom and knowledge through him. To God alone be the glory.
Offertory scripture:
God is big on honor. See below:
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering and come into his courts. Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth.
Psalm 96:8-9 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Psalm%2096:8-9&version=NIV
Sermon message:
God loves you and wants you blessed. (So does Pastor Tim.)
God also delights in the prosperity of His people. He also wrote us a love letter, the Bible, in which there is wisdom. Lots of wisdom. Gold nuggets. He gives us hope. He gives us faith.
At the very beginning He is clear about this. It starts: God made man. He wanted us to commune with Him. Even after man fell and sinned, God still loves us. He gave us Jesus, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit.
Last week: we must get rid of the dust. If someone offends you, don't let it fester. Get rid of it.
Tonight: about holding on to the right things.
Thesis: don't get rid of love!
1. God is love. He is the source of all real love.
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:8 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=1%20John%204:8&version=NIV
2. Love is a royal law
If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right.
James 2:8 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=James%202:8&version=NIV
In this context: Love = living in the spirit
3. Love will always be (it will always be there, even when so many other things change). Love never changes.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=1%20Corinthians%2013:13&version=NIV
Hate will not always be; but love will always be.
4. Love is the greatest power
1 Corinthians 13:13. The greatest thing that lasts forever is love.
Faith and hope are both important and both are powerful. And love is greater than both.
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
Galatians 5:6 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Galatians%205:6&version=NIV
Contrast between the Law and love. Circumcision vs uncircumcision is related to Law. But faith expressing itself through love. Or faith that works by love. (Different translation.) point is, love is greater than the Law.
Paul was an apostle and a church planter. Paul loved people and loved God so much. He wanted to bless all who he was ministering to. His love shows through.
Love is the greatest power.
At one point while Jesus was eating with his disciples, a woman took extremely precious oil, dipped her hair in it.... and her tears, washed Jesus' feet. When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.” Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
Luke 7:36-39,44-48,50 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Luke%207:36-39,44-48,50&version=NIV
5. Love is more important than spiritual gifts.
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:1-2 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=1%20Corinthians%2013:1-2&version=NIV
(Love is also more important than works.)
If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:3 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=1%20Corinthians%2013:3&version=NIV
Jesus goes to Samaria. He goes to show that His love and His grace is available for all.
Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John — although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. ) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
John 4:1-26 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=John%204:1-26&version=NIV
The power of Jesus' love impacts the woman and all in her village.
Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.
John 4:39-41 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=John%204:39-41&version=NIV
An exhortation from Peter regarding staying alert and in God's love.
Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
1 Peter 5:8-9 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=1%20Peter%205:8-9&version=NIV
Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Likewise, hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.
Now is the time, as Christians, for us to love others.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1 John 4:7-12 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=1%20John%204:7-12&version=NIV
God loves you and wants you to receive His love. And He wants to bless you.
The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: “‘“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. ”’ “So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”
Numbers 6:22-27 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Numbers%206:22-27&version=NIV
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