10 March 2019 - Experience the Lavish Love of God - Reverend Col Stringer Sermon Notes - New Creation Church Sermon NotesPraise and Worship songs performed:
John 13:34-35 - The night before Jesus’ crucifixion, Jesus told His disciples something important. If you have one last chance to speak to your disciples, won’t you say the most important things? He told them to love one another just as He had loved them. Many Christians have head knowledge about God’s love but have never actually experienced God’s love. Religion teaches conditional love — only if we obey then God will love us. This is not the truth. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”” (John 13:34-35 WEB) 1 John 4:7-8, 16-19 - God doesn’t just have love. God IS love. In this passage, the Apostle John is not trying to make us feel guilty, but is endeavoring to take us deeper in experiencing God’s love. A pastor can be teaching God’s word and not have a heart revelation of God’s love. It doesn’t mean that he’s not saved. We need a personal relationship with God. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God. He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love... We know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. In this love has been made perfect among us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, even so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has punishment. He who fears is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:7-8, 16-19 WEB) Ephesians 3:13-19 - There is nothing more powerful on earth than experiencing God’s love. There is no deeper revelation than His unconditional (in Greek: agape) love. Bad things are happening around the world but it’s not God who is doing it. God is dealing with issues of the heart, not the head. You’re easier to live with when you’re close to God because He transforms you from inside out. You can’t force people to fall in love. People need to experience the love of God. We need to be rooted and grounded in God’s love. “Therefore I ask that you may not lose heart at my troubles for you, which are your glory. For this cause, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that you may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strengthened to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and height and depth, and to know Christ’s love which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:13-19 WEB) I Corinthians 12:1, 31 - Use the spiritual gifts out of the motivation of love. You can’t earn these gifts - they are given by the Holy Spirit as gifts of Grace. Some ministers who have gifts use their gifts but they don’t even like people. “Now concerning spiritual things, brothers, I don’t want you to be ignorant... But earnestly desire the best gifts. Moreover, I show a most excellent way to you.” (1 Corinthians 12:1, 31 WEB) I Corinthians 13:1-8 - Love is the only thing in this day and age that is fail-proof. There is nothing deeper than God’s love. “If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing. If I dole out all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient and is kind; love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-8 WEB)
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AuthorHi I’m Milton Goh, I'm 31 years old and i'm a blogger who writes about Christianity, Parenting, Life Lessons that I learn from Movies/Shows, and Lifestyle. |