An Eternal Truth In A New Light Series

INTRODUCTION

• SLIDE #1

• It is a joy to be a part of a church that is so loving, we are blessed to have some wonderful people at FCC!

• Not all churches are so blessed.

• When you open your Bible and start reading you will begin to notice a re-occurring subject appears, LOVE.

• The subject of love receives a great deal of attention in the Bible.

• Why do you think God spent so much time covering the subject in the Bible?

• Could it be that love is important enough to God that he desires us get a handle on the subject?

• We asked last week if you Know Jesus, today we will take that theme into deeper water as we examine an ETERNAL TRUTH IN A NEW LIGHT.

• Love is one of the most complex and sometimes difficult emotion to deal with.

• Sometimes one of the hardest things we must do is to love each other.

• At times we are not lovable, we do things to each other, things we do not always mean to do, but nevertheless, we have a tendency to hurt one another and get on each others nerves.

• I would imagine it has to be sad for God as He looks down to see how we treat one another.

• He knows how we feel and that has to be disappointing to Him also.

• Even in the beginning of the church, there were struggles with people within loving one another. Many of the New Testament letters deal with conflict and struggles on one level or another.

• We are called to love one another, I hope today we can see that God is not simply making a suggestion to do so, but rather our ability to love one another reveals the depth of the love we have for God.

• It can be easy to rationalize why we only need to love certain people in the body of Christ versus loving all those who are a part of God’s family.

• Let’s begin our journey in verse 7.

• SLIDE #2

• 1 John 2:7 (HCSB) Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old command that you have had from the beginning. The old command is the message you have heard.

• SLIDE #3

SERMON

I. This truth is not new.

• John will take a couple of verses to get to the subject at hand; nonetheless, he wanted to make sure his readers knew the foundation for the teaching was nothing new.

• God has ALWAYS wanted is to love one another.

• The idea of loving others did not begin when Jesus came; Jesus was the perfect example of love. We will look at this thought a bit more in a few minutes.

• 1 John 4:8 reminds us that God IS LOVE.

• God has been and always will be LOVE.

• Some inaccurately state that the God of the Old Testament was a God a vengeance whereas the God of the New Testament is a God of love, therefore, we can do whatever we feel like doing with no consequence.

• God is the same God today as He was yesterday.

• SLIDE #4

• Leviticus 19:18 (HCSB) Do not take revenge or bear a grudge against members of your community, but love your neighbor as yourself; I am Yahweh.

• When you think about it, how can we do our job to reach people for Jesus if we do not love each other, or if we do not love those who are lost?

• Doesn’t it make sense that God wants us to love one another? Look at the price He paid so that we could be a part of His family? You were bought with a price.

• When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was in Mark 12, He responded by saying we are to love God with all we have and then proceeded to says in Mark 12:31 we are to love our neighbor as our self.

• SLIDE #5

• Mark 12:31 (HCSB) “The second is: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other command greater than these.”

• Sounds a bit like Leviticus 19:18?

• Those who belong to Jesus are neither cheap nor easy to replace, we need to understand that God has always wanted us to love each other!

• John says the commandment is one we have heard from the beginning. The beginning can means since creation, or the beginning of the Law of Moses, or the time the gospel had been preached or since the time of our conversion. The context seems to indicate we are speaking of time the gospel was preached.