Loving God Series

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

THIS SERMON AVAILABLE WITH POWERPOINT IN RESOURCE DOWNLOAD!

This sermon (and several hundred others) are available for download.

> Microsoft Word

> Most with handouts

More info: www.sermonsubscribe.com or darrellstetler2@gmail.com

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

We believe that your life is only successful when you do three things, which we have made our church’s mission statement:

LOVE GOD, LOVE OTHERS, SERVE THE WORLD

I’d like to illustrate it visually like this:

(available in Resource Download)

That’s our purpose, as a church.

It’s your journey, as a person.

Remember:

1. You never stop needing the levels _____below you________.

2. One climb for __membership____, and one for __leadership____.

3. You can’t stop ______halfway________ up.

Love God...

Mark 12:29-30 "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'

Loving God is the passion, the heart of a Church.

Matthew 22:34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.

35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"

37 Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'

38 This is the first and greatest commandment.

There is nothing higher, nothing greater than to love God.

1 John 4:16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

1 Corinthians 16:22 If anyone does not love the Lord-- a curse be on him!

So what does it mean to love God?

In his sermon “On Love,” John Wesley offers the best definition I have ever read anywhere. He said, “What is it to love God, but to delight in Him, to rejoice in His will, to desire continually to please Him, to seek and find our happiness in Him, and to thirst day and night for a fuller enjoyment of him.”

To enjoy Him, and want to enjoy Him more!

• To delight in Him & rejoice in His will… seek our happiness in Him…

Matthew 13:44 "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”

JESUS is the treasure!

I don’t want to know if you were baptized.

I don’t want to know if you joined the church.

I don’t want to know if you went forward when you were 12.

I want to know if you love God; if you find JOY in him, if Jesus is the treasure of your life!

Is ___Jesus your ______treasure?_____

• To desire continually to please Him…

Psalm 40:8 “I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart."

Let me say this very plainly. If you don’t want to please God, and obey Him, you’re not saved.

Notice I didn’t say if you ever sin, you’re not saved. I said if you basically DON’T CARE if you are sinning. You don’t WANT to please God, you don’t WANT to know what he wants you to do, you’d rather COVER your sin, you hate the PAIN sin causes, but love the sin itself… then you’re not saved.

Do I mean that you can never fall, never mess up? No. I have, plenty of times. Will there be a day where you get up on the wrong side of the bed and say something unkind, then realize that you were wrong in your attitude toward your wife? Yes.

ILLUS: Gracie: “I still love God, even when I sin.”

2 Timothy 2:22 Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

If you love God, ___flee SIN!____.

I love God, so I am fleeing sin. There may be a day where it catches me, there may be a weak moment, but I am fighting it, because I DESIRE continually to please Him.

I know what Gracie was saying. That there’s a desire there for Him that comes back, and I repent.

I’m saying if there’s unconfessed, unforsaken, unrepented sin in your life, you’re not loving God. And if you’re not loving Him, you’re breaking the greatest command in this Book.

I would add another thing:

To speak His name…

What you ___love___, you ___praise_____ in ___public___.

I will not rest until this city loves God. Until he is desired and worshipped.

Our church desires to help people learn to love God. Here’s something I want to spotlight that we are starting to do this year.