What More Can God Do?
1 John 4:7-18
Sermon Objective: God has done / is doing everything within the scope of Divine power to show us how much He loves us and how valuable we are.
Supporting Scripture: 1 Corinthians 2:9-10; Exodus 15:21-26
7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16And 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. 17In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
INTRO
So I have been asking myself a question lately. Or, maybe more accurately, the Holy Spirit has been asking me a question lately. It is a question that I am sure some of you have asked and one that maybe all of us need to ask. It might change us in some significant ways … I can say it is certainly changing me.
† The answer gives me a different view of myself.
† The answer gives me a more accurate view of you.
† The answer gives me a better view of the world.
† The answer changes motivation and actually even spawns motivation.
† The answer is as simple as the question but one that I, and maybe you, need to ponder a while.
Maybe I should give you the question. Only then can I give you my answer … if the Holy Spirit prompts you with the question God will help you with the answer too.
God’s question to me: WHAT MORE CAN I DO? WHAT MORE CAN I DO TO SHOW YOU THAT I LOVE YOU AND THAT YOU ARE VALUABLE TO ME?
This has been a life-long question … one that my Heavenly Father brings to mind again and again. I guess there are a lot of ways to go about finding that answer. But for me, I found it best to let God answer it for me.
WHAT MORE CAN I DO? WHAT MORE CAN I DO TO SHOW YOU THAT I LOVE YOU AND THAT YOU ARE VALUABLE TO ME?
GOD HAS TOLD ME HE LOVES ME
God answers this question for me by speaking DIRECTLY to me … through His Word.
• Three times in the Bible God refers me (us) as “The apple of His eye.” For example, in Psalm 17:7-8 God says “Show the wonder of your great love, you who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes. Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings”
• Song of Solomon 2:4 says He has taken me to the banquet table, and his banner over me is love.
• Jeremiah 31:3 God says The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.”
• Romans 8:3739 God tells me: Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
• This last one of from Zephaniah and God used it in a powerful way within me. It is from Zephaniah 3:17 … The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."
Yes, God has definitely told me He loves me. This passage we read from 1 John 4 is another great declaration.
The Bible is indeed a love letter from God.
God tells me He loves me (us). He only speaks full and complete truth. Maybe I should take Him at His word.
GOD HAS SHOWN ME HE LOVES ME
He shows me He loves me by:
* PARTICIPATING IN MY LIFE
Some say “If God would only (fill in the blank) then I’d know He loves me.
If you have said something similar (I have) then maybe what I have discovered will help you.
Brace yourself … here it comes. He has given you anything and everything He can to show you He loves you … even in the blank spots. There is nothing more He can give you.
Unfortunately, sometimes we do not acknowledge or recognize His loving-kindness.
Let me illustrate it with a story from Scripture that God used to show me this. It is Exodus 15:21-26.
Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.) So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "What are we to drink?"
Then Moses cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the LORD made a decree and a law for them, and there he tested them. 26 He said, "If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you." {Emphasis added}
This incident took place THREE DAYS after the parting of the Red Sea. The Hebrews trusted God withy that body of water but they could not seem to see His love shining through in this body of water.
THREE DAYS had passed and they begin to complain about the water.
We know something about the waters of Marah that the Hebrews did not understand. The reason they are bitter is NOT because they are bad but, rather, because there is a heavy mineral content in the water. Two minerals in particular that are found in that water are magnesium and calcium. THE HEBREWS NEEDED THESE MINERALS IN THEIR BODIES IF THEY WERE GOING TO TRANSITION FROM BEING EGYPTIAN PEASANT PEOPLE AND BECOME NOMADIC DESERT PEOPLE.
You see the stagnant water of Egypt breeds parasitic diseases; specifically amoebic dysentery and schistosomiasis. But God knew that the magnesium and calcium content in the water would serve as a laxative and clean out the digestive systems of the Hebrews thus freeing them of these common Egyptian-peasant ailments.
Here’s my point (s).
1. God said … I love you, I want you to be my people, I will take you to a new and different land where I will be your God and you will be my people. I will guide you. I will protect you. I will heal you of your diseases.
2. God was proving Himself faithful … even healing them of their diseases at this very moment.
3. They didn’t recognize His faithfulness (even three days after the Red Sea) and began to whine as if God didn’t love them and would not do what He said!
4. But God was! God was SHOWING them He loved them at that very moment in history!
5. God was completing His work. He had taken the Hebrews out of Egypt now He was getting Egypt out of the Hebrews.
And we do the same thing. “IF God would just _________ then I could know.”
Maybe we should take a lesson from the Israelites and trust that God is showing us His love.
Because He is.
Even as I speak.
In your life.
Right now.
There are so many other ways God SHOWS us me that He loves me.
He shows me He loves me by:
* GIVING ME HIS COMPANIONSHIP
What is the role of the Holy Spirit? The Spirit is God’s presence with us day in and day out. It is the companionship of God Himself! That is mind boggling!
• John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
• John 14:26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
• Romans 5:5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
• 1 John 4:4 … Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
• 1 John 4:12 … God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
He shows me He loves me by:
* GIVING ME HIS CHURCH FOR FELLOWSHIP
The opinion some believers hold of the Church grieves God. It is His gift and His bride. It is, in God’s economy, as important to the world as the Christian family. In fact, it is the eternal family. And God gives it to us. It shows His love. When the people of God in a local congregation grasp the genius of God in giving us the church it transforms them and the community it ministers within.
• Ephesians 3:17-19 says And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
He shows me He loves me by:
* GIVING ME HIS ETERNAL LIFE – SOMETHING ONLY HE CAN GIVE
• 1 John 4:9-8 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.
• Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
• Ephesians 1:4-5 says But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Wrap-Up
WHAT MORE CAN I DO? WHAT MORE CAN I DO TO SHOW YOU THAT I LOVE YOU AND THAT YOU ARE VALUABLE TO ME?
1. GOD HAS TOLD ME HE LOVES ME
2. GOD HAS SHOWN ME HE LOVES ME
> His Participation
> His Companionship
> His Church
> His Eternal Life
Do you know what all these overtures of love have in common?
THEY ARE GOD’S WAY OF GIVING ME HIMSELF!
The question is answered in the person of Jesus Christ.
Jesus loves me! This I know,
For the Bible tells me so;
Little ones to Him belong,
They are weak but He is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
The Bible tells me so.
Let’s give God thanks for His love.
This sermon is provided by Dr. Kenneth Pell
Potsdam Church of the Nazarene
Potsdam, New York
www.potsdam-naz.org
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Children’s Sermon
God Loves You – God Values You!
Summary: God does not look at us the way we (and others) look at us. God looks at us with love and value because He made us and He made us in His image.
Prop: Something you have made or written (i.e. my Doctoral Dissertation)
Hi everyone! I am glad to see you today. I want to show you something this morning. You’ve seen things similar to this before but you have never seen this one … it’s a book. This is a very special book to me. Do you know why? Because I wrote it.
I wrote this book while in School. I was in what is called a doctoral program and it was the final project I had to do. This book took me a long time! I had to do a lot of field study and research and I had to write and rewrite it and then stand up in front of some very smart people and defend what I had written in it. That is why this book is so important to me.
Now, I know some other people may read this book and not be very impressed. They might say, “I could write that book better.” Or they might even say “What you wrote in that book is dumb.”
But to me … this book will ALWAYS be very special. I keep it in a safe place in my office and, if something ever happened and I could only save one thing from my office this would probably be what I would save.
It is special … TO ME even if it is not special to anyone else!
I learned a lesson about God is the “specialness” that this book holds for me. I discovered that the things God makes are special to Him too.
Listen to what the Bible says Genesis 1:26,27,31 - Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. … God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.
The earth, for example, is very special to God. When He made it He said “that’s good!” That is why we should take care of our earth but God promises that someday He is going to clean it up REAL GOOD again too.
Animals are special to God because He made them. That is why it is wrong for us to be mean or cruel to animals. How we treat animals shows a lot about how we feel about the things that God has made.
You know what else God made? YOU! And guess what … God likes you because He made you. God loves you because He made you.
I get sad when I hear about people who have treated you or other people bad. It hurts my heart when I hear about boys and girls who are told they are “junk” or “dumb” or “no good.” You know why? BECAUSE IT AINT TRUE! You are not junk. And God does not think you are junk either! Remember, He made you. And just like this book is special to me, and you are VERY VERY special to Him.
Let’s pray and thank God for loving us so much.
This Children’s Sermon is provided by Dr. Kenneth Pell
Potsdam Church of the Nazarene
Potsdam, New York
www.potsdam-naz.org
