David & Phyllis Roch – Heart to Change the World – Droch@pris.ca 250.782.0150
The Love of God
PHYLLIS take a picture – waiting for camera to focus on your image because whatever it focuses on, it captures and retains & we look at it over and over.. Our souls are like that – whatever image we focus on – whether God, ourselves or worldly & unhealthy things, we capture – which of these do we want to keep
DAVID
SLIDE 1.
I. GOD’S LOVE IS GREAT (Ephesians 1:19-20 & 2:4-5).
SLIDE 2
19 I pray that you will begin to understand the incredible greatness of his power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power
20 that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.
SLIDE 3
4 ¶ But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so very much,
5 that even while we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead.
This week, as i was praying, reading the scriptures and asking God about what to share on Sunday, I felt God wanted us to understand the incredible greatness of the power of His love. And ways that great love can be applied to our every day circumstances
SLIDE 4
What is greatness?
• Like he is the greatest man.... Meaning? Greatest 4 wheeler, greatest leader, baseball player. You pick
• This is the greatest coffee..... Meaning? Kona coffes of course.
• My Phyllis She is the greatest you know!! Well she is, the greatest everything to me
We say that a meal was "great." We say that a movie was "great." We say that a speaker was "great." But none of these things even begins to measure up to what the Bible means when it says that the love of God is great. When God tells us that His love is great, He is telling us that it is so great that it goes beyond our own ideas of greatness and our own understanding.
Is one preacher greater than anthor? ....
SLIDE 5
PHYLLIS
John 3:16 was the verse through which D. L. Moody learned to appreciate the greatness of God’s love. Moody had been to Britain in the early days of his ministry and there had met a young English preached named Henry Moorhouse. One day Moorhouse said to Moody, "I am thinking of going to America."
"Well," said Moody, "if you should ever get to Chicago, come down to my church and I will give you a chance to preach."
Moody did not mean to be hypocritical when he said this, of course. He was merely being polite. Nevertheless, he was saying to himself that he hoped Moorhouse would not come, for Moody had not heard him preach and had no idea of what he would say should he come to Chicago. Sometime later, after Moody had returned home, the evangelist received a telegram that said, "Have just arrived in New York. Will be in Chicago on Sunday. Moorhouse." Moody was perplexed about what he should do, and to complicate matters he was just about to leave for a series of meetings elsewhere. "Oh, my," he thought, "here I am about to be gone on Sunday, Moorhouse is coming, and I have promised to let him preach." Finally he said to his wife and to the leaders of the church, "I think that I should let him preach once. So let him preach once; then if the people enjoy him, put him on again."
Moody was gone for a week. When he returned he said to his wife, "How did the young preacher do?"
"Oh, he is a better preacher than you are," his wife said. "He is telling sinners that God loves them."
"That is not right," said Moody. "God does not love sinners."
"Well," she said, "you go and hear him."
"What?" said Moody. "Do you mean to tell me that he is still preaching?"
"Yes, he has been preaching all week, and he has only had one verse for a text. It is John 3:16."
Moody went to the meeting. Moorhouse got up and began by saying, "I have been hunting for a text all week, and I have not been able to find a better text than John 3:16. So I think we will just talk about it once more." He did.
Afterward Moody said it was on that night that he first clearly understood the greatness of God’s love.
Nothing is greater than the love of GOD!
SLIDE 6 God’s love is great
DAVID
SLIDE 7
II. GOD’S LOVE IS INFINITE (Ephesians 3:17-19).
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 fulness of God.
How can we comprehend the infinite love of God? We can know it... as we get to know God, as we have a passion for Him, as we read and live His word we can know more and more of His love.
The question I have now is can I know all of His love. Is there more YES there is.
We have been touched by His love, bathed in, changed by it. What God wants is for us to do is to accept His love. To experience His love
God’s love is
Greater than our sin. We find it hard to know Gods love in our sin. We therefore punish our selves. Instead of apply the truth of Rom 2:4.
SLIDE 8
Romans 2:4 ... do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realising that God’s kindness leads you towards repentance?
Beyond our insecurity We want to be loved but feel at times we are unlovable. So we strive harder. Instead of reminding our selves of Rom. 8:39
SLIDE 9
Ro 8:39 Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Beyond our selfishness so we get prideful thinking I can do it my self I (big I here) don’t need God or anybody else. Instead of remembering the message in Eph 1
SLIDE 10
Ephesians 1:4-6
4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love
5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—
6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
Oh we how need to turn to the love of God. Moment by moment.
PHYLLIS
SLIDE 11
III. GOD’S LOVE IS SACRIFICIAL (John 3:16).
SLIDE 12
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
Whosoever – personal love whoever, anyone, everyone
Martin Luther called John 3:16 "the heart of the Bible—the Gospel in miniature."
SLIDE 13
"God" . . . The greatest LOVER
"So loved" . . . The greatest DEGREE
"The world" . . . The greatest NUMBER
"That he gave" . . . The greatest ACT
"His only begotten Son" . . . The greatest GIFT
"That whosoever" . . . The greatest INVITATION
"Believeth" . . . The greatest SIMPLICITY
"In him" . . . The Greatest PERSON
"Should not perish" . . . The greatest DELIVERANCE
"But" . . . The greatest DIFFERENCE
"Have" . . . The greatest CERTAINTY
"Everlasting Life" . . . The greatest POSSESSION
SLIDE 14
God’s love is a giving love. How much does God love you? God loves you so much "that he gave his only begotten Son."
In the New Testament THE CROSS IS THE MEASURE OF GOD’S LOVE:
Romans 6:6-8
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless,
Christ died for the ungodly.
7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man,
though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
• ". . . the Son of God, who loved me and GAVE HIMSELF FOR ME" (Galatians 2:20). PERSONAL LOVE
• "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and GAVE HIMSELF FOR IT" (Ephesians 5:25).
(1 John 3:16).
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
1 Jn 4:9 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.
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
God sacrificed His own Son, and Christ sacrificed His own life for people who are some totally unworthy and undeserving of anything.
God loves you! Do you know that? God loves you! He has demonstrated that love for you in Jesus Christ!
SLIDE 15 IV. GOD’S LOVE IS UNCHANGEABLE
This is perhaps the most wonderful aspect of all. The heart of the matter is that God loves in such a way that nothing you or I have done or will ever do will alter it.
SLIDE 16
HAVE LOVED THEE WITH AN EVERLASTING LOVE" (Jeremiah 31:3).
Jeremiah 31:3 The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.
That’s personal – take a snapshot
Always be faithful
Though you may be unfaithful to Him, He will never be unfaithful to you.
Always encourage you into life
Though you may fail Him, He will never fail you.
always be with you
DAVID
APPLICATION
You say, "What does that have to do with me?" It has everything to do with you.
Why don’t we ask God to help us receive this love : this amazing love, this deep love, this giving and unending love.
Ask Him to soften our hearts, so we can embrace His love and His love can embrace us.
(need You ... remake
