I. LOVE IS THE GREATEST OF ALL
i. Because God is Love
ii. Why don’t we see more fruit from this? 2 reasons
1. People don’t understand what showing the love of God is. They put their own understanding on what it is and of course they aren’t prepared to do that…
a. Paul tells us that pretty much every action, in and of themselves are not what makes people walk in love.
i. Giving away all my goods to the poor and not have love it profits me nothing?
ii. People are doing it or are afraid of doing it because they think they understand what people mean when they ask people to show love. IT’S MORE THAN WHAT YOU THINK.
2. Because we haven’t been believing this but the fact is LOVE…the selfless promotion of others is applying GOD DIRECTLY TO THE PERSON.
b. It is the one sure fire way to make sure your faith doesn’t work
i. Faith doesn’t work without the selfless promotion of others…it is dependent on love in order to work.
ii. You can’t treat people badly and expect your faith to reach out and pull in the blessings of God
c. It is HOW people know you’re a Christian!
i. John 13:35 – by this shall ALL MEN know that you are my disciples, if you have LOVE ONE TO ANOTHER
ii. Not the fish on your car, not the signs and wonders you operated in, not your dreams and visions, not your history of growing up in church, not your impressive vocabulary of Christianese, not by the spiritual gifts you operate in or the crying you do in the presence of God. It’s not your faith, it’s not your fruit in other areas…it is your love you have for each other!
1. You can’t selflessly promote someone else without the love of God….some of you are confused by this because you are trying to apply human love to this equation.
a. Adding 3+3=9
b. ADDING IS NOT WHAT YOU NEED …It’s multiplication to get to 9.
c. Human love cannot selflessly promote someone else
2. We can’t show the world we are his disciples by loving with Human love. It is only the love of God.
a. How do you know the difference?
b. Human love receives the benefit and really only sees it’s OWN benefit.
i. It will tell someone it loves them because of how it makes themselves feel.
ii. It’s gifts are always beneficial to itself
iii. You want to be a light to the world treat people in the world with the Love of God
1. Without expecting a return
2. Without a condition
3. Not because they deserved it, but because their life was bettered because they crossed your path.
d. It is the evidence that you are saved
i. 1 John 3:14 WE KNOW that we have passed from death unto life, BECAUSE WE LOVE THE BRETHREN He who does not love his brother abides in death.
1. Doesn’t say we THINK
2. Doesn’t say my opinion of how to know
3. Here is my theory of how to tell if we’re Christians
4. This is what I have figured out.
ii. John said we KNOW because we LOVE the brethren.
iii. Not talking about physical death…we haven’t passed from that. John is talking about spiritual death. Being separated from God.
1. How do we know we have be reunited with God….WE LOVE
iv. When we are born again, we are born of the Spirit of God and that’s when the love of God comes into our hearts.
1. We take on His nature. His DNA
2. His DNA is life and love
3. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts and we receive eternal life.
v. If we don’t LOVE the brethren we are abiding or staying in spiritual death.
vi. You have passed from spiritual death to spiritual life, which means we don’t have to look for it, ask for it, fast for it, YOU ALREADY HAVE IT because it has already been shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit.
vii. WHY DO I HAVE SUCH A HARD TIME THEN
1. Because you are looking to your flesh and your intellect for the love of God.
a. God’s love doesn’t dwell in your flesh where your feelings are
b. God’s love doesn’t dwell in your intellect where everything makes sense.
c. The Love of God dwells in your heart and can only be accessed by faith.
d. You HAVE TO LOOK DEEPER into you spirit or heart for the love of God and use your FAITH to have it work for you!
2. If you don’t have that love in your heart for people then you don’t have ANY EVIDENCE of salvation.
a. How do you know you’re saved? By the love you have for people….in spite of what your head and flesh tell you.
b. Person comes back from the dead example
i. You can’t argue with them…they are alive
ii. When people have are born again they know it by LOVE in their heart not if they’re baptized, belonging to a certain church, going to confession, or taking communion.
viii. LOVE IS THE VERY FIRST FRUIT THAT SHOWS UP WHEN YOU ARE BORN AGAIN
1. The Holy Spirit can be in your heart because you got born again but if you don’t allow the love of God to dominate you, you’ll just walk on in carnality and defeat
a. Carnality isn’t just the big sin areas…you may even whip those, but your carnal thinking will remain.
b. In fact the area YOU feel the strongest and most secure in are probably the areas you are most CARNAL in.
c. Galatians 5:16, 18-25
i. 16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
ii. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit
2. To walk in the spirit means to walk in the fruit OF the spirit.
a. Love is the first one listed.
b. Against such there is NO LAW
i. There was nothing recorded in the old testament that said people that are doing THESE things are WRONG. There is nothing saying that if you have the fruits of the sprit that the law will point out wrong doing to you
c. We can walk in the spirit means to walk in the fruit of the recreated or born again HUMAN SPIRIT and LOVE IS FIRST
ix. IF YOU HAVE BEEN BORN AGAIN YOU ALREADY HAVE IT IN YOU.
