Love Fearlessly 2

Audacious Faith • Sermon • Submitted 3 months ago • Presented 3 months ago

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Today we are continuing with Love Fearlessly which is from our series, Audacious Faith! We are looking at what practical things we need to do in order to love fearlessly!

Matthew 22:37–40 NKJV

37 Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Love Him With All Your Heart - Unconditional Surrender!

Loving God with all of our heart is unconditional surrender to Him.

To love God with all of our heart is to love Him completely, withholding nothing from Him. It is a love that is evidenced by a willing and unconditional surrender to Jesus Christ. WE ARE NOT OUR OWN, WE ARE HIS. We live to love Him, and we love to live for Him.

John 14:23 NKJV

23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.

Love Him With All Your Soul - Complete Obedience!

When we obey the Lord completely, we are loving Him with all of our soul. That is our mind! We willfully chose to obey His word above anything else. It is what we build our lives on.

John 14:23 NKJV

23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.

To love God with all of our soul is to love with complete obedience. Jesus says that if we love Him, we will obey Him and keep His word. To obey, we must wholly lay down our will and take on His will. TRUE LOVE HAS A DESIRE TO OBEY AND A PASSION TO PLEASE THE ONE WE LOVE. OBEDIENCE TO GOD IS THE OUTFLOW OF FIRST LOVE FOR GOD. Love is not without a cost, and neither is obedience. It cost Jesus everything to love and obey His Father. We must follow Christ’s footsteps to love God with all our souls in complete obedience.

John 15:5 NKJV

5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.

Acts 17:28 NIV

28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

Love Him With All Your Strength -Physical Energy and Abilities

This means using our abilities to honor God. First we need to take care of this physical body that God has given us. We need to be good stewards of it. We as humans always have it in the back of our mind that this is our body and we can do with it as we please. Actually that can be self destructive. We don’t sleep enough, we don’t eat right, we overwork, sometimes we have this I can do it mentality, thinking we can handle. The truth is we can’t. Life is fragile. You can throw your back out by a violent sneeze. No our physical strength comes from God and when we love Him with all of our strength, we not only serve and do things, we listen to the Holy Spirit and follow His lead on taking care of ourselves in order to serve Him better. That might mean exercise, eating right, getting check ups to make sure we’re healthy, and sleep. This will help us serve Him with our physical strength and our abilities.

1 Corinthians 13:1–7 NIV

1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love is Patient and Kind!

God’s love is patient and kind; this is how we should love others. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13 that love is the greatest. He explains that we can have all the gifts and abilities to do great things, but if we do not love others, we are empty and no better than noisy gongs or clanging cymbals, having no true impact or significance in the kingdom of God. We must love not with the world’s love but with the love of God, which is patient and kind. Our love must demonstrate the nature of God and the fruit of the Spirit. We are God’s extended hand of grace and love to others. IN LOVING THEM, WE ARE LOVING GOD. Matthew 25:40 NLT says concerning this, “The King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these, My brothers and sisters, you were doing it to Me!’”

How are we treating others around us? Like the cashier at the store that is new and makes mistakes. Or the agent at the airlines when our flight is delayed. Do we get upset when we are following someone who is driving “so slow”?

Here’s one for me, do I get super upset at a ref because I think they made a bogus call? Love is patient and kind.

Love is Humble and Not Self Seeking!

True love is not proud or self-serving. God’s love is humble and selfless, as demonstrated by Jesus Christ, who humbled Himself by putting aside all His privileges as God to take on the form of man and servant to die to save us. Christ’s love is humble and always seeks the good of others. To love with His love, we must also be willing to humbly and selflessly seek the good of others—eager and ready to go hungry so that someone else may be fed. We put their welfare and needs before our own. Such love does not pay back evil for evil but good for evil. It blesses those who curse us and loves those who hate us. It will turn the other cheek when struck on one and give even the tunic when the cloak is demanded. It thinks of others before we think of ourselves. We will selflessly encourage, build up, and elevate others. We do not require our own ways, and we do not rejoice about injustice but rejoice whenever the truth wins.

Love is Hating (not delighting in) Evil!

Amos 5:14-15 NLT states, “Do what is good and run from evil so that you may live! Then the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies will be your helper, just as you have claimed. HATE EVIL AND LOVE WHAT IS GOOD; turn your courts into true halls of justice. Perhaps even the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies will have mercy on the remnant of His people.” God loves all sinners, but He hates what is evil. It took the sacrifice of His only Son to destroy evil so that humanity no longer needs to live under its control. His love rescues and redeems from evil, but it never compromises nor tolerates it. He will forgive the repentant in His loving grace and mercy, but He will still judge all that is evil. We are to hate evil in any form, whether in what we see, hear, think, or engage.BE HOLY AS GOD IS HOLY. In loving God and others, we must hate evil and not tolerate or revel in it. If we love God fearlessly, we must hate evil and delight in what pleases God’s heart. We will take joy only in what is good, pure, holy, and righteous.

revel in it. If we love God fearlessly, we must hate evil and delight in what pleases God’s heart. We will take joy only in what is good, pure, holy, and righteous.

Love Always Trusts, Hopes and Perseveres!

The journey of faith and love is challenging, never smooth or without trials. As we learn to love God and others audaciously, we will face many struggles, disappointments, and pain. We must be convinced that obeying God’s mandate to love and making it our mission is worth it all. To know the joy of having continued in love by enduring in trust, hope, and perseverance is incomparable. Love does not give up on relationships but perseveres through difficulties and hardships because of faith in God that He is trustworthy. Just as God never gives up on us, we must not give up on others but always trust, hope and persevere as we love fearlessly