Advent: Finding Real Love
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Intro
Intro
Welcome to week four of Advent as celebrated by Adams Center Baptist Church.
Week 1: Hope
Week 1: Hope
Our desire to return of God’s Presence
Our defilement that restrains God’s Presence
Our Decision that will restore God’s Presence
Struggles and trials surround us every day. It seems as if the world is on a path of destruction with no redemption in sight. But take heart, there is hope; however, it can only be found in one place.
Week 2: Preparation
Week 2: Preparation
We all have holes in our lives that need filling and barriers in our lives that need to be torn down. We all suffer through rough patches that need to be made smooth and crooked ways in our lives that need to be straight. There is only one way to do that and that is through Christ. He is always present to give us everything we need to be the person He created us to be. Let's Prepare our hearts to welcome Him in.
Week 3: Joy
Week 3: Joy
No matter how bad it gets. No matter what we have faced, are facing, or will face, there is a place we can find joy that never goes away. It is always near at hand. There is coming a day when joy is permanent and will never go away. Today is not that day, but today we can find a piece of it. And everyday we can find a piece of it.
Week 4: Love
Week 4: Love
Psychologists ranks love as the deepest need that a human has. People desperately seek for fulfillment in this way. Love gives us a sense of belonging. Without it we often lose hope and and depression will often exist.
Unfortunately we often seek love in all the wrong places. Better defined true love can only be found in one place.. the person of Jesus Christ.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
People, every single one of them, cannot give or receive love correctly without God. What that means is we are surrounded by wounded people who need to know that we have a God who loves us so much.
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Before we get into it I want to quickly define Love the way God defines it.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 co 13:13
1 co 13:4-
Why is it that LOVE is greatest?
I have often read that without hope a person is in their most dangerous place.
We are saved by grace through Faith - so our very salvation is brought on by faith.
So why LOVE… as we read earlier, God is Love. Without him there is nothing really worth hoping in. Without Him there is nothing to have faith in that is worth anything.
I also want to describe how we can know how he loves us. Because the truth is,
He loves us despite our unworthiness
He loves us through our struggles, no matter how big they are.
He demonstrated His love by literally giving all he had.
He loves us despite our circumstances.
He loves us despite His eminence.
PS
PS
Today we discuss how He loves us and what we must do to find it.
He loves us despite our unworthiness
He loves us despite our circumstances.
He loves us despite His eminence.
I will tell of the kindnesses of the Lord, the deeds for which he is to be praised, according to all the Lord has done for us— yes, the many good things he has done for Israel, according to his compassion and many kindnesses. He said, “Surely they are my people, children who will be true to me”; and so he became their Savior. In all their distress he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
Isaiah 63:
He Loves Despite Our Unworthiness.
He Loves Despite Our Unworthiness.
The Book of Isaiah is all about the coming punishment of Israel because of continued sin - but the promise that He will be with us always.
As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one;
Ro 3:10
IS 53:6
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Despite that truth of this He loves us anyway
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
ro 5:8
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
In all their distress he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
He said, “Surely they are my people, children who will be true to me”; and so he became their Savior.
is 63:8
Is
ro 5:8
He Love Us Despite Our Circumstances
He Love Us Despite Our Circumstances
When we are in trouble - even in our own making, he feels every tear, every amount of stress, every amount of anguish, His goal is to carry your through them. More than that He wants us to be delivered from them
Is
In all their distress he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
More than that.. not only will he deliver us, he will take our pain upon himself.
Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
He knows our needs and knows exactly what to do with them. When we are at the end of our rope He gives us His.
Is
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Ro 5:
He Loves Despite His Eminence
He Loves Despite His Eminence
Even His birth was a great risk.
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!
Phil 2:6-8
Conc
Conc
There was a day when all humanity (all 2 of them) lived life in perfect paradise. They lived in harmony with each other reflecting God’s image as we were created to be. There was no shame, no struggle, no sin. Then one day humanity was deceived and every struggle we suffer from is a result of that sin. Every sin, every pain, every trial, every bondage … all of the garbage.
In all their distress he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
Jesus not only cares deeply about it and takes it personal, He is our deliverer..
Isaiah 53:
She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”