First

Larry was the person who first recruited me to be a pastor years ago. Whenever I think of him, even now, I feel encouraged.

Why?

Larry cared for me and respected me before I did anything to earn it. Matt of fact, now that I think of it, I never did anything that fully earned the level of support and love he gave me.

He loved me first.

I have no doubt that the positive experience I had as a new pastor was the result of Larry’s love.

This Sunday at the Gathering Church I will teach from 1 John 4:1-21. The passage contains perhaps some of the most well known verses about God’s character and the priority of his love.

Religious and spiritual experience gets totally warped and actually becomes bad for us when the order of God’s love gets reversed. It is too easy to act as if we’ve got to do something to get God to love us.

In Love 2: The Way of God we connect again to what happens when we know that we are loved first.

This Week’s Scripture Passage:

Dear friends, don’t believe every spirit. Test the spirits to see if they are from God because many false prophets have gone into the world.  This is how you know if a spirit comes from God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come as a human is from God, and every spirit that doesn’t confess Jesus is not from God.

This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and is now already in the world.  You are from God, little children, and you have defeated these people because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.  They are from the world. So they speak from the world’s point of view and the world listens to them.  We are from God. The person who knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God doesn’t listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Dear friends, let’s love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God.  The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love.  This is how the love of God is revealed to us: God has sent his only Son into the world so that we can live through him.  This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins.

Dear friends, if God loved us this way, we also ought to love each other.  No one has ever seen God. If we love each other, God remains in us and his love is made perfect in us.  This is how we know we remain in him and he remains in us, because he has given us a measure of his Spirit.  We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the savior of the world.  If any of us confess that Jesus is God’s Son, God remains in us and we remain in God.  We have known and have believed the love that God has for us.

God is love, and those who remain in love remain in God and God remains in them.  This is how love has been perfected in us, so that we can have confidence on the Judgment Day, because we are exactly the same as God is in this world.  

There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear expects punishment. The person who is afraid has not been made perfect in love.  We love because God first loved us.  If anyone says, I love God, and hates a brother or sister, he is a liar, because the person who doesn’t love a brother or sister who can be seen can’t love God, who can’t be seen.  This commandment we have from him: Those who claim to love God ought to love their brother and sister also.

1 John 4:1-21 (Common English Bible)

View the .pdf of Songs & Announcements.

This Week’s Scripture Passage:

This is the message that you heard from the beginning: love each other. Don’t behave like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he kill him? He killed him because his own works were evil, but the works of his brother were righteous.

Don’t be surprised, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. We know that we have transferred from death to life, because we love the brothers and sisters. The person who does not love remains in death. Everyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. This is how we know love: Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. But if a person has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need and that person doesn’t care—how can the love of God remain in him?

Little children, let’s not love with words or speech but with action and truth. This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and reassure our hearts in God’s presence. Even if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and knows all things. Dear friends, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have confidence in relationship to God. We receive whatever we ask from him because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. This is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love each other as he commanded us. The person who keeps his commandments remains in God and God remains in him; and this is how we know that he remains in us, because of the Spirit that he has given to us.

1 John 3:11-24 (Common English Bible)

View the .pdf of Songs & Announcements.

In 2009, Gustavo Dudamel, at age 28, became the youngest person ever to be named the Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He’s also the music director of the Gutenberg Symphony and the Simon Bolivar Orchestra of Venezuela.

Coming out of the Venezuelan music system that engages children from impoverished areas, he had burst on the classical music scene as “a conducting animal.” While rehearsing the renowned Vienna Philharmonic as a guest conductor, he challenged them at one point to “play with more blood.” He told the musicians that blood should be splashing on their faces as they attacked the piece.

Incredibly talented and hard-working, there is one word that describes him best: passionate.

He is passionate for music.

But he is more passionate for people.

His passion changes everyone around him.

Passionate is not a word we often associate with God. God’s too dignified, too holy, too preoccupied with correct beliefs and proper behavior.

Well, to understand what I will be teaching this Sunday at the Gathering Church, you’ll need to know how passionate God is.

Passionate for what?

For you.

In 1 John 2:28-3:10, God’s passion is unmistakable. And the impact of that passion is unmistakable. People live well, like children of God, like people who will stand with Jesus one day.

This Sunday – Loved: The Way to Know Ourselves.

This Week’s Scripture Passage:

And now, little children, remain in relationship to Jesus, so that when he appears we can have confidence and not be ashamed in front of him when he comes.  If you know that he is righteous, you also know that every person who practices righteousness is born from him.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us in that we should be called God’s children, and that is what we are! Because the world didn’t recognize him, it doesn’t recognize us.

Dear friends, now we are God’s children, and it hasn’t yet appeared what we will be. We know that when he appears we will be like him because we’ll see him as he is.  And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure.  Every person who practices sin commits an act of rebellion, and sin is rebellion.  You know that he appeared to take away sins, and there is no sin in him.  Every person who remains in relationship to him does not sin. Any person who sins has not seen him or known him.

Little children, make sure no one deceives you. The person who practices righteousness is righteous, in the same way that Jesus is righteous.  The person who practices sin belongs to the devil, because the devil has been sinning since the beginning.  God’s Son appeared for this purpose: to destroy the works of the devil.  Those born from God don’t practice sin because God’s DNA remains in them. They can’t sin because they are born from God.  This is how God’s children and the devil’s children are apparent: everyone who doesn’t practice righteousness is not from God, including the person who doesn’t love a brother or sister.

1 John 2:28-3:10 (Common English Bible)

View the .pdf of Songs & Announcements.