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Oct 20, 2024

Our First Love

Our First Love

Passage: 1 John 4:7-21

Speaker: Craig Lotz

Series: 2024 Practicing the Way of Jesus

Keywords: love, redemption, spirit, idols, others

As we close our series through I John, we are reminded that God is the source of love and only as we see His great love for us in the finished work of Jesus can we then move in gratitude to love others and flee from idols that can never love us like Him.

 

PRE SERVICE TEXT: 1 John 4:10-11

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. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another


PREPARATION: ​​Psalm 89:1-2, 14-15 

LEADER: 1 I will sing of the LORD's great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations.
2 I will declare that your love stands firm forever, that you established your faithfulness in heaven itself.

ALL: 14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you. 
15 Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you, who walk in the light of your presence, O LORD.

 

Prayer of Confession (adapted from The Service for the Lord’s Day)

 ALL:  O Merciful God, 
We confess that we have not loved you with 
our whole heart, mind, and strength 
And have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. 
In your great mercy, forgive us, 
renew us, compel us and lead us, 
That we may delight in your will 
walk in your ways; find joy in your Word. 
Through the finished work of Christ. 

Amen


BENEDICTION & DISMISSAL: 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

LEADER: 16 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, 17 comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word. 

ALL: Amen

LEADER: Let us go forth to serve the world as those who love our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

ALL: Thanks be to God!

 

POST SERVICE: 1 John 4:19

19 We love because he first loved us.



RELATED SCRIPTURES:

  • Jonah 2:8-9 - 8 Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.  9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!”
  • Romans 5:6-8 - 6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
  • Romans 3:10-11 - As it is written “None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God.
  • Ephesians 1:3-8 - 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 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 for adoption to sonship 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. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, 9 he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ,
  • Hosea 13:4 - But I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no Saviour.
  • Psalm 115:4-8 - 4 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. 5 They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. 6 They have ears, but do not hear, noses, but do not smell. 7 They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. 8 Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.

 

ILLUSTRATIONS:  

 

  • 10.20.24 album

 

 

QUOTES:  

 

  •  “Love God and do whatever you please.”
    - St. Augustine

 

  • Anything in the world that successfully competes with our love for God is an idol. So keep yourselves from idols — that is, love God and all that he is for us in Christ more than you love anything.
    - John Piper

  • What will change the fundamental structures of the heart...love. Radical. Unconditional.  Love is the only thing that will take our mistrustful, in denial, conniving little hearts and shock them into a whole new way of living and being. Love."
    - Tim Keller