Love In Power
Message Notes // June 5th
SERIES: What’s Love Got To Do With It?
What does Pentecost Sunday have to do with love?
Jesus came - for God so LOVED the world… And BECAUSE Jesus came, the Holy Spirit has been sent to us, to fill us with God’s love!
1 Corinthians 15:3-7
Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. After that he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles.
Acts 1:3
During the forty days after he suffered and died, he appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. And he talked to them about the Kingdom of God.
Christianity is based on the fact that Jesus died AND was resurrected. This 40 days of proving to his followers that he was still alive was absolutely critical to prove the Christian faith as following the one true God, the promised Messiah!
Acts 1:4
Once when he was eating with them, he commanded them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
Luke 24:49
”And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.”
Pentecost Sunday transforms the religion of following the God of Israel.
Once a religion that gathered around a temple, or originally a tabernacle in the wilderness, they were now invited to personally experience the power of God’s spirit by believing in Jesus Christ.
Matthew 27:50-51
Then Jesus shouted out again, and he released his spirit. At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.
This act of the curtain being torn was to symbolize this shift. It wasn’t to let us into the Holy of Holies, and it wasn’t to let the Holy Spirit out, like somehow he was trapped in there. It was the declaration of heaven that the spirit was a promise for all who believe.
John 14:15-19
”If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father and he will give you another advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.”
About the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is available to anyone who follows Jesus
Luke 11:13, “…if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”
Ephesians 1:13, And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago.
The Holy Spirit will never leave you
My Father will give you another advocate, who will never leave you, He is the Holy Spirit…
The Holy Spirit brings truth
My Father will give you another advocate, who will never leave you, He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into ALL TRUTH!
The Holy Spirit wants to live IN you
But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be IN you.
Acts 7:49, The Most High doesn’t live in temples made by human hands
1 Corinthians 3:16, Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?
1 Corinthians 6:19, Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God?
The disciples follow the instruction of Jesus and wait in Jerusalem, and Acts 2:1 says:
On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place… (we will get back to this…)
What’s Love Got To Do With It? (wrapping this series up).
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
We grow in love!
Colossians 3:14
Above all, clothe yourselves with love…
We can’t just select when we want to love, but we need to clothe ourselves with love, keep it on, remind ourselves that love is ALWAYS the way to live.
We aren’t perfect. We are growing, learning, being made into the image of Christ as we work out our salvation! Being transformed by allowing God to change the way we think!
Revelation + Application = Transformation
1 Corinthians 13:7 (ESV)
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love Bears All Things
bears [stego] - to cover with silence, to endure patiently, to protect or keep by covering, to preserve. To keep secret, to hide, conceal, of the errors and faults of others. By covering to keep off something which threatens…
Remember our series questions:
How does God love us in this way?
How do we love God in this way?
How do we love ourselves in this way?
How do we love others in this way?
God loves us by continually covering us! God does not expose or uncover our weaknesses or insecurities or sins to use them against us. If something is uncovered it is to bring healing and freedom, proving all the more that God covers us!
Jesus’ Example
John 8:4
”Teacher…this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him…
If the Pharisees who brought this woman before Jesus could just get him to agree with the law, it would weaken his message of grace. And if he shows mercy, it says he is against the law. Instead, he says:
“All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!”
No one throws a stone. Instead, they all slowly walk away, the oldest to the youngest, the ones with the most to have exposes if the conversation of their own sin comes up… So Jesus turns to the woman who has been accused…
“Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
”No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”
Jesus does Three things here that show how God covers us (bears all things)
First, Jesus does not approve of sin!
Jesus doesn’t change God’s standard, he doesn’t change the law, he doesn’t make some special provision for this woman. In fact, he very directly tells her she’s been sinning, by telling her to stop doing it.
Second, Jesus does not shame her, condemn her or chastise her.
Jesus doesn’t call her scum, or berate her for not living up to God’s standard. He doesn’t make her feel less than she already does. She surely already knows what she’s done.
Third, Jesus invites her, like he does with us, to follow Him!
Jesus doesn’t send her away to figure it out on her own. “Go and sin no more.” - Go, along with meaning “go”, also means “to carry on with your business…” Jesus invites all who fall short of God’s standard to carry on with their business, with their lives, but WITHOUT falling short. Not condemned because they didn’t, but invited to do it right.
And this is how:
John 8:12
Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”
By following Jesus, the light of the world, we walk away from our sin and into His life!
Can we “bear all things” in our love toward God?
Psalm 25:14
The intimate counsel of the Lord is for those who fear him so they may know his covenant.
James 4:8
Come close to God, and God will come close to you.
There is a secret place to be found and had with God where He shares with us his secrets, his intimate counsel. We love God in this way by protecting that relationship we have with God as something incredibly precious, because it is!
Do you love yourself in this way?
Do you cover yourself, protect yourself, endure, give yourself a break?
When you struggle, do you get down on yourself, condemn yourself, berate yourself, or do you, like Jesus in those moments say, “Yes, you’re doing wrong, you’re falling short of the standard, but I’m not going to condemn you or kill you in your sin, I’m going to tell you to follow me so you can carry on with your life without it!”
What about loving others by bearing all things?
Do we cover people or expose them when they struggle? Gossip instead of protect. Condemn and judge instead of encourage and honor…
Are we keeping secret the things that are not ours to tell?
Do we stand with others when they are at fault, continuing to love them instead of distancing ourselves from them.
Do we protect those who are threatened?
Love Believes All Things
love never loses faith…
What do we do when the evidence around us doesn’t support what we are trying to believe from the bible? Do we give God just 1 chance, 2 chances, 10 chances? And if he doesn’t come through like we expect Him to, or like we think He should, do we give up on faith?
Do we choose to believe in people, even when they have let us down?
We could really say it this way, Love doesn’t give up on people.
If I choose to give up on you that means I stop believing there’s any power for you to change, and I stop praying for you, believing for you. If I’m ok with saying you’re a lost cause, what I’m really saying is God can’t even fix you, you’ll never change, you’re doomed to die living the same way you are today.
Love doesn’t let, “They’ll never change” into their vocabulary.
Love Hopes All Things
hope - a confident expectation in a positive outcome.
“Love hopes all things” means we don’t pick and choose what we hope for, but we hope to the best of our ability, and ask God to help us hope for ALL that he has said. Love doesn’t waiver in our belief and pursuit of God’s promises.
Have you had disappointments, unanswered questions, tragedy when you were believing for promise?
Do you have the courage to hope again?
Isaiah 55:8-9
”My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
God does not say, “I’m smarter than you, so get over it..”. Instead, He tries to show us that He knows more than us, and makes him uniquely qualified to lead us where we may not be able to lead ourselves!
God can see more than you, He knows more than you, can do more than you, so rest in that truth and trust in Him!
Isaiah 55:10-11
”The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper wherever I send it.”
The promise of God is that His word is true. His word is trustworthy!
Love Endures All Things
endure - to take patiently, to abide, be patient, to suffer. To remain, not recede or flee. Even under misfortunes and trials, to hold fast to one’s faith in Christ!
To endure is to bear bravely and calmly in the face of ill treatment.
Romans 5:3-5
We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.
Endurance produces character!
character - proof, or experience
Character is the proof that we are who we say we are.
proof - the evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement.
Your endurance will establish who you really are!
If endurance builds character, then every time we choose to be patient when it would be easier to be frustrated, or when we choose to be kind, or choose not to be jealous or proud or boastful or rude. When we decide we aren’t going to rejoice in wrongdoing, but we rejoice in the truth, even though it might seem easier to just agree with the negative and give up hope for the positive. Every time we choose to not give up on someone, to bear with them in their situation, to press on in faith, to renew our hope even in the face of disappointment……. our character grows, and it is proof of God’s work in our lives!
How are Pentecost Sunday & What’s Love Got To Do With It? connected?
Romans 5:5
For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love.
Acts 2:2
Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit…
John 7:37-38
”Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’” When he said “living water” he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him.
The power of the Holy Spirit in us is the proof and promise of God’s love for us. And it is in His love for us that we are able to love Him, love ourselves and love others. He is not a stagnant pond in us, but a river of living water flowing from us!