Text: Exodus 20:3-6, 1 John 4: 7-21 (NASB95)
Topic: Love God
Application Point: Loving God is the first necessary step before we will ever worship him or obey him.
Sermon Title: Love & Hate
Commandment #1: 1 Corinthians 8:6; 1 Timothy 2:5
Commandment #2: 1 John 5:21
You shall love the one who made you, fear the one who created you, and glorify the one who redeemed you from death, you shall be sincere in heart, and rich in spirit; you shall not be joined to those who walk in the way of death, you shall hate all that is not pleasing to God, you shall hate all hypocrisy; you shall not forsake the commandments of the Lord. —Pope Clement 1
Exodus 20:3-6 Exposition:
Exodus 20:3 (LSB)
3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.
Exodus22:19
20 “And he who sacrifices to any god, other than to Yahweh alone, shall be devoted to destruction.
Exodus 34:14
14 —for you shall not worship any other god, for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God—
Leviticus 26:12
12 ‘I will also walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.
Deuteronomy 26:17-18
17 “You have today declared Yahweh to be your God, and that you would walk in His ways and keep His statutes, His commandments, and His judgments, and listen to His voice. 18 “And Yahweh has today declared you to be His people, a treasured possession, as He promised you, and that you should keep all His commandments;
Deuteronomy 29:12-13
12 that you may enter into the covenant with Yahweh your God and into His oath, which Yahweh your God is cutting with you today, 13 in order that He may establish you today as His people and that He may be your God, just as He spoke to you and as He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
1) The First Commandment is a declaration of
.
Romans 5:8
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
How do we grow our love for God?
- To truly know His love for us and trust Him
- To learn about Him
- To talk to Him
- To share Him with others
- To invest your time, talent, and treasure
- To make Him a priority
- To value what He values
Exodus 20:4 (LSB)
4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
An understanding of sin:
Exodus 32:19-21 (LSB)
19 Now it happened, as soon as Moses came near the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing; and Moses’ anger burned, and he threw the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain. 20 Then he took the calf which they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it over the surface of the water and made the sons of Israel drink it. 21 Then Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you, that you have brought such great sin upon them?”
“great” sin
- great — remarkable or out of the ordinary in degree, magnitude, or effect.
Isaiah 42:8
8 “I am Yahweh, that is My name;
I will not give My glory to another,
Nor My praise to graven images.
Exodus 34:6-7
6 Then Yahweh passed by in front of him and called out, “Yahweh, Yahweh God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; 7 who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”
Numbers 14:18
18 ‘Yahweh is slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generations.’
2) The second commandment: You will
what you
.
Matthew 6:19-21
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; 21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:24
24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and bwealth.
Do you love God or hate Him?
The Litmus Test:
1 John 4:7-21
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves has been dborn of God and knows God.
8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
9 By this the love of God was manifested ain us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
10 In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.
14 We have beheld and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
16 And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has in us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
17 By this, love has been perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as He is, so also are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
19 We love, because He first loved us.
20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
4 Love is patient, love is kind, is not jealous, does not brag, is not puffed up;
5 it does not act unbecomingly, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered;
6 it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
7 it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.