1. Welcome! www.SunsetChurchofChrist.net
Bibles and copies of sermons are available Please silence your cell phones
Sunday Bible Classes 9:30 AM Worship 10:30 AM 5:30 PM Wednesday Bible Classes 7:00 PM

2. Acts 7: Stephen’s Defense
Charge: Blasphemy (Moses, God, Temple) Survey of the Old Testament: Promises to the Patriarchs (Gal 3) Promises of Moses Consideration of the Temple

3. Welcome! www.SunsetChurchofChrist.net
Bibles and copies of sermons are available Please silence your cell phones
Sunday Bible Classes 9:30 AM Worship 10:30 AM 5:30 PM Wednesday Bible Classes 7:00 PM

4. Psalm 107:22 Let them also offer sacrifices of thanksgiving, And tell of His works with joyful singing
Hymns
Invitation
Red Songbook -
Supplemental

5. Love Misunderstood

6. 1 Thessalonians 4:9
But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another
It is not natural to have brotherly love. It requires spiritual effort and discernment. Why is it so important?

7. "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments”
Love is Not a Feeling
Ephesians 5:25-33 Galatians 5:14 - What is it others need most? - Emotions are selfish by nature - Loving God is not about feeling good
John 14:15
"If you love Me, you will keep My commandments”
Advice to people whose wedding I speak at (I don’t marry them, God does) – the feeling of love will dimish; the work of love needs to be the priority
Galatians 5:14 For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF."

8. Love is Not Easy
John 14:21
"He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will disclose Myself to him."
2 Peter 1:5-7 - Others virtues must precede it - What are spiritual needs?
EXAMPLE: Farming is hard work
2Pe 1:5 ¶ Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge,6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, 7 and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.

9. Love is Not Tolerance
1 John 4: God loves and does not tolerate - Intolerance IS NOT HATE - Abandonment is hate
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Love seeks the best – but what if the best is not what we want?
EXAMPLE: A doctor may tell us to change our habits – but we don’t want to
1Jo 4:9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

10. Love is Often Misunderstood
1 Corinthians 2: Corinthians 12:15 - The world does not see God’s love - The world does not see our love
Hebrews 12:6
“For whom the LORD loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives."
EXAMPLE: PARENT
If love is a spiritual characteristic, the unspiritual will not comprehend it
1Co 2:12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. 13 These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
2Co 12:15 And I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved.

11. Taught to Love by God
God’s love: Teaches us to deny ourselves Teaches us that we have sinned Teaches us that we can change

13. God’s Love Can be Redeemed by:
1. Hearing the Gospel - Acts 18:8 2. Believing the Gospel - Acts 16:31 3. Confessing Jesus - Acts 8:37 4. Repenting of Sin - Acts 2:38 5. Be baptized to remove sin - Acts 22:16 6. Abide in Christ - Acts 2:42