 Usually I like to ask what people remember from the last message but my last message was just a few minutes ago. If you forgot to write it in your Bible write the surest proof of God's love for you is the discipline and correction He gives you. Don't ever forget that. Now for this second session I like to read again our scripture verse. I have loved you with an everlasting love therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness. In this second session we will think about loving God. You know He loved us so much so how much do we love Him. Some years ago I was visiting a holy pilgrimage site somewhere in Asia. People will come and they will take bath in the holy waters. It's on the ocean and they will bring offerings and you see all kinds of people sitting on the beach and worshipping and I noticed one man sitting there. He was sitting in a yoga position and he was all twisted up with his hands kind of and his legs and he was sitting totally silent and he was staring into the rising sun. The sun was just coming up and I was asking the missionary that was with us what is he doing and he was explaining to me he's a sun worshipper looking into the sun is his way of worship. Now I watched you know the man didn't move even when the sun was shining in its full strength. He still stared in the sunlight and I said he's going to damage his eyes looking like this into the bright light and the missionary was saying yes he will and he also will eventually go blind but this is his devotion and he sacrificed to his God. Think about it. I asked myself to be willing to sacrifice my eyesight and then I asked myself what has this sun God done for this man compared to what Jesus has done for me. You know God put all his love on us in Jesus. He redeemed us from hell. He forgave our sin. He broke our bondage. Our names are in the book of life. We will be forever with the Lord. I think when God poured out his love on Calvary he was waiting for us to love him back. He had given everything. Deuteronomy 11 one says you shall therefore love the Lord your God and always keep his charge. So we know we're supposed to love God but how do we love him? This sun worshipper he's staring into the open sun but what do we do? How do we love him? Well we go to church Sunday morning and probably every Wednesday night we pray and we sing and read the Bible every day. We may teach Sunday school, serve on the worship team, we give our tithes, our offering each time the collection plate comes along and we go on a mission trip to Mexico and Russia and we collect clothes for an orphanage somewhere in Haiti and we do face painting when the VBS comes around and we help save the whales you know in the ocean and the redwood trees in California and we help with rescuing the polar bears in Alaska and every Christmas we ring the bell for the Salvation Army in front of Macy's. Is this not what God is asking us for and looking for when we say we love him? I mean what else could he want from us? Isn't that about everything we can do? Now there is a book out and I don't know I imagine most of you have looked at it it's called the Five Languages of Love. Anyone has seen that one? It says that everybody has their own love language specific things that spells love for you. It may be different from what I think love is but it says some people like gifts you know getting flowers and chocolates and some like acts of service that someone does the dishes for them that will say I love you or words of encouragement kind of some cheerleading and others like a hug or two or three they like touch that tells them you love me and quality time spending time with you without the cell phone and without any destruction so everybody has something that spells love for you. Now often we try to love someone else with what love means to us you know but the person we do the nice thing for he doesn't feel loved have you ever seen I'm sure you did some TV show coach it's an old one you know but this husband wants to love his wife and he does the nicest thing he can think of what love means for him and he takes his wife on a fishing trip out in the wilderness and the wife is the most miserable person on that whole trip and then his wife tries to love her husband who is a football coach and she buys him cards to go to the ballet with him and he's there you know watching this ballet and he he's totally bored you know we try to do something for others that we think is love because we like it my nephew when he was growing up he liked to check out all these DVDs you know and watch it one day his 80 year old grandmother was saying why you don't let me watch something too why you don't go and pick up some nice animal movie for me and she thought about something cute and cuddly and fuzzy and he goes and checks out Jurassic Park for grandma she almost got a heart attack that book says we first need to find out what spells love for the other person before they had out the door and try to do something nice and they don't understand it now this is very true when it comes to God as well we should first find out what God interprets as loving him before we go on a loving God to we make a loving God to do list like we did in the beginning now God says something very specific what loving him is all about what exactly does the Bible tell us but God considers loving him okay Deutronomy 6 verse 5 it says loving him is to love him with all our heart and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind so loving him means I need to love him with all my being spirits soul and body no piece of my heart can be missing what else does consider God as loving him loving him is to love him above all else above everything and everyone in this world including our own lives you read that in Matthew 10 30 7 38 he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me and he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me another very specific thing what God considers loving him is to love him to the point of choosing the cross if anyone wishes to come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me Luke 9 23 and then what else does God consider loving him to love him to the point of obedience to his word Jesus said if you love me you will keep my commandments John 14 15 if anyone loves me he will keep my word John 14 23 loving him is also to walk and to live according to his word and this is love that we walk according to his commandment second John 6 and John 14 21 he who has my commandments and keeps them he it is who loves me now doesn't that sound different than running off and teaching and put a offering and all these things which are all good things this is what God says if you want to love me this is how I understand love and then there are other things loving him is loving others as ourselves if anyone says I love God and hates his brother he's a lie of first John 420 in this commandment we have from him that the one who loves God should love his brother also first John 421 and then of course you shall love your neighbor as yourself one more thing what loving is to God loving him is to love one another as he loved us to the point of giving our lives for others John 15 12 verse 14 love one another just as I have loved you greater love has no one than this that one lay down his life for his friends you are my friends now Jesus was talking about the commandments he gave to us what are they well Jesus confirmed the Old Testament commandment you shall love the Lord your God was all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself and then he said a new commandment I give to you that you love one another even as I have loved you that you also love one another and then he said those who love me the proof is if you keep my words if you keep the things the father gave me now what is that word that the father gave you well Jesus said I didn't speak nothing out of my own initiative everything that I spoke I got from the father to pass it on to you John 14 24 the words which you hear is not mine but the fathers who sent me now that means actually if we love him and we keep his commandments it's actually everything we find in the New Testament and everything we find in the Old Testament because even all the words in the Old Testament is belong to Jesus because he is the living word and this is the written word and they are both the same so loving God actually suddenly looks much different than a loving God to do this I do this Monday I do this Tuesday I do this Friday so we look now what God means by loving him and he expects us that we love him back in the manner that spells love for him now the Pharisees had maybe a 800 or 1000 page to do list and Jesus didn't consider what they were performing that it was loving God the need to love God in the way he understands and he specifies what loving him is now I think when we look at the verses that we read we will come to the conclusion God expects us to love him back with the same love that Jesus has for the father that is the highest level of love in the whole universe Jesus was loving the father this everything he is was the highest level of love it's the divine love that we can only find in God himself Jesus loved the father was the divine love that was in him and now the father is looking at us and he wants us to love him also with this highest level of love and I think when we take a good look at ourselves we must say you know we try our best to love him in return but this level of love God expects from us to give him is beyond our capacity it's beyond us to love God in such a way and Peter the Apostle Peter he recognized the same limits in his capacity to love God you know he had betrayed the Lord Jesus three times just right after he had promised that he was ready to die with him now after this resurrection you know he had this one on one conversation with the Lord Jesus in John 21 we read that and I think Peter was rather uncomfortable you know he wasn't so sure well Jesus probably loves the other disciples but what about me and then will he still want me to be an apostle now before Jesus answered any of these things he asked Peter three times do you love me and Jesus used the word do you love me with divine love he used that two times Peter do you love me with divine love Peter kept answering him you know that I love you but he was using not divine love but the term for friendship love Jesus asked for this level of love and Peter says I love you with that level of love the human love now did Peter misunderstand the question I don't think so but I think he had come to the conclusion that he need to be truthful with the Lord Jesus about his capacity to love what he answered was actually telling Jesus you asked me if I love you was the divine divine love that is in you I don't have that love that love is not in me I'm only capable of my limited human love and was that limited human love I love you that's all Peter could say and he was very truthful all the love all the human love that is in me I love you was that and you know how faulty it is does God ask Peter and us for something that's impossible for us not really Jesus is well aware of the limits of our human love toward him and that's why he decided to give us his divine love as a gift so we could love him back in the way he asked us to love him so how can we receive this divine love in our hearts that we can love God in the way he wants us to love him now we know from the example of Peter and the other Apostles we cannot get it by our own strengths Peter tried that you know I'm this macho guy and he failed miserably we cannot get it also by making a decision from today on I love God just like Jesus loved the father the decision is not enough so how do we get it well the good news is when we receive Jesus God's love came to live in us you remember first John 4 16 says God is love that means when Jesus came love came into our heart because love is not a feeling love is a person God is love that his nature his name so when Jesus came divine love the divine love moved into our hearts to interval us forever he's there love is a person second Corinthians 4 7 says but we have this treasure that means Christ in earthen vessels so we have this divine love living in us and then the second thing is God said he poured out his love his divine love into our hearts Romans 5 5 the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us so when we receive Jesus not only came the person Jesus love into us to live there but also through the Holy Spirit the divine love of God has been poured into our hearts and then a third option not option a third truth love that divine love that we cannot fabricate ourselves is a fruit of the Spirit the Holy Spirit came to live in us and he's producing fruit it says Galatians 5 22 23 but the fruit of the Spirit is love peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self control so the fruit of the Spirit is love so we got the divine love actually three ways God put it into us so we can love him back as we ought to now the fruit of the Spirit how do we get this food you know we are a Christian for a year or two or three when do we have this fruit when is it right well actually fruit production goes automatically if you have a tree spring comes leaves come on the tree the blossom comes and by fall there will be apples or pears or something the fruit is automatically if the life that is in the roots and the trunk goes up to the trenches then the tree doesn't have to do anything the fruit will automatically grow from a small blossom and then you got the big apple Jesus said the same thing fruit production in your life is automatically if you stay connected to the wine which is Christ and Christ's life will flow through you Jesus said I am the wine you are the preaches he who abides in me and I in him he bears much fruit for a part from me you can do nothing John 15 five so Jesus is divine and we are the little branch and we will automatically produce fruit if the life of Christ flows through us now God's goal is that our fruit production will increase a young apple tree the first year it has some apples there may be five apples all together the following year we may get ten apples and if that tree is maybe ten or fifteen years old we will get a basket full two baskets full the whole apple tree will be full of apples that means the longer we know Jesus we can love God more and more every day a little more because the fruit of the Spirit is love and it's supposed to increase continually now Peter and the other Apostles they experience that in their life you know from running away and betraying Jesus their love for Christ was totally transformed they receive this divine love after the Holy Spirit came you know they fearlessly proclaimed the gospel and they were willing to suffer whatever persecution came in their life and they love Jesus enough to die as martyrs so what about us our love for the Lord supposed to grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and if you are 20 years old Christian your love should be way greater than the first day you receive Christ because Christ love will flow through you and produce that love food we have in many different parts of Asia we have churches where we have first-generation believers and they come out of great darkness and they love the Lord was all their heart sometimes I think we have come to know about God's love for so long it doesn't mean as much to us then when we look at these first-generation believers I want to tell you about some of them a few years ago a small church in one of the villages in interior Myanmar which is former Burma these believers had received Christ and they built themselves a little church building and they came together to worship and then persecution started and they were harassed by the villagers and they demolished their church and beaten up and all these things happened and the villagers were hoping to get them back to their old faith but the believers faithfully stayed faithful to the Lord and then the village leader he announced we give you a final ultimatum for sake Christ or leave the village forever now these villagers were so sure that these Christians will surely deny Christ because who will want to leave everything they have everything their houses their lands everything and so he was determining that to make sure these believers not just faking it they need to sign an agreement of homage or worship the monks they had there so they were very smart they got one believer after another not as a group and they asked them to sign that agreement that they will return to their old faith and they were lying to them telling them you know all the other Christians that we called in our office they all signed the agreement why you don't sign it too and each believer decided by himself even if everyone denies him I will not and none of them signed and they only found out afterwards none of them had signed now among these people was a young woman she already had paid a very high price for her obedience and love for Christ when she got saved her husband gave her the choice return to your old faith or leave you cannot be my wife and she didn't give up Jesus so he divorced her and he chased her out along with her small little baby girl in her arm now the day of the ultimatum came and all 16 Christians they joyfully walked away from their village was just a few belongings on their back they left behind their homes their land their farm and animals their possessions in order to be obedient to the Lord Jesus and to love him more than the whole world and among them was this young sister with a little baby in her arm she too walked away never to return for the sake of Jesus she and the others had lost everything in her in their life this young woman said my only hope in prayer is that one day my daughter when she grows up she will go to Bible college and then she will return to my village as a missionary and tell them about the wonderful love of God and his grace and she said I'm eagerly looking for that day so what about us to what extent do we love God do we love him was all our heart or is a piece of our heart missing do we love him to the point of obedience to his word do we love him to the point of picking up the cross and following him you know we have been given the capacity to love him back he made it possible he put this divine love in us so why then do we like in our love for God why do we like in our love for God actually lack of love for God is directly related to our relationship to Jesus it's a problem of abiding in Jesus there is not enough of the life of Jesus that is flowing through us after 20 years our apple tree only produces three apples a year something is really really really wrong so how did our branches lose their connection with the wine well the Bible tells us sin separates me from the life that is in the wine Isaiah 59 to says but your iniquities made a separation between you and your God and your sins have hidden his face from you for a believer if we sin if we confess then he forgives us all our sins and cleanses us from all our unrighteousness but if we don't bring it to the Lord don't make it right then there is a disconnection between me as a branch in the life of Christ that flows from the tree maybe only two or three drops of life is getting through but not a steady stream that can produce that fruit of love and then the second thing why we lose the connection to the wine is our attraction to the world it drops us of our love for God and I think maybe this is in our 21st century Western Christianity maybe the biggest reason why our love for God is not growing John 2 verse 15 do not love the world nor the sinks in the world if anyone loves the world the love of the father is not in him it's very serious dear sisters if you love the world or the sinks of the world the love of the father is not in you and you are not able to love God back in the way the Bible says we ought to love him and then the third thing that loses the connection between the wine and the branch is the lack of God's word in our life it causes our branch to starve and with Jesus said in Matthew 4 for men shall not live on bread alone but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God dear sisters are you in the word of God every day if you are not if you make shortcuts then your little branch is starving to death it's withering and you cannot produce that love that you need in order to love God adequately and then the last thing not taking time to know him not about him but to know him hinders his love to develop in your heart you know Jesus prayed before he went to the cross and there is one sentence that tells about the relationship we has he has with the father and what he wants for us as well and that is in John 1726 he says and I have made thy name known to them and will make it known that the love wherewith do you love me maybe in them and I in them he talks about the love relationship he has with the father the father knows him and he knows the father and he wants that to be in us and with us as well that close if we don't take time to know him there is not enough love that develops in us but do we need to do to remove these hindrances that separates the French from the wine we need to look at each of the things I mentioned and find out which one is hindering you which one is hindering me examine the love you have for the Lord you need to look very carefully are you growing in your love for the Lord or are you standing still or are you loving him less today than you loved him five years ago do you have this abiding in the wine problem your sisters sink very seriously to what extent do you love the Lord be really really honest Peter was honest and said this is where I am and Lord you want me to be here but I can't when we look in God's word God never put the brakes on his love for us he poured it all out on Calvary and he desires for you and I to love him back likewise that we pour all our love we have on him love him back freely shall we pray together before we pray if there is something in your life you need to remove that God's love will flow through you and that you can love God back please make this decision today maybe right now I will remove that hindrance that doesn't allow me to love God as I ought to if there is sin that separates you from the vine or your attraction to the world or your lack of God's word or that you don't take time to know him please identify that in your life and remove that hindrance so God can receive from you the love he deserves shall we pray Lord Jesus we look at our hearts and we find us lacking in love for you we try to love you with things that you don't ask for Lord we want to love you in the way you put in your word what means love to you so many of our preaches don't have enough life flowing through them Lord Jesus we don't want to walk out of this building without making it right without changing we ask you to give us the grace to remove these hindrances that your love your life will flow through us Lord we desire to love you and we ask us we ask you to give us your grace that we will come to you this morning and like Peter say Lord I can't do it and then you will fill us you will forgive us you will cleanse us you will fill us with your love and we will be able to love you back freely we pray this in Jesus name