"True Love" - The Apostolic Connection

John 15:13 says greater love hath no man than this that a man laay down his life for his friends greater love hath no man than this than a man lay down his life for his friends and then we turn to First John 1 John 4 and 16 which says this and we have known and believed the love that God hath to us for God is love and he that dwelleth in love believe the love that God hath to us I I would like to speak in your hearing this morning um on a subject true love I know you thought you loved those girls that you dated in middle school right I know even even even in high school ladies those boys that you dated in high school I know you you thought you love them but it wasn't love because if it was a love you'd still be with them because you don't leave something you love you hold on to it you protect it with everything you have we must be careful of what we say we love because love can easily be cheapened our culture has allowed Hollywood to Define what love is see they say that love is happiness and as long as you're happy you're in love and whenever you're not happy then love is gone you read People magazine and you find out just who loves who this week and who divorced who last week famous people you know these people are supposed to be our role models we look up to them because they're successful and and great actors and they looked the part and act the part they're cool but if that's love then love is cheap then love is only temporary love is only an emotion but that's not true love and you can tell the difference between like and love by finding out just what a person is willing to give up in order to have the thing or the person that they really want that's how you tell the difference between like and love in John 15 turn me to John 15 and13 this is our opening text it says greater love hath no man than this that a man laid down his life for his friends you can prove your love for somebody by you know supporting them financially you can care for them when they get elderly you can obviously if you're married to somebody for 50 years you can man that you're showing that you love that person but there's no greater way to prove your love for someone than by dying for them John 3:16 probably the most popular scripture in the Christian world for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life the proof of love was the son or the Flesh of God gave his life on the cross for our Salvation turn to Romans 8 and 37 these are all love verses these are all true love verses 837 says nay in all these things we are more more than conquers through him that loved us for I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our lord which is proven by Calvary turn me Ephesians 2 in verse 4 says but God who is rich in Mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sin hath quickened us together with Christ by grace are ye saved Grace is Jesus on the cross proven his love for us but I want you to realize something and this is something I I don't I don't think I've ever noticed but in each one of these passages it didn't say Christ loves us it says Christ loved us which is past tense part of love right and the point of using loved instead of loves is not the fact that he doesn't love us now we know that he loves us now that's obvious but the past tense of Love points to an exact moment moment where Christ proved his love for us and remember this point because I'm going to come back to this because it's very important to understand where we have to love him back but look in Romans 5 and8 Romans 5:8 says this but God commendeth or entrusted his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us this is what this means he was willing to prove his love for us by going to the Cross even before he was given a guarantee that we would desire to love him in return look at that but he commendeth he entrusted his love toward us he entrusted that he could love us and prove his love to us not even knowing if we would love him in return God was saying I will take a chance and give give my life in hopes that over 2,000 years later Chad Ericson will receive my love and obey my word that's what he was saying he said I don't care you aren't even born you won't be thought about generation to generation to generation won't even be thought about but I'm willing to die for you give my life for you show my love for you believing that hopefully you will love me in return and obey my word but I'll go with a step further because God's love is so great for us that he spoke everything into existence except man right he took the extra time to form man with his hands Out of the Dust of the ground and that says a lot about his love for mankind because watch this in Genesis 1:27 it says so God created man in his own image in the image of God created he him God created us in the image of Jesus the image of his flesh who wasn't going to come for thousands of years and we know the only reason that God had become man and robe himself in flesh was to become the Spotless lamb crucified crucified on Calvary so the Redemption plan and this is what gets me so excited about the love of God the Redemption plan was already thought of and planned out before man was ever created God's love for us goes back before the cross and it goes all the way back to Creation when he said I'm still willing to form man even though I already know I'm going to have to go and die for his sins Genesis or or I'm sorry 1 Peter 1:18 says for as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold old from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish without spot who verily was for ordained before the foundation of the world but was manifest in these last times for you that's true love right there to know to understand that your creation was going to fall and sin and totally turn from you yet still form that with your hands understanding that you yourself would have to walk up a hillside with a crown of thorns on your head bleeding blood coming down your face people who had just been calling out hosan to you were pulling at your beard and plucking your beard out of your face and spitting on you you're carrying a cross made of wood that you created knowing this very thing he loved us enough to still form us out of the clay he loved us enough to say even though you're going to forsake me turn your face and turn your back on me I love you enough to create you anyway because I'm going to present myself a spotless lamb that's going to take away the sins of the world and when I do that I'm I'm going to make a way for you to be saved I'm going to make a way for you to come into the kingdom and although sin was you were born into sin although you were born into sin I'm going to make a way to get that sin removed out of your life I love you enough that's true love that's true love come on I wish we' just praise him I know I'm not really preaching right now I'm trying to teach but come on I just feel the Holy Ghost in This Place and if we could ever understand the love of our creator willing to robe himself in flesh and die on a cross and suffer all that he suffered just in order to make mankind oh God I love you come on on just lift up your hands and tell them Lord I love you oh God I love you oh God I love you thank you we can't just think about the cross on Easter Sunday we we can't wait until Good Friday to think about what he did we got to think oh God your love is true this world's Love Is false this world's love is fake this world's love is only lust wrapped up in a package but your love is true Hallelujah hallu as unconditionally as Satan hates mankind Jesus unconditionally loves you and me that's why they're so similar because how we can't reason Al-Qaeda we can't reason Isis or Isa we can't even reason or understand or fathom why in the world do you hate me I don't hate you why do you hate me the same token we cannot fathom why a God the King of Kings the king of all the universe would love why do you love me a sinner why do you care about me a fallen man so imperfect but somehow as much as they hate you could turn around and you could say but I love you even more than a person can hate more than Satan can hate my love you can't even comprehend my love for you you can't you can't even understand how you could fail me yet I'll let you get back up again you can't even fathom how you can fail me over and over again and miss the mar time after time yet I still allow you to get right back up again because my love for you is UN fathomable it's unconditional there's no conditions he didn't have to have our love he loved us before we loved him thank you Jesus but here is the only way we can prove our love back to God now listen I'm not saying that we can't show love God our love to God and in a lot of ways we can do it just like he shows his love for us in a lot of ways but when he wanted to prove his love for us all of time pointed at one exact moment and he says I loved you right here this is where I loved you right here and what he was saying was simply this is where I proved to you that I'm not just your pillar in the wilderness of fire at night and cl by day I'm not just just the god that gives you water out of a rock I'm more than that I am willing to point to an exact time in history a time in eternity where I am going to die on a cross to show you my love and so here's what the verse said it said he didn't prove his love was silver and gold it wasn't material things he didn't pay us off he didn't pay off our Salvation it wasn't something where God just said you know what I'm gonna I'm going to pay some kind of dowy in order to have you as my bride that's not what our god did he said I'm going to give my life and the only way we can prove our life to him is by saying I'm going to do the same thing for you that you did for me the only way that I can prove now listen I can love him in a lot of ways but the only way that I can prove my love for him is to be crucified with him which is why Paul says in Galatians 2 and2 20 I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me true love says I will Crucify My Flesh and die out to my will into my plans into my fleshly dreams and Paul says not that I live but now Christ liveth in me that's Resurrection so you died out your flesh you're resurrected with Christ because now Christ lives inside of you but then Paul says it's not just Christ Living in you because here's what I'm going to do I'm going to fill you with the power of the same spirit that filled Christ Jesus H I'm going to give you something there's death yes you're going to die there's Resurrection you're going to come up a new man but the Holy Ghost is going to fill you my spirit is going to live inside of you and so I end with this and musicians if you'll come I end with this because in Acts chapter 2 Jesus had already ascended into heaven and he's commanded his disciples to go to Jerusalem and wait on the promise of the father in the very beginning of Acts chapter 2 we see that the church is birth right and then we skip down to verse 36 and we have Peter preaching the very Plan of Salvation that Jesus left his disciples right so turn there with me Acts 2:36 we're going to we're going to look at this very closely and some of you can can quote this and if you can go ahead says therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom you have crucified both Lord which is ruler and Christ which is Messiah deliver verse 37 now when they heard this they were pricked in their heart and said unto Peter to the rest of the Apostles men and Brethren what shall we do we have hated this man but now we realize who he is how do we now prove our love our devotion our allegiance to that man and Peter said to them you got to repent you got to be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins and then you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost in order for you to be a part of the kingdom of God you'll have to do spiritually what the man Christ Jesus did physically right Peter preached Jesus crucified right he preached the gospel Acts chapter 2 now we don't always read all of act chapter 2 because I mean it goes into all these details and names all these countries and all these people and stuff that's hard to read and sometimes it gets hard to read in there in Acts chapter 2 we like to skip all the way down but what Peter was preaching was this he was preaching the death the burial and the resurrection of Jesus he was saying he died for your sins he was talking to the crowd the people like what what y'all drunk what's going on we feel power we see things happening what's going on he's preaching to him he died he's saying do you really think that that man that you spit upon and that man that you put that crown of thorns on and that man that you made carry that cross and you put him up on a whipping post and beat him until he bled he was saying do you really think that he wanted to do that we know on the cross said father if there's any way this cup can pass from me there's any way that I don't have to put all this sin on me and all this has to all this weight has to the man Christ Jesus was saying that but what did he say he said not my will but thy will be done and that's what repentance is that's saying God I'm sorry for the lifestyle I've lived God I have so many dreams and I have all these worldly desires and these pleasures and all this stuff that hits me and I I got all these future plans and I'm going to do this and do that and boy if I could just get to Nashville or if I can just if I can marry that woman or if I could have that house and live in this way and that's that same person walk up the Altar and say not my will oh God but your will I'm turning away from the things that I desire in the flesh and I'm going to allow you to tell me what I need because only you God know what I truly need in my life and then Peter went on preaching and he said then once you crucify your flesh and you die out to your flesh you got to bury that thing he preached Jesus's burial he preached he was in the grave three days he preached he was in the stor was R I believe that Peter preached all that stuff when he preached the gospel and notice there was not Pastor notice there was not one person that stood up and said oh no you all stole his body oh no there was so much power being felt they said Woo we were way off on that they went around telling everybody that disciples stole the body but when the power of the Holy Ghost fell they were pricked in their heart and they said oh my word we were so far off and so Peter said you've got to bury that caral man the man that you just told God that you didn't want to be no more the woman that you just told God you don't want to be no more and you told God you weren't going back to those places and doing those things anymore that man that woman's now got to be buried that old that old man that filthy those desires that sin has got to be buried just as the man Christ Jesus his flesh was buried because he took on the sins of the world and that had to be buried and he said the only way you can be buried we're not talking about getting in a tomb we're not talking about digging a grave six feet down the only way you can be buried is you got to go down in the water and you can't go down in the water in any other name than the name that went on the cross for you listen if you've been baptized any other way that's okay I've got good news for you there is a God who says you can be re-baptized in my name because it was Jesus who shed the blood it was Jesus who was on the cross it was Jesus who took on the sin how in the world could you be baptized in any other title and any other name than the name of Jesus Christ