Everyday Church
God is Greater
(upbeat music) - Hello, friend. Welcome to today's podcast, Everyday Church, with Pastor Jason Kiefer. Everyday Church is a daily podcast where believers learn together, grow together, and serve together. - Hey, my friends. That's great to be with you today on the Everyday Church podcast. And I hope you're having a great day in the Lord. And as always, it's good to be able to get in God's word together. Amen, what a great, great book this has been. What a great study this book is. And I, this is a great chapter we're in, man. I keep going back in my mind to the first verse. Behold, what manner of love the Father earth bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God. Man, what a great, great thought. Today we're gonna pick up in verse 18 and scripture says this in 1 John 3 and 18. My little children let us not love and word, neither in tongue, but indeed and in truth. So when we left off last time, we talked about how that if you have this world's need and yet your bowels of compassion are shut up, how dwelled the love of God in you? And so you remember throughout Jesus' ministry, oftentimes his love for people would be evidenced by his being moved by compassion. For example, after he's ministering and he's tired and the disciples are tired and they're trying to get away, he sees this group of people that they're wondering and what bothers him is they're sheep, they're a sheep who have no shepherd. And the Bible says he's moved with compassion. He loved them and when he was moved with compassion. And so what we know is that our love moves us, real love, true love motivates us, it moves us to act, right? And so God's love, God acted upon his love. And therefore we, we love God, we act upon that. And because we love God, because he loves us, we act upon that with other people, we love other people. So verse 18, he says, my little children, let us not love just and word, let's not just say that we love. Let's not just say that, you know, use the phrase, I love you, we use that phrase a lot, right? You know, I use it with my family, friends, people that are dear to me, I love you. If I only said that to my wife, but I never displayed love for her, I never met her needs, I never provided for her, I treated her wrong, well, you could say, well, you could say, I love you, all you want, but do you really love that individual? I could tell my kids that I love them and it'd be empty if I don't actually show my love to them. My love is displayed. And remember, I think we talked about this last time, how that God commended his love toward us, he displayed, he manifested his love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. And so if the Father displayed his love through his actions toward us, we should display our love and not just love in word. In fact, he says, but also we should love and deed and in truth. So it's interesting that he puts those twos together. The deeds are what we do. So our love should be known by our doing. People should see God's love by what we do, but we should also love and truth. You know, oftentimes you hear people say something to this effect, like if you stand on truth and they'll say, well, you know, isn't Jesus love? You know, as if they should let certain things go, certain sins or whatever, any sin, we'll see that as an excuse sometimes if you bring up truth and all the way, I thought Jesus was love, aren't we told to love everybody? Well, notice he says there that we should love and deed and in truth and in truth. And you'll find that several times in the scriptures, loving and truth. And I think one of the things that comes to mind there is that God word tells us how to love, right? It tells us how to love. It gives us instruction. We should love through forgiving one another. We should love through edifying, building up one another, encouraging one another. We should love by providing for one another. One of the characteristics of the New Testament church over Acts chapter two was, man, they started giving generously so that those who were without could have. And so what does that remind us is when Christ changes us and transforms us by his love, it should motivate us to give, right? It should motivate us to be generous. That's one of the ways that we can love. That's one of the ways that the scriptures tell us to love. So forgiving, what about the fruits of the spirit? Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, kindness. So those are evidences of the spirit and the Bible telling us to walk in those, to be filled with the spirit that will then produce that. So what do we know is the truth, God's word tells us how to love, but his Holy Spirit enables us to love, okay? He tells us to love, but if his Holy Spirit didn't enable us to love you and I, we couldn't, we would just be left to ourselves. And so aren't you thankful for the promise of the Holy Spirit that fills us and indwells us and seals us into the day of redemption, we're told? That is the love of Christ in us. That's the power of Christ that enables us to live godly in Christ Jesus. That's the power of Christ up in verse three of this chapter where he said, every man that hath this hope in him, purifyth himself even as he is pure, knowing that in this present world, we can live and love like Christ. And I think this world needs love. I think that we need, this world needs truth. The love of Christ is not turning a blind eye to wrong or turning a blind eye to sin or sweeping sin under the rug and just pretending it's not there. No, in fact, the love of Christ will deal with that. Jesus Christ, when you read his, when you read the Gospels and you read his ministry, you'll find out that much of his ministry was very confrontational. Much of his ministry was dealing with issues and problems and sin and wrongdoing. He was willing to do that, right? But he did it in truth and he did it in love. And he did it first off in love for the father. His love was committed to the father. His love was committed to his people and it is today. And so when you and I, when we stand in truth, we do that out of loving the father, our love for the father, our commitment to the father. And so he says, and hereby we know that we are of the truth. So this is how we know that we're of the truth is by our love toward one another. Remember, we've already talked about this, how Jesus said, but this shall all men know that you're my disciples, by the love that you have one for another. And so he reiterates that here, he says, and hereby we know that we're of the truth. This is how we know and shall assure our hearts before him. This gives us confidence, this assures us, we can assure our hearts in our walk with Christ, we can be assured that we're of him by the love of Christ in and through us. So verse 20, he says, for if our heart can dim us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. There's this war that goes on in the believer, and we often are led astray by our feelings. And I think it's interesting that this is tied in here because I think sometimes we mistake love as a feeling. We make state love as a feeling. And so he says in the scripture that, if our heart can dim us, God is greater. You know, if there comes this time in my life where though I've seen the work of God in my life, I've seen the love of God manifest in my life. I've seen it work in my life and through my life. That should give me confidence in my heart. That should persuade me in my walk with Christ. Remember, he's reminding these people of why they're saved and how they're saved and what God is doing. And so what does he say? He says, hey, if our heart can dim us, I love this. God is greater, God is greater than our heart and he knoweth all things. Man, there's a great lesson there and this is the lesson. Our heart is often driven by feelings, feelings of guilt, feelings of doubt. That's why he says, if our heart can dim us, if our heart tries to persuade us and show us the wrong doing, show us where we've messed up, show us where we've failed. And through that becomes doubt and fear and discouragement and depression and people want to give up and those things. Look, if you get there, that's a feeling. And while those feelings are real and they're valid, they must be run through truth. You have to approach those feelings with truth. And that's why he says, look, your heart may condemn you, but God is greater than your heart. God is greater than your heart. Remember, to condemn us to accuse, remember that Satan is the accuser of the brethren. He is the accuser of the brethren. He stands before God accusing the brethren, accusing the believer, you and I. And so he'll work through the feelings of our heart and our emotions. Well, when that happens, we've got to go to truth. Why? Because God is greater than our feelings. God is greater than that feeling of fear. God is greater than that feeling of discouragement or feeling like you're unworthy and you're incapable. You're unable to overcome a certain sin. God is greater than all that. And so what do we know is that if our heart condemns us, we've got to be willing to go to God. We've got to go to God. But then he says in verse 21, if our heart condemns us not, then we have confidence toward God. Then we have confidence toward God. And so I think as we grow in our walk with the Lord, we should experience less and less of just these stages that we go through where we're just condemnation and guilt. And as you grow, as you mature in Christ, you have this confidence toward God. I think we see that in Hebrews chapter four, where the Bible tells us to come boldly to the throne of grace. And what it is, it's that we begin to understand that the good things that are happening in our life, it's the grace of God, it's the goodness of God, it's the work of God, it's the work of Christ, the work of redemption, the work of restoration. And so we begin to have confidence toward that and we begin to depend on that. And so as we go away today, just some things to think about is that our love is evidenced and displayed. Our love is evidenced and displayed. And then in those times when our heart rises up, our emotions, our feelings rise up within us and they accuse us of things from the past. God is greater. So I would just say this, God's love in our life is greater. It's greater than the circumstances you face. It's greater than the fears you face. It's greater than the failures that you have experienced. Hey, God's love is greater. And you may deal with dealing with some things today that you're discouraged in your heart. Hey, look, I wanna tell you, truth, truth overcomes that. Truth overcomes fear. Truth overcomes failure. Truth overcomes doubt and discouragement. And so God's love is greater. And I hope maybe you go throughout the day and think about that. Hey, if you run into somebody today or come across somebody today, maybe this could help them. Turn them right here. And I hope it's a help to you and encouragement to you. And I hope you're in the Bible. I hope you're in your Word, the Word of God and reading and studying and growing because I know God's got a great plan in that. And I know he wants to help you and he wants you to have confidence in him. God's love is greater. Take that thought with you today. I love you, I'm praying for you. I hope you have a great day in the Lord. And hey, be sure to like this and share it. Be sure to help get it out there. And I know it'll be a blessing to a lot of people. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, thank you for your mercies, for your goodness to us. Father, for your love for us. Thank you for your compassion that fail not. Great as thy faithfulness, Father. We thank you for salvation in Jesus. And Father today, maybe someone would listen to this. And they've never been born again. They've never been saved. Father today, may they repent and call upon the name of Jesus to save them we pray. We love you and thank you. It's in your name we pray. Amen. (upbeat music) - Thank you for listening to Everyday Church, a daily podcast where believers learn together, grow together and serve together. If this episode was an encouragement to you, be sure to hit like, share it and subscribe for future content. 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