Canaan Fellowship

Growing in Love for God

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Canaan Fellowship
Canaan Fellowship
Growing in Love for God
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This sermon by Bill Teubl focuses on how Christians can grow in their love for God, emphasizing that this growth is inextricably linked to loving others. He structures his message around three main passages to explain why love is essential for spiritual effectiveness, the choice between loving God or the world, and the practical ways our love for God can mature over time.

  • [00:00:50] Sermon Subject: The sermon’s primary focus is on how we grow in love for God, which is tied to loving others. The four directions of love are: our love for God, God’s love for us, our love for others, and others’ love for us.
  • [00:01:21] 1. We Need Love to Be Spiritual (1 Corinthians 13:1-3): Spiritual gifts and acts are meaningless without love. You can have the gifts of the Father without the Father Himself.
    • [00:01:42] To Speak So We Can Be Understood: Without love, even God-given words sound like meaningless noise to the listener.
    • [00:01:54] To Serve So We Are Fruitful: Serving without love lacks spiritual truthfulness and limits God’s work in and through us.
    • [00:01:59] To Give So Grace is Bestowed: Sacrificial giving, if done without love, fails to deliver the grace that is inherent in a true gift.
  • [00:17:52] 2. We Love Either the World or God (1 John 2:15-17): You cannot love both the world and the Father; it is an either/or choice. If love for God is not growing, love for the world can seep in.
  • [00:22:38] 3. We Can Grow in Love (1 John 4:7-21): Our capacity to love God and others is not static but can and should grow throughout our Christian lives.
    • [00:25:44] Love is Our New Nature: Anyone born of God has the capacity and desire to love because God is love and He dwells in them.
    • [00:30:55] Meditate on Christ’s Sacrifice: Considering that God loved us and sent His Son as the propitiation for our sins causes our love to grow.
    • [00:41:23] Actively Love Your Brother: Choosing to love our brothers and sisters in difficult situations is a primary way we grow in our love for God. Perfect love casts out fear, including the fear of judgment and the fear of relational risks.

Scripture References

  • 1 Corinthians 13
  • 1 John 2:15-17
  • 1 John 4:7-21
  • 2 Corinthians 8-9
  • 1 John 3

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