Sermon brought to you by Pastor Luke Seidler

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Please remember that sermon notes are meant to act as a guide and may not be exactly what was preached.

• Matthew 22:36-40
• 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
• This is the circle of love that the video talked about.
• In order for us to love God, we must love our neighbors
• Let’s be honest, though, without Gods help we would find it much harder to love our neighbors
• The greatest commandment is all about love
• All law and prophets depend on it
• But what is love
• com says love is a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
• Lets turn first to 1 Corinthians 13: 3-8
• 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
• 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things 8 Love never ends.
• Before we analyze that lets read one more scripture
• 1 John 4: 8-10: 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
• Hold on God is love?
• That means you could replace the word love with the word God in 1 Corinthians 13
• Demonstrate with verse 3
• That means without God no matter the good deeds we gain nothing.
• Picking back up at verse 9 of 1 John
• This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
• What greater love then to send his son to cleanse us of our sins
• I unknowingly volunteered to preach this sermon
• You see I just said 23^rd of December not knowing that it would be on love
• Anyone that knows me knows that I express my emotions very clearly, that’s sarcasm for those who don’t know
• So of course when my wife and parents realized I was gonna preach on love it was a joke.
• You see while I do come across gruff at times I am capable of love
• And the best part is I could be completely void of emotion and still love.
• Love is not an emotion
• Love is a choice
• emotions are not choice however the expression of them is
• I can’t control what makes me sad but I can control whether I cry or not
• My least favorite emotion is anger because that means something can anger me but I don’t have to throw a fit. The emotion is physiologic but the response is choice
• Love is all choice
• Love is the choice to put someone ahead of yourself
• Love is the choice to sacrifice a night with the boys to spend with your wife and daughter.
• Love is and I’m sure while the husbands out there know this I’m speaking to the wives love is the ability to admit you are wrong.
• Love is choosing to become enveloped with another – their needs become yours.
• So we have a better understanding of what love is now, so what do we do with it. Well let’s look at what I would call a challenge.
• Luke 6:27-36 27 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. 31 And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
• 32 “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. 35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
• Its, generally, not hard to love your parent because they love you and its not hard to love your child because they are a part of you and they love you.
• What’s hard is loving your enemy,
• We struggle enough to love the guy that cuts us off in traffic let alone loving a real offender.
• We are called to love people the way God loves Them
• Love is forgiving your enemies of their transgressions

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• I want you to think of one last thing, and this will probably ring more with the guys then the girls, but think back to your first love, the first time you really felt head over heels for someone. Suddenly they become a part of all of your thoughts, this is why young girls do that notebook name scribbling in class while they are day dreaming. So you remember this person now, this is the part I think rings with the guys, you decide to go tell the other person your feelings.
• You get the “well, I really just think of us as friends”
• Now your shoved back in the corner us guys call the friend zone.
• 1 John 4:10 NIV 0 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
• How often do we place God in the friend zone?  We put him in his corner for ourselves to go to when needed but never allow him to be a part of all our thoughts and actions.
• The greatest commandment calls us to do just that heart, soul, and mind… that sounds like we are to allow God to flood our lives. This is love: when two become one.