How do you know if someone is a Christian? Is it based on what they wear? How they talk? As we continue our series, Family Matters, JP teaches us how you can know if someone is a Christian by examining the Great Commandment in Matthew 22.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
-You are saved based on what you believe about the gospel. What you believe about Jesus Christ—who He is and what He did for you on the cross—is the only thing that impacts your salvation.
-What you believe—if you really believe it—will impact how you behave.
-One of the greatest offenses to God is claiming that you are a Christian and then living however you want with no regard to what God or His Word says.
-When Jesus taught the Great Commandment, He was saying if you love God and love others, all the do’s and don’ts of the 613 laws in the Old Testament will take care of themselves.
-Followers of Jesus are marked by love for God.
-When you don’t feel God, you can still obey Him. He is the God of your emotions.
-Love looks like obedience to God. Obedience to God leads to joy.
-Joy is born out of a life of service to others.
-What do you do that makes you love God more? Do more of those things!
-Followers of Jesus are marked by love for others.
-Loving your neighbor like yourself looks like putting their needs above your own.
-When Jesus taught people to love their neighbor, He told a story about loving someone who all the listeners would have hated.
-Love: inconveniencing yourself for the good of someone else.
-Christians should treat everyone the way a loving mother treats her baby. Everyone.
-When you villainize someone who disagrees with you on a topic, you have moved away from love.
-Did you know that God has used global pandemics in the past to explode and grow Christianity all over the world?
-Are people coming closer to Jesus based on how you are responding to the Covid pandemic?
-Love is the Christian’s uniform.
-It’s no accident that love is the first fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5.
-People all around you are lost and looking to find their way. If you are a Christian, you have the answer and you know the way.
-When is the last time you inconvenienced yourself for the good of someone else? Did something that is naturally difficult for yourself for their good?
MENTIONED OR RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
-Suggested Scripture Study: Matthew 22:34-40; 1 John 5:3; John 15:9-13; Romans 5:8; John 13:34-35
-Sermon: Discipleship