Andrew Wommack: As I Have Loved You - Week 1 - Session 1

let's turn over to John chapter 13 and I want to do a series this week that is I believe going to be a tremendous eye opener to many of you it's going to minister to you challenge you and at the same time bless you but I want to talk from John chapter 13 real quickly let me give you the context of this this is the night before Jesus crucifixion he had already had communion with his disciples he had washed the disciples feet and he revealed that Judas was the one that was going to betray him and Judas had just had Satan enter into him and he ran out and so that is the context of what's happened and then right after this is when Jesus spoke to his disciples John 14 15 and 16 the night before his crucifixion and gave the instructions about let not your heart be troubled etc so this is the context this is the night before the crucifixion of Jesus and just by virtue of the fact that this is one of his last instructions it has to be one of the most important things that he ever said you know if I had say for instance that you were my disciples or something and if we had been together for three-and-a-half years and if I was getting ready to leave and turn the whole thing over to you I can guarantee you the last night before I was gone I would be trying to emphasize summarized put an exclamation point behind the things that are the most important I mean there wouldn't be any wasted words not that Jesus ever wasted words but I would be focused on saying the things that were just hurting I mean this is this is last opportunity to talk to these guys and so that's the context of what he said and look down here in John chapter 13 and in verse 33 he says little children yet a little while am i with you and you shall seek me and as I said under the whether I go you cannot come so now I say to you and if you go back in the book of John he had said this about his death and they weren't going to be able to follow him and he was saying that now to his disciples and then in verse 34 he says a new commandment I give unto you that you love one another as I have loved you that you also love one another you know probably every person in here has heard this before but this weekend I want to really try and drill this home that this is a new commandment that Jesus gave to us to love each other as he had loved us you know that is huge that is big and most people have probably heard this but in reality most people do not really think that this is something that can be done we just pass off our humanity and say that you know we just can't operate in love and we can't do all of these things and yet Jesus this is his last instruction and he's telling his disciples that this is my new commandment not a suggestion this is a commandment that God gave us not only to love but to love in exactly the same way as he had loved us and one of the points that I'm going to try and really get across this weekend is that one of the reasons we do such a poor job of this of loving other people is because first of all we haven't received the love of God you can't give away something that you don't have and there are many of us who try and love other people through gritted teeth but the reason it doesn't seem to flow out of us is because you haven't really had an encounter where you have received God's unconditional love for you and I'm not against anybody here tonight but I am saying that our religious system that we live in today is not representing God well I don't believe in the majority of people today are being taught about a conditional love from God based on whether you're good enough and if you've done everything just right then God will love you and that is not the way that Jesus loved us and so I think that there is a really misrepresentation about how God loved us and one of the reasons that we are so judgmental and harsh towards other people is because we think that that's the way that God is to us so before we can turn around and give this kind of love to other people we have to have a renewed idea of God's love towards us we've got to understand that God does not love you because you are lovely that's a big statement right there and yet if I could sit down and talk to most of the people in this auditorium in again I believe that you guys are the cream of the crop Thursday night downtown Houston this isn't your nod to God crowd it shows up on Sunday morning because you feel like you got to pay God off or do something I mean you're the fanatics or either a fanatic drug you hear one of the two so I'm not criticizing you you're probably better than the average and yet I bet you if I could sit down with every person in here and talk to you there are so many people that just don't feel that they are worthy of God's love they think that God's love is tied to your performance they think that you have to do something to be made worthy for God to love you and yet that is completely completely contrary to the image that Jesus portrayed in the way he dealt with people and so his command is to love others as he has loved us if we haven't received that love for ourselves it's impossible for you to turn around and give this to other people and this is where so many people are you know in the church that I grew up in they used to tell you get born again it was a Baptist Church and that's all they really preached was evangelistic message is about getting born again and once you got mourning and the only other thing they preached was go get somebody else born again go do a work for God you got to somehow or another pay God back justify your existence I used to even have this statement said that the soul purpose for your existence here on this earth is to lead somebody else to the Lord if all God he wanted to do is to bless you he would take you to heaven so the reason you're left here is to lead somebody else to the Lord that's the sole purpose for your existence and that they were introduced doing that in an effort to emphasize how important that we make our life count and touch somebody else and I agree that we do need to give and bless others Paul said I'm a debtor to all men so I believe that there's a point but when when the people said that the Lord spoke to me and he says well if that was the sole purpose for your existence then what about Adam and Eve what was the sole purpose for their existence they didn't have anybody to leave to the Lord they didn't have anybody to intercede for they didn't have Church to go to they didn't have a work to do they didn't have a Sunday School class to teach they didn't have praise and worship to lead they didn't have any demons to cast out they didn't have anybody to intercede for they didn't have any clothes to pray for our houses to pray for you know if you were to take your prayer life and analyze it how much of it is just really worshiping God and loving and receiving his love compared to interceding binding the devil rebuking this interceding for that and if you are spiritual then your whole life revolves around binding the devil for somebody else and praying for them and doing stuff but most people their whole prayer life is all about getting something doing something binding the devil doing something what we're Adam and Eve what did they do they didn't have any of that stuff to do the simple answer is Revelation chapter 4 verse 11 says the this is what the angels are saying in heaven right now it says it happens constantly twenty-four hours a day it says that they fall down and throw their crowns before the Lord and they say worthy worthy because you are how does that go you got that up their horn now are worthy O Lord to receive glory and honor and power for the is created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created the original purpose of all things was to give God pleasure and that still is God's purpose so Adam and Eve were created for God to just love and for them to love him back and to have relationship it was all about relationship we're human beings sad to say we should be most people are human doings but we should be a human being you ought to you ought to be someone that just loves God but it's all about doing everybody's got to do a work for God and we tie God's love to us for something that we do Adam and Eve didn't have anything to do and yet God meant with them every day and the cool of the evening this whole concept the way that it's been presented ties God's love for you his relationship with you his pleasure for you to how good you are how much you're doing and whether you're doing all of these things and I can just tell you some of you may think that I'm exaggerating this but I deal with thousands and thousands and thousands of people and the people that I pray for the vast majority come forward and immediately start telling me about why they're worthy for God to heal them they start trying to say I fasted I pray I'm doing this I'm doing this I've been studying the word I go to church I paid my times I'm living as Holy as I can how come God hasn't healed me you just told me why God hadn't healed you because you didn't point to what Jesus did for you you pointed to what you did for Jesus and you think that you have to do things to make yourself worthy for God to move in your life that is not the example that Jesus gave this is not following the command that you love other people as I have loved you one of the reasons that our relationships with other people are so poor is because our relationship with God is so poor we think God is harsh with us we think God is upset with you you know if you could ascribe to me the same qualities that the Holy Spirit has that I would be I'm not present that I could read every thought that you have that I was with you every second of every day and I could read your thoughts and if I was there reading your thoughts and every time you did anything wrong I was goading you that's wrong stop that don't do that don't think that man 24 hours of me doing that and I guarantee you you would dislike me immensely if I can critique every single thought and action and just point out everything wrong that you do see that's the way most people think the Holy Spirit is I'm not going to teach on this but I got a great teaching out there entitled the positive Ministry of the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit isn't showing you that hey you're smoking you're drinking you lied you didn't go to church you didn't read your Bible you haven't prayed enough the Bible says that the Holy Spirit convicts of one sin once in John chapter 16 verses 8 and 9 one sin and then in verse 9 it explains what that one sin is the sin of not believing on Jesus the Holy Spirit is not the one who's making you miserable because you haven't been studying the word and you haven't been praying that's religion the devil and your own conscience you have a conscience that tells you constantly whether you are doing what's right and wrong and religion has amplified that conscience to condemn you and to make you feel miserable thank you for that one head nod some of yours I'm not sure this is true I could get plumb off the subject here I'm trying to talk about as Jesus has loved us but I'm countering all of the condemnation that religion has given us it's been misrepresenting God I was raised here in Texas I was raised in the Baptist Church I have never in my 62 I'll be 63 in April I have never used a word of profanity in 16 nearly 63 years I've never taken a drink of liquor I've never smoked a cigarette I used to wake up and I was a kid that I had had a dream that I smoked the cigarette and I got caught and turned in to my to the police and the police turned me over to my mother which was worse and I woke up in hell burning in hell because I smoked a cigarette and I mean I had reoccurring nightmares about this probably for 10 years at least once or twice a year for ten years I would see profanity scribbled in a stall in a restroom and I'd feel condemned over that I didn't write it I just read it the thought came through my mind and because of that I would be condemned for a week some of you thinking man you were really messed up I really was but you know what I was very religious and I didn't do some of the things that you all did but I guarantee you I felt so condemned I felt so separated from God and yet I was living holier than probably the vast majority of you in here it wasn't God that was condemning me it was my religion it was condemning they taught that we couldn't go mix bathing they didn't use the term mix swimming because that would have sounded better they said mixed bathing that made it sound more ungodly where a boy and a girl were in the swimming pool together at the same time we couldn't do that you couldn't dance dancing was of the devil I remember one time in my life I was about 14 years old I wasn't driving yet I had my girlfriend talked me into going over to her house on a Wednesday night first time in my life I ever missed a church service and I went over to her house and turned out she had some other kids there and they were dancing I felt like God was going to strike me dead I tried it for a few minutes and man I called my brother and my brother picked me up and I was at church before the service was out Amen I didn't miss the whole service I know some of you think I'm weird but I thought you were weird I'm just saying did you know why he wasn't God that was condemning me I remember when we finally after we were in the ministry we went over to Austria and we were ministering in Austria and again I was raised a Baptist if you drank beer you go straight to hell you do not pass go you don't collect $200 it is a one-way ticket to hell if you ever drink a beer and I went to Austria and there is about two 300 people in the meeting and they were all sitting around round tables and they serve them largers of beer as long as I talk free beer and here was his baptist boy preaching with everybody just drinking and that's one of the few times that nobody cared how long I went they got free beer just as long as I could preach man my head was swimming with that when I was thinking God how does this work and yet they were just worshipping God and loving God and then I left from there and I went over into Romania and in Romania if you drank beer you went there but they smoked over there any in Austria you could drink beer but if you smoked the cigarette you went to hell excuse me no it was coffee if you drank coffee in Austria you went to hell they couldn't they just were unbelievable to them that Christians in the United States would drink coffee because you go straight to hell for drinking coffee in Austria and then you cross over into Romania and they drink coffee and booze but you can't smoke a cigarette and then you go over into Poland and it's different over there and you know what my little mind figured out I think some of this must not be God if it was if it was the Holy Spirit it seemed like it he'd be wrong at all of these places my lightning-fast mind began to put some of these things together and figure it out I'm not saying that you know you shouldn't take care of your body and that you should just go out and booze and smoke and do all that but I am saying that you know what it's not the Holy Spirit that's showing you how wrong you are the Holy Spirit convicts you of one thing and that's your relationship with Jesus if you're doing dope the Holy Spirit's not going to say why are you doing that dope and all of this and get on your case you know what it'll all come down to is why don't you trust Jesus why do you turn to dope to numb you to life's things when you win Jesus is wanting to set you free and he's wanting to give you joy and peace why would you go out and get drunk and spend money and possibly ruin your health when all you got to do is turn to the Lord and you'll have joy unspeakable and full of glory in the present so the Lord is fullness of joy at his right hand are pleasures forevermore a person who's a drunk the person who's a doper is a person who without maybe even realizing it is saying my life is so miserable I will ruin my health I'll run the RIT run the risk of people rejecting me I'll spend buku bunches of money on things that are going to destroy my life and possibly kill me my life is so miserable that I'll do all of these things for an hour to our five hours worth of respite from it you're confessing that your life is absolutely miserable and so the problem isn't the drinking in all this other it's the fact that why don't you trust Jesus why why aren't you able to draw on his joy in peace the Holy Spirit is not the one that's making your life miserable religion is doing it you know we just got through with the Superbowl and they have these beer commercials and they show all of these things about you know it's always something beautiful it's always something attractive it looks fun what if ever beer commercial they came on and said why aren't you drinking a beer right now what's wrong with and if they went to condemning you did you know what you wouldn't have good feelings about beer and you wouldn't drink it this is why they have beautiful horses running through the snow and doing all this stuff what does that have to do with beer it just is a good feeling and it makes some kind of an emotional connection with their product and that's the reason they do it but if they came out and said why aren't you drinking my product right now why aren't you doing this and if they went to condemning you you'd get to where you hate those products and you wouldn't take them well in a sense this is what religion is done why aren't you praying you shouldn't be watching the Superbowl you should be praying you should be studying the word how dare you do this and they just condemn you and they're saying that this is the Ministry of the Holy Spirit and all of a sudden now you you're guilt-ridden about I should be praying more I should be doing this and you don't understand why you don't like doing it because you've been condemned and beat over it even if you didn't like chocolate which I doubt that you could be alive and not like chocolate but let's say that you didn't like chocolate but if I came up and said you sorry thing you shouldn't like chocolate how dare you like chocolate and if I went to criticizing and saying you sorry thing you'll never make it if you eat chocolate if you start preaching thou shalt not there's something on the inside of you that just rises up and says bless God I shell I'll do it just to show them you know I learn this in Texas growing up that if you wanted somebody to do something just say you can't do it you're a I dare you I double dog dare you to do it and you know what people that don't even want to do it will do it because you said they can't do it you understood that is a little tiny kid this is what religion is you can't do this you can't do that and they're saying that God is upset and gods angry at you and your old flesh rises up and says bless God I will do it this is what religion has been doing and it's been representing God as this one who's criticizing God Jesus loved people differently than what religion is portraying him as his love is not conditional and based on your performance does that mean that your performance doesn't count no your performance counts because it either is allowing God freedom to move in your life or it's opening up a door to the devil and so it is important how you live and I'm not saying that you don't do what's right but I am saying that God's love for you isn't dependent upon your actions it says in Romans chapter five verse eight that God commended his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us he didn't die for you when you had your act together after you had already cleaned yourself up he died for you while you were yet a sinner and that is not being represented the way that it should sometimes people will say sure when it comes to getting born again you have to come before him as a sinner and sing just as I am but then as soon as you get saved you better straighten up and start coming to church and do this this and this and that's not what the Scripture teaches again in Rome Colossians chapter 2 verse 6 as you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk ye in him how did you receive Jesus as your Savior you received it just by receiving it you didn't earn it you didn't deserve it you sang just as I am without one plea but now that you're a Christian you're told that if you don't come to church if you don't pay your ties if you don't study the word if you don't treat people right if you get angry with your wife if this happens if that happens if you've got any problem in your life God won't bless you and you were taught a conditional love that's not the way that you receive Jesus as your Lord it wasn't conditional Jesus died for it wasn't he will die for you if you will straighten up and confess things right and ask him to save you then he will come and save you no he already died for you 2,000 years ago it's done God loves you and there's nothing you can do about it now will you receive it are you going to reject it that's the way that salvation was presented and because of that it was easy to receive because it was already done you didn't have to earn it it's just like somebody comes and puts it on a plate in front of you and says do you want this and it's just a matter of either believe and receive or doubt and do without but then when it comes to receiving healing or something else we're told that it isn't done yet and it depends on whether you trust God and whether you do this and whether you go to church and if you pay your ties and if you have to do this and this and this and if you will do all of these things then God will move in your life that is not accurate that is a misrepresentation of God he did not love you that way there needs to be a change in our understanding of how he loved us and then and only then when we receive this unconditional love of God will you turn around and give it to other people the church is basically preaching and telling people to act in a godly way without ever having received this love of God that enables us to do it and there needs to be a transformation so I'm going to be talking about that all week let's look at this next verse it says in verse 35 but by this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have love one to another notice he says that they will know that we are his disciples not his converse huge difference here I hadn't got time to teach on this I've got an entire series I've taught for four or five days on this one thing but today we are making converts we're telling people receive Jesus as your Savior so that you won't go to hell and people will confess Jesus as their Lord and say they're converted to Christianity but they aren't disciples the word disciple means a follower a learner and Jesus never told us to go make converts he told us to make disciples and this is one of the reasons that the church is in the mess that it's in because we change the message from making disciples to making converts we hold these big massive angel' ISM things and tell people to come down and receive Jesus as their Savior and then we just send them out that's not what the Bible told us to do that is evangelism the way it is done in the church today is against what God told us to do he told us to go and make disciples not to make converts you know this good friend of mine Don Crowe he was with us until just a couple of years ago but we've been together for a long long time he was best man in my wedding I was best man in his wedding and Don Crow and I made this program we call discipleship evangelism and when we started putting it into practice Don he used to do a lot of street evangelism just go up and talk to people and pray with him on the street and he was very convicted about what happens to these people after I pray with them and we sat down and discussed that you know this isn't what God told us to do he told us to make disciples and so anyway we made these cereals and Don started going and knocking on doors and instead of making it about getting saved he made it about being a disciple and he would just knock on the door and ask people he says is there anything that you need in your life that I could help you with do you need food and if the people needed food he would give them food and then he would sit down and start teaching them what the Word of God had to say about how to prosper and how to trust God for your needs and these are lost people he didn't talk to him about getting saved he talked to him about getting their needs met and people were open to that and they said man you mean the Bible says something about my prosperity and doníts a yen so he'd sit down and start teaching them and as you teach a person about prosperity this makes no sense to your natural mind it doesn't make sense to if you need something to take a portion of what you have and give it away that's counterintuitive that's illogical it takes faith and as you start teaching a person what the Bible says about prosperity you will have to come to a place to where people will say how do I do that that doesn't make sense and then you have to say it doesn't make sense unless there is a God who said when you give it will be given unto you so really it just comes down to faith do you really trust in God and he would talk to my floor and they would get born again but that wasn't the goal the goal was making a disciple but you can't make a disciple without a person being born again and having a personal relationship with the Lord so he would just start taking them through wherever they were if they were sick I remember this one guy named Steve that Don went to ministered to and Don knocked on his door and says is there anything that you need that I could pray with you about and help you to receive from God and as Steve says well I'm out of work because I've got back problems my back's hurting and Don says I can teach you what the Word of God says and show to you about how to be healed and so he says come on in it turned out he and his girlfriend they were shacking up together they were doing nope they were on heroin and so Don sat down and started teaching these two dope addicts that were on heroin they were high on heroin and he started teaching him the word about how God can produce healing and they liked it they said man this is great would you come back and teach us next time so he went for two or three weeks and he started teaching them how to get healed people that were shacking up together that we're doing dope and Don just started loving them and teaching them what the word said and as he did that I guarantee it comes to a place how can I believe this specifically he got off on the parable of the prodigal son and he was reading the story about the prodigal son and he was making points about how God deals with us and he had this Steve read the scriptures and he stopped him when the prodigal son finally came to himself and started back home and he just asked him he says so Steve what do you think that that father is going to do and he said oh I know what he was going to do he's going to tell him you can have any of this inheritance he'll kick him out he and he just started transposing into this story what he had experienced and he started talking about how mean God was and the Father and how he knew that this father would reject him and Don says we'll read on and Steve started reading about how the father ran and fell on his neck and kissed him and put a ring on his finger and killed the fatted calf and said our son was dead he's alive and when Steve read it he fell on his knees in the living room and cried out to God God would you accept me and instantly he came off Erewhon instantly he got saved and born again he and his wife received the baptism of the Holy Spirit I said I wasn't going to preach on this I came real close to doing it but it says by this shall all men know you might are my disciples by your love one for another God never called anybody to be a convert he is out to make disciples he wants to take people and make you to where you are just like him where you can walk in his victory and joy and power and one of the mistakes that we've made is the Bible says faith comes by hearing hearing by the Word of God Romans 10:17 and if all you preach is faith for getting saved then that's all people will have faith for the church hasn't preached being like Jesus and living in victory and walking in health and prosperity and joy and peace and marriage harmony we've been preaching get saved so you won't go to hell and once a person accomplishes that that's all I got faith for because that's all it's been preached we should be making disciples and here is the thing that all men will know you are my disciple not your convert we have very few disciples today we have lots of converts but here's how a person can tell that you are his disciples that you have love one to another you know that is amazing if you were to ask the average person I've kind of set this up tonight but if if you were just walking out on the street and you hadn't had somebody build up to this point if somebody just walked up to you and says what's the distinguishing characteristic of a Christian there's a lot of people that would say a lot of different things there's some people they would say well it's how they dress there's people that if you wear any gold if you have a wedding band on if you have any makeup on as a woman if your hair is short if your dress is short or whatever and that's that's how you tell a true Christian their dress will be all the way down to the ground they'll look bland there Harold being a bun they'll have a little covering on their head or you know just all kinds of things that's what the distinguishing characteristic is to some Christian and it's kind of coincidental I think that those people who put so much emphasis on the hour at appearance or some of the meanest people that there are Jesus said here's the distinguishing characteristic that they love one another it's not whether the guys wear a beard whether the you know I'm not against people wearing makeup man if your barn needs paint and painted where is God if it needs two coats give it two coats here's one of the things you'll recognize about religion religion always puts the emphasis on the external it'll always be about how are you dressing are you paying your tithe do you have the right mannerisms do you say hallelujah do you lift your hands like this or do you do it like this or do you do it like this or and it's always on the external do you have your collar turned around backwards do you dress a certain way do you do all these things God looks on the heart God looks at the inside of a person and it's not about how you act outwardly God is more concerned about the heart religion will always look on the outside it says in 1st Samuel chapter 16 verse 7 the Lord was speaking to Samuel and he said don't look on the height of his stature or any of these things because man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart this is talking about when he picked David David was the runt of the litter and Samuel was going to choose Eli because he was the biggest and the strongest and God said don't look on the outside look on the inside man looks on the outside religion will always put the emphasis on how you act you can go out and Corral Saturday night get drunk go have sex with the prostitute but if you come to church and if you're dressed properly and if you pay your ties and if you look holy you would satisfy most religious people your heart could be just as wrong as it can be but as long as you are in the pew and you pay your tithe that would suffice with most people religion will always somehow or another bind you in your actions God also is concerned about your actions but actions are a byproduct of relationship with God in the New Testament it's not about what you do it's what about what's in your heart that makes you do what you do it's very similar to the in the Old Testament people couldn't have their life change they couldn't be born-again they couldn't get a new heart and so God treated the Old Testament people similar to the way we treat children you have to correct children and tell them that this is wrong and before they understand things and can figure it all out you just tell them do that again and I'll spank you and they may not know that there is a God or devil heaven or hell they may not understand any spiritual things but they can understand that if I go over there and take that toy from my sister again I'm going to get a spanking and if you wait until they're old enough to reason with them and say did you know if you take that toy from your sister you're violating what Jesus said it's more blessed to give than it is to receive so you are actually submitting yourself to the devil you're selfish and you are establishing a principle that you know what you'll never be able to keep a job because you're only going to be thinking about getting your paycheck not realizing you've got to do something and that you got to work and you got to give and if you ever get married you'll never keep your marriage because you'll be selfish and that's the root of all strife and division and you try and tell that to a one-year-old and they'll just look at you but you can tell it one-year-old you go over there and take that toy again I'll spank you and they will resist the devil they'll say no I'm not going to do that because of fear of punishment that's what the Old Testament was they couldn't be born again it says in first Corinthians chapter two verse 14 that the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they're spiritually discerned people under the Old Testament weren't born again they couldn't understand spiritual things the way that we can and so God held them in check by Arnel outward exterior things you go pick up sticks on the Sabbath day and I'll kill you go do this and will stone you to death will smite you but in the New Covenant God's man I've got so much to say he says a new commandment a new commandment I give you what's this new commandment it's not about do this and do this and do that no it's about love as I have loved you it's about a heart matter God comes along and in the New Testament he changes your heart does he what is it ok now to go rob and steal and plunder and commit rape and murder and everything because we're under a new commandment no it's really the same thing it should produce the same results of living a godly life but now we live holy as a fruit and not a root of salvation it's a byproduct of having the love of God in our life and if you ever understand and receive the love of God you'll live holier accidentally than you ever have on purpose before if you have to teach somebody go out and tell somebody about Jesus witness for the Lord and you have to condemn them and then sing these songs about will there'd be any stars any stars in my crown when it evening at last I lay down any of you ever sing that song and the one about must I go and empty-handed must I meet my Savior soul not one soul with which to breed he must die empty-handed go that's a tearjerker and then they'll tell you some story about your neighbor who stands in front of God and is condemned to hell and right as they drag him and they're about to throw him over the precipice into hell he comes right by you and he puts his finger in your face why didn't you ever tell me and then the altars fill up and everybody is down here repenting you know what that's all about you you didn't care for your neighbor what it is you mean I'm going to be embarrassed I'm going to be shamed I'll stand in front of God and and so you go do something because of self not because you love other people if you're having to use that kind of stuff to motivate people go tell somebody about the Lord if you don't God's going to judge you your Bloods going to be on their hand that was the Old Testament motivation but in the New Testament you tell people about how much God loves them and you will have to start restraining them from going out and telling people and say now wait a minute let me give you some wisdom let me tell you what to say if you're having to you know here's another example if you had a little kid and at Christmas you give them brand-new bicycle how many of you would have to say no you go out and tell all your friends how wonderful your dad is and how much you spent on this bike and you make sure you tell everybody that your bikes better than their bike and make them feel bad nobody ever has to do that you know you do just the opposite and say no don't go out and make all your friends feel bad stuff you know don't try and tell them how much this bike cost when a person is really excited about what they've got you have to slow them down and give them wisdom so that they don't try and condemn other people and do stuff if you are having to compel people to go witness for the Lord it's because they don't know how good god is they've never received it for themselves it's possible that they're about born-again but they got converted they aren't a disciple they've not understood the love of God once you understand the awesome love of God I guarantee you you will have to do something to keep that person from like I said I got born again when I was 8 years old the first time God ever really convicted me and I was an introvert I couldn't talk to people I couldn't look at a person in the face and talk to them and yet I forced myself I psyched myself up and made myself go witness and I would do about 5 or 6 visits on Tuesday night and five or six visits on Thursday night every week of my life I led people to the Lord from the time I was a little kid until I was in college and I did this every time and it was especially hard because I was an introvert I'd have to just force myself I had a spiel memorized and I went didn't want anybody to get me off topic because I couldn't answer a question I wasn't responding to anybody I'd just go up and use the Roman Road Romans 3:23 all of sinned and come short of the glory of God Romans 6:23 the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life Romans 5:8 God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us and then I'd say is there any good reason why you can't pray with me and get saved and there's very few people to say well yeah I want to go to hell and so I'd have people repeat after me and I'd grab their scalp and I'd go back to church and I'd stand up there and they'd pat me on the back and tell about how many people I led to the Lord I doubt if any of them are very few of them got born again it wasn't about those people it was all about me I was trying to earn something I was trying to do something so God would love me and accept me and I thought I was doing something awesome because I had witnessed to ten people a week and then marks the 23rd 1968 God revealed his love to me not already been a Christian for 10 years but I had an encounter where God showed me his love for me independent of what I deserved it wasn't based on anything matter of fact it was when he showed me what a hypocrite I was and I finally had nothing to offer God and God's tangible love came on me for four and a half months I was gone someplace and you tell what instead of making those 10 visits a week I quit and see some people now huh that's what I thought the reason I quit was because I realized ice passing up a hundred people every day to go make two or three visits at night I quit going out and knocking on doors and I just started talking to everything that moved I'd witnessed to people in 7-eleven stores we'd go into a restaurant and I'd stand up and pray at the top of my lungs and bless the food and everybody in the whole restaurant and when they'd get through they'd look at me and I say hey you need your food blessed - hey now let me just say that's not the way to do it but I'm saying see I just had a desire I witness to everything that moved I actually at one time made a decision I would never see a person that I didn't talk to him about Jesus and you know what that's impossible to keep I remember when I got drafted and was standing in attention in the army and I saw thousands of people marching by and I thought I don't think I can keep that commitment how do I do this and I had to finally realize I can't do that but for about a year or two I tried it I witness to everything that moved I every person I saw I talked to I quit making ten visits a week and I started making over a hundred visits a day because of the love of God I don't know if I'm getting across what I'm trying to say to you that you can't give away what you don't have and many people don't really have a revelation of how much God loves you it's been misrepresented it's been presented as a conditional love and because of that you are treating other people basically the way you think God is treating you which is not very good and you only treat people good when they deserve to be treated good because that's the way you think God's treating you and that's not true and this is the reason that people don't know that we're his disciples because we aren't operating in a nun additional kind of love man there's so much fighting in bickering sad to say the church is where a tremendous amount of strife and fighting is and this is specifically talking about that this is how they will know you're my disciples by your love one for another this isn't just talking about love for the lost that is a good thing but this is talking about love among brothers among Christians this is how the world will know that we are his disciples when we love each other the way that Jesus loved us you know right now whether you're a Republican or a Democrat doesn't matter but you see these presidential elections going and the Republicans are just beating up on each other I think Obama must be sitting there liking all of this and then he doesn't have to do anything they're doing it to themselves and in a sense this is what the church is doing I'm sure that the devil probably sits down and thought I never thought of doing that look at how they are criticizing each other they're arguing over the color of the carpet they're arguing over whether it's pews or chairs I would have never thought probably the devil takes notes on how Christians get mad at each other and some of the stuff that they do we're supposed to be loving one another and yet there is a tremendous amount of division in the body of Christ did you know that the first century church didn't have any of the advantages that we've got man I'm on television and reached half of the world's population over 3.2 billion people can watch my program on a daily basis Paul never had that Paul never had CDs books the only tracks that anybody ever saw balls were the ones he left and yet Paul turned the world right-side up in 30 years the body of Christ had basically evangelized the known world in 30 years without printed page without television without media without facebook without Twitter without the internet without any of this stuff they made a bigger impact on their society then our church has made on our society and you know why because jesus said this is how all men talking about even unbelievers will know that you are my disciples that you have love one for another and there is so much division in the body of Christ did you know back in the beginning Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus to the church at Corinth to the church at Philippi to the church at colossi the church one church in one place Ephesus I don't know exactly how big that place was but they had this amphitheater there that sat nearly a hundred thousand people and it has been estimated that the body of Christ the church in Ephesus during the time of John when he was there he died in that area and Timothy was the first bishop of the Church of Ephesus and I've read commentaries that they estimate there was at least a minimum of fifty thousand Christians in Ephesus on up to a hundred thousand Christians and there was only one church they didn't have one place that they meant in they meant in maybe a thousand different homes but there was one Church Timothy was the bishop over it there was only one church in one place they were all United and there was problems you can read about it in the 20th chapter of the book of Acts and he and Paul talked about I know that there's grievious wolves going to come in and they're going to say this and you had to deal with it it wasn't perfect but they were in unity and as a result that generation basically evangelized the known world today we are so fragmented there are churches across the street from each other and the people in one church have never even meant the people in another church it's not exactly having the same love for each other than Jesus had for us think about this logistically let's say that God gave me a message for Houston and if this was a God given God spoke to me appeared to me in a vision and told me exactly what to say how would I get that message out to the body of Christ the church is so fragmented that I could go to some of these big churches that have 15 20 thousand people in it and I could reach a certain segment but there would be other parts of the body of Christ in Houston that would never hear about it I could spend the rest of my life hitting every church in the Houston area and never get this message to every person in Houston because it's so divided that is not what God intended he intended for us to be one to love each other as Christ loved the church and yet most of us have grown up with this division we just have embraced it as being normal many people have never even questioned it and I'll tell you this I don't have an answer for this I'm describing something here that in a sense is creating a problem because I don't I don't have a solution to how we get all the people that are so split and divided into all of these groups operating as one but I can show you from Scripture that this isn't this is how Jesus said that we would win the world is by our love went but when they saw that we love one another as Christ loved us then the world would know we were his disciples if we ever become one then the world will be one wo in the greatest tool for evangelism is the love among believers and our commitment to each other man that's awesome and you know what you won't hear this very often we'll talk about organize and Crusades and going out and making converts and we do all of these things that are contrary to what the Lord told us to do he didn't tell us to make convert she told us to make disciples and we will do all of these things and put tremendous amount of effort into all of this stuff but man the unity of the body the oneness loving each other as Christ loved the church will not be the focus of very many churches and we just in a sense have embraced it have accepted it have put our stamp of approval on it and don't even strive for it again we may not be able to totally affect the entire body of Christ worldwide and do everything but you know what you could affect somebody you could become a disciple and begin to start loving the people around you and start walking in love and this is what Jesus said this is his new commandment you know let me point this out over in Romans chapter 13 look at these verses this is the Apostle Paul speaking in Romans chapter 13 in verse 8 he says o no man anything but to love one another I could spend a lot of time on that oh no man anything again this isn't a suggestion it's a command oh no meant oh no man anything but to love one another for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law for this thou shalt not commit adultery thou shalt not kill thou shalt not steal thou shalt not bear false witness thou shalt not covet and if there be any other commandment it is briefly comprehended in this saying namely thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself love worketh no ill to his neighbor therefore love is the fulfilling of the law again religion will come along preaching the old Commandments and that's what these were a list from Exodus chapter 20 the Ten Commandments religion will come along preaching the Ten Commandments jesus said don't owe any man anything except to love them I give you a new commandment and this says that every commandment would be kept if people loved each other just look at some of these right here in the ninth verse thou shalt not commit adultery if you truly loved your mate as Christ loved the church you would never commit adultery I can spend all night trying to justify that because there's people said oh I do love my baby but I just couldn't help myself it's a lie you're driven by lust not by love lust is something that comes and goes and hits you and does this but love is a decision and again most people don't know what God's kind of love is they grow up watching movies and television and they're exposed to this humanistic demonic carnal selfish love people fall in love and fall out of love if you can fall into love and it just strikes you you picture it by a little fat baby that goes around and shoots you with an arrow Cupid that's not love that's lust love is a decision God so loved the world that he gave Jesus loved us and I can guarantee you when he hung on the cross he wasn't having just strong emotions and goose bumps go up and down his spine he chose to love us he chose to do something God's kind of love isn't an emotion it may in involve your emotions and touch your emotions but it is so much deeper than an emotion and yet people today say well I just fell out of love I can't help it every one of us has seen some movie where some person said they quote/unquote love their mate but then some beautiful woman comes walking by and all of a sudden they fell out of love with their mating they fell in love and they it's just chemistry I can't help it I didn't want to do it they go and apologize I'm sorry but it's just over I can't help myself that's not God's kind of love that's lust and many Christians don't know the difference between the two and so they'll so I just couldn't help myself just because you've never experienced a true God kind of love God's kind of love is a decision that you make and you can choose to love your mate if you loved your mate the way that Christ loved us unconditional and I'll be explaining this in a lot more detail then you know what you'd never commit adultery a person who commits adultery does not truly love their mate somebody sound while I disagree with that well you're entitled to your opinion but I'm not going to agree with your we'd both be wrong it says right here it says that thou shalt not commit adultery and all of these things is comprehended in this one statement love thy neighbor as thyself if you love your mate as yourself you would never commit adultery if you've ever had your mate commit adultery on you and you think about how that hurts you and the way it made you feel if you loved your mate more than you loved yourself you would never do that to them you were loving yourself the truth is a person that commits adultery is a person that loves themself more than they love their mate period there is no argument about that you can argue it but you're arguing the wrong thing it says thou shalt not kill if you loved another person as you loved yourself you would not kill them man how dumb can you get and still breathe people that go out and kill do not love the people that they kill if you operate it in love there would be no murder there would be none of those kind of things thou shalt not steal did you know stealing have any of you ever had something stolen from you then you feel violated it hurts you bothers you if you loved other people you would never steal from that person you are an absolutely selfish totally self-centered person you aren't thinking about anybody but yourself you are in love with yourself you think you're the center of the universe and the world revolves around you if you're a thief if you loved other people you would never do that to a person it doesn't matter about what they've got a lot of people work for big organizations and you think they'll never miss it you steal five minutes at break and you just take an extra five minutes l never miss it you take pens home you take this home you still because it's a big corporation they'll never know anything would you want somebody to do that to you if you loved other people the way you love yourself you'd never steal from them the next thing it says that says thou shalt not bear false witness did you know that when you lie about something you are manipulating people you are making a fool of people they are trusting you they're putting faith in you and trusting your word and you're manipulating and misrepresenting things you're taking advantage of that person you wouldn't want anybody to manipulate and take advantage of you and yet anytime you lie and misrepresent something it's because you are thinking only about yourself and how this will benefit you and you forget that person hurt them do whatever to them it doesn't matter because after all I've got to look out for myself you just keep pulling back the layers and I guarantee a person who's a liar is a person who does not love the other people you are hurting and manipulating and taking advantage of them it says in the fee in John chapter 8 verse 44 that the devil is the father of all lies every time you lie you are having intercourse with the devil you are letting the devil flow through you if you loved other people you would never lie to them this would solve everything see the Old Testament didn't give them the route it only dealt with what's wrong thou shalt not bear false witness thou shalt not commit adultery thou shalt not kill thou shalt not steal but in the New Testament you go below that and you go to what is the real problem the real problem is that you've never received the real God kind of love you are a person who loves yourself more than you love God more than you love other people and because of that you will lie you will manipulate you will stab a person in the back he will do anything that you can do because you love yourself more than you love anything or anybody else and in the New Testament that's revealed and so the antidote is to find out how much God loves you and then once you receive this unconditional love and understand that God loves you not because you're lovely but because he is love and you start loving other people that way just by accident as a by-product you'll never steal you'll never lie you'll never commit adultery you'll never hurt her once you understand how much God loves you and if you could receive that and then start giving this to other people you would live holier accidently than you ever have on purpose before it would just be a byproduct in that powerful look in Matthew chapter 22 at these verses I'm trying to wind this down but just got a lot to say I'm going to say this quickly maybe Matthew chapter 22 there was a lawyer that came to Jesus in verse 35 one of them which was a lawyer asked him a question tempting him and saying master which is the greatest the great commandment in the law jesus said unto him thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy soul and with all thy mind this is the first and Great Commandment and the second is like unto it thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself on these two Commandments hang all the law and the prophets this astounded this lawyer look at this and it says while the fair and while the Pharisees were gathered together Jesus asked them he went on and asked them a question but anyway if no man was able to answer him after this it says in the last verse these people were just astounded nobody nobody would have said that the greatest commandment is loving God and loving people they would have listed thou shalt have no other gods before me you shall not covet you shall and they listed all of the shalt nots God listed all of the shells you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and it just astounded the people it was it was in the Old Testament law but it was hidden by all the extra things because the Old Testament law dealt with people's actions and outward things the New Testament deals with your heart and brothers and sisters most of us have not really moved into the New Covenant we are still living under an Old Covenant law mentality thinking that God is angry and he's trying to restrain all of these outward things and we've missed God's love for us and then releasing that love to other people and because we're trying to grit our teeth and hold on and force ourselves to do what's right man if you had ever received how much God loves you you would just find it would come flowing out on you you couldn't handle it I can testify I've already given that example about myself and I can testify of so many other people that once they get a revelation of how much God loves them all of this carnal stuff and sins and the things that we do that are so stupid they just start falling off the root of all sin is your own self-love and your own dependence upon yourself and once you ever understand how much God loves you I guarantee it will just shatter this self-love you'll totally get to where it doesn't matter that much about yourself God is more important our whole society is based on what is good for you and your hesitate to say things because I know we've got all kinds of different people here and somebody may take offense and get mad at me but praise God I'm leaving town in a couple of days but you know so much of the division that we see in the United States is because of people just thinking only about themselves they are God and the world revolves around them and if it if it is good for them or if it inconveniences them then there are for it or against it based on how they are for instance and again people may disagree with this but you know when it comes to abortion they'll sit there what about the woman's choice you aren't thinking about the woman you will you aren't thinking about the child it is the woman thinking only about herself and this is inconvenient and I may not have enough money to raise this baby so let's just kill it it all comes down to a selfish thing and you will find out that most of the people who sit there promote women's choice and all of this kind of stuff will sit there and be just violent and upset over the snail darter or over a whale or over something like this and then yeah they show these advertisements about the dogs and I just sit there and think and until you quit killing babies quit trying to condemn me over not taking care of your dog amen but you know what that comes down to it's just selfish it's just selfish but it would be inconvenient what about my finances anyway I could just go on and on but you just start talking about stuff like this and this is really what it boils down to if people loved God and loved people more than they love themselves they wouldn't do all of the social ills that we do to each other we wouldn't have these problems it really all goes you cannot put enough laws down you can't put enough rules down to control Society John Adams the second president the first vice president of the United States this is a quote from him he said that democracy is totally unfit for anybody but a more people if America ever ceases to be immoral people then democracy will actually destroy this nation and that's exactly what's happening there was a time that people loved God and other people and they had a compass there was a moral compass that some things were bigger than them but today we've got people that are all wrapped up in themselves and if you're all wrapped up in yourself you make a very small package and we've got people that just live for themselves and so man give me welfare give me whatever and they don't realize that if if they give you something for free then they had to take it from somebody else that's an ungodly principle you can't do things like that but they don't care let's vote for whoever will give me whatever give me free drugs give me free medication and I'll vote for you I don't care if you destroy the nation as long as I get mine there used to be a time when people realize that there were things more important than you and see understanding God's kind of love if you ever receive it is so selfless it is so pure God so loved the world that He gave once you understand and receive the love of God it will transform the way you think about all kind of social things it will transform the way you think about people you would never lie to them you'll never take advantage you would operate in integrity you would treat your employer the way you would want to be treated if you were the employer it would transform your life our society would be transformed if we loved one another the way that Christ loved us so I've said all of these things tonight just as introduction to say that this is really important what I'm going to be talking about amen and the rest of this week I'm going to be talking about so how did God love us and how do we turn around and love other people as Christ loved us and you know really out of all the things I'm Minister on this is probably the hardest because people think that oh I God loves me oh yeah Jesus loves me this I know and they think that they know this and there is a disconnect and people don't listen but I'm telling you that if you really had God's kind of love in you I'm going to use a lot of these scriptures but Ephesians chapter 3 says that if you understood the height the depth the length and the breadth of the love of God you would be filled with all the fullness of God so if you aren't filled with all the fullness of God if you just aren't to a place where you can't hardly stand it you're so happy you're so blessed you're so anointed you are so hopeful about everything you're optimistic if that's not you then you don't have a real revelation of the height the depth and the length and the breadth of the love of God most people think no I understand that God loves me that's not it let's go on to something else but the love of God is what will set you free and if you have if you have a sickness in your body you don't have a full revelation of God's love because the Bible says in Galatians 5:6 faith works by love if you really understood how much God loved you I guarantee your faith would go through the roof and your sickness would go it would be gone it would produce health in your body it would produce wealth it would produce everything the fullness of everything you would be walking in the fullness of God the greater revelation you have of love so I'm just saying that I know many people think oh I already understand this I don't need to know it if you've got lack and inaccuracy in your life if you aren't just overwhelmed with God then you need a greater revelation of love God is love first John 4:8 and I guarantee you none of us have plumbed the depths of God none of us fully understand how awesome he is but this love of God has changed my life and I've got a lot of things I can share with you I think that'll make a big difference and this is going to make an impact in your life a man

Channel: Andrew Wommack

Views: 34,481

Rating: 4.8325281 out of 5

Keywords: Andrew Wommack (Person), God (Deity), Jesus Christ (Deity), Love, God's Love, God's Word, Holy Spirit (Deity)

Id: Pyg9U6KKcIo

Length: 73min 23sec (4403 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 30 2013