Love Like Family

LifePoint Church Chicopee

Text: 1 Thes. 4:9
Summary:
Church was never intended to be something that we attend on the weekend. A church is part of God’s design to build a family.
1 Thessalonians 4:9 (ESV) Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another
5 Purposes for Life
Acts 2:41-47
We are made to love God and be loved by God. – Worship. Eph 1:1-3; Rom 5:8; Rom 8:39
We are formed for Gods family. – Fellowship/Communion. 1 Cor 1:9; Eph 2:19
We are created to become like Christ – Discipleship – Roman 8:28,29
We are made to serve God by serving others. – Ministry. Matt 25:40; Gal 5:13
We are commissioned to share the God News – Mission. Matthew 29:19,20
John 13:34 (ESV) A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
Romans 12:10 (ESV) Love one another with brotherly affection.
1 John 4:7-10
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1 John 4:11–12 (NLT) Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us
Ephesians 2:19 (NLT) So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family.
Two Family Truths:
1. You enter the family through faith in Jesus – Eph 2;8,9; John 1:12
2. You participate in the family through the local church - 1 Cor 12:18
“one another”
Romans 12:10 - love one another
1 Cor 12:25 – care for one another
Gal 5:13 – serve one another
Gal 6:2 – lift one another’s burdens
Eph 4:2 - humbly bear with one another
Eph 4:32 – be kind and forgive one another
Eph 5:21 - submit (yield) to one another
Col 3:16 – teach and admonish one another
1 Thes 4:18 – comfort one another
Heb 3:13 – exhort one another
Heb 10:24 – motivate one another to love
1 Peter 3:8 – show compassion to one another
1 Peter 4:9 – show hospitality to one another without complaining
1 Peter 4:10 – serve one another
1 John 3:23 And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.
1 John 4:12 (NLT). No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.
1. We love like family when we allow God to connect us to others in the church.
Ephesians 2:19 (NLT)So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family.
1 Corinthians 12:18 But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.
2. We love like family when we decide to participate rather than spectate.
Acts 2:46–47 (ESV) And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
3. We love like family when we work it out not walk away.
Philippians 2:12–13 (ESV) Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.