Prelude to: ‘The greatest is LOVE’. Love for God, His Word, His people and sinners.”

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other. John 15:1-17

“I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.

“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’

“Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.

“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’

“In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty. “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty. Malachi 3:6-12

“The greatest is LOVE’. Love for God, His Word, His people and sinners.”
C.S. Lewis wrote, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

The Psalmist wrote,
“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my
heart, and my portion forever… It is good to be near unto God.
I have made the sovereign God my refuge;
I will tell of all your deeds.”
What is God like?
“I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.”
My friends, because God does not change, the Lord’s mercies and his blessing of good gifts are new every morning. In the day of Malachi God’s people grumbled against God, accusing him of doing them wrong.
In Christ God has shown us how much he loves us.
‘Greater love has no man than he lay down his life for his friends.”
Jesus calls us his friends, he calls us to be partners in God’s business of sharing God’s love for sinners.
They will know we are Christians by our love for God, our love for God’s Word, our love for each other and our love for sinners.
We offer to God our tithes and offerings not because our salvation depends on it, for we have been saved by grace alone by faith, faith in Christ alone. Jesus calls us to store up treasures in heaven by seeking first His kingdom and the honour of His holy Name.