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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

Brian Hindman

Why I Love Jesus

Well, our subject this morning is a rather simple 1, but I hope it will be profound.

And that is just a simple explanation of why I love Jesus Christ.

And what is it that would be the motivation for that, the foundation, the basis for that?

And I like to study my Bible a lot and to study into the deep things of prophecy and all the symbolism and all the theology.

And sometimes, I think in my own experience, I can maybe lose sight of the greatest, biggest focus and most important piece and aspect, and that is Jesus.

That in all, he is the great center from which all truth and all love and all joy and happiness, it emanates from him at the center.

And so this morning, it's a fairly simple message, but I hope that it will be a blessing to you as I will do my best to try to explain why I do love Jesus.

So I'm asking the question though, as I said a moment ago, why is this important?

When I was a teacher, at the beginning of every class, 1 of the things they would have us do, or they wanted us to do in education, is to be able to tell all of your students, why does this matter?

As a history teacher, that can sometimes be challenging.

Why do I have to know all these things from hundreds or thousands of years ago in the past that are, they're not relevant to me today, are they?

How are you going to express and explain to your students that this information is something you need to know?

And I remember thinking, you know, math teachers, you know, how often do students say, Why do I need to learn this about the quadratic formula?

Even if you don't use those exact formulas, it teaches you how to think logically and systematically.

And the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 1440, let all things be done how?

So God is a God of order and mathematics based on principles of order.

The importance of history, You know, I had a professor in college who said, that's the subject I used to mostly teach.

He would tell us on the first day of class, imagine you're sitting there in your seat and imagine having your entire memory erased so that you didn't know anything about yourself.

I mean, completely wiped clean, and imagine now, that is what it is like, in a sense, to not know history.

You have no meaning, no context for who am I, you don't know why you're sitting, why am I here, where am I going, what am I doing?

If you don't know anything at all, and of course about your past, then that is the same way of just having your memory wiped clean.

You don't have an anchor or basis or foundation to know why things are the way they are and where you're going and so on.

There's a scripture that Job says in Job 22 verse 21, it's very short, it says, Acquaint now thyself with him.

Become acquainted, speaking of becoming acquainted with God, acquaint now thyself with him and be at peace.

But the message is simple, become acquainted with our God because when we do, we will find peace and joy and a satisfaction and happiness that nothing else can replace.

You know, the greatest commandment in all the scriptures, Jesus was asked a question, what is the greatest commandment or the great commandment, depending on translation?

What is the most important thing that a person should do?

And Jesus answered this in Matthew 22, 36 through 38.

He was asked the question, which is the great commandment in the law?

Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.

With all your heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, This is the first and great commandment, greatest commandment.

And this used to perplex me a little bit because my association with love was that love is primarily a feeling.

I preached a sermon about this last year called, I Principle You, because love is a principle.

It has feelings that follow the principle.

You cannot command somebody to feel a certain way about someone or something else.

Either you have the feelings or you don't.

But what you can command are principles that are based on righteousness and truth, that are based on what is right and what is true, those can be commanded because those are things I can choose to realize and to follow and to accept and believe.

And so in seeing the principles of who Jesus is, then the feeling should come with that in admiration and an appreciation for who he is.

So this morning I just wanted to walk through 7 reasons, and I'll try not to take too much time, I can talk about Bible verses, I have a lot of them, but I'm not gonna try not to use all of them, but just to explain, and some of these reasons are interconnected, and I'm hoping that some of these reasons also will be significant to you and will be meaningful to you as well as to why you also might love Jesus.

But before I begin, I'm just gonna bow my head and pray.

So if you'll bow your heads with me, let's pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, I pray this morning as we consider your son and the incredible work and life and truth and mercy and grace and things that He has done for us.

Lord, I pray that you would help us to think, that we would think more than maybe we ever have before about who Jesus is, what He has done, what He is doing, and what He wants to do in each of our lives.

Lord, this is my humble prayer in Jesus' name, amen.

I'm gonna look at the verses, or some of the verses, for each 1 of these, and I'll see if you can figure out what it is that it relates to for each reason, and then I'll put the reason up on the screen.

So, first of all, 2 Peter 3, verse 9, why I love Jesus, the Bible says, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is what?

But is longsuffering to us word, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Well, he has been patient with me in many, many ways.

I had the privilege of growing up in a wonderful home and with wonderful parents, was adopted into a Seventh-day Adventist pastor's family.

Couldn't have had a better upbringing, couldn't have had a better environment, better teaching, better schools, better training, but I have not always had a focus and an eye single for the glory of God.

But throughout all of my life of 44 years thus far, Jesus has been patient with me.

Been so patient in just waiting for me and reaching out to me, drawing me in ever so kind and loving ways closer to him, even though I have not always recognized and realized that, and I have veered down my own selfish ways far too often that I care to admit.

Romans 2 verse 4 says, "'Or despises thou the riches, ' speaking of Jesus, "'the riches of his goodness and forbearance "'and longsuffering, "'not knowing that the goodness of God "'leadeth thee to repentance.'" It is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance, but in that goodness, it's articulated and defined as being very patient with us.

Romans 5, eight's not even on the screen, but God commended his love toward us in that.

While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

We had done nothing to commend ourselves and make ourselves worthwhile, someone worthy to save, but Jesus came on a rescue mission and said, I'm gonna rescue those people.

I am thankful that Jesus has been so very patient with me.

And if you wanna write down some of these other references, I won't read all of them.

And we'll look now at why I love Jesus, reason number 6.

And if these are not memory verses of yours, I wanna encourage you to jot them down and consider just memorizing them.

Most of them are short and they're easy to remember.

And they will give you a strength of character and a strength of mind and purpose, unlike anything else can, to have God's Word anchored and cemented in your mind and heart, like nothing else.

Psalm 46, verse 1 says, "'God is our refuge and strength, "'a very present, ' what?

"'Help in trouble.'" God has helped me so many times in so many ways.

I can't even, I mean, even just to mention even the loss of my parents when my mom passed away from cancer.

That was a real shock and a struggle 17 years ago.

My dad passed away from a heart attack 4 years ago, that was a shock and a surprise.

But in the midst of all of that, Jesus has helped me.

He has helped me to find Him, He has helped me to find peace, to find meaning in life.

Life has no real substantive purpose and meaning if it's not connected in Him and based on what He wants to do in my life.

Joshua 1.9 says, "'Have not I commanded thee?

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Why I Love Jesus

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