WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS ...SIMPLICITY

Happy Valentine’s Day! We continue our series What the World Needs Now Is with the sermon Simplicity. Love can be a complicated reality. Americans spend millions of dollars every year to celebrate that special “valentine” in their life. Yet, this day can also breed expectations that may be hard for any relationship to meet. What the world needs now is not just another romantic comedy or another Hallmark series! The world needs a true love that is able to cut through the complication and uncertainty with clarity and commitment. It is always easy to express love for one day, but what about a month? A year? Or a lifetime? We return to 1 John 2:20-29. These people are confused about how to identify true love. Just like today, there were voices and ideas that were motivated out of selfishness and greed, rather than truth and righteousness! The Apostle John reminds them that genuine love can only be found in being connected to Jesus Christ because this also gives them a relationship with God our Father. The world’s love will always be motivated by self-service and selfishness and we must choose either to love God or love the world. There is really no in between!  It sounds so simple, but yet, so complicated. John gives us clarity about a love that can be found in a relationship with Jesus Christ. It cuts through the completing desires and complications and shares a love that is a “pearl of great of price” that is worth more than we can imagine! As you read 1 John 2:20-29 it is our most earnest prayer that you will find the simple joy of God’s love filling your heart and soul! 1 John 2:20-29 20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. 21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. 22 Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist– denying the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also. 24 As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is what he promised us– eternal life. 26 I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit– just as it has taught you, remain in him. 28 And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. 29 If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him. (NIV)