Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

Psalm 68:19,20 Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens. Our God is a God who saves; from the Sovereign Lord comes escape from death.

We serve a risen Savior, He is alive, He is faithful, you can put your trust in Him, He will not disappoint you. Our God loves us so much! The scriptures tells us in John’s gospel 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Our God loves us so much we read in Rom.5:8 that even when we were his enemy he still sent his son to die for us so that we could have eternal life with him. Eph.2:4,5 says, but because of his great love for us God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you are saved. Our God is a God who loves us so much. Do you know there is no end to how much He loves us? There are no limits to how much he loves us. And our God can not change his mind like we can. He is always in love with us forever. Eph.3:14-19 For this reason I kneel, I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being. So that Christ may dwell in your hearts though faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Wow there is a lot to digest there. It would seem to me there is a high priority on knowing and understanding the love of Christ. I would urge you to find time this week and read these verses Eph.3:14-19 again and allow the Holy Spirit some time to speak to our hearts. The sense I get is that Paul is praying for the body of Christ calling on the Holy Spirit to minister to us that our eyes and our hearts would be open to see how great God’s grace, and mercy and love is hoping that it would cause us to love him back. The scriptures do say that we love him because he first loved us. Paul’s hope is that the church would be rooted and established in his love and that Christ would dwell in our hearts though faith. Do you know what God’s hope is for us? That our heartbeat would be his heartbeat that we would love him as he loves us that we would be hungry for the things of God. That our desire would be to pray always, and trust him and follow him and be able to say as Paul says for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. And as Isaiah, who said woe is me if I do not preach the word of God. God’s hope for us is that we would be a people of faith. This is the relationship and commitment God is looking for. There is a story that goes like this. A young boy was on the roof top of his burning house and the firefighters were pleading with him to jump but the young boy was afraid and would not jump. His father then said to his son jump into my arms I promise I will catch you and the young boy without hesitation jumped into his fathers arms. This is faith, that young boy knew his father! trusted his father! and jumped! God wants us to know him and to trust him and to obey him. John 14:21 Whoever has my commands and obeys them he is the one who loves me. Isn’t that awesome that God longs to be in relationship with us. Paul was hoping that the body of Christ would understand how wide and long and high and deep The love of Christ is because if there is just a tiny understanding of it.. There is love. There is relationship. There is faith. There is power! There is victory.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes there is victory in your life and sometimes there is fear or doubt?

In 1Sam.17 we read about the story of David and Goliath. When David was just a boy his three older brothers went to war with Saul to fight against the philistines and the giant Goliath. Saul’s

army occupied one hill and the Philistine army occupied another hill and there was a valley between them. For forty days and nights Goliath taunted Saul’s army and they were gripped with fear. One day Jesse sends David to find out how the war is going and how his brothers are doing. David witnesses Goliath’s mocking and sees the army full of fear. When David hears a soldier saying what the king will give to the one who kill’s the giant, he inquires about it and his oldest brother’s reaction was anger toward him. When David speaks to Saul he tells him let no one lose heart on account of this philistine, your servant will go and fight him. David also shares with Saul a testimony about himself (to prove the point that he is able to go against Goliath.) He tells Saul the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver my from the hand of this Philistine. Now when David speaks to the giant he says you come against me with sword spear and javelin but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty the God of the armies of Israel whom you have defied. This day the Lord will hand you over to me and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head.

Saul and everyone in his army including David’s three brothers did not have the faith to trust God to win the battle for them. All were gripped by fear.

Sometimes there are things in our lives that we go through that we are not able to get victory over and we lose sight of God (sometimes) but that does not mean we do not have faith. I call this the normal Christian life. I call this taking your eyes off Jesus. Remember when Peter said to Jesus if that is you on the lake call me to come to you and Jesus called him to come and Peter walked on water for just a bit until he took his eyes off of Jesus and saw the waves and saw what he was doing and he kind of freak out and probably was saying to himself this is impossible I can’t walk on water and then he began to sink. That’s what happens sometimes. Another example would be how Paul taught in Rom.7 the struggle between the flesh and the spirit. You find yourself doing that what you do not want to do and not doing that what you want to do. So you see this war waging inside you between the spirit and the flesh. These struggles are real. But lets remember there is nothing impossible with God So what made David different from all the rest? His eyes were on the Lord and they remained on Him He was not afraid. There was no fear in him. David knew the Lord Almighty was on his side. He knew by faith God would deliver him from this enemy. He trusted God with his life. He was prayed up! David knew the battle belonged to the Lord. Church remember that no matter what you may be going through God is always with you He knows everything! Cast all your care on him. Trust him. The bible teaches us that perfect love cast out fear and Gods love is perfect. 2 Tim says God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and love and a sound mind. God loves us so much he wants more for us. He wants us to live the victorious Christian life and put off the normal Christian life and we can do this through Christ who has given us the power to live such a life. Put on Christ the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead dwells in us. There is victory in the Name of Jesus! At the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Deut.10:12 what does the lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God to walk in all his ways to love him to serve the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul. This is the heartbeat of God! To love the lord with all your heart and with all your soul.

Finally we come back to our scripture verses John 21:15-18 Jesus said to Simon Peter son of John Do you truly love me more than these? Yes Lord he said you know that I love you. Jesus said feed my lambs.

Again Jesus said to Simon Peter son of John do you love me? Peter said yes I love you Jesus said take care of my lambs. The third time Jesus said Simon Peter son of John do you love me? Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time do you love me? He said Lord you know all things you know that I love you. Jesus said feed my sheep.

Matt.28:18 Jesus came to them and said all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the son and of the holy spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.

God loves us so much He is asking us the same question today as he did to Simon Peter, do you love me and Jesus answers feed my sheep. And Jesus says a second time to each of us do you love me and Jesus answers take care of my sheep. And Jesus who knows everything asked a third time do you love me and he answers all of us feed my sheep.