by

ARMS Of Love (Sermon Audio)

This is the audio from the November 8, 2020 sermon, “ARMS Of Love”, shared by Tom Lemler at the Deer Run Church of Christ.

Text:  Mark 10:13-16

While the disciples tried to keep the children at arms length away from Jesus, He called them to himself and wrapped them in arms of love.  As we seek to be like Jesus, it is important to consider who we have pushed away so that we can repent and wrap them in our ARMS of love.

Today, how will you express God’s love through your . . . 

  • Attitudes: Our actions and our character begin with our thoughts and attitudes.  To embrace others with God’s love will require us to fully examine our attitudes toward God, toward them, and toward our self.
    • Philippians 2:5=8 — Taking on the attitude of Jesus means that we will humble our self and embrace others with a sacrificial love.
  • Responses:  How we respond to people goes a long way toward making them feel like they have been embraced with God’s love or not.  Knowing how to speak truth and speak love at the same time is a lesson we need to learn from Jesus as we allow His Spirit to guide our responses to people.
    • 1 Peter 3:15-16 — God tells us to be ready, or be prepared, to respond with gentleness and respect to all who would ask about our hope in Christ.  This command seems to assume that we are living in such a way that people will see God at work in us and want to know more about what they see.
  • Motives:  God is one who looks at the heart and judges us accordingly, so it is important that we examine our motives as we reach out to embrace people with the love of God.  People will often see through our motives of selfishness and in so doing they will reject the embrace of God’s love.  Our goal shouldn’t be to make them be like us, rather it should be to help them become more like Christ.
    • 1 Thessalonians 2:3-6 — In a world full of people trying to please, promote, and advance themselves, we are called to purify our motives and seek the good of others above that of our self.  When we represent Jesus with pure motives, He is seen more clearly and our embrace of people helps them to know God’s love more fully.
  • Service:  Changing our attitudes, responses, and motives to be like that of Christ is not only a good thing, but it ought to lead us to serve one another in love.  In a time when the physical embrace is discouraged, we can still embrace one another in the way we serve..
    • Galatians 5:13-15 — All those in Christ have been set free — not so that we can more fully pursue our selfish endeavors, but so that we can serve all people.
    • 2 Corinthians 9:12 — As we serve people and wrap them in our ARMS of love, the result is that there will be an outpouring of thanksgiving unto God for His glorious work.

So, when you consider your family members, your church family, your coworkers, your classmates, your friends, your enemies, and all other people who may be like you or very different from you, will you choose today to wrap them in the ARMS of your love as you express God’s love to the? 

In prayer,
Tom