Love God Love People Nick Bowlin | River Church Frankfurt

Series: The Love of God
Message 1 – Love God, Love People: Receiving His Love First
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Opening Scripture – The Greatest Commandment
Matthew 22:37–39 (NKJV)
“Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”


Point 1 – God First Revealed His Love Through the Law
Exodus 20:1–17 (NKJV, summarized for preaching):
* Commandments 1–4: Love God (no other gods, no idols, don’t take His name in vain, honor the Sabbath).

* Commandments 5–10: Love people (honor parents, don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t covet).

* The Ten Commandments revealed God’s holy standard and His covenant love.

* They showed us what love looks like in action—but they also revealed our inability to live it out on our own.

* The Law pointed to the need for something greater: a Savior.



Point 2 – Jesus Fulfilled the Law Through Love
Matthew 5:17 (NKJV)
“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.”
Romans 13:8–10 (NKJV)
“Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not bear false witness,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
* Jesus didn’t throw out the Ten Commandments—He fulfilled them.

* He lived them perfectly and then summed them up in two commands: Love God, love people.

* Where the Law demanded righteousness, Jesus supplied it through His love.

COURTHOUSE
Point 3 – The Law Is Now Written on Our Hearts
Jeremiah 31:33 (NKJV)
“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”
Ezekiel 36:26–27 (NKJV)
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”
* Under the Old Covenant, the Law was written on stone tablets.

* Under the New Covenant, the Law is written on hearts of flesh by the Spirit.

* Love is no longer external obligation—it is internal transformation.



Point 4 – Receiving, Experiencing, and Being Changed by His Love
Romans 5:8 (NKJV)
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
John 13:34–35 (NKJV)
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 15:9–13 (NKJV)
“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love… Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”
* His love is received in salvation.

* His love is experienced daily in relationship with Him.

* His love changes us from sinners into sons, from slaves into friends.

* His love empowers us to love others—even laying our lives down.



Point 5 – Empowered by Love to Live Fearlessly
Ephesians 3:16–19 (NKJV)
“…that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
1 John 4:17–18 (AMP)
“In this [union and communion with Him] love is brought to completion… There is no fear in love [dread does not exist], but full-grown (complete, perfect) love turns fear out of doors and expels every trace of terror!”
Romans 8:15 (AMP)
“For [the Spirit which] you have now received [is] not a spirit of slavery to put you once more in bondage to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption… in which we cry, Abba, Father!”
* Love roots and grounds us.

* Love casts out fear.

* Love empowers us to live as sons and daughters, not slaves.