The Heart of the Matter: Love Befriends

South Bay Community Church

The Heart of the Matter: Love Befriends

February 20, 2022 • Pastor Tammy Long • Ruth 1:6–18

A spiritual practice called Visio Divina, meaning divine seeing, uses visual elements and invites God to speak into our heart through the image. A puzzle of Snoopy and Charlie Brown from the popular comic strip stirs up warmth, love, and the gift of friendship. The puzzle can benefit us in divine seeing when the Trinity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit reveal to us the love that the Trinity shares together in the divine community. True friendship is something we all desire and hunger for since we were made for it. The first thing God said was that it was not good for humanity to be alone. To be in community and enjoy friendships is part of us reflecting the image of God. God works through our relationships and friendships to grow us, form us, guide us, and teach us to love and draw closer to God. When we have good friends in our lives, they help us to become better people, and they help us to grow spiritually to become more like Christ. Good friends challenge us, encourage us, and check us when necessary. A person who has good friends is richly blessed. The theme for today’s message is “Love Befriends...”

The Heart of the Matter: Love Heals

February 27, 2022 • Pastor Tammy Long • Philemon

God has given us a new heart of flesh where we are becoming more like Jesus. Followers of Jesus are new creations with the indwelling Holy Spirit. Yet the disease of sin is deeply embedded in our DNA; we are a broken, wounded people living in a broken and wounded world. We are not totally transformed yet, so our brokenness leaks through. Many of the wounds we’ve experienced in this world are still tender; some are infected with bitterness, anger, and hatred; God desires to heal us, but healing can be a long and winding road. This is evident in the pain of broken relationships. God’s Kingdom vision is how we are to get along loving one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, loving those who don’t know God, and even loving our enemies. It is tough to love, especially when we have been wounded, hurt, abused, oppressed, forgotten, blinded to the image of God in others, or wrongfully treated. Our focus for today’s message, concluding our series, The Heart of it All, is “Love Heals...”

The Heart of the Matter: Love Flows

February 13, 2022 • Ephesians 5:1–2, Mark 12:30–31

"There is a great upbeat song that declares our desire to walk, talk, live, pray, love, and look like Jesus. We love Jesus; we think about all Jesus has done for us and all of who Jesus is. Jesus’ amazing love for every person is shown in his kindness, patience, grace, power, and presence. We follow Jesus in his justice and his kingdom reign as our Lord of Lords. Yes! We want to be just like Jesus. When you were younger, did you ever look at an older person, were inspired by them, and felt you wanted to be just like them? Perhaps you are inspired by a devotional, which we are distributing for Black History Month, “On the Shoulders of Giants,” providing examples about people touching the lives of others in an impactful way. No matter how great those examples may be, there is no better person than Jesus to follow, imitate, and pattern our lives after, as the love of God flows through us to others and ourselves..."

The Heart of the Matter: Love Receives

February 6, 2022 • Pastor Tammy Long • Ezekiel 36:24–28, Ezekiel 36:16–19

"We are continuing our theme for this year of Moving Forward in God’s Direction. If you missed any of the prior messages on this theme, you can find them on our website and app, including written sermon reflections to review so that you don’t have to listen to the entire audio sermon. For our message today, God is drawing us to look at the people of Israel about 800 years after the Exodus. They got to the Promised Land, but generation after generation continued to disobey the promise they made to God to obey His laws and His ways, forgetting the promise they made to God. As a consequence for continued rebellion against God, the Northern Kingdom was destroyed by the Assyrians, and the Southern Kingdom went into Babylonian captivity. There are times when God says we have rebelled enough and the consequences catch up to us. Then there are times when God says the hardship we are facing is enough, and by the grace and providential plan of God, it is over. The time for these hardship consequences was coming to an end, for God has a larger purpose and a plan of action based on the love of God..."