1. Meaningful Sound bites
God Loves you
Jesus died for our sins
Living by faith
I’ll pray for you
How might others respond?
What would you say next?

2. God Loves You
1) Tragic suffering!
Not innocent

3. God loves you. Tragic suffering
Did God cause it?
Can it be fixed (now)?
Will it always be like this?

4. Did God cause it? Can it be fixed now? Will it always be like this?
Wheat and Tares
Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.
But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away.
When the wheat sprouted and formed ears, then the weeds also appeared.
"The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?'
"'An enemy did this,' he replied. "The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'
"'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them.
Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.'"
(Matthew 13:24-30)
Did God cause it? Can it be fixed now? Will it always be like this?

5. My God
Why?

6. Jesus said “Come follow me”
Learning and walking
The Lord God was walking in the Garden in the cool of the day. But Adam and Eve hid.
Jesus said “Come follow me”

8. 1 & 6 Brother, sister, let me serve you Let me be as Christ to you;
Pray that I may have the grace To let you be my servant, too.
2 We are pilgrims on a journey, We are partners on the road;
We are here to help each other Walk the mile and bear the load.
3 I will hold the Christlight for you In the night-time of your fear;
I will hold my hand out to you, Speak the peace you long to hear.
4 I will weep when you are weeping, When you laugh I’ll laugh with you;
I will share your joy and sorrow Till we’ve seen this journey through.
5 When we sing to God in heaven
We shall find such harmony,
Born of all we’ve known together
Of Christ’s love and agony.

9. God Loves You
Tragic suffering!

10. God is love What Kind of God?
Our understanding of Love Tells us something about God
Love is not power over OR control
Love is being “for” AND being vulnerable

11. Love is patient Love is kind Love does not envy
Love does not boast
Love is not proud
Love is not rude
Love is not self-seeking
Love is not easily angered
Love keeps no record of wrongs
Love does not delight in evil Love rejoices with the truth
Love always protects
Love always trusts
Love always hopes
Love always perseveres
Love never fails

12. God Loves You
Tragic suffering!
What kind of God?

13. God is love Our understanding of God Tells us something about Love
God’s love may not be an extrapolation of human love
Love has an “other” quality
Love has a timeless quality

14. But where there are prophecies, they will cease;
Love never fails
But where there are prophecies, they will cease;
where there are tongues, they will be stilled;
where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.
When I was a child, I talked like a child,
I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror;
then we shall see face to face.
Now I know in part;
then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love.

15. 1) My song is love unknown, My Saviour's love to me:
Love to the loveless shown, That they might lovely be.
O who am I, that for my sake My Lord should take frail flesh and die?
2) He came from His blessed throne, Salvation to bestow;
But men made strange, and none The longed-for Christ would know:
But O! my Friend, my Friend indeed, Who at my need His life did spend.

16. 3) In life no house, no home My Lord on earth might have;
In death, no friendly tomb, But what a stranger gave.
What may I say? Heaven was His home; And mine the tomb wherein He lay.
4) Here might I stay and sing, No story so divine;
Never was love, dear King! Never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend, in whose sweet praise I all my days could gladly spend.

17. Love has a face and a name

18. God Loves You Tragic suffering! What kind of God? What kind of Love?
How does this work?

19. God Loves You How does this work?
In a world which includes tragic suffering I still believe that
God made us in his image I sense the love of God in the love of others
God sent Jesus into the world for us I sense the love of God in the bible
God sent his Spirit in the world for us I sense the love of God when I have prayed

20. God loves you How does this work?
7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.
Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
(1 John 4)

21. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
36As it is written:
"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."
37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
38For I am convinced that neither death nor life,
neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future,
nor any powers,
39neither height nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us
from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 8)

22. You are the vine - we are the branches, Keep us abiding in You.
Then we’ll grow in Your love, Then we’ll go in Your name,
That the world will surely know That You have power to heal and to save.