Sermon preached on Sunday, April 1, 2012 at Garden Valley Chapel during our morning worship service based on Matthew 7:9-12.

Take your Bible if you will and open it to the seventh chapter of the book of Matthew where we conclude our study on verses 7 to 12.

I invite you stand in the reading of God´s Word. Read Matthew 7:7-12.

For many years the basic instrument of music was the harpsichord. As its keys are depressed, a given string is plucked to create the desired note, much as a guitar string is plucked with a pick.

But the tone made in that way is not pure, and the mechanism is relatively slow and limiting.

Sometime during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, during Beethoven´s lifetime, an unknown musician modified the harpsichord so that the keys activated hammers that struck, rather than plucked, the strings.

With that minor change, a major improvement was made that would henceforth radically enhance the entire musical world, giving a grandeur and breadth never before known.

The way was paved for the dramatic and thrilling compositions of Rachmaninoff, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, and Chopin.

It was this grandeur and breadth never before known that our Lord´s teachings brought to the center stage of human history.

It is no wonder that at the end of this sermon "the crowds were at amazed at His teaching" (7:28).

In one setting our Lord had preached a sermon like no other had before.

In this masterful sermon our Lord teaches concerning human relationships - how we ought to treat one another.

We do so because we are His children and are a part of His family - of the household of God.

This topic, which we began last Lord´s Day, is centered upon the character and nature of God as we look to him to motivate our love for others.

You must start with the generous nature of our heavenly Father. You must start with His example. You must start with His benevolence, His graciousness.

If we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, we must begin with God.

And so we begin with God.

Here God in Christ reveals the standards for kingdom living. If you are to love others the way God wants you to love, then you must begin with God as the epicenter of all.

To this end, our Lord gives us three ways we look upon God as our motive for loving others...

1. His promises for His children (vv. 7-8)
2. His pattern for His children to follow (vv. 9-11)
3. His principle for His children to live (v. 12)

Follow along as Pastor David Torres concludes this short series titled, "Start Loving."