Mosaic Church RVA

You didn't start this. Before you ever turned toward God, he had already turned toward you, and everything you now call faith is the overflow of that first love. It can't be split into parts you keep and parts you decline; to be loved by God is to receive all of it at once, his Spirit, his abiding presence, and a love for others you never manufactured on your own. The love you give away is the surest sign you were loved first.

You can’t love your way into being loved by God — it runs the other direction. This passage strips love down to one staggering claim: God loved you first, at the cost of his own Son, while you were still unlovely, and that received love is the only kind you can truly give away. So the self-giving, others-focused, keep-reaching-for-the-unlovely love you’re called to isn’t something you manufacture — it’s proof that God abides in you. No one has ever seen God, but the watching world sees him when his people love like this.

What comes to mind when you hear the word “submission”—and why does it feel so uncomfortable? In this message, we step into Paul’s call to a countercultural life of mutual submission, where love expresses itself through humility, service, and choosing the interests of others over our own. Rooted in the example of Christ and empowered by God’s grace, this kind of community becomes a powerful witness to the world. The question is simple but searching: where is God inviting you to lay yourself down so that others might be lifted up?

Not everyone who claims to speak for God actually does — so how do you tell the true voice from the counterfeit? John won't let you choose between your brain and the Spirit: real discernment is both, a mind anchored in who Jesus really is and the Spirit bearing witness to the truth in your heart. The test is sharp — does this teaching confess Jesus Christ come in the flesh, or quietly reshape him into something else? Take heart, because the One in you is greater than the one in the world; if you've grown lazy in the Word or thin in prayer, this is your call to renew your strength.

Talk is cheap — and you know it. In this passage, John names the gap between the love we claim and the love we live: the person who says they'd die for a brother but won't part with their stuff. Using Cain as the anti-pattern and Christ as the standard, John presses us toward a love that shows up in deeds and truth, not words. If God's love has actually changed you, it won't stay quiet — it will move your hands.

Sin doesn't fit you anymore. In this passage, John uses some of his sharpest language in the whole letter to remind believers that we have been born of God, that his seed abides in us, and that the Son of God appeared to destroy the very works we once called home. So if you've made peace with sin in any corner of your life, this sermon is a mirror — and a call back to who you really are.

How will you feel when Jesus returns — overjoyed, or ashamed? In this sermon from 1 John 2:28–3:3, Pastor Greg presses us back to the heart of the Christian life: abide in Christ, and let the hope of seeing him face to face shape every step today. The ultimate joy of eternity is not a shinier version of this world or even reunion with loved ones — it is finally beholding God as he is, and being made like him. Don’t be surprised by heaven; live now as the children of God you already are.

What does it really mean to love the people closest to us in the family of faith? In this message, we hear Jesus’ simple but weighty command to love one another as he has loved us—and we explore how that kind of love goes beyond affection to become self-giving, God-powered, and unmistakably visible. Drawing from Scripture and lived experience, we’re invited to see love as the very glue that builds unity in the church and bears witness to the world. This sermon asks a practical question with eternal weight: who is God calling you to know, serve, forgive, and love more intentionally this week?

What do you do when the world feels unsteady and even trusted voices fall away? John's answer is not to try harder or learn more — it's to remember what God has already done for you. You have been anointed by the Holy Spirit, you already know the truth, and you have been promised eternal life in Christ. The call today is simple: rest on the solid rock, hold fast to what you have heard from the beginning, and abide in him.

What drives you? In this passage, John draws a sharp line: you either love God or you love the world, and you can't have both. But the "world" John warns against isn't God's good creation — it's the corrupted system of desire, pride, and self-sufficiency that is already passing away because of what Christ accomplished. The call today is to reorder your loves, invest in what endures, and abide in the God who holds you forever.