The Table California
The Table is a church family in Arroyo Grande, California. Our desire is to give Jesus His desire...a house where He can be Himself with His family. This podcast hosts the weekly teachings from our Sunday evening gatherings and occasionally supplemental conversations throughout the week.
The Table California
Rooted in Agape: Reflecting God's Unconditional Love
What if your love for others could reflect the pure, unconditional love of God? How can it when our experiences often lead to misconceptions of what love is and, worse, who God is? But Kingdom people live with a pure quality of love for God and love for others...in spite of their experiences. This week we examine the concept of unconditional, divine love that transcends fleeting emotions and circumstances.
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While we were worshiping I saw something. I don't know that we have these trees here in California, but we have them all over the place in North Carolina. They're Bradford pear trees. Do we have these in California? No, well, bradford. I just saw this like grove of these Bradford pear trees.
Speaker 1:Bradford pear trees grow really fast and because they grow fast, they don't have a strong root system. Their wood is very brittle and fragile. They're one of the first trees to get their leaves. And so what happens? When a winter storm comes early, the ice hangs on these Bradford pear trees. So you've got this perfect storm of weak, brittle limbs, heavy ice, and they just break all over the place and they don't actually produce any fruit. I don't even know why they're called pear trees because they don't produce fruit, but they look really pretty. And so people in North Carolina and the South, they plant them all over the place because they grow fast and they look really pretty, but there's no strength there, there's no root system, they fail.
Speaker 1:So why is God showing that to me during worship? We don't want to be Bradford pear trees, really simple. We don't want to look like something, but internally we have no root system, we have no strength. We have no backbone. We have no backbone. We have no foundation in God. We want to be kingdom people that are strong, that can hold weight, that can. If a storm comes in out of season, like the ice storm I was talking about, it doesn't matter, we've got weight to support whatever comes. So let that just be an encouragement to you. Go deep, go deep with God, have strength, internal foundation in the spirit, be kingdom people. Okay, amen, let's eat.
Speaker 2:He's like yes.
Speaker 1:No message for today, all right, so we are going to continue in our discussion on being a kingdom people, a people that have the qualities of the kingdom. Last week we talked about family. This week we're going to talk about love, and Joshua is going to read the two main passages of Scripture that we're going to be looking at today. The first one is 1 John 4.19. You want to read that. For us, joshua, we love because he first loved us. That's 1 John 4.19. And the second passage is what Jesus says in Mark 12, verse 30 and 31.
Speaker 2:Very good. Thank you, Joshua.
Speaker 1:Very good. Thank you, joshua. So Jesus is saying love the Lord, your God, with a little bit of whatever is left over at the end of your week. Just give that to him. No, that's not what Jesus is saying. Love the Lord, your God, with all, all, everything, completely all. We'll get to that in a second.
Speaker 1:So we're going to talk about love today. We want to be a kingdom people who are not just saved. Remember we've been talking about how Mary was clinging to Jesus on that resurrection Sunday outside of the empty tomb, and Jesus said don't cling to me, I have not yet ascended. We want to be a people who are clinging to the king where he is. We want to be a kingdom people. So one of the qualities of kingdom people is that we love. Kingdom people are a people of agape. There are people of God-like love. It's a love that transcends emotion. It has nothing to do with feeling. It has nothing to do with romantic movies or what we learned as dating teenagers. It is agape love. It is God-like love. It's a love that defies reason and logic. It's a love that defies reason and logic. And when passions fade and lust moves on to something else, love agape remains. It's steadfast, it's weighty, it's eternal. It's God love. The world knows nothing of this love. It belongs to God and it belongs nothing of this love. It belongs to God and it belongs to God's people. Man, that breeze feels so good. God's love is a quality of his kingdom. So if we're going to be kingdom people, if we're going to be Jesus people, we've got to carry this agape love people. We've got to carry this agape love.
Speaker 1:So I've got three points that I'm going to make to you like a good preacher. I've got three points. I've got no illustrations. I don't think we'll see. No, I do. Actually, I've got three points and then I want to drill down into something towards the end of the message. So the first point that I want to make is this Kingdom people reject any idea about love that is not seen in the life of Jesus. Kingdom people reject any idea about love that we don't see demonstrated in Jesus. See demonstrated in Jesus.
Speaker 1:Now, it's challenging to talk about something as monumental as the love of God, because there's some kingdom qualities that you could point to, like. If we want to talk about humility, I feel like there's some verses that we could point to and be like oh, this adequately describes humility, generosity oh, there's some verses that we could point to and be like oh, this adequately describes humility. Generosity oh, there's some verses that we can point to and be like oh, I understand what the Bible is teaching us about generosity. Based on these verses, love is like this huge thing. There's not like one or two verses that we can point to and really get a good understanding and grasp of what kingdom love is.
Speaker 1:The bible actually uses at least six different words to describe love. We've got one in english. We've got one, so we've got muscle memory of what the world teaches us is love which is deficient and inferior. We've got this monumental thing of love, and then we've got limited language ability to try to understand it. But, good news, I'm going to get it all unpacked for you in about 30 minutes and then we'll all walk away just having a full revelation of God's love for us. I'm glad you're here, edie.
Speaker 1:In English, we have one word for love, and that one word is used so much in our culture that it's lost its meaning, it's become diluted, it has no weight, it's worn out, it's overused. Love you, brother, love you, love you, appreciate you, love you. Now the consequence is when we come across this word in the Bible, we read our experiences into something that belongs to God. This is very important to the point that I'm trying to make. So we come to God and we come to his word with our experience of this word love and we filter who God is and what his love is like through our experiences, through our limited and deluded understanding of this word love. Anyone here think that's a good way to come to an understanding of who God is? Bring all of my experiences and look at God through the filter of that lens. No, remember kingdom people.
Speaker 1:We reject any idea about love that we don't see demonstrated in the life of Jesus.
Speaker 1:So, for example, 1 John 4, 8 says this three words God is love. So if we come to that statement and we filter it through our experience with love, not only are we going to have a wrong idea about love, we're going to have a wrong idea about God because God is love. What if the person who taught you what love is was manipulative and controlling your parents, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a spouse, whatever? Then you're going to see in the Bible that God is love and you're going to see him through the lens of your experience and the result is you approach God the same way you did with the manipulator If I don't act the way that he wants me to, he's going to be angry. It's manipulation.
Speaker 1:Or maybe your experience is different. What if the person that you loved most in the world betrayed you and left? And then you come to the Bible and you see God is love? You'll think, well, I don't know if I can trust this God, because I've experienced love and it really messed me up. And now that you're telling me God experienced love and it really messed me up, and now that you're telling me God is love, this is what happens when we read our experience into who God is.
Speaker 1:Now we may not consciously think these things, but if we filter God's love through our experience, then we will have a God made in our own image, because we project onto him what has been done to us in the name of love. This is why we have to look to Jesus and allow him to define what love is. Not Johnny, not Susie, not mommy, not daddy Jesus. Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Jesus is the fullness of God revealed to us. Jesus is perfectly qualified to reveal something as monumental as love to us. Jesus is perfectly qualified to reveal something as monumental as love to us. Not a movie, not a romantic novel, not even our relationships that mean so much to us and define us. It cannot define love. At best, at best it can be an expression of love, but it cannot be the definition of love. So point number one kingdom people reject any idea about love that is not seen in the person of Jesus. Point number two kingdom people know that God is the source of love. I see this in 1 John 4, 19. John writes this in 1 John 4, 19. We love because he first loved us. God is the source of love. He loves first.
Speaker 1:Now, the source of something is important because where something comes from determines the nature of it, the quality of it, the character of it, the purpose of it. Our brother here hails from the great island of Puerto Rico. That is the source of our friend Paco. It defines him, it shapes him. His preferences for food, the color of his skin, everything about him is sourced from that place where he came from. Same goes for you. The source where something begins matters.
Speaker 1:I was thinking about when bottled water first became the rage. All these bottled water companies were saying well, ours is sourced from an artisanal spring in the rainforest of Peru or whatever. Oh well, ours is sourced from a 10 billion year old glacier. It's pure. Why are they doing that? They were trying to convince us that the source was without mixture. It was pure and so you needed to have this. Why? Because of the source that that water came from.
Speaker 1:Where something comes from matters, and our love comes from God, comes from God. True love, authentic love, kingdom love is from God. Any definition of love that does not begin with God is incomplete. If I try to love you without knowing that I'm loved by God, I'm out of order. My source is wrong. I'm trying to love you from my own spring. I'm out of order. My source is wrong. I'm trying to love you from my own spring. I'm out of order and I'm going to give you something that's deluded, contaminated and harmful. If I try to love you without loving God first, I'm also out of order. We'll get to that in a minute.
Speaker 1:In either of those two scenarios, the source of my love is me. I'm trying to love you in my own strength. My love will be conditional because it's sourced right here. I may not be malicious, but there will be conditions because the source is carnal, the source is fleshly, the source is broken, it's contaminated. There's going to be conditions because the source is carnal, the source is fleshly, the source is broken, it's contaminated. There's going to be conditions and when those conditions are met, I'm going to pour my love out. But when the conditions are not met, what am I going to do? I'm going to withhold my love, not purposely, not maliciously, but because I have the wrong source. So what happens? Love becomes weaponized. That's not God, that's carnal.
Speaker 1:We have to know that God is the source of our love. I can't love you the way that God commands me to love you without God. I can try really hard, I can have the best intentions, but I cannot love you the way that God commands me to love you without it being sourced in His love. To use the example that I used from last week, we can't demand fruit from a tree that we haven't yet grown in our garden. I can't demand the fruit of love in my life if I haven't cultivated the tree of God's love for me, like I can't give you the fruit of love if I don't even have the tree of his love growing in my garden. The fruit is me loving others. Well, that's the fruit. Loving you is the fruit, but the root, the thing that undergirds it and makes it possible, is me understanding, first, that I'm loved by God, who loves perfectly, and I respond to his love by giving it back to him. I'm getting ahead of myself.
Speaker 1:Point number one kingdom people reject any idea about love that is not seen in the person of Jesus. Point number two kingdom people know that God is the source of love. And point number three kingdom people know what to do with love. Back to the verse that Joshua read, mark 12. The verse that Joshua read, mark 12. Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. The second commandment is like it Love your neighbor as yourself.
Speaker 1:So 1 John 4.19 tells us what the source of love is God. God is love. We love because he first loves us. And then Mark 12 tells us what to do with that love. What do we do with the love? We give it back to Him. I respond to the revelation of His love for me by giving it all back to Him All of my heart, all of my soul, all of my strength. What's the second thing that I do with the revelation of his love? Give it to others. Only Very good, hallie. So good Hallie. So good Allie Five gold stars.
Speaker 1:This is really important. Only only after I give God back what he gave to me am I then qualified to give someone else love. He gets it first, and only then am I qualified to love you. Now I'm in order. This is why the world doesn't understand agape. This is why the world doesn't understand God-like love. It's completely removing the source of love altogether and just trying to give out of broken cisterns that they've hewn for themselves. Come on, jeremiah, somebody. Only after I give God back what he first gave to me am I qualified to give it to someone else. This applies to everything, man. This applies to our finances, this applies to our love. This applies to so many areas of our lives. So those are my three points.
Speaker 1:Now I want to dig down into something that is pretty important in how we can love others. There are things that some of us have experienced that seem to contradict the love that we see in Jesus, possibly things that have happened to us or things that we've done to others. How could a God who loves me allow that to have happened to me? Or how could God love me when I've done such things? These become barriers to love flowing in our lives. Both of these barriers to receiving God's love are real, but they are not true. What do I mean by that? I'm not just playing word games here.
Speaker 1:The experience is real. What happened to you was real. What you did was real. The thoughts that come, the memories are real. The emotions and the feelings, the trauma all of these things are real, but it doesn't make them true. I'll give you an example. If someone tells you the gas station is giving away free gas, those words are real. The people going to the gas station to find free gas are real. What they're doing is a real experience. And then the emotion of anger that they feel when they find out they're not giving away free gas it still costs an arm and a leg. Those emotions are real. They were lied to. This is a real situation.
Speaker 1:But just because all of those things are real does not mean what was said to you was true. In the same way, what happens to us in the name of love is real. What we may have done in the name of love was real, but those experiences do not have the power to redefine God's love for you. The sin that you committed was real, the sin that was committed against you was real, but sin does not have the power to redefine God's love. Traumatic experience, yes. A need for healing and deliverance and growing, and all of those things Absolutely Defining God's love no, this is the truth. God loves you with the exact same love that the father has for the son. That's John 17, verse 23. It's Bible. The exact same love that the father has for the son, he has for you.
Speaker 1:And as if that wasn't cool enough, the very next verse, john 17, 24, says this God loved you from before the foundation of the world. That means whatever awful things have happened to you or at the hands of you also happened to Jesus. That's what his love does. It takes on the burdens and the shame and the excruciating experience of sin, and love enters into that moment of pain with the one that he loves. Whatever you experienced, you did not experience it alone. That's a good point, neil. Whatever you experienced, you did not experience it in a vacuum, alone, by yourself. Jesus was there. That's what love does. It enters into the moment of pain and trauma with the object of love. You say well, you don't know the things that I've done, man. This is where that second verse comes into play, because he loved you from before the foundation of the world. He loved you before you had a chance to mess anything up. He knew good and well what you were going to do. He loved you even before you had a chance to repent of the things that were done. He didn't start loving you when you prayed the sinner's prayer and repented of your sin. He loved you before the foundation of the world. Repentance does not cause him to begin loving you.
Speaker 1:Repentance listen to this. Repentance is you actually coming into agreement with what God has said about you all along? I love you. That's what repentance is. I change my mind and I reorient the way that I'm thinking to now be in alignment with what God says about me. And then I turn direction and I go the other way.
Speaker 1:Repentance is a holistic changing of who we are Mind, soul, body, strength, direction of motion, all of it. We see God for who he is and we say man, I had no idea you were like that. No one ever showed me that, god. But now I see. Now I see that you loved me from before the foundation of the world. Forgive me for thinking anything different about you. Now I see that you loved me from before the foundation of the world. Forgive me for thinking anything different about you. He loved me before I sinned, knowing that I was going to sin.
Speaker 1:What, then, could separate me from the love of God? This is what Paul says in Romans 8. Just listen to this. If you've heard this a lot and it's lost its weight, hear it for the first time.
Speaker 1:Romans 8, beginning in verse 31. What then shall we say to these things? He's incredible things in our gospel. If god for us, who can be against us? He did not even spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all. Why? Because he loved us. How will he not also freely give us all things like unending and undeserved love? How will he not give us all things? What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, will trouble, will persecution, will famine, will nakedness or danger or sword separate us from the love of Christ? Rhetorical question? Of course not. And all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us? For I'm convinced this is still Paul talking, this is Bible.
Speaker 1:I'm convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things that I've done, nor things that I'm going to do that's what he says nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God. Nothing, except for you changing the definition of love, changing the definition of who God is, turning your back because you've been lied to Nothing, nothing will separate you from the love of God. These are the things that kingdom people are getting settled in our hearts, and I know this doesn't happen in one 30 minute message, but we're getting these things settled in our hearts. We're at least having the conversation with the Holy Spirit. Show me areas in my life where I've gotten it wrong about God and about his love. It may take a while, it's worth it. Kingdom people are getting these things settled in their hearts.
Speaker 1:God loves me with an unconditional, undeserved love. Our first response to that truth is to then turn to God and love him with our whole heart. Love him with our entire mind. That's repentance. Love him with our soul. Love him with our whole heart. Love him with our entire mind. That's repentance. Love him with our soul. Love him with our strength. That's our first response. The secondary response is what? Come on, hallie, come on yes, and and it okay here's. Here's the uh.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing I didn't realize until way too late in life. I felt like I had to love people, but what I didn't realize was kingdom. People can't help but love people because I realize how much he has loved me. It's the same thing with forgiveness I can't help but forgive you Because I look at Him and what he's forgiven of me. How can I withhold forgiveness from you when I've been poured out lavishly forgiveness on me? Same thing with love. When everything is in order and I see the source of my love is God, how much he loves me from before the foundation of the world, before I had a chance to jack anything up, how can I not turn to you and love you with the same love? If God loved me, knowing I didn't deserve that love, how can I only give love to those who deserve it? No, don't be I. I mean, I like feedback. If God loved me knowing I didn't deserve that love, how can I only give love to those who deserve it, whatever that means, as if we could qualify you deserve it. You don't deserve it. If God loved me when I was an, how can I not also love my enemies?
Speaker 1:When we would ask Muslims who had come to faith in Jesus, what was it that finally opened your eyes to see that this really is the message of God? Nine times out of 10, it was the same thing, matthew 5.44, love your enemies that you may be sons of your heavenly father, who loves his enemies. We heard it so many times. The former Muslims would say only God would say something like love your enemies.
Speaker 1:In closing kingdom, people are baptized in the love of the Father. God's love is real to them and because they know that they are loved, their love for one another is selfless and pure. There's no mixture. It's unconditional love. It's no mixture, it's unconditional love. It's not a self-seeking love. It's not an emotional love. It's agape. It is God-like love. This doesn't mean that we allow people to run over us and we don't have boundaries.
Speaker 1:Kingdom people also have wisdom and recognize who the foolish are and who the wicked are. Have wisdom and recognize who the foolish are and who the wicked are. But the motivating force and kingdom people, the thing that compels them, is god's love. So paul says in second creedence 514. The love of christ compels me, it, it consumes me, it controls me, and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live for the one who loved me, galatians 2 20. He loves you. How can you not give that love back to him? How can you not give that love to to him? How can you not give that love to those around you?
Speaker 1:We're going to close with this prayer that Paul prays. I read it before worship. This is an apostolic, genuine apostolic prayer in our Bible. It's not the cheap imitation stuff that we see in conferences and our pep rallies. It's not the cheap imitation stuff that we see in conferences and our pep rallies. It's genuine apostolic prayer. For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his spirit In the inner self, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, that source language you're rooted, you're grounded in love you may be able to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the width and the length and the height and the depth of that love, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with the fullness of God. I pray that over you. I pray that over me, that we would know the love of God, that we would be rooted and grounded in His love and that would completely confound the wisdom of this world. They would be shocked at that demonstration of love in our lives. I could keep going, but I'm going to stop, to stop. Thank you, sweet girl. Does anyone have any questions, any comments, any contributions, anything you'd like to share? Yeah, so let me know if I'm not summarizing this correctly.
Speaker 1:Francis was asking if we are commanded to love others in this way, abundantly, but yet we're having a hard time doing it. Are we still kingdom people? Is that? Well, you said that it should come out easily. It should okay, because it's like it's a great question. These things should come out of us as easily as water comes out of the tap when we turn it on. Should does that always happen? No, is it easy? Hardly ever has been my experience. That's the tension of this is who we're called to be. This is the kingdom. This is why we have to do be. This is the kingdom. This is why we have to do things like pick up our cross and walk like Jesus and do hard things like love people who just make it really challenging.
Speaker 1:So if I conveyed the perception that it was supposed to be easy, I apologize. It should not be some easy thing. It shouldn't be presented as some easy thing, because it's not. Loving your enemies is hard, whether they have a sword to your throat or they've just stabbed you in the back. If they're an enemy it's hard, but it doesn't change what kingdom people do.
Speaker 1:Now let's take it back from that ledge of extremism, of enemy, and let's just say somebody who has hurt us, we're broken, they're broken. We're all in process. We're all trying to get to the same destination. Grace, grace for us, lord. Give us the grace to the same destination. Grace, grace for us, lord. Give us the grace to love them well. Grace for them, understanding they're broken.
Speaker 1:But it doesn't make it easy, it's still hard. So if that love isn't flowing freely like we want it to, it's okay. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Romans 8.1. But let that just be an indication. Let that be a warning light going off in your spirit that says, hey, maybe you need to get a little bit more rooted in God's love for you. Maybe you need to be reminded what he saved you from. Not that we're camped out in our old man of sinfulness not by any means. But Paul acknowledged over and over I was the least of the ones who are worthy of his love. There was still that consciousness of I should not be here right now but God. So if it is hard to love someone, let that be an indication of okay, I've got deeper places in God's love that I can get to.
Speaker 3:I think it's a little bit like when you bump up next to someone that's difficult to love. It's almost like if you're an athlete let's say you're a runner and you run three miles a day and then you go out one day and you try to run four or five. Those extra one or two miles are incredibly difficult but once you do it enough and you practice it enough, it's in you to be able to do it easy. It's like, uh, enduring in love, like building that endurance to love when there's tension, difficulty, pressure, and I think by doing that you you grow. Because there's tension, difficulty, pressure, and I think by doing that you grow, because there's always going to be difficult people to love, but you have to. In practicing it daily, it increases your capacity, I think, to be able to love.
Speaker 3:Well, that is one thing. And then, two, I had this encounter with the Lord it wasn't too long ago where I felt him saying I want you to tell me that you love me. So I was like okay, so I started telling him that I loved him and he wouldn't let me stop. It felt like he was ringing out my soul. I mean I couldn't stop saying it. I went on for maybe 30, 45 minutes I love you, I my soul. I mean I couldn't stop saying it. It went on for maybe 30, 45 minutes I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.
Speaker 3:And when it was all over, I almost felt exhausted and I realized that this measure of love that I have in me, it's meant to be given to him and nobody else. It's meant to be given to him and nobody else. And once it's wrung out of me at his feet, I can receive his God love. And that's the kind of love that I have to give everybody else. If I continue to love people from mine, it's like hollow and shallow, which is what you were saying.
Speaker 3:But it's like we hang on to it because we think there's lack, you know. But it's like we hang on to it because we think there's lack, you know, and we don't practice enough like emptying ourselves out to him so that we have nothing left in us. All we can love with is his quality, like I should love Neil with his quality of love, not mine, my kids.
Speaker 1:I hope you understood. What she just said is gold. I just tried for 30 minutes to say what she said in like 45 seconds. Let me see if I can get the imagery right so that everyone can understand this, because that point is so good we give him all of our love. That's why it says love him with all of your soul, mind, strength, all that stuff. And then then there's that question okay, well, what's left over to give to other people? That's the point. There's nothing left of your love to give those anyone else. So what happens? He pours it back out on you. Now you give you, now you give them what he's giving to you. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:He's the multiplier. He's the empty wine jar filler. You know what I mean? There's nothing left, jesus. They're out of wine? Great, let me give you the good stuff, stuff. That's what you can give to the world now. We give him everything that we have. Jesus, I'm out of wine. Great, now I can fill you with the supernatural stuff. That's what you need to give to the world that's good.
Speaker 3:I think it's that way, not just with our love, but it's that when we were singing the worship song earlier about. It's your breath in my lungs so I pour out my praise Like our breath, everything in us. If it's devoted to him, then we can be confident. If it's poured out on him first, then the words that we use to speak to other people are going to be His. If we empty ours out on Him, then we get His to give to other people and His is always there.
Speaker 1:That's why we make the statement I can't love others the way that God commands me to. Without God, it's impossible. Edie, did you have something you want to share?
Speaker 2:I was just going to say that in the Bible it said what good is it to love someone? That's easy to love. The reward and the gift is to love the most difficult because they realize they don't deserve it, they realize they are desperate for it and they're not capable of doing it. So when we do it, because we gave all the love to God, that's the joy and the strength that it's possible, not because they deserve it. It's the grace.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so good. Again, this is not something we just oh okay, I get it. Great, let's move on to the next thing. Again, we've got our own issues, our own experiences, our own trauma, our own broken hearts, our own wrong ideas about love. And we've got the kingdom. We've got to navigate our way through. What is true, how do we do this, god? And it takes time, all right.
Speaker 3:God, it takes time. All right, I'm sorry, can I add a like a brief little like testimony, encouragement, on top of what I said about like ringing my love?
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Okay, because the exchange that happened there and it's important from that moment the Lord gave me the ability to love and to release and to forgive, like some of the most difficult people, like that moment changed everything for me and I did nothing Like prior to that. I'm trying, trying, trying Like love, forgive release, love forgive release. I'm like I know all the right language but I didn't have it in me Because it's not supposed to be in me. That measure of love and forgiveness and release, that's His Like. I needed God love and God forgiveness.
Speaker 3:And it's like once you tap into that stream stream, you don't want to do it another way.
Speaker 1:You know every other way is inferior yeah, yeah, I love that we had so many voices spoken today. I feel like we had 75 of everyone here was contributing in some way. It's beautiful, joshua. Thank you for reading the scriptures, man. Yeah, all right, let's pray. Remember, don't rush in and jump in line yet. Let the folks who brought meals go ahead and get it set up and then we'll go through the line together, all right. Thank you, jesus. Thank you, lord.
Speaker 1:Lord, we are so grateful for your love, lord, a love that is. It's not earned, it's not deserved. It's from before the foundation of creation. Lord, you created as an expression of your love. Lord, we are on this planet right now with Lord you created as an expression of your love, lord, we are on this planet right now with breath in our lungs and blood flowing through our veins, as an expression of your love.
Speaker 1:Lord, give us the grace to comprehend something as monumental as God love, love for us, love for those around us. Holy Spirit, enlarge our capacity to receive the unending love of God. Lord that we would be bursting with love, love that we've received, love that is beyond comprehension, and we would give that love back to you, god, that you would wring us out, like Lindsay was saying Squeeze out every drop of love that you've poured out into us. We just want to give it back to you and, lord, show us how to love those around us. Lord, give us the grace to love enemies. Give us the grace to love family members. Give us the grace to love friends and co-workers and rude cashiers and drivers from Los Angeles. Give us the grace to love people around us that are broken and in process, just like we are.
Speaker 1:We want to be like you. We want to be jesus people. We want to be kingdom people, or give us that grace. I thank you for this time. Thank you for this food that we're about to consume. I thank you for everyone that contributed to this meal. Lord, we love you In the limited understanding of that word. We love you, jesus. We love you, we adore you. Help us to love you even more. It's in your name that we pray. Amen.