Speaker 1: What a great day to be in church.
Speaker 1: You glad to be in church this morning Phenomenal.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be in 1 John, chapter three in just a moment.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for 1 John and you hit Revelation, it's too far.
Speaker 1: Go a little bit back to your left.
Speaker 1: If you're in like Hebrews or Colossians, ephesians, go a little bit further to the right.
Speaker 1: 1 John, chapter three.
Speaker 1: This is part two of a collection of messages titled the Four Guarantees of Christmas, and today, today's guarantee is really simple.
Speaker 1: If you've been around church, I'm gonna say this and you're gonna say I know that, I've heard that before.
Speaker 1: Don't tune out, lean in.
Speaker 1: I think God's going to encourage you this morning.
Speaker 1: Here's today's guarantee God really loves you and that was what I thought would happen.
Speaker 1: Nobody was like whoa, I had no idea.
Speaker 1: Right, like you, just like well, yeah, of course he does right, but I wanna say that one more time and I want you to imagine that's new news to you today.
Speaker 1: Almighty God in heaven, who is perfect in all of his ways.
Speaker 1: He is righteous and just and good through and through, 100% of the time, and he's looking at broken people like me and you, who fall short and don't get it right.
Speaker 1: And on our best day we mess it up.
Speaker 1: And he really loves you.
Speaker 1: He really loves you and maybe, I don't know, maybe we need a little more coffee this morning or something, but I think we should like amen that or clap, like there's some response that we all give Almighty God in heaven really loves you.
Speaker 1: There we go, there we go.
Speaker 1: That's news, that's good news, and here's why that's good news.
Speaker 1: We're gonna read first John three in just a moment, but I gotta set it up a little bit for us today.
Speaker 1: A few years back, my wife and I were at the time we were fiance's and my grandfather was the one who was gonna do our wedding ceremony.
Speaker 1: When it was time for us to get married, we knew like there was nobody else on the list.
Speaker 1: Grandpa Lawson was the one who was gonna do our wedding ceremony, and so we went to grandpa and we asked him and grandpa said I got one requirement every couple that I marry has to go through premarital counseling, so I can get to know them and figure out what they're about.
Speaker 1: I'm like grandpa you've known me literally my entire life, and Tara and I have been together since we were 12 years old.
Speaker 1: You've known her for a long time and he's like no exceptions.
Speaker 1: And so I was like, yes, sir, because that's how it worked.
Speaker 1: And so grandpa set the day and the time and we showed up at his office, the church he was serving, and we walk in and grandpa's got this list and he literally says we're gonna be here, y'all, for about three hours working through this list of premarital topics we gotta talk through.
Speaker 1: And so we start working through the list, and on this list was a subsection titled Places you Can Go For Date Night that are less than $10.
Speaker 1: And that was a really big deal for grandpa.
Speaker 1: That was the biggest portion of the list that we had to work through, and things like RBS, who had the five for five at that time, were on the list.
Speaker 1: The Jack in the Box was on the list because Jack in the Box had two tacos for $1.99 and my grandpa was a big fan of the $1.99 two for tacos.
Speaker 1: Captain Deese was on the list because it was right near my grandpa's house and he said it was the best seafood in the whole wide world.
Speaker 1: And so we spent a lot of time talking about places you could go on date night for less than $10.
Speaker 1: Couple years later my grandpa was doing my sister and my brother-in-law's ceremonies, so he was doing the premarital before that and the same subheading came up in their session and he told them.
Speaker 1: He said I told James and Tara this.
Speaker 1: I don't think they listen.
Speaker 1: I heard they go to the Olive Garden and I was like, well, grandpa, the never ending pasta bowl.
Speaker 1: You know it's legit, it's a good thing, but there was another section on grandpa's list of premarital topics and it was a simple statement, but it's one that I've never forgotten and I've tried to pass it on to couples that I get the chance to do their ceremonies and work with in their pre-counsel the premarital counseling process.
Speaker 1: And grandpa told us this.
Speaker 1: He said that marriage doesn't fix problems that exist in the relationship.
Speaker 1: Marriage just magnifies what's already there.
Speaker 1: So if you have a communication problem when you're dating, guess what Marriage isn't gonna fix that.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna wake up the day after your ceremony and magically be able to communicate perfectly.
Speaker 1: Marriage doesn't fix things.
Speaker 1: It magnifies what already is.
Speaker 1: And in the same way, christmas doesn't fix things.
Speaker 1: It magnifies what already is there.
Speaker 1: The Christmas season, just gathering together in the holidays and singing some songs and trying to capture the magic of the season or channel the spirit of the season.
Speaker 1: Just because it's Christmas doesn't mean that all of our problems are magically gonna disappear.
Speaker 1: Christmas magnifies.
Speaker 1: Here's what I mean.
Speaker 1: So if your family is flourishing and thriving, I'm willing to bet you're looking forward to Christmas.
Speaker 1: You get along with your in-laws and you love your extended family, like, and everybody's coming together at the holidays and things are good in your family.
Speaker 1: You're like, yes, it's Christmas, the Christmas spirit, right, we're gonna gather Christmas is about family and it's gonna be amazing.
Speaker 1: But if things aren't going great in your family, it's like, oh my goodness, they're all coming to our house and they're gonna be in the same room and we've gotta get along for this period of time.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's your story.
Speaker 1: It just magnifies the drama that's already there.
Speaker 1: Or on a business front, if your business is thriving and financially things are flourishing for you, man, you're feeling like Clark Griswold right now.
Speaker 1: You're putting in a swimming pool waiting on that bonus check.
Speaker 1: You're the last true family man, right, like you quote national lampoons, christmas vacation at church, I don't know.
Speaker 1: But if things are not going well financially, christmas is the reminder that, hey, people out there are giving all kinds of gifts and their kids are getting everything they want, but for us it's just a reminder of all the things we can't do, the money we don't have, or like.
Speaker 1: If your marriage is thriving at Christmas and you're celebrating marriage and like that, what a beautiful season to be married.
Speaker 1: But if there's tension, what a tense season it is.
Speaker 1: If you're in love, you're in a new relationship.
Speaker 1: In the holidays some of y'all think back to when you were newly in love and you're celebrating the first Christmas with your special significant other.
Speaker 1: It's like hallmark Israel, like it's happening in my life, right, but if you're lonely on Christmas and you don't have a family or someone to spend the season with, christmas doesn't make the loneliness go away.
Speaker 1: It's just a reminder of what everyone else has and you don't.
Speaker 1: Christmas magnifies the circumstances of our lives and that's why in the Christmas season, we need to get to the substance of Christmas.
Speaker 1: It's not enough just to celebrate the season.
Speaker 1: People all across the world celebrate the season.
Speaker 1: We don't need something else just to magnify the circumstances of our lives.
Speaker 1: We need something this Christmas season with the power to change our lives, which is where 1 John, chapter 3, comes into play for us today.
Speaker 1: God really loves you and I just want to tell you this morning there is nothing that has more power to transform your life than the love of Almighty God.
Speaker 1: If you're looking at the circumstances going, this is not like it should be, or maybe it is like it should be right now.
Speaker 1: There is nothing more powerful than the love of God.
Speaker 1: Circumstances will change, seasons will change, but the love of God is consistent today and forever.
Speaker 1: John writes in 1 John, chapter 3, see what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are.
Speaker 1: The reason why the world doesn't know us is that it did not know Him Beloved.
Speaker 1: We are God's children now, and what we will be is not yet appeared.
Speaker 1: But we know that when he appears we will be like Him, because we shall see Him as he is, and everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies Himself as he is pure.
Speaker 1: Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness.
Speaker 1: Sin is lawlessness.
Speaker 1: You know that he appeared in order to take away sins and in Him there is no sin.
Speaker 1: No one who abides in Jesus, in Him, keeps on sinning.
Speaker 1: No one who keeps on sinning has either seen Him or known Him.
Speaker 1: Little children, let no one deceive you.
Speaker 1: Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.
Speaker 1: Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil.
Speaker 1: The devil has been sinning since the beginning.
Speaker 1: The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
Speaker 1: No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in Him and he cannot keep on sinning because he's been born of God.
Speaker 1: By this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil.
Speaker 1: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
Speaker 1: For this is the message that you have heard since the beginning that we should love one another.
Speaker 1: We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.
Speaker 1: And why did he murder him?
Speaker 1: Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous.
Speaker 1: Don't be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.
Speaker 1: We know that we have passed out of death and into life because we love the brothers.
Speaker 1: Whoever does not love abides or remains in death.
Speaker 1: Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
Speaker 1: By this we know love, that he, jesus laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
Speaker 1: But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?
Speaker 1: Little children, let us love, not in word or talk, but indeed in truth.
Speaker 1: Father, speak to us this morning from your word, illuminate your truth in our hearts.
Speaker 1: Father, transform us from the inside out.
Speaker 1: We love you and we thank you in Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1: The love of God is the greatest force in the universe and regardless of the circumstances of your life whether things are great right now or whether you're just barely hanging on the love of God has the power to change your life, not necessarily your circumstances.
Speaker 1: God can, and sometimes he does, but what God always wants to do is change me and change you.
Speaker 1: In the middle of the circumstances that we are walking through.
Speaker 1: I was, just, on a small scale, reminded of that this morning as we're loading in and the band was beginning to sound check, I was watching a couple of our guys take the screen down in the back and I'm like, oh, maybe we're just raising it up.
Speaker 1: We didn't quite put it to the level it needs to be or something like that.
Speaker 1: And I watch him like fold it up and put it in the box and I'm like, wait a minute, we need that.
Speaker 1: We got church coming up and they're boxing up the screen.
Speaker 1: Why aren't we boxing up the screen?
Speaker 1: What do we do?
Speaker 1: And I was like Sam, what are we doing?
Speaker 1: Why aren't we boxing up the screen?
Speaker 1: And Sam's like the projector's not working.
Speaker 1: And I was like in my mind, like y'all, my biggest pet peeve in the world this is a personal problem when things don't work that are supposed to work drives me up the wall.
Speaker 1: And so in that moment I'm like what is happening?
Speaker 1: Like what do you mean?
Speaker 1: That the projector's not working?
Speaker 1: It has to work.
Speaker 1: It has one job and it's to work.
Speaker 1: And it's not doing its one job.
Speaker 1: And I'm frustrated, I'm mad, not at these guys.
Speaker 1: What do I do to make the thing work?
Speaker 1: The thing just wouldn't work.
Speaker 1: And I'm like why won't it work?
Speaker 1: And in that moment, like it was like God impressed on my heart what's necessary for church to happen?
Speaker 1: Do we need a screen and a projector so that our lives can be transformed?
Speaker 1: My goodness, I hope not.
Speaker 1: Right, like the Holy Spirit isn't reliant on anything that we bring the table to the table to show up and work.
Speaker 1: And I flash back in that moment Acts chapter two.
Speaker 1: What did the people of God gathered in Acts chapter two have?
Speaker 1: They had a resurrected Savior and the power of the Holy Spirit, and 3,000 people came to faith in Jesus.
Speaker 1: Like what do we need for church?
Speaker 1: What do we need?
Speaker 1: Well, we need the power of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: We need the love of Christ in us and flowing through us and we need a resurrected Savior with the power to break through into our darkest moment and show up and meet us right there and y'all that's not dependent on a screen or a preacher or anything else that we bring to the table.
Speaker 1: God is gracious to us and he lets us be part of his story.
Speaker 1: He doesn't need any of us, but he invites us in to experience his love.
Speaker 1: And that's what John says in 1 John chapter three.
Speaker 1: He starts and he says y'all see what kind of love God has for us.
Speaker 1: Love number one has to be defined.
Speaker 1: He says I want you to understand the kind of love that Almighty God has for you.
Speaker 1: We don't have time this morning to go into all of the ways that our culture is defining and redefining love today.
Speaker 1: But it does not take a lot of time to look around our world and to see that there are a lot of definitions of love and there's a lot of brokenness that's coming from our definitions of love.
Speaker 1: So we need to get to the heart of what the love of God actually is.
Speaker 1: John says hey, make sure, like, see, examine, consider the kind of love with which God has loved you.
Speaker 1: Whoa, what kind of love does God have for us?
Speaker 1: That's the question.
Speaker 1: Right, god's love is rooted in his holiness.
Speaker 1: Everything that God is and everything that God does flows from his holiness.
Speaker 1: God is good, he is pure, he is righteous, he is just through and through, 100% of the time.
Speaker 1: And we can't even fathom that, can we?
Speaker 1: Have you ever been having a great day where you were crushing everything and you're like I'm doing pretty good today, and then what happens?
Speaker 1: Right, you're feeling great about yourself and you're doing good and you're being nice to people, and then you get a little prideful.
Speaker 1: Next thing, you know everything's falling apart because you thought you could handle it.
Speaker 1: Right, that's just me, okay, that's just me.
Speaker 1: That's how it happens for me sometimes.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but God's never had that moment right.
Speaker 1: He's never had that moment where something fell through the cracks or a motive was unchecked and it was the wrong motive, or the fault escaped or the words got out of his mouth before you could stop him.
Speaker 1: Like God's never had a moment where he was anything but good and righteous and pure.
Speaker 1: And just because everything he is, everything he does, every word he says, comes from his holiness, he's pure, right, good, through and through, 100% of the time.
Speaker 1: And so when we talk about God's love, god's love is rooted in his holiness, which means there's a moral clarity to the love of God.
Speaker 1: The love of God doesn't mean that we are left unchecked to do whatever we want.
Speaker 1: The love of God is pure, it's a holy love, it's a righteous love.
Speaker 1: It's a love that we're gonna talk about in a minute, meets us where we are, but doesn't leave us where we are.
Speaker 1: It's pure, it's good, it's righteous.
Speaker 1: There's a moral clarity.
Speaker 1: God's love never contradicts God's law.
Speaker 1: God's good, his love is good.
Speaker 1: God's pure, his love is pure.
Speaker 1: God's holy, his love is holy.
Speaker 1: God's love is clear and defined.
Speaker 1: There's a moral clarity to it.
Speaker 1: I love Paul's description of the way of love in 1 Corinthians 13.
Speaker 1: Think scripture, interpret scripture.
Speaker 1: If you wanna see a practical outworking of what God's love looks like, it's 1 Corinthians 13.
Speaker 1: Paul says this love is patient and kind.
Speaker 1: Love does not envy or boast, it's not arrogant, it's not rude, it does not insist on its own way, it's not irritable or resentful.
Speaker 1: It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but it rejoices with the truth.
Speaker 1: Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.
Speaker 1: And then, in verse 13, paul says faith, hope and love abide these three, but the greatest of these is love.
Speaker 1: So what is God's love like?
Speaker 1: Well, it's patient, it's kind, it's pure.
Speaker 1: It doesn't rejoice at wrongdoing, it rejoices with the truth.
Speaker 1: It's steadfast, it bears all things, believes the best, it hopes all things, endures all things.
Speaker 1: And then Paul says God's love remains forever.
Speaker 1: There's come in a day, y'all, where our faith will be made sight.
Speaker 1: We're gonna see Jesus face to face and everything that we have believed in on this planet we will see with our eyes.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine Our faith?
Speaker 1: You'll know one day that your faith was not in vain, because you'll see the resurrected Son of God and in that moment all that you have hoped for and hoped in will be realized.
Speaker 1: The hope of glory will be visible in front of you and in that moment Paul says faith and hope.
Speaker 1: They'll turn into sight and realization.
Speaker 1: You'll see it and you'll know it, but what remains?
Speaker 1: The love of God.
Speaker 1: We will dwell in the love of God forever.
Speaker 1: How beautiful is that Love is clear and defined.
Speaker 1: The second idea that comes out of 1 John, chapter three, is that God loves you just as you are today.
Speaker 1: God loves you just as you are today, just as you are today.
Speaker 1: Do you ever wonder if people really knew what was going on on the inside of you, if they would really love you Anybody?
Speaker 1: Yeah, isn't it incredible that the only one who knows everything there is to know about you loves you unconditionally.
Speaker 1: See, as people we so often we deal with a limited love, like I love you as long as it's beneficial to me, as long as you're kind to me, as long as love is reciprocated.
Speaker 1: That's how we often think about love, and so we live with this tension of like, well, all right, well, I got stuff on the inside of me and I know they got stuff on the inside of them.
Speaker 1: And if all the stuff on the inside came out, then love would probably go away, and sometimes we translate that into our relationship with God.
Speaker 1: This is Adam and Eve in the garden all over again.
Speaker 1: Right, they sin, they fall, and what do they do?
Speaker 1: God comes looking for them.
Speaker 1: Adam Eve, where are you at, and what do they do?
Speaker 1: Fig leaves cover themselves up and they hide, they hide.
Speaker 1: How often do we hide from God, convinced because of our shame and our guilt that there's no way that he could love us just as we are?
Speaker 1: And yet he knows everything there is to know about you.
Speaker 1: He knows everything there is to know about us, and he chooses to love us all the same.
Speaker 1: God doesn't love us more on our best day and less on our worst day.
Speaker 1: God's love is steadfast and consistent through it all, and maybe that's what you need to hear this Christmas season.
Speaker 1: Almighty God in heaven loves you just as you are today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know what's.
Speaker 1: There's something on the inside that you're not proud of.
Speaker 1: I know there are choices that you're ashamed of, that you do anything if you could go back and not do that, and yet God loves you all the same.
Speaker 1: His love for you has never wavered.
Speaker 1: We start talking like this, and it makes people uncomfortable, does it not.
Speaker 1: It's like how could God love us?
Speaker 1: Because we know, we know there's a problem here, like theologically we got a problem.
Speaker 1: God is love, right, 100%, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Well, god is just, which means he always does what is right.
Speaker 1: He can't just overlook sin, and we all sin, we all know that.
Speaker 1: We all know innately there's something broken on the inside.
Speaker 1: God is love, god is just, and God's justice means that God also has anger, wrath toward sin.
Speaker 1: And now we got an issue because we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and so we all justly deserve the wrath of God.
Speaker 1: And yet here we are in church saying God really loves you just as you are.
Speaker 1: Today.
Speaker 1: We got a problem, do we not?
Speaker 1: What's the solution to the problem?
Speaker 1: Because it seems to me like love and justice and wrath are on a collision course.
Speaker 1: And that's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: But the collision has already happened, because the king who came to the manger throne went to the cross and at the cross love and justice and wrath collided.
Speaker 1: What compelled Jesus, the son of God, to the cross?
Speaker 1: It was his love.
Speaker 1: Jesus said in John chapter three, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him would not perish but would have eternal life.
Speaker 1: Jesus went on.
Speaker 1: He said I didn't come to condemn the world.
Speaker 1: I came that the world would be saved.
Speaker 1: Jesus was in on it the whole time.
Speaker 1: So I told his followers later hey, they're gonna kill me, but I need you to know nobody takes my life from me.
Speaker 1: I freely lay it down and I've got every right and all authority to take it back up again.
Speaker 1: Because Jesus was compelled by love, a love for broken people like me and you.
Speaker 1: Justice had to be served.
Speaker 1: My sin and your sin and the sin of the world had rightfully earned a wage.
Speaker 1: And Romans is clear what's the wages of sin?
Speaker 1: The wages of sin is death.
Speaker 1: The price demanded by our sin is the shedding of perfect blood.
Speaker 1: So Jesus, compelled by love, goes to the cross to shed perfect blood.
Speaker 1: The only one who's ever walked around in skin and bones and been without sin, the only one who is undeserving of death, chose to die so that the justice of God could be met, so that God could be just and the wrath of God could be satisfied.
Speaker 1: First John, chapter four.
Speaker 1: John goes on and he says this first John, chapter four, verse nine.
Speaker 1: He says in this the love of God was made manifest or visible among us, that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.
Speaker 1: This is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Speaker 1: That word propitiation, it's a big word, but it's a really important word.
Speaker 1: What it means is that Jesus, the son of God, the perfect, sinless, spotless lamb of God, is a perfect sacrifice, a satisfactory price for the sin of the world.
Speaker 1: He has the ability to do what I, what you, could never do.
Speaker 1: In his death, jesus absorbed every bit of the wrath of God towards sin, every bit of the anger of God towards the brokenness of the world.
Speaker 1: Jesus bore it on his shoulders and on the cross, love, justice and wrath collided and Jesus, the son of God, was crushed for the sins of the world, not against his will, but willingly, willingly.
Speaker 1: And what emerges, y'all, from the cross is mercy.
Speaker 1: Love, justice, wrath collided and what emerges is mercy for sinful people like me and you.
Speaker 1: How can we say that God really loves us in all of our stuff, in all of our sin, in all of our brokenness?
Speaker 1: Because at the center of history stands the cross and the son of God shed his blood.
Speaker 1: Because of his love, justice was served and the wrath of God towards sin was satisfied, so that what remains is mercy for broken people.
Speaker 1: God loves you just as you are today.
Speaker 1: But the third thing that comes out of 1 John, chapter three, is this God's love will not leave you as you are today.
Speaker 1: God loves you in all of your brokenness, in all of your stuff, just as you are today.
Speaker 1: But God will not leave you as you are today.
Speaker 1: What does John say next?
Speaker 1: He moves on and he says hey, by the way, the love of God meets you where you are.
Speaker 1: You're called a child of God now, and that's amazing.
Speaker 1: God's brought you into his family.
Speaker 1: You're a joint heir with Christ.
Speaker 1: The riches and glory of heaven are in your future.
Speaker 1: How beautiful is that.
Speaker 1: And then John says but hang on a minute.
Speaker 1: In verse three, everyone who hopes in Christ purifies himself as he is pure.
Speaker 1: So there's a transforming power to the love of God.
Speaker 1: God's love meets us where we are.
Speaker 1: It does not leave us where we are.
Speaker 1: John goes on in verses four through 10 are really, really clear If we say we love God and yet make a practice of sinning.
Speaker 1: We got a problem which should make all of us go.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute.
Speaker 1: I think we might need to dig into this a little bit more, because anybody perfect right, does anybody have a tendency to get drawn back into the old way of life?
Speaker 1: The pull of the flesh is strong, is it not?
Speaker 1: You can be honest.
Speaker 1: We're in church and it doesn't matter how long we follow Jesus.
Speaker 1: The flesh, the pull of sin on the inside, is real.
Speaker 1: We got a tendency to think things we shouldn't think, say things we shouldn't say, act like we shouldn't act.
Speaker 1: It's real.
Speaker 1: So this phrase practice of sinning, like what does John mean?
Speaker 1: Practice of sinning?
Speaker 1: Because, let's be honest, I fall short of the glory of God multiple times every single day, and if you're honest, so do you.
Speaker 1: John says in 1 John, chapter one anybody who says they have no sin, they lie and deceive themselves.
Speaker 1: But good news, god is faithful and just, if we confess our sins, to forgive us and cleanse us.
Speaker 1: So what does this mean?
Speaker 1: Practice of sinning?
Speaker 1: What John is saying is this when we experience the free gift of God's grace and are transformed by the love of God, our desires and priorities begin to change, and I say that carefully.
Speaker 1: They begin to change.
Speaker 1: They don't change overnight.
Speaker 1: You don't give your life to Jesus and wake up the next day perfect.
Speaker 1: I wish it was that simple.
Speaker 1: I wish it were that easy.
Speaker 1: I wish I could promise you that we don't give our lives to Jesus and wake up the next day and not struggle with any of the stuff we used to struggle with.
Speaker 1: I wish it was that easy.
Speaker 1: Some of you, you are fighting a struggle against sin and you will fight until the day that you leave this planet.
Speaker 1: But when John says practice of sinning, what he's saying is this if the love of God is in you, you cannot do whatever you want with no thought to what God wants To make.
Speaker 1: A practice of sinning means that you are led by your flesh, doing whatever you desire with no thought to God's will or God's word.
Speaker 1: If you can live however you wanna live and say whatever you wanna say and treat people however you wanna treat people and act however you want to act and there's no check in your conscience, there's no inner voice of the Holy Spirit saying you might wanna redirect, no care or concern for what the word of God has to say, then we got a problem.
Speaker 1: That's what John means when he says if you make a practice of sinning, if you're just doing whatever you want, with no concern to what God says, make sure that the love of God is really in you.
Speaker 1: Here's how it ought to work in the life of someone who's following Christ.
Speaker 1: Knowing that we all sin, we all fall short of the glory of God, knowing that from time to time we're all gonna do things, say things, think things that are dishonoring to God.
Speaker 1: What should be happening is, when we fall short, there should be something on the inside that checks within us.
Speaker 1: And when that happens, rather than suppress it and bury it and put it aside, we do something called repent.
Speaker 1: We turn back to God.
Speaker 1: We say God, I got caught up in my flesh.
Speaker 1: God, I let my anger get the vest of me.
Speaker 1: God, I let my tongue get the vest of me.
Speaker 1: God, I didn't check my thoughts.
Speaker 1: I wanna turn back to you.
Speaker 1: I wanna do it your way.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna make a practice or a habit of doing what I want.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do everything in my power, by your grace and the spirit of God on the inside, to live according to your will and your word.
Speaker 1: This is not an earning of salvation in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 1: John's really clear.
Speaker 1: Salvation is the gift of God.
Speaker 1: God loves you unconditionally.
Speaker 1: Love was made visible in that Jesus came long before we ever loved God.
Speaker 1: Salvation is the gift of God by grace, through faith, but it produces something on the inside of us.
Speaker 1: We can't separate love for God and obedience to God.
Speaker 1: To know that God loves us, to be saved by the grace of God is to live with ever increasing obedience to the will and the word of God.
Speaker 1: God loves you just as you are today, but God's love will not leave you where you are today.
Speaker 1: Now, last thing I want is for you to walk out of here feeling the weight of trying to make yourself righteous before God, and I wanna remind you where first John three starts.
Speaker 1: See the love that God has given you.
Speaker 1: He's called you a child.
Speaker 1: He's adopted you into his family.
Speaker 1: You belong to him.
Speaker 1: By grace, through faith, you've moved from death to life, from dark to light.
Speaker 1: You're part of the kingdom of God.
Speaker 1: You're a son or a daughter of almighty God.
Speaker 1: You get to spend the rest of your life growing up in the family of God and y'all, when you're around, family that you know loves you and cares about you and has your best interest at heart.
Speaker 1: The pressure's off, is it not?
Speaker 1: You can be yourself.
Speaker 1: When I go see my parents, I take my shoes off and put them where I wanna put them Right.
Speaker 1: It's like I'm at home.
Speaker 1: When my boys walk in the house, they don't even take their shoes off in the house, they're in the truck along with their shirt and their pants.
Speaker 1: Sometimes, too, it's like why are you naked?
Speaker 1: We just came from school to home.
Speaker 1: Where are your clothes, boy?
Speaker 1: It's like they're with family.
Speaker 1: They're with family, right, they're with family.
Speaker 1: That's you with almighty God.
Speaker 1: You're at home.
Speaker 1: You belong to the family.
Speaker 1: He loves you and there is grace and there is forgiveness and there is patience, there is mercy, there is kindness.
Speaker 1: God is with you in the process of growth, as long as it takes.
Speaker 1: He's not gonna turn his back on you.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna get home one day and find that the garage code's been changed and you can't get in the house.
Speaker 1: You belong in the family of God.
Speaker 1: There's a great story I read the other day from an organization called One Hope.
Speaker 1: They translate the Bible and get the Bible into the hands of kids around the world without access to the scriptures.
Speaker 1: And there was a young man in a Hindu nation.
Speaker 1: His name was Shasta and in his village he was nicknamed Son of Satan because he was so disobedient, so disrespectful to his parents.
Speaker 1: He was out of control at school.
Speaker 1: Nobody could keep him under control.
Speaker 1: He was, I mean, beyond, beyond, desperate, beyond bad behavior.
Speaker 1: There was nothing anybody could do to corral and to, in their words, redeem, redeemed this child.
Speaker 1: Then, one day, shasta got a New Testament and he read the story of Zacchaeus and what he realized was that in a village where, at this point in time, he felt like nobody loved him, there was a man whose name was Jesus, that not only saw Shasta but loved him.
Speaker 1: And Shasta took the Bible to one of the people that had given the Bibles out and he said nobody here loves me, but I believe Jesus loves me and I want to belong to his family.
Speaker 1: And Shasta's life was transformed by the power of the love of God, and that can be your story as well.
Speaker 1: The fourth idea that comes from 1 John, chapter three, and this is where we're gonna land the plane this morning.
Speaker 1: It is the love of God that fuels our service and our sacrifice.
Speaker 1: John goes on and he says when you know that God has loved you like this he laid down his life for us.
Speaker 1: Jesus, the Son of God, shed his blood on the cross for us then we ought to also lay down our lives for the brothers.
Speaker 1: Let us love, not in word or talk, but in deed and in truth.
Speaker 1: And so John gets to the point where he says this love of God that is pure and good and meets us where we are and transforms us into who God is calling us to be, it has to flow through our lives.
Speaker 1: We have been loved so that we can be love.
Speaker 1: We've been given love so that we can give love.
Speaker 1: If this world is all that there is, you live your life here on this planet, then you die, and that's it.
Speaker 1: Then serving others, giving of yourself, your time, your resources, sacrificing beyond what is comfortable, none of that makes any sense.
Speaker 1: If this life is all that there is but y'all, if there is a God in heaven who, when we were dead in sin, loved us enough to give his son, if Jesus was willing to go to the cross and shed his blood, be beaten, mocked, tortured, scorned for us, if that's how much he loves us, then how should we love those around us?
Speaker 1: Well, the night before his crucifixion, jesus looked at his followers followers gathered in the upper room and he said I want you to love like you've been loved.
Speaker 1: Love as I have loved you.
Speaker 1: And the next day he gave the greatest example of sacrificial love ever imaginable, when he died on the cross.
Speaker 1: That's the call Love as we've been loved, serve as we've been served.
Speaker 1: Serve and love.
Speaker 1: Even if the people were serving and loving, don't serve and love in return, because that's what Jesus did for the world.
Speaker 1: And he's our king, he's the one we follow, he's the one we believe in, he's the one we've trusted our lives and our eternities to.
Speaker 1: Had a conversation earlier this week with a friend who sent me a text and said hey, you know, when I serve, I find it spiritually rewarding.
Speaker 1: And the question was well, you work at a church, so how is that?
Speaker 1: Is that spiritually rewarding for you?
Speaker 1: And as I thought through this question and my response, I went back to a moment when Tara and I were praying, trying to figure out if God was leading us to Somerville, south Carolina.
Speaker 1: We didn't know anybody in Somerville, south Carolina.
Speaker 1: We didn't know anything about the city of Somerville, south Carolina, and we begin to pray God, if this is where you want us to be, give us a love for the city, a love for the church and a love for the people there.
Speaker 1: And it was incredible.
Speaker 1: We walked in in November of 2017 to a church that we'd never attended before.
Speaker 1: We're meeting people we've never met and it was like the love of God was overflowing from our hearts, and there's no way to explain that other than God answered our prayer and compelled us by his love to serve and to go and to be obedient to his call on our lives and y'all.
Speaker 1: That's what I want for you to be so moved by the love of God, so convinced that God has called you to serve and love this city, this church, these people in your neighborhood, at your office, in your family, that it doesn't matter what it cost you.
Speaker 1: You're going to love and serve like Jesus has loved and served you.
Speaker 1: Is it possible that God could use a group of people compelled by his love to change Somerville in the world?
Speaker 1: I think so, because the love of God is the greatest force in the universe and no power of Satan can stand against the power of God's love, no scheme of hell.
Speaker 1: No oppression of the enemy, no circumstances of life can overcome the love of God.
Speaker 1: John chapter one, says that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Speaker 1: So will you trust your life, your marriage, your family, your future, your business, your kids?
Speaker 1: Will you trust everything that you are and all that you have to Almighty God To God?
Speaker 1: I trust you, I believe you, whatever you're calling me to, that's what I want, because when we trust God, we experience the love of God, and that's what we all need.
Speaker 1: So, father, we pray in this moment that your love would be made real to us.
Speaker 1: As we look at the cross, we behold the beauty and the wonder, the glory of a crucified and resurrected savior.
Speaker 1: Father, we pray that your love would overflow in our hearts, from our lives, that those around us, god, would feel your love through the way that we love and serve, through the words that we say, the things that we do.
Speaker 1: In this moment, god, lead us by your spirit as we respond to you in Jesus' name.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: We're gonna stand and sing.
Speaker 1: This is the moment for you to respond.
Speaker 1: If you need to pray, you can come down front.
Speaker 1: You can pray where you are.
Speaker 1: You can grab me or somebody in a green shirt around the room.
Speaker 1: You need to give your life to Jesus.
Speaker 1: Would love to have that conversation with you.
Speaker 1: You need to join the church.
Speaker 1: That's another great conversation to have today, but let's respond to the love of Christ together this morning.