Identity Crisis - Recognized By Love

"Recognized by Love"

At Generations Cowboy Church, we believe the greatest thing we can carry into the world isn't an opinion or an argument — it's love. In this message, guest pastor Amber Noblit asks a question that cuts straight to the heart: If the world never heard a sermon or stepped inside a church, would they still recognize Jesus just by watching the way we treat each other? Because that's exactly what Jesus said would happen. This one will challenge you, encourage you, and remind you that real love — the kind that moves toward people, stays when it's hard, and makes room for God — is still the most powerful force on the planet. Come as you are. Love like He does.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today, I have the honor, I have the privilege to have two of my friends here with us at church. And Amber is gonna come here in just a moment and preach, but I want to take just a moment. Like, this isn't fluff. Like so many times in the church world, there's people that you'll have come into a church because they might be gifted speakers or preachers. Phil and Amber are two people for me that they're the real deal even when they're not on stage. They're the kind of people like I have just seen Jesus by the way that they love people around them. I've seen Jesus in them by the way they have loved me and my wife. I know that they live 11 hours away, but if Kendra and I had something going on and we called Phil and Amher and said, Man, we just need you, they would pack up and they would get here. And so, man, those are the kind of people to me that just mean the world to me. I'm so thankful. I'm honored. She's an incredible speaker. She's gonna make you laugh at some point, I promise too. And she's a gifted preacher, but man, I just love them for who they are when they're not on stage. And to me, it makes that platform even more fluential because of who they are when they're not on the platform. So if you would, man, let's give a big round of applause for Amber Nobla. She comes up to share the word with us today. Come on.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Good morning, church. How's everybody doing? Good. Okay, so I just want to tell you a little bit about myself. I got to be here, was it a year ago? Yes, a year ago. And it was so precious. And I remember going, coming into this town, Hallsville. Does I say that right? Hallsville. And I came in here and I was like, and I've lived in the city my entire life, right? So coming into a, I don't know, a town that doesn't have houses because it's country. I don't know. I was like, where do the people come from to your church? And he's like, they're gonna be there. And I'm like, okay. And I remember that first Sunday of being here and just watching people flood in. And it was so cool to me because they were all the years of knowing Jason and Kendra and sitting and listening to PJ. I know some people call him Pastor Jason, I call him PJ, and listening to PJ and Kendra talk about what they, if they could have a church, what it would look like. And then getting to meet people. And I'm like, this is what you've prayed for, this is what you've believed God for. And it was so cool. And I felt like when we got home and people were like, How was it in Missouri? And I'm like, well, they didn't have humidity, so that was the best thing ever. And also, the people were just like them. And I don't know, you may think that sounds weird. I just want you to know that's the greatest compliment I could give you because I think Jason and Kendra are the greatest people ever. And to meet people that carry the same heart as them is just really rad. So, hey, buddy, I like your bow tie. I love that. See, he's the same everywhere, Texas and Missouri. All the kids love him. So anyway, I'm so glad to be here. I want to tell you a little bit about myself, and they come from everywhere. You're like the Pied Piper. I love it. Okay, so I grew up in the South my whole life, born and raised in Texas. And we would visit Missouri, but we would visit Branson. And you know that Branson is, people don't even live there. I think everybody that goes to Branson is just from somewhere else. And I thought that was what all Missouri was like, right? But grew up in the South, and in the South, we're different. We think everybody's business is our business. We think that we can, like if we're in the grocery store, and if I'm in the grocery store and you're in the grocery store and you have something in your cart that I've wanted to try, I'm gonna ask you about it. I don't have to know you. And if you look at me strange, I know, oh, you're not from here. Because we will share recipes right there in the produce section, you know, and it's just like that's how it is. And I thought everybody in the world was like me until I married this farm boy from Ohio. And we, I go to Ohio and his family, precious, and the people precious, but they did not know what to do with me. Um, I would hug them every time I saw them, and they would just, they were like, hello, it's good morning. It's I'm like, we're family, we hug. And they're like, we we don't have to. And you know, and I just thought, okay, so over the years, getting to know them and learning them, I realized these people in the Midwest, the northern Midwest, I always thought Ohio was north until we went to like Maine. And I was like, oh, it's not. Okay. But getting to know them, I realized there is not nicer people in the world. They just love differently than I do, right? And so fast forward, we had just come out of a really um, we had pastored in central Arkansas for 13 years, we're on the mission field, and then came out of a really hard ministry season and went on staff at the cowboy church where Jason and Kendra were on staff. And it's Texas, so I'm comfortable with this. I'm not a cowgirl, but I'm Texan, and so we understand that. And so get on there, and I remember the very first time I met Kendra Mock. And I thought, okay, I know Phil's family. I get this girl. She does not get me yet, but I get this girl. And Kendra was just, and you guys know she's great. She's very, she's gonna make sure things happen. She's gonna make sure all the I's are dotted and the T's are crossed. And I've been in youth ministry for 26 years. So everything to me is a party. Everything to me is fun. And Kendra's like, it's heaven or hell. And I'm like, it didn't have to be. Like, what if we just leave and go get snow cones? And she's like, we can't leave. And I'm like, we're gonna be in heaven one day. And I'm gonna say, remember when we could have got a snow cone and we didn't get one and we're still here? And she's just like, fine, let's go get a snow cone. Anyway, so my first time of meeting Kendra, I've met all these other people at Lone Star Cowboy Church. Everybody's hugging me. I've, you know, PJ was super friendly, and I meet Kendra, she's like, hello, I'm Kendra. And I'm like, Yeah, you are. And for me, for me, that was this moment of, okay, challenge, here we go. And I have already gotten to know Phil's family. So this Kendra was just like them, and I'm like, I I understand her. And so I would talk to her, and then she would walk off, and I was like, no, ma'am, come here. And I would make her hug me, and she didn't like it. She would just stand like a hot dog, you know, and I would hug her and hug her. And one day I thought, this is this is gonna be funny. And so I hugged Kendra and I didn't let go. And I just kept hugging her, and she just began to shake a little bit. I was like, I just love you. And she goes, Okay, thank you. I said, Oh, this is amazing, and I just kept pushing forward with her. And I was like, someday I'm gonna break this girl and she's gonna love me back. And I remember that the morning after the awkward long hug where she cried and she shook. I walked into my office and sitting on my desk was a bracelet that she had bought me. And I was like, I have one. Kendra is my friend. And so over time, people would say things like, Wow, you can tell Kendra really loves you. And I'm like, Yeah. Because she would walk into the office, serious, business, friendly, but she knew this is my job, this is what I have to do. And I'm like, but do you want to go get a snow cone? Because we can do that right now. She would come through and she would stop and I would watch her. She would be walking and you would see her stop and kind of like, okay, yeah. And then she would turn and come into my office. Good morning, how are you doing? And I'm like, there she is, there's my bestie. How are you? You know, and over time our friendship just grew. And people around the church always would say, Well, we know it. Kendra loves you. We can tell Kendra loves you. Until one day, again, Kendra, she'll surprise you. They were slaughtering. This is a cowboy church that had cattle, and they were slaughtering one of these things outside. Like, why? I go to a place called Costco to get my beef. And so she comes into the church. This, I really had to pray through this one because this one's hard. She comes into the church with a leg of this steer, and it's got tendons hanging off of it. I mean, it's fresh cut off this thing. And I get really grossed out by things. Smells gross me out, and also blood. And here comes both, and they're Kendra's holding it, and she's swinging this thing around and this tendon's flying. She's like, Ember, you want to hug now? Ember, Ember. And I she made me throw up that day, like three times. And I am, it's, I don't know, I don't like to throw up. And if you throw up, I'm gonna throw up with you because the sound, the smell, everything. I'm throwing up. Kendra's standing outside laughing at me. And I'm like, maybe we're not friends. Maybe I'm wrong. And it wasn't but like a week later, and you have to understand, everybody's busy doing their thing. We had a staff meeting, PJ called the staff meeting in the sanctuary, and Kendra comes in the side door, the whole staff is there. And she comes in, not just she's ready for business, and she comes over, sets her stuff down, and gives me this big hug. And she said, Sorry, I made you throw up. And she went and sat down. And when she turned around, everybody on staff was just looking at her. Because everybody saw Kendra in action. And I realized in that moment her love was not in question. And everyone knew how much she loved me. Should you take a steer leg and chase people? No, that's disgusting. Don't do that. But it was this moment where her love for me as her friend was evident to other people. It didn't matter if she said I loved Amber. They saw how she treated me. They saw how she was towards me. And there was not a day what Pastor Jason just said to you guys is true. We would fight for them. We would be here. It takes 11 hours, but I have a bladder of an old man, so it takes like 14. We it takes a while, but we would be here and we love them. And I just want you guys to know how blessed you are to have them as your pastors. They are the best. And if you don't know that, if that's the only reason I'm here today is to tell you they're the best, they are the best. And we were honored just to get to be here with you today. So thank you for letting me come back and thank you for sharing. And whoever's children these are, they've that's this is amazing. They do they just keep coming all service, or are you gonna be covered here in a minute? All right. So I that I want to, Pastor Jason was telling me about the series that you guys are in, and he asked if I would talk about love, and I was like, yes. And I would love to share with you guys just an understanding of love that maybe we don't always look at because we think love is a feeling. When you were in middle school and high school and you had your first crush, that was like gas, right? That wasn't really like what but we think it's a feeling. And I want to look at John 13, 35. It says, By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. There's a definition, it's it's a word, maybe you've heard it, it's called semantic change. It's also referred to as semantic shift, semantic progression, semantic development, or somatic drift. If you've ever studied this out, basically what it is it's a form of language change regarding the evolution of word usage, usually to the point that the modern meeting is radically different from the original meeting. If you're like, what are you talking about? Give me some examples. Oh, I'm so glad you asked. I will. The word awful, we're like, that's awful. Literally, the word means full of awe. Originally meant to inspire wonder. Hence, impressive. In contemporary usage today, we know awful doesn't mean full of awe, we mean that's really bad. If you say something's awful, it's that's bad, right? So there's an example of somatic change. Another word, terrific. That's terrific. What was that that tiger? Tony the tiger, terrific, right? Terrific originally meant inspiring terror. It shifted to indicate anything bad. So inspiring terror to something amazingly good, which is like that's not what that's supposed to mean. Another example is the word gay. When my grandma, when I was a little girl, my grandma would say that she was gay. And we're like, because it means joyful or joyous. And we're like, grandma, that word don't mean what you think it means. You shouldn't tell people that. So that word originally in the 13th century meant lighthearted, joyous, bright, and showy, happy. And then in the 90s it meant dumb, right? When you're like, dude, that's gay. That meant like it was dumb. And then obviously we know the word has changed to something else, and it's now considered inappropriate to say. However, words change meanings. Why are you saying this? Well, let's look about the word at the word Christian. The word Christian means a follower of Jesus who believes, who believes he is the Son of God and Savior, having died for our sins and risen again. We understand the word Christian means that. So why do I point this out? Why am I sharing this with you this morning? Because we have a responsibility, y'all, that extends beyond a Sunday morning experience. If you call yourself a Christian, if you see yourself as a disciple of Jesus, showing up on Sunday morning is and checking a box, that's not what that means. And I think in our world, not just Missouri, not just Texas, around the world, especially in the Western world, we see Christianity as someone who goes to church and tries to be good. But that's not what the definition is. The definition is someone who is following Christ with their life, not just saying, hey, I don't want to go to hell. So I give my life to you, but it's like I'm turning and I'm following you with my life. So what if the world never heard a sermon? What if no one ever heard a sermon? What if they never read the Bible? What if they never walked into a church? Would they still know who Jesus is just by watching how you and I treat each other? Could they sit in a sanctuary in a staff meeting and watch a very detailed person from the Midwest embrace a very out of control Southern woman and go, She loves her? Do they look at you and see not that you show up to Generations Cowboy Church, but how you treat other believers? Do they go, hey, that person's a Christian? Would they still know who Jesus is just by watching how we treat each other? Because Jesus said they would in that verse. By this, everyone will know you're my disciples. How you love each other, how you treat each other, how you treat people who go to a different church than you on a Sunday morning. Because when we get to heaven, there's not a generations cowboy road. We're all together. And what's beautiful about this is right now, nationwide, there are people gathered worshiping the same God that we're worshiping, and we get to spend eternity with these people. And we may have different philosophies on small things, but the big thing is Jesus is Lord, and we get to follow Him with our life. How do we treat those people? So I want to look at some indicators of what love is when it comes to you and me and our responsibility. Not how you look at your wife or your husband or your boyfriend or your girlfriend or your children or your grandchildren. What does it mean to walk in love? Because love is a verb. The Bible says God is love. So this is it's to, if we're following Christ, if we are image bearers of Christ, how we live is a reflection of that. Love is a reflection of who He is. So how does that play out in our life? First of all, number one, let me tell you, love is our identifier, not our image. Love is our identifier, not our image. We've become really good at being known for things like our opinions, our politics, our preferences, our platforms. Well, I, and we it's sometimes like we're really good at the South of just kind of like putting sugar on it. Well, I think, and like we'll tell you off and then make you a casserole, and it's super confusing. You know, it's just like, well, what just happened there? We believe that our opinions, it's like, well, I feel, I think, I, but that's not what it is. Our identifier, not our image, because Jesus didn't say they will know you are mine by your perfection or your performance or your knowledge or your influence. He said they will know who you that you're mine by your love. You know what's so cool about that? Whether you've been following Jesus for two seconds or you've been following him your whole life, all you have to do is love, and people are gonna see something different than in you than they do in the rest of the world. Because all you have to do is go and what's this little town right here? Columbus? Columbia. Close. When you go to Ohio, no, I'm just kidding, when you you go over there and people somebody cuts you off. Somebody, you're going to grab something off the shelf and they take it, whatever it is, you have a moment that we feel as humans justified to respond with attitude. And I'm gonna tell you something. Just because you're justified in it as a believer doesn't mean that you should. I'm not saying we lay down and we let people walk all over us. I'm saying we pick our battles. We go, is it worth it? Is there an opportunity right now that people are gonna see Jesus in me? And it doesn't matter if I'm wearing a generations cowboy shirt, it doesn't matter if I've had some Christian paraphernalia on me that I bought off Amazon. It is, do people look at me and go, wow, they handled that different? I was a real jerk to them, but they handled that different. Do they see something different in me? Love is not a brand strategy, it's a birthmark. We live in a culture where we brand everything. Oh, oh, it's all gotta look the same. And we want people, we want to be influencers, which I think is the weirdest thing in the world. I want to influence a bunch of people that I will never meet on a social media platform that's so filtered. Like we get it backwards, but it is not a brand strategy, it's a birthmark. You don't have to announce it. Fun fact you can be an introvert, you can be Kendra Mock. But if you love, you don't have to announce it, you don't have to defend it. Real love is undeniable. You just see it from the quietest of quietest to the loudest of loudest. It's undeniable, but the problem is this the church has often tried to be right more than loving. Well, I know what's right. They're not telling. We we know of churches that they say, Well, I'm not a sissy church and I'm not this church, man. We're the body of Christ. We should be celebrating and praying that the body of Christ is gathering, even if their worship sounds different, even if they don't have donuts, which I think what a sad day. Can you imagine coming to church here and getting a donut and then visiting with your friend and they're like, we have nothing? And you're like, oh. But people do things different. What if we stopped trying to always be about being right, but lean more towards loving? The world doesn't recognize Jesus in what we do right, they recognize Jesus in how we love. I'm not, please don't misunderstand me. I'm not standing up here saying, let's justify sin. But nobody is gonna care about what you have to say about anything right or wrong until they know I can trust you. You love me, you're not judging me. You saw the fight between me and my family member on social media, and you're not standing outside the church on Sunday morning waiting to tell me, girl, I saw about you and your mama. You just love me. Number two. Love that looks like Jesus is inconvenient. I'm sorry to be the fun sucker in the room. Because we think that, oh, well, if I'm gonna love like Jesus, everything is great. This is not Disney. You're not a Disney princess. I'm sorry if your daddy told you you were, but that's not real life. Loving like Jesus is inconvenient, and I think this is where the church messes up because we're like, I'm gonna love like Jesus, but only when it's convenient for me. That's not loving like Jesus. Loving like Jesus, it being inconvenient, Jesus didn't love from a distance. I okay, what am I about to say? I'm not asking you guys to just hug each other. I know some of you that will freak you out after this. I'm not asking that, but I'm gonna tell you what Jesus did. Jesus didn't look at things and go, I love them, but I'm gonna stay over here where it's safe. He touched the lepers, he ate with the sinners, he forgave the betrayers. Are you ready for this one? He washed dirty feet, knowing that shortly after they were gonna all run away. He knew he was about to die. He knew it was over and he sat there and he washed their feet, knowing the one that would betray him, knowing the others would flee. It didn't change his nature. His love for you, his love for me, his love for those disciples, his love for the people that he ministered to wasn't because of who they were, it was because of who he is. What if we operated that way? What if we didn't determine how we were gonna treat people based off of how they treated us? What if we determine how we were gonna treat people based off of who we are and who lives in us and what he's done in our life? I'm gonna love you even if you don't love me, because greater is he who is in me than he that's in the world. I'm gonna see you through the lens of the blood of Jesus, and I'm not gonna get shook because you have attitude. You ask me if you have attitude, we're gonna talk because I'm gonna say, yeah, you got attitude. But my love for you isn't gonna be determined on you. Because if I, and you know what, friend, I'm gonna tell you, when you make that decision, it makes loving people so much easier. It makes being the hands and feet of Jesus so much easier. When you wake up in the morning and you're like, I'm determining today to live my life according to who God is and according to what He's called of me, then you don't get bent out of shape when people don't line up with what you need them to line up with. Because fun fact, they don't. If you have teenagers, you know that is the truth. It's the world we live in. All the teenagers like, we don't like her. Okay, it's it's it's it's real life, right? Love that identifies us as a Christian is this it's costly, it's interruptive. Wait, what have you ever had plans interrupted and it's inconvenient, but it's someone in need? If you've ever been on the other side of that when you've been desperate and you've reached out to people because you were in need, when they responded in love and grace and compassion, you know how comforting that is. It's uncomfortable, it's easy to love people who are nice, who agree with you, who celebrate you, who stay and never leave, who stay just like you. But Jesus's level of love, it moves towards the one who hurt you, who misunderstands you, who opposes you. Hear me on this. Who opposes your God? Y'all we live in Houston. Basically, it's Little Mexico. But Houston is a beautiful city, and I love it, and the melting pot is amazing, and I love it, love, love, love, love it. Why do I say Little Mexico? Because everywhere you go, oftentimes they will speak in Spanish before they speak in English. But what I've noticed in this melting pot of cultures, we have a large percentage of Muslims everywhere. There's Muslim schools, there's Muslim prayer things happening downtown Houston. And I'm like, what happened to the farmers market? What is that? What is this? And I'll be honest, it's scary. It can be scary. And you're like, well, I'm just gonna live out in the middle of nowhere. That's the safest thing. And there's nothing wrong with people who live in the middle of nowhere. People like me who can't remember what they went to the grocery store for, it would be awful because be like, I forgot everything I needed. But here's the reality: if we do what we do based off of fear, then we're gonna miss out on an opportunity to love. The way I see it, and maybe this makes me crazy, is every Muslim that I come in contact with is an opportunity for them to see Jesus because they don't know truth. They don't know. Now I'm not like trying to go hang out and wearing a hijab and trying to, I'm not, I'm not doing that. Um, it's too hot, and that would be bad for my hair. No, I'm just kidding. But like I look at this opportunity instead of going, wow, they're way different than me. Wow, they're broken and lost, wow, they're the evil ones, they're the enemy. Hear me, friend, hear me, friend. Whether it's Muslims or somebody that just believes differently than you, they are not the enemy. The enemy is the enemy. And if we could stop looking at people as they are the enemy, they're not like me, I'm drawing my line, I'm building my fence, and you can't come here. We're gonna continue to do the complete opposite that Jesus has asked us to do. Do you know every day in this world there are Muslims that are giving their heart to Jesus? Why? Because people who love Jesus demonstrated love. Well, so what are you saying to me? I'm not saying anything to you except for if you're gonna follow him, love like him, and be his hands and feet. Stop picking apart of who you're gonna love, who you're gonna reach out to, who you're gonna give the time of day to, and go, wow, God gave me another day. There's a purpose in my day. There's a purpose in my day. That's the kind of love that makes the world stop and say, This doesn't make sense. They must they must be like Jesus. Wow, they're different. She said she was a Christian. That's the first Christian I've ever met that acted the way Christians are supposed to act. Don't raise your hand, but everybody in here, you probably met a Christian that's awful. I have some in my family. You're like, wow, that's awesome. But they they just look angry all the time. Like they just drink vinegar and they're just like, bless God. And you're like, Yeah, are you sure? Are you okay? They're just mad. And you know what? So much of the world, when they think of Christians, the way they describe us looks nothing like Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

That we're judgmental, we're critical, we're angry, we're afraid. Next, love is loud without saying a word.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

Love is loud without saying a word. We think boldness is volume, but love is the loudest message we carry. Hear me, friend. It's the loudest message you carry. You can preach a powerful sermon, you can lead an amazing Bible study, a home group, whatever, but still be unrecognizable as a Christian if love is absent. Paul said it like this in 1 Corinthians 13. If I speak but have not love, I'm nothing. Love listens when it's easier to argue. Don't bump the person next to you, please. Love serves when it's easier to sit. Love stays when it's easier to leave. Someday, someday, hear me on this. Someday y'all are gonna outgrow this spot. Someday God's gonna give you a permanent building. And it's gonna be beautiful and it's gonna be awesome, and God, healthy things grow, okay? Someday that's gonna happen. I want you to remember this moment though, because every Sunday there are people that get here at very early hours and they turn this school into a church. And some of you, you're like, I love this, I love this. And I promise those of you that are doing it, you're like, I can't wait for the day that we don't do that. I know we've been part of many, many, many church plants. But what I remember of every time we went from a church plant to a permanent building, and it was beautiful and it was a God gift, we would always miss those days of the community that forms at six o'clock in the morning over coffee and stacking chairs, turning a gymnasium into a kid's ministry, trying to figure out how to make things work. It made me giggle. I don't know if I should say this or not. We were at a very quiet moment of worship. And I noticed when I went into the restroom they had paper towels for you to dry your hands, and they have those dryers on the wall. I'm just gonna be a friend. I'm just I have ADHD, so I noticed this. It was a very quiet, and all of a sudden I heard I was like, somebody's using a hand dryer. I just want to encourage you for other ADHD people that might be here in the sanctuary. Um, we hear the hand dryers, use the paper towels. That was so funny to me. I was like, what is that noise? Is that sound like a razor? And I'm like, oh wait, no, what is that? Oh, oh, that's the hairdryer or the hand dryer. I digress, sorry. Love is not weak, it's wildly strong. It takes more strength to love your enemy than to defeat them. But sometimes we go, well, I'm just so angry. Here's the reality: letting go of things you can't control, we feel like we're letting people get off. Well, they never said I'm sorry, and they're gonna just keep hurting people. Scripture says, vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. When you let go of unforgiveness, I'm not saying you become a doormat and let people walk all over you. I'm not saying we don't have healthy boundaries. Please hear me on that. But when we can let go of some things and go, look, I there's obviously nothing I can do to change this. When I let go, I free God to do what he's gonna do, and I free myself to love. Because the reality is, he who angers you conquers you. People, there are people, uh how do you know? It's been my whole life. I this that's what I just told you is hanging in my office. We find ourselves wanting to justify not letting go of things. We're like, I love Jesus, but this situation, and those people are off living their life. They don't care if you're still hurt, they don't care if they owe you money, they don't care if you're mad. What happens when we go, look, God, I just put them in your hands, and I'm gonna use the energy I have to do what I can and control what I can control and love who I can love. It frees us to step back and our hands are empty, and we can do and take what God is giving us. Next, the world is not looking for perfect Christians, they're looking for real love. People aren't rejecting Jesus, okay? We think they are. People are not rejecting Jesus, they're rejecting a version of Christianity that looks nothing like him. Like I just said, we've all known those Christians. They reject a version that looks nothing like he does because love draws, it draws people in. You're attracted to that. You're like, I just want what that is. Love heals, love restores.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

And when we love like Jesus, the broken feels seen, the outsider feels welcomed, and the sinner feels hope.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Love makes room for God to move. Here's what I want you to hear: God doesn't need you, He doesn't need me, He chooses to use us, but we get in the way a lot of what He's doing. Because when we say I represent Jesus and I do an awful job of it, the broken and the hurting people are like, I want nothing to do with that. Church hurt is real. But that hurt didn't come from God, it came from people representing him. You may have been someone who experienced church hurt, but you also, friend, may be somebody who caused church hurt. What do we do with that? We do better. We change that today. We say, okay, you know what? I've been a jerk before. I've been really judgmental of how other people parent their kids. I've been really judgmental of how this is handled. I've been really judgmental of how this is handled. What if we just go, wow, wait a minute, what if I'm the problem? What if I'm the one that's caused so much hurt? What if people don't come on Sunday morning because I'm here? Then let's fix it. Then let's love each other with an abandonment and recognize love is what draws people to. Okay, let me say it this way. Every single one of us, we've done things we regret. We've all got pasts, some of us more colorful than others. But I'm gonna tell you something. If you walk out and you go find a crackhead, you're like, hey, crack is bad. You're awful, it's destroying your life, they're not like, what? Nobody ever told me. I wish somebody would have told me that this was gonna kill me. No. And we think that when we look at people who are doing things, that if we just sit there and beat them over the head with everything they're doing wrong, that they're gonna be like, oh, you're right. Come on, you're smart. When you've done wrong things, did you know you were wrong? Yes. When you were doing bad things as a teenager, did you know it was bad? Yes. Did you feel that you were justified in it? Of course, because there was emotions and all the blah, blah, blah. But the reality is this none of us have done blatantly wrong things and not known in our knower that what we were doing is wrong. What caused us to want to change is when people, what caused me to turn my life over to Christ? When somebody wasn't telling me, hey, you're going to hell, you're going to hell, you're going to hell, you're going to hell. But they were like, hey, God loves you. You're better than this. Do you know He He sees your strengths? He looks past the brokenness. He wants to heal that. And they created space for me. They invited me to sit at the table with them. They weren't judging me. They weren't preaching at me. They were loving me, and it created a space where my heart could receive what God had. My life, I grew up in ministry. My life is different, not because I was a pastor's kid. My life is different because real Christians who love Jesus loved me. And it made me want not to play the game, not to check the box, but to fully surrender to God. Because I saw people that were normal, that loved Jesus with abandonment. And I'm like, if that's real and they can love me like that, maybe, maybe I am. Maybe I can be forgiven. Maybe I'm not as broken as I thought. Maybe there is hope. Maybe God does really have a plan for me. Maybe there's a purpose for me in this season. I'm gonna read together. I want you guys to look at this. Hold on just a second. Pause there. If we get love right, everything changes. Take note. If you get love right, everything changes. Marriages change, homes change, churches change, communities change. Not because we get louder, but because we get more like Jesus. Imagine a church where gossip is replaced with grace, judgment is replaced with compassion, division is replaced with unity. That church wouldn't need marketing. You wouldn't even have to pay for Facebook advertisement for Easter, PJ. You wouldn't need it. Because it would be unmistakable. People would be coming in going, hey, this is different. I want this. And they would see people that they used to do bad things with in here worshiping God, and you don't have to justify why you're here. You don't have to justify what your past looks like. All you have to say is Jesus changed my life. And I want to tell you all about him. You don't have to try to sell why you deserve him. You just get to love like him, and he sells himself. We've heard this statement. Um, my generation, uh, when I was a teenager, youth pastors would always say, if you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? It was like t-shirts and posters in youth rooms. It's like that's that's a pretty powerful thought. But what if what if it's more than that? What if it's greater than that? What if it's not about evidence to convict you? What if it is about what your character is like, how you've treated them? You've also heard the phrase, people don't care how much you know until they know what how much you care. Look a little deeper. Before we hear, before people hear, before your children hear, before others hear what you believe, they feel how you love. They do. So the question isn't, do they know what I stand for? The question is, do they recognize Jesus in the way I love? So if you're arrested for being a Christian, is there enough evidence to convict you? What if would there be enough proof to convict you being a follower of Jesus? Not because you had the title next to your name, but because you loved so extravagantly that people could not mistake it. Like I just think, I saw this thing the other day, and it just got me. It says, when I die and I stand before the Lord, I want my heart to be covered with stretch marks. And I'm like, yeah, I want, I'm not gonna get everything right. I didn't get everything right today. I said some dumb things during the mic check earlier, and I thought they were gonna make me leave. Like, I we don't get everything right. We blow it on the regular, and if you don't, I do enough for all of us, okay? So welcome to my world. But at the end of the day, I want to know when people remember me. They're like, yeah, she was kind of wild, but she loved Jesus and she loved me. And you know what? That's what draws people to him. You're not, you're not trying to reproduce yourself. Take the pressure off. You're just trying to reproduce Jesus. You don't have to be like me, you don't have to talk like me, you don't have to hug everybody, you don't have to have wild hair. Some of you don't have hair, PJ, some of you don't. But you can love with abandonment and you don't have to deny past to point to future. Amen. So I want to look at this passage, 1 Corinthians 13. You've probably read it, you've probably heard it at a wedding. And I loved this way this translation said. So I want to share it with you this morning before we close. If I were to speak with eloquence in earth's many languages and in heavenly tongues of angels, yet I didn't express myself with love, my words would be reduced to the hollow sound of nothing more than a clanging cymbal. And if I were to have the gift of prophecy with a profound understanding of God's hidden secrets, and if I possessed unending supernatural knowledge, and if I had the greatest gift of faith that could move mountains, but have never learned to love, then I am nothing. And if I were to be so generous as to give everything I own to feed the poor and to offer my body to be burned as a martyr without the pure motives of love, I would gain nothing of value. Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessings come to someone else. Love does not brag about one's achievements nor inflate its own importance. Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense. Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong. Love is a safe place. I'm sorry, love is a safe shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes to failure as feat, for it never gives up. What if instead of us getting so caught up in everything that's wrong in the world, we recognize, wait a minute, I'm here for such a time as this. That God has me on this earth for a reason for this time. And if only the only thing I do is tell people that Jesus loves them. And I love with an extravagance. I don't have to point out people's sins. The love of Jesus in my life is gonna draw them to a place that when we have conversation, yeah. Hey man, I'm doing this. What do you think about this? Well, it's wrong. You don't have to go and beat people over the head. They're gonna come and go, what's different about you? You know I'm not doing the right thing. Do you think I'm awful? Do you think I'm worthless? You could say, No, I think you're worthy. And I think the enemy would love to destroy you with the stuff that you're caught up in. Thank you for trusting me with this conversation. He loves you, he sees you, he knows your name. I'm not perfect, I haven't had it all together, but I have a God who loves me and forgave me and gave me a chance, and he wants to do the same thing in you. The pressure's off. What if we looked at people through the lens of the blood of Jesus and we recognize that we get to live the gospel out every day? And people look at us and decide what they believe in Jesus. Love is important. Love has to be consistent. You don't get to cherry pick scripture, and you don't get to decide who you love and who. You don't love. Yes, you decide your community. Yes, we need to be careful who we call friends. Yes, who you surround yourself with is important. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about how we treat a world that is dying and going to hell. How dare we ever live our life in a way where we think, well, they deserve hell? No, no, no, no, no. You and I deserve hell too. We all do. And yet, the savior of the world came to this earth, put skin on, and died so we didn't have to. None of us are exempt from what we deserve. And yet, that gift was free to each and every single one of us. And it's free to the people that are out there who say, I will never darken the door of a church. It's free to the Muslims who are radically wanting to destroy America. That salvation is free. And if we love with abandonment and we live in such a way, our life will matter. And the world around us will change. Our marriages will change. Our relationship with our kids will change. The way we carry ourselves in the community will change. And I believe our hearts will have stretch marks on it when we stand before God because we did everything we could to love a world that needed Jesus. Let me pray for you. Lord Jesus, we just thank you so much. I thank you, Lord, for the privilege and opportunity to get to stand here with these amazing people of this church. God, I thank you for what you're doing in Missouri. I thank you for what you're doing. In Hallsville, I thank you for what you're doing in Generations Cowboy Church. I thank you for the honor and privilege to get to just share how much you love them today. But Lord, I pray that you just get a hold of every single one of our hearts. Help us to evaluate how do we see the world around us? How are we treating people around us? Not the people that we that are easy to love. What about the ones that aren't? Do people look at us and see you, Jesus? Are we kind? Are we compassionate? Are we quick to run to those that are hurting or are we quick to hope somebody else does? Forgive us, God, for where we've been poor representations of you. Forgive us, God, for where we've not been willing to look past differences and to see, wow, what an opportunity for somebody's life to change. God, I thank you that heaven is full of broken people who did not deserve your love, but because they received it, their lives were transformed. The same will be said of us. But God, I also pray that there are people that show up because we loved the way you called us to love, and the trajectory of their life changed because we understood the assignment. We give you glory for who you are, Jesus. And God, I thank you for what you're doing in this church, in our hearts, and we just give you today.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

Here's what I think. And what a message to challenge, even me. But here's the beauty of it. There's a couple things here. Like, like, one, God's not saying, hey, go figure out how to love like that on your own. Like the first key to loving like Jesus and and allowing love to be the thing that defines who we are is by understanding that we're loved by Jesus and accepting him as our Savior. When we can receive His love, it's so much easier for us to share that love with somebody else. And so, man, I just I really feel like I want to start there. Like, man, if you're here today, you have never surrendered your life to Jesus, and you're like, man, that message is hard because I'm not sure I can love like that. You can't on your own. Jason can't on his own. It took the love of Jesus in my life changing me so that I could love that way. So if you're here today and you're like, I have never surrendered my life to Jesus before. And today, man, if there is a God who loves me like that, I want to receive him as my Lord and Savior today. If that's you, man, would you just slip a hand up real quick so we could pray with you? It's nothing to be embarrassed about, it's something we celebrate. Anybody that would say, Man, that's me today. Yeah. Can we do this? Can we stand all across this place? I'm gonna have some friends come down and and if you need prayer today at all, like maybe you're here and and you're like, man, that message kind of hits me because I I got some things I'm struggling in my life and it's making it hard for me to love like Jesus. I want to encourage you as they get ready to sing this worship song to just take a moment to come down and let somebody pray with you. Maybe you're just going through something else in life. Like, man, I'm just I'm going through a struggle, or or I'm sick and I just need somebody to pray with me. These guys are down here. They're your friends. They're here to encourage you to lift you up and be there for you. Or maybe you're like, I'm just here today and I just need a minute alone with God myself. Cool. Come make a spot at the altar. Come down here, turn these stairs into your altar and take a minute or two with God while we worship if you need to. But as we worship, if you're here today and you need prayer at all, man, I want to invite you to come down as we worship and let's just take a couple moments to let God work in our hearts and lives where we need it.