Well, it is great to be with you, church, this morning. My name is Russ. If I hadn't met you, I'm one of the pastors here at Church of the Grove. It's so good to be with our family. And as we, as Brandon and our team let out, as we walk into this week called Holy Week, and we celebrate Palm Sunday, Jesus set his face on this journey. And so he set his face on this journey so we could know him. And in this series, we're we're talking about the fact that we there is a God. And he is a God that we can know. The God you can know. The first week we said that really it's about a pursuit, that we're called to pursue a God. A.W. Tozier says this the most important thing about you is what goes through your mind when you think about God. And so we believe in God, but we don't just believe. We can know God personally. And that's what this series is all about. And so a couple of weeks ago we looked at the fact that or last week we looked at the fact that God is all-powerful. He is sovereign. He is in control. And so today we're going to look at how God is all-loving. God is all-loving. Then this next Sunday, we're going to look at how the power of God and the love of God collides on that Easter weekend where Jesus gives up his life. And so we've got a weekend of opportunities. Friday night is going to be a good Friday. It's not a service. It's really a prayer walk or a prayer journey. And so this building will be open. This room will be opened up from 5 p.m. on Friday till 8 p.m. And you come at any point, at any time, and you can stay for as little as long as you want to, but it's going to be a little bit of a prayer labyrinth, a little journey as you contemplate what Jesus has done for you on that good Friday by giving up his life. And so then on Saturday, we've got two opportunities, three and five, for us to gather together and celebrate the Edom. So, Russ, that's not Easter Sunday, but it but hey, we can celebrate Easter Sunday any day, right, of the year. And so Friday gives us an opportunity to basically uh give us space for the amount of people that will come through over the weekend. And so I'm asking you to consider prayerfully if you could move to a Saturday night that would create a seat or give a seat up for somebody on Sunday. Um I would encourage you to do that. I'm not saying I'm not telling you you need to do that if you if that's not good for you, but consider that. The other thing I love about worshiping on Saturday on that Easter weekend is all of your people that serve us in the community, uh law enforcement, um, ENTs, nurses, people in the medical field, uh lots of people have to work. Um, and they serve us by working on a Sunday. Well, that means Saturday they can come and worship as a family. And so um it's just a multitude of opportunities for you to join in. Uh today we're talking about the love of God. The love of God. There's three three relationships in my life that have probably helped me understand what true love is, what biblical love is. And of course, the first relationship is my relationship with Christ. At 18 years old, I was introduced to a personal relationship with my Savior. The other two relationships are the relationship that I have with my wife. I believe that has taught me and helped me understand at a deeper level what true love is, what biblical love is, what uh what it says about the person of God. And then the third relationship is the relationship that I have with my kids. And after after a journey through infertility, uh God blessed Jill and I with the ability to have children. And there's nothing like that journey that leads up to you holding that first child and you being overwhelmed with a love that that is is indescribable, um, unfathomable. I mean, a love that is that is beyond our understanding. And that not only the fact that we feel that love, but we understand, hey, we are about to journey, we're about to embark on a journey that literally will change our whole perspective about love. Is Elizabeth Stone says this making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside of your body. And so having a child is un just, it helps understand this level of love that God wants us to understand. See, love's the interesting thing. It's hard to express in our world and our culture because uh we we talk about love in all kinds of different ways. We talk about the love of a parent, but we can also use the same word that we would use to say, I love my child. We use the same word to say, I love Taco Tuesday. I mean, do how many of you love Taco Tuesday? I mean, I we we say, I isn't it funny how we can say, uh, man, I love Jesus, but man, I also love my new lawnmower. Nobody loves a lawnmower. Who likes nobody loves a lawnmower? No, some of us do. But we we what is how do we define what love is? What does it mean to truly love? How do we define love? And from where does love originate? See, many in our culture think that love is simply a feeling that you can have one minute and not the next. And while this might be true for certain types of love, the love that we're talking about this morning, the love that we see put on display by an all-loving God is something that is more than a feeling. It is something that is demonstrated in action. Love is not a fault, it's not a feeling, it's not just a simple emotion. Love is action. It is actionable. It is something that compels us, it changes us to the point that we would consider a change in our pathway. And so, really, the big idea for today is this that the measure of God's love is seen in what he was willing to pay, seen in the price that he was willing to pay. God's not love is not just something he feels, it is something he demonstrated by giving his son so that we could have eternal life. So, would you just pray with me? Can we pray just for a second? I'm gonna ask us to maybe consider praying this prayer that we ended with last week. A prayer that Moses uttered. In the presence of God, he said, I beseech you, oh God, I beseech you, I plead with you. Please, God, show us your glory. Show us who you are. By looking at the person of Jesus, but also by sharing in the word that you've given to us. It's in Jesus' name we pray. And everybody said together. And so with this verse that we're gonna look at today is it's a it's a it's a verse that tells us about this all-loving God. And it's certainly one of the most familiar verses in all the Bible. You see, I grew up watching sporting events where a guy would wear a big, like, multicolored wig and hold a sign. What's the verse? What's the verse on the sign? John 3.16 is probably the most quoted, quoted, most memorized, most familiar verse in all the Bible to people inside the church, outside the church, people that don't even know what the church is. People have probably either heard or seen a reference to this verse. And so it's it's well known. But yet sometimes what is most familiar cannot, it can, it can often be the least examined. And so the context here is a conversation that Jesus has with a religious leader by the name of Nicodemus. And Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the middle of the night, and he was a guy that would have known about God more than anybody else knew about God, because he had been a part of a system where you had to memorize lots and lots of verses and you had to know all the particular rules to follow. But yet something's missing in his life to the point that he would come sneak into the middle of the night and enter into a conversation with Jesus, asking him about eternal life. How can I know that I have eternal life? And so Jesus gives him and us not another part of a system of religion, but he gives a revelation of God's heart. And so here's the verse. And this and I'm reading out of the Christian Standard Bible, which really throws me off because my memory verse for this has always tended to be out of the ESV. God so loved the world. But let's read, let's read this verse together out of the CSV, the Christian Standard Bible. Let's read it together. For God loved the world in this way. Now, my my memory verse the the ESV, it says, God so loved the world. Most of us probably know this verse this way. God so loved the world. And so, just so you know, technically, that word so it's translated in the CSV by the phrase in this way. And it's basically an adverbial phrase connecting two clauses, the fact that there is God and he does love. But he so loves, or he loves in this way. What is the way that God loves? What is so about God's love? And so we're going to look at four distinct phrases out of this one verse that speak volumes about the origin and depth of God's love. And the first one is this the origin of God's love, the origin of love. And it's this phrase, for God, love the world. For God, love the world. For God, loved. And this verse starts with God. The story doesn't start with us, but it starts with God. Can I say that again? The story doesn't start with you, it starts with God. The love of God has nothing to do with the object, but everything to do with the subject. It is not about who has affections. It's not about who his affections are turned towards, but everything about who God is. That is where love originates. It comes from God. John also writes about this in his letters. 1 John 4, 7 and 8. He says, Dear friends, let us love one another because love is from God. And everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God because, and let's say it together, God is love. God is love. So love is from God. But it's more than that. God is love. He is the personification of love. He is the picture of love. This means that love isn't something God does. Love is who God is. So when we talk about God's love, we're not talking about a mood. We're not talking about a fleeting feeling or something that's conditional. It is, we're talking about God's nature, his character, and who he is, and how he wants us to know his heart. And just a few verses later on in verse 19, John says this, 1 John 4.19, he says, We love because he first loved us. See, we don't, we can't even know what love is apart from God. He loves us first. God's love is the starting point. So can I make it really clear? We do not initiate this love. We do not earn this love. We do not deserve this love. God loves you first. God's love is not a reaction to your behavior, good or bad. No, God is an initiating God who initiates love because of who he is. God's love is not for you, it's not given to you out in measuring or measurable doses. Where God can love you a little bit because you are a pretty good person. That's not what we're saying. We're saying that God loves us first. In spite, we're gonna get back to this in a second, but this phrase, so loved. God so loved, or God loved in this way, this adverbial word, what does it mean not just to love, but to so love or to love in this way? It speaks of the manner and magnitude of God's love. It's not merely that God loved, He He is how He loved. David Jeremiah, pastor, uh one of my favorite uh pastor preachers is on the West Coast, uh, which encourages me that somebody uh on the West Coast knows God. I'm sorry. Here's what David Jeremiah says. He said the biggest little word in the Bible may be the word so. Included in so are the agonies of the cross and all the riches of God's grace, all the depths of my sins and all the beams of his mercy. The cross is bound up in that adverb so or in that phrase in this way. God so loved the world that he went to extraordinary lengths to express it. And this is hard for, I don't know about you, but it's hard for me to comprehend. It's hard maybe for some of us to comprehend. The truth is that a lot of us have only experienced love in a conditional way. Love that is fragile. Love that's here as long as you perform, but then it disappears when you fail. But this is not what we're talking about. The measure of the love of God is not dependent upon our performance. As a matter of fact, he loved us before we were lovable. Paul says in Romans, he says, God demonstrates his love in this way while we were yet still what? Sinners, separated from him. Christ died for us. So we aren't looking for his love. We don't know how to go after his love. In fact, we we've rejected his love. We've rejected him with our words and our actions and our way of life. But that did not stop him from loving us to the point where he would die for us. And who did he love? What's it say there? He loves the whole, God so loved the world. What does that mean? Is it means he's environmental? God is environmental, he's uh loved this planet. I'm maybe he does. I'm sure it's part of his creation, but that's not what he means when he says world right here. He's talking about every human being ever created from every nation and every language. He gave his life because he loved every person in this world that's ever existed. Yes, this is not a picture of a perfect people. It's a picture of a fallen, rebellious humanity that all of us are accountable to. We're responsible for. God's love is not directed toward the righteous, but it's directed toward the sinner. That's why we call it good news, church. That's why we get excited about this week that Jesus set his face to ride into Jerusalem and they sang Hosanna to the king. But the same people that shouted Hosanna to the King just days later would shout, Crucifier. It's good news. He loves the broken, he loves the sinners, he loves the rebels, he loves the people with shame, people with secrets, people with the past, people with the future, people with doubts. In other words, he loves the whole world. And I I maybe I'm repeating that so much, but I want us to get it. I want it to be solidified in the depths of our souls because so many people believe the lies of the enemy, believing that God's love fluctuates based on how we are doing, whether we're good, whether we're bad. But let me tell you something. God's love reaches you right where you are. God's love doesn't fluctuate with your failures. God's love is not based on your performance. God's love. God's love is so beyond what we can understand. God loves you not because you're good, but because he is love. There's nothing, Tim Keller, one of my favorite writers, preachers, he says he says so clearly, there's nothing that you can do that will make you that will make God love you any more or any less than he does right now. Can let that sit in your heart. There is nothing I can do to make God love me anymore, or love me any less than he does right now. So not only do you see the origin of love, but we see the demonstration of God's love. The demonstration, here's the phrase out of that verse. He gave his one and only son. This is a demonstration of God's love. How do you measure love? I mean, anyone can say it. I love you. But honestly, words are cheap. Love is proven not based on what you say alone, but what you do. It is the actions in your life. I have a daughter that's 24 years old and and and and she's been married for two and a half years. And she's writing songs about love, which tickles me. Why? Because she's only been married two and a half years. I mean, she doesn't have a clue yet, does she? But you know what? She's got something right. She's written this song, it's titled Rome. Her name is Abigail Joy on iTunes. So every time you go and listen to that song and stream it, I am one step closer to having her off my phone plan. But I objectively, I'll try to be as objective as a dad can be. I love this song because she says, you know, it's a it's titled Rome. Rome was not built in a day. And so she and her husband have this fresh love. But you know what? They know the truth. Now they've got to live it out, but they they've got the foundation. Love that never acts is not real love. Love that proves itself, love proves itself in what it's willing to give. God didn't just say he loved us, he demonstrated, he showed us, he gave. This is a demonstration of God's love. He didn't send a text message from heaven. God didn't just shout an encouragement from a distance and give us a warm and fuzzy feeling. God didn't just feel love, he moved toward us in love. Out of his love, he gave. This points us directly to the cross. It points us directly to this week and what leads up. Listen, don't let this week become commonplace to you. Another Easter. Check it off. Go read a reading plan. You can download a reading plan off the Bible app. Just read through the gospel, read through this final week in Scripture. Don't let this week go by without diving into the depths of God's love and what he's provided. He gave his one and only Son. The greatest expression of love is sacrifice. God didn't give something, God didn't give someone else. God gave himself in the person of Jesus. God gave us Jesus. That's the demonstration, that's action. And if you wonder, ever wonder whether God loves you, you don't have to guess. You don't have to wonder. You don't have to look at your circumstances. You don't have to measure it by how well you performed this past week, what your numbers were in your job. You simply look at the cross. You look at the empty tomb. The cross is God's receipt. It is the proof that God provides. It is God saying, This is how far my love will go. The cross proves God's love is beyond all doubt. When you question God's love, what do you do? You look back to the cross. Measure of God's love is seen in the price He is willing to pay. Love that never acts is not real love. God just didn't say it. He didn't just say it. He didn't just say he loved us. He showed it. He demonstrated it. While we were yet still sinners. Christ died for us, died for us. John 3.16, he gave. God demonstrates his generosity. That he gave. He gave his son, and this points to the cross. The cross proves God's love beyond all doubt. So we have the origin, we have the um we have the origin of love, the demonstration of God's love, and then we have the invitation of God's love. That everyone who believes in him, that everyone who believes in him, what is he saying? Now we see the reach of God's love. Who? Everyone. Every person, every nation, all people groups. This is one of the most hope-filled words in all of Scripture. That everyone who believes in him, not just the religious, not just the morally good, not just the successful, but everyone. This means, listen, if you're broken, you can come. If you're weary, you're invited. If you're ashamed, your shame can be covered. If you're skeptical, God can handle your doubts. If you've grown up religious, but but discover that maybe that religion and that those religious activities have left you empty, God says, you can come and you can know me. So his love's available. But there is a step. There is a step. There is a receiving that has to take place. No, it's a gift that has to be received. You receive it, which means you open it, you unwrap it, and you allow it to have its full weight. The full weight of your life is put into the person of Jesus when you choose to believe. Belief can be misunderstood. Much like the word love can be misunderstood, belief isn't just intellectual agreement. It's trust, it is surrender, it is placing the full weight of who you are into the person of Jesus. It's not about what you do, it's about who you trust. Salvation is not earned by effort, it's received by faith. And so God's love is offered to everyone, but experienced by those who believed. Who believed. God's love is offered to everyone, but it is experienced by those who believe. And it leads us to the final phrase in this passage. The final phrase says this they will not perish, but have everlasting life. And this is the fruit of God's love. Stinging of a right word to express this and the result or consequence just seemed kind of uh not, it seemed to miss the mark, and I thought the fruit of God's love, because fruit speaks to multiplication. Fruit means that we not only receive, but we also pass the baton of love. It is a seed that bears fruit in our life, not to stay with us, but to share it with others. We see the outcome of responding to God's love. Two realities that we see in this story, in this verse. First one is this they should not perish. They should not perish. What does he mean? Should not perish. What does that word perish mean? It means to be cut off. It means to be separated from a holy God. It means that we can't stand in the in the in the place, in the presence of God. We'll perish. My mother passed. This past May, but she didn't perish. As a matter of fact, what may seem like a long time will be just a short little blip. So I'm reunited with her. So perish is not just to be momentarily separated by something that we we all know call death, this earthly death. Perish means to be separated forever. Forever from God's presence. And God says, He so loved the world, those who believe should not perish. Which means that we have been rescued. Those of us who put our faith in Jesus, we have been rescued. Now, listen, a lot of us live our life like we've been rescued out of a kiddie pool. Man, hey, I'm I'm drowning. I'm in a kiddie pool. The water's ankle deep. Hey, throw me something, save me. That's why our worship is shallow. That's why our hunger is shallow. That's why we don't have a desire and affections for the Lord because we don't understand the depths of the rescue by which we have been saved. It's not kiddie pool desperation. It's like deep water Atlantic Ocean. You have no hope if somebody doesn't come and pull you out of the depths. Should not perish, but the second part of this, but have everlasting life. What does that mean? It means that we will have full restoration. This is more than just living forever, it is living with God in His presence. It begins the moment that you say yes to Jesus, you repent and believe in the good news. And it continues for all eternity. Can I tell you something about eternal life? Eternal life is not just about heaven someday, it's about knowing God today. And God's love rescues you from perishing, from eternal separation from God's presence. The scriptures say that to be eternally separated from God, there's phrases that are used to describe that, like weeping and gnashing of teeth. It's not an annihilation. It's not just that you cease to exist. You will still exist, but you will exist separated from the presence of God for all eternity. So God rescues you out of his love from perishing, from eternal separation. And he restores you and reconciles you back in right relationship with your creator. And then he invites you on this journey. Not only are you rescued, are you known by God, you know God, you now become an ambassador for God. 2 Corinthians 5.17 says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is passed away. See or behold, the new has come. God doesn't just just save you from something, he saves you for something. So John 3.16, let's just kind of can we just kind of put all this together in a short, understood way to comprehend it? Listen, God's love is initiated by God, it is demonstrated through Christ, it is offered as an invitation to all, it is received by faith, and it results in eternal life. And so the question is, do you know him? Do you know God? Not just about God, do you know him? Do you have you put your trust in Jesus and in Jesus alone? Are you living, are you walking in the confidence that God wants you to walk in, that you know God has got me? God holds me in the palm of his hand. He listen, despite the circumstances, despite how this world seems to be falling apart, he is the one who holds me in his hands. And he tells us this story in Luke chapter 15. He tells three parables back to back, which is the only place in Scripture where Jesus tells three parables back to back to back. One of them is about a shepherd who has a hundred sheep, and one wanders off. Now, let's just put this in in terms of money, finances, or economy. Hey, you don't you don't sacrifice the 99% for the sake of the 1%. Hey, business, if we know business, there's just things that we have to come to grips with. There's losses and there's cost. It makes no sense to leave the safety or leave the 99% that are still apart to go after one who just is lost. It makes no sense. It's because we have a God who loves us. He loves us, he's willing to leave the safety of the 99. So, what does that tell us? That if we have been on this journey, Jesus has revealed himself to us. We respond to him, we now join with him to go after the one. We partner with him. As a matter of fact, back to 2 Corinthians 5, verses 20 and 21, he says, Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ. Since God is making his appeal through us, we plead on Christ's behalf. Be reconciled to God. He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. And so not only now am I a recipient of his love, I am now an ambassador of his love. Which means it would be the most selfish thing in the world for me to receive, to believe, and then keep it to myself. Church, can we be like Jesus? Can we love like Jesus loves? Can we go after the one? If it's true what my pastor taught me, that most people come to Christ on the arm of a trusted friend. There's somebody in our circle of relationships, somebody in our family, somebody we're related to, somebody we're close to, somebody we're neighbors to, somebody we work with, there's somebody close to us, but they're far from God. And as we reflect on the love of God, as we reflect on his journey to the cross, as we reflect and we celebrate this coming weekend, celebrate a victory over death, freedom from sin and slavery, and we celebrate an empty tomb that proves that God has the ability and the power to save. Can we do it in a way that we would reflect this week on the one person that we're close to that but that is the farthest from God? Who is it? Who is it? I thought about this today. What if some of us literally took our phone out this morning and we texted? Because listen, you're gonna you're gonna fly out of here, you're gonna go into a busy day, busy week. But if you texted somebody this morning and you were proactive, you're thinking a week ahead, hey, would you come sit with me Saturday at 3 or 5 or Sunday, 8:45, 10:15, or 1145? Would you come sit with me? That's the love that Jesus is describing. That's the love of a God who's willing to go after the one and to leave the 99. And so really it comes down to two things. Number one, do you personally know the love of God? And then, secondly, are you willing to share it and be an ambassador this week? So, can we spend a few moments praying and then we're gonna sing together a song that that speaks of a holy, perfect God who loves in such a way that he would leave the 99 to go after the one? Father, would you work in our hearts? Would you help us have a deeper grasp of who you are and how you love? God, would you bring people to our mind even this morning that we could even start texting right now and inviting them to join us this next weekend as we celebrate, as we remember what Christ has done for us, in us. And God, would you would you work in us in our hearts in such a way that we will love like we've never loved before? That we will love you because you first loved us, and as a result of us loving you, we can't help but to love other people. And so, Father, we ask that you would work in us, walk with us, bring people to our minds and our hearts, cross our paths with people. This week we will have divine appointments that seem like just fleeting moments, kind of kind of those those moments that just come and go and we don't think anything about them. No, they're they're there for a purpose. God brings people across our path for divine moments where we can be the love that God has been to us. That we would be that toward other people. Father, we love you. Help us to be stirred in our hearts to love you more, but to show it and demonstrate it by our actions, not just by our words. It's in