SPEAKER_01: This podcast is a ministry of Grant Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_01: Helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_01: For more information about Grant Parkway, visit GrantProquay.org.
SPEAKER_00: Because at the heart of this story is a baby who was born of glory.
SPEAKER_00: He came into this world to rescue us.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible tells us that the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work.
SPEAKER_00: That means that we don't live at the mercy of our habits and our hurts and our hang-ups, that we're not spiteful, vengeful, small-minded people who have a list of everyone who's wronged us and we're going to get them back.
SPEAKER_00: Now the Bible says that because we've been loved unconditionally, we can love other people unconditionally.
SPEAKER_00: That messes with their heads.
SPEAKER_00: It makes them wonder because they know what wretches we are.
SPEAKER_00: They know how small and how petty we can write things on Facebook about them.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, when people know what we're capable of, then the fact that we love unconditionally makes them wonder.
SPEAKER_00: Now, how did he get that way?
SPEAKER_00: Because I know what a weasel that guy is.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're not afraid of who we used to be because we're aware of who we are.
SPEAKER_00: And we are who we are today because you found us and you unwound us.
SPEAKER_00: That's our confession today.
SPEAKER_00: So we sing out with joy and we sing for joy and we sing with joy.
SPEAKER_00: And now, Lord, as we continue this Advent journey, speak to us about the responsibility of this little big word called love.
SPEAKER_00: We're praying and we're listening.
SPEAKER_00: We do both of these in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You can have a seat.
SPEAKER_00: If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it up to 1 John chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: 1 John chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of towards the back of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Bible, it's well in your row.
SPEAKER_00: I'm on page 1,023.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't own a Bible, take that one with you as our gift to you today.
SPEAKER_00: We'll get another one, okay?
SPEAKER_00: If you're our guest today, we're on this journey.
SPEAKER_00: We celebrate what's called Advent.
SPEAKER_00: Advent is a word that just means coming or arrival.
SPEAKER_00: And it's the four Sundays that lead up to Christmas, and each Sunday has a theme.
SPEAKER_00: We started off talking about hope, and then we talked about peace.
SPEAKER_00: And then last week we talked about joy.
SPEAKER_00: And today, the fourth Sunday of Advent typically is about love.
SPEAKER_00: And so talking about love in this day and age is kind of like the pre-flight instructions on an airplane.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody listens.
SPEAKER_00: You're kind of fumbling around, getting your magazine, whipping your kids so they'll be quiet.
SPEAKER_00: Or if you're set if if you're on a plane with me, hopefully you're giving your kids Benadryl.
SPEAKER_00: And if not, I've got some in my carry-on I can give your kid, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, when you talk about love nowadays, that's what it's kind of like.
SPEAKER_00: You're kind of like, yeah, yeah, I shaved my legs for this, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk to you this morning about the responsibility of love.
SPEAKER_00: And to prove that miracles never cease, I want to do it in a real timely fashion and get you out of here in plenty of time to practice what we preach.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I don't quite know how to take that.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you, one guy in the first service said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And then under his breath said, I don't believe it.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what the Bible says the responsibility of love.
SPEAKER_00: 1 John chapter 4, starting in verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God.
SPEAKER_00: And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
SPEAKER_00: In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.
SPEAKER_00: In this is love.
SPEAKER_00: Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
SPEAKER_00: No one has ever seen God.
SPEAKER_00: If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
SPEAKER_00: The responsibility of love involves three things.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, it tells us this that love is an experience.
SPEAKER_00: Love is an experience.
SPEAKER_00: It's not an assignment.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like this task on your list of religious duties or responsibilities.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean love's an experience?
SPEAKER_00: Before it's an effort that we make, it's this experience we have.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to love until you've been loved.
SPEAKER_00: I know that some of you, how many of you people in this room, men talking to you, ladies who get a hop pass?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you men, before you married your wife, you dated some other girl, you were just you had a brain cramp, you were not knowing what you were doing, it was an out-of-body experience.
SPEAKER_00: But not only did you date somebody else, but you told that other person at some point that you loved them.
SPEAKER_00: Could I see your hand?
SPEAKER_00: Hold it up real high.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, taste like chicken.
SPEAKER_00: I see some of you out there, you cowards, you're doing this.
SPEAKER_00: Look at your wife.
SPEAKER_00: Leave your hand out, don't put it down.
SPEAKER_00: Hold it up real high.
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are looking at your wife like, baby, no, don't take this personal.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, your wife right now is thinking about the guy she dated before she dated you, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So get over yourself.
SPEAKER_00: All right, put your hands down.
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you another question.
SPEAKER_00: Now that you've been with your wife as long as you have, has your understanding and definition of love changed?
SPEAKER_00: Let me see your hand.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, look at now you're like, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: See, honey, you changed this for me.
SPEAKER_00: Your wife's thinking right now, you didn't have your hand up earlier, you weasel.
SPEAKER_00: You Freddy cat?
SPEAKER_00: No, that's the thing.
SPEAKER_00: It kind of changes because what?
SPEAKER_00: Love is this experience.
SPEAKER_00: I remember when I was in the eighth grade, I called the radio station because I was a moron, and I yelled into the phone because I thought it would be it would be so loud.
SPEAKER_00: It would get over on the radio station.
SPEAKER_00: I cut my hands around the phone and I yelled into the phone, I love Debbie Enders.
SPEAKER_00: And all that happened was my brother came out of his bedroom who had to go to shift work.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he had to go to work first thing in the morning and beat me to a bloody pulp.
SPEAKER_00: All our members, my brother, going, You idiot, they can't hear you.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay.
SPEAKER_00: Love makes you do crazy things.
SPEAKER_00: When I say that love is an experience, here's what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: Because you see, hear it again.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Beloved, let us love one another.
SPEAKER_00: Because you can read what the Bible says and not get what it means.
SPEAKER_00: It's not because the Bible's mysterious and it's written for perfect people or smart people.
SPEAKER_00: It's written for people who are willing to think about it and then and then live it out.
SPEAKER_00: Hear verse 7 again.
SPEAKER_00: Beloved, let us love one another.
SPEAKER_00: For love is from God.
SPEAKER_00: And whoever loves has been born of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now that sounds like, hey, the only thing required to be a Christian is just to be a loving person.
SPEAKER_00: Not what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: It kind of deepens it with the definitions.
SPEAKER_00: But he said, whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love.
SPEAKER_00: Why do I say love is an experience?
SPEAKER_00: Because before we make this effort, we gotta understand what we're saying.
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's important that we understand what the Bible means when it says what it says.
SPEAKER_00: So to help us get at that, let me define three little words or one word and a couple of phrases.
SPEAKER_00: First thing I want to define is love.
SPEAKER_00: When the Bible says, beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the Bible's definition of love may not be your definition of love.
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: It's the Greek word agapayo, agapaio, and it means this.
SPEAKER_00: This kind of love is to love dearly, to be contented at or with, to love without conditions.
SPEAKER_00: To love without condition.
SPEAKER_00: When I say love is an experience, here's what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's why John goes on and says, hey, beloved, let us love one another for loves of God.
SPEAKER_00: And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because you cannot love unconditionally until you embrace the fact that you're unconditionally loved by God.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot love unconditionally until you embrace and experience the fact, not in your head but in your heart, that you are loved unconditionally by God.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the reasons Jesus came.
SPEAKER_00: If you ever, if you if you're going to make a New Year's resolution, resolve this.
SPEAKER_00: Resolve to read the book of John.
SPEAKER_00: This is the epistle of John, but the gospel of John, like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
SPEAKER_00: Start reading in John chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, well, this past week we read through the book of Philippians.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you emailed me and said, Hey, this is easier than I thought it was.
SPEAKER_00: But if you start reading like in the book of John, and you just kind of read through, one of the things you'll see is over and over and over, Jesus comes to tell people, God loves you unconditionally.
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: John chapter 3, we'll get to that in a minute.
SPEAKER_00: But John chapter 4, he meets this woman at a well.
SPEAKER_00: She's getting water, and Jesus says, Will you give me a drink?
SPEAKER_00: And the woman's like, Hey, you're a Jew and I'm a Samaritan, okay?
SPEAKER_00: You go to Cedar Heel.
SPEAKER_00: I want, I go to Katie.
SPEAKER_00: Whoopsie.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I did it again.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, it's old school Britney Spears right there.
SPEAKER_00: Most of y'all ain't got that.
SPEAKER_00: It's just a football game, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Lighten up.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, uh, this woman's kind of like, Jesus, you know, you're a Jew and I'm a Samaritan.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, hey, if you knew who it was, they'd ask you for a drink.
SPEAKER_00: You would ask me, and I would give you the gift of God.
SPEAKER_00: And she's kind of like, uh, uh, uh, and in her mind, she's like, you don't know who I really am.
SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of, I've kind of screwed my life up.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus reads her mail and says, hey, he says, hey, give me a drink.
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you what, what I'm about to do in you is so good, go get your husband.
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, well, uh, see, that's the problem, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: No one wants to blow smoke in Jesus' face.
SPEAKER_00: So you always do the smoker turn away.
SPEAKER_00: That's the problem, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have a husband.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, I'll take it from here.
SPEAKER_00: You're right, you don't have a husband.
SPEAKER_00: You've had five husbands, and you're shacked up right now with a man that's not your husband.
SPEAKER_00: Row.
SPEAKER_00: And what Jesus says to her changes her life.
SPEAKER_00: So much so that towards the end of John chapter 4, she runs into town and says, Come meet a man who told me everything I've ever done before.
SPEAKER_00: And he still loved her.
SPEAKER_00: If you read further into John, you get over to John chapter 8, and Jesus is teaching one one day, and the Pharisees come, the religious guys that wear funny hats in the Bible, they come and they run in.
SPEAKER_00: They got this woman caught in the act of adultery, they throw her at the feet of Jesus and says, Jesus, that Moses commanded us in the law of stone skinks like this.
SPEAKER_00: What do you say?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus just writes in the dirt.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know what he what he wrote, but everybody's split.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus looks at her and said, Who condemns you?
SPEAKER_00: And she said, No one, my Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said, Neither do I.
SPEAKER_00: Go your way and sin no more.
SPEAKER_00: You don't find that lady in John chapter 10, kind of going, Hey, Jesus, remember me?
SPEAKER_00: I'm that scaky one from chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: I know I was naked back there, but I did good, but then you know tequila makes my clothes fall off.
SPEAKER_00: Blake Shelton sing about it, you know?
SPEAKER_00: And I kind of got a little, you know, it's Christmas, and I kind of got crazy, and well, you know, can we do it again?
SPEAKER_00: You know, you never find her anywhere else in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because before love is a command, it's an experience.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says, so when the Bible talks about love and it says it's Agatha, it's this unconditional love.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I want you to know.
SPEAKER_00: If you if you write anything down write this, we love others the way we understand God to love us.
SPEAKER_00: The way you love others is an indication of what you really believe to be true about the way God loves you.
SPEAKER_00: And so before we try and take this love to anyone, let's just embrace the fact that God loves us unconditionally.
SPEAKER_00: If you're this is the first time you've been in a church and you you came today kind of thinking, oh great, how long is this gonna be?
SPEAKER_00: Relax.
SPEAKER_00: God's not mad at you, he knows everything you've ever done, and he has not changed his mind about you.
SPEAKER_00: He loves you.
SPEAKER_00: Even when you knew better and you did it anyway, he loves you.
SPEAKER_00: He's done conditional love.
SPEAKER_00: Told my daughter, my 17-year-old daughter last week was finals.
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, that's a big deal in school, and everyone's gotta get there and go, ah! And I looked at her and said, What am I thinking?
SPEAKER_00: She goes, You don't care.
SPEAKER_00: I said, No, no, no, I care, but I don't care what you make on a final, I care about you.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Dad, my friends just say that's crazy.
SPEAKER_00: Your friends are idiots, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Put that on Instagram.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Dad, Instagram is for pictures, not text.
SPEAKER_00: I'll write it on a poster board.
SPEAKER_00: You can take a picture of it.
SPEAKER_00: She goes, but I mean, I go to school and my friends they stop me and they go, What'd your dad say last night?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, You tell him my dad said I don't care if I flunk out of school, he's always gonna love me.
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, This is a strange man you have for a father.
SPEAKER_00: Now, see, here's the thing: being loved unconditionally affects the way you love other people.
SPEAKER_00: So, see, to understand what we mean when we say love is an experience, you've got to understand, first of all, what the Bible means when it says love.
SPEAKER_00: It's not I like you until you disappoint me or until you disagree with me or until you sin.
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm gonna love you to the day you die and never change my mind about you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me say this because it's the holidays.
SPEAKER_00: The people we put most conditions on are our family.
SPEAKER_00: That's why some of y'all are bracing for your sister-in-law to show up for the holidays.
SPEAKER_00: Because her sorry self gets on your last nerve.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: See, again, you some of y'all are kind of like, well, and you just said it out loud right there.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I did.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly right.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, you love others the way you understand God to love you.
SPEAKER_00: Second thing you've got to understand is he says right there, John says, Hey, let us love one another for love is from God.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever loves unconditionally, this kind of love, not affection or not, I got a crush on you, but loves unconditionally, has been born of God and knows God.
SPEAKER_00: Those are two phrases you gotta understand.
SPEAKER_00: What does the Bible mean when it says it's been born of God?
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you're in 1 John, just flip back to the left or it'll come up on the screen to the gospel of John that I was telling you to read through.
SPEAKER_00: Because this is one of those, when it says, hey, whoever loves has been born of God.
SPEAKER_00: Well, whoa who what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: This is what the Bible says in John chapter 3, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: There's a very religious man named Nicodemus.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says this there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know you're a teacher, come from God, for no one can do the signs that you do unless God is with him.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered him, Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he is old?
SPEAKER_00: Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the spirit is spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again.
SPEAKER_00: The wind blows wherever it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.
SPEAKER_00: So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't have time this morning to get into all that, but when Jesus says to him, unless you're born of the water and of the spirit, you're not going to see the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: What's he talking about?
SPEAKER_00: He's saying to a very religious man who'd gone through all the rituals that the church had, baptism and all this stuff, which is when he says being born of water.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Hey, you can go through all the rituals the church tells you from the time you're a little kid, and you still can't know God.
SPEAKER_00: You can be religious and not have a relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself this question.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, let me ask you a question.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember being born?
SPEAKER_00: You were there and you don't remember it?
SPEAKER_00: Of course you don't.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it wasn't your idea.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says by the same token, being born again.
SPEAKER_00: See, being a Christian is having this experience that is so life-transforming.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just, hey, I'm checking all the boxes that the church says I gotta check, you know, I got baptized when I was a little baby or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever the church says I gotta do, I gotta believe this, gotta go to that class.
SPEAKER_00: You can go to all those classes and all those rituals and still never have a born-again experience.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're here today, just relax.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't come to make us more religious, he came to so work in our lives that the only way we know to describe it is to say, it's like I was born all over again.
SPEAKER_00: I got a fresh start.
SPEAKER_00: That's what forgiveness feels like.
SPEAKER_00: So when John says back in 1 John, hey, beloved, let us love, for lovers of God, and anyone who loves has been born of God, and then he says this, and knows God.
SPEAKER_00: And knows God.
SPEAKER_00: You say, those are the I want you to understand love.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to understand what the Bible means when it says has been born of God.
SPEAKER_00: And then thirdly, I want you to understand what the Bible means when it says and knows God.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's not our natural state.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in John 3, just turn back one page to John chapter 1, verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is Advent.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus coming into the world.
SPEAKER_00: John 1 9, the true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
SPEAKER_00: He was in the world and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
SPEAKER_00: See, it's man's natural state to not know God.
SPEAKER_00: He kind of, when Christ comes into the world, he enlightens everyone.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean, oh, we we're all Christians, we're all God's children.
SPEAKER_00: No, we're not.
SPEAKER_00: We we become aware when the Bible says he enlightens everyone, it's why when you do wrong, you know it without anybody having to tell you.
SPEAKER_00: Have you noticed that?
SPEAKER_00: I don't care if you steal a pencil from work or a box of paper clips or something in you, your chest gets kind of hot and you're kind of like, ugh.
SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself this question.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't believe there's a God, how do you know when you've done wrong?
SPEAKER_00: I would tell you, and the Bible would tell you, it's simply because of right here, what John 1 9 says, the true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
SPEAKER_00: He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
SPEAKER_00: Same word that John uses in 1 John, he uses here.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11, he came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
SPEAKER_00: But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
SPEAKER_00: That's when the Bible talks about and knows God.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, if you don't think about yourself in terms of, hey, do I know God?
SPEAKER_00: Have I been born again?
SPEAKER_00: Has God done something in my life that was so transformational and so changed, so so life-changing to me that I was like, hey, it's like starting all over again.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what happens: you accomplish a lot in life, you have kids, you find jobs, and you still live with this deep sense of unfulfillment.
SPEAKER_00: And here's why.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that you need to uh you need to acquire another company or you need to buy more property in West Texas or whatever you do.
SPEAKER_00: Here, that deep sense of unfulfillment is not you accomplishing anything, it's you receiving what Christ has accomplished on your behalf.
SPEAKER_00: Because you live with this gnawing sense that there's more, and there is, which is why I tell you today that love is an experience.
SPEAKER_00: The responsibility of love starts with love as an experience.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, love has been demonstrated.
SPEAKER_00: God never asked us to do anything we don't have a frame of reference for.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let me say that again.
SPEAKER_00: And God never asks you to do what you don't have a frame of reference for.
SPEAKER_00: When the Bible says, husbands love your wives, it continues and says, as Christ loves the church.
SPEAKER_00: This is what you do, and here's your frame of reference for what it looks like to do this by the same token.
SPEAKER_00: In 1 John chapter 4, look at verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: He says this.
SPEAKER_00: Twice he begins sentences with this phrase, in this.
SPEAKER_00: He's kind of pointing, he's holding up this and saying, verse 9 he says, In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.
SPEAKER_00: That's the essence of Advent, right there in one sentence.
SPEAKER_00: In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only son into the world.
SPEAKER_00: Now hear that phrase.
SPEAKER_00: That God sent his only son into the world.
SPEAKER_00: Think about it.
SPEAKER_00: If you only had one son, is this what you would choose to do with him?
SPEAKER_00: If the Bible says he sent his only son into the world, then where did he come from when he sent him?
SPEAKER_00: The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, he left heaven and came to earth so that people on earth could leave earth and go to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: It's no simpler way to say it.
SPEAKER_00: See, Jesus wasn't something that God kind of conjured up at the last moment.
SPEAKER_00: He's always existed.
SPEAKER_00: Way back in Genesis, when the Bible, when God speaks and says, Come let us make man in our image.
SPEAKER_00: That plurality, that's God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He sent his son, the only son into the world.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: So that we might live through him.
SPEAKER_00: If you ever lay in bed and you feel like it all hinges on you, and you feel this consistent sense of pressure on you, man.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta embrace the incarnation that God sent his son.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: So that you could live through him.
SPEAKER_00: Translation, the pressure's off.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Advent's all about, right there.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible tells us in verse 10 something else.
SPEAKER_00: Look at it.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 10 says this, it says, in this, there's that phrase again.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because love has been demonstrated.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 10, in this is love.
SPEAKER_00: Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the to be the propitiation for our sins, to be the payment.
SPEAKER_00: Propitiation is a big Bible word that just basically means that the wrath of a wronged God, uh, uh, uh, of an offended deity has been satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: The wrath of an offended deity has been satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: So the Bible says, and this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he has loved us and sent his son to be the payment, the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: So two things the Bible tells us when we think about that love has been demonstrated.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, God sent his son, his only son, into the world so that we could have a different way of doing life, not through us, but through him.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, he sent him to be sacrificed.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible will tell you all through the Bible that Jesus was fully aware of why he came.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like as this thing got kept going and he got to be age 33 and started making people angry that he was like, Well, wait a minute, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_00: People aren't people aren't voting for me, people aren't accepting what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_00: No, Jesus came fully aware of why he came.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what's the big deal about that?
SPEAKER_00: That's why, all through the New Testament, when you read, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about my time had not yet come.
SPEAKER_00: My time had not yet come.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he came to die on the cross as payment for your sins and my sins.
SPEAKER_00: So as you go into this holiday season, one of the greatest gifts that God's ever given you is the possibility of being forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to live with this sense of dread hanging over you that, man, I bet God is so ticked off at me for all that I've done.
SPEAKER_00: God loves you and He's always going to love you.
SPEAKER_00: And the way you love other people is an indication of what you really believe about the way God loves you.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says it like this in Romans chapter 5, verse 8, it says that God demonstrated his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't wait for you to get your act together and then died for you.
SPEAKER_00: He, when you were still, when you and I, when I was still in sin, before I did it anything, Christ died on the cross for my sins.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the way I explain it to people when I'm sharing the gospel, just out on the street or in a restaurant or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't ask you to take a shower in order to take a bath.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you are like, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say, get cleaned up so I can clean you up.
SPEAKER_00: If you could clean yourself up, Jesus never would have had to die.
SPEAKER_00: But God sent his son from heaven to earth so people on earth could go to heaven when they died.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we can't clean ourselves up.
SPEAKER_00: All the king's horses and all the king's men can't put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
SPEAKER_00: Third thing about the re the about this whole love thing.
SPEAKER_00: And thirdly, love is a responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 11 and 12.
SPEAKER_00: You still with me?
SPEAKER_00: Look what verse 11 says.
SPEAKER_00: 1 John chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: This is where it all comes down to when I talk about the responsibility of love.
SPEAKER_00: Love is a responsibility, and it's not heavy.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says, Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
SPEAKER_00: No one has ever seen God.
SPEAKER_00: If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's things in the Bible, when you read them, you should read them and think, why is that in there?
SPEAKER_00: This is one of those cases because the Bible, out of, it's kind of like out of the blue, John says, no one has ever seen God.
SPEAKER_00: Who's been talking about that?
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like some random divine ricochet.
SPEAKER_00: No one has ever seen God.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, milk's on sale at Kroger for$2.
SPEAKER_00: What else?
SPEAKER_00: No one has ever seen God.
SPEAKER_00: But look what he goes on to say.
SPEAKER_00: If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you read that just on a tactile, just kind of a first blush, you go, his love is perfected.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Is there something wrong with the love of God?
SPEAKER_00: That word perfected in the Greek is the Greek word teleo.
SPEAKER_00: Teleeo.
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00: You're like a Navajo co-talker.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: It means this.
SPEAKER_00: It means to carry through completely.
SPEAKER_00: It comes from the Greek word telos, which means goal.
SPEAKER_00: You know, why do you tell us that?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I just feel stupid when I come to church.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to feel stupid.
SPEAKER_00: Look at me.
SPEAKER_00: We're just about done.
SPEAKER_00: You still with me?
SPEAKER_00: Don't pinch the baby yet and go, oh, we gotta go.
SPEAKER_00: Like it's a bad movie.
SPEAKER_00: Let's get our money back.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says, because the world's full of people who've never seen God.
SPEAKER_00: You know, anybody that's jaded, that's cynical about religious things or church or church people, oh, church is a bunch of hypocrites.
SPEAKER_00: I don't need to go to that church, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: The world's full of people who've never seen God.
SPEAKER_00: Then he says, if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected.
SPEAKER_00: Don't think of it the way we think of perfection.
SPEAKER_00: Think of it like this.
SPEAKER_00: If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is made manifest.
SPEAKER_00: The purpose for which he loved us is realized.
SPEAKER_00: What is he saying?
SPEAKER_00: When we love each other, when we love other people, when we love our family, which can be so hard to love, people are left without an excuse for no longer believing that God is real.
SPEAKER_00: Because when you love people unconditionally because you realize God loves you unconditionally, you're making God visible.
SPEAKER_00: That is the essence of incarnation.
SPEAKER_00: Just means that you're hanging flesh and blood on something people have never seen before.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you an example.
SPEAKER_00: This past week it happened in Dayton, Texas.
SPEAKER_00: Lady pulled up to a What burger.
SPEAKER_00: She was wearing a fur coat.
SPEAKER_00: Who wears a fur coat to What's I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But pulls up, she's at the drive-thru, lady working the drive-thru, looks at her and says, That's a beautiful coat.
SPEAKER_00: And while the woman's waiting for her order to get it, she takes the coat off, hands it in through the drive-thru window, and says, Here, it's yours.
SPEAKER_00: And the lady's like, Oh, no, no, no, no, I want you to have it.
SPEAKER_00: She goes and gets the coat.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, I spent the last two days sitting in that water burger.
SPEAKER_00: That woman never came back.
SPEAKER_00: I was just sitting there with a little can look with a little can on the corner by the drive through, hey, got a fur coat or anything else that'll fit in here?
SPEAKER_00: And so the lady's like, I don't, and so somebody came and appraised the coat.
SPEAKER_00: The coat was worth$10,000.
SPEAKER_00: Now to sharpen the focus even more, I won't say their names, but there's a couple that's longtime members of the church.
SPEAKER_00: They were just in the last service.
SPEAKER_00: I told the story, they came up and said, By the way, that's our son-in-law's mom that got the coat.
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: She said, Yeah, and she didn't know what she's afraid to wear it because she lives kind of down in the hood and she's afraid people are gonna steal the coat.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't live in the hood.
SPEAKER_00: And if she'd like to store it at my house, I will rock that bad boy for her.
SPEAKER_00: I'd be big pimpin' in that fur coat.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think she wants to get some boots to go with.
SPEAKER_00: I've got some boots.
SPEAKER_00: I wore them to the hayride.
SPEAKER_00: With my pants tucked down inside of them.
SPEAKER_00: And somebody was like, hey, do you see our by the way?
SPEAKER_00: I can hear y'all talking about me when I walk by.
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all need to learn to whisper.
SPEAKER_00: What if you said this on Friday night, you sorry Baptist?
SPEAKER_00: Hey, did you see our pastor with his pants tucked in his boot?
SPEAKER_00: He looks like a redneck.
SPEAKER_00: I am.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm the guy that got all the fire pits, that got like four or five fire pits with three or four logs in them.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, we need to get this party started.
SPEAKER_00: So we dumped all the fire pits into one big one and made fire.
SPEAKER_00: And somebody's like, who's gonna get that put out?
SPEAKER_00: Not my problem.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going home now.
SPEAKER_00: And so somebody posted on Facebook a picture of the fire truck putting the fire out.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry, we got Neil's fire put out.
SPEAKER_00: Silly rabbits, tricks are for kids.
SPEAKER_00: If I was ever tempted to get on Facebook, it was then.
SPEAKER_00: And if I was on Facebook, I'd have written back, you can't put this fire out.
SPEAKER_00: Silly rabbit.
SPEAKER_00: Why do I tell you about a lady giving a$10,000 fur coat to a woman who works at Whataburger to ask you this question?
SPEAKER_00: Who gives such an extravagant gift to a stranger?
SPEAKER_00: And God sent his son into the world so that we may live through him.
SPEAKER_00: And once again, who gives such an extravagant gift to a stranger?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna submit to you this morning that that's what God does.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't give fur coats, he doesn't give houses and cars and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: He provides it.
SPEAKER_00: But when it comes to giving gifts, he gives himself.
SPEAKER_00: Stand to your feet if you would.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_00: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_00: Your sin has not changed God's mind about you.
SPEAKER_00: So, because of that, therefore, verily, verily, why do you keep sinning?
SPEAKER_00: Depart now and think about things like that.
SPEAKER_00: You're the beloved of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now and forevermore.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Bless you.
SPEAKER_00: You're dismissed.