SPEAKER_01: But the real issue for you is that you're not comfortable being loved like this because this is how God loves unconditionally.
SPEAKER_01: And we would rather love with conditions than be loved unconditionally because it gives us the illusion of control.
SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we've come to praise that which is eternal, not to get caught up and hung up and bogged down in that which is temporal.
SPEAKER_01: And so when we say, Praise the Father, praise the Son, praise the Spirit, three in one, we are worshiping the God who was and is and is to come, the only God that ever existed and always will exist.
SPEAKER_01: So we're on the right track and a good trajectory when we worship the God who is truth.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Lord, we need the truth today to set us free around this topic of love.
SPEAKER_01: More than a theme, this is a reality.
SPEAKER_01: And not just a reality, it's an invitation today for us to get our head and our heart around what it means to be loved by God.
SPEAKER_01: And so that we love other people in such a way that the only explanation for the way we love them is that God so loved me.
SPEAKER_01: This is why I love you the way I do.
SPEAKER_01: God, make that happen in this room by your spirit and from your word.
SPEAKER_01: We pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You can have a seat.
SPEAKER_01: If you got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open up to 1 John chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't have a Bible, don't sweat it.
SPEAKER_01: It'll come up on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: 1 John chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk to you about the Advent of love.
SPEAKER_01: The Advent of Love.
SPEAKER_01: Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent.
SPEAKER_01: And each Sunday has a theme, and the theme today is love.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to talk to you.
SPEAKER_01: The word Advent means arrival or coming.
SPEAKER_01: And so when Jesus was born and laid as a babe of the manger, it changed every person who's ever professed to love anybody because a standard got erected by God that the word love is now evaluated against.
SPEAKER_01: Which is why the Bible says things like this.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't say, for God loved the world, it uses this little two-letter word.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to understand today.
SPEAKER_01: It says, For God so loved the world, so loved the world.
SPEAKER_01: And we'll get to this in just a minute.
SPEAKER_01: But when the Bible says it's a big difference in for God loved the world, and God so loved the world, when it says for God so loved the world, it's saying that something happened, an actual event occurred that you can point to as a demonstration of the fact that not only God loves you, but the degree to which He loves you.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things I'm going to tell you today is that the most threatening thing you will ever experience is unconditional love.
SPEAKER_01: Because most of us, we experience conditional love.
SPEAKER_01: I love you if, well, I love you.
SPEAKER_01: And unconditional love is very disorienting.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to just get into the text.
SPEAKER_01: I want to make about five or six points.
SPEAKER_01: And at the end, I'm going to say, let's just kind of marinate in these juices and think about what the Bible said.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to read from 1 John chapter 4, starting in verse 7: the advent of love.
SPEAKER_01: Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God.
SPEAKER_01: And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
SPEAKER_01: In this the love of God was made manifest among us.
SPEAKER_01: That God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.
SPEAKER_01: And this is love.
SPEAKER_01: Not that we have loved God, but that he's loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
SPEAKER_01: No one has ever seen God.
SPEAKER_01: If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
SPEAKER_01: By this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us of his spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And we have seen and testified that the Father has sent his son to be the Savior of the world.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
SPEAKER_01: So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
SPEAKER_01: God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
SPEAKER_01: By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in the world.
SPEAKER_01: There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.
SPEAKER_01: For fear has to do with punishment.
SPEAKER_01: And whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
SPEAKER_01: We love because he first loved us.
SPEAKER_01: If anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar.
SPEAKER_01: For he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
SPEAKER_01: And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when it talks about brother, must also love it, whoever loves God must also love his brother.
SPEAKER_01: It's not talking about the person sitting next to you that you're related to.
SPEAKER_01: That person's implied in that.
SPEAKER_01: It's talking about the way Christians love each other in the church.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, because here's the confession.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's easier to love strangers than it is to love your own flesh and blood.
SPEAKER_01: Amen?
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are like, yeah, I got the knucklehead sitting right next to me.
SPEAKER_01: Preach to him today, Pastor.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and sometimes it's easier just to say, we're just gonna love our family and not gonna love anybody else.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, that's idolatry.
SPEAKER_01: And so you can fall off the horse on either side.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to make some points from the text this morning uh and then invite us to think about it.
SPEAKER_01: The first point the text makes is simply this: love is evidence of conversion.
SPEAKER_01: Love is evidence of conversion.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody in the world knows at least one verse in the Bible, and it's a fragment of this one right here, verse 7 and 8.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it God, I'll know that my God's a God of love.
SPEAKER_01: And that sounds comforting, but it's deeply consequential because being born of someone implies a likeness to that person.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just say it again.
SPEAKER_01: Being born of someone implies a likeness to that person.
SPEAKER_01: Uh uh when I'm out with my youngest daughter, people, I mean, we'll be separated.
SPEAKER_01: We're in Home Depot the other night getting some wood for a service project, and God walked by me and walked by her, and he went, I know who kid that is.
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: Looks like me because she's born of me.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when the Bible says, uh that when I say love is evidence of conversion, he says, let us love one another for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean if you're a loving person, that makes you a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: That means that there's a capacity for love that you only find in a relationship with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And here in the text, John is saying the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, asking the question, how can you and I be born of God, born again, and not bear a striking resemblance to our Heavenly Father, who is love in the way that we love?
SPEAKER_01: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_01: The text is asking this simple question, and it's why I say that love is evidence of conversion.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of saying, hey, how can you be born of God and not bear a striking resemblance in the way you love people to the way God loves people?
SPEAKER_01: This is the requirement and the weight of the command or the statement that God is love.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone who's love has been born of God because love is evidence of conversion, okay, beloved?
SPEAKER_01: The second thing the text says to us is simply this is that love is demonstrated.
SPEAKER_01: It's verse 9 and 10.
SPEAKER_01: Love is demonstrated.
SPEAKER_01: Both verses begin with these this phrase, in this, in this.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: 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_01: Again, we might live through him.
SPEAKER_01: Why was the love of God demonstrated?
SPEAKER_01: Because love to ourselves, we would get it wrong.
SPEAKER_01: And so God goes on the record, he demonstrates, he says, in this, and then and excuse me, in verse 10, he's the same words, in this is love.
SPEAKER_01: Not that we have loved God, but that he's loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why is love demonstrated?
SPEAKER_01: Two reasons.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, verse nine, to give us a different way to live.
SPEAKER_01: To give us a different way to live.
SPEAKER_01: Hear it again from the Bible, okay?
SPEAKER_01: In this the love of God was made manifest among us.
SPEAKER_01: That God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.
SPEAKER_01: Let me say this to you on the authority of God's word, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Regardless of who you are, what your year has been like, what you've done, what you did this weekend, there's a different way that you can live.
SPEAKER_01: None of you is beyond the pale.
SPEAKER_01: It's not too late to live differently.
SPEAKER_01: Because in the incarnation, by Jesus, by God taking on flesh and blood and moving into the neighborhood, coming into the world, being born of a virgin in a manger, he demonstrates love.
SPEAKER_01: And the one first reason he does it is to give us a different way to live.
SPEAKER_01: And then in verse 10, he says, to give here's the second reason to give us forgiveness for how we've lived.
SPEAKER_01: For give us forgiveness, to give us forgiveness for how we live.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: And this is love.
SPEAKER_01: Not that we've loved God, but he loved us.
SPEAKER_01: How do you know he loved us?
SPEAKER_01: Because he sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: Now there's a word you didn't use this week.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Propitiation.
SPEAKER_01: Now, some of you heard that and thought, I hope that guy knows what that means, because I have no idea.
SPEAKER_01: Actually, I do.
SPEAKER_01: Propitiation means this that the wrath of an angry deity has been appeased or satisfied.
SPEAKER_01: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_01: It means that the wrath of an angry deity has been appeased or satisfied.
SPEAKER_01: Well, are you implying that God is angry?
SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: At our men's breakfast this past week on Tuesday, I taught from Psalm 7, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And in Psalm 7, God gives this condition and he gives this consequence.
SPEAKER_01: He says in Psalm 7, if a man repents of his sin.
SPEAKER_01: See, God, we've lost the word sin because we don't have a standard anymore, an objective standard.
SPEAKER_01: Everything is relative.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's like, you got your truth, I got my truth.
SPEAKER_01: And if I get to define the rules, I will never sin.
SPEAKER_01: And what's happening is we're slowly, because the Bible says the wages of sin is death, we're slowly killing ourselves in the name of political correctness and personal empowerment.
SPEAKER_01: But that's a whole nother sermon.
SPEAKER_01: We'll get to that later.
SPEAKER_01: Amen?
SPEAKER_01: I can tell you can't wait.
SPEAKER_01: You're like, dude, it's Christmas.
SPEAKER_01: Be nice to us.
SPEAKER_01: Now, back to this reality, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 7, God says, here's the condition.
SPEAKER_01: He says, if a man repents, and then he says, This is what will happen.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, excuse me, if a man does not repent.
SPEAKER_01: If a man does not repent, the Bible says that God has already put his arrows of his righteous indignation on his bow.
SPEAKER_01: Now, for all you hunters out there, God does not have a compound bow.
SPEAKER_01: You know what a compound bow is?
SPEAKER_01: It's that nice thing with the pulleys, you pull it, and then it kind of relaxes, and there's not that much tension on the string.
SPEAKER_01: You're kind of like, you can hold that thing all day.
SPEAKER_01: God has an old school bow, okay?
SPEAKER_01: He pulls that back thing, that thing back, and it is constant tension.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, I taught archery at camp for a summer.
SPEAKER_01: And when the kids were done coming to my little station, because we were out in the in the forest, I was like, yeah, this is great.
SPEAKER_01: Have rednecks with bows and arrows with no accountability.
SPEAKER_01: Me and my buddies would pull that thing back as far as we could and see who could hold it the longest.
SPEAKER_01: And eventually your arm would start to quake and quiver, and pretty soon this hand's cramping, and you're gonna let that arrow go.
SPEAKER_01: Whoa! And so we would just kind of hold it.
SPEAKER_01: I think five and a half minutes was the record.
SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't me.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, after about two minutes, I'm like, poing, let's go.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, I want you to get this picture in your head because here's what you've been told and taught.
SPEAKER_01: If you ever darken the door of a Baptist church, God hates the sin but loves the.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: And in that equation, let me ask you this: whatever motivates the sinner to stop sinning?
SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing, which explains many of your lives.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, God loves me.
SPEAKER_01: Why would I give this up?
SPEAKER_01: But the Bible comes along, check me on this and see if I'm making up.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 7 says, hey, if a man does not repent, the arrow of God's righteous indignation is already on the bow.
SPEAKER_01: He has drawn it back.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I don't say that if you're visiting today, I'm not a boogeyman preacher, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I don't come in and try to scare you to death.
SPEAKER_01: Heads are bowed and eyes are closed.
SPEAKER_01: I love you enough to say this.
SPEAKER_01: If you're transgressing God's law, judgment is coming your way.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the good news, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Here's what love does.
SPEAKER_01: You say, well, why hadn't the arrow found me already?
SPEAKER_01: Because the only thing that tempers the righteous indignation and God's fixed displeasure with sin and sinners is the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, like this in the New Testament, He is not willing that any should perish, but all should come to the day of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: It is the mercy of God that tempers the justice of God.
SPEAKER_01: But the mercy of God does not and will not cancel out the justice of God.
SPEAKER_01: God is never going to feel different about sin and sinners.
SPEAKER_01: And you say, Well, why do you tell us that?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: And I say, to give us forgiveness for how we live.
SPEAKER_01: He says in verse 10, and this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he has loved us.
SPEAKER_01: And he sent his son to be the propitiation, the sin-atoning payment that makes peace with God available for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: This is what I mean when I say love is demonstrated.
SPEAKER_01: Third thing the text says to us today is that love has a standard.
SPEAKER_01: Love has a standard.
SPEAKER_01: We're about to get personal.
SPEAKER_01: You still with me, okay?
SPEAKER_01: You want to get personal this morning?
SPEAKER_01: You want to stay ethereal up here and just give you some Jesus information?
SPEAKER_01: This is gonna make you want to fight at lunch.
SPEAKER_01: You sure you want to go there?
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are like, I ain't biting on any of that Johnny Cash in your black shirt.
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, when I say that love has a standard, here's what I mean.
SPEAKER_01: It's verse 11, beloved, if God, here's that phrase, so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
SPEAKER_01: No one has ever seen God.
SPEAKER_01: If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
SPEAKER_01: Now you should ask yourself, why does he say verse 12, no one has ever seen God?
SPEAKER_01: What's that got to do with anything?
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about love and blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_01: And he goes, Man, no one's ever seen God.
SPEAKER_01: Here's why that's in the Bible, in in the book of 1 John, because there was a sect of people, a group of people called the Gnostics.
SPEAKER_01: G-N-O-S-T-I-C-S.
SPEAKER_01: It's from the Greek word gnosis for knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: The Gnostics were like, hey, we're smarter than everybody else, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Uh you don't understand us.
SPEAKER_01: And they would say, hey, we've seen God.
SPEAKER_01: We've had these incredible visions of God.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, we can treat people like dirt and it doesn't matter because we've seen God.
SPEAKER_01: And John comes along and says, Hey, no one's ever seen God.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why do I bring that up?
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't Christianity be so much easier if you didn't have to live it out in front of people?
SPEAKER_01: If you didn't have to forgive people that sin against you, don't use a blinker.
SPEAKER_01: The people that you got a present for and they didn't give one back?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you have to forgive all those people.
SPEAKER_01: So here's my policy, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: Every once in a while, people in my church give me a gift, and I say, hey, I can't give everybody a gift, so I give no one a gift.
SPEAKER_01: You want this back?
SPEAKER_01: And my wife's like, Why do you say things like that?
SPEAKER_01: You are socially awkward.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want them to get their feelings hurt and be bitter because you didn't get them something for Christmas.
SPEAKER_01: And she's like, You've got to stop coming out in public, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Just stop it.
SPEAKER_01: When I say love has a standard, again, look at what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 11, he says this.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
SPEAKER_01: When the Bible says if God so loved us, it's because it referring to a demonstrated behavior.
SPEAKER_01: It asks the question, if God loved us like this, then what does it mean to all the people that we say we love?
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Now here's where I want to get personal in two ways.
SPEAKER_01: First, I want to talk to you if you're a student, if you're a child and you have parents or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just say this.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not where you should be spiritually, if you're sitting in this room right now, because when your mom said, you ask your mom, what do you want for Christmas?
SPEAKER_01: She said, I want you to go to church with us as a family when you're home from college and you rolled your eyes, like, oh my gosh, relax.
SPEAKER_01: This will be painless, okay?
SPEAKER_01: But if you're not where you should be spiritually, if you're not doing things you should, or if you're blatantly doing things that you know are wrong, but you're just not gonna want, you just don't want to stop.
SPEAKER_01: Uh let me demonstrate.
SPEAKER_01: We're not picking on you because most people in this room have been there before.
SPEAKER_01: Watch this.
SPEAKER_01: If you've ever had a period in your life, adults, where you just thought, I know this is wrong, but I'm gonna do it anyway.
SPEAKER_01: Say amen.
SPEAKER_01: See, kids, you're surrounded by sinners today.
SPEAKER_01: Good news for you.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm not minimizing that at all, but I'm just saying this.
SPEAKER_01: Again, remember, love has a standard.
SPEAKER_01: And what we want to do is we always want to move the standard.
SPEAKER_01: We always want to lower the standard, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Get that in your head.
SPEAKER_01: Love has a standard for God's so loved us, and so we have a mark and a way of determining what love looks like.
SPEAKER_01: And so if you're here and your parents are on your back and you're like, hey, just let me be an adult, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I'm 20.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Just pause there.
SPEAKER_01: That's what my 20-year-old told me.
SPEAKER_01: Dad, I'm like a grown woman.
SPEAKER_01: You see, I'm grown and I pay my own bills.
SPEAKER_01: If you're grown, why am I paying your bills?
SPEAKER_01: That's just the way it goes in my house.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, honey, it's in your house.
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, I'm not mocking you for being 20 or 21 or 23 or whatever you are.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying this.
SPEAKER_01: If your mom and dad are on your back about whatever, you're asking them to lighten up and let you be an adult, make your own mistakes, that's what you're saying.
SPEAKER_01: But what they're hearing is they're hearing you say, I want you to lower the standard.
SPEAKER_01: And basically, what a parent hears is, you want me to stop loving you.
SPEAKER_01: And they can't.
SPEAKER_01: And so, therefore, they're not going to.
SPEAKER_01: Because love has a standard.
SPEAKER_01: Your mom and dad are never gonna come off the standard of the way they love you.
SPEAKER_01: And so, what you're gonna have to do is get away from this unconditional love.
SPEAKER_01: You're not mad at everybody in your life.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have to get away from this unconditional love because it is hard to continue to sin in the context of unconditional love.
SPEAKER_01: It's why the prodigal son has to leave home.
SPEAKER_01: Remember the prodigal son?
SPEAKER_01: He says, Dad, give me my share of the estate, give me my inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sick of you and your stupid rules.
SPEAKER_01: This is the 21st century, okay?
SPEAKER_01: No one believes the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: It's just a book written by a bunch of men, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So get out of my way.
SPEAKER_01: I am a social progressive, leave me alone.
SPEAKER_01: And he's so bothered by the unconditional love of the father, he has to go to a far country.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, when he falls flat on his face, where does he come back to?
SPEAKER_01: The unconditional love of his father.
SPEAKER_01: And so I just want to say to you, if you're in the room and you got people that are on your back, it looks like you're mad at everybody.
SPEAKER_01: But the real issue for you is that you're not comfortable being loved like this because this is how God loves unconditionally.
SPEAKER_01: And we would rather love with conditions than be loved unconditionally because it gives us the illusion of control.
SPEAKER_01: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_01: We would rather love or be loved with conditions than unconditionally, because it gives us the illusion of control.
SPEAKER_01: In counseling, uh uh probably three weeks ago, a meeting with a man, and he kept, he didn't say control, but used a bunch of different words.
SPEAKER_01: And about 17 minutes in, I said, Can we agree upon how important control is to you?
SPEAKER_01: And he went, Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, How do you define control?
SPEAKER_01: And he said something to the effect of, I'm a boss.
SPEAKER_01: I act like a boss, I conduct business like a boss, I get things done.
SPEAKER_01: I am a boss.
SPEAKER_01: And this is why I'm not a counselor, I'm a pastor.
SPEAKER_01: I laughed in his face.
SPEAKER_01: That's terrible.
SPEAKER_01: You should never do that.
SPEAKER_01: I think coffee came out of my nose.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, What are you doing?
SPEAKER_01: I'm laughing at what you just said.
SPEAKER_01: That's hilarious.
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, That ain't funny.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it is funny.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Would you like to hear my definition of control?
SPEAKER_01: He goes, Whatever, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you if you need to, knock yourself out.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I don't need to, because I'm not, I don't have control issues like you do.
SPEAKER_01: So if you want to be enlightened, let me know.
SPEAKER_01: I'll flip the switch.
SPEAKER_01: Bring it.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, dude.
SPEAKER_01: I said, here's what control is.
SPEAKER_01: Control is this, it's the belief that I am the only person working on and responsible for the outcomes of my life.
SPEAKER_01: Are you really sure you want to live in that world?
SPEAKER_01: Because it's a really small, ever-shrinking world.
SPEAKER_01: Well, what about you?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I live in a world where the God of the universe is responsible for the outcomes of my life, and all I have to do is obey.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's not control, it's freedom.
SPEAKER_01: The opposite of control is not out of control, it's freedom.
SPEAKER_01: I gotta admit, your definition sounds better than mine.
SPEAKER_01: That's because it is.
SPEAKER_01: Why do I tell you that?
SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of times, students, you're not mad.
SPEAKER_01: You just want conditional love.
SPEAKER_01: And people that love you unconditionally, it's convicting, so you gotta get away from them.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, here's the second thing I want us to take away from this point, and this implicates me and every married person in this room.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I I need to make this distinction.
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about being loved, there's a standard.
SPEAKER_01: Uh uh to be loved unconditionally is not to be loved perfectly.
SPEAKER_01: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_01: To be loved unconditionally is not to be loved perfectly.
SPEAKER_01: People can love you unconditionally, but they cannot love you perfectly.
SPEAKER_01: So when they fail in the ways that they love you, it does not become a basis for pulling away in your marriage.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, especially if you have issues like I have abandonment issues.
SPEAKER_01: My dad abandoned me when I was a kid.
SPEAKER_01: Uh people consistently said things and they never followed through with them.
SPEAKER_01: And so I get married, I've been married to the same woman for 27 years, delightfully satisfying person.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and about the first 15 years, and still to this day, every once in a while, it manifests.
SPEAKER_01: Because I don't try to remember it, I just remember it.
SPEAKER_01: My wife would say something as small and as insignificant as, hey, would you like me to put on some coffee for you?
SPEAKER_01: I was like, Oh, that'd be great, thanks.
SPEAKER_01: And 20 minutes later, I'd walk out and I'd look like she'd be watching TV, and the coffee maker's not going.
SPEAKER_01: And I would walk over and just get the water, she'd go, Oh, babe, I completely forgot, and I would go, I got it.
SPEAKER_01: I got it, which asked my wife.
SPEAKER_01: When you see my wife, hey, hey, when Neil says, I got it, what do you say?
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, I could cut his arm off so he could never go, I got it.
SPEAKER_01: Because what I'm saying is, is that this is terrible.
SPEAKER_01: Get ready for the terrible confession of your preacher.
SPEAKER_01: What I'm saying is, I don't need you, just like I didn't need anybody else growing up.
SPEAKER_01: I never said that, but my wife's like, I hate the words, I got it.
SPEAKER_01: Because what it says to me is that you don't need me.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, you're the one that originated the idea and failed to follow through.
SPEAKER_01: Don't blame it on me.
SPEAKER_01: And my wife would go, that's just your internal orphan in there.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna kill him one day.
SPEAKER_01: No, you're not.
SPEAKER_01: He's alive and well in here.
SPEAKER_01: Until this was the breakthrough in my marriage where I realized, oh my gosh, I'd do that.
SPEAKER_01: My wife would make this statement because she would forget something.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not making it ask her.
SPEAKER_01: It could be any little thing.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, give me a diet coke out of the fruit refrigerator.
SPEAKER_01: She would forget.
SPEAKER_01: Go in the kitchen.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's 12 feet from my couch chart.
SPEAKER_01: We live in a big house.
SPEAKER_01: And she would come back and sit down, and I'd just be thinking, see, if you loved me, you would remember stuff.
SPEAKER_01: But I wouldn't yell.
SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't raise my voice.
SPEAKER_01: I was so nice.
SPEAKER_01: I would wait a few minutes and then I would just quietly slip in the kitchen and meet my own needs.
SPEAKER_01: Because you cannot be trusted.
SPEAKER_01: And she'd say, she'd hear me get it.
SPEAKER_01: She'd go, oh babe, I am so sorry.
SPEAKER_01: It's no big deal.
SPEAKER_01: I got it.
SPEAKER_01: And then my wife said this one day.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a statement of my love for you.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I had the same thought.
SPEAKER_01: It was so spot on.
SPEAKER_01: This is hard for you to believe.
SPEAKER_01: I was speechless.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, that's exactly what it is.
SPEAKER_01: Because I couldn't tell you how many people failed me.
SPEAKER_01: When my wife and I were dating, okay, she said, Hey, I want you to listen to this song because it reminds me of you.
SPEAKER_01: It's an old song called Old Clothes by a guy named Randy Stonehill.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the part of the songs I was like, whatever, I'll listen to this because this is my girlfriend, whatever, I've got this.
SPEAKER_01: So I got back to my house, I put it on, laid on my bedroom floor, and sobbed uncontrollably.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the line of the song: So many heroes that never came through.
SPEAKER_01: So many roads going nowhere.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus was whispering, I still love you, with a love that makes all things new.
SPEAKER_01: And then it gets to the stinking course that I hate and says, So I'm packing up my old clothes with its old familiar ways.
SPEAKER_01: They just don't seem to fit me anymore.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Whew.
SPEAKER_01: And then it ends with a line in the course that says, And I'm giving my tomorrows to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I saw her at grad school the next day and she goes, Do you listen to the song?
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Yeah, now I hate you.
SPEAKER_01: I don't love you anymore.
SPEAKER_01: I hate you.
SPEAKER_01: And she's like, Whatever, that's you.
SPEAKER_01: That's the way you relate to people that disappoint you, Neil, is not fair to people.
SPEAKER_01: No one's gonna be able to love you perfectly.
SPEAKER_01: And in my mind, I thought this, isn't that what you signed up for?
SPEAKER_01: You're my wife.
SPEAKER_01: And she just smiled and said, No, that's not what I signed up for.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not taking that pressure on.
SPEAKER_01: So y'all think I'm making this up?
SPEAKER_01: You see, my wife just wanted to ask her, hey, how many times do you have to say to your husband, it's not a statement of my love for you?
SPEAKER_01: Because she knows me.
SPEAKER_01: And she cut right to the core of the issue for me, which is why I say, to be loved unconditionally, what she does is not to be loved perfectly, because the only person who can love you perfectly is God.
SPEAKER_01: And the person you're sitting next to right now, who you're married to, is loves you unconditionally, and sometimes they're gonna totally screw it up.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're punitive like I was, what you're really saying is, I'm God.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the only person that I can trust.
SPEAKER_01: And you're back to control.
SPEAKER_01: You're not in love, you're in love with being in control.
SPEAKER_01: And my wife continues, every once in a little manifest itself.
SPEAKER_01: It's bigger things than coffee now.
SPEAKER_01: Like if she's at the grocery store and she'll text me, do you need anything?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, I need Tostito chips.
SPEAKER_01: Could you get some Tostitos?
SPEAKER_01: She'll come home that night I'll go to get some Tostitos and hot sauce.
SPEAKER_01: I bet if I had a woman that loved me, she'd remember this.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you're visiting today, look at me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not kidding.
SPEAKER_01: I am that sick.
SPEAKER_01: Because I got abandonment issues.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: If people, if you tell me you're gonna do something and you don't do it, I'm not gonna hold it against you because I'm gonna love you the way Jesus loves you.
SPEAKER_01: But in my mind, I'm gonna be like, hey, hey, if you can't keep your word, why is that my fault?
SPEAKER_01: Why is that my fault?
SPEAKER_01: And my wife's like, Babe, babe, stop saying babe.
SPEAKER_01: It makes it like I'm a bad person.
SPEAKER_01: I'm a good person.
SPEAKER_01: And she'll say, Oh, you're a great person.
SPEAKER_01: You just need to realize no one can love you perfectly.
SPEAKER_01: And I just kind of, and she's like, I didn't sign on for that, I signed on to love you unconditionally, but I can't love you perfectly because I'm not Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, I'm done talking to you for the next three hours.
SPEAKER_01: And for whatever reason, that doesn't feel like punishment to her.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care.
SPEAKER_01: She just kind of smiles.
SPEAKER_01: She goes, Okay, see you at supper.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the fourth thing the Bible says is that love like this requires progress.
SPEAKER_01: Love like this requires progress.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 16.
SPEAKER_01: You still with me?
SPEAKER_01: Stop thinking about your marriage right now.
SPEAKER_01: That's where some of you are breaking notes.
SPEAKER_01: I wish my husband was here.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna talk about this.
SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
SPEAKER_01: Your husband, ladies, can't love you perfectly.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna screw up because he's a sinner, just like me.
SPEAKER_01: If we were perfect, we would have died on the cross for you, but we're not.
SPEAKER_01: But see, here's the thing.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you in your marriage, that's the crowbar you leverage to get your way all the time.
SPEAKER_01: Because your spouse, your wife, is not like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: News flash, you had to marry her to know that.
SPEAKER_01: I wish I could see your faces.
SPEAKER_01: You're like, we're dressed in red, dude.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, be happy.
SPEAKER_01: It's Christmas.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, dude.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the fourth thing the Bible says love like this requires progress, not just in marriage.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about the love the way God loves you.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 16.
SPEAKER_01: He says this so we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: Look at it.
SPEAKER_01: We have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
SPEAKER_01: The love of God, this unconditional love of God that is perfect, is so beyond our frame of human experience, you can know it and not fully believe it.
SPEAKER_01: Such that you have to kind of grow into it.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the Bible says right here.
SPEAKER_01: We've come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
SPEAKER_01: My problem in my marriage is that I knew my wife loved me.
SPEAKER_01: I just didn't believe it.
SPEAKER_01: Because if I believed it, if I leaned fully on it, then she would now have the capacity to hurt me the way people hurt me when I was a kid.
SPEAKER_01: And you're the same way for whatever wounds you brought to the relationship.
SPEAKER_01: And being loved like this requires progress.
SPEAKER_01: Look what he says: God is love, and whoever abides in him abides in God, and God abides in him.
SPEAKER_01: By this is love perfected.
SPEAKER_01: We'll get to that in just a minute.
SPEAKER_01: But this requires progress.
SPEAKER_01: What do I mean?
SPEAKER_01: You cannot experience a love like God's love apart from God.
SPEAKER_01: And so it takes us a while to grow into it.
SPEAKER_01: That's why the text says we have come to know and to believe the love God has for us.
SPEAKER_01: What he's saying is that we know this.
SPEAKER_01: But being loved in this way is so overwhelming that we have to grow into believing this.
SPEAKER_01: It's so beyond our realm of experience.
SPEAKER_01: Anything we've ever tasted or touched before, we're just like, oh my gosh, this is a little bit, this is so good, I want to push it away.
SPEAKER_01: And you gotta ask yourself where you are on this scale.
SPEAKER_01: Do you just know it up here in your head or do you believe it in your heart?
SPEAKER_01: Because all through the Bible we see that the God inviting people to believe and to grow in their understanding of the way God loves them.
SPEAKER_01: You don't need to leave here today and make a list of four action steps to be a more loving person.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: Just come back and just meditate on and marinate in the love God has for you.
SPEAKER_01: In Ephesians 3, Paul says to the church at Ephesus, totally different book of the Bible, totally different person that records the holy writ of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul writes one sentence that starts in Ephesians 3, verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: And he what he's saying in the sentence is, I want you guys to plumb the depths of God's love for you because it will change everything.
SPEAKER_01: He uses these words to say that.
SPEAKER_01: He says, For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: How do you know something that surpasses knowledge, that lives outside the realm of knowledge?
SPEAKER_01: Here's how, because this isn't information, this is intimacy.
SPEAKER_01: He says that you would know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: So that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_01: Again, all through the Bible, the Bible's kind of saying, Do you know the height and the depth and the width?
SPEAKER_01: Do you understand the dimensions of the love God has for you?
SPEAKER_01: Fifth thing the text says to us today is that love leads us to perfection.
SPEAKER_01: Not moral perfection, but completion.
SPEAKER_01: This love of God, this that came with the birth of Jesus, leads us to who the, to become who the Bible says we are.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 17, by this, again, pointing to specific things, by this is love perfected in us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in the world.
SPEAKER_01: There's no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.
SPEAKER_01: For fear has to do with punishment.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
SPEAKER_01: If you think about judgment day, if you think about death, if you think about any of that, and you have fear, the Bible says that the what the problem, not you're a bad person, you don't love Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says the problem is that you think about God in terms of punishment, not love.
SPEAKER_01: And could you fathom your kids relating to you on that basis?
SPEAKER_01: Just go with me, if you will, about four or five days into the future, whenever Christmas is this year.
SPEAKER_01: That's coming up, right?
SPEAKER_01: Uh and so can you imagine Christmas morning?
SPEAKER_01: Your kids get up, there's presents under the tree for them, and with every present, they pick it up and they look at you and go, please, dad, don't beat me.
SPEAKER_01: You would be like, Whoa, whoa.
SPEAKER_01: Y'all start laughing.
SPEAKER_01: What'd you say, son?
SPEAKER_01: Please, dad, I'm gonna open this present, and I don't want you to punish me.
SPEAKER_01: Don't beat me.
SPEAKER_01: Son, why?
SPEAKER_01: Why would I?
SPEAKER_01: I'm the man that worked hard.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I went to seven Walmarts to find that thing.
SPEAKER_01: Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, please, Dad, don't beat me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna open another present, but oh, please, Dad, don't be mad at me.
SPEAKER_01: You feel how preposterous that sounds?
SPEAKER_01: This is why the Bible says what it says.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 17, by this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment.
SPEAKER_01: Because as he is, so also are we in the world.
SPEAKER_01: There's no fear in love.
SPEAKER_01: But perfect love casts out fear.
SPEAKER_01: For fear has to do with punishment where fears have not been perfected or completed in love.
SPEAKER_01: Those two daughters I've raised and still raising, they don't fear me.
SPEAKER_01: They open their presents on Christmas morning and they look at me and say, Dad, you need some help opening yours?
SPEAKER_01: And if I get a shirt, they'll be like, Oh, Dad, can I sleep in that?
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, how about I wear it first so it smells like me?
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to smell like man's think.
SPEAKER_01: I want it, I want it new.
SPEAKER_01: And because I'm a father, I just toss it to them and go, There you go.
SPEAKER_01: Great.
SPEAKER_01: I came home last night to one of mine wearing one of my V-neck sweaters.
SPEAKER_01: And she said, and I quote, Don't be surprised if this doesn't find its way back in your closet.
SPEAKER_01: No fear in that kid.
SPEAKER_01: She doesn't think punishment, she thinks, oh, that's my dad.
SPEAKER_01: My dad loves to give me of his own stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And she's right.
SPEAKER_01: And I get to say to my daughters, I'm this way because God's this way.
SPEAKER_01: Don't ever fear God like, oh, God's just coming to punish me.
SPEAKER_01: No, because when you when you grow in your understanding of the love of God, all that kind of fear-based thinking goes away.
SPEAKER_01: Because perfect love, being loved perfectly by only God, because only God can love you perfectly.
SPEAKER_01: We can love you unconditionally, ladies.
SPEAKER_01: We can't love you perfectly, but perfect love casts out all fear.
SPEAKER_01: It just sends it away.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the last thing the Bible tells us that love is causal.
SPEAKER_01: You still with me?
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 19, we'll be done.
SPEAKER_01: We love because he first loved us.
SPEAKER_01: Seven words that have the capacity to change your life.
SPEAKER_01: We love because he first loved us.
SPEAKER_01: Who in your life are you loving right now in such a way that the only explanation for it is, hey, I love you like I do because God loved me the way he does.
SPEAKER_01: We love because he first loved us.
SPEAKER_01: If anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar.
SPEAKER_01: He who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
SPEAKER_01: And this commandment we have from him, whoever loves God must also love his brother.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible tells us that God so loved and that he first loved.
SPEAKER_01: He so loved and that he first loved.
SPEAKER_01: And here's all this boiled down to ask you this one question.
SPEAKER_01: Are you willing to walk out of here this morning and so love?
SPEAKER_01: Love in such a way that you don't just say it, you demonstrate it, and first love.
SPEAKER_01: Because to be Christ-like is to sow love and to first love.
SPEAKER_01: To sow love and to first love.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it comes down to.
SPEAKER_01: For God's so loved.
SPEAKER_01: And we love him because he first loved us.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what you don't need to do is walk out and think, okay, five action steps for being a more loving person.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: Just back up and just meditate on the love God has for you.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: We like to teach the Bible and then give you some soul space to think about it.
SPEAKER_01: And so let me voice a prayer and then we'll just meditate and think for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you just to think upon this one simple thing: the love that God has for you.
SPEAKER_01: Don't beat yourself up for the way that you're not loving people or the way you're no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: Just meditate and think about for the next couple minutes the love God has for you.
SPEAKER_01: It is uncaused and it's unconditional.
SPEAKER_01: Uncaused means you didn't do anything to make him love you.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't make a lot of money and become successful, and God said, Oh man, loving you is a good idea.
SPEAKER_01: I love you now.
SPEAKER_01: He loved you when you were a royal screw up.
SPEAKER_01: When you knew better and you did it anyway.
SPEAKER_01: He just kept on loving you.
SPEAKER_01: That's why you got away from all things spiritual.
SPEAKER_01: You stopped coming to church, stopped going to Bible study because you could not sin in the presence of that kind of unconditional love.
SPEAKER_01: It was unnerving to you.
SPEAKER_01: So you created space for yourself and called it anger.
SPEAKER_01: But it wasn't anger, it was fear.
SPEAKER_01: And I've come to tell you that this God that loves you unconditionally is calling out to you today and he's saying one thing, Ollie Ollie and free.
SPEAKER_01: Come out, come out wherever you are.
SPEAKER_01: And so you have to know and to come to believe the love God has for you.
SPEAKER_01: Let's think about that for a moment.
SPEAKER_02: God gave his son to with his airing child, he reconcile apart and from his sin.
SPEAKER_02: Could we within the ocean fill and were the skies of parchment made?
SPEAKER_02: Were every song on earth a quill and every man ascribe by trade to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain the whole or stretch from sky to sky or love of God how rich and pure, how meditate and strong it's town for evermore and do the saints and angels song O love of God how rich and pure, how measureless and strong it shall forevermore enjoy the saints and angels.
SPEAKER_01: Oh Lord, that's so good.
SPEAKER_01: Well, we want to just uh we want to just leave here this morning and think more about the love of God.
SPEAKER_01: And we want to think less about reasons to hate ourselves and be mad at people that don't love us perfectly.
SPEAKER_01: They can't.
SPEAKER_01: They're just people.
SPEAKER_01: They do their best, we can't hold it against them because we're people too.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Lord, we uh we want to spend 10,000 hours and 10,000 more if that's what it takes to learn that sweet heart of yours.
SPEAKER_01: And God forgive us for taking great words like that and wasting them on a person and just remaining ignorant and indifferent to the love of God.
SPEAKER_01: Because it would take 10,000 hours just to scratch the surface of your heart for your people.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Lord, infect us with an appetite for affection.
SPEAKER_01: We're done with punishing ourselves and punishing others.
SPEAKER_01: And we invite the perfect love of God to cast out all the fear in our life.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: If you're our guest today, let me say thanks for being part of our church.
SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
SPEAKER_01: You're always welcome.
SPEAKER_01: No one's ever gonna corner you and make you talk if you don't want to talk.
SPEAKER_01: You're always welcome here.
SPEAKER_01: You say, I don't believe most of what you said today.
SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna love you.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna love you.
SPEAKER_01: You keep coming, you keep listening to the truth, and we believe the truth will set you free, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully you've had a chance on your seek back.
SPEAKER_01: There's a seek back pocket in your row with a guest card in it.
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully you had a chance to pull one of those and fill it out.
SPEAKER_01: All we ask of you are guests is to drop that in one of the wooden boxes by the doors on your way out.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and for the rest of us, if this is your church and today, today you worship God through through through obedience or generosity and giving, that's where you take care of that as well, okay?
SPEAKER_01: We'll be available down front if you have any questions about anything you heard, or you just say, hey, you know what?
SPEAKER_01: It's fixing to get kind of jammed up for us.
SPEAKER_01: Can you pray for us?
SPEAKER_01: We'd be glad to, all right?
SPEAKER_01: We'd like to close our service with a spoken blessing.
SPEAKER_01: So stand to your feet if you would.
SPEAKER_01: And hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_01: The love God has for you is uncaused, which means it wasn't your idea.
SPEAKER_01: It was his.
SPEAKER_01: You did nothing to deserve it, and you never will.
SPEAKER_01: But you can enjoy it.
SPEAKER_01: This is what you were created for, and it's why Jesus came, born of a virgin, laid in a manger, to establish a standard of what it looks and feels like to be loved.
SPEAKER_01: Depart now.
SPEAKER_01: And don't just hold other people to that standard because they're people.
SPEAKER_01: Hold yourself to that standard.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Bless you.