Multiplying Love in Our Hearts - Deuteronomy 6:4-6

Being disciples who are receiving and following in the love of God s of the utmost importance because it enables us to be and do all the God intends.

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Deuteronomy six, four through six. Listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

God, thank you that we we can come to you as Father. We get to come in this place and join our family and worship you and sing and look to you as a really incredible father. And so God, right now we're just we're looking to you to speak to us. We're looking to you to lead us and to guide us and we trust you. And so, Spirit, we invite you into this place. Our hearts are open for you to move. Would you convict us? Would you push us past where we're comfortable? And would you give us the faith and the trust to rest in you and to trust in you? Jesus name.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Thank you guys. Everybody, that's uh Jordan and Mel Woods. Um they are uh leaders in our church. They're actually going to be stepping up to lead a life group here um this week, starting this week. So, all of you guys, when you got a listing guide when you came in this morning, did everybody get one of those? You can raise your hand if you didn't get one of those, and we've got our crew will help you guys out. Inside our listing guide was a list of life groups. And we put that in there because really at this time of year we're relaunching all of these groups, and one of the groups that is kind of branching out and dividing into several groups is um Jordan and Mel are going to be leading a group that's kind of um what do we multiplying? That's the positive sounding word we use, right? We don't want to say splitting off, that sounds bad. Uh, multiplying off the Robinson life group, and then actually that life group is multiplying into three different groups. So, anyway, we want you to kind of get to know who these leaders are. We want you to feel that you can go and participate in one of these groups, and we really, as a church, continue to say, hey, two primary things that we participate in as a church family is life groups and our Sunday gathering. So, really would encourage all of you to take a look at that list, to pray about um jumping into one of those groups. And if you have questions about that, you can always visit this back table in the room and we'll try and kind of give you information, or even if it's helpful, introduce you in person to some leaders of a group so you're not walking into a house full of strangers if you uh try out a new group. Okay? So, a couple of quick things as we get ready to get going this morning. My name's Harley Rethel. I'm excited to get the opportunity to open God's word with you this morning. Uh we are as a church in between two uh lengthy series that we're studying. So we've just finished the book of John, which is exciting, right? You guys excited that we that was a fun and fun study. I'm excited that we made it through it because apparently when we started looking to doing the book of John, we found out that a lot of churches start the book of John and never finish it. So we made it through, which is good. Um and personally, just man, it's it's been good for my heart to like see the life of Jesus, to just be reminded time and time again throughout that book of how real Jesus is and his impact not just on our lives but on this world around us and how we can rely and depend on him. We're now getting ready next week to start a series that we're gonna be calling Knowing God. And I'm really excited about this series too, because in this series we're not actually going through a book of the Bible, we're gonna talk about the attributes of God. What are the things that we can know about God? And so I'm very excited about what that's gonna mean for us because we're gonna get to really explore God and who He is, and I think as we do that, it actually does have very practical implications for our lives. We'll get to talk about that more. I better not preach a sermon on that right now, but I am excited about it. And right in between, what we're gonna do today is we're gonna look at something, kind of Nick's already hinted at this, we're gonna look at something that is really foundational. Like what's really important as we're kind of between these series, like what's important about life? So that's kind of the framework for you to know where we're at at this juncture of time as a church. Okay, with that in mind, let's jump into the message for today. What would you think if I told you that much of the Christian life we actually get backwards? That we often end up jumping to the end without visiting the beginning, that we try and short circuit the Christian life. We try to make shortcuts, and if you think about short circuits, typically if something short circuits, what happens to it? It goes up in smoke, right? It doesn't work out well. And I think that's true that when we try and do the Christian life without doing that which is most important first, it doesn't work. It goes up in smoke. I don't know if you guys have ever had the experience of trying to do a Lego puzzle or an IKEA piece of furniture. They're very similar, right? Both of them, they give you this beautiful picture showing you what the finished product should look like, right? But there's a whole bunch of steps that you have to do to assemble what's in front of you. I don't know if you're guilty of this, but I definitely am, of looking at that picture and saying, I can do that. I can figure that out. I don't need all these instructions, I don't need all these steps. And if you've ever tried that, you may have found that your piece of furniture or that your Lego actually ends up looking more like a Picasso than it was intended to, right? Like it's all jumbled and doesn't really work out because the foundational steps are so important. And so what I put to you this morning is I'd love for us to talk about what are the foundational steps for life as God intends it for us. Foundations isn't something that uh Jesus shied away from talking about. If you go to Matthew uh chapter 7 or Luke chapter 6, what you'll find there uh is the exact same story. It's a parable where Jesus talks about foundations. Some of you are familiar with the story, right? There's two people. One of them builds a house on sand, the other builds his house on the rock, and then a storm comes, and the house that was on the sand obviously just blows over. It's done. And Jesus was making the point of hey, foundations are hugely important, and your foundation needs to be God. So with that in mind, I want to just say to you this morning, we often come to church or to Christian gatherings like this, and we hear things like, we need to go into all the world and we need to make disciples. We need to multiply God's love around us. And guess what? That's true. Absolutely, yes, we should. It's so important actually that Jesus, in his final commands to his disciples, before he goes and ascends in Matthew 28 to go back and be in the presence of God the Father, which that's pretty cool instance of this going on, Matthew 28. But what does he say? He says, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. And then he goes on and says, Go therefore and make disciples. So, yes, this is absolutely, let's be clear, there is a call to make disciples. There is a call for us to multiply God's love all around us. But the problem is we want to jump straight to doing this, and we can't. Before multiplying God's love to others, his love must first be multiplying in us. Now, this is kind of a foundational statement that we're looking at here, and I want to look for at it for a second and I want to make a few clarifications. There's a few things that need we need to make sure we're on the same page about here first. First clarification is this this word love. Obviously it appears twice in the statement. It's very important. But when I say love, I don't want you to think of what I believe is a word that's often culturally corrupted now. You see, when I say love, some of you think of the love that we see in the culture around us or in movie or movies or TV or media, which is this very selfish and self-serving love. It's often romantic or sexual, and it's like this love that essentially is asking, what's in this for me? You guys know what I'm talking about? So when I say love, that's not the type of love that I'm talking about. When I say love, I mean it in the sense that God intends for us to talk about love. One of the Bible dictionaries describes love as this love is the basic aspect of relationships between humans and between God and humans, encompassing here this affection, loyalty, and responsibility. That's the type of love that we're talking about. So when we say love in this statement, we're talking about a love that is more than a feeling. It's not some ooey-gooey feeling that we have, it's a love that is committed and selfless. If you need a more robust definition of love, I'd suggest that you go to 1 Corinthians 13 because there's a whole chapter that describes it. It says that love is pure and patient and kind. And really, essentially, it says that love is others focused. The second clarification I'd like to make is this. I am not saying this morning that you need to reach a certain level of maturity before God can use you. Please hear me say this. I'm not saying that there is a certain level of Christianity, and once you kind of get to that level, man, you can really multiply God's love or you can really be a disciple maker. No, that's not what I'm saying this morning. What I am saying is that you can't give what you don't have. That before God can use us to do a work, he has to do a work in us. It's this idea that you can't run without fuel. A car cannot run without gasoline. A fire will not burn without fuel, a sail will not be pushed without wind in it. You cannot run a marathon without eating first, right? If you fasted for a week and then tried to run a marathon, it would be pointless, it would be useless. The third clarification is this. Some of you may be sitting there this morning and read this statement and you're like, okay, is he talking about being a Christian? I'm a Christian. You know? Before multiplying God's love to others, his love must be multiplying in us. You think, okay, so before acting like a Christian, I've got to be a Christian. No, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about your religious identification. What I'm asking is, is God's love dwelling richly in you? Why do I say dwelling richly? Well, that's the type of love that God calls all of us to, all throughout his word. Let's go to this. Let's go to God's word. Deuteronomy chapter 6, our reading for today. I'm gonna ask you to follow along with me and to just keep your place because this will be our key text for today. Deuteronomy 6, verse 4. And I just want to give you a one window into what we hear all throughout the scriptures. It says this listen, Israel. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all your soul, with and with all of your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. These few verses are really famous. Verses four and five in particular are called the Shemar. Do you know what that word means? Shemema? It simply means listen. If you read this passage in Hebrew, I'm not a Hebrew scholar, but if you read it, it would say Shema Israel, as in listen, Israel. And when it says that word Shemar, it means to listen, to hear, and it's not a passive type of listening. It's an active, obedient type of listening. And it says, listen, Israel. This passage is so important that Jews to this day will repeat it twice a day, morning and evening. They understood the importance of what it contains. So what does it contain? Well, it contains a few things. It reminds us that there is only one God. What does it say there at the start? Listen, Israel. Hero Israel. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. It reminds us that there is one God. And this is a helpful statement because I believe there are many gods competing for our hearts. Now you may be like, I don't see that many idols in our culture, but we've talked about this tons of times here before. There are things that we worship in our hearts that aren't set up as some sort of statue, usually. They're things that are kind of more subversive than that, that are things that pretend to be God. They're fakes, they're impostors, they're the gods of comfort, of power, of possessions, of sex, of money, of image. And I can make a longer list, right? And what this scripture says is hey, all of those are fakes. There is one God. It then goes on, and it reminds us of a second thing. It reminds us that there is a God, not just one God, but he is knowable. Now, again, I don't want to preach a whole message here because this is where we're going in the coming weeks, and I'm excited about it. But God is knowable. This is a really cool thought. God has made humans with an ability to reason, to think, and to process. He's given us an ability to mentally and spiritually know him, and at the same time, he's revealed truths about himself. When those two things come together, what that means is that we have an ability to know God. Now, not know him in all his fullness. God is beyond what we can understand. So I want to make that clear. But this text reminds us that we can know God because it says, Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. It's telling us something about God. It's telling us that he is one. It then goes on and instructs us about how we should really live. And this instruction, I believe, is God saying, Hey, this is my intent, this is my design. If you don't want a short circuit life, this is how you should live. And in that, it makes a pretty emphatic command, doesn't it? There's not a lot of wiggle room. Imagine with me if the text said, Hey, Israel, here's a good suggestion. Love God with some of your mind and a bit of your heart, and you know, it'll all be great. Like that's not what's here in this text. It's emphatic, it's in clear, and it says, we are to love God with all that is within us, our heart, our soul, and our strength. That pretty much covers it, right? And so as we read this, there is an obvious, pressing question for us this morning. And it's this do I, do you love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength? Now don't try and wiggle out of this. You may be looking at this and you're like, well, this was pretty early on in the Bible. Maybe God was just, you know, he was a bit angry at the start and he kind of softened up as we get further through. No, this is something that is contained all throughout the scriptures. Let me take you on a real quick journey. So we're here, start of the Bible, Deuteronomy, pretty early on. And we've got this command, love God with all your heart, soul, and strength. If I was to jump over the kings, by the way, I'm jumping over many times that this is repeated, but if I was to jump forward to Jeremiah chapter 9, verse 23, it says this. This is what the Lord says. The wise man, we're in the prophets now, the wise man must not boast in his wisdom, the strong man must not boast in his strengths, the wealthy man must not boast in his wealth, but the one who boasts should boast in what? This that he understands and knows me. All the other gods, wisdom, wealth, they've got nothing. You've got to boast in one thing, and it's loving God. We continue on. You go fast forward another few hundred years. Jesus arrives on the scene in Matthew 22, and as he's there, he is questioned about what is the most important command. What do you think he says? He quotes Jeremiah, uh, not Jeremiah, he quotes Deuteronomy chapter 6. In verse 37 of chapter 22 of Matthew, he says, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. Jesus goes on and dies for the sins of the world. He ascends back to the Father. The church age is then instituted. And if we jump forward further in time to Ephesians chapter 3, this same message continues. Ephesians 3, 17 and 18 says this. I pray that you, Christians, being rooted and firmly established in what? Love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length, the width, the height, the depth of God's love. God's love. Knowing God's love, loving him with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength is all throughout the scriptures because it is the primary objectives of our lives. It should be the primary objective of our lives to love God and to know Him. And so I want to ask you this morning, is that your heart? Is that your desire? Is that what you wake up with in the morning? Is that what you go to bed thinking about? God, I want to love you. I want to love you, I want to know you with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my strength. As I ask you that, I'm asking you not to obviously answer out loud, but I am asking you to genuinely think about that this morning. And if you're honest, I believe there are two truthful answers that we probably will give in this room this morning. One answer is no. I don't love God with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my strength. The other answer is sometimes. Sometimes I love God with all my heart, soul, and strength, but not all the time. I struggle. Why is it that we struggle? Why is there that tension that we all exist in? The room's just gotten really quiet. Because I know that you guys struggle with this. I know that I struggle with this. I mean, if I'm honest, my answer is sometimes. It's because of a couple of things, creation and fall. You see, the Bible tells us very early on in Genesis that God created everything and it was good. Actually, he said it was very good. His creation. But something happened in his creation. He did create a unique part of his creation, which was mankind. And he blessed them and he gave them, like we've already talked about, an ability to process, to think, and to reason and to choose. And he gave us this incredible ability. But man chose to reject God, and we call that the fall. One way that we could put that is that mankind chose to shun knowing God. What did God used to do with Adam and Eve? Do you guys know what he used to do? He would walk with them in the cool of the evening in the garden. They knew God. They loved God, but man chose to shun knowing God and chose instead the knowledge of good and evil. And in that moment, things changed. The reason our hearts don't fully love God is because they are enticed by what we're going to call inferior loves. Adam and Eve were enticed by an inferior love. We too are enticed by inferior loves. I've already given you some of the examples. They're the things that we worship as gods. Things like relationships, popularity, image, money. Speaking of money, Jesus talked about how you can't love that and love God at the same time. And I think it doesn't just apply to money, it applies to anything that would set its place up instead of God. Matthew 6, 24. No one can be a slave of two masters since he will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot be slaves of God and money. You can't love both. You can't love God and something else. And this problem that exists exists at the deepest level inside of us. It's in our hearts. I don't know if you noticed earlier when we were in Deuteronomy chapter 6, but it said in Deuteronomy 6, verse 6, we didn't really look at that too much, but it says there, these words, as in love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength, these words that I'm giving you today are to be in your heart. And that's the problem. They're not. He doesn't say, hey, these words are to be in your minds or these are to be in your actions. No, these are to be in you at the deepest level. What is our heart? Our heart is the very essence of who we are. Some have described a heart as the seat of our mind, our will, and our emotions. Our heart is the part of us that longs, that desires, that feels, that loves. And the point that I'm trying to make here very clearly is that our hearts are distracted from loving God. In 1757, a young man aged 22 named Robert Robinson wrote a hymn that we still sing today called Come Thou Fountain of Every Blessing. And there's a line in that song that, man, every time I hear it, it gets me. Because it says, Prone to wonder. Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. And as I think about that, I'm like, that's true. That's me. I'm prone to wonder. I'm prone to leave the God that I love. How do we fix that? And as I look at that, I want to just jump to busy work. I don't know about you, but I'm like, I want to jump. What's the action step? What can I do to fix this? What do I need to do to have this multiplying love that we're talking about this morning? And so there's been times where I'm like, well, I just need to, I need to read my Bible, I need to pray more, I need to, maybe it's fasting or reading certain books. Over the years of having an ability to sit down with people and just check on them. It's part of what I get to do, and I love doing that. But one of the questions I often ask people is, hey, how's your heart or how's your love for God? And people will respond to that question and say, Well, I'm not really reading my Bible a lot. Or I am reading my Bible a lot, and I'm like, you're missing the point. That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking, how's your heart? The essence of loving is not doing, says John Piper. The essence of loving is delighting when God is the object. Did you hear that? The essence of loving is not doing, it's delighting. Delighting is a good word. Delight is a good word to describe this foundational love that God wants to be in our hearts. The only solution for our wayward hearts, distracted by these inferior loves, is for them to find a greater love, to delight in a greater love. As a young man growing up, I grew up in church in a Christian family. And I'm thankful for my family. I'm thankful for my church experience. And I'm going to generalize here, there were several people along the journey of life that I met who genuinely loved God and had a delight in him. But they were the exception. And so I'm going to generalize by saying this, but it's true. I grew up seeing people doing the Christian life and not delighting in the God who made them. That was my experience. And so as I watched that, I was like, well, this is what the Christian's life's about. Doing these certain things, acting this certain way, behaving in a certain manner. And so I started to try and emulate that, to be that. When I would hear passages like John 14, 15, which Jesus speaks and says, If you love me, you will keep my commands. I would hear a passage like that, and what would be perceived into my thinking was that you are, if you are good enough at behaving right, you prove that you love God. And that may sound almost right, but it's so wrong. Like that's so wrong. The gospel is not that message at all. The gospel is that you are delighted in by God. And you are called in that delight to see it, and then to, in return, delight in him. And when you delight in him, you will keep his commands. You will love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And what does God command us to do anyway? To love him. You will love God if you love God. So my journey these past few years has really been a journey of, in a lot of ways, unlearning. Of coming back to the foundation that I must delight in God above all things, that he is the superior love, and that all else is inferior when it comes to the throne of my heart. So the problem that we've kind of been drilling down to at this moment, kind of down to what I would say is bedrock right now, is this. That we do not find God most delightful. So how do you delight in a God that you cannot see? You may be sitting there thinking that, okay, how do I delight in this God? You're saying we should be delighting in God. How do I delight in a God I cannot see? Well, thankfully, we have an answer and it's inner person. His name is Jesus. Jesus shows us the God in whom we delight. If you want to know what this God that we're called to delight in looks like, look to Jesus. There are other ways that we see him. We see him in nature, we see him in God's word, but more detailed than anywhere else, we see him in the person of Jesus. Colossians 1.15, he, Jesus, is the image of the invisible God. Colossians 2.9. For the entire fullness of God's nature dwells bodily in Christ. John 14, Jesus is hanging out with his disciples, and one of them says, Hey Jesus, man, we would really love to see the Father. And Jesus is kind of like, What? You've seen me. Like you've seen the Father. Specifically, John 14, 9, that's when that happens, and he says, The one who has seen me has seen the Father. You see, Jesus gives us a way to see God, and when we see God, my hope is that we would not just see him, we would see him and delight in him. Others of you may be sitting there this morning and asking, well, what does delight even look like? This delight that you're talking about. What is delight? And what we see in Jesus is that Jesus models delight for us. Delight is the byproduct of time spent enjoying. You see, I believe that you cannot delight in something unless you spend time with it. And you can't delight in something unless you enjoy it. For example, you may spend a whole bunch of time with your boss or with a certain coworker that gets on your nerves, but you do not delight in them. Right? You can spend a lot of time with somebody and not delight in them. And the inverse is true as well. You can think that somebody's really great, you can really like someone or think that they're awesome, but you're not going to actually delight in them unless you spend time with them. So, what I want to encourage you guys with is this thought that all throughout Jesus' life we see a man who delights in God and gives us an example of what delight looks like. He enjoys spending time. Mark chapter 1, 35, there's this funny story. Jesus gets up early. It's dark, it's really early in the morning, and it's uh he goes out and he's spending time with God. He's praying, he's talking to God. And uh the day starts, and the disciples go wandering around trying to find him. They can't find him anyway. It takes them like forever to find Jesus. They eventually find him. He's like, I was spending time with God. You go on and you can read in uh Matthew 14 that Jesus, after feeding the 5,000 people, it's been a really busy time in ministry, he sends everybody away, including the disciples, and he doesn't catch back up with the disciples until 3 a.m. You can read in Luke chapter 6, where Jesus spends all night praying. And I don't picture that Jesus was there being like, oh, the dawn's almost here. Just one more hour and I can pray through the night. Like, that's not Jesus' heart, right? He was delighting, enjoying spending time with God, his Father. And Jesus in this really models delight for us. He enjoyed spending time with God. So to put it simply, our delight in God increases as we spend time enjoying Him. Now there's one big question that we're kind of skirting around here, and I want to come and hit it head on now. The question is this why is God most delightful? Why is God most delightful, or maybe you could say delight worthy? And to this, I want to fill in a little bit more of the story that we started on earlier. Earlier I told you about the creation and the fall of man. And the beautiful thing is that the story doesn't end there. The story goes on and tells us about this rescue plan. We call it the redemption. And in that is this story of God sending his son to come and live among us. By the way, that's an incredible thing in and of itself. But God sends Jesus to the earth. He comes and he lives and shows us what humanity really should look like, what being a perfect human looks like. And then he gives himself up to be crucified, to take on the sins of humanity. At the full, humanity and God were separated, and Jesus says, Hey, if I take the sins of humanity, I can restore God and those that reach out to me together and unite them once again. And we call that story the story of redemption because Jesus defeated sin, he defeated death, as we've talked about in the previous few weeks. And not only that, he didn't just re defeat sin and death, he also said, Hey, I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna restore all things. So what we see here is what we call the gospel creation, fall, redemption, and the hope of what we still have of restoration. And what I want to say to you is as we look at the scope of the gospel, as we look at that as a whole, what we have there is a great source of delight. You see, without Jesus, we don't have a restored relationship with God the Father. Without Jesus, we don't have the Holy Spirit living inside of us. Without Jesus, we don't have a hope for the future. And so this thought of what God has done in and through the work of Jesus, I believe, is the deep well of delight that we need to drink from and need to keep drinking from. Because it's bottomless. Jesus does the most delightful thing. He moves us from being enemies of God to being God's children. That's incredible. We talked about this a few weeks ago, how he moved from being enemies to being adopted into God's family. And if I was asked to describe God's love, I would go for adoption. I would say, look at adoption. That's the thing that gives us the most beautiful picture of God's love for us. It's the taproot, if you would, of love. Do you guys know what a taproot is? If you've got a plant or a tree, it is the main root that goes down and draws up the nutrients for that plant. And what I'm saying to you today is if you need to grow in delighting in God, don't look for any deeper well, don't look for any greater source than the thought that you moved from being an enemy of God to being his child. This love is so incredible, it actually surpasses our knowledge. Ephesians 3, earlier I read for you. Paul's praying a prayer for his friends that he helped start a church for. And he's saying, Hey, I I hope that God's love would dwell richly in you, that you know, that you would understand his love. And then verse 19, which I didn't read, is kind of funny because he goes on and he says, Because that love, it surpasses knowledge. Basically, he's saying, I'm praying for something impossible for you. That you would know the love of God that actually goes beyond your ability to even comprehend. It's that rich, it's that deep. I really feel like, in a lot of ways, that we are like these little plants, and when we tap into this uh this thought that God loved us and adopted us, it's like a little plant being watered by the Amazon River. Like, I mean, it's that extreme, like this love that God has for us in this thought. So, how much do we make of this thought? Of the adoptive love of God? A couple of weeks ago I read you a quote by a theologian named J.I. Packer, and he said, You can you can judge how well somebody understands the Christian faith by how much they make of the thought of adoption. So I ask you this morning, how much do you make of that thought? How much do you dwell on that thought? Because this is the love that can defeat the inferior loves. You see, every person is designed to delight in God, to have God's love multiplying in them. I firmly believe that. You and I were designed to have God's love multiplying in us. And God didn't design us that way because he's some sort of egomaniac needing us to like love him and to praise him and to worship him. He knows that that's our greatest good. So we're designed to have this love and to try and live without this love as the foundation is ultimately going to end up being futile. All these inferior loves will lead us high and dry. So as we think about that, there's two things that we still need to do. The first thing that we need to do is we need to evaluate ourselves this morning and say, God, where do I sit in this whole conversation? The second thing that we need to do is to say, God, prayerfully, would you multiply your love in me? Would you do a work in me this morning? So with those two things in mind, I'd like to move us to a time where we can just think about where we sit right now. And to do that, I'm going to use an image that we've kind of used throughout. And I hope you don't get lost in the language. I just think pictures, I'm a visual person, and I think pictures are sometimes a good way for us to evaluate and to and to capture something that God's saying. So don't get lost in the imagery this morning. But I do want to say this. I believe that some of us, I'm going to give you four different types. I believe some of us, our lives are in a lot of ways like a vacant lot of land. An open field, if you would. You don't have faith. You don't have a belief in God. You don't have religious practices. And it's like this open field in front of you. And my encouragement to you today is that you would allow God to pour a foundation of his love on that field and watch him grow something beautiful in your life out of that. I believe that in a room like this this morning, there's people in here who sit in that place. Maybe somebody drug you along to church. I'm glad that you're here. But if that's you this morning, my request of you is that you would understand, that you would realize that you are God's enemy. And that this morning you can make the biggest decision to move to being adopted into God's family. I've been praying this week that there would be someone or someone, several of you, who would make that decision and say, Yeah, that's me. I want God's love to be the foundation of my life. And it's as simple as just praying a prayer and saying, God, I want to be your son. Would you forgive me of my sins? It doesn't have to be a this hugely eloquent thing, but if you pray that prayer, if you make that decision today, tell somebody about it. It's the most important thing. Come and tell me. Tell somebody who brought you. We want to hear about that. We want to celebrate that with you. The second image for you this morning is this. Some of you, I believe, are kind of like a building, or it looks like a building, if we were to look at this piece of land that is sitting on this building. But upon closer examination, if you looked at it, you would find that there actually is no foundation to the building. What I would say to those of you who sit in that space is you have the forms of religion. What looks like maybe to you and to even others a Christian faith or a Christian walk, but if you did, if you look at it, if you dug into it, you would see that there actually has never been a moment that you've cried out to God and said, God, I want to be your child. I need your love to come and to pour into me and to be the foundation of my life. And if that's you this morning, the request is exactly the same as I just gave to the last group. Like allow God to pour his love into your life and to make it change forever. The third group of us is those of us who have a building. We have a foundation in place and a building on it. There has been a moment where we've cried out to God and said, God, I want to be your child. And that's great. I'm glad for that. But what I want to encourage you to think about is if you sit in this third group this morning, this is those of you who have that foundation, but if you take a closer look at the foundation, what you find is there's big cracks running through that foundation. And those cracks are doubt. Those cracks are things like believing that God is good. And some of you here this morning sit in this space. There's something going on in your life. There's questions in your heart and your mind. You're like, is God real? Can I really believe all this God stuff? That's a crack running through that foundation. Others of you, you're like, um, it's more situational. Maybe you have somebody who's near and dear to you who is sick. Maybe somebody's died. Maybe uh, maybe somebody said, I don't want to be around you. Somebody's rejected you. I don't know what it is, but it's caused a crack to go through that foundation of love. And what happens when there's a crack in our foundation? Well, you guys live in Texas, you should know this, right? They dig way down under that foundation and they shore it back up. And I'm not suggesting that you need to do that digging. What I'm saying is allow God to come and to pour his love into that crack and to shore it up and to fill you again with his love and his delight. Be honest with God. Say, God, I'm struggling here. They're talking about delighting in you, and I don't know if I even believe in you. I don't know if I can even trust that you're good. He's not scared of your questions and he wants to fix that which is broken. The fourth group of us is those who sit where the building is intact and the foundation, praise God, is intact. But if you sit in that space, realize that even buildings and houses need maintenance. And so my encouragement to you today is to delight in God and to continue to grow in this. Don't grow weary, don't become distracted. Continue to look after that foundation which God has given you. So, with those pictures in mind, what does it practically look like? How do we prayerfully see God's love multiply in us? The first thought that I give to you in this is ask God. There's a whole mystery wrapped up in this, and I cannot articulate it all to you right now. I don't fully understand it. But I know this that I can't love God unless He enables me to love Him. And I'm not looking to get into this can of worms here of the sovereignty of God and the free choice of man. I mean, there's a whole thing there. But what I am saying is it's mysterious, and I know that what I can do is simply to say, God, help. God, please help me to delight in you. Help me to love you with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my strength, because I'm prone to wonder. Ask God, first and foremost. Then secondly, practice delight. Practice delight. And remember, delight is enjoyed times. It is not duty. We're not talking about eating your green vegetables. We're not talking about doing things that are horrible. What we're talking about is delighting, enjoying time with God. And yes, this can look like prayer. That is having a conversation with God. It can look like listening to God. We're terrible at this. We're so busy and so noisy in all that we do in every day of life. It can look like reading, first and foremost, God's word. And after that, not after, as well as that, there are other books written by people who genuinely love God who can stir your heart and your affection for Him. If you want some suggestions, come and talk to me. Journaling can be a great way to delight and practice delighting in God. Just writing down. Nick had us like talking about things we're thankful for. Like, write down things that you're thankful for. Write down your prayers. Fellowship with other believers. Get in a life group. Be around other people who are delighting in God. And maybe as you watch them and as you see them, a little bit of their delight will rub off on you. You'll see them and be like, Lord, please, would I delight in you also? Use your senses to delight in God. Psalms 34, verse 8. Taste and see that the Lord is good. All of our senses can comprehend the goodness of God. Allow them to do what they were designed to do. When you're eating that beautiful bite of dessert, praise God. When you see that beautiful sunset, praise God. When you hear your kids playing and laughing and enjoying each other, not fighting, enjoying each other, praise God. Delight in Him, turn all of these things that we often just are like, oh, that's cool. Like turn it to delight in God. My own journey has been one where I really felt challenged a couple of years ago, about a year and a half ago, by God. Because there were certain things I was delighting in. More than him. And I feel like at that point in my life, he really challenged me and said, Hey, you're getting up early because you delight in these activities, but you don't really delight in me in that same way. And out of that, God's created this habit, and this is just me. Like, I don't know what this looks like for you, but for me, he's created this thing where I now have certain days of the week that I prayerfully and say, God, I'm gonna get up and I want to just practice delighting in you. And it's something that he's led me to do, and man, it's been such a beautiful thing. I was getting up early to, well, let me tell you the whole story. I was getting up early to go bike riding because I loved it. And I felt convicted, like God was saying, hey, you love that. Why don't you get up early for me? And it's been this process of seeing God really using that to bless and to lead my life. One of the guys that's been kind of inspirational for me in these last few years is a guy who lived a long time ago named George Muller. And he has this little statement that he says, and I've read it to you guys before, I'm probably going to butcher it because it's not in my notes. But he basically says the first and primary objective that which I auto attend every day is to find my soul happy in the Lord. It's more important than eating, it's more important than sleeping. It is to be the primary foundational objective of our lives. And I'm not sitting up here to say, well, you've got to wake up at this time or you've got to read this amount of the Bible in a year. No, I'm saying spend time delighting in God. May we be a people and a church known for our love of God. And if God becomes the supreme delight in our lives, going back to our very first thought, all the rest of life will start to click. It'll start to make sense. Even in difficult circumstances, we will trust God. Even when things are hard, we will obey Him. We will begin to recognize the call and to go and to make disciples. And so my encouragement is very simple this morning. I know I keep sounding like a resounding gong. I'm saying the same thing over and over, but I'm saying it to myself just as much as I'm saying it to you. Let's love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength. And as that's our primary aim in life, let's see what God does. Let me pray for us. God thank you. That even when we are prone to wonder, that you are faithful, that you are loving, that you are good, thank you that you have adopted us into your family. Thank you that that is this incredible deep well for delight. And God, we're just asking today that you would help us to love you as you have designed us to, with all of our heart, with all of our soul, and with all of our strength. And God, we're acknowledging that we have shortfalls. We're acknowledging that we have struggles and there are cracks in some of our foundations. God, even in these next few moments, as we as we reflect on what you are saying to us through your word this morning, Lord, I pray that we wouldn't rush from this moment and numb ourselves with the next thing, but we would actually contemplate how are you calling us to grow in delighting in you. And God, I pray that even in this moment, as we get a chance to sing and to respond, that there would be delight in our hearts, that there would be joy, that there would be peace, that there would be love, just thinking of the fact that you delight in us and that we can and should delight in you. Thank you. Amen. Well, we're going to have a few ways for you guys to respond this morning. Uh, we've got tables around the room, and I just would invite you guys to go to one of those tables to take communion here in a moment when Nick starts singing. And uh just if you're a Christian, we invite you to go and do that. If you're not a Christian, it doesn't make sense. And if you do go and take that, just take it with a sober heart and a joyful heart, remembering of the significance of what Jesus did for us to secure that adoption. Second thing that I encourage you to do is to um come and pray with somebody. We'll have some of our team around the room ready to pray with you. And so if you would like prayer, um come forward and we'll pray with you. And uh it doesn't necessarily have to be about anything we've even talked about today, but we'd encourage you to respond in those ways. Obviously, you can sit and you can think on the things we've been talking about, you can stand and you can sing. Whatever God is leading you to, be obedient in responding. And let's uh let's move through this time together.