The Open Ended Love Story | New Horizon

The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying, I

have loved you with an everlasting love.

I have drawn you.

With unfailing kindness. Hear the word the Lord for you.

Let's pray Father in Jesus name. We thank you for

your word. We thank you for this time together to

worship you, to be together, to commune with one another.

And we thank you so much most of all that

you love us beyond our comprehension.

Holy Spirit.

We asked that you would come and move and lead

us to the Father. Come, Lord Jesus and speak to us.

Walk among us, and Father, be here Jesus name. Amen,

please be seated.

So my wife Laurie showed me in the Epic Times

a particular article right before Valentine's Day that sort of

shocked me. And it shocked me because you'll see in

a moment.

How much it speaks to the word you just heard.

So doctor Alexander, even Alexander, he is a well respected.

Neurologist that was in the prime of his life, but.

He contracted bacterial meningitis and he was in a deep

coma so much in the hospital that the doctor said

he had two percent chance two percent chance of living

and for seven days his brain showed no activity whatsoever.

At that point he encountered he actually his spirit left

his body. He was having a what some call a

near death experience. But he left his body and a

radiant being came up to him and spoke to him.

And delivered this message.

You are deeply loved and cherished forever. You have nothing

to fear, and you are richly cared for. Sounds amazing

considering those words were very similar to Jeremyah's word speaking

from the Father. So miraculously, doctor Alexander recovered, and he

says love is what pulled him back from the brink

of death. See, he had been adopted at birth, and

he said, I had this subconscious belief that maybe i'd

it didn't even deserve to exist, that maybe I didn't

deserve love since my own mother had given me away.

But he believed this.

He said, this love expressed to him in this message

cured the deepest scars of his heart and brought healing

to him and brought him back to life. The Lord

appeared to us in the past, saying I have loved

you with an everlasting love. I have drawn you with

unfailing kindness, King James says, loving kindness.

I like that word too, loving kindness. I've drawn you.

So Here the prophet Jeremiah is speaking to the people

of Israel, and it's actually at a time when he's

speaking about restoration coming, and it's actually the same chapter

where the promise of the New Covenant is given. But

as he's speaking to his people and talks about from

the past, he's reminded them of his deliverance out of Egypt.

He's reminded them of their time on Sinai, where he

walked with him through the difficult time of the desert.

He's reminded them of bringing them, leading them into the

Promised Land. All these different things. I have been with

you all this time, showing you my love, drawing you

to me all this time. Whether you knew it or not,

do you know that you're in a love story?

You are? You are in a love story with God.

From gen Genesis to Revelation, we see again and again

the Lord pursuing out of his love, pursuing us, creating us,

redeeming us, walking with us, being with us, showing his

love all along the way, drawing us, as he says

to us, with unfailing love, loving us with an everlasting,

forever love. The God of Love is pursuing you, not

just the world, but you. These words are for you

this morning. Of course, the greatest expression of the love

of God is Christ Jesus. In Christ Jesus his love,

sending his only son to die on the cross, sacrificing

his life, putting all the sins of the world, all

your sin, on him. Of course, that is the greatest

expression of love that could ever ever be right.

We know that. But he loves you, He really really

loves you, and he likes you too.

By the way, sometimes we say, oh, he loves me,

but does.

He like me? He likes you too.

He made you the way you are, right, He made

you the way you are. You've been deeply loved since

certainly certainly from your conception, but probably from the beginning

of time.

You have been deeply, deeply loved by God. He was

there your conception.

He was there when you took your first steps. He

was there when you fell on your face running down

the sidewalk. He was there when you had your first kiss.

He was there when you had brokenness and hurt, when

you chose paths of destruction.

He was there, He's always been there. Think about.

Your life and the times that he's shown you, he's

revealed to you the evidence of his presence and the

evidence of his love. But the resolution of this love

story is still to be told. And I'm talking about

the love story inside the bigger love story. I'm talking

about the love story between.

You and your heavenly Father. It's open ended. It's open ended.

And for those of you who are here, who who

who don't have a deep relationship with your heavenly Father,

it's still open ended whether or not you will.

Because it's all up to you. It's all up to you.

My first glimpse of the love of God was when

I was four years old. I had what I now

know was a vision. At the time, I didn't know

what a vision was. But I saw the Lord Jesus

on a cross. On the cross, I saw him with

his crowns crown of thorns, with the nails in his

hands and feet, blood dripping down his face and off

his hands. And the only feeling I had was love, absolute.

Total, complete love. And I knew that. I knew that,

I knew that I.

Was loved, And I have always known that and it

has never ever ever left me. Soon after that, I

gave my life to the Lord. I prayed the Sinner's

prayer with Annie K. Gave my life to him and

he has always, always, always been there. But when I

was growing up, I grew up in a family I

like to say, you know, we didn't know we were

just we didn't have the name dysfunctional, but that's what

we were, you know, I mean, we really were, and

a family of seven, five kids. I was the second

of five. But my parents they didn't know how to love.

They loved very imperfectly. They did their best based on

their level of brokenness and their own past and some

of you recognize that in yourself or in your parents.

And they fought constantly. I went to bed many times

lying in bed, not being able to go to sleep

because my parents were fighting. And eventually they eventually long story,

but they did divorce, and that was an area of

brokenness for my life.

But the Lord was with me and I knew that

and he protected me.

I didn't that didn't mean I didn't have to go

through the process of healing, forgiveness and all that stuff,

but he was there. I was abused as a child,

it's sexually abused by a family friend, and that was

very it was devastating. But even in that, I knew

I was loved. And even through that, through the process

of forgiving and and letting go that came because I

knew I was loved, I could do that. I could

walk through that healing and cling to my heavenly Father

because of the love of God has so much power.

I grew up close friends in the neighborhood. Three of

my closest friends. My friend Paul, he died, he choked

to death on his own vomit, having over drank alcohol

at a party. My friend Dominic became so addicted to

drugs that he eventually lost virtually all his teeth. And

my friend Jimmy Kay the strongest guy in the neighborhood.

If he wasn't on your side, then you might get

beat up because he's also a really angry kid, and

he played football like crazy and we could never tackle him.

But Jimmy, Jimmy got into drugs as well. He got

he got into uh uh.

A lot of bad, bad things.

He ended up in prison, He ended up uh he

had lots of street fights and everything else ended up

in prison. Uh family accounts of battery and ended up

dying in prison.

Why was I spared?

I was spared because I was not captured by the world,

because the love.

Of God had captured me. That's why I was spared.

Now, for the entire three years of jesus ministry on

this earth, what did he talk about and what did

he do? His words and his works were all about

Your heavenly Father loves you. He cares about you. Come

enter into a love relationship with him through me. That's

all Jesus talked about. That's all he demonstrated time and again.

Your heavenly Father loves you so very much. If you've

seen me, you've seen the Father. You want to know

what the Father's like. Open the book, look at the

New Testament. That is the Father, That is your father

in heaven. That is the one who loves you. That

is the one who draws you.

To him with his unfailing love.

But Jesus also told stories. He told parables, right, and

there's one parable where he really told about his father's love.

You might know that parable.

As the parable of prodigal Son, but you may not

have realized that it's a love story.

That's right.

We're going to take a look at that love story

right now. It's Luke, chapter fifteen, starting in verse eleven.

There was a man who had two sons. The younger

one said to his father, father, give me my share

of the estate. Now, according to the custom, if he

was a younger son, he was a second son of

two sons, he would get a third of the estate,

a third of all that his father had when he died.

But to come to his father and to speak to

him and say this is what I want was not

only unheard of, it was absolutely disrespectful, completely, particularly in

that culture of honor. It was like the worst thing

you could ever say to your father. And by implication,

he is rejecting him, and he's rebelling against him, and

he's basically saying, father, I do I love you, and

I do not respect you. In fact, he's saying, father,

I can't wait till you die. Could anything been more

painful to that father, I'm sure it broke his heart

into a million pieces. The son's demand would also been

a great grief to his family, absolutely stunning, and in

our front, to the entire community who would have known

this family and to have heard what had happened now

most of you here, In fact, I would venture to say,

all of you here, at one time or another, and

maybe even this morning, have been a prodigal son or daughter,

have been that younger son. You know, we simply want

to live our lives the way we want to live them.

What we want to do, you know, and enjoy what

the Father gives us. The blessings of life, the blessings

of family, the blessings of good work, the blessings of health,

whatever blessings we have.

We have so many, many.

Of them, and we want to enjoy those, and we

want to do what we want to do. But in

doing so, we deny what the father desires most from us,

and that is a love relationship or he's first, or

he's our first love.

Verse twelve B. The second part of the verse says,

this what the father does.

So he divided his property between them.

So he does it, and he didn't have to do it.

Any normal father in that culture would have thrown him out,

disowned him, and maybe even beating him up first. But

this father gives him what he asks for. Here you go,

Here you go, son.

Listen out of the generosity of his love.

The father gives, he gives, he gives, he gives. He

loves you so much, even when his heart is broken

for some of you here this morning. His heart is

broken just telling you that.

Verse thirteen.

Not long after that, the younger son got together all

that he had set off for a distant country and

there squandered his wealth in wild living.

Now there's a surprise. He was just waiting to do

it right.

The son demands his inheritance, takes it from his father,

takes the money and runs. In doing so, he further

rejects the love of his father. He rejects his family,

he rejects his community, and he rejects any faith that

he had, because to go into the far country is

to go away from God's people, to go to where

the Pagans worship their idols. And so he does all

this as he rejects the farther and again by his actions,

he's saying, I don't want to have anything ever to

do with you, father, I am completely done with you. Now,

we don't think that spending our lives the way we

do is rejecting his love, putting him second or third

or away.

But that's what it is.

That's what it is.

Now the Father lets him go without a fight. Here

you go.

In essence, your heavily father says, I love you so

much that I will not make you love me. He

doesn't want robots Autona toms.

He doesn't. He wants somebody to love him back. He

wants you to love him back. I won't make you

love me.

He won't force the relationship that he desires from you.

But he's there with open arms. He's there, he's right,

and he's near.

He's as near as your neighbor to you right now

and nearer. But the risk is worth it so that

he has.

A real love relationship with you Verse fourteen.

So after he had spent everything, there was a severe

famine in the whole country, and he began to be

in need. So he went out and hired himself out

to a citizen of that country, who sent him to

his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his

stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but

no one gave him anything. He ends up in a

pig sty, starving to death. Jesus gives us a very

simple picture of what it means to be away from.

The father's love.

Spiritual poverty, emptiness. You know nothing will truly satisfy and

fulfill you.

As the lover of your soul. Can he is the

love of your soul?

He is. Yes, I spent time as a prodigal as well.

I chose to live my own life about the time

I went off to college. The attractions and the temptations

were too great for me. At least that's what I thought.

I guess I don't know, but they were partying, heart

eating relationships, not focused on God relationships, selfishness.

I could go on with many things.

But by the time I was twenty two years old,

I already had an engineering degree, I was working on

my masters. I was getting basically out straight a's. I

had a full scholarship. I was paid for being for

doing research. I was living on the beach.

With some of my.

Buddies, hanging out, partying, having a great time in and

out of various relationships. Wow, you think I'd have the

greatest time ever, But I wasn't. One weekend, I was

in the San Berardino Mountains with my girlfriend and some friends.

We were at a cabin there and I was out

on the porch, and I remember it so clearly. I

went on the porch by myself, and I looked out,

just kind of out the scene off into the mountains there,

and I was completely empty.

I was.

It was like it didn't matter if I still believed

in God. I was far from it, and I felt

like he has no use for me.

I think I'm going to die.

I actually thought I thought that that something's gonna happen.

It's gonna be an accident. I'm gonna my heart's gonna stop.

I don't, but I thought I was gonna die because

I thought I am useless here. I'm living for this.

Whatever I was in the PIGSTI I really was. Have

any of you been there? Yeah, Verse seventeen. So when

he came to his senses, he said, how many of

my father's hired men have food to spare, but here

I am starving to death. I will set out and

go back to my father and say to him, Father,

I have sinned against heaven and against you. I'm no

longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like

one of your hired men. So he decides to go

home just to be a hired servant. He's no longer

a son, He's not worthy to be a son. And

so he's rehearsing what he's going to say to his father,

and he begins to head home. Verse twenty says, So

he got up and he went to his father. He's ragged,

he's dirty, he's weak, he's hungry, he's broken, and says,

but why he was still a long way off. His

father saw him and was filled with compassion for him,

and he ran to his son, threw his arms around

him him. Is it that amazing?

Amen? That's yeah, that is wow, wow wow. All this

time the father had been anxiously looking for him.

That's why he saw him in the distance, because he

every day he'd be looking out there, every free moment,

he's looking out there. Is my son coming home? Is

my beloved son coming home? And he saw him, saw

him out here?

Is that my son? I think it's my son. He's

probably limping.

But dragon just you know, clothes, if you know, just rags,

wearing rags, just skinny as a bone.

And so he runs.

A Jewish man would never run, not of this, not

not of that age that that's that would be beneath them.

That would be shameful to do. And yet he runs,

he runs, He runs for two reasons. The first reason

is that the uh that the son would would encounter

a gauntlet of the community who probably hated him for

basically dishonoring the community by what he did to his father,

and we're just been horrified by it. And then they

probably they'd probably be, you know, casting a spurgeons at him,

probably just going.

Oh there's that you know, there's that bomb. You know.

The father runs out, I think, first of all, to

protect his son. Father humbles himself to protect a son.

The second second thing is he didn't want to wait

another second before he was in his son's arms. Not

another second, There's no time to waste. Threw his arms

around him, King James. I love the King James. It

says he fell on his neck. He fell on his neck, yes,

and kissed him. The neighbors watch and disbelief. Right, how

how can you treat him this way?

You know all he did to you? Are you crazy? Yes?

I'm crazy in love with my son, all this running,

all this running and falling and hugging and kissing.

What an amazing, loving mess.

Right, it's the spontaneous love just flows out of the father.

Spontaneous love and his actions tell us all we need

to know, all you need to know about when you

return to him, about when you seek him, seek his heart.

It's one of the most powerful scenes in the New Testament,

if not the Bible. Isn't it about the scene? It's

Jeremiah thirty one three. What we just read Jeremiah thirty

one to three lived out expressed, demonstrated, running, falling, hugging,

and kissing slight. Let's see verse twenty one. Son says, father,

I've sinned against Heaven, against you. I am no longer

worthy to be called your son. But the father stops him.

You can't finish his the rest of his he'd planned

to say about being a servant and about blah blah

blah blah blah. But the father says to his servants, quick,

bring the best robe, put it on him, put a

ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, Bring the

fated cat and kill it. Let's have a feast and

celebrate for this son of mine was dead and he's

alive now, and he is lost.

He was lost and now he's fine found. And they

began to celebrate.

This in the midst, like I said, in the midst,

he stops him he doesn't even let him continue.

He says, son, doesn't you're back?

Best robe that represents his acceptance, that would have been

his robe. The ring off his finger, the father's authority, sandals,

the sign of sonship, being a son and not a slave,

not a servant. The fatted calf a sign of the

father's joy and in his son's return, and a full

community celebration. Why don't we know that is because a

fatty calf was too big for a family to eat.

This was it was for the community to come. And

so what the father's doing is restoring that, restoring his

place in the community. Showing them all the stuff he

put on his son is saying that's my son. You

respect him because he's mine. My heavenly father fell on

my neck too soon after my on the porch experience.

The Lord broke up my relationship, that long term relations

to that that I was in and that I just

never should have been in, and I was.

I would.

I was so grieved by not only that, I was

grieved by that, but I was grieved by my life.

And I would I would actually go and lie on

the bedroom floor with with the lights out and listen

to music.

And that's what I did.

And I did it for you know, multiple days, at

different times when I wasn't studying. I did study still,

but I was just just grieving, grieving my life. And

all of a sudden, one day when I was in

that place, the Lord came into the room. He came

into the room. I didn't see him face to face.

I probably would have died. I didn't see him face

to face, but he was there and he filled the

entire room and his presence was so amazing, and it

took my breath away and I'm I'm just in awe

at that moment.

And then he calls my name. He says, Gary. You

know when the Lord calls your name, he call he.

Said Gary, and I was just like, Oh Lord. He said, Gary,

you have been a Christian all these years and all

that time.

You'll live for yourself.

I gotta tell you, no truer words have ever been spoken.

And when he said that, I just wept. I just was.

I was broken by that, this, Oh Lord. And he

gave me some time to collect myself and then he said,

now it's time to live for me.

You know, I'm thinking you still want me? That was it.

I mean, just what I felt is his love and

mercy and grace and all that he still wants me.

And I said, and of course I wasn't I said yes, Lord,

I said yes, yes, yes, And I said, Lord, from

this moment forward, I promise you, if you give me

the strength, I will never ever say no to you again.

So like the prodigal, like the prodigal son, I was home.

Can any of you relate to him calling you home

and welcome you home?

I bet you can.

All right, I'm gonna move forward here for the sake

of time. How important is it to you? How important

is it to the father that he has a relationship

of love with you?

I want you to think about that. How important is

it to him?

Don't have time to go over the older son. But

if you know the story at all, you realize that

both of them were lost, not just the younger one,

but the older one too, living at home, not knowing,

not pursuing, not caring about father's love. Right. What they

didn't realize is the father's love.

Was their greatest inheritance.

The father's love is your greatest inheritance, more than anything else,

more than any great ministry or service, or any great

success you have in this life or whatever. More than

anything else, your father.

In heaven is your inheritance.

In this life and the life to come. This love

story is open ended. It actually ends without us knowing

what the older son does. Right, Jesus leaves it open

ended because the ending is up to you. That's why

it leaves it open. It's open ended. This love story

is open ended. Your love story is open ended.

How will you complete it? How will you complete it?

Jeremiah thirty one to three, You'll go back through one

more time. I've loved you with an ever lasting love.

I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. He's reaching out

to you. He doesn't just love you. He's in love

with you. He really is, and he will never stop

loving you. Do you know that everlasting love means like

everlasting that he will love you if you reject him,

and he will keep pressing on, reaching out, if you

reject him completely.

If you reject him, he will love you. In hell.

He may not feel that love, but he will still

love you.

He will continue to love you for all eternity, crazy love.

I'm going to tell you the purpose of your life

right now. I know it's true because it's in the book.

The purpose of your life is to fall in love

with God.

How do I know that? What's the greatest commandment?

With all your heart, soul, mind, body and strength, love

the Lord, your God. Right, that's it, and your neighbor

as yourself. Let's stand, let's all stand. I'm going to

have the last slide shown up here because this is

an activity we don't have time to do, but it's

something that you can do as you go home in

your prayer closet. You know the church, the Lord is

moving to our church into prayer the last few I

mean last few Sundays. If you've been here, you know it,

and God's tugging at your heart and.

You're you're responding. I know you are.

You're beginning to respond, you because that's where everything comes from. Well,

I'm just gonna encourage you that the first thing ought

to be not coming asking for anything, you know, not

coming you know, with with with an agenda, but the

first that your number one agenda, just to be in

His presence and to love him, to seek him. Like

Psalm twenty seventy four when David said, you know the

one thing I seek after?

You know you can look that up.

But this little activity here, it basically comes from Psalm

twenty seven four where he seeks and asks and dwells. Okay,

and so that's where that's from.

Uh SPA.

Spend time. Spend the first time there. Then you can

go into everything else. Then you can going to intercession,

you can go into supplication, you can go into whatever, worship, whatever.

But start with him every day.

And these are just some questions, some things to ask

him and talk to him about. But every day that

you have as have questions to ask him, have things

to tell him, and start there.

He loves you so very very much. Let's pray.

Father. I thank you so much for your love that

just keeps coming. I thank you so much for rescuing me, Lord,

for rescuing me, for pulling me up out of my

pigs t I thank you, Father, Thank you so much.

I want to love you. I want to love you back.

I want to live for you. I want to know you.

Draw me into you, Lord, Draw us into you, Lord,

so that at the end of this love story, the

consummation of it, Lord, would be just more love, more love.

More love. Lord.

Let us fall in love with you in this life

and grow in love with you for eternity.

Thank you, Lord. In Jesus name, we pray Amen and amen.

Thank you, Thank you,