Advent: Love

This podcast is a ministry of Grant Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.

For more information about Grant Parkway, visit GrantProquay.org.

You can have a seat.

If you've got a Bible, I'd invite you to take it and open it to 1 John chapter 4.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

And if you're our guest today, let me say welcome.

Just relax.

Usually I stand back here like this and I don't move and I just kind of go, hey, hey, hey, hey, but today I'm just a little amped up.

We're in the fourth Sunday of Advent, and every Sunday has a theme.

We started off talking about hope and then peace and then joy.

And here's the title for the talk this morning.

Is it the one word that we need to kind of recapture?

And it's the word love.

Our theme today is love.

Everything you've seen and heard and that was read and said, it's all about love.

And the thing is, is that love is such a kind of a, I don't know, we've kind of got to take it back from the culture.

Not that culture doesn't know how to love, but the way they love is it's just it's it's so less than.

For example, I recently had lunch with a friend of mine who I love, and and and because I was getting ready to go meet with him, and you ever have things in you that you know you need to say to a friend, but you don't want to say?

Hello?

So that's what makes it friendship.

And so I knew, man, I kind of experienced it, and I see other people experience this person.

And so I'm driving to lunch and I'm praying, and and and God says, 1 Corinthians 13.

I was like, oh, good.

That's the that's the verse, the chapter everybody wants in the in their wedding because it's the love chapter in the Bible.

Love believes all things, bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails, blah, blah, blah.

But he says this love rejoices in the truth.

When people say, I want this in my wedding, I say, You want this in your wedding, or do you want it in your marriage?

Because you can have it in your wedding.

That's easy.

Having it in your marriage, rot roll.

Because your wife sometimes is going to ask you questions.

Like, do you mind if my mom comes for a week?

You mean five days or the weekend included?

You know, rejoice in the truth.

I mean, so I'm driving to lunch, and I and he said, We just rejoice in the truth.

So I get there and we're talking, making chit-chat, and I say, Hey, can I can I just give you some feedback?

He's oh yeah, go ahead, man.

We're friends.

You're my pastor.

This person goes to this church.

I love this person.

And I said, Sometimes I experience you as kind of a condescending religious weasel.

Can we talk about that?

If you're visiting today, I'd be glad to be your pastor as well.

And he looked up at me, and by the way, when you say that out loud in a restaurant in Sugarland, everybody around you stops eating.

They're just like womp.

And these two women over there were eavesdropping, and I could tell they were eavesdropping because they were like, one of them said, Can you believe he just said that?

And I'm thinking, you don't have any real friends, lady, because if you did, you wouldn't be wearing that outfit.

But anyway, uh.

But I didn't say that, I just thought it in my head.

And so we're talking long there, and there was those.

And then there's this old guy up there, and I finally I looked up, I said, I love this man.

And the women were like, uh.

And the old guy sitting there was like, I know you do.

And then I was like, Unite the clans.

Great conversation.

Why?

Because when you love somebody, you don't just love them when it's easy.

The Bible gives us kind of uh about five or six verses to kind of shape this whole love thing.

First John chapter 4, verse 7, he says, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

1 John 4:7

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God has sent his only son into the world, so that we might live through him.

In this is love.

Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation, big Bible word.

For our sins, beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

No one has ever seen God.

If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.

There's four four points that the text makes this morning that I want to make.

And the first one is found in verse seven, is simply this love involves other people.

Love involves other people.

When John writes, this is the same John who wrote the Gospel of John, he writes these epistles, first, second, and third John.

He's kind of the apostle of love.

He says in verse 7, Beloved, let us love one another.

Love always involves one another.

Without people, love is this antiseptic noun.

It's never required to be this bloody verb that it was intended to be.

But that's the way the Bible puts it out there and says, you gotta love each other with some teeth to it.

That doesn't mean you go around being hateful.

That's not what I'm saying.

If you're visiting today, I'm not a hateful person, but I've known this person that I had lunch with nine years.

And for me to know something about him and know that everybody else experiences him this way and to go to lunch with him and go and play verbal volleyball, hey, how are you?

Good, good, good.

Oh, good.

Hi the kid.

What are you doing for Christmas?

Spike! If that's the biggest question you have in your heart is what are you doing for Christmas?

You don't know love.

Ask that question, but but but but but hey, this involves one another.

You say, what do you mean?

George Burns, the great actor, said this.

He said, Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

But here's the thing.

Here's what I'm not supposed to say today, but I'm gonna say anyway.

Because you need to hear this.

Loving people is not convenient.

It's not.

We gotta stop acting like, oh, we all go to church.

We all love Jesus.

Loving people, that's easy.

No, it's not.

Sometimes it's very easy.

Like I tell my wife, hey, I'm sure it's pretty easy loving me.

Do you all feel like you're getting away with something?

And she's just like, keep telling yourself that.

This morning, about 4:45, I'm laying in my bed sound asleep, and I hear something kind of boom, like something dropped on my roof.

And I was like, Santa, did you come early?

And I kind of woke up, but not all the way.

And I went back to sleep.

And about 15 minutes later, my wife grabs me and says, Neil, our neighbor's house is on fire.

And two doors, two doors down from me, I mean, it's a two-story house, fully engulfed.

Well, our window in our bedroom was full of orange light.

And I ran out the back and come into the kitchen, you could feel the heat in my house.

And I opened the back door.

There's 50 feet of solid flame in a two-story house fully engulfed.

Fire hoses are hosing down the house on the other side.

I looked up, and these embers are coming down, glowing embers on my house.

And so I get the water hose and I turn it on.

All I've got on is a pair of shorts and some flip-flops.

There has been a Sasquatch siding in my neighborhood.

And so I'm out there trying to spread out my roof.

And by the way, when they open up those fire hydrants, you don't have all the water pressure you normally have.

So I'm out there squeezing my thumb, trying to get it on my roof, and there's stuff landing.

I'm going, man, my house is gonna burn down.

And so I'm like, could you shoot that over here?

And I mean, I just thought it, and all of a sudden, this I want one of those for Christmas, by the way.

That dude was two houses away and he arced it over on my.

I was like, yeah.

Now we're talking.

And so got my, I turned and looked back, and my fence, which is made of wood, was smoking.

Because it's closer to the fire than my house is.

And I'm like, I run over there and start spraying the fence down.

Got it all down.

Went back in the house.

I think we're gonna be good.

That little voice of me says, What about Joanne's house?

Joanne's my neighbor who lives two doors down.

She's the widow.

She's in uh Georgetown seeing her son and daughter-in-law.

She told me the other day, she goes, I'm leaving and I don't know when I'll be back.

Take care of my house.

Shaking the bush, boss.

I got it.

Love me some Joanne.

Loving people, not convenient.

I walked down there, I don't know why, I rang her doorbell.

Because I'm an idiot, that's why.

Walked in, went in the backyard, got her hose, started spraying stuff down, and I was just kind of like, does anybody else need their house wetted down tonight?

And very clearly God said, if they do, you'll do it.

Why?

Because loving people is not convenient.

We gotta stop thinking that I'm gonna love these people and I'm gonna get something in return.

Not always.

You got kids?

Arrest my case.

And I love my kids.

I'm not complaining about that.

It's just that they don't have the capacity to reciprocate back.

I'm fully prepared to get a brute soap on the rope in about three days.

And they're gonna hold it out like, oh, you've probably never seen one of these, have you?

If you've got the English leather gift set, I'm I'm I'm going home.

This is awesome right here.

But it's not convenient.

The Bible knew that.

And the Bible says this in 1 John chapter 3, verse 11.

1 John 3:11

For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.

And why did he murder him?

Because his own deeds were evil and his brothers righteous.

Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.

By the way, the world does not just hate Phil Robertson, it hates you too.

Stop going on Facebook and giving your opinion.

It surprises you that the world does not believe the Bible.

By the way, Phil Robertson is not the one who said, Do you not know that the drunkards, the fornicators, the idolaters, the immoral, the homosexual will not inherit the kingdom of God?

I was flipping channels Thursday night and I stopped on Bill O' Bill O'Reilly, who's like so self-righteously, well, you know, Minister Robertson crossed the line.

The Bible says in Luke chapter 6, verse 37, don't judge because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Luke 6:37

And I'm like, hey.

And then he went too far when he said, if you live a certain way that you cannot go to heaven, that's not his call to make.

And I'm talking to the TV.

Because when stupid people say stupid things on my TV, I gotta talk to them.

My wife comes and closes my bedroom door and says, They can't hear you, but we can.

Hey, I here's the deal.

Bill O'Reilly uses the Bible to make himself look more conservative than he really is.

Don't be duped.

And so I just said to him that night, hey, Bill, uh, that that that what he quoted, 1 Corinthians 6, 9, 11, is in the same Bible that Luke 6, 37 is in.

Just in case you're wondering.

And don't hate back.

If the world hates you, he doesn't say hate back.

He says, hey, don't be surprised that the world hates you.

The world doesn't agree with you.

We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers.

Whoever does not love abides in death.

Everyone does not love, abides in death.

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.

And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

By this we know love.

They laid down his life for us.

Had Christ not come and baby Jesus been born in a manger, we would not have a context for love.

Not only that he was born in a manger, that he grew up, lived a sinless life, and then he laid down his life for us.

By this we know love.

He laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our for the brothers.

But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?

Little children, let us not love in word or talk or post things on Facebook, but in deed and in truth.

Don't get mad at A E.

They can't feel your anger.

Pray for them.

It's not gonna do any good.

We just they say, oh, we think you're a bunch of backwood hicks who believe in the sky fairy.

Don't yell back.

The Bible says, hey, you you gotta love these people.

Love involves other people.

Always has, always will.

Secondly, love is evidence of a relationship with God.

Love is evidence of a relationship with God.

Latter part of verse 7.

And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

Hello.

Whoever loves is born of God and knows God.

Jesus said this in John 13.

John 13, Jesus is getting to the end of his life.

He's washed the disciples' feet.

Chapter 13 of John begins with these words.

And Jesus, having loved his disciples, comes now to show the full extent of his love for them.

And what he does is he doesn't send them a Christmas card.

He goes out, takes off his outer garment, wraps a towel around his waist, and he comes and he kneels down at the feet of these men.

One of them who he knows is going to betray him for 30 pieces of silver.

Another one that's a big religious blowhard who's going, everyone's gonna deny you, Jesus, but not me.

I got your back, okay?

And Jesus is like, hey, before the rooster crows, Peter, you're gonna deny me three times.

Come on, dude.

You're gonna go off to college and pledge some fraternity and be a goofball.

No, I don't think pledging fraternities is bad.

Don't send me an email.

Just the hardest thing for you to handle is freedom.

It's hard to handle freedom.

And Jesus still washes their feet.

Why?

Because he wanted them, look at me, beloved.

He wanted them to know even when you come home drunk from the fraternity party and you puked up Taco Bell in the floorboard of your buddy's truck, I still love you.

Some of you are looking at me like, I have no idea what you're talking about.

And some of you are like, How'd you know?

We went to Taco Bell.

That man's a clairvoyant.

Jesus gets to the end of John chapter 13 and he says, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another just as I have loved you.

John 13 · chapter mention

Now, now don't miss this.

The new commandment is not that you love one another.

The Bible's already told us, hey, you've been told from the beginning you should love one another.

Here's the new commandment.

Here's the new part.

Just as I have loved you.

Jesus is the standard.

If you're in this room and you profess to be a Christ follower, a Christian, we try to invent sexy new names for it.

I'm a Christ follower.

I'm a disciple of Christ.

You're either a Christian or you're not.

If you're not a Christian, you're off the hook.

You're not held to this standard.

I profess to be a Christian.

I am a Christian.

I'm held to this standard.

This new commandment says, I gotta love just as Christ has loved me.

He's the standard for the way I love my wife.

He's the standard for the way I forgive people.

Ephesians 4 32 says, be kind, tenderhearted for one another, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ has forgiven you.

That's my standard.

This, he says, hey, the new commandment is just as I love you, you also are to love one another.

By this, all people will know that you're my disciples if you have love one for another.

Here's what John's saying.

The experience of being loved by God leaves with no excuse.

There's so much in religious subculture that's about love.

All our songs are about love, all our books are about love.

At some point, we gotta not just sing the songs and buy the books, we gotta be the people.

We gotta be the people.

Someone looks at and says, you know what?

I fundamentally disagree with that guy.

But he loves me so much.

He is crazy about me.

Or they say to you, Yeah, I had a sweet mate in college and I was wild as a march hare, but she never judged me.

She loved me.

She would say, Hey, I don't think that's right, but I'm not gonna come down on you.

I'm not gonna beat you over the head with the Bible.

Hey, you want to go to church?

Or maybe after church, I'll come get you, we'll go to lunch.

I'm not trying to fix you.

You're not a problem, you're a person.

But I want you to know that there's a God in the world, and the way I want you to know that is not because I scream it at you, because the way I love you.

Third thing the text tells us is that love is God's nature.

Look at verse 8.

You still with me?

Look what the Bible says.

And anyone who does not love does not know God.

Because God is love.

It's that little part there, because God is love.

We have consumed that kind of upon our lust in this culture that we live in.

Because we take that and we say God is love.

Therefore, any expression of love that I deem loving, then God's got to be on board with that because God is love.

Well, when the Bible says God is love, that's not a sum, that's not the sum total of his nature.

When I say, hey, that love is God's nature, what I mean is not saying this is all he does.

I'm saying everything he does is loving.

So when God disciplines you, that's loving.

When God exercises justice, that is God loving you.

See, when if you don't discipline your kids, you don't love your kids.

You just don't.

You can say, Oh, we don't believe in corporal punishment.

I I never, I think I swatted my oldest one time when she was about two, because she looked at me and said, No.

And I said, That's your that's your one and only hall pass.

And she came over to me and said, No.

And I just gave her a little pat on the diaper.

I mean, how hard could that hurt?

And she looked at me like, what?

But my every year my daughter goes to Costa Rica, loves going to Costa Rica, loving on the little kids over there.

That's great.

She's got a little sister that's five years younger than her.

And sometimes she's not very loving to her little sister.

And so I try to parent my kids to invite them into maturity.

So I walked her in the bedroom the other day and she said, What are you doing in here?

Because this is my bedroom.

That's what I'm doing in here.

I pay the mortgage on this bedroom.

You got about two and a half more years in my bedroom, then it's going to become a wood shop.

I'm going to make Amish furniture.

And she said, So, and I said, Let's just talk a little bit.

Okay?

Put your phone down and stop looking at Pinterest.

Hey, I love and I write a check for you to go to Costa Rica every summer and love on little kids.

But here's what you can't do: you can't treat your little sister like she's a nuisance and then go love on other little kids your sister's age.

That's hypocrisy.

So make your mind up.

I'm going to be patient, long-suffering with my sister.

Or your little self ain't going to be on the plane this summer.

Oh, Dad, you wouldn't do that, would you?

Absolutely.

You know why?

Because you're you're strict.

My friends think you're the strictest parent in the world.

Oh, is there a crown with that?

I said, look at me.

Here's why.

Because I love you.

How much do I have to hate you to let you be a hypocrite?

You hear my heart?

Yeah.

You want me to get out of your room now?

Yeah.

I think I'm going to look through your stuff a little bit.

Dad.

Alright.

Who loves you?

You do.

Are you mad at me?

No.

No.

I'm not mad at you either.

I'm just loving you.

That's what the Bible says.

See, I gotta demonstrate.

Hey, because I've experienced being loved by God.

No, that's the new standard.

My daughter, she's experienced being loved by God.

So you don't get to treat your little sister like she's a pain in the neck.

Of course, she wants to come in and look at your makeup.

She's your little sister.

She's supposed to want to do that.

Oh, but see, here's the deal.

What you believe is most easily demonstrated in the relationships with the people you're closest to.

If you're visiting this church, don't just listen to me talk on Sundays.

My wife's out in the foyer.

Stop her and ask her a question.

What's that guy like at home?

Because that's what I believe is demonstrated in the relationships of the people I'm close to.

My wife and my kids.

My neighbor Joanne.

Who when she comes down there rocking that moo moo she likes to wear.

And I'm like, please tell.

Never mind.

Just yeah.

I'm gonna go to Georgetown.

You take care of my house.

I love that.

I love that.

Because she's saying, hey, you get to be a Christian now, preacher boy.

Because the Bible says pure and undefiled religion is to take care of orphans and widows in their distress.

It ain't what I do up here that demonstrates my Christianity.

It's what I do out there.

That's why I love her.

I'm like, hey, anything goes wrong in your house, don't call a repair man.

I'm a redneck and I have duct tape.

I'll be right down.

He said, What do you mean?

Love is God's nature.

Because see, we we we want to take and say, oh, well, this is what it looks like.

I love this, so this must be God.

Not necessarily.

Look at verse 9 and 10.

He kind of uses this phrase twice.

In this, the love of God was made manifest.

And in verse 10, in this is love.

He's kind of, hey, this is what I mean by not that God is only love, but everything God does is rooted in love.

And he gives two examples.

The first one's in verse 9.

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.

That means that God loved you and I enough to send Jesus into the world, to give you and I another way of doing life.

You say, Well, I don't feel very affirmed by that.

You shouldn't be.

Because the Bible indicts who we by nature are.

The Bible says that we by nature are sinful, fallen, selfish, self centered people who need redemption.

But it also says that Christ came into the world.

God sent his son into the world.

God demonstrated, Romans 5.8 says that God demonstrated his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Which is what verse 10 says.

Look at verse 10.

He gives another example.

This is what I mean when I say everything God does is an expression of his love.

Verse 10, and this is love.

Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

You ever read words in the Bible and have no idea what they mean?

That's one of those words.

That when you come to it, it's easy to skip over it and go, oh, and I don't know what that means.

I'll read that.

But the Bible says, hey, that he loved us.

And then he sent his son.

That's the incarnation.

That's baby Jesus in a manger.

And then he says, to be the propitiation.

To be the propitiation.

Somebody asked me not long ago.

A guy in this church said, hey, started reading the Bible, kind of liking it.

Got some words I don't understand.

I said, just write them down.

And anytime you see me on Sunday, just ask me.

So about three weeks ago, he stops me and says, I got one for you.

And I don't know if I'm going to say it right, but I'm going to say it.

I said, okay, go ahead.

He said, uh, pro uh propitia.

Propitiation.

Yeah.

What does that mean?

I said, when you were a kid, you ever get whipped?

Oh, all the time.

I said, You ever cry like you're going to get out of a whipping?

Oh, yeah.

I used to cry.

My dad goes, cry all you want.

You're going to cry harder in just a minute.

And I was like, I think I'll save my tears.

I said, You ever get after you get whipped and you're crying, your dad says, quit crying, quit crying.

You try to stop crying.

It's impossible.

Someone go, quit crying.

And he's looking at me like, what does this have to do with propitiation?

And I said, you know, you're about to hyperventilate and your dad's like, stop crying.

You're like, yeah.

I said, but there comes that holy moment when all of a sudden your diaphragm relaxes and you go, You get that first deep breath.

It's all over.

And he goes, Yeah.

And I said, that's propitiation.

The word propitiation means appeasement.

It means the wrath of an angry God has been satisfied.

So that you could get a deep breath.

So when you see God, you're not like, I've been doing bad, but I'm going to do good.

Give me five more years.

Instead, the Bible says that we have set our hearts at rest in God's presence.

Your heart doesn't hyperventilate, your heart just goes, He goes, Is that really what it means?

No, I just made that up.

That's exactly what it means.

It means that God's displeasure with my sinful lifestyle that I lived for 18 years was taken upon Jesus on the cross.

And God says, that's enough for me.

Now let you and I learn to enjoy each other.

He sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Now, because this is why Jesus came with you in the room today, and you think, well, Jesus was a great teacher, a prophet, a moral example, you're not only missing something about him, you're missing something about yourself.

And that is this that you by nature are a person who has sinned, which the Bible, the Greek word for that is hamartea, which means you've missed the mark.

You did your best, but your best just wasn't enough because if you and I could do our best and get there, then why did Jesus have to come?

The Bible says that we miss the mark and we need someone to pay for our sins.

So if Jesus is just a good man, not the Son of God who came to earth on purpose and for a purpose, then what do we do with our sins?

Second question is how can God profess to love us and require us to love each other if he's left us in our sins?

Last thing the Bible says to us this morning, simply this in verse 12.

Don't miss this.

Verse 11 and 12, beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

No one has ever seen God.

If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.

Now, what does the Bible say?

First of all, it says, no one has ever seen God.

You believe that?

Let's try that again.

No one has ever seen God.

Okay, there's been manifestations, God sent messengers, God sent angels, but because God had to kind of accommodate and say, This is all of me you can see.

You can't see me and live, so I'll send an angelic being, a messenger, but no one's ever seen God.

Can we agree on that?

Yes or no?

Yes, no one's ever seen God.

But here's the other part.

The Bible says, after it establishes no one has ever seen God, and then he says, but if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected.

Not it's it's it goes from being deficient to being filled up.

When it says his love is being perfected, it means his love is being manifested.

What the Bible is saying is no one's ever seen God.

But when you and I love each other the way we were created to be loved, people get an idea and a picture of what God's like.

My lunch I started off with, we got done, and I said, Is there anything you want to say to me?

And I said, because it's easy for you to walk away from this and kind of go, man, you're just a jerk.

And my friend kind of choked up and he said, No, I feel very loved by this.

Thank you.

And so he shook hands and I said, Let's get coffee sometime.

And he said, I'd be glad to.

Why?

Because these people all looking around, the women and the old man kind of going, they need to know what God's like.

And you need to know what God's like.

And my kids need to know what God's like.

And it's not because their dad preaches, it's because their dad loves their mom.

And I serve my wife.

And I bless my kids.

And I say, hey, you can't go love strangers and be mean to your little sister.

That's hypocrisy.

And they get mad.

My kids get mad at me.

Oh, dad, you're just so strict.

I've got a belt.

El champion del mundo es todo.

El universal.

You want English or Spanish?

What do you want?

I'm the strictest man in the world.

But ain't no punk kid coming up here and saying, Can I go spend time with your daughter for five hours?

Only if I can come.

That's not strict, it's love.

The Bible says that God, love demonstrates to the world who God is.

That's easy to do here in Sugarland.

But sometimes you got to kind of get on the plane and go 26 hours and demonstrate to other people who God is.

So I've asked a friend of mine, most of you know we had a team in India.

They just got back Thursday.

They were over there for 10 days.

And so they went and visited an orphanage that we've adopted called the House of Love.

And I thought it'd be fitting for us to end the sermon today by hearing from somebody that got to go demonstrate to the world, hey, that this is who God is.

We're here because this is who God is and how God feels about you.

So I asked Lance if he would come and just kind of share a little bit about loving people at the House of Love.

Good morning.

As Neil said, we got back Thursday night, and I think I've been the walking dead since, but I've I have gotten some sleep, thank God.

We did go to India and we were there for about 10 days.

And before I tell you what uh just what it looks like in India to be a demonstration of God's love for us and for them, let me introduce to you the team that went.

Um this is the team that went.

There were seven of us.

We met up with with our with our pastor there, Pastor uh uh yeah, I won't say the name because I know this is going across the the internet, but when the pastor over there, we met him, this is the team that that went over with us.

On the left in the front is Kristen Rice.

Uh if you don't know Kristen, she's 19 or 20 years old, works at the Chick-fil-A down the road, and she'd never left the U.S.

before.

So if you think that missions is maybe not your thing because you're not maybe privy to travel, uh she could probably tell you a little bit about uh what it's like.

Next to her is Nicole Prosser, who has traveled all over the world with us.

Amy Ewing is next to her, who works the front desk.

Amy, I don't know if you knew this, uh, had never left North America before.

She'd never she'd gone to Canada, she'd gone to Mexico, but never uh jumped across the sea.

Next to her on the right is Marlene Kelly, who's part of our women's ministry team.

I'm on the left, that young man in the back is Scott O'Byrne, um, and that happy guy to the right is John Hilliard.

Um John, uh, we must have caught him in between smiles.

If you don't know John, he is one he is one of the most joyful people uh in our church.

He is the reason why you all have been welcomed into our church is because he's out there organizing the first impressions team.

But this was the team.

Now I I show you that because it kind of illustrates uh Neil's first point that love involves other people.

Uh the church has never been about professionals or pastors, it's always been about each other uh and and us coming together as one body doing impossible things.

Um that's really what the church is all about.

And so this is who went, this is who I'm gonna talk about now as great demonstrators of God's love.

It wasn't just me, it wasn't just what I did, it's what everyone did on the team and what we all experienced.

Um and those things that that we experience really include a couple different things that help us get an understanding of this great truth.

Uh that there is simply this it there is an undignified nature to the love of God.

Um Donald Barnhouse was a pastor up in uh, I think it was Philadelphia, and he had a great quote that basically I'm probably gonna butcher it, but it basically says this love that goes upward is worship.

Love that goes outward towards other people is affection, but love that stoops is grace.

This is uh when you go on a mission trip, there's a stooping nature to what we do.

We we it's it's it's it's exactly what God did for us.

When he left heaven and came to earth, he stooped.

And so one of the great um uh lessons when God becomes man, he's it's called the incarnation.

One of the great lessons for that is for all of us, a great challenge for all of us, is to be fully present.

To be fully present, whether it be here, whether it be at work, whether it be at home, this Christmas, just to be fully available to whatever the moment really hands you.

That's that was really our prayer going to India, that we would all be fully present.

And as we were, um, we saw God do amazing things.

Um one of the last days we were there, kind of an impromptu change in our schedule, we got to minister uh to the widows that were there.

Um, Living Stone Ministries is uh is a great part of what we do over there.

It's kind of the umbrella under which House of Love and many other things go on in India.

This is a picture at the end of our uh of our uh widows' conference of the widows just smiling back at us.

Uh and I can tell you that that it started with tears.

It started with a lot of tears.

Um they have been handed a lot that none of them signed up for.

Many of these women, if you look closely at the picture, some of them are a little bit older, but most of them are younger.

And they're younger if you remember because of the persecution of 2007, uh, when radical Hindus came through village after village on coordinated attacks and killed their husbands, killed their kids and killed the rest of their family, uh, which created um an unbelievable void for them, but also for the kids that we went and hung out with.

But when we got done speaking with uh the widows, uh one of the things that they stood up and testified was basically this we've heard these messages before, but no one has come and loved us like you have loved us.

And it was all because we showed just real uh transparent emotion with them.

Um we got in front of them and wept like little babies.

Um and if you know me, I don't do that very well.

Uh and so uh we wept in front of them and they wept in front of us, and there was just an undignified nature of the way that we loved them.

We couldn't speak their language, but they certainly understood that we were there for them, we cared for them, and God had not forgotten about them.

Uh, another great example of just being undignified and sitting and being with those that need to be sat with.

This is dinner time at the house of love.

I don't know what dinner time is like at your house, uh, but dinner time with 44 orphans uh can be a little bit uh uh of a of a gymnastics routine, but we served them and then we just sat with them.

If you'll notice we're we're on the ground there just eating with them, hanging out with them.

They can't understand us, we can't understand them, but we know that they giggled a lot, they whispered a lot, um, they pointed a lot, um, and we took it all and we did the same thing back to them.

And we just there's nothing magical about this.

We just sat and we were just present with them.

A lot of times we think about mission trips and we kind of maybe uh fantasize about what it could be like.

Oh, you're healing the I mean you're you're healing people, you're maybe you're doing this, you're maybe you're speaking in tongues, maybe you're doing that.

Maybe it's just sitting down and having a meal with somebody that desperately needs somebody just sit next to them.

Could be just as simple as that to be on a mission trip or even to do and demonstrate God's love here at home.

Uh there's one uh thing that doesn't have a picture before I wrap up here in a minute.

Uh the undignified nature of God's love, the way that we would show God's love to them.

It's easy to do that when you prepare a talk.

It's easy to do that when you've kind of prepared ahead of time.

All right, this is what I'm gonna say to the pastor's conference, this may be what I'll say to the widows, this is when I say to the kids one night, this, that, and the other.

When you're done with all of that, it's another thing for them to kind of flip it all on you.

Um they would dance for us every night, they don't have TV, and so they just kind of entertain each other.

The girls would dance, the boys would dance, the girls would dance, the boys would dance.

Uh, and so one night um they got done dancing, and they just said, and now it through an interpreter, uh, and now we would kindly request that you would do a dance for us.

And I nominated two people on the team because that's the kind of guy I am.

Uh and they had never heard MC Hammer's hammer time until that night.

Uh and they got they got indoctrinated to the hammer.

Uh, and and then those two poor souls were up doing that, and I'm sitting there and enjoying this beautiful thing.

I'm going, these poor souls, look at this, this is amazing.

And then they get done, and one of the other orphans, are you gonna say no to an orphan?

I don't think you are, but he says in front of everyone, and now we would kindly request that Pastor Lance would do a dance for us.

You want a solo shot?

All right, here we go.

So I'm sitting there and I'm praying, I'm literally praying, and I'm Lord Jesus help me.

And someone who, in their love for me, said this to me in response Jesus says you're on your own.

What is the deal?

Y'all, hey, we go to church with some smart mouths.

I don't know if y'all know that.

Uh but but but indeed, he had house of pain stored up for me, and so we jumped around in the orphanage that night.

Um But now, now my pride and my dignity would never let me do that.

But God's love flowing through me to them, absolutely.

Let's dance.

Okay, and so yes, there's an undignified nature uh to the love of God.

Finally, the last thing that I'll say to you, these are the things that we experience.

Let me put this last picture up and just challenge all of us, encourage all of us.

Uh, these are our kids.

When uh when we were there, they called you mom and dad.

Okay, you don't just if you support one of these kids, um which many of us do in this room, um, you give$40 a month or whatever it is, and you support these kids, it's not it's not just a donation, it's their livelihood.

Since we came back two years ago and we started the House of the House of Love adoption program, their lives have completely changed.

The pastor over there said several times, over and over again, two years ago, two years ago, two years ago, two years ago.

I know what happened two years ago.

We came back and and all of y'all adopted these kids, and their lives have forever changed for the better.

And so let me just encourage all of us.

It's easy uh for y'all to send seven people over across the planet, literally, and and and do that and pray for us, and we appreciate your prayers greatly.

Let's continue uh to minister to these kids.

Um if you are supporting one of them, please continue as long as you can.

If you can't, someone else in this room will pick up where you left off.

Uh but they're real people and they they have real needs and real emotions.

Um I talked to Beek after we uh left and uh he called me and he said, Pastor, we are hurting.

I said, What's going on?

What do you what is there something else that broke out?

He said, We're just missing your presence.

And so just keep praying for them.

Um the presence they need is not ours, they need they need God's presence.

Uh and so that's their true hope.

That's their true hope for redemption.

And so let's just keep praying for these kids.

Um they love you all dearly.

And we have we all as a church have demonstrated God's great love for them in the most simple and practical ways.

Let's just keep doing it.

Can we go back to the slide of them eating on the floor?

Uh what you don't know is that while our team was in India, see, Paul said uh in 2 Corinthians 5, he says the love of God compels us.

The love of God causes us to do things that we wouldn't by nature do.

Uh, there's a lady in our church that works uh at an organization that basically gives money to churches.

They have to qualify for different grants, and she called and said, Hey, I need some information.

Uh the pastor over there has been saying we need$15,000 to build a dining hall.

There'll be a dining hall slash multi-purpose room where we could teach had school, this, that, and the other.

$15,000 is like$15 million to these people.

Uh that uh organization, uh, the lady called us on Friday and said, uh, your church is gonna get$10,000.

Somebody had already given some money, so we're gonna put$5,000 with that, and we get to let them know this next week that we're gonna build you a dying hall.

So I just want you to know that when you, if you're a part of this church and you give, you you put something in the wooden box by the door, it doesn't stay here.

It goes because love makes you do crazy things.

It's like I read and we read in 1 John 3.

If anyone has this world's good and you see your brother in need and you close up your bowels of compassion, you you shut your heart off.

How does the love of God dwell in you?

Because the love of God causes you to love people you never see.

Again, one of those kids in the picture is is ours.

We said to our kids, because we want to invite our kids into maturity.

I say crazy things to my kids, like you're not the most important person in the world.

That's a hate grime in Fort Bend County.

And they smile back at me and go, I know, Dad, and we're gonna we're gonna not eat out one night a month because we're gonna support this little girl.

And they're like, rock on.

We're gonna eat cereal.

So for supper, one night a month, we eat cereal.

Frosted many wheats.

And my kids are giddy.

They feel like they're getting away with something.

But also, we're gonna go in February, myself and about 10 men from this church, we're gonna build a school uh for a tribe in Costa Rica.

And so we don't just do one thing, we do a lot of things.

And why do we do it?

Because the love of God compels us.

Because we don't want to just tell people that God loves them.

We want to show because love shows the world that God is real.

Stand to your feet.

Hold your hands out and speak a blessing over you.

Your all knowing God, who knows everything you've ever done and will do, has loved you, does love you, and will always love you.

Depart now and live like you really believe that.

In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.

You're dismissed.