Learning How to Love

How you guys doing?

Wow, that was great.

That was actually a very good, good.

Hey, so we have a little test afterwards

to see who can get all the languages

that were spoken there.

There's one there I probably think

you might be hard off.

Hey guys, so this is your first time at Watermark.

My name is Tobin.

I'm one of the pastors here.

Yeah, last week I said that

and someone looked at me and goes,

well, why do you say that?

Because as far as we know,

you're like the only pastor here, right?

So why do you keep saying that?

And I said, yeah, you know,

when we started Watermark a couple years ago,

we'll be five years old in two weeks,

a couple of us put together this document.

It's on screen.

You can't see it.

I just want to come out here

so you can see a little quicker, closer.

And it's basically, it kind of tells who we are

and what we do, and more importantly,

what we don't do as a church.

And our central ministry focus,

as we prayed about it, you know,

is Ephesians 4.

We encouraged and equipped everyone

to actively use abilities, skills,

spiritual gifts, and good works for Christ

in the advancement of the gospel.

We talked about that last week.

We said that it's not an accident that you're here,

that you're here because this church

needs you to be here.

You have gifts.

You have talents.

You have skills that,

if you weren't here,

then you,

we would miss out on those things.

I mean, sometimes people go,

why I want to go over here

because I feel more comfortable

because there's more people with my gifts there.

So, but then you have a gift church

that has all the same gifts

and not the broad variety of gifts.

And, you know, you might be a leg,

and if the leg doesn't show up

except for every three weeks,

then the body's not very healthy, is it?

And if you might be a hand or an arm,

and if the hand goes,

hey, I don't, I'm new to this.

I got to go read a couple manuals

before I'd be a hand.

Well, the hand isn't very much

helping the body, is it?

So we believe that God has you here,

and you have these gifts

and these talents

that we've been talking about

in the church

when the church needs you.

The second part we talked about

are up here is our mission.

And we just say

that the mission of Watermark

Community Church

is to be used of God

in helping people take the next step

in their spiritual journey in life

to become fully functional followers of Christ.

And that's what governs

everything that we do,

that it's here that you take the next step.

We're not saying

this is where we need to be at the end,

but this is the next step.

And for some of you,

the next step might be

just having some of the answers

or questions answered

that you have here about Christianity.

I know some of you

are dragged here by friends.

You're like, oh my gosh, I have to...

But you have a lot of questions.

That might be the next step.

For some of you here,

it might be coming to faith

and stop fighting against God

and stop fighting against the Spirit

and saying basically,

okay, I'm trusting you

and I'm going forward.

And for some of you,

it might be finding out

what your spiritual gifts are.

And for some of you,

it might be using those spiritual gifts.

And so the reason I say

I'm one of the pastors

is I really believe

that in this congregation,

there's people who are much more gifted than me

in apologetics

and there's people

who are much more gifted than me in teaching.

And there's people in here

who have the gift of pastoring

and there's people in here

who have the gift of healing.

There's people in here

who have the gift of service.

And if you don't do it,

then the church is weak

and the body is weak

and people are hurt.

And so if you're wondering

what your gifts are,

you're thinking about it,

come and see the staff

and we want to help you in this journey

and to develop those gifts

so that you can be

a fully functional follower of Christ

within the body of this church.

And we're going to talk about that a little more.

We put this spiritual gifts in this week,

but next week we're going to have

places we need you to serve

and what does that look like

for you to serve

in Watermark

and be a part of God's family.

One of the things

we also prayed about

is the church

is when we came together

that Watermark,

that we would identify

all the idols in this world,

that we'd identify the idols

that we struggle with.

The Bible says an idol

is anything that captures your heart.

It's anything that you love more than God.

It's whatever's precious to you.

Whatever, if it was taken away,

you'd become angry

or you'd get upset.

Yet, we have a lot of idols in Hong Kong.

Some of us struggle with the idols

of just education

and getting the best grades

and taking more classes

so we can seem competent to our peers.

Some of us struggle with traditions

and some of us struggle with families.

Some of us cling to wealth

and some of us cling to power

and some of us cling to sex

and our sexuality

and some of us cling to control

and some of us cling to pride

and sports

and hobbies

and free time

and time.

Some of our idols

are ourselves.

Some of us struggle with love.

It was 1997

and

Christina and I

had been married one year.

I don't want to know

who wasn't born in 1997,

please,

but

I realized after one year

that I was in trouble.

I was 35.

I'd been married to Christina

for one year

and I realized

something was wrong.

I had this crisis of faith

in my life.

I realized

that I didn't love her

as much as she loves me.

I realized,

what I mean by that is

I just didn't understand

what love was

the way she did.

And I was just

totally freaking out.

I mean,

I was just,

I couldn't sleep.

I was in seminary.

I'm trying to take these classes.

I had been a Christian for,

since I was 10 years old,

but I just didn't understand love

and I didn't see

and experience it

the way that she did.

And there goes my name.

And,

you know,

I went to my mentor,

Dr. Hannah,

and I said to him,

hey,

I have these big problems.

You see,

I grew up in a family

where love

was just

because people

did things for you.

You love people

because they took care of you.

You love people

because they made you feel good.

You love people

because they served you.

That's the kind of love

I experienced.

In my family,

love was always

conditional.

And sometimes love

would be withheld

and sometimes love

would be withholded

and sometimes love

would be removed.

And that was the worst

as a kid

when you really messed up

and your parents

just removed

your love

from you.

But here,

my wife,

I realize

that she seemed

to love me

just because

of me.

I know it sounds

really weird.

I mean,

it sounds stupid.

I just couldn't comprehend it.

And I'm not saying

she's perfect.

I mean,

if you have two hours a day,

we can sit together

and I can just share

with you all her imperfections.

I love you,

honey.

But what I'm saying

is that she understood love

and she had the capacity

to do it

that was so much

different than mine.

And I didn't understand

love

and I realized that.

And I shared

with Dr. Hand,

I said,

hey,

this is what's going on

and he just looked at me

and he listened to me

and he said,

you know,

Tobin,

the difference

of what you are experiencing

between you and Christina

is just a speck

in the totality

of the gospel.

What you're experiencing

in that difference

and in love

is just a speck

compared to God's love

for you.

But God's love

for you

is so much greater

than Christina's love

for you.

And I thought about that

and I have to be honest

with you,

I still struggle.

I struggle with God's love.

I struggle with

the love of Christ.

I struggle with

gospel-centered love.

What does it mean?

You know what?

The church at Corinth,

they really struggled

with this also.

I mean,

the church at Corinth

was a mess.

You know,

we've been talking about

for like 12 weeks now,

God for some reason

allowed Paul

to plant this church

in the middle

of probably

the most immoral,

the most out-of-control

city in the world.

The city was all about

money,

sex,

and power.

And the people

who came to Christ

and the people

who came to church,

they still struggled

with money,

sex,

and power.

They struggled

with the idols

of their past

just like you

and I do.

They struggled

with the scars

that were on their heart

from bad choices

that they made

in life

just like you

and I do.

They struggled

with pride

and selfishness

and self-centeredness

just like you

and I do.

And in the midst

of this,

because of God's love

and His grace,

He gives these gifts

to this church,

these gifts

of the Spirit,

they're gifts

of grace

and they're

these empowerments,

these supernatural

empowerments

that are allowing

them to do things

that people

just were freaking

out when they did

them.

And He gave them

to them for two reasons.

The reason was

to build up the body

of Christ,

but the main reason

was to bring Him glory

and to bring Him honor.

And we're told

in the passage

that all the people

in the church

had gifts.

When you come to Christ,

you have gifts

and everyone in the church

had these gifts.

They had the gift

of prophecy

and preaching

and serving

and ministries

and tongues

and everything,

but in their pride

and in their selfishness

and in their self-reliance,

they pushed away

all those gifts

and they just elevated three.

They said,

these are the only three gifts

that really matter

and that everything else

is rejected.

And so they had this body,

this Christian body,

like we're supposed

to be like a church

and the body

was totally dysfunctional

and there was these splits

happening in the church

and there was these

fragmentations

and people were angry

at each other

and only some people

could speak

the heavenly language,

Texan.

And everybody else

couldn't speak Texan

and there was,

that's a joke,

okay,

but I do think

it is the heavenly language.

But they could only speak that

and so Paul,

in chapter 13,

he comes to them

and he reads this passage

and you guys,

you don't understand it

when Paul wrote these letters,

this letter to the Corinthians,

this passage,

we read it

and we go,

oh, that's so cute.

Marriage,

love,

true love.

It's so beautiful.

But that's not how

Paul intended it.

I mean,

when Paul wrote this letter

to the Corinthians,

it was intense.

And so this passage

is so intense

we've decided to divide it

up into two sections

so we're going to take

a part of the section today

and all I want to do

is I want to look at love.

I want to look at

the importance of love

in our life

as we go on this journey

with God

and with each other

and then I want to look at

like how we get love,

what does it mean

to get love

and then we'll cover

the rest of it

next week,

okay,

so next week.

So this week is love,

the importance of it

in our journey

and then how do we get it?

How do we pursue it?

How do we grab onto it?

And I have a couple questions

like we've been doing

all this time

because I learn through questions.

I don't know how you learn

but I learn through questions.

So in verses one through three,

Paul's looking at this church

and it's crazy.

Remember at the end

of chapter 12

we talked about last week,

he said they're looking

at their gifts

and they're misusing

their gifts

and Paul says,

hey, let me teach you

something better.

I'm going to teach you

something even greater

than your gifts.

I'm going to teach you

something that's even

more fantastic.

I'm going to teach you

something that's going

to sustain you

even when your gifts disappear.

I'm going to teach you

love.

So in verse one,

he says,

if I speak with the tongues

of men's of angels

but do not have love,

I become a noisy gong

or a clanging cymbal.

You see,

in these first three verses,

the church has learned

five ways they're trying

to live.

There's five different

lifestyles in this church

that the church

has been trying to live

and they're all

in these first three verses.

So when he says this,

he says,

if I speak with the gift

of angels and tongues

of men and angels

but I don't have love,

he's talking about

these people who've

come together in a church

and they said,

hey, we're going to be

about these supernatural gifts.

We're going to be

about speaking tongues,

we're going to be

about healing,

we're going to be

about doing miracles.

These are the things

that are going to center

around our whole life.

We're going to focus

on these things

and we're going to allow

them to impact us

and they're going to change us

and we're going to be

so awesome.

And Paul says,

if you do that,

the Greek actually says,

you're just a noisy

piece of bronze.

Now you don't understand this

but even in this scripture

there's a lot of history here.

So Corinth was the center

of bronze production

in all of Europe.

I mean,

it was the most famous

place to get bronze.

If you were in Rome,

because mirrors were not

made out of glass,

they were made out of metal,

really metal.

And so that's what he says

in looking in the mirror dimly.

You're seeing this reflection

out of metal.

But everybody wanted mirrors

from Corinth

because that was the place

to buy bronze stuff.

And so the historians tell us

that when you went

into the center of the city

that there were like

five or six hundred

bronze makers

and they were in the middle

of the center of the city

and when you walked in there

all you heard was this.

Five hundred people

just in the middle

you can't hear anything.

And historians say

if you want to talk to people

you got to get like this close

to their ear

and you go

okay, okay, okay, okay.

But you couldn't hear anything

because it was just like

and Paul says

that's what we're like

if we use our gifts

and we don't have love.

That's what we're like

if we're not other centered.

That's what we're like

if we're thinking about ourselves.

That's what we're like.

And he says in the end

it's nothing.

And he's not saying

that your life

produced nothing.

What he's actually saying

is that your life

is nothing.

Nothing.

In verse two

there's another group of people

and they've come up

and they said

hey, we know how to live.

We're going to live by prophecy.

We're going to get

we know all of God's mysteries.

We know all this knowledge.

We have all this wisdom.

We have all this discernment.

We have all these teaching skills.

We just know all these things.

We know how to read the Bible.

We know how to study it.

They have the gift of teaching.

They have the gift of preaching.

They have the gift of pastoring.

They have all these gifts

and they're saying

I'm going to use these gifts

to the fullest

and I'm going to do it.

And Paul says

yeah, you can do that.

But if you don't have love

it's worthless.

But you can be the best pastor

in the world

but if you're not thinking

that up other people

if you're not loving other people

if you're not being

outwardly focused

it's worthless.

It means nothing.

Verse two

there's some people in the church

who say this

they say

I have faith

I believe

I trust

I have the vision

of the future

I can dream

God has given me

these intuitions

I know what to do

I know where to go

we're going to do these things

Jesus said

if we just had the faith

the size of a mustard seed

we could say to that mountain

mountain get up

and the mountain would jump up

and the mountain would go

into the ocean.

So faith is powerful

and it's incredible

and it can control your life

and it can do amazing things

but Paul says

if it's just doing things

for you

if you're just serving yourself

if you're not thinking

about other people

if you're not helping other people

if you're not outwardly focused

you're nothing.

There's another group of people

in the church

and they go

well we know how to do it

this is the best way to live

in verse three

we know how

and why God has called

we know what to do

with our lives

so that God loves us

that God is pleased with us

that God gives us

all the things that we need

and this is what we're going to do

we're just going to give

everything we have to the poor

the imagery is almost like

a piece of bread

and they're just picking pieces off

and throwing it away

and so this is what we're going to do

with our life

we're just going to pick off

pieces of our life

and we're going to

we're going to give it to the poor

we're going to serve

we're going to do mercy

we're going to do justice

and if we do all these things

if we give our life away

surely God is going to be

pleased with us

we're going to surrender our body

we're going to surrender

our body to the church

we're going to surrender

our body to ministry

we're going to surrender

our body to families

we're going to surrender

our body to our colleagues

we're going to do

incredible awesome things

and Paul goes yeah you can do that

but if you don't have love

if you're not thinking of other people

if your desire isn't outwardly focused

if your desire isn't to enrich and bless the people around you

it's no profit to you

I mean it might help those people but to you it's no profit

you gain nothing you are nothing

Paul says that you could have your name on a hundred buildings

and if you don't have love

it means nothing

the church is kind of deflated right

there's this passage in Matthew 7 and this passage has kind of haunted me guys

I mean I'm being very honest all these things we're sharing we're honest we're real

that's one of our values in the church and this passage has haunted me for a long time

and in this passage in Matthew 7 Jesus is talking about the end times

and he's talking about the fruit in our lives

and he's talking about the fruit of the spirit that grows up in our lives

and he says in the end times people are going to come to him

and they're going to go Lord Lord we cast out these demons

Lord Lord we spoke in tongues

we heal people we did miracles

we did all these amazing things

we had prophecy

we could understand tongues

people were brought back to life

people were healed

we did all these massive things for you

Lord Lord

in Matthew 7 Jesus says

depart from me

for I never knew you

you weren't my child

you didn't have love

you didn't have a relationship

with me

and what we learn is without love

there were people who were doing miracles

there were people who were speaking in tongues

there were people who were healing people

there were people who were doing all these great things

but they were doing it in their own strength

and through other things that we talked about three weeks ago

and he says these people at the end

they think they're doing well

but in the end they're not doing well

no matter how gifted you are

outwardly

if there's not love

at the core of your being

you're just a noisy gong

does that make sense?

you can move your head up and down

I just want to make sure I'm not talking to myself

so in verse 4

when you read the Greek

in verse 4

it's almost like there's this pause

he goes 1, 2, 3

and he gets to 4

and it's almost like this pause

and you kind of know what the people want to ask him

because he's writing these things

and you have to realize

that everything he's saying

the people were doing the exact opposite

that's the reason he's writing these things

because they were doing all the things

that he's writing against

and so when he says this is what love is

you know that they're doing the exact opposite

and so he kind of pauses

and he asks this question

and you know what the question is

what is the question people want to ask then?

what's the question?

what does the Pharisee ask?

the Pharisee ask

well what is love?

what does that mean?

what really is love?

what does it really mean for me to love?

okay guys

my kids are a mess

I'm trying to figure them out

I'm trying to help my kids

and my kids

they're not in here

so I can share this

because sometimes I share it

and I get in trouble

they're just a mess

and so

I'm doing some stuff in the house

and all of a sudden

I hear my kids

cry and scream

and so I've learned from Christina

because usually I go in

and I say

who did that?

but I don't do that anymore

I say

so what happened here?

right?

that's good guys

you gotta learn that

okay

so what happened here?

so people are more willing to talk

and

one kid says

to the other kid

this kid

he hit me

you know who it is

it's the boy

right?

I was gonna say

the kid who remained nameless

but it's always the boy

right?

and so I look at Kip

I said

Kip

do not hit her anymore

do you understand me?

he says

yes sir

so I go off

and I'm doing stuff

and all of a sudden

I hear screaming

and there's all this screaming

and I walk in there

and this time

I'm a little angry

and I'm like

okay what's going on here?

and Kip goes

he hit me

and Kip goes

I didn't hit her

I pinched her

I said okay

no hitting

and no pinching

do you understand?

yes sir

okay

so I go back

and about 10 minutes later

I hear the scream

this is true

okay

I don't know

your kids are probably

much better than my kids

so you guys can come teach me

because I need help with this

but I come back in

and my daughter's screaming

and I said okay

what happened?

I know who did it

she goes

Kip hit me

I said Kip

I told you not to hit her

because I didn't hit her

I flicked her

so I'm like

okay no hitting

no pinching

no flicking

the question is

does Kip

want to obey me?

no he doesn't want to obey me

he just wants to find out

the least minimal things

he can do

to make dad happy

and when he doesn't do that

he tries to rearrange things

and he does these things

and he just does it

right?

Kip is a good Pharisee

I'm a good Pharisee

I read God's word

he says hey

I want you to

to give

give your time

give your talents

give your money

what's the first question I ask?

how much time?

10% of my time?

20% of my time?

and I keep going on

I go well

how much talents?

do you want me to give it all?

or can I keep some for myself?

100%?

or do I just keep it?

how much money?

I'm a good Pharisee right?

I am a good Pharisee

I struggle with this

well how much money?

10%?

20%?

30%?

30%?

do I want to obey?

come on guys

you can be honest

do I want to obey?

no

I see God's word there

and I try to parse it

in ways that make it

convenient for me

but I don't really

want to obey it

I just want to do

the least minimal thing

so I don't get

inconvenienced in my life

and that's my struggle

I struggle with

legalism

and Pharisees

so if you ask

any questions

that ever do

a percentage

what you're really

saying in your life

is you're a Pharisee

and you're saying

to God

okay God

I know you want me

to do this

because your word

says this

love

but what does that

really mean?

give

what does that

really look like?

and we're struggling

just like the church

of Corinth is

because we don't

really want to obey

we just want to be

convenienced in our life

and so it's really

interesting

because in this passage

Paul doesn't give

a definition for love

he doesn't define love

and say technically

in the Greek

this is what love means

now he actually

creates a new word

for love

in this passage

it's never used before

but he doesn't define

what it means

I mean he doesn't give

us this technical

definition

but instead what he does

is in these next

couple verses

three verses

actually he gives us

about 15 verbs

to describe love

so he's not going

to give us a definition

but he's going to say

this is what it looks

like

now remember

for the first 12 chapters

the people have been

disobeying

they've been bad

they've been naughty

they've been prideful

they've been boastful

they've been rude

they've been proud

they've been self-serving

they've been self-assessed

and Paul could just say

stop doing that

don't do those things

those are bad things

but he doesn't do that

he just starts to describe

love for us

the first thing he says

is love is patient

it means long suffering

it means it restrains itself

it means it actively waits

for the other person

it doesn't mean

you're patiently waiting

on MTR

it means you're patiently

waiting on somebody else

a person

love is patient

it means that you're

slow to anger

it means that you bear

other people's faults

it means that you know

that people are different

than you but that's okay

it means that people

make mistakes

and you cover those mistakes

you don't bring those

out into the open

but you try to love them

you don't look down

on people

you know the church

hated these words

they hated them

because we've already seen

that they can't wait

on anybody

I mean when dinner happens

and the communion happens

two chapters earlier

they're eating up everything

because they can't wait

on people

a chapter ago

they're taking people

to court

because they just don't

want to be patient

with people

they don't want

to do those things

they had no patience

with each other

they always put each other

first

how about us

how patient are we

how are we doing

with love

is patient

the next thing he says

is love

is kind

now patience

is the passive part

of love

kindness

is the active part

kindness means

that you seek out

the good of the other person

that you are proactive

you have mercy

the Greek word

actually means

to be helpful

it means you come

alongside people

you help people

I mean you look

for people in need

I mean

that's what kindness is

it's other centered

the Bible says

that it's because

of the kindness

of God

that you and I

come to him

that it's because

of God's kindness

that we are able

to see

the gospel

that we're able

to see

Jesus

kindness

motivates

people to change

you know that

the Bible says

that when you're kind

to people

they change

I never learned

that in my home

I always learned

to be tough

be authoritative

get it done

and that's what

makes people change

get the job going

but the Bible says

that kindness

is what changes

people

love is kind

so here's the question

what does it look like

for you to be kind

what does kindness

look like

in your workplace

what does kindness

look like

in your home

what does kindness

look like

in church

the next thing

Paul says

is love

isn't jealous

he says

that jealousy

is this eager desire

to covet

and it's the opposite

of love

it means greed

and selfishness

it means that you want

to have what other

people have

it means that you want

to prosper

at the expense

of other people

and the church

was jealous

the church was jealous

of their spiritual gifts

they were elevating some

they were despising others

they were jealous

of each other's finances

they were jealous

of each other's positions

there were a lot of slaves

and there were a lot of masters

all these things

shrugged in there

and people were jealous

of each other

James is going to say

later on

in his church

in Jerusalem

that the problem

with the whole church

the problem

the church is having

all the problems

is because everybody's

jealous of everybody else

so Paul says

love

is not jealous

love is not

elevating yourself

and putting other people down

but love is

elevating other people

sometimes at the expense

of yourself

and you get put down

when I hear that

I go

that's hard

I don't know

if I like that part of love

I don't know

if I want to do that

finally

Paul says this

love does not brag

love is not arrogant

both of these

are kind of like

the twins

to jealousy

bragging is when you

try to make yourself

look good

so other people

are going to be

jealous of you

and the focus again

is on self

and on me

it builds me up

and boasting

is when you let

other people know

how well you've done

I've done so well

look at what I've done

and this was arrogance

arrogance is taking

the credit for it

so we elevate

we boast

and we take the credit

for it

Paul says that

love doesn't do that

Paul says

that love builds up

Paul says

that love builds

up other people

Paul says

that love

is humble

Paul says

that love

understands

that everything

you have

everything you have

everything you're wearing

everything at home

everything you have

your family

your kids

everything

your gifts

your talents

your health

everything

everything is from God

Paul says that's what love understands

And when love understands that it changes

And it becomes meek and mild and gentle

How we doing?

I mean it's a little different than the wedding verse right?

Now do me a favor do not go to your friends at their wedding and go

You know that verse really doesn't mean what it says it means

Because you're going to crush your wedding day right?

Don't be crushing your wedding day

Now there's applications for that verse in the wedding day for sure

But that's not what it means

And I could keep going down for the next ten things but you know where Paul's going

You know what he's talking about

He's just giving these examples that we need to go back tonight and look at them

And we need to ask ourselves well how are we doing in this?

So let me ask you a question

How are we doing with this?

Are we other people focused?

Do you realize that everything that you have

Is this amazing awesome gift from God who loves you so much?

Do you realize that God gave you

All the things that you have right now

Your gifts, your talents, everything he's given you

And they weren't just for you

But they were for a body of Christ

And Christians coming together on a journey

And they were for his glory

Do all of our actions

In our life, Tobin

Point outwards to other people

Or do all of my actions

In my life

Point inwardly

To me

You know 18 years ago

When I left Dr. Hannah's house

It was actually his office at DTS

I started on this journey

To try to understand love

It's amazing

Because you know when I first came a Christian

The very first bookmark I ever got in my church

40 plus years ago

Was this bookmark on love

It was the only thing I had in my Bible at that time

Next week we hope to give you guys one

We're getting them made right now

This bookmark has changed my life

Because I realized that learning about love

And growing in love

Isn't going to be something that I can do like that

I'm not going to be able to say to God

Okay God

I want patience

Give it to me now

Because love is patient

That's not how it works

But what I've learned in my life

Is that just occasionally

Every so often

At least once a week

I read this

And I ask myself these questions

So I think love is patient

And so I ask myself this question

Am I

Patient

I mean what does it look like for me to be patient with my friends

What does it look like for me to be patient at my work

What does it look like for me to be patient with my family

What does it look like for me to be patient with my kiddos

Specifically in different situations in their life

And what does it look like for me to be patient with Christina

And then I ask the question

How am I doing

And if I'm honest

I get hit immediately with this flood of fail

Fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail

And you know that's okay

Because we're in this broken world

And we're broken people

And God is changing us moment by moment

And so all I do is I just confess

I say God I'm so sorry that I'm not patient

Will you please forgive me

And then I go to Christina

Or I go to my kids

And it happens a lot more than I would like

And I would say I'm so sorry

That I've not been patient

Will you please forgive me

And you know as I've been doing that over 40 years

God has been changing me

I learned more about grace

I learned more about love

I learned more about forgiveness

I learned more about kindness

And so what I just do is I just ask God to forgive me

I say God can you give me patience

And I just surrender

That area of my life to Christ

And say God I have a really hard time with this

Can you change me

I want to look like you

I want to be patient like you are

And you know sometimes

If I'm really honest

Sometimes if I'm really honest

It's just easy to live life

And to not love

Because things get so busy

You know sometimes if I'm really honest

It's easy to live life

And not love

And not look at Christ at all

I don't know if you struggle with that

But what I'm learning

Is that the more that I see Christ

The more that I see how awesome he is

And how much he loves you

Do you know that Christ came to earth for you

Do you know that Christ

Lost his love

From God the Father

For you

When Christ cried out on the cross

My God

Why have you forsaken me

What that means in the Greek

Is that God

Stopped loving him

God stopped loving Christ

On the cross

For you

So that he could come back

And start to love you again

Do you realize that?

And I realize that the more I think about that

The more I think about his love

The more I think about what he's done

The more I think about his kindness

He changes me

He changes us

The passage says that God's love

Is out of control for you

The only question is

Will you accept it?

Will you accept it?

Father we thank you for this day

We thank you for your mercy

And your grace

We thank you that you are kind

And that you are gentle

That you're not wanting anyone to perish

But you're wanting all of them

To come to a knowledge

A saving knowledge of your son Jesus

And what I realize

That there's some of us in here right now

Who we're still trying to figure out

What this Jesus thing is all about

And we've hated God

And we've hated what God's allowed to happen in our life

We've had these dreams

And these aspirations

And these things didn't turn out the way they did

Maybe there's loss

Maybe there's sickness

Maybe there's death

Maybe there's loss of something in there

And we're just angry at God

Because it doesn't feel like he's for us

And what I pray for are those brothers and sisters in here right now

I pray that you would soften their hearts

I pray that just for a glimpse

They would look at the cross

They'd realize your love for them

The sacrifice that you gave

The love that you withdrawed from your son

So that you could place it on them

I pray Lord that you would change them

Lord I know there's some of us in here

As a church family

That we're going on this journey together

And we're struggling with this whole idea of love

And what does it really look like

To be patient and kind and gentle

We want to parse it

We want to give a percentage

Because we really don't want to give it all

Lord I pray for us

I pray for our hearts

I pray that you would show us

That on the cross

Your son didn't percentage out his blood

And say okay I'll give you 10% today

And that's all you need

But he gave everything

He gave his whole life

So that we might worship

And be called your children

I pray for us in here Lord

That you would change our hearts

When we think about love

Correct us when we're wrong

Show us and energize us

Where we're right

But in all of it

Help us just to realize

That it's the center of who we are

As your people

And without it we're lost

And you don't know us

And what I pray for Hong Kong

As this church goes out

I just think

What would this church be like

What kind of impact would happen

In Watermark

If everybody understood

This passage of love

And what does it look like

And what would it look like

When we engage people today

In our eating

In areas we come back to

In our homes

And what would it look like tomorrow

And we go back to the office

And we're practicing

These ideas of love

And not because we can do it

Because it's impossible

The only way any of this

Could happen

Is because Christ is changing us

His Holy Spirit is

Equipping us

He's gifting us

He's changing us

What would it look like

If Hong Kong

If 300 people left today

And they were different tomorrow

Well I pray that

You've brought us here

To be a church

That's on a mission

For those who are not

In church yet today

And I pray Lord

That you would just show us that

As we go out tomorrow

And Lord

In the middle of all this

We just

We need you

We desperately

We desperately need you

And we love you

Will you teach us

What that means

Father we love you

We pray all these things

In your son Jesus

Holy name

Amen

Amen

Amen

Amen

Amen

Amen

Amen

Amen

Amen

Amen

Amen

Amen

Amen