Love Without Limit | Jason Gore

What a great story, mayor,

what a great story. I think my, the Jones family, phenomenal family.

I think the key takeaway from that is, uh,

we should all wanna be a little bit more like Mr. Dave. And so listen,

if you're a part of Hope man and you don't have a place that where you're

actually engaging and, and, and, uh,

look and actually living out your role and responsibility as a family member

here, my wife actually serves in special needs as well. Man, I've, I've not,

I've never spoken to anyone, uh,

who serves in a ministry at Hope Community Church that has not said that.

It gives them life, it gives them purpose.

And so if you're looking to take a next step, I would encourage you,

check out the next steps area at your campus where you are.

They'd love to help you take that next step. Uh, welcome this week,

this weekend, this whatever day it is that you're hearing this, uh,

that we're spending some time together. If we haven't met, my name is Jason. Uh,

we're jumping in into week two of a series that we're calling who we Are.

If you're like week two, I thought we just ended a series last week, uh,

a month ago I kicked off a series who We Are. And um, uh, um,

unfortunately my, my dad passed away. He went to be with the Lord, and uh,

our elders lovingly said, Hey, listen, you should probably take some time off,

spend some time with your family.

Obviously you can't pull out from everything from day to day,

but let's get some other folks lined up to preach.

And I think Clay and Dwayne have done a fantastic job over the last few weeks.

And so now, uh, I'm jumping back in and picking back up.

But I do wanna say thank you so much to you all as our church family.

My wife and I,

my kids have felt so incredibly loved and supported through a really difficult

time. Uh, so here we are, we're jumping in week two of who we are.

And what we did was we said, man,

we need to make sure that as a church we are spending the appropriate amount of

time, uh, elevating who it is that God is calling us to be.

And so I wanna start out just by asking you a question.

Have you ever lost your focus? And that could be like,

and I'm not asking for myself like I haven't already lost my focus, you know,

two minutes into the message,

but it could be two minutes after you start something.

For those of us that do have adult, A DHD, maybe it's two weeks,

maybe it's two months, it could be two years, it could be 10 years.

You just wake up one day and you think, how did I get where I am right now?

I mean, sometimes that's me. I'm like, did I, did I set out to be a pastor?

How in the world did I end up here? But man, we, we've got to,

to pay attention to our focus, uh, of man by the name of James Clear,

he wrote a book called Atomic Habits.

And in the book he talks about how everybody in life,

a lot of people in life actually have goals. But goals aren't the secret sauce.

Um, it's really what you do leading up to your goals.

Like he talks about if you have a group of people that line up for a hundred

meter race and they all go to the starting line, everyone has the same goal.

What's the goal? Win the race, right?

Like everybody's had the same goal the whole time.

But the secret sauce has been what has their focus been every single day leading

up to the race?

Like ha have they had the right focus as it relates to their training every day

as it relates to eating the right foods,

as it relates to getting the right amount of rest as it relates to making sure

we're getting enough sleep. And so for us as a church,

we've elevated this identity, uh, who we are.

We believe God's calling us to recognize that we are a family who loves God,

follows Jesus and shares hope. And in week one,

we kicked off this idea that we are the family of God.

And so this week we're gonna be taking a look at what are the most important

areas that we can focus on to be the best family of God that we can possibly be,

to be the best sons and daughters of God, the best brothers and sisters,

and have the most impact that God would have us to have on the world around us.

So as we jump in, I want you to know that in my opinion,

when you have an opportunity,

if you're looking to ask like some of life's biggest questions,

if you have the opportunity, it's always best to start by asking Jesus.

Uh, and it just so happens that Jesus has actually answered this question about

where our focus needs to be. And so if you have your Bibles,

I wanna encourage you turn to Mark chapter 12, verse 28.

Mark 12:28

And we're gonna start there.

We're gonna jump into a conversation that Jesus is having with some other folks.

To give you some context as to what's going on here.

This is a conversation that's taking place in the final week of Jesus' life here

on earth before his crucifixion. So this is after his triumphal entry. He,

he's into back into Jerusalem. He's in the temple courts.

He's with different religious leaders, Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes.

And really what they're trying to do,

they're trying to trap him with difficult questions.

I think Why in the world would they do that if you didn't know, uh,

the religious leaders of the Jewish faith,

they struggled with Jesus because he had like challenged some of the ways that

they go about their business. Uh,

he had already had this moment where he turned over the tables, uh,

at the temple, gave him a hard time. Uh,

and so like he said some things and done some things that

don't actually fit their religious paradigms. And so I just want,

I think it's just important to recognize like Jesus doesn't always fit the

tradition and religious paradigms that we might bring to the table.

But at the same time as a teacher, he's built like a tremendous following.

He's been answering some really difficult questions at this point to where

people are like, man, this guy's actually pretty smart.

And the question that we're asking ourselves today,

what is the most important thing for us to focus on, uh, as the family of God?

Believe it or not, it was actually a common debate among Jewish scholars.

They had about 613 different commandments in their Torah,

right in the first five books of our Old Testament, like their book of the law.

And people regularly wanted to know, like, is, that's a lot. Like,

is there one that kind of sums up everything? And so with that,

we jump into Mark chapter 12, verse 28. And one it says,

Mark 12:28

and one of the scribes came up and he heard them disputing with one another and

seeing that he, he being Jesus had answered them well.

And he asked him, which commandment is the most important of all?

And so Jesus answered him,

the most important is here O Israel, the Lord our God.

The Lord is one. What does that mean?

Doesn't sound like he answered his question. We'll get back to that in a minute.

Verse 30. And you shall love the Lord your God.

You should love that one God with all your heart, with all your soul,

with all your mind, and with all your strength. Um,

I want you to know that when I was spending time, um,

by myself and time with the elders, like pursuing God like God,

what is your heart for hope, uh, for the future? Uh,

I would be lying if I didn't like bring some hopes and,

and presuppositions to the table like it was things like, I hope it's simple.

I hope it's clear. Uh, Lord,

please allow it to be wildly biblical as if he would take us in a different

direction. Would it be like,

could we just see from scripture ever so clearly that is what Jesus is calling

us into. And so when we say God's calling us in to be a family who loves God,

right outta the gate, Jesus is saying, what's the most important commandment?

He's saying like, love the Lord God with everything that you have.

And so we gotta recognize that. Now,

I want you to hold on to those words of Jesus. And I want you to remember He,

he's saying these words just before he leaves earth.

And I want you to know where it comes from, uh, like what he was talking about.

'cause a little bit was more going on than him just giving them an answer.

And so I think it's easy when we read the Bible to kind of miss the connection

between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

For some reason when some people paint a, a picture of the Old Testament,

they talk about maybe a distant or even an angry God.

But then when we get to the New Testament,

they talk about maybe God is a bit more grace filled and a bit more gentle and a

bit more loving. And I want you to know nothing could be further from the truth.

Uh, believe it or not,

the Old Testament is filled with the love and the grace and the mercy of God.

And the opposite is true as well.

Like the New Testament is filled with hard truths, uh, accountability, uh,

justice judgment. And it's so important for us to realize,

like the Bible is 66 books, alright?

It's all telling this one overarching story, this one overarching narrative.

And it actually points to Jesus from cover to cover.

And I have this deep conviction that if we're gonna be the family of God that

he's calling us to be, especially in today's world like our biblical literacy,

it, it just has to increase a bit.

And so any chance I can get to tie the New Testament with the Old Testament,

I'm gonna do that. And so, uh, with that in mind, remember Jesus command,

this is what he says, hero Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is one.

And you shall love the Lord God with all your heart, with all your soul,

with all your mind, and with all your strength.

What Jesus's audience would've known, um,

right away is that he's actually referring to a place in the Torah, um,

their book of the law,

our first five books in the Old Testament and the book of Deuteronomy. Um,

this exact same concept is taught and even in greater detail, uh,

this passage in Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy, it's pronounced, uh, the Shama.

Okay, so everyone say that together. Repeat after me. The Shama Shama. Okay,

one more time. Across all of our campuses, it sounds like you're sneezing,

you're not, everyone repeat after me. The Shema, the, okay, great, well done.

The Shema is a cornerstone of the Jewish faith. Uh, so his listeners,

like when he said that they would've immediate, they wouldn't just been like,

oh, that's interesting.

I've never thought about they would've known that he's referring to something

else. Their brains would've would've immediately gone there.

And so cannot overstate how important this passage of scripture was to

them. Why is that? Deuteronomy was written by Moses,

okay, who had led the Israelites for,

for over 40 years out of slavery in Egypt. Remember going to Pharaoh,

let my people go, um, away from the Egyptians to the Red Sea.

The Red Sea parts. They go through the Red Sea,

the Egyptians follow 'em in the water, comes back in, he'd led them, uh,

then they were following God with a cloud by day, a fire by night.

This man had given everything of himself that he had to God's people for over 40

years. And if you read it, like they weren't always the most pleasant to lead.

Uh, he wasn't perfect himself,

but like these were kind of in his last days of leadership. Uh,

but he is like an incredibly great leader for the Israelite people.

And God had already told him, like, look, he went up on a mountain. God said,

I the Israelites,

they're gonna cross over into Canaan like they're gonna move into this promised

land. But he knew he wasn't going to be able to accompany him there.

Moses had been told he was to appoint Joshua to actually lead them into the

promised land. And so, so Deuteronomy like,

it's really like a collection of thoughts and sermons from Moses. And,

and I want,

it's important for us to hear this as written by a man who just like Jesus was

on his last days on earth,

he knew he just had a little bit more time to remind these people like, Hey,

don't lose sight of this.

In a sense this was like what the Jewish people would refer to as his ethical

will. Uh, in America, we know about like our last will and testament, right?

Like what we do,

what we wanna see happen with our physical possessions after we pass away. Um,

in their tradition, they also had like an ethical will.

How we want our descendants to actually live their lives.

This is a big deal.

And so for man who's given his life leading and shepherding these people in some

of his final words, this is what he says in Deuteronomy chapter six,

verse four through nine, here, O Israel,

the Lord our God, the Lord is one. It's gonna start sounding a little familiar.

What does that mean? In that day,

the world was primarily a polytheistic uh, culture.

And so what that means is most people believed, uh, in multiple gods.

So there was a God of fertility, a god of rain, a god of the sea,

a god of judgment. There was a God of storms, uh, a God of sex and pleasure, uh,

a God of wealth and prosperity. And many had idols to these gods.

And Moses is saying here, oh, Israel, like listen up family of God.

Remember the Lord our God is one.

There's one true God who's sovereign over all things. He's not one God of many.

He's the true God who's holy, who is sovereign, who's the sustainer,

who's the creator, like he is the redeemer of the world.

Don't lose sight of that as you move forward into this new land because the

truth is you're gonna be interacting with some other people that live their life

a different way. And I would say to us church families,

we move forward into this new identity.

We cannot lose sight o of what we're really about as the family of God.

And uh, before you move on and dismiss this part and say,

well,

clearly we're not a polytheistic culture and certainly we

don't have idols

and certainly we don't have things that we worship as many gods.

I just wanna pause for a minute and say, are you sure?

Like I'm definitely not certain that that's the case.

And so I far be it from me if you know me to get in anybody's business, okay?

Um, but I do wanna ask you a question.

What is the thing that you think about the moment you wake up in the morning and

your feet hit the floor quite possibly before your feet even do hit the floor.

What's the thing that you think about when you have some down moments

during the day?

I know he is back there. . . Thank you Terrell.

But what, you know, one of the things when you lay down to go bed at night,

one of the things that you think about when,

when you're trying to fall asleep and you can't,

what is it that's running through your head that's demanding your attention?

Uh, our team here together, uh, put together some things that we thought, hey,

maybe this will help communicate the point. This is my wheelbarrow.

Great wheelbarrow. Um,

apparently they think that my idols are clearly sports because they have foot

large footballs and a lot of basketballs. But how about this? How about like,

um, how about football? Um,

if you're a guy across all of our campuses, it can be a girl too. I'm sorry,

I apologize for that. I think statistically speaking,

more men play fantasy football. I think we're safe to say that,

but if you're a guy or a gal across any of our campus and play fantasy football,

would you just raise your hand? Just high in the air. Really high in the air.

I play, I play. It's okay. Here's a problem though.

If we know more about the waiver wire

than we do about the theology of atonement, we might have a problem.

Like if we know, we know we can memorize quarterbacks,

receivers running backs when they play, when they don't,

when their bi-week is when somebody gets hurt, who's the backup?

Like we can memorize all that and we sometimes have a difficult time finding

time to study the word of God. Uh, I don't know why basketballs are up here.

Best I understand.

I think basketball is that sport that has the wooden floors that you put the

wrestling mats on top of in the winter. , I'm just kidding.

I love basketball grew up. Michael Jordan fan bulls through that era. Um,

basketball support. Hey, this is a picture of a family

if you can't tell, it's actually Clark Griswold and his family.

So this is the best we could do apparently. But you could be thinking,

wait a minute, I thought like our families are supposed to be a big deal.

Our families are supposed to be a big deal. Um,

it should be our priorities should be God, right? Um, our spouse,

if we're married, our children, uh,

the mission that he's called us to in our lives,

but like in today's world, it's so easy to get this outta whack.

Like as parents, we can develop these high expectations.

My kids must make straight A's they must get into this university.

If we're honest as parents,

sometimes it's probably more about our identity than it is really theirs. Um,

maybe it's sports. They gotta find success. And I'll be honest,

it's something I gotta be very, very careful of.

I read something this past week and it said

0.003% of all of our children were ac will actually play professional sports,

but 100% of them will one day stand before God.

We just need to make sure as parents,

we're actually investing our time in the right areas. Um,

looks like we got some cash in here.

Like that can probably become an idol or a mini guide to some people.

This is not real by the way.

Don't come up here and rush the stage and try to take it. It looks real.

It's not, um, oh,

here's an idol for me that's caused me a tremendous amount of heartache over the

years being a Miami Dolphins fan. Uh, that's, that's tough.

So that's a real one, man. I gotta speed this up. I wasn't planning on, uh,

what do we got here? Oh, here's a good one. How about this?

Could this be an idol for some of us? Can you guys see that?

Looks like that's a donkey. Don't worry before you boo anything. Uh,

don't do that. Don't boo that one. Don't boo this one.

Like we're we're one big church family in here, okay, . But listen,

how many times do we get to a place in life,

like election season is coming up where we think, man, the,

the the candidate that gets put in office, man,

that's gonna directly impact everything in our lives.

We're at the end of the day, we forget. No, no, no, no.

There is a God who's on the throne. We, we,

we can't lose sight of that. So I don't know what it is for you. You know, it,

it could be what you spend your time with in the downtime.

It could be your cell phone, right? The endless scroll. It could be, uh,

turn into alcohol to numb the pain. It it could be porn,

it could be yourself like looking to just do whatever it

takes to make sure that you're satisfied all the time.

It could be the idol of control.

And you can say, well Jason, I know these things aren't Gods, though

I know that. I know they're not gods. But see,

we're more sophisticated and educated and so we don't call them gods,

but the reality is that there's anything in our life that we put our affection

to and we put our hope in that gives us an identity that's greater than that

of our identity in God. Whether we call it a God or not, it is an idol.

And some of these things aren't bad. I mean like some of them are,

but some of them are, are, are bad.

But in the midst of all the created things around us,

we cannot lose sight of our creator. And that's what Moses is saying.

That's what Jesus was saying. He's like, do not forget culture is sneaky.

You're gonna be distracted. Do not forget what's most important there is.

But one God, he goes on verse five, he says,

you shall love the Lord God with all your heart, with all your soul,

with all your might.

I think most of us get what this means intuitively like it's saying with every

single thing that you have. I did do some word studies for you guys.

My notes are like a mess. I have no idea what, let's see. Okay. Um,

I actually did do a Hebrew word study on these three words. Heart, soul might.

So what does it mean to love God with those things?

Heart more than emotions and feelings.

Your entire mind will and intellect and undivided and whole devotion

to love God with your heart, to love God with your soul, your desires, emotions,

vitality your whole life, even to the point of sacrifice.

Sounds familiar?

Jesus saying things like you might have to take up your cross daily and follow

me. And then with your might, might, some translations say strength, uh,

but also has the representation of resources, everything that we have,

all our energy possessions and all of our capacity, our heart,

our soul, our strength, our time, our service, our wallet.

We should love him with everything that we have.

And I want to ask you a question.

Is there a part of your life that you are withholding from? God,

I'm gonna let that sit for a minute. It's uncomfortable.

I've had to sit in it for like a whole month.

Is there a part of our lives that we're withholding from God?

Now we're a family here,

so I want you to turn to the person next to you and just tell him what it is.

I'm just kidding. Don't do that. , don't do that.

Could scare somebody. I know you people. Um, look, so after that, Moses,

then I think what he does is, is he move. I know what he does.

He moves into highlighting what it is that prevents us from,

from living this thing out. So we get to verse six and he says,

in these words that I command you today, they shall be on your heart.

What words is he talking about? Just those couple verses that we read. No, no,

no. Remember Deuteronomy, it's like a collection of sermons.

This is like everything, man. I'm on my way. I'm gonna give you these messages,

everything that we've talked about, the 10 commandments, we've covered that, uh,

everything that we've learned together in the 40 years through the desert,

everything that we know to be true of the character of God and what he calls us

into and has hopes on us for as the people of God. All of that.

Keep that in your heart. Then he gets to verse seven.

You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk with them when

you sit around the house and when you walk by the way.

And when you lie down and when you rise,

he's saying like all day, right? Um,

this passage is taught regularly in the church to remind us as parents our

responsibility to disciple and teach our children the things of God.

This is important. Uh,

and while it's true that God does desire our homes to have an

incredibly high and healthy spiritual climate, it really is bigger than that

Moses is saying,

talk about and teach and remind each other the truths of God all the time.

Not just once a week, not just twice a week.

Fill your days with the things and the thoughts of God. Why?

Because those idols that we talked about earlier,

they don't take a day off.

Like the world is constantly throwing stuff at us and teaching us things whether

we want it to or not. Talk about them all the time. He goes on verse eight,

you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets

between your eyes and you shall write them on your doorposts and on your house

and on your gates. They, um, they Jewish leaders,

they wore these bands around their head and they had these boxes that they put

scriptures into. Um, if you're not Jewish, I I'm not encouraging you to do that.

Um, but what he's really saying is like, put scripture everywhere.

My wife will take index cards and she writes scripture on 'em.

She'll put them in the refrigerator, inside the cabinets, inside the bathroom,

inside the medicine cabinets. I mean, you name it. Like he's saying, man,

do not forget the word of God. Do not forget these truths.

And here's what he's getting at. And this is kind of like big truth number two,

uh, from our talk this week. And big truth number one is just clearly, hey,

love God with everything you have, like a SubT truth.

The second big truth is this, if you're gonna love God,

you have to know God. Have you, have you ever thought about that?

Like to the extent of which you know your spouse kind of is the extent of which

you can love them to the extent of which you know your neighbor and kind of is

to the extent of which you can love your neighbor.

And I was reflecting on this over the last month

and I realized we don't love God with everything that we have

either because we don't know or we don't regularly reflect on

who he really is. Because I think all throughout scripture,

like you see people when they come into contact with God,

like they don't just keep on about their day,

like they fall on their face before God.

And if I have a concern for the world today, which I have plenty, um,

it's that the church all across America could be filled with

Christians that don't really know the living God.

.

And if we had a hundred thousand men and women and children filling up campuses

across the state that don't know the one true God for who he really is,

if they don't know him for who he really is, they won't love him for who he is.

And if we don't love God for who he is,

we don't have a chance at being the church family that he's called us to be.

And church, my challenge to us as the church,

if we're gonna be a church that loves God,

would be that we would be a church that knows God.

I think we have gotta be a church that that's,

that's willing to get in his word and be reminded of his truths in our lives.

First John chapter five, verse three. It's his for this is the love of God.

What is the love of God for?

This is the love of God that we keep His commandments and his

commandments are not burdensome.

So if the love of God is to keep his commandments,

we have to realize we can't keep his commandments unless we know them, right?

Like this is logical. Just make sense.

We can't know them unless we spend time in His word and reminding ourselves of

his truth. That's why like this gathering is so important. That's why, uh,

the gathering across all of our campuses is so important for you to get

together. Listen, every single week, okay, I know covid happened.

I know the whole thing. Look,

that is a trap to keep you away from experiencing God's best for your life.

We need to come together every single week and have a,

a group of people and men and women and students put words of praise on our lips

so that we can do something physically so that our spiritual selves will

respond. We need to get together to sit under biblical teaching.

And the word of God, like it is so important.

That's why it's so important for us to be involved in a ministry team.

Like you heard from the video earlier and the thing where like you can,

I mean to love God as we saw earlier with everything that we have,

it requires a sacrifice.

There is something good and right about how we're created that,

that we love God best when we're actually serving other people.

And then you get around folks and you get connected.

It's why small groups are so important so that you can have an opportunity to

connect with other people and be encouraged to know that there's people that are

praying for you along the way. But man,

we have got to take seriously what it means to come to know God

if we really have a shot at really loving him for who he is.

As we wrap up, um,

I was reflecting on this in my own life

and I asked myself the question, why don't I love God

for all He really is?

Why are there areas in my life that I still regularly disobey?

And I think it's because it's very convenient

to focus on the goodness of God,

to focus on the grace of God, the loving nature of God,

And miss the holiness of God.

And I would even argue, like,

and I stand in the spot of one who probably needs to repent of this,

but I would even argue that I think the church at the west,

in the west to here in America especially, like

we definitely want to lean towards creating an environment where people are

gonna want to come back and they're gonna wanna stay. And they, you know,

some things are easier to digest than others,

but I think if we're not careful, we forget just how holy, just how big,

just how set apart our God is, which that's what holy means by the way.

It means set apart. It means nothing else comes even close.

There is only one God who is like our God. And so what I wanna do,

I thought about should I,

is there three application points I should give for love? Like that feels weird.

Probably not that oversimplifies things.

And so what I wanna do is I want to end our time together by painting a picture

of God that we don't often talk about.

I want us to focus on the one true God and all of his splendor

and all of his glory.

And I want us to take a time across all of our campuses to respond.

And I wanna do that because I believe that if we saw God for who he really was,

like those little g gods, those idols that sneak into our lives,

I believe we would set 'em down.

Like if we got up every single day and just saw God for who he was,

not the God that we made up in our minds, not the God that's convenient for us,

but if we see him for who he is.

And so there's this passage in Revelation chapter four,

and the apostle John, he's, he has a vision into the throne room of heaven.

And I want you to know right now, I'm gonna tell you,

there's a lot of symbolism in here that I'm not gonna get into unpacking.

And so I just want you to visualize this as best you can.

Chapter four, verse two. It says that once I was in the spirit, and behold,

a throne stood in heaven with one seated on the throne.

And he who sat there had the appearance of Jasper and cornelian,

and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald,

Beautiful setting, majestic setting. Verse four,

around the throne were 24 thrones. And seated on those thrones were 24 elders,

clothed in white garments with golden crowns on their head.

And from the throne came flashes of lightning and rumblings and peels of

thunder. And before the throne were burning the seven torches of fire,

which were the seven spirits of God. And before the throne there was,

as it were, a sea of glass like crystal.

This is where things started to get a little crazy. Around the throne,

on each side of the throne were four living creatures full of eyes in front and

behind. The first living creature was like a lion.

The second living creature was like of an ox.

The third living creature had the face of a man and the fourth living creature

like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures,

each of them had six wings,

are full of eyes all around and within and day and night.

They never cease to say Holy, holy,

holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.

And I'm not done yet. But I want you to know that those four creatures,

if any one of those things flew into any of our campuses right now,

and you are standing there drinking a cup of coffee, I assure you,

you would stop doing what you were doing.

Like you would have a sense of awe. You might even have a healthy fear.

Like what can a creature do like that?

But there's four of them in the throne room of heaven.

And nobody's talking about those creatures.

Every single one of those creatures and the elders, they're saying, holy, holy,

holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.

There's no small G gods. There's no little idols sneaking into the picture.

Verse nine, it says, and whenever the living creatures give glory and honor,

and thanks to him who is seeded on the throne, who lives forever and ever,

the 24 elders,

they fall down before him who seeded on the throne and they worship him.

When is the last time that we just fell down and worshiped him,

who lives forever and ever? They cast their crowns before the throne saying,

worthy,

are you our Lord and God to receive glory and honor

and power for you, created all things and by your will,

they existed and were created church.

What if we woke up every single day remembering

that one true God?

You could say, man, that sounds intimidating. It probably should.

I mean, Proverbs actually says that fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

But here's what's cool. This is what's beautiful.

While that is our God, while he's completely set apart holy,

he still pursues us. Think he's still good to us.

Every good and perfect gift comes to us from him in spite of our

brokenness, in spite of our rebellion, in spite of us taking on him,

being everything that we just read about

And turning back constantly over and over and over again to our small g gods,

to our idols, to this wheelbarrow full of trash.

Like that's what it's like. But in spite of that, he said, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, I'm not gonna leave you to yourself. I'm not gonna stay here.

I'm gonna send my son Jesus. He's gonna come down,

he's gonna make right what you never would and you never could.

And he lived a perfect life and he went to a cross and he paid the penalty that

we deserved to pay. I think I mentioned the theology of atonement earlier.

That's what that is, by the way,

him atoning for our sins that we deserve to pay so that we could have a restored

relationship with that God, he loved us that much.

That's why the Bible says in one John four 19,

we love because he first loved us.

So this whole thing, when we say we're a family who loves God,

understand we've gotta know God so that we can understand,

it's predicated on realizing he is high and he is holy and he is set apart.

But he loved us first.

So I don't know where you are in your walk with God, Man,

my prayer is this lights a fire in you wherever you are,

that this might be known for the first time.

I wanna start that relationship with Jesus that you just talked about.

If that's you, talk to somebody at one of your campuses or maybe it's like, no,

I know, but I've, I've had these idols in my life, these things,

and I haven't wanted to admit it,

but I know God is worthy of my worship and me laying these things down.

Would we be a church?

Would we be a family of God who loves God in such a way that the world has never

seen before?

Next week we're gonna talk about what that looks like,

what it really looks like to live a life following Jesus.

But this week before we leave any of our campuses,

I just wanna give us an opportunity to respond to that guide and worship,

that guide that we just read about.

And so I'm gonna invite you to stand across all of our campuses and I'm gonna

pray for us and then abandon your campus is gonna lead you in the time of

worship here. Father, I thank you for your word.

I thank you for how you have used this week to painfully remind me

of the, the idols that I allow to sneak into my life,

to distract me from your goodness, from your holiness, from your greatness,

from your majesty.

But I thank you for the conviction that if we're truly gonna love you,

we have to know you first.

Would we be a church in a world that does anything but this?

Would we be a church that seeks to come to know you through prayer and through

engaging scripture and through fellowshipping with other men and women and

brothers and sisters, good?

Would you ignite a fire, a passion,

a love in us that we have never experienced before?

And would we be a church, would be a family who loves you?

And would that drive us to following after you with everything that we have?

God, we worship you. We declare your greatness. You are worthy. We love you.

And everyone said across all of our campuses, amen.

We'll.

Declare Holy, holy.

The.

Lord.

Let's not leave today without declaring this truth in our lives here and now.

We don't have to

sing The name,

name

stands above

you in freedom.

And.

You name

come.

Ing.

And the

the highest, the.

Greatest.

Kingdom.

My heart.

Come on church. Come on family.

Yeah. My heart will sing.

Declared how great is our.

He is holy and set apart. Thank you Lord.

Hmm.

You know, at the end of, uh, or at,

at the end of where Jason left off in Mark 12,

there's a story where Jesus is sitting outside the temple and

he's watching people walk by and they're putting money in the offering.

And many of the people that put the money in the offering are giving out of

abundance of what they have.

And then there's a poor widow that comes up and she has

just a few coins and she puts 'em in the, the offering.

And Jesus sees this as a teaching moment and says,

he is disciples come over here and he tells 'em what's going on and he asks them

which of these, uh, people has given the most.

And I know from my perspective,

if I saw a few cents in the offering and I saw a hundred dollars in the

offering, well, I'd say, well, that's, that's the most. And Jesus says to them,

no,

it's the poor widow who gave the most because she gave everything that she

had. And right there in that moment,

we see Jesus's heart when it comes to giving.

We see that it's not about how much we give,

it's that we give.

And if you've ever felt like, oh, I, you know,

what I would give would not be enough, right?

Or you've held back from giving. I wanna encourage you that,

that giving is a way that we take the words,

I trust God and put them into a physical

action. Right? And the instant that we do that,

God can take the smallest amount and multiply it. He's,

he's a God of multiplication. He does it all throughout the Bible.

And so I just wanna encourage you,

if you've never given and you want to take that step and see where it will lead

you in your relationship with Jesus, uh, to text,

give to 7, 2, 9, 8, 9. There's some other ways that you can do it there as well.

Um, and I would love to see how God uses that in your life and changes, um,

your heart.

What we receive here is not meant to stay here. I know you all know that,

right?

But I want to encourage you as we leave to remember that what we receive here,

we're meant to take it with us, take it to the world and share it.

Take it there so that they can know who Jesus is.

I can't wait to see you all next week. Love you guys.

Let's go and be the church.