Love

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

Thank you for having me.

I'm so happy to be here, to be speaking to you.

And I'm happy to be in a room with people.

That hasn't happened to me very often lately.

And so I'm excited to see all of you and to be here.

And as Dad just said, we're mourning the loss of my grandmother this weekend.

She passed away on Friday.

And so the memorial service will be here at this campus at the South Lake campus on Tuesday.

The viewing is open to the public.

That's at 9 a.m.

And then the service will be held here at 10 a.m.

And so if anyone is welcome to come, if you would like to come to be here for my parents and for whatever reason, if you knew my grandparents at all or you just want to be here for the service, we would love to have you.

And uh it's fitting today, I'm talking about love.

I'll explain the series in in just a moment, but I'll be talking about love today, and it's fitting that I'll be talking about that because my grandmother loved so much um that she loved things that did not matter at all.

Not even a little bit.

Um I'll give you an example.

I one summer went to work for my grandfather.

I went and lived with him for a couple months, and uh he had a bunch of rent houses that he was doing work on, and I had responsibilities.

I had he had given me a task list, I had things I had to do, and my grandmother kept distracting me with things that she wanted me to do, and that included that she would call me over and she would say, uh Josh, I want you to notice um that there's some worms on the sidewalk, and they could die if they're not in the grass.

So as you're passing by carrying out all this furniture, I'd like you to pick up all the worms and put them back in the grass.

I was like, Well, grandma, I I don't know if you know this, but the worms, they put themselves there.

They they crawled out of the grass.

They chose this.

Like, no bandits came by and pulled worms out of the dirt and threw them on the concrete so they would die.

Like they chose this, and she was like, it they're gonna dry out, you gotta pick them up.

So, real quick, I sweeped all the worms over and then got back to my work.

But they just kept doing it, they kept crawling back out onto the concrete.

And so uh grandma said, You know, I still see worms here.

I'm like, Well, grandma, they're doing it to themselves.

The worms just feel like committing suicide today.

I don't know.

I can't help them.

I can't, I just keep sweeping them back, and they keep crawling back out.

I can't help them.

She cared about everything, she took it so deeply to heart, and so we are excited to honor her on Tuesday, and we'd love for you to join us for that.

And uh the uh the series that we're gonna be doing over the next three weeks uh is a series called Survival Guide for the Soul.

What I'm talking about here is uh that uh we need to take care of the inner workings of our spirit, our soul, our mind, our heart.

We need to take care of these things.

And uh often we see that people are uh uh corrupt on the inside.

There was a local charity that had never received a donation from the town's banker.

And so the director was a brand new director, and he was pretty ambitious, and he looked around at the city and he made a phone call to this banker.

He said, Our records indicate that you make$500,000 a year, yet you have never given a penny to charity.

The director began, Wouldn't you like to help the community?

So the banker replied, Did your research show that my mother is ill with extremely expensive medical bills?

The director said, Oh, no, uh, sorry, and he started mumbling, and the the banker said, or that my brother is blind and unemployed, or that my sister's husband died, leaving her broke with four kids.

At this point, the the charity director was getting the point.

He said, I'm so sorry that I I bothered you.

I I had no idea.

And the banker said, So, let me ask you one question.

If I didn't give them any money, why would I give you any money at all?

There's a brokenness in the way that we love people, there's a brokenness in the way that we reach out to others.

And so, survival guide for the soul is intended to address our internal health.

The health of our soul and our spirit is their good inside of us, each and every one of us.

The fitness industry in America is set to surpass$100 billion this year as an industry.

Uh, also, it is anticipated but that by the year 2030 we will have 230 million people who are a member of a gym or a workout facility.

The organic food segment is by far the fastest growing sector in the US food industry.

Organic food sales are increasing by double digits every year.

And yet, with all of this push for healthy living, what we see when we look at the world today, especially in the midst of this pandemic, is hatred, bitterness, crudeness, not recognizing the divinity that is in each and every person that we encounter in the world.

Instead, we are more divided today than we ever have been.

And with all of this, an estimated 11 million American adults aged 18 or older have had at least one major depressive episode.

Not just a major depressive episode, but one that severely impaired their uh form of living.

And the highest age group that experienced these uh results were in the age group of 18 to 25.

So uh we need help in this area.

We need help in managing our spirits and our souls.

We need help in finding health in all of these things.

So um I've done what is kind of trendy now.

I got a guru.

Um he's just uh he's a really smart guy, he's a guru, and he teaches me all these things.

His name is Holy Spirit, and uh I know that sounds super pretentious, but he's a really nice guy and he knows everything.

And all it takes is a life with the Spirit, a life of walking in God's spirit to experience a change that takes place deep within our hearts.

Something that no life pattern could ever set into place, something that no uh new routine for ourselves could ever put in place.

Instead, it is a change that only God can enact in our hearts.

And when Jesus came to the earth, he showed us what kind of life we should strive to live, and then he left us with the Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us into that life.

And the internally healthy life that we desire to live can only be found in the Holy Spirit.

And if you uh if you had some way of breaking down all of the filters that exist from my internal spirit all the way to my form of speaking, if you could remove all of those things, let's just say for just a moment, you could speak directly to my spirit.

If you could uh have a conversation with my spirit, my spirit knows things about me that no one else knows.

My spirit knows all of the dark thoughts that I've ever had, all of the anger that I've ever felt.

My spirit knows these things deeply.

My spirit knows me better even than I do because my mind tends to block out some of the things that the spirit has experienced.

And so if you want to get to know someone, you should know their spirit.

If you want to get to know yourself, you should know what is in your spirit.

But if you want to get to know God, you need to know his spirit.

The spirit works in exactly the same way.

The spirit knows all of the deepest thoughts that God has ever had.

Uh Paul even explains this in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, starting in verse 10.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

It says, These are the things God has revealed to us by his spirit.

Because the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

For who knows a person's thoughts except their own spirit within them?

And in the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

What we have received is not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.

This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with spirit-taught words.

The person without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

Living without the Holy Spirit in your life is living without knowing God.

Is living without knowing His Spirit, knowing the thoughts that He has.

And for many of you, you may be here and you may be feeling this is the type of trouble that I've been experiencing.

For many, maybe you're dealing with a health issue, but for many of us, we have this nagging feeling.

Maybe uh the sign of it is that you have trouble sleeping at night.

Maybe at night your mind stews with the way that someone wronged you or the thing that someone did to you.

Maybe your mind turns thinking about all the ways that you wish payback would come upon them and the danger or the difficulty that you experience because of them.

Maybe you look calm on the outside, but you churn like the sea on the inside, and it is hard for you to find rest and peace.

Living a life in the spirit calms all of those uh worries that we have within ourselves.

And if you want to know what those secret things that the Spirit knows, that the Spirit can reveal to us, it actually says.

I'm just going back just a little bit in 1 Corinthians 2, starting in chapter 9, this is what the Spirit knows, what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived.

What is it?

The things God has prepared for those who love him.

If that is you today, and you're experiencing that type of turmoil internally, you can know that in the deepest thoughts that God has, he is planning good things for you.

And knowing the spirit and in and and having a life and a relationship with the spirit lets us in on those plans.

And so we must walk in the spirit in order to be healthy in our own spirits.

And if we are unhealthy, then we are not living a life in the spirit.

Now, the fruits of the spirit are what we will exhibit if we live this kind of life.

We find that in Galatians chapter 5, starting in verse 19.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

It says the acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy, drunkenness, and the like, I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

What we just listed there, what we just read in Scripture of the fruits of the Spirit, what we read there is your greatest witnessing tool.

You see, you can talk all you want about living a Christian life, and you can say how great it is and how wonderful it is to have a relationship with God.

But what draws people to us is when we live a life in the Spirit and we exhibit the fruits of the Spirit.

You read that list and you say, that's the kind of person I want to be around.

The fruits of the Spirit are our greatest tool for evangelism.

They draw people to us in a natural and organic way.

These traits being exhibited are the moments when we see the divinity of God in our fellow man.

These are huge and important to us.

Now, um I don't do pranks on people.

Um I don't do pranks on people for one reason.

Because I don't want anybody to do a prank on me.

That's the only reason.

Outside of that, I love them.

I I like um my kids are old enough now, they just started watching The Office on TV, and our favorite part is to watch all the pranks that Jim does on Dwight.

We love it so much, and we see all these pranks, and the more brilliant it is, the more excited we get over this.

And once I read about one of the greatest pranks that I've ever read about in my life.

This one, surprisingly, was done by Wolfgang Mozart.

That's right, the one you know, Mozart.

That's right.

When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a young man living with his father Leopold, himself a fine musician in Vienna, he is said to have played a trick on him from time to time.

Young Wolfgang would come home from spending a riotous evening with his friends, his father would already be asleep in bed, and Wolfgang would go to the piano and he would play loudly a rising scale of notes getting slower and louder as they reached the resolution at the top of the scale.

And then he would stop one note short and go to bed himself.

Old Leopold, so the story goes, would toss and turn in bed as the unfinished scale came into his dreams and imagination.

And the frustration of having one's musical senses aroused in that way without resolution would become too hard to bear.

And eventually he would have to drag himself from his slumbers, stagger downstairs, and play the last note.

That is knowing your audience, people.

That is wonderful.

What a wonderful, wonderful prank to play on someone.

I love that story so much.

And as I was thinking about it, I mean, I've thought a lot about it.

I've lost sleep over this.

I'm like, how could I come up with a prank that's as brilliant as that one?

And as I've thought about this, I realize that there's there's something real here in this.

There's something for us to catch for just a moment.

You see, uh, God started a movement here on the earth, and he created this earth for us to live in and to reside in with each other.

And he wanted it to be a melody, he wanted it to be a song, uh a worship song to him.

He wanted, he said, here, here's your world.

Now make your world look like mine.

And we had a job, we had a task to do.

And so we worked the land and we began to build a system and a structure, but over time we lost our way.

We stopped following God, we stopped playing the notes correctly, we didn't play the scale in the order that God had designed for us.

And so Jesus came down and he showed us how the song goes once more.

But he left the last note unplayed.

And when he left, he said, I'm going away, but I'll give you a helper, and all I need you to do is to continue to play the last note.

I believe with all of my heart that the last final note that we are supposed to play until Jesus returns is the note of love.

He told us so himself.

The greatest commandment: love God and love your neighbor as yourself.

Paul describes it, and I'll show it to you in just a moment, that our commandment was to love, not to be right, not to always have perfect theology, not to always think the right things or know the right things, not to be the most knowledgeable, knowledgeable person in the room.

No, to play the note of love, to love others unconditionally, to love them in such a way that it would show God's love to the ones who are around us, and the whole earth is groaning for the song to be played correctly and completed.

And whether or not we do our part, the Son will come once again and complete the final note.

But he has asked us to play this note of love.

Jesus told us to love God and love ourselves, and and and this note is out of place.

Things we don't none of us like things to be out of sorts.

When there's uh I I I'm the kind of person um we don't we don't normally park our car in the garage, and the reason is is because I still haven't cleaned it.

And uh and it doesn't get cleaned until we move to a new house.

That's just how it works in my house.

That's uh I I do my best, but then the kids throw their bikes everywhere, and two weeks later I'm like, forget it, just shove everything in the garage, it's fine, you know, everything will be okay.

That's who we are.

But every once in a while I get a burst of energy and I'll go out and I'll clean it, and things start to feel right in my life.

Whatever is uh dirty and messy, whatever you can hide in the closet may be out of your sight, but it is not out of your mind, and it is disturbing, and it feels that way for the entire world.

Everyone notices it.

Watch the news.

They don't talk about what God did, where they'll show every once in a while a selfless act of love, and the entire world can recognize that was right.

When someone lays down their life, when someone commits a sacrificial act of love, everyone can recognize that was the right thing to do.

That was the proper thing to do in this situation.

We need things to be set in order, and they are set in order when we love.

When you watch or read the news today, you see that life is out of order.

You see the chaos that surrounds us.

And there is a forceful way to bring it in, or there is a loving way to bring that order.

And love always requires sacrifice.

It requires that we do something, it requires that that we it brings something from us or that we lose something in the process.

Remember the story of the Good Samaritan.

He didn't just use his time to help the man that was beaten and left on the side of the road for dead.

Instead, he took him to the the hotel, paid for his accommodations, paid for his health care.

It cost him something to be able to help this man.

Love always requires some sort of sacrifice.

We haven't done anything to solve the injustices of the world unless we have sacrificed in some way.

See, uh, the Greeks had six words for love, but we're just gonna focus on two of them for just a minute.

Uh the first one that I want to talk about is eros.

That's where we get the term erotic or that type of love.

It typically refers to a type of lust, and and and the other element of that though, and it is an element within all the other types of love except for one, is that it has in its very nature a selfish element.

Eros love says, I I uh I want something from you, and I'll give my love back to you if you meet all of my requirements.

That's what Eros love is.

Um Pastor Jimmy Witcher um has a great way of describing it.

Uh you might remember this song from the 90s.

Uh, the lyrics were, I want to know what love is.

Do you remember this?

And I want you to show me.

That is Eros love.

I want to experience love, and I need you to show it to me.

I need you to do the work, to show it to me, but agape love is completely different.

Agape love is selfless, agape love is given when it is not earned or deserved.

Agape love is who God is.

He it's not just that he does love us with agape love, he is agape love.

He he he showed us that with his death on the cross.

But remember, not just that he died for each and every one of us, but do you remember that he cared even for the people who were driving the nails in his hands?

That's the type of love we're called to.

Not just to love the ones who love us back, not just to love the ones who meet all of our requirements, but instead to love unconditionally, to love the ones who are different than us, who to love the ones who don't share the same views as us.

Agape love is not a feeling, it's not stationary, it is an action and it requires something from us.

Agape love is a radical love, and and and it isn't practiced very often, but when it is, we recognize it and everyone agrees that it is good.

It may seem difficult because what we believe really does matter.

What we believe in life does make a difference.

It matters what we believe.

But where we get caught up in this is that we start to think that whoever doesn't believe the same thing as us is too different from us for us to love.

It's too different from us.

And and we start uh moving in this place where uh in our world today, everyone has a platform, everyone has social media or a blog, and because of that, we started to believe that all of our opinions matter the most.

And our opinions matter so much that if someone disagrees, they're not just different, they're evil or less than.

And now we have these mass forms of communication online, and instead of having difficult conversations with the ones that we love, we're we're battling out in a bro ha online, thinking that that will do something.

Our uh our Voice is not going to change the world.

Our activism is our getting out and loving people is what is going to bring change to the world.

Hannah and I are uh Hannah and I are currently reading a book with the kids, and we wake up and we do a devotional with them.

And uh the book is Love Does for Kids by Bob Goff.

And I have found myself um in a puddle of tears multiple times as we've read through this book and seen the witness of what he does by loving people and putting that to action.

But as I was thinking about it the other day, I thought, what a perfect title.

Because we often think that love feels, but in reality, love does.

It calls, it calls us to something bigger, it calls us to action, it brings us into a place of doing something to make a difference.

And Paul would say, along with Jesus, that in the kingdom of God which will come on earth as it is in heaven, love is the way of life in the new world to come.

In fact, in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, starting in verse 8, it says, Love never fails, but where there are prophecies, they will cease.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

Where there are tongues, they will be stilled.

Where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child, and when I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror.

Then we shall see face to face.

Now I know in part, and then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known, and these three remain faith, hope, and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

Let me tell you what that passage means.

He says, These things that are incomplete will pass away.

They don't go with us to the next world.

They don't go with us into heaven, they don't go with us whenever the world passes away, the earth passes away, we pass away.

Those things don't go with us.

But there are three things that will remain into the next life: faith, hope, and love.

And the greatest is love.

Prophecy, who will need it?

You'll be there with all of eternity laid out in front of you.

Who will need to foretell the future when we're in heaven?

Tongues, who will need it?

You'll understand what every person ever says.

You'll ever in every language you will understand whatever needs to be said in heaven.

Tongues won't be necessary.

Words of knowledge, you'll have all the knowledge you could possibly need given to you directly by God.

It will be, you'll possess all of that knowledge in the next life.

None of those things will go with you into the next life, but what will?

Love.

Love is the river that travels from this world into the next one.

It is the only thing that survives and makes it to the next world.

Love is the grammar of the language that we will speak in heaven.

And if that's the language that we will speak in heaven, why shouldn't we get very, very good at speaking it now?

Why shouldn't we continue to show people a little glimpse of what heaven will look like?

Not through prophecies, not through tongues.

All those things are great.

Words of knowledge are great.

Those things are for here, though.

And if you want to give people a glimpse of what God is like, if you want to give people a little glimpse of heaven, the only thing you actually have to do is love them.

That's it.

And while we say, well, you know, if I knew the Bible more, then I would share my faith with more people.

And if I just knew or I could argue my points, then maybe I would share my faith with someone.

That isn't necessary because only one thing makes it to the next life, and that is love.

Show them love and you will show them heaven.

Show them love and you will show them who our God is.

Love is the pathway into our next life, our next calling that God has placed on our lives.

Um we uh a couple years ago were at a restaurant, and um I felt like I learned this from my dad, and I felt like there was a table that I should pay for their meal.

And I uh I often would say, um, don't tell them who it is or anything, we just want to pay for their meal, and uh the waiter or waitress would take care of that for us.

And I had done that at a restaurant, and Grady was old enough, um, he was nearly a teenager at that time, preteen, and he was old enough that he noticed you know that was that was a lot of money.

I could have used that money for something, you know, and he noticed that we paid for the meal, and and he noticed that it was this uh act of kindness and generosity, and uh and in in the past it had just kind of flown over his head, and this time he really noticed it and he started asking me questions about it.

So maybe two or three nights later, we're at another restaurant, and he says there was an older couple sitting two tables over from us, and he gets all excited.

He says, Dad, I want to I want to pay for those those people's meal.

And I was like, Well, son, um you don't have the money to pay for their bill.

Uh so that would be me, you know?

And uh and and to be honest, I just thought, like, he doesn't get it.

It's been two nights.

I mean, the the the last time we were at a restaurant, he saw me do this.

And and I remember the way that I looked up to my dad as he did generous acts of kindness in that way, and he just doesn't get it.

He hasn't heard from God.

I I pray about this.

I don't just do it all the time.

God has to speak and and and lead me and guide me to the right people to do this for.

And so I said, Grady, you know, let me remind you what I talked to you about the other night.

Um, it'll it's like a stirring.

Like, I don't know how to explain it, but you'll know inside this is something I have to do.

And not because you want to be nice or you want to do the right thing, but you'll know God is prompting me to do this.

And he was like, Dad, that's that's what's happening right now.

That's happening right now.

And I was like, uh, maybe, you know, and I was then I was like feeling bad.

I was like, I'm making a really bad dad move.

I'm questioning this.

He wants to pay for the meal, why not?

Like it's not that big of a deal, you know?

And so I was like, uh, okay, are are you sure?

Like, do you want to pray about it longer?

And he was like, No, dad, that's you know, I was like, well, you know, Mr.

Budget, I pay for a meal two nights ago.

I don't know if I could do pull this one, you know.

And I just I was the worst about this, you know?

And I kept pushing him and he's dad, I'm telling you, I I can I can sense it, I can feel it.

This is what I'm supposed to do.

So I said, Okay, that's what we'll do.

The waiter came over and I said, We want to pay for their meal, but please don't tell them.

Um, I mean, I I looked over there, I don't recognize them.

I I don't want to, I didn't even want to talk to people.

I'm an introvert, so it's like I just wanted to eat.

And so I said, just don't, don't, don't let them know who it was, but we'd like to pay for their meal.

Yes, I had a bad attitude the entire time, okay?

I'm fully establishing that.

Okay, Grady, uh we'll do it this time, okay?

And so we we told the waiter, don't tell them.

And I watched him go, got it.

And he walked over to the table and he goes, Hey, uh, your meal's been taken care of?

And they were like, by who?

And he goes, Those people right there.

I could hear him and see him pointing at us.

I was like, dude, what are you doing?

So sure enough, they finished their meal, they got up, they came over to the table, and they said, Um, thank you so much for paying the meal.

And still in my bad attitude, I was like, I didn't do it, he did it, you know.

Um, it was my son.

And uh they were moved.

They they started talking to my son.

That we had we had a conversation with them.

Um, five or ten minutes we talked to them, and and they were just blown away that this young, young boy decided to do this for them.

And and and he was incredible, he always is, he's super good with people, he was sweet and he was kind, and and it like a real moment happened, and I was I was touched by it.

Um, about a month later, I heard from someone who uh knows the lady that we paid for their meal, and I found out later that she goes to church here, and I found out later that there was a time in her life where her car was stolen by a young teenager, and he beat her up and then left her on the side of the road.

She told the person that she was telling the story to.

Only God could have known that a young teenage boy was needed to redeem the pain and the hurt that I have felt.

When we walk in the Spirit, the heart of God is revealed to us in a way that we would never know nor see.

And when we act on that, we commit an act of love that absolutely changes lives.

Like to ask you to bow your heads and close your eyes with me if you will.

If you're watching today, or you're at one of the campuses and you're saying, I don't think I've ever known true a God I love.

God wants to reveal it to you today.

Jesus, in his concern for you, came down to earth and became his own creation and laid down his life for you.

And if you need that kind of love in your life, just right where you are, silently to yourself, I want you to pray this prayer with me.

Dear Lord, I receive today the gift of salvation.

And I receive today your love that is not dependent on my actions, it doesn't waver when I waver, but it stays true and loves me to the end.

And today I ask you, God, to live in my heart.

And I accept you in my life today.

If you prayed that prayer, we want you to let us know.

We want to help you in your journey walking with God.

You can text decision to 71010.

71010 and let us know.

And today, as a body, Lord, we say that we want your love to flow through us like a river.

And God, may we show everyone in the world what true agape love looks like and who you are by loving those around us.

Lord, make us an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let us sow love.

Lord, where there is sadness, let us sow joy.

Lord, may we walk with your spirit and know your ways and make an impact in the world around us.

We pray all these things in the name of the Father and the Son.

Amen.