Pastor Bryan and Natalie Grant | Our Homecoming Journey | February 14th, 2021

Welcome to KCC.

My name is Brian.

I'm one of the pastors here, and this is my beautiful wife, Natalie.

We are so glad that you joined us.

If this is your very first time, thank you so much for joining us.

And I just want to say a big welcome to our KCC and our Lake Country campus family.

Thank you so much for being here today.

So, as you know, or at least most of you, I would hope you know, that it is Valentine's Day.

So I want you to look into your wife or your husband's eye and look and say, um, Valentine's Day.

You'll get it right.

But we know that it's Valentine's Day.

So once you said that, there's two things that we want to have uh that we want to let you know about.

Okay, so first thing, February is not the only month of love.

I think all months should be love month.

But having said that, we're so excited to be hosting two relationship workshops completely free.

Mark your calendars Wednesday, February 24th at 7 p.m.

and Wednesday, March 3rd at 7 p.m.

Registration is now open on the KCC website at KCC.net.

Absolutely.

Another thing we want to let you know about is that we have a resource here at the church that Natalie and I have developed over the last uh several months through COVID called Amplified Marriage.

It is a relationship podcast meant for married couples, engaged couples, um, boys and girlfriend couples, just to be able to come and just hear some tools and get some uh ways to be able to help their relationship grow.

We are really passionate about seeing people's relationships and their marriages really, really, really succeed.

And so that being said, it is Valentine's Day.

And so some of you have been married for quite a long time.

We've been married for 19 years, and so maybe you remember or maybe you don't remember the cheesy pickup lines that maybe you use to pick up your spouse.

And if you have no idea what we're talking about, don't you worry because we have a whole bunch here to jog your memory.

Excellent.

I put the stud in Bible study.

It's awesome.

We're never calling it that again.

Hey Brian, I happen to be looking for a knight in shining armor, and I just noticed that you're wearing the armor of God.

Hi, I'm Will.

God's Will.

I was reading through the book of numbers, and I just realized I don't have your number.

That's bad.

I think this is what Adam would have said to Eve.

I think one of my ribs belongs to you.

Oh, this one's good.

Roses are red, sugar is sweet, thy belly is like a heap of wheat.

I challenge you to say that to someone.

Please don't.

The word says to give drink to those who are thirsty and food for those who are hungry.

You wanna have dinner?

I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna use that.

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you are.

And hold on, hold on.

I got a card for you.

Oh Lord.

With help of my daughter, we made a card for Valentine's Day.

Uh where did you find this?

I don't know.

I don't know.

All right, men, you're not gonna read it.

I will.

Alright, men, I want you to to look to your spouse, look them right in the eye, and I want you to say these words.

Don't do it.

Your hair looks so cringy.

It's like a flock of goats descending from Mount Gilead.

No?

Alrighty then.

No.

It's in work.

I think it would have worked for Song of Solomon, though.

Yeah, maybe.

I'm sure that some of those are probably gonna work.

So if you would like to have them, just send them on our way and we'll happily hand them to you.

So I want you to do this, turn with me in your Bibles to 1 John chapter 4, verse 18.

1 John 4:18

We're gonna be talking about God's perfect love today.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.

For fear has to do with punishment.

And whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

Oh, that's good.

So today we're talking about obviously God's perfect love.

And you may be watching this for your very first time, or you've been watching us for a long time, but you know that we've been on this long journey, the last couple months, on sonship.

We call it our homecoming journey, just calling people home to know who they are in Christ.

And we know that the journey to sonship and uh to understand who you are in Christ is ups and downs and ebbs and flows and mountains and valleys.

And so Pastor Brody has really touched on this the um the last couple of weeks with Adam and Eve.

And Adam and Eve, once they ate the fruit, they went into this place of fear, shame, and blame.

Yeah.

And we realize as we were reading through the story and hearing Pastor Brody speak of the story is that that same journey with people is still a thing that happens even today, that people fear God and so they hide from him, or they're they're filled with shame and so they cover themselves and they don't let people in.

And really, guys, shame is like a silent killer on relationships.

And then they blame, and obviously they they they look to other people to take their blame instead of just taking it onto themselves.

And so for us to actually really talk about God's love, we have to contrast God's love, God's perfect love, with what culture says love really is.

Exactly.

So we were looking this up, and I was actually a little bit surprised to see the dictionary definition of love.

I expected, I don't know what I expected, but more, I think well-rounded.

Yeah, yeah.

So this is what the Oxford Dictionary says about love.

They define love as an intense feeling, a romantic attachment based on an attraction felt by one person to another, an intense liking or concern for another, usually combined with sexual passion.

So, right away, just based on that definition, it's a it's a give to get.

I will give to get something mentality.

That's a whole lot of chemical reactions, but where is the whole talk about commitment?

Where's the whole talk of faithfulness or dedication of respect and honor?

Right.

Culture says that love is one night stands and pointless hookups.

Culture says love is about selfishly satisfying your desires.

Love or culture says love is disposable.

If you hurt someone, that's okay.

You can just find someone else, and when you're done with them, you can just toss them out.

Love says that uh culture says love is free without consequences.

Culture says when loving someone gets too hard, you can jump ship.

Right.

God provides us with an amazing, amazing definition of what God's perfect love is or what love is in 1 Corinthians chapter 13.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

I want you to turn with me in your Bible to that.

And as you read through these, I want you to note something as we go through this, that this isn't just about warm, fuzzy feelings.

This is about actions.

There's some some action into what we're talking about.

And it says this love is patient, love is kind, it does not evy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it's not rude, it's not self-seeking, it's not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth.

And I love this, it always protects, it always trusts, it always hopes, it always perseveres.

Love never fails.

When we were kind of prepping and we were looking into this scripture particularly, we came across an article by Jay Sklars, and he just kind of opened up this whole entire scripture verse, kind of in it with a new perspective of like owning it, making it personal.

And so I want to read it to you what his um what he was communicating throughout that whole entire verse.

So consider for a moment what this type of love looks like.

When I'm saying I love you, this is what I'm saying.

I'm saying that I'm patient and I'm kind with you.

I do not envy you, I do not boast in front of you, I'm not proud before you, I'm not rude to you, I seek your good and not just my own.

I'm not easily angered by you, and I keep no records of your wrongs.

I don't think I've ever read that scripture, and I am guilty of doing all of those things in the course of our marriage.

But this was just really interesting because whenever, and this was in our wedding vows, the scripture verse.

I think it's typically you see that, but for us, it was like, hey Brian, this is how you need to love me.

But then it really wasn't sort of a personal, it wasn't a personal thing where it's like it the onus is still on me.

So what you're saying is you were reading the scripture for me, not for what God was trying to say you into that.

Oh, well that's right.

Oh, okay.

And I'm saying that I was wrong.

But we need, we need to take ownership.

Right.

I need to, but if I'm saying I love you, when you're saying I love you to your spouse, reading that context of that scripture verse, like, and then doing a self-reflection.

Am I really, am I patient with him?

Am I kind?

Because if that's what love is and that's not how I'm operating, right, then there needs to be some some work done.

Absolutely.

And and people often use this scripture in the context of just pretty much marriage.

Um, you see it in so many different wedding vows.

Every time you've been to a wedding, someone read that.

It was a reading or something, but that's a the the basis for what God's perfect love is.

And this is really a guide on how we could act out God's perfect love towards people, not just not just for our spouse, yeah, but also for our kids or or how we love people, or how we love our friends, or how we love our our family, or how we we treat strangers?

This uh scripture is such a strong uh barometer or plumb line about how we could love people.

And the question came up is how what would what would church look like if we loved this way?

What would culture look like if we loved this way?

What would our families like look like?

What would our our our kids' relationships with us look like?

What would our marriages look like if we loved like this?

I think personally bringing it back to the basics of what first separates me from that love.

And like you mentioned it, and Pastor Brody's mentioned it this whole entire series about the fear, shame, and blame kind of being um what pull us away from experiencing that, except that, and I think there's this disillusion that uh the very thing that can heal you from those areas is the very thing that those areas are pulling you from, if that makes sense.

And so um I love what Larry mentioned a couple of weeks ago.

He explained fear like this.

When we do not allow the father to remove our fears, we begin to do what Adam and Eve attempted.

Handling it by ourselves.

We create controls and measures to manage our public persona by pushing them down into our persona, we then become self-reliant, thinking we can fight that battle within.

And the moment we begin to win a little bit, that turns to pride, and then pride to arrogance, and we become like a man sinking in the sand.

The more we work, the deeper we get.

Yeah.

Proverbs chapter three says this it says, Trust in your Lord, uh, trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.

In all of your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make straight your path.

That always says to me, every time I read that, it says to me that obviously when he says I'm gonna make my path straight, that it's already a little bit crooked, which means I need to depend on him even more to help me with those things.

And then as we were thinking about, you know, perfect love and all that it entails, I was reminded like the Lord brought back to remembrance a story, my own personal story, of uh when we lived in Prince George.

And for those of you that don't know, we have three children and two boys and a girl, and our boys were really little and our daughter was a baby.

And um our whole pretty much our whole entire married life up until that point had been very tumultuous, not just with each other, but almost our environment.

And we had a lot to push through and a lot to uh draw on the Lord for in those moments.

And in this particular uh story, um, it had to do with me just being completely overwhelmed with three children under the age of four and a half, and um, you're working all the time, and there were struggles.

I mean, we had a great support system uh within the church, but there was still really turbulent waters happening within the church itself and jobs and finances and everything that we were like, hey Lord, I think you're leading me to this.

It was it just everything fell apart.

Failed businesses, the whole game, like nothing seemed to fall into place.

And after time and time and time again of of that sort of being the outcome, it really put me in a in a nasty place.

And I was spiritually uh drained and I was spiritually devastated, and I was so angry, and I was irritated with everything, and I was um irritated with my children and having to be home and uh leaving a career to be home, like all of these things came flooding back, and I was angry praying one night, and I was crying, and the kids were in bed, and I was I had it out with the Lord.

And um it was in that moment where the sobbing and feeling overwhelmed, you were downstairs where it was probably about a 45-minute endeavor, I guess you could say, my conversation with God when I finally was like, I had clearly run out of words to say at that point, and so I was just silently crying, and I'm like, this is as good as it gets, I guess.

Like here we are serving you, Lord, and um, which is you know that that ploy the enemy uses that you know, see what serving the Lord gets you, like nothing's falling into place, everything's falling apart.

Here you are wanting, here you are lacking, where's God now?

Those sorts of thoughts came flooding back with a vengeance.

And I was just silently crying, and it was moments had passed when I had finished my rant that the Lord in his mercy and his grace spoke to me, and he spoke to me this now are you ready to let my love do the healing?

And that really took me back because a lot of my life had been striving for people's affirmations and trying to live up to others' expectations of people pleasing.

If I do A, B, and C, I'm a formula girl.

I love things, I'm calculated that way, I love schedules, I love to know exactly what's expected of me.

And so that pattern just wasn't working anymore.

And the Lord was like, Enough, my child.

You've tried it all, and now you gotta let me do what I do best.

Right.

And so I was just moved by first off how because I came at the Lord hard.

I was not happy, and his gentleness and something that I I just was like, Lord, I I was scared of him.

I was scared and like, oh, I'm gonna be chastised if I come to him, but who cares at this point?

I really have nothing to lose.

And so I just kind of let it all out.

But his grace and the way that he spoke to me was so tender, so fatherly.

And I had never experienced that side of God up until that point, I guess, in that kind of a way.

And so, uh, to make a long story a little shorter, there's a song written by Klaus Kuhn, and it's sung by Carrie Joe called Abba Father.

And before I read you the lyrics that really ministered to me, one of the one of the verses says, You sing over me.

And I was like, as if that's even in the Bible, God singing over us.

I can read it.

Zephaniah 3:17.

Zephaniah 3:17

The Lord your God is in your midst.

The mighty one will save, he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.

As blown away, that I'm like, I am that important to him that he's going to sing to me.

Well, that'll be the day.

Well, that was the day.

And so as he began to speak these words over me, you know, you hear uh in the Christmas story that the angels are singing and all of heaven is rejoicing.

You're like, geez, what a day that'll be when that happens.

This was that moment where literally all of heaven began to sing these words over me.

So you sing over me, you dance over me, you cover me, your mercy so free keeps giving to me.

Oh, how I love this place.

And you quiet me with your love that you are healing me.

You lead me beside the waters of life.

My thirst is satisfied, restoring my soul.

You make me whole.

Oh, how I love this place.

You call me your child, you call me your own.

I love this, you call me into my destiny.

I call you king, I call you my love, I call you father.

It's just such a pivotal moment for me.

It's so good.

And I think the part that we can that kind of struck me about that was you had done everything on your own, trying to be perfect or trying to reach something or trying to get to this place to actually experience God's love, and you could never quite get there.

No.

And the thing is, is that God's love for us is based on his perfection.

Yeah, it's not based on ours.

Thank you, Jesus.

Right?

God's perfect love is wrapped, is Jesus, God wrapped in flesh.

Uh perfect love goes to any length, uh, any height to reach people.

God, perfect love calls the brother.

God's perfect love calls his brother and redeems him and sets him free.

Perfect love is complete, uh, all-consuming, with no traces of doubt in who Christ is.

So good.

And you've heard us say this before.

Pastor Brody has said it, Pastor Davis said it, I've said it, Pastor Malachi has said it.

People's deepest desire is to be fully known and fully loved.

So, what's that dialogue that you say to yourself?

What's the thing that you're doing that's keeping you from actually actually experiencing God's perfect love?

And when we were even just talking about that, um, how do you how do you experience God's perfect love?

Is well, for me, in my experience, I think it happened when I could truly embrace it.

Yeah.

Because I knew all the words, I knew the scripture verses that we had read, other than the singing over me one.

Um, but you know, and so I knew it here, I knew it actually in my heart, but it was one thing to know it, it was a whole complete thing to experience it.

And like nothing you could have said, like nothing anyone could have said could have brought about the impact that the Lord speaking that to me and the Lord allowing his love, and it was like wave after wave of just I I have you you can't experience that and then not change, right?

Like my heart was literally transformed.

So for me, it was coming to the end of myself, and what I mean by that is the end of striving, the end of having to be, you know, Susie Perfect Housewife, and you know, all the things in perfect place because all eyes are judging me.

How am I dressed?

How are my kids dressed?

You know, what does our house look like?

Is it a mess?

Can we have people like you just fill in the blanks for how that's applicable to you, but coming to the end of your self and doing it on your own and realizing that you can't.

And I think there came a point where at that moment I finally understood who I was, right, and more importantly, whom I belonged to.

Right.

And I think right there that knowing that I was a daughter of the Most High God, who I was so important to him that he thought he knew this was the way to reach my heart.

Right.

And when when we're in that position, we can walk to him confidently with a clean slate.

We're coming to him, and we're resting in that perfect love.

And you even touched on it.

The first one was you said, when you come to it, come to the end of doing it on your own.

The next one is when you remember whose you are.

Yeah.

Remember that part in The Lion King where uh Simba is sitting in the desert somewhere looking up into the clouds, and I think the lions are all around him, and his dad looks up from down from the clouds and says to us, Remember who you are.

Sometimes we live in this place, instead of experiencing God's love, we're experiencing other people's thoughts of us, or how they think of us, or what the job says, or your work performance, or what your kids are saying, or what your family is saying, or your what's happening in in uh around you, instead of we're remembering whose we are, and that puts us in this position to be able to walk confidently when we know whose we are.

We can have we can spit out all of the scripture, all of the words that you heard today, but knowing Christ is an experience as well as knowledge of the word.

And what we're talking about is you want to experience.

God's perfect love.

And so we remember that you've come to the end.

Remember whose you are.

And the next one is remember who He has called you to be.

He has called you to be a daughter of Christ.

He has called you to be a son of the Most High God.

You have purpose.

You have value.

He loves you and He wants to know you.

And this is the thing is that Natalie touched on a perfect love casts out fear.

Yes.

It casts out shame.

It casts out blame.

It casts out rejection, anxiety, abandonment, it casts out hate.

It casts out your lack of value or worth.

The perfect love of God casts out all of those things.

And I think there's something to be had about that feeling and that knowing that I'm accepting.

Right.

Absolutely.

That in of itself is so freeing, knowing that the Lord is not angry with me.

He does treasure me.

He does cherish me.

I am the apple of his eye.

That right there, that whole moment was just it has never happened again, but I I don't think it needs to because I'm hanging on to that.

Today's Valentine's Day.

And I know that, you know, for some, this isn't a very happy day.

This isn't a very good day.

And maybe you find yourself in that place today.

Maybe today could be that day that you feel that pull on your heart of God calling you back.

Like that prodigal that Pastor Brody's been talking about, the journey to sonship and the prodigal coming back.

Maybe you haven't physically um, you know, changed locations or whatever and gone to a different city, but maybe you've spiritually kind of taken a hiatus.

And maybe this is that day where you feel him calling you back to that place.

Maybe you've believed the lie of culture.

We touched on it a little bit that says you're only worth what you can give.

Maybe you felt like you had to hide.

I know I felt like I've had to hide those dark places of my heart because what will someone think if they find out who I really am?

Um, and knowing that there's no I'm there's no more fear of being rejected.

That's right.

And so maybe God is speaking to you that it's time to return.

It's time to rest your striving.

Trying to earn your way and trying to do it on your own.

Maybe today's the day that you need, you just need to hear that there is still a seat at the table of the Lord for you, that he hasn't replaced your seat with someone else's.

That's right.

That's really good.

Um, and then ultimately the ultimate expression of his perfect love is when he sent his son to die for us.

Uh what I mean, what a Valentine's.

Absolutely.

And in all of this, I think I wanna, if you're watching for the first time, or you're watching for maybe the fifth time, and today you're like, man, I just want to experience God's love, but you're like, I don't know who Jesus is.

I want us as a church to walk through this together.

And then I'm gonna I'm gonna want you to say these words with me.

So grab the hand of the person next to you and let's just bow our heads and I pray.

If you don't know Jesus, I want you to say this with me.

Dear Lord Jesus, do you love Jesus?

I know I am a sinner.

I ask for forgiveness.

I believe you died for my sins and rose from the dead.

Amen.

I turn from my sins and I commit my life to you.

I want to experience your strength, faithfulness, hope, nearness.

I want to experience your perfect love.

I want to trust and follow you as my Lord and Savior.

Lord, and in this time, as we celebrate those people today that have given your life, their life to Jesus, we just pray for those that are that know you, that are just struggling right now with finding their place, that are not understanding that perfect love, Lord, that you, wherever they are, they are the church.

They're sitting in their house, they're sitting in their car in a restaurant and having breakfast with someone, Lord, that they are the church where they are, Lord, that they would feel your presence, they would feel your perfect love, maybe for the first time, that someone would have a fresh revelation of who you are today, Lord, and that they would know you deeper and closer than they ever have.

Lord, that they would would take First Corinthians and learn that scripture and love as patient, and we would live that out in our own life.

Because you sent your son to die for us, we can have the strength to do that.

Lord, so today, those that need to have a touch from you, Lord, that you just fill their hearts with peace and joy knowing that you're there with them as they go through these things.

Yes, Lord.

Lord, bless, bless this church, bless these people that are watching this right now in Jesus' name.

Amen.

If this morning or today, or whenever you happen to watch this, you gave your life to Jesus, send us an email, reach out to us on Facebook and Instagram.

We want to be able to celebrate with you and help you in your journey to knowing Christ anymore.

And as we always say, happy Valentine's Day today.

Happy Valentine's.

We hope you enjoyed the service today, and we just wanted to take a few moments to remind you of the ways that you can give.

You can give online through the app, or you can text KCC Now to 77977.

If you haven't already, make sure you follow us on social media.

You can follow us through our Facebook page, Instagram, and YouTube.

We hope to see you next week as we continue our homecoming journey.