To Know God's Love

Well, guys, we are really close to being done with a series we started a couple months ago called What Jesus Wants.

And so if you're new, it's okay that you're here at the end.

Better late than never, number one, and every Sunday is meant to stand on its own.

But this has been a really interesting study.

We've been going through John chapter 17.

John 17 · chapter mention

And John 17 is a prayer that Jesus has right before he goes to the cross.

And it's kind of the forgotten prayer, because usually when we think about Jesus praying before he goes to the cross, if you're familiar with the story, we tend to think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane praying with God the Father, going, Hey, are you sure this is the only way?

Are you sure this is the right way?

I mean, if there's another way to get this done and maybe skip the cross, I'm paraphrasing, let's do that.

And then Jesus says this famous line, but Father, not my will, but your will be done.

So there's that prayer.

That's not the prayer we've been studying.

After that, Jesus prays for us, for his disciples.

He recognizes what he's about to do, and so he prays, and he spends some of his last moments of freedom praying for you and me.

And he prays what what our lives will be like through him by following him.

This is what he wants life to look like.

We have this amazing opportunity through this prayer to see exactly what Jesus envisioned when he thought about his followers living life.

And the cool thing about this prayer is you can actually live in such a way that you fulfill the prayer of Jesus.

That's a crazy thing to think about for me.

That I can live in such a way that Jesus looks at my life and says, yes, that's what I was praying for.

That's what I want.

I know I've fallen short of that a lot, but I want that.

I love Jesus, even when I'm not very good at loving him.

I love him.

And I want to live in such a way that makes him go, that's exactly what I was praying for, what I hoped for.

And so we've been going through it bit by bit, and today we're we're in the very last section.

And some of this is what we covered last week.

We'll kind of back up just a little bit for context.

And we're going to go into John 17, 22 through 26.

And here's what Jesus prays: I have given them the glory that you gave me, so they may be one as we are one.

I am in them and you are in me.

May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.

Father, I want those whom you have given me to be with me where I am.

Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began.

O righteous Father, the world doesn't know you, but I do.

And these disciples know you sent me.

I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so.

Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.

Jesus closes this prayer, and it's it's like we've talked about every single week.

This is Jesus, who is God the Son, praying to God the Father.

It's very deep, it's very layered.

If you're like me, you've got to read it three or four times and just try to pick it all apart because it's a conversation that I would not be tracking with on my own.

But Jesus prays at the end, he says that he wants us to have the love of God, the love that God has for Jesus.

He actually says that God has the same love for us.

God the Father loves us the same as he loves Jesus the Son.

That's incredible.

We mentioned that last week, but didn't have time to really go into it.

And then he prays that that love, that love will be in us.

Not that we would just experience it once or twice here and there, but that love would be in us, that he would literally be in us, and we would feel that as we lived.

And so we're gonna talk today about the love of God.

Now I'm gonna be honest with you.

I I was not very excited about this topic on Monday.

Or really, really Monday through, let's go with yesterday.

And for a really dumb reason.

I have talked about the love of God more times than I could count.

I've probably given more messages on the love of God.

If you've been part of his hands like the entire 20 years of our existence, people understanding the love that God has for them is foundational to everything that we focus on.

I mean, I hope, I hope if you've been part of this church for a long time, I hope that you have heard multiple times how much God loves you, that you've been reminded, even at your low points, that you are loved by God.

I really, really hope so.

It's just that I've talked about this so many times that I had this moment where I was like, I don't want to talk about that again.

I've like, God, check, covered it.

Come on.

And so I thought for a little bit, like maybe there's another angle I could take.

I could try to find sort of an interesting angle on this section, but then I have this deep conviction that you should actually teach what the scripture says and not try to just make it cool because it is cool on its own.

And so I just sort of reserve myself to being like, okay, God, I guess we're uh I guess we're gonna do a message about your love.

Cool.

And that was sort of my attitude all week long.

And then I was I was reminded of something that Steve, uh the pastor before me who started his hands, no doubt one of the top two pastors in our in our history, uh, Steve, um, this is not a question.

Depends on who you ask, but top two for sure.

Steve used to say this a lot, because he talked about God's love a ton more than I'd ever really heard anyone talk about it, and in different ways than I'd ever heard anyone talk about it.

And Steve said that people always think that love is the basic thing.

Especially kind of like religious people.

That, yeah, love, God's love, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's like the elementary stuff.

We teach that to kids, God loves you, and blah, blah, blah.

When are we gonna get to the good stuff, like the hard stuff?

And Steve was like, You've got it so backwards.

Love, like the love of God and living in that love and with that love for other people, that's the hard thing.

There's no more advanced course than that.

Like, what's easier following a list of rules or loving people the way that God loves people?

Love is the hard thing.

Love's the thing we need to focus on the most.

Love is the thing that even when you think you've got it, when you think you've mastered it, you haven't.

Like, I don't know if you've had that experience in life or you think you have something mastered and then you learn that you don't.

You learn that actually you're terrible at it.

Give you an example.

This is a silly one, but I took uh one of my kids to a checkup not that long ago, about a year ago.

And at this checkup, I don't know why the doctor decided to test their eyesight and their ability to see color.

I've never had a doctor test that.

And so the doctor pulls out this booklet and they're they're turning the page, and there's all these colors on the page kind of blended together, kind of look like confetti.

And apparently there were there were numbers visible in those confetti blobs.

And so I watched this doctor with my child go, Can you see the number?

And my child's like, I don't see the number, and they're like, interesting.

And I was like, uh, doctor?

I also do not see a number.

And so I don't know if I don't think there's a number there.

And then the doctor's like, huh, and they decided to test me.

And basically, the doctor told me that I am uh very colorblind, which I didn't know.

I mean, my wife's always made some interesting faces at my like choices of clothing, but I thought that was more like uh just a style thing.

Didn't realize maybe it was clashing.

But I told the doctor, I was like, I don't think I'm colorblind, and I think I know colors really well.

And so the doctor like points to a color on this little color wheel and says, What would you call this?

And it was kind of a shade of blue, and I was like, Yeah, the teal, teal-ish.

And the doctor's like, yeah, that is teal-ish.

And so I nailed all of them.

Every time she pointed to a color, I was like, See, I know it.

And then the doctor said something I'll never forget.

The doctor was like, No, no, you don't understand.

Uh and it's awesome when you have doctors now.

I don't know how many of you have this experience that are much younger than you.

Um, it's a weird thing.

Those of you who are young, you every doctor you've ever had is like old, and then one day a doctor walks in the room and you're like, you're not a doctor.

Uh and they are, it's just you're old.

And so the doctor said, Well, at your at your age, okay, when doctors start saying that to you, like at your age, um, she said, you know, at your age, you have just learned what these colors look like to you so well that you've learned how to name them, but you've actually probably never seen these colors.

Like, you don't see what I see.

And to be in my 40s and realize I've never apparently seen teal.

I thought I had this mastered.

I thought I was like, colors, give me a box of crowns, I will crush it.

And apparently I can't even see colors.

Blew my mind.

Sometimes you you think you have something mastered, and then you find out, oh wow, you don't understand it nearly as much as you think you do.

That was a fun day.

You know, the love of God, it's like that.

There's moments where I think I've got this.

I love God's love, yes, he loves me, and and love, love, love, and I think I've got it, I've got it mastered.

And maybe you do as well, but then you just have to ask a couple questions, like, okay, do you ever struggle with insecurity in your relationship with God?

Do you ever worry that God's upset with you, that maybe you're not in a very good place with him, you're on thin ice, you know, you haven't been doing great lately, you haven't been crushing it in the whole God department.

And so maybe God isn't quite excited about you right now, maybe his love for you is waning a little bit, you feel insecure.

If that ever happens, that means you've got a long way to go when it comes to the love of God.

Because that love that he has for us, it is unconditional.

And insecurity is fear, and we're told in Scripture that God's perfect love drives out fear, it casts out fear.

Or if maybe people in your life, if they were asked, does this person just exude the love of God?

Like if you were to go ask my family, does Justin just exude the love of God?

By the way, don't.

This is rhetorical.

Um definitely, just no need.

But if you were to say, hey, on a daily basis, does Justin being in the room just make you feel the love of God?

Um, if the answer is no, you got some room to grow in your mastery of God's love because it should be that we are just walking vessels of God's love, and where we go, people feel deeply loved.

This is one of those things that's it's very, it's like easy to understand on a conceptual level, but really hard to master.

So we've got to we've got to stop and even if it seems like a basic idea, say, Lord, I want to grow in your love.

I want to grow in your understanding, in my understanding of what your love is and how to live it out.

And it's tough.

It's it's tough.

It's tough for a variety of reasons.

One, our world has this really jacked-up view of love.

And we live in the world and we see the world's version of love all the time, and sometimes we're convinced that that's what love is and and we react to it in different ways.

Like, for example, our world is big on this idea that if you really love someone, your number one priority is their happiness.

Right?

If you love someone, all you really care as long as they're happy.

If I if I love you, I should just I care deeply about your happiness.

And that's true to a point.

It's like compassion.

Compassion is a component of love.

But sometimes that's used in our culture to say, like, yeah, if you really love someone, you never risk upsetting them, offending them, challenging them in any way.

There's sort of this fluffy version of love that we're given.

But listen to what 1 Corinthians 13, verse 6 says.

1 Corinthians 13:6

This is describing the love of God, that God's love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth.

God's love isn't just some cutesy little thing.

God's love is intense, and it's it's a love that actually cares about us so much that it's willing to risk challenging us.

I heard it said this way once that God loves us so much that he's willing to challenge who we are because he cares more about who we're meant to be.

But sometimes in our world, no, if you love someone, you don't just just let it go.

Don't even if something's really wrong, you just don't bring it up because that might mess up the happiness quotient, and we don't want to do that.

But God's love is it rejoices with the truth.

It's it's a righteous love.

We don't see a lot of that in the world.

Even in the church world, we have this sort of interesting view of God's love.

Right?

Like a lot of people who who maybe would be described as really serious about their faith, deeply dedicated Christians, like they're living the right way, but sometimes their lives just are not very loving at all.

Like they they seem like they would be no fun at a party.

Just none whatsoever.

Like you wouldn't invite them to your birthday party because they just make it miserable.

You know, they'd be like offended at the cake or something.

I don't know.

You know what I'm talking about?

Like, it's like sometimes there's this sort of religious thing that minimizes love, and and people are sort of repelled by that.

But listen to what Paul says about the importance of love.

1 Corinthians 13:1, if I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn't love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.

1 Corinthians 13:1

If I had the gift of prophecy and if I understood all of God's secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains but didn't love others, I would be nothing.

If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my own body, I could boast about it, but if I didn't love others, I would have gained nothing.

That's how important love is in God's world.

You could be the most serious Christian and you read your Bible every day and you pray ten times a day and you give and you all these things, but if you don't love people, I mean Paul says, who cares?

That's pretty intense.

1 John 4, 7 and 8.

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another.

For love comes from God.

Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God, but anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

God is love.

And his love is a different kind of love.

The Greek word for it is agape.

If you've grown up in church, you've probably heard about this.

We have all these different Greek words for love, but God's love, it is unconditional, it is self-sacrificial.

1 Corinthians 13 says that love is patient, it is kind, it doesn't boast, it's not envious, it's not rude, it's not self-seeking, it keeps no record of wrongs, it doesn't delight in evil, but it rejoices with the truth.

It's patient, right?

It always bears things out, it endures, it trusts, and it never fails.

That's the love of God.

And we're supposed to love like that.

Now, is that is that basic or is that hard?

Like that is that's that's intense.

And so maybe the best way to sort of put this together, at least for me, is this key idea.

You cannot give what you have not received.

You can't give what you you don't have.

It's basic.

And so if we want to be people that can say, yes, what Jesus prayed for, the love of God in my life, I carry it with me everywhere I go, and I give it to everybody, and I'm someone who loves the way that I'm challenged to love.

I want to love with God's love.

Well, the only way to do that is to receive it and to understand it.

To understand like what it really is as best as possible.

And so I got a couple thoughts for us.

Just a couple of a couple of observations about the love of God.

The first one's this, it's very basic.

God's love goes first.

God's love goes goes first.

We are taught in human wisdom to love carefully, cautiously.

Right?

And we should.

We should, because when you love, I mean, there's a great verse in scripture that says when it comes to human relationships, especially romantic relationships, do not awaken love until it's time because you're playing with fire, essentially.

But we're sort of taught, we learn the hard way, you gotta love carefully, cautiously.

Like, don't give your love to people who haven't earned your trust.

In fact, I'll tell the story uh until the day I die.

I've told the story so many times, but it's my story, so I'm gonna keep telling it, and uh, it's one of my favorites.

I told my wife that I loved her three weeks into our relationship.

Someone actually posted a picture of Megan and I, and I'm gonna put it up just because it's the thing you gotta do, you know, when you're older and someone talks about you, whatever.

So this is Megan and I when we were kids.

This is when we fell in love.

Uh, someone posted this picture online.

Yep, look at that.

Oh that.

I only had one uh chin back then, only one neck.

You know, it's a smaller neck.

Weird.

Um, you can see why I fell in love with her, out of my league, clearly.

But I told her that three weeks into our relationship.

We've been on like two dates, and I said, I love you.

And she said, Thank you.

Um that is what she told me in response.

Wasn't the response I was I was hoping for.

Um, but I didn't quit.

I kept going.

And by the way, I know we have our high school students with us.

Uh, girls, if a guy says, I mean guys, if if the person you're dating says they love you three weeks in, thank you is the appropriate response.

That I mean it actually is, that is the right response.

Because three weeks, I love you three weeks in, come on.

That's crazy.

And it kind of was.

We are taught to love carefully.

Because if you don't, if you love, like if you go first in love, if you just go all out right away, ooh that's dangerous.

But God's love, it isn't careful.

Like God's love goes first, it goes first.

Scripture puts it this way, in Ephesians chapter 1, verses 4 through 5.

Ephesians 1:4–5

Even before he made the world, think about that.

Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.

God decided in advance, and that's in advance of what?

Creation.

To adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.

This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

That is one of the craziest theological things you could ever read.

It means that before God created the world, he was like, we're gonna make people, and they're gonna mess up royally.

And then what we're gonna do is we're gonna, you know, Jesus, the son, you're gonna go down, you're gonna live as one of them, you're gonna die as a sacrifice just so they know how deeply they're loved, and then we're gonna restore them back into relationship with us.

It's gonna be amazing.

Are you so excited about this?

I can't wait.

Like, who that's that is not cautious.

It's that's incredible.

It means God doesn't love us out of obligation.

We have a lot of love like that.

Well, it's because this relationship already exists, and so I gotta do the love thing because you know it's here.

He we hadn't even been made yet.

He was not obligated to love us, we didn't exist yet.

But he created us not so that we could love him, he created us so that he could love us.

That's amazing.

That's why it says in 1 John 4 10, this is real love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

God's love goes first.

It is not cautious.

A few years ago there was a song that got really popular.

We sang it here at His Hands.

Uh maybe we still do every once in a while.

Uh it's Reckless Love was the name of it.

Reckless Love.

And it caused a big stir.

A lot of people got upset about that song.

And if you're one of those people, that's okay.

I mean, look, when when human beings try our best to describe the love of God, you know, it's it's tough.

That's a tough thing to do.

And so there was just all this talk, like reckless, God's love, like reckless.

You can't be reckless, can't describe his love as reckless.

And it's like, well, what would the opposite of that be?

It'd be like cautious.

What if there was a worship song, the the cautious love of God?

You know, we get together on a Sunday and sing like, oh, the super careful, very cautious, prudent love of God.

You know?

He waits to see if we're worth it.

Uh you know, he gives it out little bits at a time.

And then if we do good, he gives a little more.

Like, that's not, we would never sing that.

Because his love isn't like that.

And maybe reckless isn't the best word, I don't know, but but it's definitely not careful, it's definitely not cautious.

Oh, God's love goes first, and the beautiful thing about that is no matter where you're at today, even if you're here and you have never given your life to Jesus, uh, you're with a friend, you're just checking it out, you are loved by God.

He loves you.

So much so that he's already sent his own son to die, to pay the price for every mistake you've ever made.

He's already done that.

That's been done.

That is that is love going first.

God's love goes first.

And those of us who have been following Jesus for a long time, we we have this tendency to get our thoughts twisted to believe that his love is a reward for our performance.

So maybe you don't feel very loved by God when you know you haven't been, you haven't been at your best, you've been struggling.

It's just been tough.

And you've fallen short, as we all do.

And so maybe God's love for you is less than it once was.

That's not how he loves.

That's that's how we love, and maybe how we have to love because we live in a broken world, but God, he's not part of that.

He goes first.

He loves you, he loved you before he made you, he loved you before he made anything, and his love for you is it is a constant, present thing.

His love goes first.

Number two, and I kind of mentioned this a minute ago, so we'll go a little deeper here.

God's love doesn't just go first, it goes all out.

It goes all out.

It is extravagant.

There's a phrase that I've never said, and I want to one day.

And it comes with a certain hand gesture.

You kind of go like this and you go, spare no expense.

Spare no expense.

I don't know if you've ever said that before.

Maybe I don't I haven't had the resources to, or maybe I haven't had the right mindset, I don't know what it is, but I've never just been like, you know what?

Spare no expense.

Whatever it costs.

And so, like every Christmas, um, and one of my one of my kids is in the room, so I'm not going to name what this is, so that they that way they won't know how disappointed they should be because of what they don't have.

But um, but every year, every year Megan will come to me and she look, man, like I'm very prudent.

That'd be a good word when it comes to Christmas planning.

I present a Reasonable list.

We'll meet and I'm like, hey, here's some of the things I've heard the kids say, and here's what I think we maybe can, you know, this this makes sense.

Except for the year that we got a PS5.

And to be honest, that was as much for me as it was for the kids.

So I was like, you know, we just gotta do this, babe.

We just gotta do this.

We need this.

Have you seen MBA 2K?

I mean, come on.

We have to play.

Um no, but but I it's it's a reasonable list.

Megan, I don't know what, I don't know what websites she is on or what her Facebook algorithm is because she says crazy stuff.

She'll come to me a couple years ago, she came to me and she said, Justin, Christmas.

And she named a thing.

And I was like, okay.

Well that that seems pretty expensive.

I don't know what what it costs.

Like, how much does that cost?

And and you know you're in trouble in your marriage when you ask the question, how much does it cost?

But the answer is not the answer to that question.

Like I was like, how much does it cost?

She goes, It's on sale.

I have a big discount.

And this is what she told me.

She said, and I'm like, that's not the same, that's not the answer to that.

Like, she goes, right now, they're having a huge sale.

It is$1,500 off.

And I was like, well, unless they're having one of those rare 99% off sales.

See, you hear$1,500 off and you think, deal, I hear$1,500 off.

I'm like, off of what?

Like, if they're giving$1,500 off, I'm gonna guess there's a lot of hundreds still on.

And uh, and so she we looked it up and I was like, no.

No.

Our kids don't need that.

Sorry, kids.

Um, so I didn't do the whole spare no expense, whatever it cost.

I didn't do that.

I was like, we gotta come on.

God's love is extravagant, it goes all out, it spares no expense.

We've already kind of read about it.

1 John 4, 9 and 10.

We'll back up a verse.

We used verse 10 a minute ago.

God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.

This is real love.

Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son as a sacrifice to take our sins away.

John 3.16, Jesus said, This is how God loved the world.

This is how much he loved the world.

That he gave his one and only son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

I mean, how much more all-out can that be?

One of the most famous stories that Jesus ever told has been called the story of the prodigal son.

Jesus did not name it that.

We have named it that.

The word prodigal means essentially like lavish spending in a way that others would view as wasteful.

It's prodigal.

And years ago, Ben Sykes, who is an awesome part of our church, is on our worship team, he gave a message, I'll never forget it, about how really we should have called that story the story of the prodigal father.

Because if you read the story, yeah, the son, he takes his inheritance early, basically says to his father, I'd rather you be dead and I just have the money, but since you're not dead yet, can I have it now?

And he goes off and he wastes it all on while living.

But he comes back, and the father's response is to be what others would deem, especially in light of what his son has done, wasteful and how much he celebrates his son.

He goes all out to show his love for his child, even though his child has been horrible.

In Luke 15, 22, we we get to that moment.

The son comes back and he's like, Father, I've made all these terrible mistakes.

He was basically starving to death because he had nothing left, and he came back home seeing if he could just be a servant in his father's household, especially after everything he'd done to his father.

And so his father says to the servants, Quick, bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him.

Get a ring for his finger, sandals for his feet, and kill the calf that we've been fattening.

We must celebrate with a feast.

For this son of mine was dead, and now he is returned to life.

He was lost, but now he's found.

Now, this fattened calf thing's gonna come up a bit.

I guess this is something that wealthy families used to do is they would have a calf and they would just feed it a lot and they would be getting it fat.

And this calf probably thought that it was the favorite.

This calf was like, they love this calf's talking to the other calves, going like they love me more than they love you, because look how much more they feed me every night.

You get a little bit, I get a lot, I'm the favorite.

The calf has no idea.

Um it's kind of a sad tale.

It says, the party begins.

Verse 25.

Meanwhile, the older son, the son that didn't leave, the son that's stayed faithful to his father and worked in the fields.

It says, Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working, and when he's returned home, when he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house.

And he asked one of the servants, What's going on?

Your brother is back, he was told, and your father's killed the fattened calf.

We are celebrating because of his safe return.

The older brother was angry and would not go in.

His father came out and begged him, but he replied, All these years I've slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me.

And in all that time, you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends, which is a weird thing to complain about to your dad.

You never give me goats.

It seems reasonable.

It says, Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf.

That calf was a big deal, man.

Everyone's talking about it.

His father said to him, Look, dear son, you've always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours.

We had to celebrate this happy day, for your brother was dead and has come back to life.

He was lost, but now he's found.

You know, the lavishness of the father's spending, finest robe, ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, party, music, dancing, calf.

We're gonna eat it.

The lavishness.

The older son looks at that and says, What a waste.

What a waste.

He's not worth that.

Look at what he did to our family.

Look what he did to you.

Why would you why would you do this?

And the son, the older son, doesn't understand the father's love, just like we often don't understand the love of God.

Because we are the prodigal son.

But we have the prodigal father.

And his love goes all out.

It spares no expense, it holds nothing back.

It's not cautious.

It doesn't pinch pennies and go, well, that's a little much.

If I do that, what are they going to expect the next time?

Like he doesn't do that.

His love goes goes all out.

Jesus put it this way in John 15, 13, there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends.

No greater love than that.

So what do you do with that kind of love?

That is how we are loved by God.

That is how much you're loved.

And I don't know if you've ever experienced some earthly version of love like that.

I hope you have.

I know some of us love just that word is a loaded word, right?

Because love, uh, well, they've written songs.

Apparently it stinks at times, it hurts.

Um loves hard.

Human love's hard.

But if you've ever had a moment where you just got a taste of God's love, to understand that whatever moment that was is a sliver.

Like, okay, when I told Megan that I loved her three weeks into our relationship, and she said thank you, wasn't my best moment.

Several months later, when she said it back, I said it every day after that.

I just said, I love you, I love.

No, I didn't do that.

No, I recognized, like, ooh, I may have overplayed my hand here.

Um, so play it cool.

Play it cool for a while, you know.

And we kept dating, and eventually she said it to me.

And I'm telling you, when I when I heard those words, and she said, I love you, and then I looked at her and said, Thank you.

I mean, it was like one of the greatest, no.

No, that didn't happen.

That didn't happen.

Never happened.

No, it was like one of the greatest moments of my life.

Just like a just a taste of that.

It was like a sliver, a taste of the love that God has.

Like I thought in that moment I was like, this is it, this is life.

This makes my life.

That's nothing compared to the love of God.

Or my kids, like, I love my kids so much.

And and my boys always say that I love my daughter more than I love them, and that is not true.

How many dads, by the way, have daughters?

Like dads have daughters, just different, you know.

And she's better behaved.

So it just feels like I love her more.

And what they mean by I love her more is that she gets in trouble less.

But if they would just do what she does, they'd get in trouble less too.

So I'm just waiting for them to figure out that very simple math equation.

But clean your room.

It's as simple as that, you know?

No.

Like I remember the first time my daughter smiled at me.

I don't know if you ever had that experience.

Uh those of you who are dads who had daughters, where she just looked at me and smiled at me.

And I was like, that whole dad's wrapped around their daughter's fingers thing, that's that's real.

That's real.

It was real, it was real at two months, whatever age she was.

When she smiled for the first time, I was like, I will I'll do anything to feel this again, keep this again, you know.

And that was just a sliver.

Like that was just a taste.

And here's what's crazy: if you've ever experienced the love of God, like if you've ever had that, you've been in church and there's a song and we're singing it, and you just have this moment or or you're praying with someone and and you feel that love, just understand that even that was just a sliver of how much he loves you.

And one day on the other side of this life, we will be in eternity with our God, and every moment of every day, we will be overwhelmed by the love that God has for us.

It will be a constant, we will feel it, we will never question it, we won't wonder, we won't be like, oh, I wonder if it's changed.

I know what.

No, it'll just be normal for us.

But I hope that on this side of heaven you've had at least a sliver.

Just understand that whatever amount of love that you've experienced, it is a it is a tiny, tiny taste of how much God loves you.

He loves you so much.

And and as Jesus is praying in the garden, as he's about to go to the cross, the last thing he decides to pray, the last thing he decides to ask the Father for is that that love, the love that the Father has for him, the same love he has for us, that we would experience that, that it would be in us.

With that kind of love, you gotta respond, right?

You just have to respond.

You can respond by rejecting it.

Many have.

And that's why his love is sometimes described as reckless, because he he loves everyone, even if he knows there's a high chance that they will reject him.

He goes all out.

He goes first.

You can choose to reject that love.

You can choose to sort of politely, you know, you can go the thank you route.

And then sort of just table it and think about it and ponder it.

And, you know, if that's where you're at, it's it's fine.

Just you can't live there for long.

Like you can figure it out and try to process it, but eventually you've got to either reject it or receive it.

And my prayer today is that you would receive the love of God.

Is that each of us would embrace that.

That we get past the whole, I'm not worthy, I'm not worth it, you know.

Yeah.

Duh.

Raise your hand if you think you're worth God's love.

Oh, I was expecting no one to raise their hand.

That's actually good.

Firstly, part of me was like, you selfish, egotistical people, you think you're worth it?

You are worth it.

That's the right.

How many of you think you're worth it?

See?

It's hard, right?

Because you're like, I'm not.

Well, based on whose reasoning?

Like, based on your own reasoning, sure.

But if he says you're worth it, are you?

Like honestly, if he says you're worth it, are you?

If you had a car for sale, and let's say it's just a junker, it's worth a thousand bucks, maybe$500,$200, I don't care, whatever.

And someone walked up and said, I'll give you$20,000 for that car.

Would you take it?

Guys, this is not a hard question.

Some of you are like, I don't know, the ethical moral.

No, you take, yes.

Yes, if they go, I'll give you a give you 20 grand for that car.

This is not even a question, you don't think about it.

You go, cool, great, sweet.

And you know what?

If they think it's worth 20 grand, they're the buyer.

Like, who get who actually gets to determine how valuable something is?

The person who buys it.

My dad taught me that at a young age.

I would I have I had baseball cards and I thought they were worth a lot, and he'd be like, it's only worth as much as someone will pay for it.

He said that all the time.

It's kind of annoying.

And but it's true.

If the father has determined that you are worth the life of his son, the blood of Jesus, are you?

You are.

Anyone having a hard time grasping that?

Like, is it hard to just admit it?

Okay.

Let's do this.

Let's take Lord's Supper together.

I'm gonna read 1 John 4, 13 through 17.

It says that God has given us his spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us.

Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his son to be the savior of the world.

And all who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God.

We know how much God loves us.

And we've put our trust in his love.

God is love.

And all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.

And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect.

So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.

I don't know what more he could have done to prove his love for us.

This meal that we take every Sunday, this is a meal that is symbolic of the sacrifice that Jesus made.

What more could he have done?

The bread is his body, the juice is his blood.

We're gonna take that together in just a moment.

Remember what he did for us.

But this is a demonstration of love.

And sometimes we're we're led to believe that he had to do this, it was his only option.

You know, he was back into a corner.

No, no, no.

Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

This is what he wanted to do before he created the world.

That before he created the world, he decided in advance to love us and in advance to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ the Son.

This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

You are deeply loved by God.

Don't ever let anyone convince you otherwise.

Definitely don't convince yourself otherwise.

You can reject it if you want to.

You can play around with it for a little bit, but ultimately this is to be received and held on to.

And it's meant to become so real that it's internalized to a point that scripture describes it as being in you.

That you walk around, that you live your life with the love of God in you, part of you, cannot be separated from you.

That is how deeply loved you are by God.

And my prayer this morning is that you just feel it, that you believe it.

Honestly, not even that you feel it, because sometimes we elevate feelings weight, that you believe it.

My prayers that you believe with your whole heart that you are that loved by God, because he says you are.

So, with that said, let's take the bread.

And let's pray.

Father, we thank you for this bread.

Or this is your body.

This is a gift, this is an act of love.

And this makes every single over-the-top demonstration of love that we have is a cliche in our world.

It just puts it all to shame.

Forget flowers, Lord.

Forget love letters.

You gave your life for us.

You left the comfort of heaven, you lived a hard life, you endured constant doubt, hatred, misunderstanding, shame.

And yet you went to the cross and you gave your life for us.

Not out of obligation, but out of love.

For you so loved us, that you gave your one and only Son, Father.

Lord, as we take this, I pray that right now in this moment that we're not receiving a piece of bread.

That we don't look at this as a ritual, as a little ceremony that we do to just get our minds on you, even though that is what it is and that's valuable.

But that as we take this into us, we would recognize that this is your love and that we are meant to receive your love.

It is meant to be in us, it is meant to become part of us.

Help us receive the love that you've given us.

Let's take the bread.

Let's take the bread.

Now the Jews.

Lord, this is your blood.

You cleansed us, you purify us, you cover our sin.

Because you love us.

Believe that, help us hold on to that.

Give us a confidence in your love that is unshakable.

And I pray in your name Jesus that as we take this sin, that we would leave this place today.

Confident, grateful, and certain that the love of the God of the universe is in us.

And nothing can ever change that.

Let's take the juice.