Message - Personal Love

Well, I hope you guys are doing well.

Really excited about what we're gonna talk about today.

We started a series last week called Different.

The lights just came on.

I see you all now.

That's great.

It's like we started a series last week called Different, and it's based off the understatement of all time.

Jesus is different.

He's different.

Like usually when we use the phrase who does that, it's a negative thing, right?

If you know someone who does something, maybe they they do something that's just not socially acceptable or or it's rude, you know, you say, like, who does that?

But but with Jesus, if you actually look at his life and the way that he lived it, you can say who does that constantly.

Like, like who has all the authority in the world, like total authority, and then lays that authority aside and submits themselves to the people that they created, even to the point of death on a cross, even though those people don't even like them.

Like who does that?

Jesus.

Right?

Or like who has the power to perform miracles?

Unlike anything the world has ever seen.

And then doesn't use any of that power to benefit themselves, even to rescue themselves from danger, but uses all of that power to bless other people, to help and to heal hurting broken people.

Like who does that?

Jesus does.

Because he's different.

Or who has uh the attention of the most important people in the world?

Like who's on the radar of all the most influential people in society, but decides instead of spending time with them, uh trying to gain whatever advantage they could gain by by being close with those people, uh, instead decides instead to just spend all their time with common people with even the lowest of the low in society.

Like, who does that?

And the answer is Jesus, because he's different.

Who dies and then gets back up three days later?

Like, who does that?

Right?

Jesus.

Because Jesus is he's fundamentally different.

That again, that's the understatement of all time.

Jesus is different.

And because we're his followers, he asks us to be different as well.

And that's what we're talking about over the course of the next few weeks.

What does it mean for us to be to be different?

In Matthew chapter 20, Jesus is talking with his disciples, with his followers, and uh, they're having a conversation about the way the world works.

Matthew 20 · chapter mention

And essentially they're talking about the values of their day and how everyone's looking out for themselves, everyone's trying to get ahead, everyone just cares about what comes to them, how are they gonna be blessed, how's it gonna benefit them?

Very different world, obviously, than the world we live in, because no one today has those filters, right?

That some things never change.

And he says, Look, guys, that's the way the world works, but he says a very powerful statement.

He says, But among you it will be different.

But among you it will be different.

And then he teaches his disciples that they're gonna serve one another.

And he says, if you want to be the greatest, be a servant.

Because in God's economy, he says the first will be last, and the last will be first.

He says, Among you it will be different.

It's a theme that actually runs through a lot of the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament, Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

Jesus says, You are the light of the world, like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.

No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket.

Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand where it gives light to everyone in the house.

In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.

First Peter 2 9 says, You're not like that, talking about the rest of the world.

You're a chosen people.

You are royal priests, a holy nation.

That word holy means set apart, it means different for a special purpose.

You're God's very own possession.

As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness and into his wonderful light.

So, what this is telling us is that as Jesus followers, we're to be different, but not just different for the sake of being different.

I mean, how many of us have had experiences where we had something, we experienced something, and we were like, that's that's different.

But it wasn't necessarily a positive thing.

Are we awake this morning?

Everybody good here?

All right, good.

I just want to make sure.

We'll make sure.

Alright, I'll give you an example.

My my wife recently went out to a local Mexican restaurant, and we'll not name the restaurant, uh, because I don't know, maybe you work there or not.

But uh, but at the end of the meal, which was phenomenal, I wasn't there, I wasn't invited to this particular meal.

She was out with her friends.

Apparently, I'm not one of the friends, you know.

But uh, but she's out to the meal, she orders a dessert, and one of the things she loves is is something called Trace Leches cake.

Have you ever had Trace Leche?

Anyone have Trace Leches?

There we go, let's wake up for food, here we go.

So, Trace Leches, if you haven't third it, literally translates in Spanish uh to English to three milks, I believe.

And uh and so it's like a very creamy cake, and and usually it's topped with like a really heavy cream.

And so she takes a bite, she's excited, Trace Leches, that's her jam, and she puts it in her mouth and immediately goes, This is different.

Turns out, instead of pouring uh like sweet cream over the top, they poured queso on top of it, you know.

And ironically, she said it's not bad.

Like, I mean, it it's hard to pour cheese on things and make it worse, number one.

That's just like that's life.

But but it was different.

You know, she's like, it's different.

I don't think I would, and she even asked, Is this the way you guys do this?

And they're like, oh no, I'm so sorry.

I we were just confused, they look alike, and like, yeah.

What was great is that they still charged her for it whenever she paid the bill.

I thought that was interesting.

But uh that's that'd been different.

If I would have been the one, I'd be like, hey guys, I'm not paying for your cheesecake thing here.

Although cheesecake is actually my favorite dessert, but not that kind of cheesecake, so never mind.

You know, there's a such thing as something that's different, but not in a good way.

It's just different weird.

We're not called, this is important, Jesus followers.

I know not all of us have made this decision, but we are not called to be different weird.

Okay?

Being odd is not a fruit of the spirit.

All right?

It's not.

We're called, though, to be different for a purpose.

He says, we're the light of the world.

We're meant to live in such a way that is so different than the way the world around us operates that people notice it and they see the goodness of God.

We're called to be different in order to make a difference, because you cannot make a difference unless you're different.

It's what we're doing for the next few weeks is exploring what is it about us that is actually supposed to be different, like different how.

And last week we said that the very first two conversations we were gonna have about the difference that we're supposed to have in our lives involves two words, truth and love.

And if you weren't here last week, we talked about truth, but the the basic concept is this the culture we live in right now is interesting because it has these ideas kind of upside down.

We live in a culture that very much values and more so every day, the idea of personal truth.

Truth is becoming more and more up to the person.

And so we have the ability to define what is true for us and what's true for me may not be true for you.

And while there are some aspects of life that maybe that's the case when it comes to, I don't know, your taste buds and your preferences and in music or whatnot, in most areas of life, what is true for you is absolutely true for me.

Like gravity is true for me.

Okay?

It's also true for you.

We could test it, it's gonna work.

Right?

Because it's a truth.

So we have a culture that's all about personal truth, but then we also have this culture that's all about general love.

Like love is often talked about in very strange ways in our world.

Like it's talked very often about it, like it's a thing that's out there.

Love is a thing.

And you've heard this because people fall in it all the time.

Like, how many of you, show of hands, how many of you have fallen in love?

You fell right in it.

More of you should be raising your hands than you are.

I know why you're not raising your hands, because you climbed out of it at some point in time.

And maybe you look back at that time, you fell in love with some regret.

Right?

Because if you can fall in it, you can climb out of it.

Or love is talked about like a thing you find.

Someone's like, I found love, I found it.

And then they lost it.

Right?

Like love is it's discussed as if it's this thing.

Or or or it's talked about in very broad stroke terms.

Like we are called as people, we're we're supposed to love people.

And our culture is all about that.

Our culture says, hey, love general groups of people.

Like, love, love people, love that group of people, love this group of people.

But our culture is also really bad at loving people.

Like it, we individual people, no, we have no tolerance for them at all, no patience.

They say one thing that's wrong, they're gone, they're done.

We don't love them, but we love people, just not people.

The truth of the matter is, what changes our lives is when we base our lives on general truth, real, unchanging truth, the truth of God, and when we experience personal love.

And so today we're gonna have a conversation about the personal love of Jesus Christ.

And on the front end, I just want you to understand that if you've never had an encounter or an experience with the personal love of Jesus, the love that He has for you personally, there is nothing like it, it will change your life.

And my prayer is that you either have that experience today, if you have not, or you walk out of this place, or if you're watching from home, you you leave and say, I need that, and I'm gonna seek it until I find it.

Because nothing will change your life like a personal experience with the love that Jesus has for you.

All right, we'll clap for that.

That's fine.

You know what made that clap work is the person who started it was committed.

Like they did the, they was strong, it wasn't like, oh, should I have that was good.

So whoever started that clap, away to go.

That was great.

You know, as people, we love things to be personalized.

I mean, how many of you like stuff that's custom?

How many of you enjoy things that are like they're custom to you?

Here's a great way to look at this.

Um, if you get a new phone, if you get a new phone, you're either a person who immediately begins to customize it, to personalize it to your preferences, or you're someone who's just good with standard.

How many of you, I know I'm asking for a lot of hand raises and stuff today, you don't have to participate, that's up to you.

But but help me out.

How many of you are like, my ringtone is the standard default ringtone?

You're those, you're those people.

I'm one of you.

And and like brothers and sisters, I'm one of you, and that means we all have the same experience where you're in line somewhere to store, and the person behind you, their phone rings, but because they're close in proximity, it's the same sound as yours.

You reach in your pocket or or you reach in your purse and you're like, oh, that's not me, and that's kind of embarrassing and weird.

Like, how many of you have had that experience, right?

Yeah, because it's the but you can change that.

My my wife loves to personalize things, she loves it.

When we got married, I remember she she took pillows and had our initials embroidered on the pillows, things that never would have been in my life had I not been married.

If I wasn't married, nothing ever would have been embroidered once.

Even if it was free, even if they were like, hey, for free, we will put your initials on it.

I'd be like, nah, I don't no, no, thank you, but we have embroidered stuff, which is cool.

Um when my wife gets her phone, the first thing she starts to do is she starts to personalize it, she customizes it, she changes the ringtone, she changes the settings, she even changes the voice of Siri.

We have iPhones, and so my Siri sounds like Siri, which, if you don't have an iPhone, I'm sure you're you've heard the Siri voice, like it's a kind of robotic voice.

That's the sound I have.

And so uh the joke is that that means when I drive and my Siri is telling me where to go, I have two women telling me what to do at the exact same time.

Which, haha, right?

Like that's semi-offensive joke today, but it's true.

It's hard.

It's hard to like I one of you, I can only listen to one of you, right?

I choose Megan.

I do.

Because Siri can't get mad at me.

That's how it works.

Megan, though, she her Siri is not that Siri.

Megan Siri is a British man.

Now that is a very telling response from the female population in the room.

I'm gonna be honest, I was a little like, what does this mean?

Like the first time we were driving, like this, I'd never heard this, we're driving, and her phone was the one that was hooked up to the car, and so it the voice comes on.

And I remember the the street we were about to turn on was a boulevard, but he said boulevard, like very British.

And I was like, what's wrong with your Siri?

And she's like, Oh, I changed it to a British man's voice.

And I was like, why should I be concerned?

Right?

And I'm not.

I want you to know, I'm secure.

Because like the the the specific voice that this Siri is, I'm pretty sure I can take him.

Like it's it's a very, like it's a very uh oh man, it's a very proper, uh it's like a Hugh Grant.

If you know Hugh Grant, the actor, it's like this very proper sort of voice.

But if it was like a different British voice, if it was like that sort of gangster, uh like Jason Statham, if you know Jason Statham from action movies, if that voice, I don't know what I would do.

I might have a problem.

I might make you have to change that.

I feel intimidated, you know?

If it said something like, I'm gonna butcher, if it said something like, Turn left at the next line, or I'm gonna put my fist in your face.

If that's like what came out, is it's that voice that's like always whispering but also always threatening you at the same time, I'd be like, babe, why is your Siri a very, very masculine British man?

I'm not comfortable with this.

Please go back to either Hugh Grant or Robot Lady now, you know?

Oh.

But here's the thing, it's not, I have nothing to worry about.

Megan just likes to personalize stuff, and as the women in the room just confirmed, ladies like British stuff.

They do.

If I'm watching TV and a commercial comes on for a bunch of people with British accents and they ride in characters, I'm like, I'm probably gonna have to watch this, you know, because that's they love it.

We love to personalize things.

That's the point.

There was a point.

We love to we love to personalize things because we're deeply personal people.

The more something is personal to us, the more it means to us.

We have to recognize that part of our nature.

I think in large part it's it's why, for thousands of years in human history, people were very susceptible to idol worship, to creating their own personalized version of God.

Something that God just can barely even wrap his head around.

We see this in Isaiah chapter 44, verses 9 through 19.

Isaiah 44:9–19

God speaks through the prophet Isaiah.

How foolish are those who manufacture idols?

These prized objects are really worthless.

The people who worship idols don't know this, so they're all put to shame.

Who but a fool would make his own God?

An idol that cannot help him one bit.

All who worship idols will be disgraced, along with all these craftsmen, mere humans who claim they can make a god.

They may all stand together, but they will stand in terror and shame.

The blacksmith stands at his forge to make a sharp tool, he pounds it and shapes it with all his might.

His work makes him hungry and weak, it makes him thirsty and faint.

Then the wood carver measures a block of wood and draws a pattern on it.

He works with chisel and plain and carves it into a human figure.

He gives it human beauty and he puts it in a little shrine.

He cuts down cedars, he selects the cypress and the oak, he plants the pine in the forest to be nourished by the rain, and then he uses part of the wood to make a fire.

With it he warms himself, he bakes his bread, and then, yes, it's true.

He takes the rest of it and he makes himself a god to worship.

He makes an idol, he bows down in front of it, he burns part of the tree to roast his meat and keep himself warm.

He says, Ah, that fire feels good.

Then he takes what's left and he makes a god, a carved idol.

He falls down in front of it, worshiping it and praying to it.

Rescue me, he says, You are my God.

Such stupidity and ignorance.

Their eyes are closed, they cannot see.

Their minds are shut, they cannot think.

The person who made the idol never stops to reflect why it's just a block of wood.

I burn half of it for heat.

I use it to bake my bread and roast my meat.

How can the rest of it be a God?

Should I bow down to worship a piece of wood?

You know, it's interesting when I used to reflect on the Ten Commandments, those first, those first guidelines that God gives his people when he's rescued them from slavery in Egypt, if you know the story, they're about to become a nation, and he's got to give them some stuff to like base their life on.

I always felt like they were they were kind of bottom loaded.

Because the first few just seem sort of like throwaways, and then it's not until you get to the second half where it gets practical, like don't lie to each other, don't steal from each other, don't kill each other, don't covet.

Like that stuff, like, yeah, that's that's what we need.

But the first two are don't worship another God and don't make your own little God.

And those always seem to me as a child, like I I first read those, I think, when I was maybe in the fifth grade, when we started going to church as a family, and I was like, that's weird.

Who would do that?

And the answer is like everybody.

Because we're really drawn to things that are personalized.

That's what an idol is, it's a personalized God.

And the reality of our life is that idols are everywhere.

They may not be little carved-out blocks of wood, but there's always that temptation to make God into your own personalized version of God.

A God that you can wrap your head around, a God that agrees with you, a God that you're like, yeah, right on, I agree with that.

And that's why we have all these different versions of Jesus in the world.

And we don't need any other version of Jesus than the real Jesus.

You know, like we like we don't need we don't need um like judgmental, angry Jesus.

Like we also don't need like a wimpy Jesus.

We don't we don't need a patriotic American Jesus, we don't need that one.

And we definitely don't need woke Jesus, we don't need any other Jesus than the real Jesus, and here's why.

There's no reason to have a personalized version of Jesus because he's already personal.

He's already personal.

The entire idea of Jesus, theologically, is God becoming a human being.

It's one of the things that makes our faith so different than every other faith that has ever existed.

This is something we talk about from time to time.

It's important to remember the difference, right?

Jesus is different.

Because every other faith in the world, every other religion, it's usually a version of the same story.

God is on the mountaintop, we're way down here.

He demands that we figure out how to get to him.

He gives us all the rules and he tells us, do it, do better, do more, try harder, and you try to earn and work your way up the mountaintop so that maybe, just maybe, that angry God finally says, Okay, I'm all right with you.

That is not the story of our faith.

Because in our faith, God leaves the mountaintop and he becomes one of us, and he lives with us, and he hurts with us, he shares life with us, the good and the bad.

He cries with us when we mourn.

He has compassion on us, and then he puts us on his back and he carries us up to a place we can never be.

Because he's a personal God.

We don't need to personalize Jesus because he's already personal.

In fact, one of the very first heresies in the Christian faith, thousands of years ago, was something called doitism, which is a funny sounding word, but basically the idea of it was that Jesus never actually was a person.

And the idea was based on this very interesting thought.

The ancient world had a really hard time understanding how God could be a person because their view of flesh was bad.

Flesh is bad.

God is good and flesh is bad.

God and flesh can't coexist.

The idea of Jesus, God being a person, it's like that didn't track.

And so they come up with this philosophy of like, oh, well, Jesus just looked like a person.

He just appeared to be a person, but really he wasn't.

And one of Jesus' closest friends, John, wrote in the letter 1 John chapter 1, he says, We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, right?

1 John 1 · chapter mention

He's way existed before he came as a person, whom we have heard and seen.

We saw him with our own eyes, we touched him with our own hands.

He is the word of life, the one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him.

And now we testify and proclaim to you that it is the one who has, that he is the one who has eternal life, who is eternal life.

He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us.

We proclaim to you, we ourselves have actually seen and heard that you may have fellowship with us and our fellowship with the Father and with the Son Jesus Christ.

And we are writing these things to you so that you may fully share our joy.

They're saying, look, guys, no, no, he was here.

He didn't just appear.

It wasn't smoke and mirrors.

We touched him, we saw him, we heard him.

He was one of us because he's personal.

This is very important.

Let me explain why.

We have a God that we can experience in a personal way.

Because our God values more than we can even put into words.

He values being personal with people.

We see it in Jesus' story all the time.

Let me give you some quick examples.

John chapter 1, verses 45 through 50.

John 1:45–50

Philip, who was one of the disciples, went to look for Nathaniel, a friend of his, and told him, We have found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about.

His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.

Nazareth exclaimed Nathaniel.

Can anything good come from Nazareth?

I love that.

Nazareth uh literally translates as close as we can in English to stick town.

Um, it's great.

Even they had they had the sticks even back then.

I love it.

And so just the idea of the Messiah being from Nazareth is like it's just a weird thought to Nathaniel.

Not to

Offend anybody, but it would be like for us if they're like Waleska?

Like, what do you mean that the Messiah is from Waleska?

Like, okay.

You know?

Those of you in Waleska, if you made the drive, wow.

If not, I apologize if you're watching from home.

Waleska's great.

That's great.

Uh, can anything good come from Nazareth?

And Philip says, Come and see for yourself.

As they approached, Jesus said, Now here's a genuine son of Israel, a man of complete integrity.

How do you know about me?

Nathanael asked.

Jesus replied, I could see you under the fig tree before Philip found you.

And then Nathanael exclaimed, Rabbi, you are the son of God, the king of Israel.

Jesus asked him, Do you believe this just because I told you?

I saw you under the fig tree?

You'll see greater things than this.

Now, we have to read between the lines here.

We don't know exactly what Jesus is referring to, but clearly, clearly, it hits Nathanael in a very personal way.

And many people think that, okay, Nathaniel must have been praying under a fig tree.

And maybe he was pouring his heart out to God.

And Jesus comes and is like, I saw you.

And maybe Nathaniel was alone and knew that no one was around.

And so Jesus is saying, I saw a very personal moment in your life.

Whatever happened, it hits Nathaniel powerfully because it's personal.

Understand that in Jesus' life, he performed many miracles.

And many of them were spectacular.

I mean, like, how many of us would love to be able to have seen him walk on water?

Like, come on, like honestly, like I would love to like, what was that like?

Or what would it have been like to see Jesus tell a storm to stop and it stopped?

I can't even tell my children to stop and have them stop.

Like that would be if Jesus walked into my house and just told my youngest to stop and he went like that, I would be like, it's a miracle.

You are the son of God.

Like I would believe that.

That's how miraculous that would be.

But like how cool it would have been to see to see Jesus feed thousands of people with just a few pieces of food.

And just over and over again, there's more and more.

Those are the miracles that would blow us away.

They're spectacular miracles, but understand that hundreds and thousands of people saw Jesus perform spectacular miracles and never believed.

But what you don't see very often, I'm trying to even think of an example.

I can't think of one right now.

Maybe there's one.

You don't see Jesus perform personal miracles and it not move the heart of the people he's speaking to.

You know, this is not a very spectacular miracle.

I saw you under the fig tree.

But instantly, Nathaniel's heart belongs to Jesus.

Because there was something profoundly personal about this moment.

And Nathaniel knows that not only is he powerful, but he sees me.

He knows me personally.

John chapter 4.

John 4 · chapter mention

It's the story of the woman at the well.

If you're not familiar, she's just a woman who bumps into Jesus.

And Jesus doesn't do a spectacular miracle.

But he just tells her everything about herself.

And she instantly believes, and she runs out in verse 29.

She tells everyone around her, come and see a man who told me everything I ever did.

Could he possibly be the Messiah?

Jesus was personal with her.

He didn't just wow her with a display of power.

He showed her that he knows her.

And that moved her heart.

Matthew chapter 8 says, large crowds followed Jesus as he came down the mountainside.

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

Suddenly a man with leprosy approached him and knelt before him.

Lord, the man said, If you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean.

Jesus reached out and touched him.

I am willing, he said, Be healed.

And instantly the leprosy disappeared.

What's really interesting about this is that touching a leper was illegal.

Couldn't do it.

In fact, to touch a leper would make you spiritually unclean in the eyes of their people.

You would be barred from society.

You would not be allowed to worship in the synagogues.

And Jesus didn't have to touch him.

There's lots of times where Jesus heals people just by speaking.

We even have times where Jesus heals people who are far away from him.

He just tells the person who came to deliver the news, hey, his faith has healed him.

Go tell him.

Go see.

He's healed.

Jesus has no reason to touch this person other than the fact that he knows this is not just a person with leprosy.

This is a human being who hasn't been touched by another human being in who knows how long.

And so he doesn't just heal his body, he heals his soul.

His heart.

Because it's personal.

He touches it.

This one might be my favorite.

Genesis 16.

The angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a spring of water in the wilderness along the road to Shur.

Now, if you don't know this story, Hagar was a servant of the wife of a man named Abraham.

And she gets pregnant with Abraham's child.

The Bible's kind of like a soap opera.

And uh and she she gets basically run off.

And so she's out there in the wilderness, and it says, the angel of the Lord found her.

Now, in the Old Testament, you'll see the angel of the Lord appear.

You'll read this a lot.

We don't know exactly who this is.

Many scholars, and I tend to agree with this at least on many occasions, would say that this is a pre-incarnate, which is a fancy way of saying before he was born as a person version of Jesus.

Okay?

And uh, okay, we got a clap for that.

Some of you don't even know why you're clapping.

I'm with you.

Alright, so uh so like the idea is that you know, remember, Jesus didn't start existing when he was born as a person.

Now we call him Jesus because that's our reference point, but but that's the name he was given as a human being.

He's existed for all eternity and will exist for all eternity.

And so there's times in the Old Testament where a figure shows up, and this figure speaks with the authority of God.

Angel of the Lord is a it's kind of a phrase that you could you can interpret it a couple of different ways.

It could just be an angel, but what's interesting is that we don't see the angel of the Lord appear ever after Jesus' resurrection.

Like it's not something that happens.

So you can interpret it this way, I think it's sound.

So the angel of the Lord appears to Hagar, and it says to her, Hagar, Sarai's servant, where have you come from and where are you going?

I'm running away from my mistress, Sarai, she replied.

The angel of the Lord said to her, Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.

Then he added, I will give you more descendants than you can count.

And the angel also said, You are now pregnant, will give birth to a son.

You're to name him Ishmael, which means God hears.

For the Lord has heard your cry of distress.

The son of yours will be a wild man, as untamed as a wild donkey.

He will he will raise his fist to fight against everyone, and everyone will be against him.

Yes, he will live in open hostility against all his relatives.

He's telling her the truth.

And therefore, Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord who had spoken to her.

She said, You are the God who sees me.

Have I truly seen the one who sees me?

That's a good question to ask each of us.

Have I truly seen the one who sees me?

And what blows Hagar away in this conversation she's having with the angel of the Lord is that he sees her.

It's personal.

He knows her.

He understands her heart.

Jesus is personal.

And what I want us to understand is that his love for you is personal.

I have four kids, I talk about them pretty often.

You guys might get tired of that, by the way, but it's all I have.

I have to have material, okay?

And they provide a lot.

So just get used to it.

I'm not gonna have any more kids.

Lord, please.

But like, like the ones I have, they they give me a lot of material.

I love, I love each of them.

And I don't just love them because technically they're mine.

You know, if you ask me why do you love Judah, my five-year-old, I wouldn't say, well, he's one of my kids.

And I have to love my kids because that's what dads do.

No, I can start talking to you about very specific things about Judah that I I love.

Like Judah, he's a fighter, he's strong.

I watched him literally lay out his 11-year-old brother, and it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

I mean, I had to like step in afterwards and punish him, but he, my oldest son, made him mad, and I watched Judah at five years old run up to his older brother, squat down, jump, and do a jumping uppercut, and hit my oldest son in the face and knock him to the ground.

And then he's just standing over him, and I was like, that's amazing.

And then I was like, No, can't do that.

Megan actually is like, don't encourage.

I was like, I'm sorry, it was just really impressive to watch.

You know?

But I love that about Judah.

He's a fighter, and I'm hoping to teach him to fight for the right things.

But he's a fighter, he's strong.

I love him for very specific reasons.

Have you ever stopped to consider the fact that God has a list of reasons that he loves you?

That he doesn't just love you generally.

Because you know, he loves people, and you technically are one of those.

And so, yeah, God loves you because you're a person.

And if you could actually ask God and hear from him, which by the way you can, and I encourage you to, hey, why do you love me?

There would be a lot of reasons, and there would be general reasons.

I created you.

You've put your faith in my son, Jesus, I've adopted you as my own.

But you don't think that God has things about you that he just adores?

That he loves?

Like his love for you is is impersonal.

No, it's incredibly personal.

We see it time and time again in Jesus, in scripture.

That God sees us and he knows us and he loves us.

And the fact that he knows us as well as he does and he loves us as much as he does, those things should amaze us.

They should amaze us because it's something we talk about from time to time.

It's important to remember we typically love people because we don't know them very well.

That's why we we fall in love with people we don't even know.

It's when we learn who they are that we climb out of love, right?

First time my wife looked at me and said, I love you.

Powerfully.

But she did not know me very well when she said that.

We love out of ignorance.

God never does.

He loves knowing everything about you, but I need you to understand this love for you is personal.

It is personal.

What do you do with that?

A worship team, you guys can make your way out.

I want to wrap up with a few thoughts.

What do you do with that?

With the personal love of Jesus.

Ephesians chapter 1, or chapter 5, rather, verses 1 through 2.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

It says, Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children.

And walk in love, just as Christ, who also loved you and gave himself up for us.

An offering and a sacrifice to God is a fragrant aroma.

Okay?

It says, I'm gonna read it again.

Be imitators of God as beloved children.

Let's stop there.

I like the word beloved, uh, it's not a word we use very much, but I like the fact that in English it's just two words smushed together, beloved.

If you want to be the beloved of God, you just have to be loved.

Sometimes we are resistant to the love that God has for us.

Sometimes we carry guilt and shame.

We know our stuff.

And sometimes I think we'd like to think that maybe God is repelled by it.

Like it's repulsive to him, like you're the first person he's ever known that's had that issue.

You are not.

You cannot shock God.

Let's just let's all understand that.

You're not gonna do it.

He's not gonna be like, I've never.

I mean, I guess the idol worship thing, if you're like car carving a god out of a tree, we saw that earlier.

That might be like, what in the name of me are you doing?

That's what God would probably say.

Like, what is going on?

But like, there's no reason for you to push against the love that God has for you.

But we do that as people.

We have all kinds of messy reasons why we struggle to just receive the love of God.

Do you believe that the God of the universe, Jesus Christ, the one who's over all things, looks at you, knows everything about you, and loves you personally, not generally, not categorically, but personally, individually, and could sit down and list off a thousand reasons why he loves you.

Do you believe that?

Do you?

I'm being serious.

Do you believe that?

And if you're clapping and you're like, I do, great.

But if you're like, I'm not sure I can, I just encourage you, spend time.

Read Jesus.

Read the story, story after story of people who are broken and messed up, who everyone else said, ugh, and Jesus embraces them.

And he sees the best in them, and he looks past their flaws because he doesn't just see you as who you are and who you've been, he sees you as who you are going to be, who you're meant to be.

There will be a day when if you've given your life to Jesus, he will complete the work that he has started in you, and you will be perfect and complete, lacking nothing, as the scriptures say.

And when he looks at you, he sees that person.

It's like an artist painting a painting who doesn't just see it for what it is.

You know, if you walk by the average artist painting halfway through, you're like, ugh, oh my god.

But they don't see what you see, they see what will be.

He sees you that way, he loves you personally.

You've got to receive that.

And I want to encourage you, I want to encourage you to do something maybe you've never done before.

Some of you maybe you do this all the time.

Have an open-ended conversation with God and ask him this question.

And for some of us, this might be a stretch, but I'm just challenging you to do it.

God, what do you love about me?

And then just pray on that.

Prayer is every bit as much listening.

In fact, it should be more listening than talking.

But ask him, what do you love about me?

You know, if one of my kids came up to me and asked me that question, I could answer it.

Every single one of them.

Do you think God wouldn't have an answer for you?

Now, maybe you pray that and you ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you, because God speaks.

Don't ever let anyone tell you he doesn't speak to you.

And maybe you get crickets.

But even if you don't hear something, and by the way, if that's the case, keep asking, keep asking, listen, listen.

But even if you don't hear something, that doesn't mean it's not true.

My three-year-old Eli, he's funny.

He is legitimately funny.

He's the youngest, and the youngest often they become like the clowns, the jokesters.

Any youngest in the room, like you're the youngest sibling.

Are you any of you raise your, keep your hands raised if you're like the jokester?

If you're the funny one.

Yeah, it happens.

And so, Eli's three, so if someone asked Eli, what does your dad love about you?

I don't think he could answer the question.

I don't think his brain's at a place where he could put those puzzle pieces together.

He might be confused.

But just because he doesn't know what the answers are, doesn't mean I don't have them.

Because if you came to me and said, Hey, what do you love about Eli?

Oh my goodness.

Let me start telling you about this kid.

God's love for you is personal, and so the first thing you do with it is you receive it.

You recognize and identify yourself as the beloved.

All it takes to be a beloved is to be loved.

So, so be loved by God.

When you pray, when you think about God, first recognize, thank him that he loves you personally.

And this identifies you, this is meant to ground you in terms of who you are more than anything else.

If you're making a resume for yourself, the very first thing on it should be the beloved of God.

That supersedes everything else.

You are the beloved child of the God of the universe.

He loves you not generally, he loves you personally, he loves a thousand things about you, he knows you, he sees you.

And if you've never had an experience or an encounter where you have felt the personal love of God, then I pray that that becomes your heart's number one desire, and you pray and you ask and you seek until you have it.

Because Jesus says if you seek, you will find.

So take him up on that.

Number one, you become the beloved.

Number two, what do we do with this personal love of God?

This is a challenge.

Is that we as people to be different, to make the difference that we're supposed to make, we have to be people who love persons.

And I put it that way for a reason.

It's harder to love persons than it is to love people.

And so when I say love persons, I mean like individual human beings.

Where you get close enough to them to know their stuff and you intentionally love them anyway.

It is possible in our day and age to live life so disconnected from people where no one can ever be close enough to you except for the people that like have to be.

Like you can live next to someone for 10 years and not know their name.

That's that's possible.

I'm not gonna ask for a show of hands, but I know there would be.

Maybe mine would be one of them.

I don't know, haven't lived anywhere for 10 years yet, but I can tell you that I've lived where I've lived for a little while, and if you're like that house, I'm like, Mark?

But it would be like Mark with a question mark.

You know?

Mark?

I don't know.

Because it's easy to just pass people by and wave at them and be like, oh, I love those people.

I have no idea who they are, but I love them.

That's fine.

It's good to love all people, but but if you really want to know what to do with the love that God has given you, if you receive it, what do I do with it?

You love persons.

You take time, you're intentional.

You make it a point to love passionately and intentionally broken and flawed people.

You don't give up on them.

You don't hold their sins against you.

I'm not saying that, by the way, you have to like let go of all boundaries and let people in and hurt you.

I'm not talking about that.

But I'm saying you you make an effort to passionately love people in a focused way.

You love persons.

This is something you see Jesus do all the time.

He he leaves crowds to go have an intimate moment with someone where he serves them and meets their need.

He was very intentional like that.

He was interruptible.

That's a word that I like to use with Jesus.

He was interruptible.

Jesus was never too busy that when a person swung by and said, Hey, can we talk?

Like his disciples would often be like, He's way too busy.

But Jesus, you find very it's like, no, no, I got this.

And I'm challenged by this.

There's lots of times where I don't want to be very interruptible and people you know want to talk to me, and I'm like, not today.

I mean, I love you because I love people.

I just don't love persons right now.

But I'm serious, I want to ask this question.

Is that is there a person?

Do you believe that there's a person that needs you to be the one that shows them the love of Jesus?

Because if not you, then who else?

Maybe no one.

And so I want to ask that you would pray.

And even right now that you would be open to the Holy Spirit, putting someone in your mind, is there a specific person who God would be asking you to give some focused, intentional love to?

Because there's nothing that changes a person like personal love.

Not general love, not love is the thing that's out there that we stumble into, fall into, find, but real, intentional, personal love.

And if God puts a person on your on your mind, if there's someone whose face is, then act on it.

Today.

Start small, send a text, make a phone call.

Reach out to him.

Hey, let's, would you like to grab lunch sometime?

You've been on my mind.

I'd love to love to get coffee with you.

But but be open to God calling you to love and pour into individual persons.

Not just to be a person who's like, oh, I love people, but I love persons.

That's what makes us different.

We're the beloved children of God.

We receive his love, it changes us, changes everything for us.

And if you haven't received it, man, it's yours.

Receive it.

And we don't just take it and hold it and keep it for ourselves.

We don't just hoard it.

We go out and we pour it out in a focused, intentional way to the people around us.

So be the beloved and love persons.

That's what makes us different.

Let's pray.

Father God, thank you so much for this day.

Thank you, Lord, for every person that is in here right now.

You love all of us.

And God, I do pray again that if there's one person here, one person watching, and for whatever reason, they've been hesitant, resistant, to truly embrace the fact that you love them, that you see them, that you know them, that you understand their story, that you know their flaws, their mistakes, but at the end of the day, none of it matters because your love is powerful, your love is complete, and there is nothing that we can do that makes us unworthy of your love.

So, God, I pray right now that you you hit us with that.

Lord, that it actually hits us in a deep place, God, that we are loved by you personally because you are a personal God.

That your love for us is personal, it's intimate.

Father, I pray that you give us the ability as people, the courage, the obedience to be honest, God, to take that love that we've received and to focus it on individuals around us.

That we would actually have a heart that is open and submissive to you, or we would say to you on a daily basis, Lord, you point me in the direction I'll go.

You put a person on my mind, on my radar, and I will reach out to them, and I will do it in a way that is intentional, and I will show them the love that you have shown me.

Because when we do that, Lord, we make a difference.

We change lives.

Our world doesn't do that, Lord, but we're called to be different.

So help us be the different people we're meant to be.

And we pray all this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.