Unreal Love

You know those dads that they will like make you look at pictures of their children and expect you to be as excited as they are?

Totally one of those people.

Um so I I I love my kids very, very much.

I love all my kids.

I got three kids, and and Judah, our youngest, he's about to be one.

Cannot wait till he starts talking.

Right now he just points and grunts, which is actually a pretty effective way to communicate most of the time.

But uh, but I can't wait to start having conversations with him.

Lily, my daughter, she she's turning three this week, and uh it's just crazy.

But we had her her three-year-old birthday party, and uh I got to dance with her.

It was awesome.

It was a princess themed party, it was at a ballet studio, and I didn't even care.

I just danced and twirled, and I'm not a good dancer, but in her eyes I was, so that's that's good.

That'll last for a few more years.

My son Liam, he's the bomb.

He's awesome.

He's he's such a cool kid.

He and I are so close.

I I love him so much.

I'm obviously closer to him than I am to my other kids because I've just had more time with him.

But uh, but I just I love him.

And so, you know, I like to talk about my kids.

It's just something I like to do.

And specifically with Liam this morning, um, in case I've never told you this before, but my son is a basketball player.

All right?

My son can he can ball.

Now, some of you guys think it's still football season.

I know the Super Bowl hasn't happened yet.

Atlanta's obviously gonna win, so that's just gonna happen.

It's practically a formality at this point.

Tom Brady's like a hundred years old.

I mean, how many more times can he win Super Bowl?

But uh, but I I get really excited every year around the Super Bowl because finally football's done, and everyone can realize what season it really is, and that's basketball season.

I've been in basketball season for a while.

And what's been really great about basketball this year is that I have a new favorite team and a new favorite player.

And uh, you know, I I my favorite team is this first grade basketball team that my son plays for.

I'm the assistant coach of, by the way, I'm an assistant coach of a first-grade basketball team.

It's a big deal.

That's a big sometimes the kids can't find their water bottle.

Uh or I'm there.

I'm there, I'm there for whatever they need.

And my my son, my son is just blown me away.

I mean, who knows what'll end up happening.

I'm not gonna put that kind of pressure on him.

I'm 5'9, I have not given him much help in the gene pool department.

I recognize that, but it's been kind of surprising.

Like he can really play.

And I said a minute ago, those dads that like to show you pictures and and stuff like that.

I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna show you something, and I just want you to at least be open to being as excited as I am, okay?

Because I just want to show you how how good my six-year-old is at basketball.

Okay, so this is Liam playing ball.

Um, got a couple quick clips.

He's he's good, he's good, he can dribble, he can shoot, he uh he's pretty awesome.

He's pretty awesome.

Yeah, yeah, he can go right, he can go left.

He doesn't pass much, but uh but he puts that ball up there, man, and uh and he's pretty much automatic.

Like you'll see here, he gets the ball.

Are there kids on his team open?

Yes.

But he doesn't care, he'll just dribble past all the other kids and shoot it, and it's good.

That's good.

That's Liam.

He has a scores mentality.

One game his coach pulled him out, and uh I wasn't able to be in the stands that game because I was wearing jeans, and the lady that was running the whole thing said, You get a technical foul if you're on the bench wearing jeans.

And I'm like, the other coach is wearing shorts.

I can't wear jeans, and she said, No, you can't wear jeans, so I had to go sit in the stands.

And so I didn't get to hear what the coach was saying to Liam when he pulled him out.

I said, Hey, what did coach tell you when he pulled you out?

Liam said, like pass more or something like that.

And I was like, you know, I keep telling him to do that, but he's like, Dad, I'm I'm gonna open it, I'm gonna shoot it.

I'm like, okay, whatever.

So that footage was taken by by a dad uh on our team a week ago Saturday.

I want to talk to you just for a second and just indulge me, because this was this was an interesting moment in my life.

A week ago Saturday, Liam had a game at 8 in the morning.

8 in the morning is a very fun time on a Saturday to wake up and go play basketball or watch first graders play basketball.

And this is all their first year playing.

So sometimes, sometimes these games are not exciting.

Okay?

Our first game, the score was six to two.

They play for 40 minutes.

Four 10-minute quarters, six to two, and we scored the two points for the other team, too.

All right?

Like, that's just how it goes.

But but a week ago, Saturday, in the fourth quarter, Liam had 13 points.

All right?

Not not 13 points in the fourth quarter alone, but by the time the fourth quarter hit, Liam had 13 points.

And there's games where 13 points are not scored by both teams combined, so he was just, he was bombed.

Like I said, he's not afraid to shoot the ball.

Um, not as many assists as points, but it's okay.

So he's got 13 points, but we were down by one.

Down by one.

The score was 20 to 19.

It was a pretty high-scoring game for first grade.

And with about two minutes to go, Liam got the ball.

And he's dribbling down the court and uh thought about passing it to somebody, said, nah, decided not to.

Dribbled, passed his defender, pulled up to shoot, and he got fouled.

He got fouled.

So he's going to the line, he's got two shots, we're down by one, and there's less than two minutes left in the game.

And if you've ever seen a first grade basketball game, you know, in two minutes, like some teams are lucky to get the ball down the court successfully, once or twice in two minutes.

So this might be the last moment.

And so he's on the free throw line, he feels the pressure.

I can tell.

He looks over at me, he has this look on his face that's like, uh, what am I gonna do?

And I'm just like, you can do it.

And he looks up at the score, and I see him take a deep breath.

The ref passes him the ball and he he he lets it go and and he misses.

And so now he's got one shot, but if he makes it, we tie.

If he makes it, we're tied, and we go into overtime, and and he's never been in an overtime game before.

He may not even know what overtime is, but it's a great chance to learn.

And so I'm sitting there going, come on, man, make the shot.

I'm praying.

I'm literally praying on the bench.

God, please help him make the shot.

And he shoots it and it looks good, and it just bounces in and out, and it's out.

And he runs down the court to play defense because the game's still going on.

There's less than two minutes left.

And I look at him and I can see tears starting to well up in his eyes a little bit.

He's holding it together, he's being tough, but but I can tell I know him, and he feels like he lost the game.

That's how he feels.

And so I'm sitting there as his dad, I'm sitting there going, okay, what am I gonna say to him?

And when this game's done and he comes up to me and he's upset, what am I gonna say?

And I'm thinking about all the things I I would say.

Son, you scored 13 points.

That's that's amazing for a first grader.

That's incredible.

You played so well, you had steals and rebounds.

I'm sitting there going, you you did great, and and it's not your fault, you know what I mean?

It's it's not your fault.

But then the other team turns the ball over, and we've got we've got the ball again.

And so all of a sudden I'm I'm I'm no longer thinking about what I'm gonna say to Liam because I'm watching this game.

And Liam brings the ball down the court, and he starts to go to his right, and then a defensive player moves over, and so he switches to his left, and he takes about two steps in from the three-point line and lets one fly.

And I kid you not, time stood still.

Okay?

And I'm like everything, when I remember that moment, it's slow motion, and the ball's in the air, and it was a long shot, but it looked good, and it just right through the net.

Right through the net, right?

And so, you know, so so our whole crowd goes nuts.

The other team, they're not as excited.

Um couple of their kids are upset, but at this point in the game, I'm like, you knew he wasn't gonna pass.

You knew that.

You should have put, you should have guarded him, you should have put two people on him.

I mean, you've seen this before.

So, so Liam's got 15 points, the the time expires, we win.

We win.

He has 15 points, he hits the game-winning shot, and this was this was the moment.

This was so amazing.

As soon as the buzzer sounds, Liam turns, locks eyes with me.

He's like 30 feet away at this point.

He's on the other side of the court, and he runs full speed and jumps into my arms.

Just jumps into my arms, and I'm sitting there holding him, and I've got like little tears welling up in my eyes, and I hold him up like Rafiki and the Lion King kind of thing, and it's just this amazing moment.

We took him to IHOP to celebrate.

And uh, and he said to me, he's he's about halfway done with with his meal, and he just looks up at me and goes, Dad, I was thinking, I might only need to play one year in college before I go to the NBA.

And I'm like, I'm like, why don't we just get to second grade?

Why don't we just get to second grade and we'll worry about that later?

But he was, he was, his confidence was boosted.

That was a good thing.

That that moment where he jumped into my arms, I mean, literally, it was so amazing.

Top five moment in my life so far.

I don't know if that says anything about my life, but it was a top five moment in my life so far.

It was it was incredible.

It was unreal.

That's the only word I can really think of to accurately describe it.

It was unreal.

I don't know if you've had a moment like that in your life.

I hope you have, but it's a moment that's so good that you almost have to pinch yourself to make sure that it's really happening.

It's a moment that you look back on and you know you saw it, you experienced it, you were there, which you almost have to confirm it with other people.

You're like, that that happened, right?

You saw what I saw, that did happen.

That really just happened, didn't it?

Right?

That happened.

It's unreal.

It's nice when you experience something unreal.

To start this year, we're in a series called A Year of Real.

We want to experience all the real things God has for us.

Because let's be honest, we live in a world that is so full of fake.

Like you have to be so careful with what you believe.

You can't believe what you read, you can't believe half of what you see anymore, because someone has an agenda, someone's edited the footage, someone's trying to get you to buy something or get you to believe a certain thing, and so you have to be on guard all the time because there's just so much fake out there in the world.

But we need something real.

And the beauty is Jesus is real.

It's a big reason that he died on the cross because he couldn't help it.

He was real, he was honest, he was genuine, he was sincere, and a lot of people didn't like that.

Jesus is as real as they get.

And not only is he honest and sincere, but he's God, and so he has the authority and the power to offer us the real version of everything this world tries to sell us.

We get real purpose with Jesus, real hope, real wisdom, real peace, real joy.

We get the real version of everything we really need when we go to him.

And so we want our year to be defined by those things.

And that's why we're starting our year with that focus, a year of real.

Today we're gonna talk about real love.

About God's love for you and for me.

And I just want to say this, I just want to get this out before we we dive into it.

God's love is it's unreal.

Okay?

Real doesn't even begin to describe it.

God's love for you, if you really take it in, if you really taste it and experience it, God's love is so intense, it is so amazing.

It's unreal.

When you take it in, it's like it's like pinch me.

Can this be?

And my hope is that when we leave this morning, we've all had an experience, we've all had a taste of that love.

You know, it's interesting, I I grew up in church for the most part, but but it was a long time after I believed in Jesus that I actually experienced his love, that I really encountered the love of God.

It was a long time, actually, seven plus years, ten plus years, I think, before I actually really tasted the love that God had for me.

See, the church is actually supposed to be defined by God's love.

That's what's supposed to define the church.

When the world thinks about the church or Christians or Jesus, the word love should be the first word that comes to mind.

Jesus made that really clear, by the way, in John chapter 13, 35.

John 13 · chapter mention

Jesus says, your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.

It's your love that should define you.

That's what Jesus said.

But religion gets us all twisted and it makes us think things that Jesus never said are things that God actually values.

Like, religion teaches us that the world will know that we're Christians because of how righteous we are, how holy our lives appear to be.

And so we strive really hard to live these very, very holy lives because we think in our minds that's what's going to prove to the world that we belong to Jesus.

And look, I want to live my life right.

I want to live my life right in response to God, because that's actually the only way to do it.

But I definitely want to live my life right.

I want to be respectable, but but Jesus didn't say that the world will know your mind because of how respectable you are.

Which is great news because some of us aren't that respectable.

Sometimes I'm not.

Jesus didn't say that the world will know that you're mine by how good you are at life.

Praise God for that.

Right?

He didn't say, hey, the world's gonna know that you're my disciples, that you're my followers, because you're just gonna nail it when it comes to life.

You're gonna be successful, you're gonna be financially successful, you're gonna have it all together, you're gonna weigh what you should weigh, you're gonna dress great, you're gonna look great, your hair's never gonna fall out, you're gonna you're gonna be so amazing.

And I see some shine coming up as I talk about that, so I know it's not the case, but it's okay.

Because Jesus didn't say that we have to have it all together.

My dad's as bald as can be.

It's just a matter of time.

I know, and I know everyone says it's your mother's dad.

I don't believe that that's true.

Because my mother's dad was bald too, and I just don't want to believe it, but whatever.

So Jesus didn't say you have to have it all together, you have to have life figured out.

He didn't say that the world will know your mind because you've just you're so good at life.

But so often church becomes this experience where it's just it's just training on how to be a better citizen.

You can go to church and get a lot of tips about how to be a better middle-class suburbanite, but that's not the point.

Because Jesus said it's the love of God that should define us.

But so often in church, love is deeply undervalued.

I've actually had several conversations like this, and I'm not bitter, I'm not angry.

This might sound like me venting, it's just not.

I'm just telling you the truth.

I've had people that have come to me upset with how often we focus on God's love.

And it's always the same conversation.

It's always someone basically saying, hey, love's great and all, but when are we going to get past love and get into the really spiritual stuff?

That's always how it goes.

But listen to what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13, verses 1 through 3.

1 Corinthians 13:1–3

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.

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 I didn't love others, I would be nothing.

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

This is Paul saying, Look, love is not the shallow end of the pool, it's the deep end.

Love is not some secondary thing that we start out with, but then we graduate from love.

Love is it.

He says, Look, if if I if I can speak in tongues and I have all knowledge, I know everything there is to know about God, and I can I can preach and prophesy, and I can speak as if I am God and I can blow people away and wow people and make people go, holy cow, God is real.

If I can do all that, but I don't love, worthless.

Worthless.

And so as a church, we're never gonna get past God's love.

There will never be a day where we're like, yeah, we've we've moved on beyond that thing, because it's not it's not the elementary thing, it's everything.

We're meant to be defined by God's love, but so often the church is not defined by that.

That's not that's not the reputation that the church has.

That's one of the things I love about our church.

I do think that's a big part of our reputation, and I love that.

That's honestly because of him, and in a lot of ways, because of you guys and how much you embody the love of God.

I'm proud of y'all.

But as a church, part of our mission is to change that in culture because we want the world to understand that God's love is real and God's love is for everyone.

Now, I I think there's a really simple explanation why that disconnect exists, why the Bible speaks so much of God's love, and yet so often love is one of the last words that people use to describe the church.

And I think it's simply this there are so many people in the church, people who believe in Jesus, people who who who have faith and it's it's part of their character, and they they believe it to their bones, but they've never actually encountered the love that God has for them.

They've never actually experienced it for themselves.

So they they believe that God loves them and they believe it conceptually.

It's something that they understand.

It's like a child being taught that famous song, Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

And when you're young, that gets you by.

That's all you need.

But that doesn't last long.

Because if all you understand of God's love is some idea you've been taught, you've been told, and you go, okay, yeah, sure he loves me, that's great, but you've never actually tasted it for yourself.

You've never actually experienced it.

You cannot be defined by something you haven't experienced.

That's impossible.

You can't be changed by something you've never encountered.

And when God's love, when his real, all-powerful, all-consuming love is something that you actually experience, something that you encounter, something that you have a real, real experience with, it changes everything.

It changes everything.

See, God's love is powerful like nothing else in this world is.

There's nothing more powerful than the love of God.

Listen to what the Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 8, verse 35.

Romans 8:35

We'll start there.

He says, Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love?

Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity or are persecuted or hungry or destitute or in danger or threatened with death, as the scriptures say, for your sake we are killed every day, we're being slaughtered like sheep.

That was happening to the Christians at that time.

No.

Despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us.

And I'm convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love, neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow, not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love.

So take that, Satan.

No power in the sky above or in the earth below, indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Does that does that sound like someone who has only had God's love described to him?

Do those words sound like the words of someone who just understands love and God's love specifically is some concept?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, God loves me.

He really does.

That's really cool.

Or does this sound like something that only someone who's experienced God's love could write?

See, there's a big difference between between understanding something and experiencing something.

Because the reality is God's love is not meant to be understood.

It's meant to be experienced.

God's love for you is not something that you're meant to get.

It's something you're meant to get.

And I think the reason that so often the church is not defined by God's love is because the church the church hasn't had his love.

People haven't been taught that they can hunger for it and have it.

People are taught that they should strive for it and earn it, but they haven't been taught that they can have it.

Do you understand this morning that God's love is for you?

It's for you.

It's meant to be yours.

God intends that day to day you be swept off your feet by his love.

That you can wake up in the morning and you can understand, like only someone who's experienced something can understand that you're loved.

He loves you.

I've been a Christian for over ten years before I ever actually encountered God's love.

And when it happened, it wrecked me.

Does anyone want to get wrecked today?

It's okay if you're like, nah.

Strange phrasing, but it wrecked me.

Let me explain this.

I'd been a Christian for a long time.

This, by the way, that's one of the reasons it's such an honor for me to be part of this church and to get to lead this church is kind of crazy.

Because this is the church.

This is the family where I first encountered God's love for me.

I believed in Jesus a long time before I ever got here, but this is the place where the love of God invaded my life and it changed me.

It wasn't on a Sunday morning, it was at this little small gathering.

It was taking place just on some day of the week, a small group of people hanging out in classroom two, of all places, uh, this little room, the same place we're doing square one afterwards, like I said, so you know, go there if you want to.

But uh we're all hanging out together, and this this person was sharing and they were talking, and in this one moment, the love of God, the love that He had for me, it it like hit me like a ton of bricks, and it overwhelmed me.

And I cried.

And that's a big deal.

Number one, I'm a man.

And I am I'm a masculine man, I have body hair, whole nine yards.

Way more hair on my back than I did.

Don't look.

There's no such thing as a man that doesn't have back hair.

No, it's not natural.

He's lying.

He's getting it shaved or pulled or waxed or something.

Okay.

Because what happened to me is when I was like 19, there was this one black hair on my shoulder and I pulled it out, which set off this chain reaction.

And all of a sudden I'm like, what is going on?

Who has time to manscape?

So I'm a man.

That was not planned.

So crying is not something I was taught to do much as a kid.

You know, usually as a guy, when you cry, someone's there to tell you, stop it.

What are you doing?

Don't do that.

But it's okay to cry.

It is okay to cry as a guy.

I don't cry enough.

That's actually something I'm praying about, something I'm asking God to change me.

That part of my emotional whatever is broken.

It really is.

I don't cry at all.

I've probably cried twice in the last five years.

And there have been a lot of moments I should have cried.

I should have cried in.

I just don't.

And so I'm actually praying that God will turn that on.

I don't want him to turn it on too high.

You know?

Like I don't want it to be an 11.

I want to look at sunsets and cry.

I don't want to be that guy.

And if you are that guy again, awesome.

I just don't know if I'm ready to be you yet.

But I'd love to be a solid six or seven.

I'd love to be that guy who, in an appropriate moment, can cry and just get it out and be okay with it.

But it's it's just not how I am.

So crying for me is a very, very rare occurrence.

I'm talking like actually a tear, a single tear running down my face.

That's that's strange for me.

But in this moment where where God's love just hit me, I broke down.

And I'm sitting there and I'm crying, and in that moment, God spoke something to me that was so deeply personal.

It was as if someone came and said something to you that you're the only person in the world that would understand.

Something so personal that you're the only human being alive that that would mean something to.

And God said something to me like that, and it was so insanely personal for me that here's what it did.

It it spoke to this moment that had happened in my life over ten years before that had wounded me deeply.

Something that had never healed in my life, something that I had carried around for years and for years and for years.

It had made me bitter, it had made me angry.

I refused to think about it, I refused to deal with it.

If I did think about it or deal with it, I'd become so, so angry, so furious that I was I was unable to function for like the rest of the day.

And so I had avoided it, I had ignored it, I had tried to forget it, but I had carried it with me for years, and in this one moment of encountering the actual love that God had for me, he reached back over a decade into my past and he healed it in a moment.

In a moment.

And all of a sudden, bitterness was gone, and anger was gone.

And it's not like I forgot that it happened.

I I can still look back on that moment, and when I used to look back on that moment, I would see it in first person, and I would feel what had happened to me, and it wasn't something that would shock the world if I if I talked about it, but it was something that for me in that moment was deeply, deeply hurtful.

But now when I look back on it, I see it in third person.

It's like I can watch it happening to myself, but instead of looking at it with anger and with rage and my mind being flooded with all the things I should have said or should have done in response, I just look at the situation and I see myself and I have compassion.

But then I look at the person that did what they did and I have compassion on them too.

And I realize that they were hurting out of a place of hurt.

And I love that person.

Hate's been replaced by love because when God's love comes into your life and you're overwhelmed and you experience it, I'm telling you, everything gets covered.

1 Peter 4.8 says that love covers a multitude of sins.

Love covers a multitude of sins.

That word love, by the way, it's a very specific Greek word.

It's the word agape.

It means the love that God has for us.

It's different than any other kind of love.

The Greek language had a lot of different words for love.

You have the word eros, that meant romantic love.

Philia meant the love you would have for a friend.

That's why Philadelphia is called the city of brotherly love, same root.

But this word is different.

This word is agape.

It means the love of God, the love God has for mankind.

It is a self-sacrificing love.

It is a love that gives all.

It is a love that sacrifices whatever needs to be sacrificed for the good of the object of its focus.

And this this verse tells us that God's love covers, that means it hides, it veils a multitude of sins.

And the reality is, all of us in this room have been affected by a multitude of sin.

Our own mistakes, our own failures, our own shortcomings, but not just our own, the shortcomings of others.

We've all been victimized at some level by the sin of other people.

And so each of us carries hurt and wounds and struggles, things we didn't ask for, things we didn't deserve.

But we carry those with us and we try to live lives as functioning adults, even though we have all this junk in our lives.

We carry all this baggage and we try to walk as if the weight isn't too much to bear, and it's exhausting.

Like you hurt your leg or something like that.

And if you're being honest and authentic, you would like sit there and do this, but you're like, no, I'm good.

You know?

It's how we live life.

Because the multitude of sins in our lives and in the lives of others has wounded us.

But this verse tells us that the love of God covers it.

And I want you to know this morning that no matter what you're carrying, no matter what pain, no matter what hurt, whether it's an addiction or some other behavior in your life, whether it's just pain and misery, whether it's depression, no matter what it is, whatever you're carrying, the love of God, the agape, all-consuming, all-giving, all-sacrificing love of God can cover it.

He can heal it in a moment.

In an instant.

But you've got to experience it.

I think often about what kind of church I want us to be, and what kind of church I want us to be, doesn't really matter.

It's all about what kind of church God wants us to be and what kind of church we want it to be.

But rather a church that basically says, hey, God, heap it on.

Whatever you have, give it to us.

Your love, we want it.

Your power, we want it.

Your wisdom, we want it.

Whatever you have, God, give it to us because we need it and we want it.

And when it comes to his love, we need it.

But we need to experience it.

Would you be willing to experience it today?

I'd like to do something a little bit different.

Um, and so worship team, if you guys want to go ahead and come back out.

A little bit different for us.

Most Sundays, we talk about God's stuff, what we do, body hair, all kinds of other things included.

Because, you know, because I don't have the appropriate filters, and I'm really sorry for that.

I don't, I don't.

I never have, and I may never.

I don't know.

But uh it's not that hairy.

I just I feel like saying that.

Like I'm not I'm not itchy right now.

You know, I don't have a shirt on under the sweatshirt, and I'm not itchy, and I am sweaty because these lights are hot.

I just want you to know it's not so don't get some weird mental picture of like fur.

Okay.

I call it light to moderate.

So I want to do something kind of different right now.

Most Sundays, like I said, we talk about God's stuff, and then we walk out of here, and the hope is that we'll we'll we'll think about that, we'll dwell on it, we'll reflect on it, and then we'll we'll choose to make whatever adjustments are necessary in our lives to live the life God has for us.

That's what we do.

But but sometimes you just gotta put all that aside and say, no, no, we can have a moment right now.

We don't have to wait for some moment after this moment.

We're here, we're together.

The Bible says that we're two or more gather in the name of Jesus, God's Spirit is there.

So the Holy Spirit is here.

Whether or not we we feel the Holy Spirit or not, the Holy Spirit's here.

And so we can have, we can have a moment.

And I recognize that there are many of us in this room who have never encountered the love of God, we've never had the experience that I'm talking about.

And don't worry, uh, that doesn't mean you're about to start crying.

Okay?

You might.

But you can sit there and say, I I cannot say that I've ever actually experienced that before.

That it's been real to me.

It can be real to you.

And some of us, we've we've experienced the love of God ten times over.

And what's really funny is you think that the people who experience the love of God a lot would be the people who are like, nah, I've had that, I'm good.

They're always the first people in line.

You know?

When you've tasted it, you're like, mmm, more.

Because it's so good.

And so if you're someone and you've you've had a lot of experience with God's love, I know that you're you're sitting there, you're not even tempted to check out because you know.

You know what God's like, you know his love for you, you know what it feels like to sit in his presence and and go, he loves me.

Like he loves me, he loves me, he loves you.

And what what we want to do right now is just sort of worship and reflect at the same time.

Because worship isn't always singing songs.

In fact, the Bible says that real worship is just offering ourselves to God as a living sacrifice, saying, God, I'm yours.

You say, go, I say how far.

That's that's worship.

So singing is a way that we worship, but right now we're gonna worship by by being in God's presence, by asking Him to be here, by praying that the Holy Spirit would just be here in this moment, and very, very personally, very deeply for every single one of us, give us an encounter with God's love.

And we're gonna believe that that's gonna happen.

We're gonna be open to that happening.

Because the Bible says a few things that I believe.

Mainly all of it, but specifically, the Bible says that if you draw near to God, God will draw near to you.

Jesus said that if you will seek, you will find.

Jesus says, I stand at the door and knock, and if you open, I will come in.

And so I take Jesus at his word.

And when he says, if you want me, you can have me.

If you ask for me, you'll get me.

If you open the door, I'll come in.

I believe that.

And I believe that as a church, if we say right now, hey God, we want to experience your love, we want to feel it, we want to taste it.

I believe God will honor that.

And so here's what we're gonna do: we're gonna we're gonna worship in our hearts.

Your eyes could be closed, your eyes can be open, you can do whatever you want.

But we're gonna we're gonna look at a set of verses in the Bible.

1 Corinthians chapter 13.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

These are verses that are often read at weddings.

And uh it's kind of ironic because they're almost always taken out of context, because this isn't talking about romantic love, and it's good at a wedding to read this and go, yeah, this is how I'm gonna, this is how I'm gonna love my wife or my husband, that's fine.

That's good, but but the context of this is God talking about his love for us.

And so, if you guys want to bring the lights down just a little bit, we're gonna pray.

And for the next 10 minutes or so, and I know what time it is, by the way, I'm so sorry.

But the Super Bowl is next Sunday, not this Sunday, so it's okay.

We got time.

What I want you to do is ask God to speak to you about his love for you.

And we're gonna read some of these verses, and I'm just gonna reflect and talk, whatever I feel like God puts in my head.

But more important than that, I just want to encourage you to ask God to tell you how he loves you and to believe it when you hear it.

So let's pray together, Jesus.

We love you.

But God, we we need your love.

We can admit that, Jesus.

We can be people who can who can be honest enough to admit our need for love because so many of the things that happen in this world that cause hurt and pain are simply the result of a lack of love that should be there.

God, we we need to feel your presence, and we need to feel the love that you have for us.

So I pray right now, Lord, if there is one person in this room that's never encountered it, that's never actually felt it, that's only thought about it or had it had it described to them, God, that you would take the description and you would make it a reality in this moment right now, Lord.

We ask this all in your name.

In your name Jesus, amen.

God's love for you is patient.

I think it's really interesting that God starts there, that that's the first word.

Because you need to understand this morning that you're not a screw up in God's eyes in any way.

God would say to you right now, He would say, I'm waiting for you.

I have waited for you, I will continue to wait for you because I love you.

So I'm never gonna get impatient, I'm never gonna get tired, I'm never gonna look at you and say, This is your last chance.

That is never gonna happen.

God will never look at you and say, This is your last chance, this is the last opportunity you have, because He is patient.

And maybe, maybe some people in your life that claimed to love you in the past, maybe they ran out of patience for you.

And maybe you you didn't live up to their expectations enough times where they finally said, you know, enough's enough.

But that's never gonna happen with God.

God looks at you and He says, I'm patient, I will wait, and I will keep waiting, and I will keep waiting and I will keep waiting because I love you.

You have as many second chances as you need.

Every breath you take is another chance.

Every every moment you're alive, every time you blink your eyes, you have a fresh start with me.

Because my love for you is patient.

God's love for you is kind.

His love is not harsh.

The truth of the matter is, when people who who don't love us are harsh with us, it doesn't really bother us that much.

But when people who are supposed to love us are harsh with us, it it wounds us, it cuts deep.

And maybe there have been people in your life that were supposed to love you and they were harsh with you, God would look at you and say, I'm gentle, I'm kind, I love you so much.

What I want is to pick you up in my arms and hold you, and you'll feel secure and you'll feel safe, and you'll feel warm and protected, like a young child being picked up by by a father.

God says, I'm strong, but I'm gentle, and I will deal gently with you.

So when you when you fall out of line, I will not yell at you, I will not scream at you, but I'll I'll speak to you kindly and gently, and I'll remind you that I love you.

When you mess up, I'll remind you that I love you.

He'll look at you and just say, Hey, I love you.

This love is real.

Holy Spirit, I just pray right now that you would help us understand that we can't manufacture moments.

This is not about having some manufactured, planned, superficial moment where we're supposed to feel some emotion.

God, this is about us desiring you.

So right now, Father, fill us with that desire.

We need you.

God's love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude, it does not demand its own way.

God, God would look at you and say, I'm not loving you because of what you can give to me.

And you have undoubtedly been loved by someone in the past who was focused on what you are giving them.

It was about reciprocity, not about giving.

But God will look at you and say, Look, I'm not gonna demand from you.

God's love for you is not demanding.

So you don't have to feel the weight or the burden of some distant God demanding that you do it a certain way just so that He loves you.

You don't need to feel that.

That's not God, that's religion.

God would look at you and say, Look, I'm not demanding anything, I'm here to love you.

Why?

Because I love you.

I love you because I love you, because you're my child, because I thought you up, because before this universe existed, I had you in mind and I couldn't wait to create you.

Why?

So I could know you, so I could love you.

God made you so he could love you, not so that you could love him.

God, God doesn't need your love, don't take that the wrong way.

He just doesn't need anything.

He's God, he's good, but he created you.

He wired you the way that you're wired, he made you the way that you are for one purpose, so he could love you and so you could experience his love.

So he's never gonna demand something from you that you can't give.

He's gonna give himself to you because that's what his love for you is like.

And so, if the only love you've experienced in this world is love that is demanding, that is not his love.

And he would tell you that he's sorry that someone gave you that idea that that's what love looks like.

That's not his love.

God's love for you is not irritable.

That means you can't mess it up.

You are never gonna have a bad day that changes the way God feels about you.

And maybe you're here this morning and you've had a bad day.

Maybe you're here this morning and you've had a bad week, a bad month, a bad few years, and you're tempted to believe that God must be irritable, he must be fickle, he must be sitting there going, man, you're just you're getting on my last nerve.

It's not the case.

He is not irritable, his love for you is steady.

It is it is predictable, it is constant, it's not like the weather, it's not something that can change in the blink of an eye.

God's love for you is as steady as the sun coming up in the morning and setting at night.

God's love for you will never ever change.

He loves you, he loves you.

God, fill us with your love.

God, give us an experience, give us an encounter.

Does anyone want to experience that love this morning?

Does anybody need it this morning?

God, I'm telling you, I need it.

Just personally, God, I'm telling you, I need it.

God, you know that I need it.

God would say his love for you keeps no record of being wronged.

None.

Think about this.

That means when God looks at you, you have never messed up, you have never failed him.

Ever.

He doesn't see it, he keeps no record of your wrongs, none.

There will never be a moment where you step into God's presence and he reminds you of your failure.

That is Satan, that is not God.

That is a lie.

Because God has put your sin as far as the east is from the west.

If you have accepted Jesus, God has put your sin at the bottom of the ocean.

It is dead, it is buried, and he has forgotten about it.

He's dealt with it through Jesus.

And so when he looks at you, he sees none of that.

And when you think about yourself and you think about going into God's presence, you're probably like me, like most people, you're probably aware of your sin and aware of your shortcomings.

And you feel this need to say, God, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

And look, I'm not saying there's not there's something wrong with confession.

That's that's good, that's healthy for us, but that's for us.

That's not for God.

Because he has wiped away any record of failure you have.

It's gone.

So when you step into his presence and he tells you he loves you, he's not saying that he loves you in spite of all those things because he doesn't even remember those things.

He's forgotten them.

He keeps no record of your wrongs.

Maybe you've been loved by someone in the past who kept a very detailed list of your failures.

And maybe you can be honest enough to admit that as a human being, you've loved people and you've kept a pretty detailed list of their failures too.

That is not God.

When he thinks about you, he doesn't think about your mistakes.

He sees Jesus when he looks at you.

The Bible says that when Jesus died on the cross, not only did he take our sin and deal with it, but he gave us his righteousness.

It covers us like clothing that we wear.

So when God looks at you, he sees Jesus.

And he is just as proud of you as he is of Jesus.

He is so much more proud of you than I am of my son as I watch those videos of him making baskets.

He's more proud of you.

He rejoices over you.

He keeps no record of your failures.

So stop keeping the record for yourself because you don't need it.

It's gone.

Throw it away.

Stop thinking about those things.

Stop replaying them in your mind because God is over it.

He's over it.

God's love for you does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices when the truth wins out.

That means God's going to be honest with you.

He is never going to lie to you.

He's never going to mislead you.

He's never going to tempt you.

And maybe someone that was supposed to love you ended up being someone who pushed you into something you didn't need to be involved in.

God will never do that.

He will always tell you the truth.

And the truth is that you're his child.

That in his eyes you're worth it.

You are worth the blood of Jesus Christ.

You are worth it.

It was a price he was happy to pay for you.

Because he loves you.

He loves you.

God's love for you will never give up.

God is never going to quit on you.

Ever.

There will never be a day where God's done.

In fact, if you want to, you can run from him, but you cannot outrun him.

You can try to escape him, but he loves you so much, he's going to come after you.

He's going to pursue you because he is in love with you.

He will not quit.

You could quit on him, he won't quit on you.

And so maybe you're here this morning, you're tempted to quit.

You're tempted to give up on yourself because you look at yourself in the mirror and you recognize that you just don't have whatever it is.

You don't think you can keep going, you don't think you can keep keep the charade alive.

There's no charade with God because He He understands.

And you're never one mistake away from being banished from His presence.

You're not the one pursuing Him, He's the one pursuing you.

He's the one coming for you.

That's what Jesus did.

He left heaven, He came for us, He came for you.

He will never, ever, ever quit on you.

And if someone in the past has quit on you, I'm sorry.

He will never quit.

He will never leave.

He will never abandon.

Because He loves you.

God's love for you never loses faith.

Means God has faith in you.

We think so much in terms of us having faith in God, and that is necessary, that is required for us to function properly.

But God has faith in you.

He believes in you, He's entrusted you with life itself, He's entrusted you with His word, with His message.

God has faith in you.

He loves you so much that He believes in you.

He believes you're smart enough, you're capable enough.

He believes you're good enough.

And the world may have given you some identity for yourself.

That's so much less than that.

God's telling you, I believe in you, I have faith in you, I love you that much.

God loves you.

God's love is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance, through every single circumstance.

That means that not only is there no moment from your past that has changed the way that God feels about you, but there's no moment in your future either.

We can all think of circumstances that would cause us to love someone less.

We can.

You are the person he wants to be with.

You're the one he's excited about.

You're the one he cherishes.

You're the one he celebrates.

You're the one he he beams about.

You're the one that he desires.

He desires you.

He wants you.

He wants to be a part of your life.

He wants you to know him.

He wants you to know him by name.

He wants you to be so familiar with him that when he steps into your presence, it is as comfortable, it is as natural, it is as normal as breathing air.

He wants you because he loves you.

And so this next moment in worship is not about us loving him because we love him.

But it's about us being filled with the wonder that comes from realizing that the God who made everything loves us.

That he looks at you and says, That one.

I want that one.

He loves you.

Jesus, we love you so much.

And I cannot believe that you love me.

I cannot believe that you look at me and find no fault.

I can't believe that you look at me and are not tempted to move on to someone else.

God, you look at every single person in this room and you know us inside and out.

You know things about us that we don't even know.

And you say, I want you.

I love you.

I love you.

And some of us in this room right now, Lord, it is hard for us to receive love because life has made us hard.

And we've done that as a way to protect ourselves from the hurt that we've already experienced.

But God, soften our hearts right now.

Make us people who have the capacity to receive and respond to your love, God.

Soften our hearts and make us lovers.

Fill us with your spirit.

Fill us with your love and your passion.

Because we need it, we hunger for it, we crave it, we love you, Jesus.

Amen.