Motivated By Love

Amen.

Amen.

Anyone else grateful for our worship team?

Man.

Man.

Well, if uh if you're just joining us this summer, we have spent our entire summer in a series we've called the most important conversation in history.

We've gone through John chapter 3, which records this incredible conversation that took place late one night in the city of Jerusalem.

John 3 · chapter mention

Took place between Jesus and a man named Nicodemus, and it's in this one conversation that Jesus really tells us who God is.

He completely and totally redefines our entire understanding of God.

This one conversation has shaped the way that humanity sees God more than any other conversation ever.

That's what makes it the most important conversation in history.

And so we've been going through it.

Some would say slowly, others would say thoroughly, okay?

Verse by verse, and often spending more than one week on each verse because the summer's almost over, but we are going to be experts on John chapter 3, all right?

John 3 · chapter mention

We're all going to walk out of here with that.

We can put that on our resumes and whatnot.

It'll be good.

This exchange is so powerful.

Last week we we got to what is arguably the most powerful part of the conversation.

Ken Kington spoke with us last week and did a great job as always.

And he got to John 3.16, which says, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

If there's a point to the conversation, this is the point.

And it's extremely important in life that we remember the point of things, right?

Because if we do all of this but we miss the point, that just makes us a religion.

A religion is either spiritual activity with no point and that's worthless, or it's spiritual activity with the wrong point and that's destructive.

It's important that we always remember the point, and this is the moment when Jesus gets down to the point.

Ken hit it right on the head last week when he said that this statement, it's the epicenter of our faith.

It's that central point that all the shock waves of the movement of Jesus that have affected lives through through thousands of years, it's it's the center point.

It's where it really boils down to, it's where it begins.

And so we're gonna spend a little bit more time on this statement today.

We're gonna keep the hammer on the same nail because the truth is this: there are some movies you need to see twice, there are some songs that you just need to listen to on repeat.

Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins.

You need it at least four times.

Just keep that one going.

That's the best one.

You know, there's there's some things that are so powerful that look, you can't just drive by it and look at it and go, wow, that's great.

This statement of Jesus, it's not some roadside attraction that you drive by and look at once and snap a picture and go, I've I've seen that.

It's not the big chicken, okay?

This is like the Eiffel Tower.

This is something that we need to stop at and appreciate.

Because see, we have this tendency with verses like this to categorize them in this kind of religious category, this put this stained glass filter on them.

And then we we see them as a Bible verse.

We go into autopilot, right?

For God so loved the world, and we just kind of do that.

But we forget that when Nicodemus heard this, this was not a Bible verse.

This was not something Nicodemus had ever heard before.

Nicodemus' brain did not go into autopilot because he's heard this so many times.

This was a statement that a man was making to him that he had never heard before.

And it was kind of an audacious statement because to be able to say what Jesus says here, you have to be someone that knows God.

You have to be someone that intimately knows God.

You have to, in a lot of ways, be God because what Jesus is doing in this verse is he's pulling the curtain back and he's exposing what motivates God.

What's the reason behind the actions that God takes?

What's the purpose?

What's the why behind every what that God does?

The only person that can really speak to that with authority is someone who really knows God, someone who maybe is God.

See what Jesus says here, it's revolutionary.

It was revolutionary 2,000 years ago, it's revolutionary today because Jesus tells us that God's primary motivation, what drives him, what propels him forward, and the way he acts with us and interacts with us as human beings is love.

He says, For God so loved the world that he gave his son, that he sent Jesus.

See, that's revolutionary because so many people in this world that believe in God forget that.

So many people in this world that put their faith in God believe that God is primarily motivated by something other than love.

And anytime we let our minds believe that, we get off track.

So some people believe that God is motivated by anger.

That verse could read, For God was so fed up with the world that he sent his only son.

Like God's this distant father who just watches things go badly, and when it gets bad enough, then he says, Fine, I've had it.

Now I'm gonna get involved.

Now I'm gonna do it myself.

I'm not gonna let this go on any longer.

And look, I'm not saying God doesn't have anger.

You can't read very much of the Bible and not come to terms with the fact that God has emotions, and some things make him angry, and sometimes he responds to what makes him angry, but it's always a righteous anger.

That said, to say that anger is somehow the fuel of God is so off track.

He makes it clear time and time again in scripture that his love, his love outpaces whatever anger he has in a way that it's not even funny.

I mean, Jesus said it himself, or God said it himself in Scripture.

He says that the sins of the Father pass to the Son, even up to seven generations.

So wrath, anger get seven.

He says, But my unfailing love I will give to a thousand generations of those who love me and follow me.

Anger seven, love a thousand.

His love is so much greater than his anger.

Do you remember when you were a child?

And maybe your parent would send you to someplace in the house to find something and bring back to them.

That was always a stressful situation, right?

He's like, I gotta find this thing.

And I don't know what it is about being a kid, but sometimes like my dad would send me to the garage to get a specific tool, and he would tell me the tool, and he would tell me where it was.

He would say, It's on the second shelf in the right corner, and this is what it looks like.

And I would go to that shelf and I would stare at the shelf and it was not there.

And I would tell my dad, it's not there, dad, and he'd say, Yes, it is, it's blue, it's right there on the second shelf.

Please bring it to me.

He'd be yelling at from some other room, and I'd be staring at the shelf, and I'd just be like, Dad, you're crazy.

It's it's not here.

And then he would finally go, uh, and he would come himself, and guess what?

It was right there.

And I thought it was like some crazy trick.

Like, how it was right there.

Now I'm a parent, and I'm on the other side of this dynamic.

And we're sending our son all kinds of places in our house to get stuff, and we'll tell him where it is, and I'm telling you, he he cannot find it.

It's some phenomenon with children that they're blind to whatever it is you need them to find.

We'll send him to go get his shoes and he'll come up with a toy, and we're like, what?

No, shoes for your feet.

And he's like, Oh yeah, and then he'll go down there, can't find his red shoes.

They pop.

And so when we get frustrated and fed up, and we finally get to that point where we say, you know what, fine, I'll do it myself.

That's not the dynamic that's going on when Jesus comes.

It is not that God grew so impatient with the world and he got so fed up that he finally said, I'll do it myself, and he sent Jesus.

It doesn't say that God was so obligated to the world that he sent his one and only son.

Sometimes we think that God is only with us and only continuing with us because it's it's an obligation.

It's something that he's compelled to do because he's so good.

But we need to remember that God is not obligated to do anything ever.

God does not get backed into a corner.

God's hands are never tied.

He's God, he can do whatever he wants.

God did not send Jesus to us, God does not interact with us out of obligation.

We all know what it's like to live with obligations.

For there to be things that you wish you had not committed to, but now you are and you have to keep doing it.

It's hard, right?

Like we bought a dog years ago named Roxy, and uh horrible dog.

Just awful.

We we saw her, we bought her, it was a terrible decision.

Um, she she's the type of dog that should not exist.

Okay?

And before you judge me, first service did that too.

Like that's the most audacious statement a human being can make.

You need to understand, I love dogs.

I need about 10 years after Roxy to cleanse the palate before I get another one.

But when I say she shouldn't exist, what I mean is there are dogs that God made.

They're like wolves, right?

They're big, they're strong, they can live, they can exist, they can survive without us.

And then there's the dogs that we've made that look like some science experiment gone horribly wrong.

You know, the dogs that are tiny and their hair falls out and their eyes are about to jump out of their face and their nose is squished up.

God didn't make those dogs.

We made those dogs.

We were like, what would happen if you bred this one with this one?

And oh wow, that thing, that's that thing's barely holding on to life.

Have you ever seen a chihuahua?

Have you ever owned a chihuahua?

Those things just like shake because their bones are about to fall apart.

We did that.

God didn't do that.

Right?

He didn't do that.

And so God didn't make peekanies.

We did, and we had a Pekinese, that's what Roxy was.

Stupid, horrible, dumb, just awful dog.

She would do this thing, it was so frustrating.

Every time the front door would open, she's gone.

She would just run down the street.

And I was so tempted every time to just be like, no, Roxy.

She's free.

She she left.

She left us, you know.

But would I do that?

No, I wanted to, but I'd end up chasing this stupid rat dog down the street, looking like an idiot, yelling at this dog.

I gave Roxy away to a friend five years ago.

I gave her away.

I did not accept payment.

I would not, in good conscience, do that.

I would have paid my friend to take Roxy.

Okay?

But but the point of that is this.

I'm just gonna be honest with you guys, I didn't do much out of love for Roxy.

I did all of it out of obligation.

I was like, well, this is my dog.

I bought this dog.

I'm pretty sure I'm like legally obligated to take care of this dog until someone will take it from me.

God does nothing for you out of obligation.

It is not that for God was so obligated to the world, that God had such a sense of duty to the world since he created it that he says, okay, well, I don't really want to, I regret it, but I'll just I guess I'll stick it out to the end.

No, it's he so loves the world.

He loves you.

He loves you.

That's this big.

Because see, when you really love something, you will do crazy things to demonstrate your love, won't you?

That's why it's really important to love the right stuff, otherwise, you do crazy over-the-top things for something that doesn't really matter.

You regret it one day, you gotta get that tattoo removed, right?

Some of us have had that experience.

Okay.

For example, my family, we're from Missouri.

And if you're from Missouri and you like baseball, you root for the Cardinals.

Okay, Kansas City's great.

I'm really glad they're doing well in the last few years, but if you're from Missouri, you root for the Cardinals.

And my older brother is the biggest Cardinals fan I've ever met in my entire life.

Like he's obsessed with the Cardinals.

And so my older brother was the first in our family to have a child.

He had a boy named Jacob.

And he he picked the name Edmonds as the middle name for Jacob because at that time the best player on the Cardinals was Jim Edmonds.

And so my nephew's middle name is the last name of the Cardinals' best player when he was born.

So my brother started this tradition that when you have a baby boy in our family, you pick his middle name based on the last name of the best player on the Cardinals.

Now, Megan and I got married when I was in college, and I get obsessed with stuff very easily.

And for about three or four years, I was obsessed with Cardinals baseball.

Like obsessed, because the Cardinals were doing really well.

They were amazing, they were in the World Series, and they won the World Series.

It was a great time to be a Cardinals fan, and I was watching every single game, and there's a lot of baseball games on, right?

I was watching all the games, talking about it all the time.

I mean, I was I was just as intense as my brother for about three or four years.

And that just so happened to be when Megan and I got married and we started talking about kids.

Are we gonna have kids?

How many will we have?

When will we have them?

And then eventually you start talking about what might their names be.

So I let Megan know, well, here's the deal.

Uh I'm a big Cardinals fan, as you know.

And my brother started this tradition that if we have a boy, we've got to pick his middle name based on the last name of the best player for the Cardinals.

Problem though, is at that time, 2005, 2006, whenever we were having this conversation, the best player for the Cardinals was Albert Poohs.

Okay?

And it's spelled P-U-J-O-L-S, but it's not pronounced Pudgels, and it's not even pronounced Pooh Joles, it is pronounced Poohs.

So I told my wife, I said, honey, tradition's tradition.

Like, we've got to do this.

And here's the truth at this point in time, I mean, he ended up leaving to the Angels and just now he's dead to me and I don't care about him anymore.

Um, it's how sports work.

But but see, at this point in time, he was not just the best player for the Cardinals, he's the best player in baseball at this time.

He was he was breaking records, he was setting a pace that like no player had ever done.

So even though I was kind of joking about naming our son's middle name Poohs, I kind of wasn't either.

There was like there was a part of me that was like, but seriously, just pray about it.

Consider it.

Because at that time, like Albert Poohs was the man, I would, I would tell my son, you should be honored to carry this name.

You should be honored.

Because when you love something, even it's something ridiculous, you will do crazy, stupid things to display your love.

Have you ever stopped to consider the over-the-top, extravagant, extreme display of love that God has given you?

That God is so crazy about you, that he has done something crazier than anyone has ever done to display love for you.

That he has willfully given up his son to die on a cross.

And by the way, they've done studies, there has never been a form of execution as painful as the cross.

Jesus didn't wait for lethal injection, He He endured the cross.

And not only did God the Father do that, Jesus.

Jesus didn't go like, I mean, you know, God, if if I have to, I guess I will, but let's think of a different way.

You know, there's a moment in Jesus' life where he's praying and he's like, God, is there a different way?

But he quickly changes his tune and says, you know what, God, whatever it takes, whatever it takes for these people, whatever brings you glory, I'll do it.

Jesus himself wanted to do what he did for us.

Why?

Because when you love someone, when you love something, you will do incredible, extreme, extravagant, crazy things to display your love.

Ephesians 1, 4 and 5 puts it this way.

And we've read this before, but it's a verse we should read often because it reminds us who we are, it reminds us how God sees us.

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

God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.

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

And guys, if we could go back to the beginning of that verse, I mean let's let's look at this for a second.

Even before he made the world, think about that.

That means that before this universe existed, and pretty much everyone agrees that was a long time ago, before this universe existed, he loved you.

He had you in his mind.

And he he loved you.

And it says in advance, right?

In advance, he decided to adopt us into his own family by bringing himself to us through Jesus Christ.

So often we think that Jesus was plan B, that Jesus was this reactionary plan to our mistake.

Like God didn't see it coming, and now he was like, oh no, people have messed it up.

What am I gonna do?

Jesus, you're gonna have to go down there.

Like that's not what happened.

Jesus was plan A.

Jesus was God's original plan.

He knew before he created this world, he knew that we'd break it.

He saw that the depths that our brokenness could go to.

All we have to do right now is turn on the news and come face to face with how scary human beings can be.

And how in the depths of our brokenness, how far we can go as human beings.

And God saw that.

He understood that we would be so broken that the only person who could be our rescuer is Jesus.

Did he hesitate to create us?

No.

Did he decide that it's not worth it?

No.

Because remember, this is in advance.

This is before he made us.

No, he wanted to.

That's what it says.

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

That's crazy.

The idea that God knew me before I existed, knew me before this world existed, not only knew me, but he saw every mistake I would ever make.

He saw, he saw how dark my thoughts could be.

He saw how selfish my actions can be.

And I'm embarrassed to even think about how selfish my actions can be.

But he saw all of that and he said, I can't wait.

I can't wait to display my love for him.

I can't wait to display my love for all of them.

I can't wait to send my son.

And Jesus is sitting there saying, I can't wait to go.

I can't wait to give it all, just to show them how much we love them.

That's crazy.

That's either someone who's crazy or that's someone who's crazy in love.

Because when you're in love, you will do crazy things to prove your love.

Have you ever stopped to realize that the God of this universe is crazy in love with you?

That Jesus' death on the cross was not some fail-safe plan, it wasn't some last-stitch effort, it wasn't some reactionary obligation.

It wasn't God's anger being pacified, it was his love being displayed for you.

Have you realized how much he loves you?

I hope you have.

But I'll be honest, as someone who has been following Jesus for over 20 years, I forget that so often.

That's why Sundays are so important.

Because it's amazing how quickly we forget who we are in his eyes.

But there's something about being here and worshiping together and praying together and looking into his word that reminds us who we really are.

He loves you.

He wasn't obligated to you.

He wasn't mad at you.

He wasn't fed up with you, and he's not today.

He loves you.

His love is what motivates him, his love is what causes him to desire a relationship with you.

His love is what makes him pursue you.

His love is the reason you have life.

He loves you.

I wanted to title this message, Holy Crap, He Loves You.

I didn't, but I said it.

Because He does.

Now here's the reality though.

We have to respond to this love, right?

I mean when someone when someone gives such a crazy display of love, when someone goes all out and does something over the top to display affection for you, you've got to respond to it.

I remember when when Megan and I were new in our relationship, we were both in high school.

I was a senior, she was a junior, and uh we went on one date, and I was like, I was all in.

I mean, this girl, I'm just going, wow, I've I've got I've got to lock this thing up, okay?

Um and so we went on one date, and then Valentine's Day came.

This is early February, and so I went like all out, as far as a senior in high school can go, all out.

And I I blew up like 90 balloons.

90 balloons, and I got a dozen roses, and I go to school with this huge giant display of love, but I remember being kind of nervous because it's kind of forward.

You can't you can't confuse that.

That's not like I want to be good friends with you, kind of thing.

So I blew up 90 balloons, and you know, and I remember being nervous because I'm like, is she gonna reciprocate this?

Is she gonna go, oh, thank, thank you.

That's that's cute.

And then I just break in half and want to go crawl in a locker and die.

Or is she gonna respond in a way that makes me think, wow, maybe she, maybe she, you know, she's not giving me 90 balloons or anything like that, but maybe she'll keep letting me hang out with her.

This is good.

And she responded, she responded with with love.

And I was so excited.

When someone, when someone gives you a an over-the-top display of love, you have to respond.

How do we respond to this love?

I mean, if we can really grasp the love that's been given to us, forget about whether or not you deserve it because you don't, he's given it.

We've got to respond.

And as I as I thought about it and prayed about it this week, there's really three responses.

Three three responses that I believe we're compelled to.

And if we will respond this way, we will get to live out the love that God has for us.

We'll get to enjoy it and experience it.

There's three responses.

Number one is you've got to accept it.

You've got to accept his love.

I heard a pastor say this recently, and I may have said this before because it really jumped out to me.

It makes no sense to desire love, to hunger for love and run from God.

But people do it every day.

I mean, stop for a second and think about how hard you've had to work for love in your life.

I hope this isn't the case, but many of us felt like we had to work really hard to receive love from our parents.

That love wasn't something given to us by our parents.

Love was something earned.

And so we worked really hard to perform and to do whatever our parents valued.

Maybe that was sports, maybe it was school, maybe it was whatever.

And we were doing it because we wanted love and we felt like we had to work for that love.

And maybe we feel like that worked, no matter how hard we worked, it wasn't enough.

That's devastating to us.

Maybe you had to work really hard to receive love and acceptance from a group of people to make friends.

I worked with teenagers for over 10 years, and I would watch so many of our students change everything about themselves just so a group of people would accept them.

That was so hard to watch.

Maybe you had to work really hard for romantic love.

And maybe no matter how hard you worked, it wasn't enough, and so that person left, or that person betrayed you, or whatever, and it broke your heart.

We have to work so hard in this world for love, and yet here we have the love of God given to us.

We're not the ones risking rejection.

He is.

Jesus is the one that's done the work, He's the one that's gone all out, He's the one that's put Himself on the line, He's the one that's put Himself out there and said, Hey, I love you.

And we can either accept it or we can reject it.

He gives us that freedom, but man, take it.

A love you don't have to work for, that doesn't exist in this world.

But you can have that with God.

And if and if you're here today and this whole love has never clicked for you, you've never realized the depths and the lengths to which God has gone to show you love, you've never realized that the cross was not some obligation, it wasn't some mandatory thing that God had to do because God doesn't have to do anything, but he wanted to because he loves you.

If this morning's the first moment for you that the love of God has clicked and it's made sense, you need to accept it this morning.

And it's not hard, it's just a matter of saying in your heart, of making a prayer, saying, Jesus, I believe you are who you say you are, I want you in my life, I need your love in my life.

By the way, it takes a brave person to admit that they need to be loved.

But if you can admit that and you can receive that, and you just give him your whole life, because you give him your whole life, he gives you his, one of those is much greater than the other.

You have it.

You've got to accept that love.

And accept it on a daily basis.

Number two, you you need to enjoy that love.

When you have a love like that, you've got to enjoy it.

Like when when Megan told me she loved me, Megan Richardson told me she loved me.

Okay?

That was a big deal.

That was a big deal to 19-year-old Justin, because I wasn't exactly a ladies' man.

Shocking, I know.

In eighth grade, in eighth grade, I asked these three girls out.

Not at one time, that'd have been crazy.

Although, my odds, maybe that's how I should have done it.

Cast a wide net.

Um, there were three girls in secession.

And I asked this one girl out and she said yes, and then the next day she broke up with me like she had buyer's remorse.

Okay?

You look different at nighttime.

Uh, today in the in the light, I don't I don't feel the same.

And then it happened again, three times in a row.

Will you be my girlfriend?

Yes.

The next day, you know what?

I thought about it last night, changed my mind.

And so I was not exactly this heartthrob that women were just lining up for.

Megan Richardson, Megan Richardson, Megan Richardson was Megan Richardson.

She was and is smoking hot.

Okay.

Intelligent, full of, full of like a godliness that I'd never, I mean, it was I just I was like Megan Richardson, and she said she loved me.

When I was in college, she sent me her senior pictures because she was a senior in high school when I was a freshman in college.

We didn't have Facebook and stuff like that.

And I put them in my wallet, and I would I would do this on purpose.

I'm just in security.

I would go in class or in some place in the library where there were people around, and I'd open up my wallet and look at the picture and just sort of wait for it, it was kind of do it in like a very obvious way.

And someone would go, is that your girlfriend?

I'd go, Why yes, that's my girlfriend.

She lives in Georgia, you've never met her, but uh, you know, she's real.

She's real.

I didn't get these with the frame, like it's she's real.

And I was so proud of the fact that Megan Richardson loved me.

And I walked around like I was walking on air because of how much I enjoyed that love that she gave me.

I'm constantly blown away by how few Christians enjoy the love of God.

I mean, honestly, it's it's one of the it's one of the most maddening things that there's this reputation that Christianity has of people just being uptight and really easy to offend.

Of Christians just being people that get offended at all kinds of stuff and just live these angry lives.

And the world looks at that and goes, yeah, no thanks.

I'm serious, like the last week or so this game has come out called Pokemon Go.

I'm sure none of you have heard of it.

Sure none of you have it, right?

You're not one of the billions of people that has been playing this, right?

Has anyone, just be honest, anyone caught a Pokemon while at church today?

Anyone willing to admit that, a few?

Good job.

Good job.

So, if you're unaware, it's this app for phones and it's free, and and you know, it's free, but people still spend a lot of money on it, whatever.

And and you you go out, but you have to like go out.

You have to walk around and you actually end up talking to people and meeting with people, and you walk miles sometimes to find these things, and it's gotten all these people just doing stuff they've never done before.

And and I don't I don't get on Facebook very often at all.

Sometimes I get on Facebook because I I'll manage our Facebook page here at the church, and I want to make sure if people are asking me things on Facebook that I check that.

So about once a week I do.

I go on Facebook this week, and it's crazy because here's this big phenomenon, and it's just fun, it's just a game.

It's just a game.

I mean it's as innocent as can be, and yet there are people on Facebook that are like throwing condemnation on this game, and guess who they are?

Christians.

Like, it's it's crazy.

And let's be honest, you're on Facebook.

You're on, you're on your phone and you're condemning people for being on their phone.

It's like you're not feeding the homeless, and if you're feeding the homeless and you're doing it while updating your Facebook status, something's wrong, okay?

So, like, why are you on your high horse?

But but it just blows my mind because as Christians, we're we're supposed to be people that you just you can't offend.

We are so filled with love, we're so excited that God loves us that it should take something monumental to offend us.

I'm serious.

And you know, I kind of joke about this, but I really mean it when I think when Jesus comes back, when it comes to us, his church, that he's gonna, he's gonna be this great surgeon, he's gonna do surgery.

And some of us, our hearts are gonna be mended.

We need heart surgery.

Some of us are gonna have brain surgery and he's gonna fix the way we think.

And some of us, hopefully none of us in this room, because that's not who we're about as a church, but some of us as Christians, we're gonna have sticks removed from some places that we need sticks removed.

Because, like, Jesus is gonna be like, that's not supposed to be in there.

Like, you're not supposed to live that way.

We we are meant to enjoy life.

You're you're you're loved by God.

Enjoy it.

The church is is meant to be charming.

And people should look at us and go, man, they why why are they why are they so light and happy?

Because the world, if you look at it, pull up CNN today, you shouldn't be light and happy.

It's illogical.

But but if we're loved by God, if we live in the daily realization that the God of the universe is in love with us, you should be able to slap us in the face and we just go, that hurt, but I'm having a good day.

I'm having a good day.

So can we just can we just commit to be people who enjoy the love of God?

Can we savor it?

Because I think if we would do that, a lot more people would, you know, follow Jesus.

One more thing.

Final thing is live it.

Accept it, enjoy it, and live it.

If you want to pay the greatest honor to Jesus that you can possibly pay him, if you want to thank him for this display of love that he's given you, live with the kind of love that he lived with, that he lives with.

Because see, Jesus was motivated by love, but but let's be honest, we're all motivated by love.

The only question is, are we motivated by a love for self or a love for others?

Because the Bible says that Jesus was motivated by a love for the world.

For God so loved the world.

One of the things, I'll just be honest, one of the things I hate about my role here and having to teach every week is that I have to wrestle with a bunch of junk every week.

Because I'll teach stuff that I'm terrible at.

I'm like, I'm reading it, I'm like, oh, I don't, I don't want to talk about that because I don't want to deal with that.

But then I have to deal with it, I have to wrestle with it.

And as a church, it's kind of our culture.

We are lighthearted, we have fun, we crack jokes, we don't take ourselves that seriously.

At the same time, we can never skip over the challenging aspects of our faith.

We can never avoid those opportunities where we actually need to wrestle with something internal.

So this whole week I'm wrestling with this idea of how much of my life and how many of my behaviors are motivated by a love for me.

And I realize I am really good at loving me.

I'm very devoted to myself.

And it plays out in so many different ways, and it and it just, when I do this, it it sabotages my life, it sabotages my joy.

So let's just say this for example, and we're just open and honest here, right?

That's who we are.

We're real people.

Let's say it's at the end of the day, and I get in bed and I say, Hey there, to Megan.

Like, well, hello, how have you been today?

And Megan, not that this would ever happen, would turn to me and say, I am tired.

And I can respond to that in one of two ways, and I know none of us have had this experience.

Um I could say, Oh, baby, you have had a long day.

What you do is really hard.

I love you.

Kiss her on the cheek, give her a little hug, good night, pray with her.

Or when I say, Hey there, and she says, I'm tired, I could go and like turn over, pout, grab my blanket, breathe really heavy, like I'll do that with.

She'll say something wrong, I'm fine.

Just do that.

When I do that, because I do, what I'm really saying to Megan, without using these words, is when she says I'm tired, I kinda kind of go, oh, you know, I'm sorry.

I think you maybe thought I was trying to give you love.

No, no, no, I'm just trying to get something.

And so I don't really care if you're tired.

Um, you know, I'm I'm all about me right now.

And if you don't respond the way I would like you to respond, I'm gonna pout and be all passive aggressive for a few minutes.

And I'm gonna try again tomorrow.

That's what's gonna happen.

Right?

Like, I do so much that if I'm really honest, it's just motivated by love for me.

It's so easy for us to do that, it's so easy for us to trick ourselves into believing that we're doing everything for others when we're really not.

Because let's say you work really long hours and your job is hard, and you don't like your job, and you deal with a lot, and it's stressful, and there's traffic, all this kind of stuff.

All this stuff is pretty normal, but sometimes we get so fixated on it that we act like we're the only one.

And and you say to yourself, I do this for my family.

I do this for my family.

But then you get home and you're not nice to your family, and you don't want to spend time with your family, and you avoid your family, you disengage from your family, you're short with your family.

That does not communicate that you're doing it for your family.

Because if you're doing it for your family, you should be thrilled when you actually get to be with your family.

See, we have to we have to look ourselves in the mirror and say, am I living motivated by a love for me or by a love for myself?

When we're motivated by, or by love for others, when we're motivated by a love for ourselves, we walk around with this constant thought of like, no one's no one's giving me the love I deserve.

Can you imagine if Jesus lived with that thought?

No one ever gave him the love he deserved.

The most extravagant display of love he was ever given was this woman that came and broke this beautiful jar of perfume at his feet and anointed his feet with this perfume.

It would have been worth over a year's salary in that time.

It was this incredible display of love.

And as beautiful and amazing and praiseworthy as that is, that does not begin to scratch the surface of what someone should do to give Jesus the love he deserves.

He has never in his life been given the love he deserves.

We can't give him the love he deserves, but he gives us his love because he's motivated by a love not for himself, but a love for others.

If you wake up this week and every single day this week, you say, I am gonna look for someone to love today.

God, you show me how I can love my wife.

You show me how I can love my girlfriend, my boyfriend, you show me how I can love my coworker, you show me how I can love my children, you know, because I do that.

I'm like, some days I'm like, I love my children, I love them so much, and other days I'm like, I love my children.

I love them, I love them, I love my kids, love them so much.

But like, really, God, today, I don't live for me today, I live for someone else.

You show me who to love, and I'll love them.

If you live that way, if that's your prayer, by the way, if you pray every day, God give me someone to love, you will be someone that can tell people, God answers my prayers every day.

If you pray for God to give you someone to love, he will answer that prayer every day.

And when it's all said and done, and we'll wrap up with this if you live that way, you will experience what it's like to live with your true purpose.

Like what Matt talked about during Lord's Supper.

The Bible says you were created in the image of God.

You were made in the image of God.

In other words, you're made to look like God.

You're made to resemble God.

How on earth can we resemble God?

How can we even begin to look like God?

I'm just trying to look like the guy at the gym that I see every Tuesday.

I'm just trying to, that's all my target is.

Look like that guy.

I think he's on steroids, but I'm not gonna judge him.

That's my built-in excuse for why when I look in the mirror, I'm like, what's different?

It's gotta be drugs.

Um can't be me.

How can we look like God?

If you love like God, you look like God.

If you love like him, you resemble him.

And you actually have the ability to look like him to someone else, and they will meet him and they will know him because you were him to them.

When you do that, you live out your purpose.

And it's awesome.

He loves you.

He loves you, holy crap, he loves you.

Accept it, enjoy it, and live it.

Let's pray.

Jesus, thank you so much for your love.

We don't we don't deserve it, we could never have earned it.

You gave it to us.

Your love is so passionate, it is so intense, Lord, that that it motivates everything you do, and you have gone to such insane lengths to show us how much you love us, Lord.

Please, please help us see the cross for what it is.

God, help us be be overwhelmed with a wonder that you gave your life to show your love.

Let us be the people that accept it.

Let us be the people who enjoy it, who savor it, and let us be the people, Lord Jesus, who live it every single day the best we can.

We love you.

Amen.

We're going to uh we're gonna finish with one more song.

And uh and we do this every week.

This song, though, this is a chance to enjoy that love, to reflect on that love, to spend five minutes together just enjoying the love that He's given.

So let's do that together.

Will you stand with me?