I don't know if you ever stopped to think about it while we're
singing those songs, especially that song.
I just think about the fact that, you know, you came to
church this morning, you probably came to worship, but I
don't know if you realize that you are coming to join with
angels. You came to join with churches
and Christians, billions of Christians around the world
coming together to worship the holy mighty God.
Isn't that kind of incredible? So not blow your mind a little
bit. And here's the best part.
He's worthy of every single bit of it.
He, he is everything. And so today there is nothing
that we could, that there's no amount of praise we could give
them that would be more than enough.
He, he is worthy of all of it. And so I hope it's one thing to
sing. It's, it's one thing to, to sing
at the top of your lungs, one thing to raise your hands, but
the other thing is just to surrender.
And that's where I hope we'll be this morning to take a position
of, of surrender and openness that God will speak to us and
lead us and guide us. We're, we're talking about the
love triangle. And in our world, love triangles
are messy. You know, when, when we have a
love triangle, that's typically not a good thing because in, in
our world's love triangles, if you're closer to one person than
that, it's going to be a problem with someone else.
But here's the good thing. We're talking about the love
triangle because God has created us to be in relationship with
him and relationship with each other.
And so we are created to to grow in relationship with each other.
And, and here's the thing, as we grow closer to God, we should
grow closer to each other. He should lead us to love each
other more. And if you really surround
yourself with people that love God, then as you grow closer
with them, they should help you grow closer with God.
And so we have this love triangle that we're talking
about. We were created for fellowship.
We were not created to lock ourselves away.
The Christian life is not one of seclusion.
It's not one of trying, you know, locking yourself away and
trying to keep yourself away from all the terrible people.
The Christian life is meant to be a life that's lived in
relationship with God and with others.
And so we want to grow in our relationship with God and with
others today. Last week, we talked about the
fact that we are called a fellowship.
First, John 1 talks a lot about fellowship that we are to share
in this life together, share in this faith, share in this love
that that God has for us and and we were created for fellowship
with God and others. And some of God's greatest gifts
are found in fellowship. Some of the best moments of your
life, probably all the best moments of your life involve
other people because you were created to share life.
And then last week we talked about the fact that God is light
and that if you shine the light of God on your relationships,
then you will they will be at their best and you will honour
God and you will live in close fellowship with each other.
Today we're going to be in first John chapter 3.
We're going to read verse one and then verse 11 through 24.
So stand with me and honour God's word.
And some of this text is challenging, very challenging,
and if you just read over it and you really don't let it sink in,
if you really don't come surrendered, then it won't
challenge you. But my prayer is that this will
really deeply challenge you and that you will be open to what
God has for you today and you allow Him to speak to you
through His Word. That's why we stand and honor
God's Word. So I'll read and you can follow
along. On the screen it says see what
great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should
be called children of God and that's what we are.
The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know
him. Skipping down to verse 11 for
this is the message you heard from the beginning.
We should love one another. Do not be like Cain who belonged
to the evil 1 and murdered his brother.
And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were
evil and his brothers were righteous.
So do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the
world hates you. But we know that we have passed
from death to life because we love each other.
Anyone who does not love remains in death.
Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you
know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
This is how we know what love is.
Jesus Christ laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down
our lives for our brothers and sisters.
If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother
or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love
of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love
with words or speech, but with actions and truth.
This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we
set our hearts at rest in His presence.
If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than
our hearts and He knows everything.
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have
confidence before God and receive from Him anything we
ask, because we keep His commands and we do what pleases
Him. And this is His command, to
believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and to love one
another as He has commanded us. The one who keeps God's commands
lives in him and He in them, and this is how we know that He
lives in us. We know it by the Spirit He gave
us. Praise the Lord, you can have a
seat. The focal point of chapter 1 is
this fellowship that we are to share life together.
We're share faith together, to share love for each other.
This, this agape love. But I, I want you to understand
that it's more than just, Hey, we are a common group of people
that believe something together. It's more than just, hey, we're
a group of people that that join together at this church.
And so we have this bond. It's, it's more than that, guys.
We are a part of the family of God.
It starts in verse one and and guys, I, I want you to feel how
incredible this is. See what great love the father
has lavished on us that we could be called children of God and
that is what we are. It's God's great love, guys, the
God that created the universe, the God that created all of us
loves you not just a little bit, but has this great love for you.
And it says that he lavishes this love on us, a lavished turn
to someone say God loves me. He lavishes his love on me.
Come on, tell him God loves you. He lavishes his love on you.
See the great love that the father has lavished on us that
we get to be called children of God.
Listen, I don't, I don't know what your, your family, you
know, earthly family situation is like, but, but I've got
really good news. No matter what.
That's like the God that created the universe loves you so much
that he lavishes his love on you and has allowed you to become a
child of God. Praise the Lord.
We had friends in South Carolina at our church and wonderful
people and they got a call. I don't know how all of this was
arranged, but they got a call from a hospital and they said,
Hey, we have a baby here and the baby's not going to make it.
And, and the baby has nobody to just hold, hold the baby, hold
him. They said, would you be willing
to come and just hold this baby until the baby dies and just
love the baby? And so our friend said yeah,
and, and, and went and held the baby every day.
Went and held the baby, just loved it.
Not, not that they had any responsibility to, not that they
had to, not that there was anything that had earned that,
but just went to love and hold the baby and, and this
incredible thing happened. The baby kept living and their
love grew and the baby kept living and got healthy and they
adopted their son. And now today he's 25 years old
and he is a part of the family and live and well because of the
love that they showed. What an incredible thing, guys.
That's the picture we have from God.
It's not, it's not a chore. It's not a task that God has to
do. It doesn't say God loves you
because he has to, you rotten, rotten person.
It says that he has great love for you and he lavishes his love
on you. I just can't even, I can't even
begin to imagine how much God loves us.
And he wants you to know it today.
And he invites you into the family just as that friend of
ours held the baby and loved the baby and then eventually adopted
and it became a part of the family just as much as the rest
of the family, the other kids, this is a part of the family.
We are adopted because of God's great love for us.
You today either are a child of God or can be a child of God if
you accept His grace and love. God loves you more than you will
ever know and he lavishes His love on you.
Go ahead and say lavish one more time.
All right, so you understand. I hope you understand.
I hope I did a good enough job explaining to you that God loves
you. Now I want to explain to you
that God loves the person next to you and God loves the person
next to them and God loves the person at the other side of the
room. God loves this side of the room.
Go ahead, say lavished guys, God lavishes his love on on this
side. But guess what?
God lavishes his love on the go and say lavished what about you
middle? What about you balcony?
It's it's not just that God loves me and lavishes love on me
and not just that he adopts me as a child of God, but but he
also loves the people next to me and the people around me and
adopts them as children of God. Anyone who will accept his love
and grace becomes a child of God.
And so as God's love makes us His children, it also brings us
together as family. We're brothers and sisters in
Christ. God doesn't just love me, He
loves each one of you, which means that we are linked
together by His love. He lavishes His love on us, and
we come together as a family in His love.
Praise the Lord, Say praise the Lord Theresa made fun of me this
week with the teens and and she did all she did was stood up
there and said say this, say this, I'm on fire today.
We're going to keep doing it. You're going to keep
participating. God loves you and we are family.
It goes on it and it talks about loving each other.
Verse 11 says for this message you've heard from the beginning,
you should love one another. And then it gets into this, this
weird part talking about hate and murder.
Do not be like Cain who belonged to the evil 1 and murdered his
brother. Why did he murder him?
Because his own actions were evil and his brothers were
righteous. And then it goes on and says, do
not be surprised my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.
But we know that we have passed from death to life because we
don't curse, we don't drink, we don't smoke, we don't cut people
off in traffic. No, because we love each other.
It's not a list of rules that tells us that we've passed from
death to life. It's the love that we have for
each other. And anyone who does not love
remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or
sister is a murderer. And you know that no murderer
has eternal life residing in him.
But we're called to love. So it talks about this love and
hate first. John plays this back and forth
between love and hate. God has lavished his love on
you. He's invited you into the
family, made you a child of God. Now you are supposed to be a
person of love, not hate. Now that we're a part of the
family of God, now that God has lavished his love on us, we are
to love others. It says anyone who does not love
remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or
sister is a murderer. You know that no murderer has
eternal life residing in him. Here's the deal.
There is no room for hate or murder.
Let's just make that clear. No, no room for hate and God's
family. I probably don't need to tell
you not to murder each other. I hope I don't need to tell you
that. But I do want to tell you that
you should not even hate each other.
In fact, this goes pretty far. It's it's pretty harsh.
It says anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer.
You see, love lavishing love gives life, but when we hate, we
take away life. And it says you, you may as well
be a murderer. There's no room for hate in
God's family. If you are a child of God and
you accept His grace and His love, then you cannot have
hatred for someone else. If you have hatred for someone
else in your heart, you're not loving God with your heart.
Those two things are incompatible.
So #1 don't hate #2 don't murder, but but #3 don't be
surprised if people who don't follow Jesus are hateful to you.
They're not of the love of God. So, so don't hate.
But then it goes on and in verse 16 it says this is how we know
what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life
for us. Now we ought to lay down our
lives for our brothers and sisters.
If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother
or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love
of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love
with words or speech, but with actions and truth.
The first thing I want you to know it today is that God
lavishes His love on you. He invites you into the family,
adopts you as a son or daughter and his family.
But the second thing is we are called to a crazy love for each
other. Just feel the gravity of this.
This is how we know what love is.
That Jesus Christ laid down his life for you.
Now you need to lay down your life for each other.
Guys, do you not feel the heaviness of that?
Am I the only one that feels the heaviness that we just
celebrated Easter and before that Good Friday and we, we
understood that Jesus died on a cross.
He was, his body was broken, he bled, his bones were broken.
He, he died on a cross for our sins.
He gave his life so that we could have freedom and
salvation. And it says in the same way we
should love each other. God's love is not just lavished
on us. We're not just linked together
by love, but we're called to live love out for each other.
God's sacrificial love is a calling that we are called to.
Just as Jesus gave his life as a sacrifice for us, we should
sacrifice for others. What does this look like?
Most of you have probably never had an opportunity to give your
life to die for somebody else. Maybe you have.
I, I, I remember several years ago, I talked about this in
sermons, but the house down the street caught on fire.
It was right after I picked up one of my kids from the bus stop
and we got back to our house about 3 or 4 houses away.
And we heard yelling and turned around and saw smoke coming out
of the windows. And, and so I took off and ran
down there. And by the time I got down
there, I'm a slow runner, there were flames shooting out the
windows. The front door had blown off.
I mean, this place was just a blaze.
And I didn't, I mean, it was a panicked moment.
I got there. I didn't know what to do.
So I ran into the garage and I opened the garage door and there
was smoke from ceiling to floor. I couldn't see a thing.
I'd never been in that house. But but the kids were yelling,
Grandpa, grandpa. And I thought, what, what am I
going to do when I got to that door?
And I opened the door and the dogs came out and I thought,
what am I going to do? Have you ever been in that
position where you were tempted? You were thinking, will I give
my life for someone else? And I started to call out, Hey,
hello, Is anyone there? And nobody answered.
And, and I didn't have that opportunity.
But I, I, in that moment, I mean, that was one of those
moments that I thought, am I willing to lay down my life for
someone else? Have you ever wondered that?
Have you ever thought about that?
Maybe you won't ever get a chance to die for somebody else,
but I got to tell you have the opportunity to sacrifice and
live your life for others every single day.
We, we may not be able to give the ultimate sacrifice, but we
can live in a way that we give our lives to others, that we
live as a sacrifice for others, that we put others first, that
that, that we think of others first, that we listen to people.
Maybe you won't have to die for somebody, but maybe it's, it's
inconveniently taking time to listen to someone.
Maybe it's giving something. Maybe it's getting out of your
comfort zone and serving in a way that's uncomfortable for
you. We have the opportunity.
It says that we should, we should love others the way that
Jesus loved us. That's not saying you have to go
die on a cross. He's already paid for people's
sins. But that does mean that we need
to live a life of sacrificial love for the people around us.
We need to lay down our lives every day for others.
And here's the deal. This isn't a suggestion.
It doesn't say, hey, if you love Jesus and you're a part of the
family of God, then maybe if you're feeling right, if you've
had your coffee, if everything's going well, if you've got a
little extra money, if you got a little extra time, if you got a
little extra energy, then you can give.
It doesn't say that. It says we should love others
the way that Jesus loved us. We should lay down our lives for
others. It goes on.
It gets even more challenging. If anyone has material
possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no
pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?
Dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with
actions and truth. We are invited into the family.
God's love is lavished on us. We are linked together by love.
We are called to live out our love, and that is a thing of
action. We're not called to just love.
And we're hey, I love you. Hey, I'll pray for you.
Hey, I'm thinking of you. Hey, I'm there for you.
It's not just about speech. It's not just about words.
We're called to actually love and to put our love into action.
Now, this is where it gets really tricky because it's not
always easy to know what that looks like to love others.
Is it? How many of you have ever been
in a a tough situation where you didn't know exactly what loving
somebody else looked like? Just two of us.
OK, cool. Hey, good to have you.
Thanks for being here. Listen, if you, if you live for
very long and if you do your best to honor God, I promise
you, you're going to be put into some situations where it's tough
to know what the loving thing to do is.
I mean, we're, we're a church here.
We have people come here all the time asking for help, asking for
money, asking for different things.
And, and every time someone comes here, we have an
opportunity to see them, to love them.
Now that love doesn't always mean giving them exactly what
they asked for. Sometimes it is really tricky.
There have been people that I have invested months and years
into and I've asked myself the question, am I really loving
them right? Am I really doing the right
thing or am I just enabling? Am I just, you know, making
things worse and worse? And it is a tricky thing.
It says if anyone has material possessions and sees a brother
and sister in need but has no pity on them, how and the love
of God be in that person. This doesn't mean that every
person that walks by you and says I need this, you have to
give it to him. What it does mean is this we
need to learn to see other people the way that God sees
them and we need to learn to put our love into action.
I love this it. It says not just words and
speech, but action and truth. Sometimes the loving thing is
speaking truth, but the right thing to do is never to cast
someone away and to not see them or love them.
We're called to love, to lay down our lives for other people.
I was thinking about this. My son Jack loves chicken minis
from Chick-fil-A. Sorry to bring it up.
You can't get it today. I apologize.
Jack loves chicken minis. Sometimes in the morning I'll
take Sam to school. Sorry, Sam.
I'll take Sam to school and then on the way back I'll grab
chicken minis for the boys I owe.
Yes. No, I don't.
I've got plenty of stuff. But but the other day a couple
weeks ago, I I grabbed A10 count because when I get back, Eli's
still asleep, but the other two boys are there.
It's just the three of us. So 10 counts kind of perfect.
They can each eat 4, all eat 2 and maybe some of the hash
Browns and it's perfect. So I got a 10 count and hash
Browns and I took him home and that day Charlie didn't feel
like eating. So he said I don't need any.
And to be honest, I didn't really want any.
Jack crushed 10 chicken minis and the hash Browns like this
boy can put it down. He loves them.
And the next day he'll he'll ask again.
Hey, can I get chicken minis? Hey, Dad, every day.
Hey, he would ask me every single day.
Can I get chicken minis? Now listen, the loving thing to
do as a father. Listen, I I want to bless him.
I want to lavish love on him. I would love to get him chicken
minis every day. But it's not the right thing.
It wouldn't actually be good for him, would it?
And so sometimes there's this really tricky thing it says if
anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in
need but does not have pity on them, how can the love of God be
in that person? Let us love with actions and
truth. It's messy, it's tricky.
Sometimes people hurt you, sometimes people are in the
wrong. How do we behave?
How do we love someone in a way that is action and truth, not
just words? Well, I like the third part of
this. Number one, we're linked by
love. We're lavished love.
We're a part of the family #2 we're called to live out that
love with actions. But that's messy.
I love this last part, verse 23. And this is his command to
believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one
another as He has commanded us. The One who keeps God's commands
lives in Him, and He and them. And this is how we know that He
lives in us. We know it by the Spirit he gave
us. Here's the beautiful thing.
You are invited into the family of God.
God has lavished His love on you.
You are a child of God. If you accept His grace and His
love, and He is your Father. You are a child of God.
We are linked together. We are called to love the way
Jesus loves, which is messy and tricky and sometimes really
hard. Sometimes it's hard just to
know. Here's the good news.
His command is to believe in his Son Jesus Christ, to love one
another. And listen to this next part.
The one who keeps God's commands lives in him and he in them.
And this is how we know that he lives in us.
We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
See, God didn't just say, hey, I love you.
You're a part of my family. Now go love each other the way I
love you. Good luck with that.
No, when we accept Him as our Saviour, He fills us with His
Spirit and we have the very Spirit of God living in US,
leading us. See, loving others is difficult
and messy, but God has given us His Spirit to lead us in love.
So not only are we linked by love, not only are we to live
love out, but we are led to love by the Spirit of God.
It's not supposed to be a mystery.
He doesn't leave us on our own. He wants to not just command us
to love, but He wants to show us how to love each other.
It is messy, it is tricky. The church can be a tricky
place. It is hard to love each other
sometimes. But praise the Lord, Not only
does he lavish his love on us and invite us in, but he fills
us with his very spirit that teaches us how to love.
You know, I've, I've never once followed God's leading and then
regretted what I did. I've never once felt God leading
me to love or to give or to serve and then thought
afterwards, oh, I wish I hadn't done that.
God was wrong on that one. Not one time in my life, but
there have been lots of times where I did it my way and I
thought, man, I wish I could go back and I wish I could listen
to God. Had a moment this week.
I need your help with this. I'm going to talk about one of
my kids and I need you to do me a favor and not ever go talk to
this kid about it, OK? Can you nod your head if you're
with me? If not, if one of you doesn't
nod your head, I can't do it. Everybody nod your head.
Tuesday night we had a basketball game.
I won't tell you which kid, but he's not in this room.
And that only leaves 25050. But my son had a basketball
game, I went to the game and he had by far his worst basketball
game ever. I mean, I'm not just talking
about the way he played, although that was the worst he's
ever played. I mean, missing layups, like
that's not like him. I mean, he's just missing wide
open layups. Hitting the bottom of the
backboard like this is not like him.
He couldn't hit a shot. He was, he would have a fast
break and would just lose the ball out of bounds.
I mean, he was just a mess. And and that's, that's hard
because as a dad, I love him and I want him to be at his best and
I want him to be happy and I don't want, I knew he was
hurting. Then this thing happened and
this is where it really turned even worse.
He was dribbling up the floor and a guy stole the ball from
him. And, and I knew he was hurting
and I knew he was upset and I knew he was embarrassed.
The guy stole the ball from him and dribbled down.
He chased the guy down, jumped up and had a really awesome
block on the guy. But instead of turning around
and walking back to his team, he ran up and got in the guy's face
and was just, I mean, it was ugly.
Got a technical foul. All right, let me flashback 25
years. That might not be long enough.
27 years, I was in high school, I got a technical foul.
My dad is near perfect. I got a technical foul.
It wasn't, I didn't get anyone's face.
I wasn't nasty. I just a ref called a foul and
they literally walked over and looked at me and another guy and
said you and I said, oh, come on, you got to know who you're
calling it on. And they teed me up.
They gave me a technical. Guys, if you thought there was
an earthquake that day, it wasn't an earthquake.
It was my dad in the car after the game getting on to me about
the technical. My dad was near perfect, but
man, I got it that day. And here, here my son's having
the worst game of his life and he's not reacting well to it.
The worst part is I can't stop it.
And he goes over and he gets in this kids face and he gets a
technical and they have to pull him out of the game and the rest
of the game. I mean there's nothing I can do.
He's just back and forth with people and just losing his mind.
A couple people in the stands when when he got that technical
file were like, that's OK. I said no it's not because I
know what my dad felt that day and I was sitting there in the
stands and I was thinking it's OK to not be good.
It's OK to miss shots. It's never OK.
It's never OK to lose your mind and take it out on others.
And I was angry and Megan said, you know what, I'll bet he's
glad he doesn't have to ride home with you today.
And I said, he's riding home with me today and we're going to
talk about this. More stuff happened in the game.
The other coach, you know, was whatever.
I got more and more upset at the end of the game.
I didn't know what to do. I was so frustrated.
I was so mad. I was mad at my son.
I was mad at the other coach. I got in my car after and I
thought I might just go back in, not to fight, but I need to say
something, you know, and I just really had to stop cuz see, I'm
called, I'm called to love others the way that God loves
me. That means my son when he's
having his worst moments, I need to love him the way that God
loves me. That means the other coach.
So we got to the end of the game and I just thought, you know
what? I, I just don't think that I'm
ready for that right now. I said, Megan, why don't you
take him home? I had board meeting.
That's the best part of this. I'm oh man, I'm so angry.
I have to go to board meeting. The whole way to board meeting,
I prayed, Lord, isn't it amazing how when I'm preaching
something, it always comes up in my life.
I said, Lord, I need you. I want to love my son.
Well, I want to not just, I don't want, I don't want to
enable, I don't want to condone something that's clearly wrong,
but I also never want to communicate anything but love.
And by the way, Lord, I'm going to board me.
Can you help me out here? Can you bring it down a little
bit? And so I waited and I prayed and
I got to tell you, God doesn't just call me to love my son.
God doesn't just call me into this mess, but he gave me a
spirit to lead me and guide me. And I didn't know what to do, so
I stopped and I prayed and God led me.
And I don't know if I did it perfectly, but I do know that I
did it obediently to Him. Worship team, come on up, stand
with me. Here's the deal.
God has lavished His love on you today.
I hope you know just how much God loves you.
And maybe there are some of you here today who have never
accepted his love and grace. You've never become a part of
his family. You've never said, Lord, I want
you to be my Savior today. I want you to know that he has
given everything for you that that Jesus came and died on a
cross to give you forgiveness for your sins, but also to give
you life. And all it takes today to
receive that, to be a child of God is just to say, God, forgive
me. I want you to be my father, and
it's here He lavishes His love for some of you today.
Maybe you need to respond and receive the love.
Maybe you've never received that kind of love.
Today God is here. He loves you, and He wants to
pour that love out and adopt you as a child of God.
We're called to live out that love, to love each other.
And guys, that can be really, really hard.
That can be really, really hard. Love is messy.
It's really hard to know how to love sometimes and people that
hurt you, people, people that are, are in great need that it
is hard to know today. You are called to love others
the way that God loves you. The good news is this, He gives
us His Spirit. So maybe some of you need to
accept His love and come into the family.
Maybe some of you are in the family and you're dealing with
some messy situations. I know that some of you are, I
got good news. His Spirit is here and wants to
lead you and guide you, show you how to love each other well.
So we're going to respond to God's word.
We're going to respond. And, and this is where I want us
to take a position of worship and surrender.
And today I just want you to search your heart.
And if there's something that that you need to give to God, if
there's something you need his guidance on, I want to invite
you. You can always come pray in an
altar. You can pray where you are, but
there's something great about coming down here.
It's not a place of shame or embarrassment.
It's a place of surrender. And God's spirit and God's power
is here and wants to work and lead you and guide you today.
If you've never accepted Him as your Lord and Savior, there's no
greater choice you can make today than to accept His gift of
love and grace. Lord, I pray you lead us and
guide us. We're going to sing.
I will make room. Lord, today, maybe some of us
need to make room. We need to allow you to come
into our heart and lead us and guide us.
Maybe some of us need to pause and step back.
Maybe there's a situation that's happening and we just don't know
what to do. Lord, I pray today we would come
to You. We would lay it down, lead us
and guide us. Help us to respond to Your word
now in Jesus name, Amen. If you need to come pray, you
can pray. If you need to sit, sit, but
respond to God's Word and worship.