Show & Tell

The Gospel in Thirty Words

But we are in week two of a series that I have entitled The Gospel in Thirty Words. The Gospel in Thirty Words. And last week, if you need a review, we talked about the gospel in one word, which is Jesus. Jesus is the final and ultimate expression of the character of the Father. And he comes to bring us good news and a way to reunite with the Father. And then the gospel in three words we talked about, which is Jesus is Lord. You can’t call Jesus Lord and stay in charge.

And then we talked about the gospel in 30 words. It’s kind of like the big overarching structure for the series. And I’m gonna show it to you one more time by way of review. The gospel in 30 words is this: Jesus is God with us. Come to show us God’s love, save us from sin, set up God’s kingdom, and shut down religion so we can share in God’s life.

Show and Tell

And so last week we talked about God with us. And what we’re gonna do this morning is we’re gonna go through the next two phrases, which is this: Jesus came to show us God’s love and save us from sin. Those two. Show us God’s love and save us from sin. And so if you’re taking notes this week, what I’d like you to write down on the top of your paper is this: show and tell.

Heavenly Father, we’re so grateful for you. We’re grateful for your presence. We’re certainly grateful for your word, and we ask that you would help us to hear from you, to receive from you, and to get a clear picture of who you are and what you have in store for us, what you have in your heart when it comes to relationship with us. And we’re so grateful for you. Thank you for being with us. And it’s in your sons, let me pray. Everybody said amen.

A Picture of Our Relationship with God

Well, I wonder how many of you in the room have experienced or seen one of the great cinematic experiences of our generation. A movie that’s called Finding Nemo. Anyone? Okay, so Finding Nemo, it’s a great movie. Came out years ago, and the idea is there’s this little clown fish named Nemo. Nemo has a little tiny fin on one side so he doesn’t swim too good. And he has a father named Marlin, and Marlin is full of fear. Marlin’s got lots of fear because he knows what’s in the ocean. He’s had traumatic experiences around what is in the ocean. And so he’s always wanting to keep his son close, and so he’s always warning his son, hey, don’t go out there, it’s dangerous out there.

Well, there’s this incident with him at school, and some of the kids are daring, you know, the other kids to go touch the boat, remember? Oh, touch the butt, touch the butt, remember? And so they’re going, and so Marlin sees it and he says, Don’t you go out there, don’t you go? And in defiance, Nemo goes out and smacks the boat. And right as he does it, a swimmer comes and scoops up Nemo, the father’s worst fear, and ushers him away. And in that moment, the father changes his demeanor. It changes from anger about what his son is doing to sadness and sorrow and determination to get his son back.

And it seems like it’s a pretty simple story, but actually, like that’s a pretty good picture of our relationship, mankind’s relationship with God. That it starts with a warning and it starts and then it continues with disobedience, and then the story continues with a father determined to get his children back. And so that’s kind of like what we’re wanting to talk about this morning. We’re gonna talk about all three of those ideas. We’re gonna talk about the warning, we’re gonna talk about the consequence, and we’re gonna talk about the father who crosses the ocean to get his children back. So are you ready for that?

Sin Broke Something Between You and God

Okay, if you’re taking notes, quickly, I want you to write down three different things. The first one that I want you to write down is this: sin broke something between you and God. Sin broke something between you. A lot of people, when they hear the word sin, they think of like a list of bad things to do. You know what I mean? I think when I was a kid, I would think of, you know, well, cussing, right? Smoking, drinking, you know, I don’t know what fighting, you know, lying. I would think like those are sins. It’s like this is the list of things that you do that God doesn’t want. And then there’s like a scoreboard, and then when you break those rules, what happens is God is mad and disappointed at you.

But did you know that the Greek word that we use to translate sin actually is something a little bit different than that? It’s this word, we’ll see if I can say them all right, Hamartia, and what that is, we translate it into sin most commonly, but it’s actually an archery term. What is that? What is archery? Archery is like bows and arrows, and so this word that we translate into sin, it literally means to miss the bullseye. That’s what it means to miss the bullseye, and so maybe we apply it to how we live in scripture, and so to talk about sin, it means to live off the mark by something we do or by something we fail to do.

And when we’re off, when we’re off the bullseye when it comes to relationships, and by the way, let me just say this that the bullseye from God’s perspective is always love. Right? Love towards each other and love towards him. And when we miss that bullseye, relationships suffer. And so I think when you should think about sin, what I’d like you to do is not so much think about here’s the things that anger God, but instead think that it’s like these are the things that hurt relationships and separate people.

And so because like I think if you read scripture, you’ll get the pretty clear picture, especially when Jesus comes around, that God’s not particularly into laws. For no reason. He’s like a control freak. God is into people. And so everything that God does, every regulation, every rule, every command he gives us is for our well-being. You can never, you never have to wonder what God’s motivation is for making a rule. It’s always exclusively for our well-being. It’s just a one thing.

But I knew when I was growing up and I got engaged to Jordan, I knew that I was gonna have to dance with her at the get to. I was gonna get to okay. Not have to, I was gonna get to dance with my beautiful bride on our wedding day. And so I needed to learn how to dance a little bit like slow dance. And so I don’t know if you remember this, mom, but me and mom, we practiced dancing in the living room leading up to the wedding, so that I wouldn’t make a fool out of myself when it was time to dance with my beautiful bride.

And one thing that my mom taught me about dancing is that when you’re dancing, like slow dancing, one person takes the lead, so they’re like the lead of the dance, right? And then the other person follows. But if the person who’s following in the dance doesn’t follow the person who’s leading in the dance, you have to have a disaster. There’s feet getting stepped on. There’s no way. Well, sin, sin then is this that the idea is that God wants to be in a dance with us. That we’re following his lead and we’re moving where he moves. And sin is to break away from the leader of the dance and start dancing by yourself.

And so it’s less about, oh, I can’t believe you break the rules. That really ticks off God. He’s a control freak. It’s not that. It’s that God is committed and motivated by having relationship with you and loving you. And he understands that these things that we would call sins, that’s just the word, to miss the mark of how he’s taught us to live. The problem with that is not because rules are the rules are the rules, the problem with sin is that it separates you and God. But also, did you know this that sin separates you from other people? That’s true. You want to look at fractured relationships, almost without exception, at the root of it. What is it? Sin. It is, yeah. Because sin separates relationships.

And so you think about like Nemo’s dad, right? Marlin in the movie. His problem with Nemo smacking the butt, smacking the boat, was not because he was just a control freak and he was just bothered by the fact that his son would defy. No, no, the problem is that the father recognized that the son was swimming towards danger. Right? And so the reason that he had a problem with it was not because he didn’t want Nemo to have fun, it’s because he wanted Nemo to stay safe. And so that’s the right way to think about God’s problem with sin. Is it’s not because he just doesn’t like you to have any fun, it’s because he knows what’s best for you. So he puts commands in place so that your relationship can be unhindered.

He understands that sin moves us in the direction of sin and destruction. Self-destruction, you know what I mean? Death, sorrow, grief, pain, like he understands that all of those things come along with sin. And so when he tells us, hey, don’t do that, it’s not because there’s some sort of like thing, you know, that it bothers him, it’s because he wants to protect us. Right? And like it can come across, as in parenting, it can come across as anger. It can come across as harsh, right? But what I’m wanting to communicate to you this morning, amongst other things, is this that the heart of the father towards you has always been reconciliation. His motivation towards you has always been love.

Always look at this, Colossians chapter one, verse 21.

Once you were alienated from God, and look at this, and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.

Isn’t that interesting? Isn’t that an interesting phrase that he uses? That we used to be alienated from God and we were enemies with God in our minds. Isn’t that interesting? It’s like, what does that mean? Because the enmity was never from God’s side. He’s not up there building a case against you. His posture, God’s posture has always been to forgive, to restore, to close the gap. And we’ve had hostility, but the hostility is in our mind. So we thought God was the enemy, but the whole time.

Are you just talking New Testament? No. The entire time God has been working to get back to you, been pushing. It says this that Christ was crucified from the foundation of the world. What does that mean? That this was always the plan. Right? See, it’s not like that Jesus, you know, after God the Father cooled down, he convinced him to do this plan. No, this has always been the heart of the Father. The heart of the Father has always been towards you.

You’ll remember in the Garden of Eden, right? That Adam and Eve, it’s the first sin. There’s the whole apple incident. And what happens, right? After they sin. Well, probably like because God’s so righteous, right? He just instantly rejects them and instantly pushes them away because he’s so angry. No, in fact, God says this that I’m gonna make enmity, not between you and me, but between you and the devil. Right? So it’s such an important distinction to make in your mind that sin does separate you, but that’s not because the father’s heart is not still tender towards you. It is always tender.

And you might be thinking, I thought God hates sin. He does. Just like a parent. A loving parent hates anything that hurts its child. So I hate, I hate disobedience. Because I’m a parent. But I don’t hate my child. In fact, my hate, listen to this. My hate is fueled by love. Right? And so it’s like, let’s say you, you’re, let’s say you have a kid and that kid has cancer. Well, you probably hate. You have hate in your heart. You hate cancer. But you don’t hate your kid. You hate anything that hurts your kid. And in this particular case, you hate anything that separates you from your child. So even the hate is ultimately fueled by love.

Paul comes and he says, he says this you were enemies with God, but you were enemies with God in your mind. You were enemies with God. God here. And I just want you to know that God’s posture, God’s position towards you has always been one of wanting to reconcile, pushing forward. It’s like it’s like Nemo. You know, like the father doesn’t sit there and it’s like, well, maybe Nemo needs a little time to recognize how bad he hurt my feelings. And then ah blah, blah, blah, maybe if he recognizes he’s sorry. No. The instant the son gets pulled away, the father pursues. The instant, the instant separation happens, and that’s true for us, the moment separation happens, God starts to pursue.

And by the way, that’s like the entire point of the story of the prodigal son. Right? That even when the son goes and there’s a fracture in the relationship, it was never because the heart of the father changed towards the child. That never happened. Right. So there was relationship, there was enmity between them, but not because the heart of the father was ever anything other than reconciliation.

What Sin Broke, God Put Back Together

I remember I was talking to or I was listening to a sermon on YouTube a couple years back. I remember listening to the preacher, and he said he said this. This was part of his altar call. He said, hey, if you haven’t received Christ, God hates you. And is very angry at you. But that you can come. And I’m thinking, like, great exposition, man. Like great bot, like, like, and okay, can you find a scripture in the book of Psalms that says like God hates the sinner? Yes. You can. You can find that. But you can also find in the book of Psalms where David prays that God would crush his enemies’ bones into powder. Right? This is another topic for another, but the book of Psalms is not perfect theology. It perfectly shows us honesty. It perfectly shows us humility in prayer and this man growing.

But like, but like David prays, hey, crush my enemies into a fine powder, and Jesus comes and says, Love your enemies. The question is this which of those two shows the heart of the Father? Jesus. Always Jesus. Right? So it’s like you could can use so like when that guy’s doing that altar call and God hates you and all that, it’s like, yeah, he’s got a he’s got maybe a single verse that he’s using as inspiration, but you have to ignore the entire thrust of scripture. Which is God pursuing you, God loving you. Anyone knows a single verse in the Bible, John 3 16, right? For God so loved the world that he sent.

So, like, and I think I think people can get short-term motivation out of God hates you, so I want you to raise your hand. Like, that works in the short term, but remember the atheist bus campaign pain last week? The picture of an angry God does not produce repentance. A picture of an angry God produces atheism. And I’m saying that as from the atheist generation. Like, look around. Where are all my friends growing up? They don’t believe anymore. And so, and so like I can I can I can tell you that like what brings people to repentance is what? The goodness of God. The faithfulness of God.

And so that’s I’m just gonna tell you, we will always be a church that says, hey, even if you’re far from God, God desperately loves you. That will always be our message. Is there this sin issue? You bet. Does it have to be dealt with? You bet. Is it an issue? You bet. But the heart of the Father is always towards you, always loving you.

Point number one sin broke something between you and God. Number two is this what sin broke, God put back together. What sin broke, God put back together. So there’s something broken between you and God. What does God do? Well, if sin is a disruption in relationship, salvation is reconciliation, it’s reuniting. Right? So salvation, oh, I came to Christ. What does that mean? It means you you coming back home. It means it means you coming back to that relationship. And when you’re doing that, you’re not convincing the Father that you’re cool. You’re fulfilling what he has always had in his heart for you.

And so, like, how does that happen? Well, in the original Greek and Hebrew, there was there were some phrases that we didn’t have any English equivalents for. So we didn’t know exactly what to translate it. So, you know, that’s kind of a hard thing. Sometimes words aren’t like one for one across different languages. And so the translators of the Bible, this is true, came up with a new word to translate what happens. And the word that they created in translating the Bible is this word, atonement. Atonement. What kind of weird word is that? Well, it’s like a compound word where it’s like mashing things together. And what it’s mashing together is this. At one moment. That’s what atonement means. At one moment. That’s how it’s spelled. At one moment. What does it mean? It means coming back together, becoming one again. Atonement.

Y’all have probably heard of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur. Y’all heard of that? Well, Yom means day, and Kippur means atonement. So it’s the day of atonement. And the root word that we use and that we’ve created atonement for, it’s what it means is this. Listen to this. To cover over, to wipe away, to cleanse, and to forgive. What does that mean? It means it’s to get rid of whatever’s in the way of the relationship. And the earliest source of this word, it was like a farming term, and the idea was this that the farmer comes and covers the ground with soil so that new life can grow.

So you could say it like this my slide atonement to cover over so that new life can grow. To cover, so that’s what God does with your sin. He didn’t just he didn’t erase it like it never happened. No, he covers your sin. The theological, but he covers over your sin with the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus comes and washes, covers over your sin. Why? So that new life can grow. And I want you to look at this. I want you to look at like when this happens.

Look at this, Romans chapter 5, verse 8.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. For if while we were God’s enemies, again, so this is this isn’t his disposition towards you. This is the state of the relationship. Right? So while we were enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son. How much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life?

So I just want you to know this. That the sacrifice was made while we were still sinners. While we were still God’s enemies, right? Not not, he didn’t wait for us to get it together. He didn’t wait for us to come back, he didn’t wait for us to like deserve it. No, that God is the initiative. That’s what I always say. I said, when it comes to you and God, like I’m old school. So back at back when I was dating Jordan, that was that was a long time ago, and the boys used to pursue the girls. I don’t know if that’s the case anymore. I don’t I don’t know how it works. You know, they just swipe and write on each other, and it’s like a whole thing. I don’t I don’t get it, but but see, like I I was pursuing her. And that’s that’s how I that’s how I was raised.

And so so just understand this. When it comes to you and God, you’re not pursuing nothing. He’s the initiator, you’re the responder, just like Marlin. He doesn’t sit and wait, he pursues you. And it’s not about earning it, and it’s not about deserving it, and it’s not about being good enough. It’s not about hitting some bar in holiness, or you know, you only sin three times a day, but four, that’s too much. It’s not about any of that. It’s about it’s about receiving the free gift.

And I think a lot of people understand that, but I need you to understand how far that goes. So let me ask you a question. Can God save a sociopath? Of course. What about a sociopath who’s also a serial killer? What about a sociopath who’s a serial killer and also a cannibal? There’s actually a name to that person. His name is Jeffrey Dahmer. Jeffrey Dahmer, if some of y’all are familiar with him, he’s a he was quite the fella. But he he goes to prison and and in prison, you can read all about it, you can watch about it. He finds Christ and he lives the last half of his life as a very devoted, devout Christian. You can baptize, converted, devout Christian.

And so I just think it’s worth noting that by all accounts, I don’t I don’t know. We don’t know for sure one way or the other, but I would say this that I have every reason to suspect that Jeffrey Dahmer is in heaven right now. Right? And if that bothers you, just let me remind you that the mechanism through which Jeffrey Dahmer gets to heaven is the same mechanism that you need. And if it doesn’t work for him, it doesn’t work for you either. Right? Because a lot of us think that, yeah, it’s the salvation thing, but you’ve got to be reasonably, you can’t do horrible things. But it’s like, no, it’s it’s it’s grace alone through faith alone. And so just understand, it’s a free gift. It’s not about earning it, it’s not about deserving it. And it represents the heart of the Father.

Look at this, Isaiah chapter 53. If you’re not familiar with the book of Isaiah, there’s so many of these that they’re prophecies of Jesus. So this is written 700 years before Jesus was here on the planet, but he’s prophesying about what would take place. Look at this. Isaiah 53, verse 4 says this.

Surely he took our pain and bore our suffering. Yet we considered him punished by God. It’s another interesting example of us considering God being more angry than he really is. We considered him punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted. But look at this. On the con but, right? So on the contrary, he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Right? We isn’t that interesting. He was crushed for our iniquities, and by his wounds we are healed. God the Father was not the one that needed the healing. You did. God didn’t need the heart shift. You did. God didn’t need the change of mind. You did. Right? And so there’s something that separates us. This idea of sin. It’s not because God is a power hungry lunatic, but there is something. I’m just trying to explain the gospel to you in a way that you could explain it. There is something that breaks the relationship. It’s just the reality of what sin is. It separates relationships, just not just with us and him, but with us and each other. There’s this problem that’s sin. But God couldn’t have that because he pursues us. He loves us so much. So he comes and sends his son Jesus to die so that the sin issue can get covered over and new life can grow.

God Doesn’t Have Love, God Is Love

Number one, sin broke something between you and God. Two, what sin broke, God put back together. Number three is this God doesn’t have love, God is love. God doesn’t have love, he is love. And so you might be thinking, like, okay, why? Why would he do all this? Why would he cross the ocean for the kids who swam away? The reason is this is because that’s who he is. He couldn’t not do it. Because it’s his it’s his essence.

The book of first John, some of y’all are probably familiar with it, it’s a very small book in the Bible. It’s written by a man named John, the apostle John. John, if you don’t know, he lived the longest out of the twelve disciples. He was one of the original twelve, and he lived the longest. He was the only one of the twelve to die of natural causes. Everyone else was, you know, boiled alive, skinned alive, crucified. But he so he was the only one. He’s an interesting guy because he’s the only one that had the experience of walking with Jesus and then getting the wisdom that comes from 70 years of life after that. People think that he lived into his 90s.

And so I like to picture, I like to picture him sitting there in his rocking chair, you know, looking back at his life, thinking back about this amazing time that he had with Jesus and this ministry and all the miracles that happened. And that I can I can picture him in his mind rewinding 70 years to where he was just like a little boy. And Jesus gave him and his brother James a nickname. Anyone know what it is? The sons of thunder. Why is that? Because they were fiery fellows. There was there was one time when when the Samaritans they were rejecting Jesus, and so James and they were like, they’re like, you know what we should do? Do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them? Like they could have done that. You know what I mean? So it’s like, yeah, try. Can’t wait to see that, bro. And Jesus says, like, you don’t even know what spirit you’re of. Right? And so he grew in his understanding.

But just understand that this was a guy who in his twenties was a fiery dude, ready to stick it to the man and slaughter his enemies and kill everybody. Well, then fast forward back, 70 years, he’s an old man, 90 years old, sitting in his rocking chair, looking over his life. And in that, in some of those last moments, some of those last letters that he would write as an old man, he says this phrase three words that change how we have understood God for the last two thousand years. And the phrase was this God is love. God is love.

Let me read it to you. First John chapter 4, verse 8.

Whoever does not love does not know God. Because God is love. This is how God showed His love among us. And sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

So God is love. That’s the phrase. You’ve probably heard it so much that you don’t even really think about it. What does that mean? It means that God’s essence is love. It’s how he always is and how he’s always been. It’s not something that he does, it’s something that he is. You can’t have God without having love. Let me say this, talk for another time. Also, you can’t have love without God. How can love be wrong? Love’s never wrong. But you can’t have love without God. You could have something, I don’t know what it is, but it’s not love. Right? Because God is love.

See, people, we’re different. Like I can love you, but that certainly doesn’t mean that I am love. Right? But God, God is different. His essence, the deepest reality of who he is is love. In fact, I made a diagram because the creative team they love it when I make my own graphics. Okay. So here’s how a lot of people picture God. Right? It’s like God is, well, and then there’s all these attributes. Well, God is sovereign, God is holy, God is merciful, God is wrathful, God is loving, God is righteous, and all of that’s true. But that’s not the right way to represent his character. This is the way to do it is that God is entirely love. And everything that he does, every attribute that is also true of God is an expression, is an outflow of that love. Right? And so his holiness, his mercy, his sovereignty, his justice, even his wrath, those are all expressions of his love.

And so you can say you can say that God is love, but you can’t say God is wrath. You can’t say that. Why? Because God is not wrath. Does God have wrath? You bet. But what he is is love. And everything he does, everything that he is is an expression of that love. And people might be like, yeah, but you know, you want to talk about God, you you know, you you don’t want to get imbalanced about it. You know, because like God is love, but you know, but also, you know, what about the wrath and the justice and the righteousness and all that stuff. It’s like actually to stray from God’s love in the slightest is when you get imbalanced. God is entirely love, everything that he does is an expression of that love, and you gotta balance that, right? Nope. Nope. You don’t you don’t balance his essence, you don’t you don’t balance his DNA, everything he does is an expression of that love.

And let me let me just say, you need to know this. Because you’re gonna have good days and you’re gonna have bad days. You gotta know that God’s love is not like a tank. Where it’s like sometimes it goes up and sometimes it goes down, and oh my gosh, you’ve been acting a fool for the last two weeks. God’s love is starting to start to dwindle. You’re gonna have to like fill it back up by praying. By no, no. Love is not a separate thing that God has. It’s entirely where and for God to love you any less would make it for God to be less God. And I think that saves you from so much uncertainty in life.

Because you don’t have to like be reading the tea leaves of your own life, like trying to parse out from your situation what God thinks about you. Oh maybe God allowed this to happen. Oh, oh. You don’t have to do any of that. Because you you know the heart of the Father towards you has always been love. Right? And here’s here’s a simple barometer that that really works for me. I am an imperfect parent, and he’s a perfect one. So like, how can you think that you love your own children more than God loves you? It’s crazy. Right? And so so I understand a tiny glimpse of what God’s kind of love is in my imperfect relationships. But God’s love for you is it’s a perfect representation of that.

But if you were to say to like a fellow theist, you know what I mean by theist? Someone who just generally believes in God, they have a general idea, they believe in God, and so there’s all so we’re theists, but there’s other theists too. So like a Muslim is a theist, a religious Jew is a theist, a theistic Buddhist is is a theist, right? They’re all people who believe that God exists. Well, almost every theist in the entire world will agree with this sentence. God is love. Amen. Like they’ll they’ll got on board with that. Almost there’s something in the human soul that wants that to be true, that believes that ought to be true.

But but here’s the point is is that only the Christian has proof that that’s actually the case. Right? Because Buddha didn’t come and give his life for you. Allah did not cut, you know what I mean? It’s like there’s something that’s unique about the Christian faith that not only do we say that God is love, we also have evidence to back it up. Look at look at what Paul says again, Romans chapter 5, verse 8.

But God demonstrates, right? So He’s not He’s not just telling the love, he’s showing the love. It’s show and tell. It’s not, oh, I love I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. No, no, he he tells you he loves you, but he shows you his he loves you. He puts on a demonstration of his love. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

The cross is the ultimate evidence, the final demonstration of what God thinks about you. So you never have to worry, you never have to think. You don’t have to be, oh, you know, maybe, you know, I don’t know, you know, maybe he’s disappointed in me. Maybe he’s he gave me this disease to teach me a lesson. You ain’t gotta do none of that. You know that the heart of the Father is always towards you. He’s always is always wanting to embrace you. Does he put guardrails in place? You bet. Why? Because he’s a control freak. No, because he loves you. And he knows what’s best for you. And he’s trying to help you.

Look at this. 1 John chapter 4, 18.

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment.

I think it’s such an interesting verse. This phrase drives out, it’s this cool Greek word. I’m gonna see if I can get it right, Pastor Shirley. Ekbalo. Ekbalo. It what it literally means. I should I should give my Greek references to James here, because he’s the he’s the Greek expert around here. It’s a very rare verb that’s used very rarely in the New Testament, and it’s used almost exclusively for exorcisms. And so you might expolo, you drive out a demon. Or Jesus would come and he would expollo, he would drive out a demon from a person. And so it’s interesting that he uses he uses this phrase when talking about love and how love drives out fear.

So understanding God’s love for you, it literally does an exorcism on your soul. Where before that you were possessed with fear, and it and you’re exercised. How? By understanding the love of the Father. That’s why for me, I will always be a preacher that wants to tell you how much God loves you. And you don’t have to be afraid. Now, when you put your faith in Jesus, what’s the worst that could happen? I don’t have to live in fear.

But a lot of people the voice that they hear is not the voice of the Father. The voice they hear is not of love, it’s of fear. Fear of God. Oh God, he’s so disappointed in me. Or maybe fear of other people. I’m not successful enough. I’m not smart enough. I’m not manly enough. My voice is too wimpy and nasally. That’s that’s me. But you know what I mean? That where it’s like you end up being driven by fear of what other people think about you. But but the love of God, it can just, it can be such a ointment to your heart in how you go about everyday life.

Because the truth is, like even the best relationships here are still conditional. That’s true. You might be thinking, no, no, no, not me and my spouse. Well, right, like I’ve got an amazing wife, she treats me very well. But let’s imagine in an alternate reality, she was terrible to me. Let’s say she was physically abusive and she’d hit me with frying pans and trying to burn the house down and cheating on me and screaming at me. Eventually, my love would run out. Right? That’s never gonna happen. But that’s that’s human love. Human love has an end, but the love of the Father, it has no end. It’s not, it’s not I’ll love you so long as you’ll perform. It’s not like that. Human love is, but it’s it’s I will always love you. Not because you’re lovely, but because I am love.

That that’s who I was before you got here, man. I’m not changing it just because you bugged me, right? I’m I have always been love. Right? Before he created the world, God was love. You might be thinking, how does that happen? Well, we’ll talk about the Trinity another time. But he had within himself love. So so it’s not about what you do, it’s about who he is. And so maybe for you you’re feeling like maybe you’re like, I am the fish that swam away. I want you to know this. God is already in the water. He’s already pursuing you while you’re still a sinner, while you’re still an enemy with God in your mind, while you’re still like, while you’re still stuck in the little fish tank. That God is pursuing you. He’s already chasing you. Not because you’ve earned it, but because that’s who he is. Because God is love.

Here’s my closing statement. Number one, sin broke something between you and God. Not a rule book violation, a relationship fracture. When we miss the mark, relationships suffer with God first, then with each other. Two, what sin broke, God put back together. Atonement at one meant. You didn’t earn it, you didn’t deserve it. It’s a free gift. Number three, God doesn’t have love. God is love. That’s why he did it. He couldn’t not. It’s who he is. That’s the show and tell. Amen. Amen.