Morgan Teruel: Thanks for tuning in to the Sandals Church podcast. Our vision as a church is to be real with ourselves, God, and others. We're glad you're here, and we hope you enjoy this message.
Pastor Matt Brown: Look, Sandals Church, I am so glad to be with you guys today and we are in this series called love. Love is and it is a challenging series. And if you haven't been challenged, you have not been listening. And so we're in this book called 1 Corinthians chapter 13 verses 4 through 7 and I'm just gonna read to you what the Bible defines love as. It's not what love is what you think it is, it's what God thinks it is.
So love is patient and kind. Pastor Fredo introduces to this message. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud.
Listen to this. It's not rude. How are you doing? All right. Some of us were already out.
It's not self seeking. It's not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. And it gets worse.
It always protects. It always trusts. It always hopes. It always perseveres.
McKay Vandenberg: Hey, Sandals Church. Thank you so much for joining in today's message with Pastor Matt Brown. I wanted to take a quick moment to invite you into the work that Sandals Church is doing. One way you can do that is by giving financially. If you head to give.sc, you can do so there.
For now, let's get back into our message.
Pastor Matt Brown: This week, I was at a graduation party and I was interacting with a young couple and they've been married for a year. And I said, how's it going? Just like that. How's it going? And my enthusiasm was not returned.
And there was just silence and the husband said, not good pastor Matt, pray for us. And I was like, wow. In the 1st year. And why is that? If you're taking notes, write this down.
Love is a challenge, a challenge that Jesus is calling me to accept. We don't fall in love, we answer the call of love. It's very, very different and that's what some of your guys' problems is. You fell in something, it wasn't love. So we don't fall in love, we answer the call of love.
So if you're a Christian, listen to this. Jesus says, so now I'm giving you a new commandment. It's not like the world didn't know what love was. It's not like the world hadn't experienced love. It's not like Roman, poets and authors and playwrights hadn't written about love.
The Greeks had written about love. Okay. We got the book of Song of Solomon and I wouldn't read that with your children and just FYI. So it's not like the world was ignorant of love but they were ignorant of a new kind of love, a new challenge of love. And Jesus says, love each other, listen to this, just as I have loved you.
Now you could spend the rest of your Christian life just in that sentence and you could study it the rest of your life but you could maybe never live it even for a moment of your life. Love each other, he says, just as I have loved you. He said you should love each other. This is a next level of love. And this is what he says.
He says your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples. You see this love is not just essential for you, it's essential for those around you. Love is a challenge. It's a challenge when we're married. It's a challenge when we have a roommate.
It's a challenge when we work with people. Anybody work with people? It's a challenge when we drive on the highway. It's a challenge when we have little people. Children, right?
They're difficult. They're challenging. And oftentimes we lose our minds on them when they've never seen true love modeled to them. But here's the thing about love. Love is not just hard in marriage.
Love is not just hard in family. Love's not just hard in work. Listen to me. Love becomes a real challenge when someone hurts me. That's why Jesus said a new command I give you, love one another the way I've loved you.
You see, we hurt Jesus. We crucify Jesus and even in that, what is he saying on the cross? Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. This level of love is extraordinary. It's agape love.
Listen to what Jesus says. But to you who are willing to listen, I wonder if you're willing to listen. You see, sometimes when our heart hurts, our ears don't work. But to you who are willing to listen, Jesus says, I say, love your enemies and do good to those who hate you. Anybody having a hard time loving the people that you do love?
Amen? I mean just this week my wife and I, we almost got in a little tiff but I was preaching on love so I saw it coming and I matrixed that dagger. You know, I was like, I'm preaching at another church this week in Sacramento and I thought I was preaching on one message and they I was preaching on another message and so they're paying me so I'm gonna preach on their message. And the message is balancing ministry and family and I my wife heard me repeat that over the phone and I hear a chuckle. And she says, oh, I'd love to hear that message.
And I was like, woo hoo. Woman stop tempting me. But here's the thing, if I accept God's love challenge, God's love must be stronger, listen to this guys, than my anger. When my kid was in Little League I remember the weird things that parents would say to their children to motivate them. And these are like 1st graders who are terrified because another 1st grader's throwing the ball.
And I remember a dad yelling through the fence, get angry Tommy, get angry. And I'm thinking that's not good information when you're holding a bat. Amen? That's like that that's not focus is a good word. I mean there's all kinds of good but the dad is screaming at his son to get angry and I thought wow, that's not helpful.
Here's what the Bible says about love. 1st Corinthians 13:4-5, love is not easily angered. Some of your translations will say is not irritable. So what is irritability? Irritability is a smile on the surface and anger just beneath.
It's just waiting. It's just waiting, right? It's like an alligator lurking beneath the water. You're smiling. Hey.
Welcome to Sandals Church today. And then, wham, You just get somebody. Love is not easily angered. God gets angry, not easily. The Bible says God is slow to anger, full of mercy.
1st Corinthians 13:4 through 5, love is not easily angered but I am and I'm sure you are. And you're like, I'm not angry pastor. I'm like, okay. I'll follow you around for a week and we'll see. We will see.
Proverbs 2911, Fools. Fools. You can raise your hand if you're a fool. Fools vent vent their anger. They let it out, but the wise quietly hold it back.
When I'm angry, I am not wise but I do play the fool. One of my favorite fights ever in the history of my marriage which is saying something. It was an incredible fight. It was a passionate fight and we were going back and forth with each other and she got louder and I got louder and it got hotter. You know what I'm saying?
And not not not the kind of hot you want in a marriage. And she wasn't listening and she wasn't following my leadership and she wasn't listening to Jesus. You know what I'm saying, right? And so in the middle of this I don't understand what's happening. I'm getting physically hot.
Not just like emotionally hot but I'm getting physically hot but I wanna stay in the fight because that's what Jesus would do, amen? So I take my jacket off and she's talking, I'm talking. And then I take my shirt off, she's talking and I'm talking. And the next thing I know without thinking about it, I take my pants off. And I'm standing there in my underwear and my wife says, don't even think about makeup sex.
That's what she says to me. And I and I realize as I'm standing there in my underwear and we're in this fight, I go, I think I need to go to the hospital. And I look, I'd been on, antibiotics. I had allergic reaction to antibiotics and when I got pumped up, my entire body broke out in hives. And so she says, Put your clothes back on.
We gotta go to the emergency room. And I did. I mean it was one of the classic fights ever but I'm literally stripping while we're fighting and socks go off and I and I wasn't even thinking about it because I was so focused on Jesus. But what happens when we get upset? Are you smarter when you're upset or dumber?
It's why we call it losing our mind not finding our mind. So the next time you're fighting as a friend, the next time you're fighting at work, the next time you're fighting in your marriage, the next time you're fighting with your kids, stop and ask this one question. This is huge. Is this issue worth the end of our relationship? How many singles in here have broken up stupidly because you fought over a dumb issue?
Right? Is this is this worth it? Is it worth it? Some of us care more about being right than being in a relationship and so we'll kill a relationship to prove that we're right and we'll fight to the bitter end. Okay.
In marriage, you got issues. Tammy and I got issues. There are little issues and there are big issues. You gotta ask yourself, is this a little issue or is this a big issue? Just take a second and say, is this issue worth the end of this relationship?
Because listen to me married people, any marriage is at risk no matter how long you've been married if you're angry. I have seen some of the most loving people in our church, some of the greatest relationships in our church break up because of anger, because they did something or said something. Is this issue worth the end of this friendship? Is this issue worth the end of my job? I mean I've had men in our church, I don't need this job.
I'm like, yes you did. Yes you did. And they walked out and they quit. I was like, who's who's gonna pay your water bill? Who's gonna pay for your kid's lunch box?
Because now now you want the church to pay for it because you were an idiot and you quit a job that you needed. Think about that. Okay. Your boss is a jerk. Do you need the job or not?
Do you need the job or not? Okay. Your friend is difficult. Do you want this friendship to last or not? Okay.
Your spouse irritates you when you're trying to prepare a message to bless another congregation. And honestly I wasn't that upset about it. It was funny. It was funny. I I wouldn't talk about something that I was really upset about except the naked part.
That was true. But oftentimes, irritability is because you're not in love, you're in anger. And it's just kind of lurking beneath the surface. And here's what I want you to know. The Bible says love never fails.
Listen to me, anger always destroys. It always destroys. So is this is this issue worth ending the relationship? Because sometimes, right, there are issues that are worth ending a relationship but oftentimes our offense is greater than the issue. Next, is my anger clouding my judgment?
You can just, yeah. Yeah. None of us think great when we're angry. Listen to what James says. James had to be the most irritable person on earth because his older brother was Jesus.
Can you just even imagine? James, why can't you make your bed like Jesus? James, why can't you listen like Jesus? James, why don't you ask yourself what would Jesus do? Right?
Boom. I'm out of here. Think think about this. Listen to what James says. Understand this my dear brothers and sisters, whether you're a man or a woman, you struggle with anger.
You all must be quick to listen and slow to speak. You know, I've never gotten a fight because I was listening, but I do get in a fight. I know I get to find it's hard to believe when I'm talking. You must all be quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to get angry, slow to get angry. For our 10 year anniversary, Tammy and I, we we flew to a one time destination and we we saved up our money and we we flew to Bora Bora and we had a great time except for 1 night.
And 1 night, I know you're gonna find this hard to believe but my mouth got moving and I don't even know what I said but I left the restaurant alone that night. And I remember thinking, what did I say? You know why that was? Because I wasn't listening. I wasn't watching.
I wasn't paying attention. Dear brothers and sisters, be quick to listen. Like, what did your mom teach you? You have 2 ears and one mouth for a reason. Learn to listen.
Now here's something I just this might surprise you because I know we all have somebody in our life we're upset at, maybe it's your mom, your dad, maybe it's somebody who hurt you, maybe it's somebody who abused you. K? You might have a legitimate reason to be angry, but here's one of the things that we don't think about. This is the next question I want you to ask. How is my anger affecting other relationships?
Because here's the lie, I can be angry at this person right here and I can love all these people over here. It doesn't work that way. That's why irritability bubbles up. That's why it happens. You see, I can be upset at work and come home and take it out on what?
My family. I can be upset at home and take it out on people at work. I can be hurt by my family and take it out by my roommates. I can be, wait for it, mad at the last guy who cheated on me and I'm terrible to the guy who's faithful to me. How many of us are punishing someone who loves us for what someone did to us that didn't love us?
You see, the lie of anger is I can focus it. Anger is consuming. It consumes your love and your ability to love and your ability to think clearly. So what happens when I give into anger? Short-tempered people listen to this.
This is Proverbs, a book of wisdom. They do foolish things. Now, we've all been there. We've all done that. But here's what I want you to know.
Love is a primary emotion. It's why the Bible says love will never end. It's a primary emotion. Did you know that anger is a secondary emotion? So ask yourself this, why am I angry?
You see anger is in response to something. It's in response. You see, love is a source emotion. Anger is a reactive emotion. Love is actually something I feel.
Anger is something I become because you did this, they did that, this happened and I'm responding in anger. I figured this out when my middle daughter was in kindergarten learning to ride a bike. And she terrified me. She has ADD like me, right? Loses focus very quickly and I was backing out and I know this is hard believe for our modern parents but we used to have minivans with no backup camera.
Like we actually had to do this. I know you're like, what is that motion? I don't know. And so I told her, I said I said, stay on the grass. Daddy's gonna back up the minivan.
I can't see you. Stay on the grass. Stay on the grass, sweetheart. Do you hear what daddy says? Yes.
I hear what daddy says. And I get in the van, I back up and I hear the sound you never wanna hear. And it's obvious to me I just ran over my kid. And I jump out of the car. I see the bike underneath my wheel.
I lose my mind and I see my daughter standing on the grass. She's okay and instead of rejoicing, I yell at her And I got angry at her and I screamed at her and she wasn't hurt by the van but she was hurt by my words. And my wife said, why are you yelling at her? Do you know the answer? I was afraid.
I wasn't angry at all. I was scared. Listen to me guys, instead of yelling at your wife just tell your wife, what we're talking about scares me. I'm afraid of this. You see oftentimes anger is the only emotion we feel safe as men and women sharing.
I get angry when I feel afraid. It's a response to my fear. What is fear? Fear is vulnerable. What is anger?
Anger is protective. Especially in relationships where you want intimacy, you can't have intimacy if you're always protecting. You can't have it. Next, I get angry when I feel attacked, criticized, when someone comes at me. Instead of responding in angry, in anger, why not just response to the criticism, respond to the criticism.
I I don't like that, that makes me feel upset. How about this one, that hurt my feelings. Just speak the truth. Here's another time I get angry, I get angry when I feel unhurt. Like when I feel like I'm not being hurt, if I'm not feeling hurt by my wife, let me tell you something, I get angry.
When I feel like my kids are not listening to me, I lose my mind. Like I'm I'm a super patient guy until I'm not. Amen. Anybody else in that boat? But but when I feel like I'm not being heard and that's the problem when we fight with people that we love, Oftentimes, the reason our voice gets louder is we don't feel like our point, our heart, what we want said, we don't feel like we're being heard.
And one of the things that we can say in marriage, in friendship, in small group at the churches, I hear you but I don't remember it that way. I hear you but I don't see it that way. But affirm that you hear them. I hear what you're saying. Or I I hear what you're saying and I disagree.
I love you, I don't agree with that. And here's the thing is, when you're when you're fighting about something, try to push the issue away from the person. I love you, I don't agree with that. I hear what you're saying, that's not how I remember it. Do you see what I'm doing?
I'm pushing it away from you. Because what we all hear when we're when we're when we're feeling feeling unloved is we feel personally attacked rather than discussing an issue. And, unfortunately, as Americans, we are absolutely the worst we've ever been in talking about and negotiating issues in which we disagree. And so, our politicians aren't gonna help us do this. Academics are not gonna help us do this, random people on the street are not gonna help us do this, but Jesus can help you do this.
Next, this is huge. I get angry when I feel like I'm being wronged. Does anybody else ever felt that way? Yeah. Oh my gosh.
I mean, I feel like we should've just had an amen moment where we all just kinda, you know what I'm saying, right? Like, life is not fair. People are not fair. Things are not fair. Bad things happen.
I get angry when I feel like I've been wronged and no one is standing up for me. Let me just give you a news flash. People don't often stand up for what's right. So you have to learn to deal with what's wrong. If you're gonna wait to be loving for the world to get it, you're gonna wait your whole life.
So love is not easily angered. It's not easily angered. I was on a podcast with some pastor leaders and he asked me this question he says he says, yeah but pastor when do we turn over the tables like Jesus? I said, well, first of all we're not Jesus. Come on now.
Right. And that and that interesting when we're angry we just feel just like the Lord. Right? And I said this. I said I have a full time job with my family, with my self, and my church.
I don't have to get angry about all these things happening in society. And and the reason a lot of these pastors do that is because they wanna take attention off what they're doing and what they're feeling at point somewhere else. And I just said, that's not my calling. My cup is full. And he pushed again and I just repeated again.
So if I accept God's love challenge, that's what it is, it's a it's a love challenge. My love has to be stronger than my anger, and listen to this, my love must become better than my memory. Yeah. Some of you, that just landed. I mean, you you got the memory of an elephant.
I don't even know what that means and I don't know how they know that elephants remember everything, but you got the heart of a cricket, man. It's like this little tiny thing. That's what they say, right? An elephant never forgets. God didn't make you an elephant.
He made you his son, he made you his daughter. So what does love do? Love keeps no record of wrongs. It doesn't keep a record but here's where, if we're honest, here's how many of you came to church today. Here's all of your offenses.
You carry these around everywhere you go. This is my list of offenses. So my parents dead, my husband dead, my children have done. And now we have people offended for the past. Like what happened in the 19th century?
I was like, yeah, but you were born in 1985 and you're offended with 18/85. Some of you guys, you're offended. You're just sponges. You just soak offense. Oh my gosh.
Can you believe what happened in 14/82? Yeah. You weren't there. You weren't there. But here's the problem.
Do you wanna know why he fights gets so out of control? You you ever had a fight where you can't even remember why you're fighting? It's just like what just happened? Here's the issue. We're not just dealing with the present issue.
We're dealing, listen to this, with, oh, look at all those. You know, and some of you, you're like the person in the bathroom and you just walk around, you know. What's wrong? Right? And everywhere you go you take these lists of offenses with you.
And so when someone's disrespectful, you go, oh, that's just like what my dad used to do to me. And your dad's been dead 10 years. Well, that's just what happened in my first job. You're retired. I I mean we just carry these lists of offenses.
Listen to what the Bible says, in your anger do not sin. Is it okay to be angry? Yeah, sure. Listen to what the Bible teaches. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.
What does it mean? Whatever this is deal with it and let it go. Amen. Amen. Let it go.
But you're like, what would I do with my list? Man, I saw this on the Internet this week, and I'll never forget it. What we don't repair, what I don't repair, I will repeat. Some of you will have the same fight over and over and over again because you carried all of these lists of offenses with you your whole life. Man, I'm sorry for whatever happened to you, and I'm sorry that it ruined your past.
Could we maybe have it not ruin your future? So what happens when I'm hurt? I'm not just dealing with my current hurt. I'm not just dealing when I feel unheard by my wife, I'm dealing with when I felt unheard as a child, when I felt unheard in elementary school, when I felt unheard by church leaders that were supposed to love me but they hurt me, When I feel betrayed by someone, it's not just that friend, it's all my friends that have betrayed me. So in order to repair, this is huge, love keeps no record of wrongs.
Listen to me. This is not me. This is scripture. I must learn to release, and it's hard. That's hard.
I'm not saying it's gonna be easy, but I didn't tell you that love was gonna be easy. It's called the love challenge. Remember, we don't fall in love, we walk in love. We answer the call of love. So here's my life verse for this year, for this year, not for next year, just this year.
I'm only gonna be humbled for this year. Are you ready? Okay. 1st Peter 5, 6, and 7. Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand that he may lift you up in due time.
Listen to this. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. So as a Christian who wants to grow in God's love, I don't know if you're a Christian or not. I don't know if you wanna grow in God's love or not. But if you are a Christian and you want to grow in God's love, you gotta do a couple things.
I gotta practice letting things go. So how do I do that? That's why we have people in our life, they hurt us and we get to practice. Isn't that awesome? We get to practice.
That's why you love your dog so much. Your dog doesn't hurt you. Your dog doesn't lie to you. Your dog doesn't talk to other people on the internet about you. First thing I do is I acknowledge the hurt.
One of the things that I think we do as religious people is we're so dysfunctional we just pretend that there is no hurt. God is good all the time. Yeah, but what about this crap? And and let me just share this with you as someone who has studied the Bible now for 30 years. One of the major themes as I've studied the Bible, both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible, and I find this over and over again in multiple authors and this is dealt with in multiple ways.
There's one whole book dedicated to this question. If God is so good, why does why is life so hard? There's a whole book called Job. That's what the whole book is about. Peter writes about it.
Paul writes about it. Jesus talks about it. James talks about it. We don't even know who wrote Hebrews and they talk about it. What we know is life is hard And what we've got to learn to do is whatever's hurting us, I gotta trust that God loves me and he cares for me and I gotta learn to give him what I can't handle.
So what do I do? The bible says love rejoices in the truth. You know what sin loves? Sin loves to suppress it and pretend it's not real. That's what sin loves to do.
And let me say this, hiding never heals ever. It never heals. And someone who's really really worked at healing, can I tell you as your pastor when I go to counseling, I am more tempted than ever to lie to the person who's trying to help me? I find myself caring more about what my therapist thinks about me than the healing I desperately need. And we all do this.
Right? You go to the doctors. Do you work out? Every day. You drink?
Never. Right? I mean, you lie. And then we do the same thing at church. Have you lusted?
One time, pastor. One time. Have you ever been angry? Almost. And we wonder why we keep repeating the same sins because what we don't repair we repeat.
So the Bible says love rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Jesus said, listen, it's the truth that will set you free. But here's the problem, some of us have gotten way too used to the cage. We like it and we don't want to heal, we want to suffer. So here's what I want to challenge you today.
If you want to grow in love, do the work to heal the hurt. Do the work. It's not easy and it's not fun. Here's what my parents did and let me say this, no parents is perfect. No parent is perfect.
I love my kids dearly, but if I could go back and do it again, I would do a lot of things different. And so I've hurt my kids, I've hurt myself and I have to work through that. I've hurt my wife with the things I've said, the things I've done. I've been hurt by things my wife has said and done and I have to acknowledge those things. Listen, I'm not a perfect pastor, but God gave me a perfect vision, Being real.
And I know you don't like it and I know some of you don't believe it and some of you've never even tried it. But if you wanna heal, you've got to get real. And this is huge Sandals Church, real with whom? Yourself. And I got all these Christian friends, what about God?
He's not the problem. He's not the problem. So so do the work. Right? My parents hurt me, work through that, let it go.
My marriage ended in divorce, work through that, Let it go. Church shirt. Oh, man. My pastor, my friends at church. I can't tell you how many times I meet somebody from another church and they tell me they're hurt and I'm like, I'm so sorry.
Work through it. Let it go. You know, sandals is filling other churches with the hurt that we've produced, right? That's the way that's the way that it works because we are imperfect people who are taking on the challenge to love and it is extraordinarily difficult. But what we wanna do is we wanna work through all of these issues that we can.
Our addictions, our wounds, some of this stuff we're not even aware of yet. Like why are you so angry? I don't know. Just damn, work through that. And then here's the thing, you say, well pastor, there's just so much stuff.
Okay? I hear what you're saying. What what do I do with abuse? What do I do with betrayal? What, what, what do I do with the deep wounds?
Understand this, that these wounds are destroying your heart and if your heart is not healed, you will never love the way that you're meant to love. And so what do we do with the things that don't make sense? What do we do with the big questions in life? What do we do with the big whys? You do what Peter says.
You cast all your anxieties upon him for he cares for you. Amen? That's what you do. And we come to church and we do it again because that toilet paper follows us around. And some of you are saying, well, this is crazy.
Okay. Well, maybe you're not a Christian. Here's what the Bible says, don't let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good. By doing good. It's the best we can do.
Why? Because love is not easily angered and love, agape love, keeps no record of wrongs. And for those of you who are struggling do that doing this, what kind of list do you want God to have when you meet him? Because here's what Jesus said, Whatever measure we use in judging others, he will use in judging us. I don't know about you, I don't want a list.
I don't want a list. I don't want you guys to see pastor Matt standing there and just It's a good run. It's a good run. You know? Let me encourage you.
What is the command? To love others how? The way he's loved you. And what has Jesus had to let go that you've done for him to continue to be in relationship with you? Come on now.
I'm pretty sure it's probably worse than what anyone has done to you. Let's pray. Heavenly father, we just ask in the name of Jesus that you would help us love. God, as the pastor of this church, I just confess this is the greatest challenge of my life. It's the most important commandment and it's the one I struggle with the most.
Help me Lord to love others the way that you've loved me. Help me to release others Lord the way that you've released me from my sin. God, take right now from me these things that are destroying me and give me through the power of your Holy Spirit, the power and the presence to work on these issues that are holding me back from the love that you have for me. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.