All right. Good morning, good morning.
Uh, it's Fr-... here. I don't know, (laughs) I live in
Colorado and I, so I know what cold is, but it doesn't usually feel cold
and wet at the same time. So, I was just very surprised this morning.
But, uh, yeah, my name is Ben. Uh, all you really need to know about me
is I am a friend and fan of your church and your community
and your pastors, and I'm very thankful to be here right now.
And, and I'm thankful you're here.
Uh, we're continuing in this series today called Uncertainty,
where you're studying through the book of 1 John and just trying to figure out
like how can we be certain of who God is and certain of who we are
in God's eyes, which is what 1 John is all about, and we're
gonna continue that study together this morning.
But before we do that, let's talk a little bit about cliches. Okay?
So, you know what a cliche is. Cliche is a wisdom or a wisdom
saying that you've heard so many times that it's beginning to lose
its impact, right? That's what a cliche is.
Usually when you hear a cliche, you just kinda roll your
eyes. Um, for me, I, I think of 13 years
ago when my wife, Ali, was pregnant with our very first kid, I would
talk to parents all the time and I'd ask like, "Please, give me some advice.
Like, what tips do you have for me as a future dad?" And nine
times out of 10, these people would look at me and they would say something like,
"You just need to cherish every single day because they grow up so
fast." And 13 years ago, I would just roll my eyes, right?
It's like, co- I'm looking for real advice, dude.
(laughs) Help me here. Um, like, I don't know how to change a diaper.
(laughs) Uh, uh, another pretty common
cliche is, let's say just hypothetically,
you're sitting on your porch one evening, you're with your buddy and you're hanging
out, you're talking. Then, across the street, your neighbor pulls into their
garage in a brand new, shiny,
carbonized gray Ford Bronco. Okay?
And let's just say this is your dream car and you want one so bad, even though you
probably know you'll never be able to afford one, but you did drive one for a
couple of days on a vacation in Florida and it was the best experience you ever
had.
(laughs)
Hypothetically. (laughs) All right.
So you see your neighbor pull in in this Ford Bronco, you turn to your, your buddy
and you go, "Man, like, I wish I had his job.
I, I wish I could afford that car." Well, if your buddy, you know,
pats you on the shoulder and goes, "Hey, the grass is always greener on the other
side," like, what are you gonna do?
You're gonna at least roll your eyes, right?
Or, or you're gonna take him in, hypothetically, your beat up
Kia Sedona and drop him in the middle (laughs) of nowhere, right?
'Cause it's-
(laughs) ... it's cliche, right? It's like, that's not what I need to hear.
I've heard that before. Okay? The problem is that
cliches are almost always true and
contain wonderful wisdom, (laughs) right?
Like, I mean, it's true that your kids grow up before you know what's going
on. Like, uh, my kids are already 12 and 10, and my
youngest turns eight next week, and I literally don't know how it happened.
And, and so I'm that person now. People are like, "You got parenting
advice?" I feel like shaking people going like, "You have to listen to us.
(laughs) It really does go faster than you think." And guess what?
The grass really is always greener on the other side.
And so your neighbor has your dream car.
For all you know, though, he's closing his garage door, looking across the street
at you on your porch and thinking to himself, "Man, I wish I had a buddy to
sit on the porch with tonight." Like, c-
cliches are cliche because they get repeated
too often. But the only reason they get repeated too often in the first
place is because they're true. Cliches are only
cliche because they're true. All right?
Why in the world am I bringing any of this stuff up?
Well, because today in, in our passage from 1 John,
we are going to talk about something that, especially if you've been a Christian
for a long time, it's something that might run the risk
of becoming cliche in your heart. It's just we,
we've heard this idea so many times that it's starting to lose its
power for us, and when we hear it, we don't feel amazed.
Instead, our, we typically, we're just kinda like, "Yeah, yeah.
I know that one." Like, "Next." Because today,
John is going to talk about God's love for
us. And immediately, even if you've...
Uh, like, if you've been coming to this series week after week for the last few
weeks, like, you're already tempted to say to yourself, like, "Goodness, like,
Aaron talked about this, Clay talked about this, you talked about this,
like, four weeks ago. How many times can we talk about loving other people
and talk about God's love for us in one series?" And
the answer is, actually quite a bit.
(laughs) And the reason that we're talking about it so often is because
this letter, 1 John, is written by John, and
this is kind of John's thing. Okay?
He is constantly talking about how we should love one
another, and he's constantly talking about God's love for us in his
letters, in the gospel that he recorded.
In fact, in, in his gospel, John refers to
himself as the disciple that Jesus
loved. And he's not being cocky and he's not saying that
Jesus loved him more than other people.
Instead, it's like love is the primary lens through
which John understands Jesus and other people
and life itself. However, we hear the news that
God loves us, and if we're being honest, in our heads, we're like, "Yeah, yeah.
I know. I already know." Like, how about you teach us something that we
don't already know? Teach us something new, something unique.
And I personally, I think that's too bad because this
truth is amazing, right? And for some of us
that may... There was this time i- in life where that truth blew our
minds, right? We couldn't believe it and we walked with a bounce
in our step and nothing in life seemed insurmountable. Why?
Because we learned that there is a God and He loves us.
But then you fast-forward to today, and for whatever reason, we've just kinda
lost that loving feeling (laughs) a little bit, right?
And it's like, we still appreciate...... that truth.
We understand that it's foundational to everything that we believe, it's
foundational to our faith, it just doesn't, like, floor us
anymore when we hear it. And again, I think that's
just too bad. So here's what we're gonna do today, this is
spoiler alert, I'm just gonna tell you exactly where we're headed today.
We're gonna talk about what is potentially one of the most cliche
truths in our faith, and we're gonna dig into
probably hands down the most cliche Bible verse in all of
the Bible, and we have one goal this morning.
Our goal is to see if we can't make the truth that
God loves us either come alive for the first time, if
you never knew that, or come alive again for those of
us who have known that truth for a really long time.
In- in short, today we're gonna try our best together to
be amazed again.
And so let's jump in. Uh, well, it's, uh, Jason's right, it's a long chunk of
scripture, I'm not gonna cover (laughs) all of it either, it's too much.
And so we're not gonna be able to get through the whole thing, we're just gonna get
through the first four verses today together, but we will get started
now. We're gonna be in 1 John 4, starting in verse 7.
John writes this, he says, "Dear friends, let us love one
another, for love comes from God. And everyone who loves has been
born of God and knows God. But whoever does not
love does not know God, because God is
love." So again, if you've been coming week after week to this
series, this is a theme that you're familiar with at this
point. John says that we're supposed to love one another.
Why? Because love comes from God. Then he goes a step
further and he says if you truly know God, you're gonna love
other people. And then he goes a step further and he says if you
don't love other people, you must not know our
God very well. Why? Because God
is love. All right, this is a little bit
of an aside, but I think it's important to notice that John did not
just say love is God. Okay? That's
an entirely different thing. Okay?
The idea that love is God is one of those, like,
anti-Christian half-truths that Aaron talked about last
week, because if we think that love is God, we start to
reshape who we imagine God to be based on our
current understanding of love. And so this is how you wind up with
a God who, like, doesn't really care at all how you live your life,
because He just supports you no matter what. Right?
We end up with a very weak God, because typically we have a very
weak understanding of what love is.
But that's not what John says. He does not say love is God,
instead he says God is love. So in- in other words,
our understanding of love should be shaped by the kind
of love that we see in God. Okay? So the next
logical question is, okay, if I'm supposed to love other people like
God loves me, how does God love us? What does His
love look like? Which is exactly what John says in the next two
verses. Look at this, he says, "This is how God showed
his love among us." Okay? "He sent his one and only Son into the
world that we might live through him." He goes, "This is love." Let me just spell
this out for you, "This is love: not that we loved God but that God loved
us and sent his Son as an atoning
sacrifice for our sins." And here's what I just
noticed. Okay? I noticed that I read those two verses
and no one jumped onto their chair shouting for joy,
and no one hit their knees (laughs) , and no one went sprinting out the
front door to go tell everybody they know.
Like, I didn't just lose full control of this
room. And a- a- I'm not judging you really, 'cause I'm the same
way, it's just we- you- we- we're not floored by that truth anymore.
We- we hear it and we're not shocked. Why?
Because it's, like, becoming almost cliche to most of us.
We're like, "Yeah, yeah, I- I know that one." In fact,
those two verses that I- I just read, John is really just
paraphrasing, saying in his own language something that
Jesus said himself that John recorded in his
Gospel. And- and the thing that Jesus said has become maybe the
most cliche Bible verse of all time.
Like, chances are if this is your first time ever walking foot into a church
building, you've still heard this one before, where Jesus
says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that
whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal
life." That's John 3:16. Now, you'll see that one
written on signs at football games, and- and again, I just
read that verse and no one in the room is like,
"What? Like, say it again, I can't believe it."
Right? 'Cause it's we've just heard that one more
times than we can count. But just like a
cliche, we've heard that verse so many times because
it might be the single greatest, most
concise summary of the good news of Jesus
in the entire Bible.
And so here's how we're gonna actually spend
the rest of our time. We're gonna unpack this idea of God's
love for us that John is talking about in 1 John
4. We're actually gonna do it by unpacking word for word
John 3:16, because first of all, it's the same
truth that we find in 1 John 4, but we'll unpack this one
because chances are that one's more cliche in your mind.
You probably heard John 3:16 more times than you've heard 1
John 4:9-10. And so we're gonna unpack John
3:16 word for word and see if we can't be
amazed by this verse again. Okay? 'Cause
John 3:16 it's- it's one of those verses where ev- like,
every single word in this verse matters.
Every- every little chunk of this verse teaches us
something new and amazing about who our God is.
And so let- let's break it down together.
This morning we're gonna try to make John 3:16 great again.
Okay?I want-
(laughs) I want that hat. I won't wear it, but (laughs) but I
want that hat. (laughs) All right, so let's look at
the first two words of John 3:16. Remember, this is Jesus
Himself speaking, and He says, "For God so
loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him
shall not perish but have eternal life." For God.
And the word for in this verse means because, so
because God. And- and what it means is, is that
God is the primary character in this verse.
He's the one acting, not us. And- and what it means
is that everything that Jesus says after these two words is only
made possible for us because God did something for
us, and not because we did something for God.
And- and that's important, because we get that confused.
We get that one confused all of the time. Right?
H- how many of us kind of just grew up believing that, like, we'll get to go to
heaven when we die, sure, because God did something for me, but- but mainly
because I did a lot of good stuff for God?
Right? So, like, we might have John 3:16 memorized, but what we actually
believe is because I, right?
Because I read my Bible every single morning, or
because I finally cleaned my act up, or because
I seem to be doing a little bit better than most of the people that I'm
surrounded with, because I did something, God finally
viewed me as worthy enough to send me His one and only
Son. It's like, no. Nuh-uh. Right?
And- and whenever- whenever we catch ourselves thinking that we can earn our
way into God's favor or into God's grace, (laughs) it's because
we already screwed up the first two words of
John 3:16. We did not receive the gift of Jesus
because we did anything. We received the gift of
Jesus because God, because God
did something.
What are the next two words of- of what Jesus says?
Well, look, "For God so loved
the world." And so God is the- the primary character in this
verse. He's the one acting. He's doing something.
What is the motivation for His actions?
The motivation is His love. But again, we get this one
messed up all of the time. And so a lot of us, if we're going to be really
honest with ourselves, which, by the way, this is the place to be very
honest with yourself. But if we were to be honest, what we actually believe is
that God acted out of some begrudging sense
of duty and responsibility toward us, or
God acted in order to trap us into obedience by
sending us on a lifelong guilt trip.
What we actually believe is, is God is in some distant, far away outer
space Heaven, and He's looking at us with a grimace, and He's constantly just
going like, "Can you please get your acts together?
Like, l- don't you realize what I had to do to my one and only Son
for you?" We get it confused. And so again, we
might have John 3:16 memorized, but what we actually
believe is because God was so frustrated with my
brokenness, or because God wanted to manipulate
me into debt with Him, or because the devil forced
God's hand, He gave His one and only Son.
Jesus just said that's not true.
He said the motivation for what God did for us is love.
In fact, we're- we're- He says, "For God so loved the world." So
translation, "Because God loved you so
much," is what Jesus said. So the- the motivation
for God's actions, it was not guilt, it was not punishment, it was not
obligation, it was love.
Okay? Next question, what kind of people does God
love? That's the next two words. "For God so
loved the world." Right? The original
Greek there is cosmos. We still- we still use
that- that word today. Cosmos. It means the entire universe.
So who does God love? Well, everyone.
It means if you are living and breathing on- in this
universe, God loves you. On top of that,
in the Bible, that term the world often has a negative connotation,
so it's often used to talk about the sin and corruption and
hatred and rebellion that you see all throughout the
universe, which means what Jesus is saying is not only is
God's love available to anyone and everybody in the entire
universe, but it's available to us even though we're broken,
messed up, sinful people. Right? The
first six words out of Jesus' mouth in John
3:16 are so important, 'cause it sets the
stage for- for everything He says after that.
And so as we continue breaking this down, let's change the
first six words of this verse, just to kind of hopefully make it more
fresh for our minds this morning, because we could say,
"Because God loved every single broken, messed up person
so much." That's- that's the heart
behind the first six words out of Jesus' mouth in John 3:16.
The heart is God loves all of us, He loves us a lot,
and He loves us even though we're broken, messed up,
sinful people.
And then because of this great love of God's, He decides
to act. He does something about His love.
What does He do? That's the next part of the verse.
Because God loved every single broken, messed up person so
much, He gave His one and only Son.
Okay? Remember, this is Jesus Himself speaking, and Jesus is the Son of
God. And so basically, what Jesus is saying is like, "Hey, God loves you so
much, I-... and I'm gonna sacrifice
myself on your behalf. And I'm, I'm the one telling you this.
I don't have to do this. I want to do this. Why?
Because my Father and I love you.
All right. Jesus i- is God's greatest act of love toward
us.
Two more quick questions. The, the, the first one goes like this.
What did Jesus accomplish for us? And to answer that,
we'll go to the end of John 3:16. "Because Jesus died on a cross and was
resurrected, we shall not perish but
have eternal life." And, and to try my
best, I'm, te- I'll try my best to take like a bunch of, like,
theology and just, like, kinda sum it up really quickly.
The reason Jesus had to die on a cross is because you and I were in
this seemingly impossible,
unsolvable dilemma. And here's the
dilemma. The dilemma is God wants to be near you because
He loves you. The problem is God is also
righteous, and righteous means sin can't even
enter into His presence. He's too good, He's too
perfect, He's too righteous for sin to enter into His presence,
for sinful people to come into His presence.
That's like trying to f- fly a spaceship to the sun.
Like, you're gonna burn up w- before you even get
close. And so, the dilemma is, well, how can
God be loving and be near us without
losing His righteousness? And that's what the
cross is all about, 'cause God knew that the only solution
for paying off humanity's infinite debt would be to
cut an infinite check.
And so, rather than surrender us to, t- to the
punishment of our own sin, and rather than surrender His perfect
love, and rather than surrender His righteousness, God and S-
instead chose to surrender Himself on our
behalf. And so, Jesus enters into humanity so
that He could erase our infinite debt through payment of
His infinite sacrifice. Why? So that we don't have to
perish, but instead we can begin an eternal life
in relationship with our God, our Father who loves us.
Which brings us to our last question. That sounds like an awesome love.
What do we need to do to receive this love?
Is there anything that we could do to receive this love?
And the answer is yes, but relatively speaking, God
sets such a low bar of entry for us. Like, He
did all of the heavy lifting Himself, so that
absolutely anyone and everyone in the cosmos could become one of His
sons or daughters. All we have to do, Jesus says, is
believe in Him, and that's it. And,
uh, j- so just to make myself so clear, what do we
have to do to receive this great love?
Do we have to memorize the Bible front to back?
Do we have to clean up all of our addictions and our bad patterns and our bad
habits before we can begin this new life with Jesus?
Do we have to quit our jobs and become missionaries?
Do we have to come from a certain family and a certain upbringing and a certain
social status? What do we need to do to receive this great love?
Jesus says, "You simply gotta believe in me."
Meaning, we believe that Jesus is who He says He is and He's gonna keep every
single promise that He made. Jesus says if we do that, immediately our
souls become whitewashed and clean and we begin
this eternal relationship with our Father, the God who loves
us more than anything. That's John
3:16.
And when you break it down and you start to understand it, like, we start to
realize th- He, Jesus is sharing an
amazing truth with us. And here's the amazing truth.
He's telling us that m- God had the right, He, for sure He has the
right to stay distant from us. But instead, He chose to be
near. And God had the right to remain silent.
Instead, He chose to speak up. And God had the right to let
us suffer the punishment for our own sins.
But instead, God bore that punishment on Himself.
And then, what Jesus just said is He did not do that because His hand
was forced or because He felt obligated or responsible for us
or because He was fed up with us. Instead, He did this because He
loves us. He loves us with, like, a
fierce, relentless, I would do anything for you, even
die, kind of love. Like, Jesus is saying, "There
is a God and He literally died to be near
you again." It's beautiful.
To go back to 1 John 4, which we just read together, John says,
"This is how God showed His love among us.
He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through
Him. This, this is love. Not that we loved God, but that God loved us and
sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." And when John
writes that, we're supposed to hear John's words and kinda recall what
Jesus said in John 3:16. We're supposed to put the whole puzzle piece
together and simply be
amazed. John is trying to crack through the
calloused shells of our hearts to amaze us
again with the love of our God. That's, that's what he's
doing throughout the whole letter.
I mean, sometimes it sounds like he's coming out of his chair to do it.
Like, in the chapter before this, he writes, "How great is the love that the
Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God?" And that is
what we are. It sounds like, it's like he's shouting from the rooftops, going like,
"Man, that's what you are. You're a son of the living God.
You are a daughter of the living God. Stop forgetting it.
Stop becoming calloused to that truth and instead,
be amazed."
There's this, uh,
TV show that I love. It's like a guilty pleasure.
I watch it a lot while I'm traveling, 'cause Ali would never watch this show
(laughs) with me. It's called Body Cam. Okay?...
before you're like, "Ugh," let me explain.
(laughs) So, uh, (laughs) , it's kinda like that old show,
Cops. Remember Cops? Except there's no reenactments.
And so, basically, they interview police officers over spec- about
specific, you know, calls that they've been on, and as they're being interviewed,
they show footage of the actual moment that they're talking about
and it all comes from their body cams or their dashboard
cameras. And I've got a few friends who are police officers, and so, like, I- I
don't know why I- I don't- honestly, I don't know why I got obsessed with this
show. (laughs) I think, I just think it's cool. But I saw this one ...
Actually, last time I was here in North Carolina, I saw this one.
I wanna share it with you 'cause I th- I think it's amazing.
It's this young police officer. He's, like, in his early 20s,
and he's an officer in rural Georgia.
I can never say r- rural Georgia. (laughs)
He's an officer in non-urban Georgia w-
(laughs)
... which is important 'cause it's like, he- he's an officer in the middle of- of
nowhere, and one night, he's driving around at, like, 2:00 AM and he
gets a call from dispatch. There's this woman who has wrecked her car, the car is
up on its side, she's trapped inside, and the engine is on
fire.
Okay? He's the closest officer to the scene.
He speeds over there, he jumps out, he's immediately assessing the
situation. Yes, she's absolutely trapped.
Yes, this engine is on fire. Any minute now, this thing could hit the gas
line and the whole thing could just explode.
On top of this, he explains, "She's in the middle of nowhere and the fire
department and the next nearest police officer, they're not gonna be there for,
like, 15 to 20 minutes." And so he explains, "For the next 15 to
20 minutes, I am all this woman has."
Meanwhile, she's inside the car. Remember, you're seeing all of it. It's crazy.
You're watching the actual moment. She's inside, she's screaming for help.
She's sobbing, she knows she could die at any minute, and so what does this
police officer do? He pulls out his MagLite, you know, those
massive, heavy flashlights, and he just starts pounding
on this lady's windshield. Okay? You can go try this
later, if you'd like. You can go to the parking lot, go punch your
windshield as hard as you can. Guess what's gonna happen?
(laughs) You're gonna break your hand. (laughs) Like, nothing's gonna happen.
These things are designed to withstand car wrecks.
In fact, this lady's windshield has already withstood a
car wreck. At the same time, the officer explains, he's like, "I've
got no other option for the next 15 to 20 minutes until the fire
department shows up." And so he just starts going to town,
and he's just pounding on this woman's windshield over and over and over
again. Every now and then, he rears back and just kicks the thing as hard as he
can. The entire time, he's- he's screaming to her and he's yelling to her and
he's going, "Hey, I'm here. I'm not leaving.
Don't worry, I'm not leaving." He keeps calling her baby, which I could never get
away with, but he- he pulls it off. (laughs)
So he's just, over and over, he's hitting this windshield and he's going, "It's
okay, baby. I'm here. I'm not leaving, baby. I'm not leaving.
I'm not leaving." And for 15 minutes, this man
full on attacks this lady's windshield.
And what happens is, over the course of 15 minutes, the thing starts
to crack, and then eventually, it begins to sag, and then there's this
one moment where he rears back and he kicks it, and the thing
shatters. At this point, the car is engulfed
in flames, like, they've- they're- they already have burns from it, and he starts
yelling to her and he's like, "Okay, baby, we gotta go. We gotta go.
We gotta go." He pulls her out of the windshield, he carries her back behind
his squad car for protection, and like a minute later, this lady's
car explodes. And he's
got her wrapped up in a blanket and he looks at her at one point, and you can see
all of the footage. It's crazy. He just goes, "Hey, can I give you a
hug?" And she just, I mean, she
collapses in this young man's arms.
She's weeping and crying into his shoulder, and she just says over and over
again, "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." And he just rubs her back and says over
and over again, "It's over now. It's over now.
It's over now."
I swear, I got chills just telling you about this.
(laughs) It's one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my whole life, and
as I watched this thing, just like, totally gripped, I couldn't help think to
myself, it's like, "Man, I know there's bad eggs out there, I know there's
bad people, but every now and then, humans can just be
so amazing."
And I remember thinking, like, if I ever wreck my car and if I'm ever trapped
inside and the engine is on fire, man, I'm gonna be praying that the
officer who shows up has such a disregard for his own safety
that he's willing to risk his own life to save a stranger.
And if you're anything like me, as I was telling that story, it's like maybe your
heart started beating faster at one point 'cause you don't know what's gonna
happen, or maybe you got chills at the image of this guy just banging on
the windshield, or maybe you even felt like getting choked up at the image of these
two strangers hugging because they narrowly avoided death.
It's like we feel amazed by the story, and then at the same time, I
can say that the God of the universe had such a disregard for His
safety that He was willing to sacrifice His own life to save
us from the burning wreckage of our sins, and we're like, "Yeah, I
know. I've he- uh, I've heard that, I've heard that one before.
What else do you have to teach this morning?"
Man, may we pray, like right now, like, as I speak, that
God breaks through the calloused shells of our hearts
to amaze us again with the relentless force of His
love? That's what John is trying to do in 1 John chapter four.
It's like he's trying to dunk us in cold water and wake us up again, and
he's shouting at us, "Be amazed! This is
the kind of God you have. Be amazed."
Why? Because- because there is a God, there is this infinite
being who created the cosmos,
and He's all-knowing and He's all-seeing and He's all-encompassing.
We would be right to stand in fear of such great power.
We would be right to stand in awe and amazement in the blinding
light of God's glory, and yet scripture also tells us that it's that
same exact God who knows you by your first
name-It's that same exact God who has numbered the hairs
on your head.
It's that same exact God who knows the plans He has for you, and they're
plans to prosper you and not to harm you, and they're plans to give you all hope,
and to give you a future. Check this out.
We're told that that same exact God knows every single sparrow who
falls to the ground. Like, that God, our God, holds a
personal funeral service for every bird that dies. Why?
Because every bird is, is a creature that He created and He loves.
And at the same time, we're told that that very same God knit you and I
together in our mother's wombs, and wonderfully and fearfully, He
created our innermost beings. And so, I think He probably, He loves us at least
as much as He loves His birds. And
then John tells us that that same God had such a
disregard for His life that He chose to sacrifice
it. Why? Man, to be near
you.
Amen.
That's it at the end of the day.
To be close to you again. Right? To be, to be close enough to
call you His son and to call you His daughter, so that you could be
close enough to Him to call Him Father again.
Like, man, at the end of the day, our God put His life on
the line to call you family again.
Be
amazed. I
... Yeah.
(applause)
Don't have time to cover the rest of this passage.
You should absolutely go spend some time with it later today. It, it's great.
I mean, John says that because this love is so amazing, if we're amazed at God's
love for us, we should go show amazing love to other people.
It's great. But we don't have time.
And, and also, like, I think it could please our Father
to just simply be amazed by Him again.
And so, I'd love to end this thing with, with an encouragement. Okay?
I'd love to encourage us to spend this Christmas season
being amazed again.
It's like, sometimes we lose it. We, you know, we lose the amazement in the midst
of the schedule, and we got family coming in town, and we got work parties and
shopping malls and music and lights.
We get, like, caught up in the, the holiday season whirlwind, and the next thing
you know, it's New Year's Eve and we don't know where December went.
And so, what if, for the next two and a half to three weeks, we just
found time to intentionally create moments to be
amazed by our Father again?
This, this is ... Late at night when you get the kids down and the house is
finally still, or you've got, you know, a quiet moment in your
car at a red light, or you woke up in the morning and you're sipping your coffee,
just find some time to be amazed again. Because I get it.
It's busy. We got presents to buy. We got people coming in. We gotta watch Elf.
We gotta watch Christmas Vacation, or whatever your favorite movies are.
Like, I know that we've got a lot to do, but what we're actually
celebrating at Christmas is that 2,000 years ago,
God acted. He acted on
His love.
And what we're celebrating is that the same God who hung the stars in
space chose to lower Himself down to Earth, and
the same God who breathes life into every living creature took
His own first human breath as a baby squirming around a
feeding trough in the middle of nowhere, Bethlehem.
What we're celebrating is that the great and the almighty creator
humbled Himself to nearly nothing, taking on the very nature of a
servant. And then we're celebrating that eventually, that baby, that baby
grew up
and He became the kind of man who fiercely, relentlessly loved
everyone. That He, He cured the sick and He
healed the disease and He fed the hungry and He loved the unlovable and,
and He spent time with people you'd never dream of spending time with.
Fiercely, relentlessly loved everybody.
Then He told us to c- just be more like Him, and He taught us how to be more like
Him. And then that man set His face toward Jerusalem and He marched to
the cross. And go read about that moment.
He's still forgiving the unforgive- unforgivable.
Like, with His dying breath, with His dying
words. And then three days later, He came back
walking out of that tomb king over everything, victorious over
everything. But it started in a barn on the wrong side of the
tracks with a terrified young mother and her husband, that
everyone thought was a fool, watching the birth
of the eternal God.
It's
amazing.
And God did that. We're just told in John 3:16.
He did all that, not because we earned it, not because we deserved it, but
because He wanted to. And He wanted to, not because He tolerates
you, not because He's fed up with you, not because He
feels responsible for you, but because He fiercely,
relentlessly loves you. And what we're celebrating on
Christmas is that He did move heaven to Earth to prove it to
you. There is no other word. It
is amazing. It is an amazing
love. Hope for the next couple weeks, may we
find time to slow down and pause in the midst of the
chaos, and find time to be amazed by our
Father again.
Let me pray over us.
God, I thank you for this moment and, and these people here,
and at Apex, and watching online. God, I thank you for a chance to just
kinda hit pause in the middle of a crazy season and be together
as brothers and sisters, and be together as Your sons and, and Your
daughters, and just get to know You a little bit better, who You are as a
Father, and try to figure ourselves out a little bit
better. God, I, I think it's, I think it's
normal, and I think that it doesn't shock You, but at the
same timeWe don't necessarily like this thing
where we followed you long enough that we're not amazed by your love
anymore. We've heard it so many times, it just kind of
feels cliché now. We go all the way through Christmas season and
we don't even really pause to think that, "Wait a minute, you became a
child?" What, you, wait a minute, you entered down into
reality to be with us?
God, it, it's... I don't think it's a lot to ask, but it, it's a lot
of work on your part. Could you please move through the hearts of your children
this morning and the next day and over the next few weeks?
Would you chisel away at the hard, calloused stone around our
heart? God, we want to be amazed by your great love for
us again. God, do that in your, in our hearts.
I c- I can't do that, and there's no worship song out there good enough.
So God, would you please amaze us with who we have as a father?
I love you, and it's in your son's name I pray, Jesus Christ,
amen.