Lincoln Brewster: If I Only Let God - Love Me

[Music] we're gonna dive into this this new sermon series this week is the first week and it's it says if I if I only let God da dot and this week it's love me if I only let God love me and so I want to clarify something about that word let somebody asked they said so if if I don't let God love me does he not love me and I said no no no no he's all in he is head-over-heels crazy in love with you the great news is there's nothing you can do about it sent his son a couple thousand years ago to die for you in advance no matter what it was you were gonna do he's all-in that doesn't change but how many know that sometimes we resist being loved we resist receiving love okay so you saw our little schnauzer in the picture his name is lucky he's the sweetest little guy he just he's that he's a compassionate little dog he's got these soulful eyes and he loves my wife like I think he's accepted Laura into his heart as Lord and Savior and but he's kind of a nervous Nellie and so when Laura picks him up he'll do this thing he doesn't say anybody who picks him up he just he loves being pet and all that but if you pick him up and try to pull him close he just fully straight arms you it's just double paw and then he's kind of a vocal dog DT talks to us and but when he's doing the straight-arm thing he'll go and I swear I've heard him I've heard him do this I've heard him go and you try to pull him closer in the the more you try to pull him close the more he straight arms you that sound familiar sometimes we do that people I could say it this way the church in Scripture is referred to as the Bride of Christ that's us we're the brother Bride of Christ and how many know that a guy can fall in love with a girl he can be head-over-heels crazy in love with this girl and he's asked her to marry him it's yes but how many know that on their marriage day she has to say yes I'm just saying she's got to say yes and so church for us to let God love us it's really about letting God in and saying yes I'll let you love me and so the scripture we are gonna talk about is incredibly profound because it's talking about having an understanding of something that it says surpasses knowledge we'll get to that in a second but it's talking about grasping how wide how long how high and how deep the love of God really is and so let's turn to our Bibles to get your Bibles here going to get them out Ephesians chapter 3 verse 16 we'll start there 16 through 19 it says this I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his what through his spirit it's always by the Spirit of God in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and I pray that you and this is important being rooted and established in what in love may have power together with all the Lord's holy people that's why it's important to be in church to grasp I want you to circle grasp we're gonna talk about grasping to grasp how wide and how long and how high and deep is the love of Christ and this is where it gets really tricky and to know this love that surpasses what knowledge how am I supposed to know something that surpasses my ability to know it that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God so when we talk about knowing something that surpasses our ability to know it we got to look at what type of knowing is Paul talking about here and what that original Greek word means is to experience the love of God to experience the love of God and by the end of today and try to stick with me here for a second by the end of today if we have gotten a firmer grasp of how wide how long how deep how high the love of God is if we've done that successfully and through the course of the rest of our lives the more successfully we do that God's love should make less sense to us it should make that much less sense because it is an awareness of how far beyond our ability to comprehend it it really is it's like the more I know the more I realize I know nothing it's a bit like that so as I was thinking about this concept of letting gara of grasping I was reminded of something that happened years ago we went over to Monterey as a family me and Laura and the kids and we if you ever go to cannery row on cannery row they've got this place that I think it's called laser craze or something like that and they've got like one of those laser things where you go in you're like a burglar you got to get over all the things and then they have a thing called the mirror maze and if you go to the mirror maze you go in it's full of mirrors and it's flashing lights and you can't see what's going on and you just have to get out the other side and people get stuck in there and you guys know what I'm talking about by the way it's really fun or maddening one of the two but they then if you really want to take it to the next level in the mirror maze you put on these kaleidoscope glasses so it's super hard to see what's going on and so here's the parallel that I want you to see is all of us every single one of us in life have a pair of glasses that we wear it's a lens that we look at life through and more importantly a lens that we look at God through and today we're going to talk about we're looking at God's love through those glasses through that lens that we've developed and the lens gets formed from hurts from disappointments some good things some bad things influences the way we were parented the way we weren't parented disappointments failures but we form this lens that we look at life through and it determines a great deal about how we're able to receive the love of God it determines a ton about it and so I want to show you what happens if those lenses get too jacked up like those kaleidoscope ones I want to show you what can happen when something's right in front of you and you still can't quite get a hold of it and so this is a video of us in our hotel room after we got back Levi took the Kaleidoscope glasses with them and then he had this helium balloon and so I just want to kind of imagine this is you or me and we're trying to grasp the love of God how wide how long how deep how high it is but we've got this lens we're looking at it through and it kind of messes with our ability to do it so check this out all right there he is he's got the glasses all right and there's the love of God right in front of them surely shouldn't be that difficult right there grasp it my son that happens to us it's right in front of us and sometimes we just we just miss it it's gosh why can't I get a hold of this God I've been doing the work I've been doing I serve and I'm doing good deeds and God's going in something about that you're not working for my love that's hard for some of us like I'm doing my work I should get my reward my rewards and then when I don't do where God loves me less it's not how it works the love is called unconditional it's just there the biggest problem with it is just our ability to receive it just to say God and what it's gonna require is us getting our heads out of the way and taking off those glasses and go got it just today I want to grasp it and your word says that I need power through your spirit and my inner being to be able to do that so that's the goal today I heard a celebrity say this recently he said you know when people meet me for the first time I feel like most of the work that I have to do is to get them to unknown I am so they get to know the real me and I get that to a small degree I have you know some of my friends they'll make other friends and inevitably those friends will ask them they'll find out we're friends and they'll go so what's he really like well it's he really like because we all get an idea about who somebody is and kind of want to know and but it messes with our ability to really get to know that person so I'm gonna challenge you today I'm gonna challenge you to maybe go maybe put aside what you think you know about God's love so you can have a chance to experience it in a way like you've never experienced it before that we would truly be able to grasp how wide how deep how long how high his love is and I promise you Church if you're successful you will leave here and again it will make way less sense because if we can understand God then he ceases to be God right think about it our three and a half pounds of brain God it's got to make sense for me o creator of the universe and beyond shouldn't make that much sense everybody alright let's jump down here point number one how wide it is the love of God I want you to fill this in you are never too far you're never too far some of you know this part of my story has grown up in Alaska I was born in Fairbanks raised in Homer my mom was 19 years old and had three kids and then was a single mom we lived 16 miles out East End Road that's 16 miles outside of the middle of nowhere we lived in a cabin with no running water and no electricity is a picture of our cabin this is real deal so when I see shows like Alaskan bush people and they have braces on I'm like you posers we were legit Alaskan bush people we were the real deal we were doing it this is a picture of my front yard that good that was our driveway great thing about it I said this last time no HOAs never had to apply for a permit you could do anything you want out there but eventually living up in Alaska my mom got mayor got started dating this guy a commercial fisherman named John Hillstrand and his sons are the guys who run the boat the Time Bandit on Deadliest Catch so I became the youngest of eight kids and that started a long era of domestic violence and alcoholism and drug abuse and sexual abuse that messed me up as a kid so when I tell you that you're never too far you look at God's love somehow reached up to the far place of Alaska we were almost off the map geographically dysfunctional II we were totally off the grid but somehow God's love reached this kid up there who needed it and I'm standing here today we've started a new generation in my family my wife and I've been married for 26 years longest-running marriage in my family we've got two sons Levi and Liam and my son's love God and they're great guys were really really blessed it's not from my own doing but it has something to do with letting God love me in the midst of my failures and knowing who I really am and going I don't deserve it like that song talked about you're never too far number two how long is the love of God this is where my favorites it's never too late people it's never too late you know just a couple years ago Tiger Woods came back and he won the Masters golf tournament and I want you to raise your hand if you are a grown man in here and you cried when that happened yes a lot of you cried listen it wasn't about Tiger Woods winning a golf tournament it was about remembering that it's never too late for you it's never too late for you he was down in the dumps down in the trenches and somehow he comes back Jesus was the ultimate comeback story but it's never too late for you you know earlier this year we lost a dear family member I still miss him terribly our Uncle Jim I talked to you a little bit about it at one point an uncle Jim was a great reminder that while you're still here you got stuff to do now he couldn't do anything he was laying on his deathbed and one of the family members who they had basically adopted it was an African America kid 12 years old start hanging out with them and they just fell in love with this kid and just took him in as their own and now he's a grown man too got IT companies great guy married kids and he still calls Uncle Jim dad and he gets up at the Memorial and shares this story and he said you know I'll never forget this moment that I had with dad but the day before he passed away he had me sit down on the side of the bed and dad looked at me and he said Richard I have loved you since the very moment I saw you and he said you are every bit as much of a son to me as Josh and Tom then I am so glad that God blessed our family with you the next day he died of multiple types of cancer Stage four he understood the concept that it was never too late he got it he's like it is never too late for me to encourage somebody I still got something to do I don't want you to write this down if you still have breath then God has an assignment for you if you still have breath and that would be all of you in here then God has an assignment for you it's never too late Church it's never too late number three how deep is the love of God you could fill this in you are never too broken you are never too broken the world would love to convince us that that is not true especially in today's climate this anti forgiveness whatever you do don't be honest if you're transparent and you're honest you're gonna get the holes blown in you for that but God's Word says you're never too broken now if I could just talk real with you for just second for some reason I don't know why this is exactly I tend to be very hard on myself and the other day I felt like overloaded just too much stuff going on a little overwhelmed I sat down in my studio and literally out loud early in the morning I said this out loud I said ah I'm such an idiot and he was almost like the Grinch movie it was one of those moments I was just discouraged but it was like when he was doing the echo and he's like I haven't any it you're an idiot like you can't win it felt like that moment and then just in this soft voice I felt like I I sense God say to me hey I would never talk to you like that I kind of went oh and if you have kids you you know how you feel toward your kids right or at least when they were little Scout getting I was getting I'm just kidding okay but but you know if your kids like discouraged and all that stuff you're you you would never walk up and go you're an idiot it's like you come up and it's like hey buddy don't be so hard on yourself right don't be so hard on yourself sometimes we get this idea that like that's how God really looks at us you know that he's waiting up there as some cosmic killjoy waiting to smash us on the head as soon as we make a mistake when it's everything but that you don't have a bigger fan you don't have a bigger advocate you just gotta let him in I remember years ago before I recorded my very first album this is actually a pretty record deal and I've been with the same record company my entire career so I like over 20 years with integrity music and the around and when I was 20 four years ago or so we had went to Nashville to plant a church to help plant a church in it was a horrible experience it was we got burned by Christians we got treated poorly by Christians we got abused by Christians and when that happens to you it feels like all Christians are bad and we get to the point I slipped into this massive depression and we got to the point where we were done with Church we were lonely we were afraid we went out there thinking we're gonna conquer the world and we ended up in a little ball in the corner discouraged scared depressed and I was low low lowest point I've ever been in my life to the point where I was questioning my faith I was questioning believing in God at all it was just how can this be and right in the middle of all that God with his great sense of humor has integrity music offer me a record deal to record Christian music and being the idealist that I am I was like hmm it's gonna be a little tough to record Christian music if I'm a right not a Christian and so Laura and I drove down to Mobile Alabama from Nashville that was where the label was at the time and on our drive down we were so low we couldn't even think of stuff to be thankful for that was how bad it was now it wasn't that we didn't have stuff to be thankful for it was that we were that discouraged just couldn't even think of stuff to be thankful for and I wrote this down so I wanted to share it with you that you know what we ended up starting with on our gratitude list you've heard me say this count your blessings this is where it started was this day you know what was our first thing on the list or driving on the roads laura's encouraging me like do you have anything there's anything you can think of and I went toes I like my toes I'm thankful for I start wiggling them I'm like they're kind of RAD I'm happy I okay toes it is number one thankful for my toes and then I just started naming like body parts like legs okay they're good I like my legs my hands yeah and it just was the basic stuff of but that's how low we were so I get down there to integrity music's corporate offices they've offered me a record deal I've not said yes yet I walked in to the senior VP of ANR's office and I tried to talk him out of giving me a record deal this is the honest true story I was it was that low and so I sat down and I said dude I'm just gonna be really honest with you and and I just laid out my whole story for him and I was convinced and I said I don't even know at this point if I still believe in God and I'll never forget his reaction he said I've been there I've been there I mean how many of you have been there you you know how many you were there right now you know and he said it doesn't change anything for us we love you we believe in you we see great things for you so we just want to walk this journey with you support you in your pain doesn't change anything and I gotta tell you I'm so glad that in that moment that I just let God love me through my friend Chris but just said okay all right and I started being healed from that experience through writing and through recording who would have thought if you'd have told me back then but I'd be you know whatever it is ten or eleven twelve records down the road and that I'd be yeah thank you in a hymnal haha God's great sense of humor you're crazy or that I would be standing on stage at a church that I had been at that I love and that I would give anything for for twenty years preaching about this come on you're never too broken you're never too broken there's a great quote from Corrie ten Boom that I love it says there is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still you're never too broken you're never ever too broken and lastly number four how high is the love of God how high is the love of God and I want you to fill this in he is always too good he is always too good that does not mean you are not good enough it means that he is always too good God does these crazy thing I want you to keep your notes out gonna give you a couple of things here but but but God cares enough about each and every one of you to sort of scheme on our behalf behind the scenes he cares so much about you this happened the other day we're doing some landscaping at our house the guy doing our landscaping is phenomenal world-class best guy we've had doing anything in our house super organized runs a tight ship Bayside guy doesn't forget anything except for he forgot one pot this day he's like hey oh we're suppose to have four pots we only got three pots so Laurinaitis for some reason went oh uh I mean I guess we could just go pick it up yeah well-well go pick it up so we run down to the nursery to go pick up the pot and we walk in and there's a scow behind the register and she says hey I've recognized you from Bayside you you're at Bayside and I'm like yeah it's like a thing that worked there and stuff and uh and she said gosh I uh it's really yeah I love the music and then she kind of looked like something's troubling her and I said what's going on are you still coming and she said no I just that was it what happened and she's like Christian's I was like I get it I get it and I was like you know what my favorite bumper sticker of all time I lived in Nashville and was like right in the middle of all this stuff I saw this car right in front of me that said Jesus save me from your people but the reality is that not all Christians are this way not very very few but when it's happening to you it feels like it's all of them and I could just see it as a lot of pain on her face and and I said well what else is going on she said lost my mom two years ago lost my husband I've got two boys 1418 my 18 year olds got he's autistic and I said well hey would you be up for like giving a shot again she goes I'm you know maybe I said we just hired this guy Scotty Shum Jr and that was just as a wedding and when he's back from his honeymoon he would love to meet your son like his job here he just he loves he loves special-needs kids man he is what he does we got a great special needs ministry I would love to just connect you and she kind of lit up like oh really like yeah well my younger son doesn't really connect and he has a I'm like we will scheme won't come up with something like well whatever it's okay to do for your kids when you connect them with Jesus you can like be all dishonesty or whatever I don't know no that's all though thing I'm not saying to lie all the time but you you know like well let's let's get him in I said you got to have a community would you come and she said okay and then she end up getting sick or was she's gonna come to golden one we gave her 20 bucks for parking and would literally went in there yesterday I saw her and she goes oh I'm so glad you came back in I'm like why is she goes here's your $20 I wasn't able to come I got really sick it turn into bronchitis and it's like what I said you have strong character that's why she goes what you can either take the money back or you can put it in the donation thing and then you can win twenty chances to win a bunch of free flowers but she said I'll be there this weekend I'll be there this weekend so we leave and we go back home and I am like blown away and Laura and I are just like God is too good he's too good that he would leave the 99 and just to go after the one that he cared enough about her to cause a guy doesn't forget anything to forget a pot just like I don't know what was going on I'm like wow but that's just a scratching of the surface of how wide and how deep and how long and how high the love of God is it's just a scratching of the surface so we're gonna do something today and I hope everybody can just hang for a couple minutes but the band is gonna come and just play just play this song and I just want you to to pray that you can start to experience this crazy love of God with no one moving around I'm just ask you to stay in your seats this song talks about this reckless love and some people go what does that mean he's got a guy out of control here's what I think it means here's what I think it means is that God loves you so much and his love is so profoundly wide long deep in hi that he would allow his own heart to be broken by us and he would allow his heart to be broken but all he wants to do is love you he just wants you to let him in if you're here today with you're in high school or whether you've been in church for 50 years maybe you've never even said yes to Jesus maybe you don't have a relationship with him maybe you're brand new maybe this is your first time I just want to bow our heads close our eyes I'm gonna pray for you if you want to say yes to Jesus today if that's you in here I'm gonna pray a very simple prayer out loud then I'll ask you to pray silently let's pray together Lord thank you for your love thank you for your grace your mercy and your forgiveness I believe that you died on a cross so that I could be forgiven in my past my sins my failures I receive that forgiveness now and lord I believe that you rose again that I might have new life I received that new life now come into my heart make all things new make me two new creation and with no one looking around still if you raise if you prayed that prayer it's gonna ask you to raise your hand so I know you're out there awesome whole bunch of you awesome anyone else great way to go yep anyone the stands just wave at me a little bit so I can see there you go awesome and then also if you're here today and you would say you know what I think it would you pray for me that I could grasp this love I just want to let God in more I want to take off my glasses I want to see God's love for what it really is I want to understand it less but I want to experience it like Paul talks about if that's you just raise your hand up all over this place tons of you [Music] father I pray for each and every person to raise their hand gun I pray that all of us would have that inner strength by the power of your spirit to grasp how wide how long how deep how high Alevis Lord work in our lives reveal yourself to us help us to let you in God churches they play this song some people believe that it's described the way it is for this reason look at this it's how high it's how deep it's how long that's how wide that it's the cross in an image that he paid it all for us so for two minutes the band is gonna play this song over you and then I'll be right back to close the service you see you know me you've been so so good to me for to breath you meet your life you've been so so kind to me [Music] dear love of God no AJC freedom fries too [Music] I don't desert still you give yourself away Oh me Oh [Music] when I was your phone still you love [Music] [Music] No [Music] [Music] [Music] see snow shadow you are lying no worse Walter Shire [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I want you to remember these three things worship everyday worship God pray everyday pray to God [Music] read your Bible connect with God and then be in fellowship with people these are the ways that we grasp these are the ways that we let the love of God in and listen God doesn't need our good deeds God doesn't need your good deeds but your neighbor does alright so let's stay at it I love you guys we'll see you next weekend [Music]

Channel: Bayside Church

Views: 2,408

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Bayside Church, Bible, Hope, Compassion, Love, Lincoln Brewster, God's Love For Me

Id: 7KVmxrd2Sik

Length: 38min 28sec (2308 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 06 2019