- All right, pretty soon, we're all gonna have the
opportunity the next few weeks to make our mark. Hey, so glad that you are here today. As you know, we are in a series, we just started this series on
relationships, relationships. Whether you are single or
married or somewhere in between or dating or wanting to
date, it doesn't matter, we're talking about how we can improve the quality of our relationships. Now, relationships used to be easy. Do you remember that? Do you remember when
relationships used to be easy? Do you? I do, in second grade. That's when they were easy. Before technology and Match and all those things we have here today and texting and who knows what not. We had some really good technology. We had a way of relating with one another that I think is unprecedented. So in second grade you would
see someone across the room that you might like, and so the way you got their attention, the way you entered into
a relationship with them was by this incredible piece of technology known as paper, right? You would reach in, under your desk, try not to get your hand caught in the gum that someone had placed in there earlier, and you'd pull out a white piece of paper. Then you'd take another
piece of technology that somehow has survived
the test of time, you would take out a crayon, crayon. Can you imagine if we had
invested in Crayons years ago? We would all be multi-millionaires. But I didn't, so I preach. So you get a crayon, a crayon, see the person you like,
you get your Crayons out, you look at the colors,
there are many more colors, but of course you're wise,
this is all about love, you choose red. And this is the way, young people, I hope you're taking notes, this is the way your teachers
and coaches and moms and dad, this is the, how they
did it back in the day. They would write a note that would say something like this. Very, the note's very complex, it's very difficult to understand. I'm gonna explain it to
you in just a second. I didn't know it'd take
this long to write, this is kind of pressure writing. There we go. Almost there. Everybody calm down. All right, stay. This is the reveal. Here's the note. "I love you, do you love me. "Circle yes or no." Now, this note, though
it looks really simple, is pretty, as we say in Texas, pretty dang deep and profound
when you think about it, and part genius, it's part genius. I didn't invent this note. I wish I did, kind of
like investing in crayons. I didn't invent it, but I used it. And so think about this. "I love you," that is a statement. That's a declaration of
intent and desire, right? You see him? "I love you." It's a statement. Then the next one, it's a question. "Do you love me?" And you want that love that
you have to be reciprocated by the person you're
sending this note to, okay. And that's pretty bold, isn't it? You're kind of, think
about the risk, right? "Do you love me?" And then, if you're in sales you know the ABCs of
sales, always be closing, and you give them the
option, "Circle yes or no," and then later on, when
you kind of got rejected a lot of times you put, "Maybe," right? "Can we just be friends,"
that we gave them, but yes or no was the
original option, okay. And you didn't know. So you would take that note, remember, fold it up, put their name on it, and then you'd go up to that
person directly and said, "Here you go." No, it didn't happen like that, did it? You never went up to
someone of the opposite sex directly back then, no, no, no. You went through another person. So you went through their manager who was their best friend. They would slip them the note, and then you had to sit
through all those crazy classes in elementary school waiting
for the answer at recess, and recess was either gonna bring you a time of rejoicing and great love, or was gonna be a time of rejection and melancholy around the monkey bars. "I love you, do you love me? "Circle yes or no." It was so easy back then. But as we get older, we go,
we get into high school, we change from a note to a poster, "Will you go to prom with me?" So we advanced a lot since then. But relationships can often be dicey. Whether you're talking about
romantic relationships, marriage, family,
friends, it can be dicey, and relationships are a
great place for joy and love, but they're also a great place
for pain and disappointments. And if you've lived long
enough, like I have, and some of you have in this room, you've experienced the great
highs and the great lows. But no matter where you are today, whether you're high or low when it comes to love and relationships, we still all have this
yearning, this desire. This started at a very
young age, didn't it, to be loved and to love, to be loved and to love. Now fortunately for us, the Bible has a lot to say
to us about relationships, romantic relationships,
marriage, divorce, you name it. The Bible says and tells us
a lot about relationships. It's silent about some issues, it's not about these
issues, which I'm glad, because hey, I'm a guy, I need help. So let's turn to 1 John chapter four, we were there last week, and let's look at where our yearning, this desire for love, I
love you, do you love," how this can be met and satiated. Look at this, 1 John 4:7,
John writes, I love this, "Dear friends, dear friends. "Let us love one another,
for love comes from God, "and everyone who loves has
been born of God and knows God. "Whoever does not love does not know God, "because God is love." Eureka, God calls you and
me to love one another, to love one another. But this passage goes a little
bit further, doesn't it? It says, "If you say that
you love God and know God, "but you don't love other people, "then you really don't know God." You're really not born of God. So love, how we love each other is a litmus test if you would, it's proof as to whether or not we really have a relationship with God. And we're gonna talk about
how that works itself out in the next several weeks. And we have the honor and privilege of having Gary Thomas with us. He's on our staff and he
has been giving conferences on marriage and relationships for decades, so he's gonna be obviously
a part of our series. But right now, let's look and see what this passage talks
to us and reveals to us about this love. First of all, I think it's interesting that when you look at
love from our perspective, for us, love is a verb. I'm gonna do a little bit
of English here today. Love is a verb, love is an action. Love is something that you do. Oh, love is love. No love is not love. Love is an action. When someone says, "I love you," basically what they should mean is, "I am committed to you, "and I'm gonna show the
actions to prove that." Love is not simply an emotion. Love is not simply an attraction. Love is something that we do. Love is an action verb. For God, love is a noun, love is a noun. God is love. God defines what love
is and what love is not. God sets the boundaries for love. And God's essence is love. Not the kind of love we've
heard about growing up, the love that we've watched in the movies, the love that we've seen in
our favorite Netflix series we've been binging, not the love that we hear about in all the pop music and rock
music, not that kind of love. But God leads us and
talks to us and shows us a type of love that's on
a whole 'nother level. C.S. Lewis talks about the
different types of love. There's eros, that's romantic love. There's philia, that's friendship love. There's storge, that's
another kind of love, and then there's agape, in the Greek, God's kind of love. God defines what love is. God is the source of love. If someone says they love you, they need to show that
and demonstrate that by the way they live. Love is an action word for us. Love is a noun for God. God is love. He's the source of love. At the essence, at the heart
of the universe and the world is the agape love of God. At the same time, and
we're thankful for that, love is also an action word for God. It's a noun and a verb for God. So, we all believe that God exists. God's existence is almost unarguable. We can look around us
and look inside of us and know that there is a
God, but is this God active? Does this God take action? If there is a God, is he a personal God, or is he some type of force? No, he's a personal God, and he's a God who takes action. He is love in action. Look at 1 John again, chapter four, look at verse nine. It says, "This is how God
showed his love among us." This is how he showed us
the love, show us the love. "He sent his one only Son into the world "that we might live through him." Listen, you're not designed
to live your life solo. God's not calling you to enter
into your relational world with your family and your marriage, with their friendships
and your dating world to try to love someone
in your own strength. No, he wants to love through you. Verse 10, "This is love,
not that we love God, "but that he first loved us, "and sent his Son as an atoning
sacrifice for our sins." I love this, again, "Dear friends, dear friends,
since God so loved us, "we ought to love one another." No one's ever seen God, except a couple of televangelists, but no one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and his
love is made complete in us, the overwhelming, never
ending, reckless, eternal, infinite, ineffable love of God. What's God's love like? We're trying to describe his love as we work through these
passages in this series. We're trying to apply this love. We're trying to understand
and grasp this love. What's God's love like? First of all, God's love we
see her is a tenacious love. It's a tenacious love. It's a love that seeks us out. God loved us so much
that he made this world, he made this creation, he
fine-tuned the universe. He fine-tuned this planet that we could exist as human beings, that as human beings, we
were designed and created and longing for this love, and God pursues us with this love. Even when Adam and Eve were, screwed up and made a
big time wrong decision, took that path, caved into the temptation, God still pursued Adam and
Eve through their disobedience and wanted to bring them back
into a love relationship. And then God sends his
prophets in the Old Testament. Then God chooses and
shows his love to Israel. And then God finally,
in the fullness of time, comes down to earth in the
person of Jesus Christ, his only Son, pursuing
us with a tenacious love. Even when we didn't
know God from Godzilla, he was pursuing you with his love. Even before you made one
little step into church or one little step towards God, or you were about to hit your knees, God's love was already there. He had already finished
it, and he pursues us, even in dark times,
even in difficult times, with his tenacious, transcendent love. God's love is also tender. God loves us so much that he sent his Son, his Son laid down his life as a sacrifice and died for you and died for me. That's a tender, personal love. I wouldn't do that. I would not send my
children to die for you, to die for anyone. Maybe our country if
they chose to volunteer, to go into the military or to the police academy or something. But I wouldn't as a father. God the Father sends his Son, shows us his tender love,
his sacrificial love for us. Also, God's love, as we
talked about last week, is transformative. Once we begin to realize
that there is a God, not only that there is a God, but this God loves me personally, warts and all, just as I am, with my shame and my guilt and all of my mess and my
life and all of my sin, once I realize that his
love cannot be earned, it cannot be lost, God loves me as is, that begins to change my life. It changes how I view God, it changes how I view others. It changes everything. Love is utterly transformative. It changes the way we live and how we live and what we wanna do and
what we don't wanna do. It's amazing. And this transformative love is constant. He pours his love through us. It says he wants to live
in us and through us in verses nine through 10, to live his life through us, to empower us to love others. And then we look at the cross. The cross is, it's not decoration, it's not something that you wear. The cross is the ultimate
symbol of the love of God, the tenacious, tender,
transformative love of God. We see that at the cross,
as Christ dies a death that no one else could die, he lived a life that
no one else could live. He rose again to prove that
he was who he said he was, and that we might be connected
with this infinite, eternal, transformative love of God. One of the reasons that
we don't have peace many times in our life is because we're not looking at Christ, we're looking at our sin
and looking at our failures and looking inside of us
instead of looking outside, to what God has done for us in Christ. And he invites us into this love, he invites us into this love. It's the love of God, it's the kindness of God
that leads to repentance. It's the love of God,
the tenacious love of God that pursues us, that
gives us hope for tomorrow and strength for today. The love of God. How do we connect with the love of God? 'Cause I wanna know that I'm loved by God, and I desire to know that God loves me not intellectually or theologically, though theology is important. I wanna also know his love
primarily experientially and in my heart. Well, one of the ways we
began to start understanding God's love and continue
to understand God's love is by saying this, I'll
just say it for me. Hi, my name is Ben and
I am a desperate sinner. That's where it starts. Hi, my name is Ben and
I have not loved God with all my heart, mind, body, and soul, I've not loved my neighbor as myself, I have sinned in many, many ways, all this before noon on Sunday. Have a nice day. I'm a sinner, I sin. I break God's laws, I've
broken God's covenant. I have real shame, real guilt. I am broken and I need forgiveness and I need God's personal love. And I'll always need his love. But God loves me just as I am. God loves me right now. God knows who I am, God knows the sins I
committed at 10 o'clock today, God knows the sins I'll
commit years from now. And by the way, God's love and power is gonna give me the grace
to break free from that and break the chains. At the same time, God
loves us holistically and he wants to start living
a life based upon his love, and it starts by acknowledging the fact that we are sinners, we are needy, we are
broken in front of him. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was
a 20th century theologian and martyr for the faith, he said this. He said, "The grace, it
is the grace of the gospel "which is so hard for
the pious to understand," pious people, people
who are self-righteous, people who think that
they have it all together and they figured it out
and will cancel you, "that it confronts us
with the truth and says," by the way, I don't wanna live in a world where there's not forgiveness, do you? Do you wanna live in a world
where there's not forgiveness? I don't wanna live in that world. Whole 'nother the message, I apologize. Back to Bonhoeffer. "You are a sinner, a great
and desperate sinner. "Now come as the sinner that
you are to a God who loves you. "He wants you as you are. "He does not want anything
from you, a sacrifice, a work. "He wants you alone." That's awesome. He wants us and loves us as we are. And so my prayer for you today
is the prayer for myself, to allow God if you would, to let love, God love you right where you are. Just let God love you right where you are. Let him love you right where you are. Wouldn't it be great, have
you ever thought about this. Wouldn't be great if God
would kind of give you one of those love notes that I
talked about in second grade, if God could write a
personal love note to you with your name on it
to tell you personally that he loves you and he still has a plan and purpose for your life? And wouldn't it be great if he sent someone to
deliver that note to you, that you might receive
it and understand it? Oh, wait a minute. God has done that. He's done that. I've read that personal love note. A lot of you have too. "For God so loved the world," I love you, "that he gave his only Son, "that whosoever," do you love me? "Would believe in him would
have everlasting life." "Circle yes or no." God's already done it. God's written a love note
with your name on it. How's he showed us the love? He spread his arms open wide. "I love you," the cross,
his arms are wide open. And you know what? God wants you to take out the crayon in your heart if you would and circle yes, yes, yes. Corinthian's says, in 2
Corinthians chapter one, that all of God's
promises are a yes to us, and we, that's why we respond with a yes. Listen, a love note like this already implies a yes on the other side. God has already said yes to you, yes to your life, yes to your forgiveness, yes to your restoration, yes that you can experience
the love of God in Christ. God's already circled yes. Will you circle yes? Will you say, "Yes, I trust in his love. "Yes, I believe in his love. "Yes, I'm gonna lean upon his love "and allow his love to
mold and to shape my life "and all of my relationships." He says circle yes, circle yes. Some of you have never really circled yes. You kind of know of God,
maybe you went to church, you had some kind of religious background, but you've never really circled yes. Others of you, you have, a lot of you here have circled yes to say, "Man, I know what you're talking about. "I've experienced this love of God "personally that I cannot explain." And that's wonderful, but here's what I've
discovered in my life, is that it's not just
a one time circle yes or check the box. No, I've gotta go back, you know, go back into God's Word,
go back into prayer, and to circle yes again, to affirm and say that I really trust that God still loves me,
God is still in my life, and he's loving others through me. Even when I may not feel love, I circle yes that God loves me, and I go back again
and I circle yes again. And as I go through a trial
and things are hurting and painful, I circle yes again. I believe God loves me. I circle yes again, I circle yes, I circle yes,
I circle yes, I circle yes, until I almost have that
kind of red waxy feeling over my little love note from God, as I'm going back to the cross, as I'm going back to his Word, as I'm going back to prayer and saying, "Yes, thank you God that you love me. "Hi, my name is Ben, I
am a desperate sinner. "I don't wanna be, I wanna be set free, "I wanna know your love, "and I know you've circled yes for me. "God, help me to live from
that yes of your love." (audience applauds) Circle yes. Probably the greatest, the most influential
theologian of the 20th century had to be Carl Barth, B-A-R-T,
B-A-R-T-H, Carl Barth. And Carl Barth influenced both the Catholic side of the Church and the Protestant side of the Church. He wrote volumes and squillions of books and theological treaties, and at the end of his life, he
actually preached in prisons in Basel, Switzerland, and he was a prolific
man, a prolific writer. And toward the end of his career, he was touring the United States, and he had this big press conference where all this media
was out in front of him and he's behind the table and
the microphone's right there, and one reporter asked
him a question, he said, "Dr. Barth, out of all
the things you've learned "and heard and read, "what is the greatest, most
profound theological truth "you've ever discovered?" And without hesitation, Dr. Barth said, "Jesus loves me this I know, "for the Bible tells me so." Yes, Jesus loves me. He loves you. Yes, Jesus loves me, he loves you, and we can live from this love. He's already circled yes for you. Circle yes, and we'll
all rejoice at a recess.
