The Big Idea (Matthew 22:34-40) - Pastor Daniel Fusco

[Music] [Music] so one of the hardest realities to come to terms with in this life is the fact that life's not a dress rehearsal you get one shot at this one shot at every single day to live that day well but know what the problem is how many of us look back on our lives and see long stretches of our lives at as being in an adventure at missing the point how many go I raise your hand yeah a lot of you and the rest of you are liars no just good I feel like I have a PhD at missing the points let me give you an example of this so I'll never forget it and it's kind of an embarrassing story of for me but I'm gonna share it anyway so I remember when Lynn and I Lynn was pregnant with our second child our daughter maranatha so obadiah at that time was about three years old and we lived in this apartment like a townhouse in in Marin County California just over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco and our house it's like our townhouse was here but our car was like up the hill and so sure enough it was the time for Linda to have Maranatha and so my wife's a tough girl you wouldn't know it when you meet her because she's so sweet and she's so kind but she's strong you know and so my wife is the kind of woman who she would never want to go to the hospital to be sent home that that it wasn't really time to have the baby so in in my house it's like you end up getting to the hospital like two hours before the baby's born right and so sure enough you know Lynn's she's super pregnant with Maranatha and and and so eat dinner you know we go to bed and I remember I woke up but it was about 10 o'clock and Lynn was in labor like real labor like she didn't go to bed I went to bed I didn't realize what was going on you know and so sure enough you know it's she's in labor so she wakes me up and you know and and we have to call my father on to come over here and that was so funny because it was like she's like I'm not gonna go to the hospital until I absolutely have to be there Mike okay okay okay you know and so sure enough is that the point where her laboring is so strong that I know I got to get her to the hospital right and so so I call my father while he's gonna come over and watch out little Obadiah and I'm like I want to be a gentleman I mean she's gonna have a baby she's in labor so I go to get the car right and as I go to get the car I'm walking up to go get the car and I start thinking to myself okay so it's about 10:30 I did it about five o'clock and I'm like I'm getting a little bit hungry right now I told you is this story about it misty adventures and missing the point okay like so I'm using myself as an object lesson here and so sure enough I'm having this thought to myself and I'm like okay well you know it's gonna be a long night and she's you know she's gonna have this you know she can have the baby it could take a couple hours maybe you could take a couple days I mean who knows and and so sorry I'm sorry I'm like thinking to myself and I'm like but you know what Daniel it's like you know your wife's having a baby and you need to get it together you know so sure enough I get up to the car you know and I get the car and I Drive it down I turn it around so it's like right there next to the door and I think to myself well she's gonna get in the car and and because at this time Obadiah is like three years old so you know at the back of a car of someone where the three year old lives is right so it's like it's like if there was ever like a nuclear fallout you just find any parent of a toddler and you go to their backseat there's food there you know there's like there's little fishies you know there's happy in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are there I mean all this stuff is there and all this food like nothing will ever happen to it'll still be good and pretty fresh in about 15 years you know so I have the bright idea I want my wife to get into this car I want it to look nice because obviously when you're having labor pains you care about that of course now I'm just I got issues you know and so sure enough I start cleaning out the back area exciting we're gonna put the bag back there and all of a sudden my eyes catch this beautiful sight this golden and it was orange and it was shaped like a diamond and there was a little mound of cheez-its you know but I must been eating some cheese it's a whole bunch of hit the floor and I remember looking at them and my first thought was I don't eat it and then my next thought was oh those are gonna taste so good I might not eat for a while the survivals at stake here and before I know it I grab those cheeses I stick them in my mouth and I start chewing on it and right as they get in my mouth I take that first taste of it I think to myself this is not gonna end well Daniel so so you know I'm in the car you know I got some water and trying I take a couple minutes I stick him in my mouth you know and I walk in the house so fun I walked in the house and right as I walked in Flynn's right in the entryway and she's right in the middle of a labor pain like a real nasty one and all of a sudden she's in and she's moaning she looks at me she's like what are you eating and it was the only time in our entire marriage that I got in like I got yelled at by my wife only time right there water you eating and I thought I was like nothing you know now I use that as an example because it's like totally missed the point right like I totally fail as a husband be like Foucault you fail tell me say husband failed God tell me that's right I'm still repenting of this you know because it was like it was in that moment I know better me you know she has all the hard work to do and I'm like thinking about how hungry I am and I'm eating Jesus you know and so it's like even my cheez-its are like illegal in my home because of this still to this day you know I so but it was I don't get a chance to get that back again and ultimately you know Maranatha was born she was amazing we did get to the hospital and was like nine centimeters dilated oh yeah when we had antibodies listen we're going to the hospital when I say so this time because I'm not the guy who's gonna be delivering the baby in the in the back seat that's not me you know but but but I share that story because if life there's no just rehearsal and if all you have is today to live today then we need to make sure that we get this stuff right right now because of this I wrote this book that it actually releases on October 10th but we got the publisher to give us copies early so that we can have like a pre-release celebration here with the crossroads family so we have you know in our Southwest Portland campus here in our Vancouver campus we have the books available but here's the deal the reason why I knew I needed to write this book was because Jesus is the greatest person who ever lived not only is he the greatest teacher who ever lived but he is God in flesh and the Savior and the Messiah and when they asked the greatest person the greatest teacher the most wise person who ever lived what the most important thing was he told us and for me this reality of the greatest person who ever lived the only person who always did those things which please his father when he tells you this is the most important thing that I want us to be really good at that now here's the thing we all even if it's your very first time in church today I realize that there are many of you who are like that you you took a step of faith because somebody invited you and you're like okay I don't really know everybody knows that Jesus said this though you don't need to go to church to know this isn't like something that's hidden everybody knows this truth but the key is it's not enough just to know what the most important thing is we have to learn how to do it does that make sense like how many of you know what you're supposed to do but you just have a hard time doing it go ahead raise your hands yeah everyone should be raise your hand the rest of you didn't raise your hand you knew you should have raised your hand but you just didn't do it see proof and points right so it's not enough just to have the right information we need to apply the right information and we are gonna be exploring that together over the next bunch of weeks and I am have this book that is a much deeper dive in it but I want to be able to give you the big idea so in order to get out this open up in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 22 verses 34 to 40 Matthew 22 34 to 40 now if you did bring a Bible with you to church don't worry those books on the seats in front of those our Bibles or of course we do live in smart device day and age you can pull that out and type that in in your favorite browser and you'll get it there of course if you're part of our internet campus open up another browser window so you can read along with this Matthew 20 was easy to find if you're new to the Bible you have the Old Testament from Genesis to the book of Malachi which is everything before Jesus then you have the New Testament which begins with Matthew's Gospel and goes to the end of the Bible which is the book of Revelation so of course Matthew is the very first book in the New Testament and chapter 22 sits ever so steadily and conveniently between chapters 21 and 23 so it says this verse 34 of Matthew 22 says but when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees they gather together then one of them a lawyer asked him a question testing him and saying teacher which is the greatest commandment in that law and Jesus said to him verse 37 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind this is the first and Great Commandment and the second is like it you shall love your neighbor as yourself on these two Commandments hang all the law and the prophets now what I think is beautiful about this is that all of this begins with the question it's in a section of the Gospels where Jesus is repeatedly being asked questions they're testing Jesus all these different groups of people who have all these different agendas are coming to Jesus and they're all trying to catch him in his words because Jesus at this point is a highly controversial figure right Jesus has been doing the work that you've been doing long enough that he didn't land in any of the predominant camps that existed in that day and so everybody was coming to the understanding at this point that Jesus is everybody's problem and in a lot of ways that's one of the things I love so much about Jesus Jesus never did a good job of fitting into the boxes that existed in his day and in a lot of ways for you and for me as followers of Jesus if you fit really nicely in one of the prevailing boxes of our culture that is not the god box then I guarantee you you are missing out on the life that Jesus has for you now I realize that might be a little bit offensive but I'm ok with that and the reason I'm ok with that is because if you only get one shot at this life and if Jesus did not fit well into any of the predominant structures of his day who are we to think that as followers of Jesus were supposed to fit perfectly in all the predominant structures of our day makes sense right so everybody's struggling with Jesus and they keep coming different people keep coming and asking him all these different questions and listen what this reminds that questions account they're important most of us we don't have the right answers because we're not willing to ask the hard questions or if we're willing to ask the hard questions we really don't want the answers to those questions revelation comes on the heels of questions see this person who comes it says here that he's a scribe some of your translations might or he's a lawyer so some of your translations a scribe mine says a lawyer when we think of a lawyer of obviously think of somebody in a suit in a court of law but the law was the law of Moses and the lawyer the scribe their job was to not only copy the law of the Bible but they were charged with interpreting it and explaining it to the people now what's amazing is as this guy comes and he and he asks a simple question teacher which is the Great Commandment in the law now what's interesting is he wants to get a summation of all the law now unless you've been in church for a while and even a lot of people who've been in church for while you don't realize that when you think how many how many Commandments are there in the Bible everyone says what 10 and the answer is wrong the Ten Commandments are a unique set of Commandments because they were the ones given to Moses on these tablets of stone written with the very finger of God of Mount Sinai but if you actually read the Bible you find that there is 613 commandments now that's a lot of rules isn't it now what's amazing is is the rabbi's would break down the 613 commandments into 365 negative Commandments which are 306 ePHI things you're not supposed to do and then too 148 positive Commandments which are things are supposed to do now how many of that does that sound a little overwhelming am I the only one who thinks man 613 rules 600 365 that is not supposed to do 2040 I'm supposed to do who keeps up with that and you know what is that how I feel about life isn't how you feel about life if all these things you're supposed to do in life what are we supposed to do how do we boil life down to something that we can actually deal with because I can't handle forget 613 laws I can't hand up 61 loss you know I mean how many of you sometimes when you when you're driving and a cop pulls behind you even if you're in the right lane doing the speed limit you're still freaked out that's right because we're paranoid right like I don't even know what I'm doing wrong after thought it was funny I was in the car with pastor Stewart who's our love now pastor and we're literally taking an off-ramp and we're going and he's like don't miss those cops right there and right away I'm just like I'm like I'm on an off-ramp I'm not even speed in you know and before I know what the cop pulls out and I'm like looking in the rearview mirror my freaked out I don't think about some like what am I doing wrong and I won't do all these things I'm like and it dawned on me there's some traffic laws that I don't even know about so I'm just waiting to get put pastor Stuart's been on our on our staff for like three months and we get pulled over with pastor Stuart and I take a video you know and praise God the police officer didn't pull me over but I'm sure if he pulled me over there I'm sure I was doing something wrong right and so that's how life feels for me there's so many things to do so what Jesus does is he answers this question which what I like to call this is a God designed or a God breathed system for living now I'm gonna give you the big picture that I'm actually each point I'm gonna give you today is gonna be its own message in the coming weeks so I'm gonna give you the big fly over the big idea now the first big idea is this that the art of living is loving the art of living is loving now where do I get that from cuz listen when they ask you is what the greatest commandment is like we says in verse 37 and you shall love the Lord your God and then in verse 39 and you shall love your neighbor as yourself so so you want to get what life is supposed to be if you want to get it right the first time the art of living is loving you were created to love God and love other people now how many guys think that's easy I love it I was just like it's not easy but love is the point of this life now it's important to realize that love in the Bible is not the way that we talk about love today love is a commonly used word how many doesn't heard that Eskimos have all these different words for snow he hasn't heard that does all that because there's all these different types of snow right but for us we just have snow right but for an Eskimo because they live in snow they have all these different words now in the same way the Greek language has all these different words for love but we just have the word love now I have a tendency to love lots of things like I love to eat can I get an amen amen you do too right today is the start of the football season I love football AMM and I can't wait for the New York Giants to win the Super Bowl yeah sorry I was hopeful Nega I love to be a part of the Crossroads family you know I love that we get to live in this community together but the thing is if I love food the way I love my wife I got a big problem why because when you love food or when you love sports you love it for what it gives you what you get out of it and my friends that's not the love that the Bible's talking about see most of the things our culture in our world loves are things that I get what I want from it but the love that the art of living is all about the love that's the point a love that gives so that others may have life not ones that receives this is why life can be so unfair filling for us because all of our love relationships are what I want from it and I stopped loving when I don't get what I want from end when what Jesus is inviting us into is a life that says real love sacrifices and that's why it says in 1st Corinthians 13:13 and now abide faith hope and love these three and the greatest of these is what is love how are you doing cultivating a life of love that is giving not just receiving see to me you can't talk about this system for living without realizing it's all about a self sacrificial love and that is what Jesus did for us on the cross he he loves so relentlessly and so passionately and so personally that he gave of his own life for us and that is the point of life but the problem is is we live in a day and age where all love is I want what I want and it's got it completely backwards so this system that Jesus has for us this most important thing if we just take one thing when we need a realtor the art of living is loving now from there what we learn is that all of us are living in three directions right now first what we learn is that we want to live upward and that's loving God so I'm applying a direction to this system of living that we are supposed to love God first and for I call this living upward that's why the books call upward inward and outward the series upward inward and outward because all of us are living in three directions and because the art of living is loving we want to live upward by loving God is not what Jesus said you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind this is the first and Great Commandment and in Mark's Gospel it also includes and with all your strength now this is a direct quote from Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 5 so this is Deuteronomy 6:5 out of all 613 commandments the first and the foremost is Deuteronomy 6:5 what I like to call living up word right now if you think about this it's love the Lord your God now that's important because it's meant to be personalized is the Lord your God see there's a difference doesn't say love the Lord the God but it has to be personal and God wants you to have a personal relationship with him now what's important of course is that we love God because God first loved us and so we need to let it be personal and I realize that for some of you right now your relationship with God he's not your God you're like yeah there may be is a God but he's not my God and God wants it to be personal for you and God has done really everything that is humanly possible on his side of the wall to make it personal for you but you have to respond I always tell people that every relationship begins with a yes and every relationship is sustained with a yes when was the last time you said yes to the Lord you said yes to receiving his love and giving his love back to him that's something that we need to do every single day because you could say yes to a relationship for a long time and then start saying no can't you everyone knows some of you were in that right now for years and years and years you said yes to your marriage but then along the way you got hurt and you got frustrated you got wounded he started saying no we need to keep saying yes now the love that we are supposed to return to God it's with the totality of who we are because notice it's with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind and then of course mark scoffs we'll add strength in there so you think of it what God wants is he wants us to cultivate the art of loving God with the totality of who we are the heart of course is the control center of our lives right it's where all decisions are made in the Bible your heart you'd say my heart my blood pumping organ and a little left to Center my chest you know any four valves you know arteries no no it means that we're all your life decisions are made with all of your soul this speaks of your will and your emotions right and that place where that part of you that isn't purely intellectual abides are you loving God are you living upward and cultivating a life where your will and your emotions your passions are lined up with loving God of course with all your mind that's your thought life the way that you think how you think about things you know I think and we'll talk about this more in this series I think the problem with our thought life is we have so many thoughts don't we you know and there's an old saying on Martin Luther the the rift the the great reformer nonno agree with everything Martin Luther said but he said and I just read this recently he said you can't stop the birds from flying above your head but you can stop them from making a nest in your air now I might not be able to stop them but you know you guys can I just want to put that out there but the idea is listen you have all these thoughts that pass through your minds it's one thing to have the thought and acknowledge I thought it's another thing to let those thoughts make a nest in your head because what happens is when you choose to love God with all of your mind you realize that some of your thoughts are just backwards some of your thoughts are just wrong some of your ideas that you haven't you have a lot of them they do not line up with the heart of God and even though you can acknowledge that you have them you do not let need to let that make a nest in your head so when you love God with all your mind you're saying I am gonna let the Spirit of God can form my thoughts to word of god and of course with all your strength which speaks of all the resources of your body all of the energy that you can bring to the table are you loving God in that way with the totality of who you are this is the first and most important commandment why because how you love God is actually gonna dictate how you live in word and how you live outward you have to get this right see God places the most important emphasis on our relationship with him because he knows that if we love him then we will live in word and outward the right way so God wants us to live in love upward by loving him now what does it mean to live in word of course in word means to love yourself now what do I get this from notice what it says in verse 39 you shall love your neighbor as yourself now if you know grammar at all you realize if you're gonna expend it you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself why because you get the verb and you and place him now most people struggle with this especially in the church why because when you hear you need to learn how to love yourself which I call that you need to live in word most people struggle with this why because it sounds kind of weird doesn't it sounds new agey almost right you got to love yourself like your life depended on it you know people spend lots of money to go to seminars buy someone to teach you how to love yourself then of course you have what it says in second Timothy about the last days how people will be lovers of themselves and people church say whoa whoa whoa how can you talk about loving yourself this isn't last days people can be lovers of themselves and the last day is the problems that people will be lovers of themselves without loving God so it's a self deification it's a self focus it's everything's about me but listen you realize that God loves you don't you do you realize that like I mean Jesus came and he lived and he died and he rose again because God loves you and if God loves you then why shouldn't you love yourself because God loves you I mean why should we feel uncomfortable about doing what God does for us anyway we know what the problem is for most of us because we don't love God with the totality of who we are the way we love ourselves is wrong we love ourselves the wrong ways our self-love is war now what's amazing is is this and you shall love your neighbor as yourself this comes right out of the Bible of course Leviticus 19:18 right so out all 613 commandments Jesus gives you Jew tirana me 65 and now Leviticus 19:18 613 now boil down to two verses but loving yourself that's living in word now you got to ask yourself and really you know what the problem is with self love is that all of us can be deceived can't we sometimes we're the worst person to try and talk about how good we're doing loving ourselves but maybe we should ask the people who are closest to us because the people closest to us actually see what we don't see the people closest to us have the ability to identify and discern things that we don't see because we're living these lives for ourselves now what I want to tell you is this and obviously I'm just giving you the flyover we'll break it down a little bit more in the subsequent weeks and obviously the books got how do we cultivate a inward lifestyle that is really holy and beautiful but what we all need to realize is the only way to truly love yourself is to see yourself through the cross of Jesus Christ because if God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever would believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life the only way to properly love yourself is to see yourself through the lens of the cross so I Paul says in Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me see when you love yourself based on God's love displayed in the cross that will hem you in to see yourselves as you could be I like to say about talking about it this way if you look at the two polar ends of the spectrum on one end of the spectrum there is complete and total arrogance self-confidence right and on the other end there is complete and total self-hatred and self-denial ends of the spectrum and hems them both and why because for somebody who is radically self-confident arrogant right like like uh uh an inflated self-love the Cross says Jesus had to come and die for you see for somebody who's like it's all about me I'm amazing it's like well no Jesus had to come on a rescue mission for you he had to give up his life so that you could be saved and see how very quickly this arrogance now gets humbled cuz you're like oh yeah I'm so good that Jesus had to die for me maybe I'm not so good now on the other end of the spectrum there's a complete and total self-loathing self-hatred a hatred that is so profound that maybe somebody wants to think that they don't deserve to even be alive right now to that person on that end of the spectrum the Cross says you are so loved that Jesus came to rescue you that you are such value that God would give His only begotten Son for you and now of a sudden instead of feeling absolute self-hatred you're saying well I am more loved than I could ever imagine because I can't believe that God would give up his life for me now those are just the ends of the spectrum I figure for most of us we find ourselves in different areas in the middle and for a lot of us unfortunately we're kind of on a sliding scale aren't we we have some days where we feel so unbelievably conferred in ourselves and other days we feel so completely dissatisfied with who we are and in that scale Jesus says as you love God you're gonna love yourself in a way that is healthy and that's what God is interested in but again this is something that needs to be cultivated so we have upward living which is we're loving God and then we have inward living which is we learn how to love ourselves through the finished work of Jesus and then the last step in this is that we live outward and outward is to love others is to love other people and God is interested in us living and loving other people Jesus said a lot of really radical things Jesus said that we should love our enemies I mean think about how provocative that is who's your enemy today I mean its first time you like I have no enemies of praise God for a lot of you like now I can give you a whole laundry list I got a big list of my enemies see but what's amazing is is Jesus doesn't say I want you to love other people he's like I'm gonna love other people I'm gonna show you how to do it and so God isn't only interested in us living upward but that upward living that leads inward and then out where we love our neighbors as ourselves now who's your neighbor everyone see that's that's why mr. Rogers he's still the man isn't he he's asking won't you be my neighbor he knows you're already his neighbor now if you don't know Mister Rogers is just go look it up for those of you are too young for Mister Rogers that you know we're just about a year or two out someone's gonna bring mr. Rogers back like a Redux of mr. Rogers unfortunately it won't be mr. Rogers in the cardigan sweater and this being super uber classy he's like a model citizen mr. Rogers but everybody is your neighbor and especially in this day and age in the 21st century where we live every like I mean what's going on in Florida we're getting real-time information right now you know what goes on across the world something happens across the world and you know about right as it's happening part of the gift of this generation with everyone being interconnected the world getting smaller although it stays at the same distance as we realize that someone on the other end of the world is just as much as our neighbor as the person sitting next to us and God wants you and I not just to live outward but to love outward now here's what I got for you is this you will never be able to love other people until you experience the love of God you know why because God doesn't love you because you're lovable God loves you because love is who he is at the essence of his nature and the problem with living outward is that a lot of people you like they don't deserve my love right and then you say because they don't deserve my love I'm gonna withhold my love but could you imagine if God was held his love from you until you deserved it could I imagine what my life would be like if God only loved me when I deserved it you know why that's terrifying because how often do we really deserve the love of God anybody want to roll with those odds anybody like y'all experienced God's love only when I'm deserving of it see we love our spouses not just because they deserve it we love them because they're our spouses and when we look at the world today too many people feel justified not to love people because they're not deserving of it and that's why the world we live in today is lame that's why the world note of the word I wanted to use is all you kids hold the cover your ears for a second real quick go ahead that's why the world we live in today sucks I'm sorry to say that in church but most you are more offended I said the word sucks and you don't love your neighbor anyway the world is so messed up in this generation because I was like well they don't deserve my love but the thing is is real love doesn't need to be deserved it just needs to be given so sacrificially and that's the message of Jesus listen to what the Apostle John says first John chapter 3 verses 1618 it says this by this we know love because he laid down his life for us and we also ought to lay down our lives for the Brethren for whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him how does the love of God abide in him my little children let us not love in Word or in tongue but in deed and truth see my friends listen this god-breathed system for living it begins with God's love for us and then we return that love to God as we live upward and because of God's love for us and his finished work at the cross then we love ourselves in a very healthy way and we live in word and because of God's love for us that changes the way we see ourselves then we move into the world and we love other people and my friends this is what God wants for us but even as I lay this out um we're gonna unpack this over the next number of weeks together obviously the books got way more what you're gonna learn is that each direction of loving and living needs to be cultivated it's not something that just happens every single day the Spirit of God invites us into an opportunity to learn how to live upward inward and outward in a more substantial way and I believe that everything that you and I go through every single day is actually designed by God to be an opportunity to transform our lives if we're willing to say Lord teach me Lord show me Lord reveal to me what you have for me and my friends listen I know that there's some of you right now you even think about these three directions for some of us you feel really strong in one direction and really inadequate in other directions what I will tell you is God doesn't ones just to focus on one see in a lot of ways I think the problem with church is that church can be really good at pointing you upward but does a lousy job of helping you to understand how to live and love in Word and how to live in love outward sometimes in the name of living upward churches teach you to hate outward and I believe that what God wants to do is he wants to bring all of us not just some of us not just those of you who are brand-new to Crossroads today but he wants to bring all of us no matter how long we've been on this faith journey saying will you let me teach you how to live upward inward and outward in fresh ways he's saying will you allow me by my spirit through the finished work of Jesus because I'm your Creator and your sustainer will you allow me to help you to not miss the point any longer but will you allow me to lead you into all the details of your life in such a way that everything becomes an opportunity for you to live upward in word and our I was talking to the publisher of nav press who was the person who released this book and his name is dawn I just appreciate him so grateful for him and him letting me do this and he said to me about a month ago we got a chance to get together and he said Daniel upward inward and outward is super important he's like he's like let me explain you what happened he was in a series of meetings and the meetings did not go well and he said and I was I found myself getting really angry and frustrated and he's like and then your stinking book came through my mind there's that debate and he's like and I found myself praying Lord let me love upward inward and outward and he said those three simple words and directions caused me not to lash out in anger but to love the person on the other side of the table it reminded me of who I really am in Christ and who I'm supposed to be I feel grateful because it's really not my book these are just the words of the greatest teacher who ever lived when asked what's the most important thing what's the big picture idea that if you spend your whole life here you're gonna land right where you want to it's the words of Jesus so if you're here today and you are already a follower of Jesus I want you just to begin to pray Lord let me learn the art of living that's loving that I would be self giving in my love every day and then I would love you God and I would let the cross teach me how to love myself and that I would let your spirit lead me to love everybody indiscriminately not because they deserve it but because God is love and he's loved me and I'm gonna love others and if you're here today and you've never put your faith and trust in Jesus before listen any attempt at self love or loving others it isn't it it's just a step of futility unless you understand the real love the love of God and I believe that God has you here today whether in our Southwest Portland campus whether here in our Vancouver campus part of our internet campus I believe God has you here to hear this God wants you to know his love and his love is a person and his name is Jesus and Jesus loved you so much that he came on a rescue mission for you and all you need to do to be saved to be rescued as to say yes to Jesus let him do what he came to do and if you do that I guarantee you that you will no love unlike anything you've ever experienced before but you have to say yes and I'm gonna give you an opportunity to say yes in just a moment so let's bow our heads in our hearts as we pray together

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Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Crossroads

Id: FlviwgXMfkU

Length: 42min 6sec (2526 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 11 2017