What We Never Knew About Love - LIFECENTRAL CHURCH ONLINE

so [Music] so well hi everyone it is so good to connect with you uh this morning my name is leon the lead pastor here at life central church big shout out to all of you in the room so glad there's so many of you here and for those of you watching online you're really welcome as well a special shout out to all of our guys down in hagley give me a wave yep there's two of you that did it i could see oh that's a bit scary and for anyone else wherever you're watching you're really really welcome in fact we'd love you to put in the chat where you are watching from whether you're from our location in rowley or our microsites in bronze grove or in clibbering autumn or anywhere else on the planet we are so grateful that you could connect with us today and this is week three of our series uh called reset and we're looking not just at a soft reset not just switching off and switching back on again but a hard reset where we're asking god to help us to reset our lives to the original settings and we've been looking at these three big words faith hope and love and we looked a little bit loved over the next couple of weeks and i don't know about you but there's a lot of things that i didn't know about love when i was a kid and in fact i love these they're old now okay but i love these little these little quotes like floyd age nine floyd says this love is foolish but i might try it sometime so i reckon floyd when you're older than nine you probably will ava age eight and this is old okay so you can tell by this ava aj says one of you should know how to write a check because even if you have tons of love there are going to be a lot of bills isn't that the truth we all know that's true and then mark h6 love is when mommy sees daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross i think just looking at my wife anyway elaine age five love this is truth love is when mommy gives daddy the best piece of chicken come on that's real love but you know we're not going to be talking about romantic love today we're going to be talking about a whole different kind of love and we're looking at where a guy called paul who's uh one of the writers in the new testament and if you're not a person of faith okay please hang with us this is so important that you get this today and if you are a person of faith i'm hoping and praying that god's going to give you some new understanding of this today as he has with me and we've been looking at these three big ideas that paul talks about faith hope and love and he writes these in 1 corinthians 30 which is a letter he wrote to a church in corinth and uh faith we looked at in week one and hope we looked at last week but we're going to stay a little longer in love because paul says that there's faith hope and love but the greatest of these is love and as well as deep deep dive into one corinthians 13 i'm going to be drawing a few thoughts from this book i know laura mentioned this book a few months ago called gentle and lowly uh by a guy called dane ortland it's one of the many many books that i read over the summer it does need a lot of reading it's a great book i know that it's one of those books that i've read it and i need to go and read it again and digest it as well but he says in this book and listen to this quote the world is starving for a yearning love a love that remembers instead of forsakes a love that isn't tied to our loveliness a love that gets down underneath our messiness a love that is bigger than the enveloping darkness we might be walking through a love of which the very best human romance is the faintest whisper and i know because i'm pastor here that there are many many people in our church community and in our wider community and life is tough right now in fact i was just chatting to a few people before the service about some really sad situations not only that we're walking through this week but some horrendous situations that i've heard of last week affecting people that i know really well and i know that actually and actually my wife alison was talking about this this morning it's almost like coming out of coving and we're not fully out of that it's a little bit like coming out of a war experience in the sense that there's trauma around and life is tough right now for many of us and i know maybe for you watching or you in the room here life is so tough and it feels like an enveloping darkness around you but there is hope and there is love of another kind that we can experience and so i don't want to gloss over anything that you're going through right now okay when i talk about this and i'm hoping that by god's spirit he connects the truth of this into your situation today i don't think that we really understand love i don't think we get it not as a kid and not as an adult and so what i've called this is what we never knew about love and it's not going to be about romantic love but it's something much bigger and broader than that and paul in 1 corinthians 13 you see what when we look at the bible it's split into chapters but it wasn't split into chapters when it was written so at the end of chapter 12 paul's writing and he says this but now let me show you a way of life that is best of all in fact some translations say now let me show you the most excellent way or let me show you a superior way so for 12 chapters he's been talking and talking and it's almost like he just says let me just show you like let's just paint a different picture and then we turn over the page into one corinthians 13 but paul just keeps writing and what he writes is at the start of one corinthians 13 he basically shocks his audience okay he uses this a technique of shocking the audience at corinth and i'm going to show you the four shocks that he uses so let's look in the first verse if i could speak paul says all the languages of earth and of angels but didn't love others i'd only be a noisy gong or a clanging symbol and shock number one paul says this love sounds better to god's ears than all your fancy words now what we don't understand is that when paul says if i could speak all the languages of earth and of angels he's basically talking into a group of people who loved language the corinthians loved language and they loved this whole idea of speaking in the tongues of angels now we're pentecostal christians so we believe in the gifts of the spirit so i believe in speaking in tongues and if you think what on earth is that it's basically a heavenly language that god gives us is a way of communicating with god i would speak in tongues most days of my life okay but usually i would use it in the context of my own personal relationship with jesus but what was happening in the corinthian church scholars believe is that people were so obsessed with all of these supernatural gifts that they even had speaking in tongues competitions like to see who could like do the fanciest and they were so impressed with language and with oratory that they'd have preaching competitions almost like a preach idol you know like we get this preacher up against this preacher and paul knows that and he's speaking he's saying you can do all that if you don't love to god's ears it's annoying it's frustrating it's like a gong it's like a loud crushing symbol and he's shocking the audience with this and then he goes on in the next verse and he says this if i had the gift of prophecy oh we all want to prophesy if i understood all of god's secret plans it's why christians are so obsessed with conspiracy theories at the moment and i have to be careful i don't go off script on this one all right otherwise i might not be speaking very lovingly it's because we get obsessed by all the secret things and possess all knowledge and if i had such faith that i could move mountains but didn't love others i'd be nothing two big shocks here he says this you can know it all but without love it's empty and hollow doesn't matter how much you know doesn't matter how you prophesy how you discern how intellectual you are if you don't have love it's nothing and then another shock growing in love he says is preferable to demonstrating power can you imagine that if you had faith that could move mountains but didn't laugh it's nothing so don't think it's about demonstrating power think about is my life growing in love this is what paul is saying then the fourth shock is this um if i gave everything i have to the poor and even sacrifice my body i could boast about it but if i didn't love others i would have gained nothing paul says listen you can give all your money you can give all your time you can even give your life but if you don't love it means nothing and i think what paul would say is you know what sometimes it can be easier to die once than it is to die daily because that's actually what love requires for you and i to die daily to ourselves so that we could love him and we could love others as he loves us you know the issue with love i think one of the challenges is that we who speak english okay if that's our first language i know it might not be your first language we only have one word for love and we use it for everything so for me i i love my wife and i love my football team especially because they won yesterday so i love the villa and i really love crisps anyone love crisps oh my gosh that is my weakness late at night big packets of crisps i love chris and i love movies so i love my wife i love the villa i love crisps and i love movies but i don't love them all the same like i don't attach the same level of meaning to each one because obviously top of that list is the villa no it's not it's not it's not it's crisp no it's not crisp it's my wife okay and so we use one word and it covers all these different things but in greek which is the language that most of the new testament was written they had about eight words for love that we know of let me show you seven of them eros is the greek word for sexual passion that's where we get the word erotic from philia is deep friendship love so important ludus is playful love pragma is a long standing love philatea is love of the self okay storge is family love familial love mania where we get the word maniac from is kind of a madness it's an obsessive love and these are seven words of love in greek but of course there's an eighth word and this is the word that paul uses when he says and the greatest of these is none of those seven words but it's this word agape and this is the word used to describe god's love and this is the word that paul uses in 1 corinthians 13 when he says this is how you should should love one another not in those other words but in this love and it's very hard to translate we know it's sacrificial we know it's selfless we know it's unconditional but it's way way way more than that we're going to dive deep into it over the next couple of weeks but to fully grasp what paul is saying i'm going to do a little bit of jewish history with you guys okay today i'm going to introduce two characters from history and they're these guys hillel and shema i'm not sure they look like that who knows that's an artistic uh drawing but these two guys were rabbis who around the time of jesus actually before jesus but rabbis were a big deal in jewish culture because a rabbi was someone who who looked at the law of god okay the talmud and all of the different law of god and they interpreted it and their interpretations of the law were called a yoke which is why when jesus says in matthew 11 come to me and i'm going to give you a yoke and your yoke is easy it's really important we don't just think about oxen but we think about rabbis so there's a set of interpretations of how you see the law of god and how you relate to god and these two guys hillel and shamai were the big deal okay they basically developed these two different sets of interpretations and jesus came into this kind of context now shamai was the one who actually was more based his yoke was more based on obedience so you please god by being obedient and right fulfilling all the laws and there's nothing wrong with any of that i don't think i'm criticizing either of these but the waiting of his emphasis was on keeping all the rules and doing all the stuff but then hillel came along and actually his yoke was based not on obedience but on love and but then here's the thing when jesus came along he he sided much more with hillel okay as love but he even pushed it beyond where hillel took it as well so let me give you an example the story of the good samaritan which is story some of you will know maybe you remember it from sun discord days or from re lessons you know this jewish guy is on the road and he's attacked and he's left for dead and and someone's and someone already has just said to jesus who's my neighbor and jesus tells the story of this jewish guy that's attacked and left for dead and then a priest and a levi they go past him and then a samaritan man and samaritans were like oh we hate you like jews had nothing to do with samaritans they were the one group of people in society that a jewish person would have nothing to do with she's like just imagine like the people that you think ah don't put me near someone like that do you know what i mean i don't put me in the same room as someone like that that's the samaritan to the jew now when that guy asked the question who's my neighbor whom do i have to extend love to sham i people they would say well it's just a jew because he's your fellow jew not even the roman because the romans your enemy but hillel would say yes extend love to to the jew as your fellow jew but actually the roman who's your enemy you need to love him as well shocking but then jesus comes along and says yes of course it's the jew he's your fellow jew and it's the roman he's your enemy and it's the samaritan who you hate that you have to love at that point this happens and their heads blow off it's like literally like jesus is saying you know listen you don't just have to love your enemy you have to go even beyond that this is shocking this is what we never knew about love and you see we think when it comes to love that there are lots of rules but actually jesus came along and now guys if you can get this and you can't get it just through my word you can only get this as you're open right now to the holy spirit and whether you're watching in the room or whether you're watching online or whether you're watching it later just say to god god would you teach me because you may have been a christian for years and years and still not get this there's only one rule there's only one thing and you might be oh you're talking about the golden rule it says in matthew 7 verse 12 jesus says do to others what you'd have them do to you for this sums up the law and the prophet so we know that many cultures have this version of this kind of rule golden rule many people in business know this treat others as you would want them to treat you golden rule that's not it you see jesus then goes on to upgrade the golden rule to what i want to call the platinum rule like the only rule that there is he's upgraded it to something else and in john 13 34 it says this and guys if you don't know anything else and you don't take anything else from today please take this a new command i give you say new online say new no you're not going to do it a new command i give you love one another that's okay here it comes as i have loved you so you must love one another you see the golden rule says you treat someone else like you want them to treat you the platinum room says you love someone else like god has loved you so the same mercy and forgiveness and grace and kindness and compassion and long-suffering and gentleness and tenderness and mercy that god has put on you that's how you're to love others even those you hate it's mind-blowing by this everyone will know that you're my disciples if you love one another wow it's like a new command jesus said it a new command love one of the clearly this is not a feeling this kind of love is not a feeling this is a verb this is a doing this is an action as i have loved you that's the same kind of and he uses the this which is a demonstrative pronoun if you remember your english language background and it's not demonstrative pronoun it's like this is the evidence of that so here's here's what jesus says listen people are going to know that you're my disciples not by how great you speak not by how fancy your buildings are not by how great your music is not by or you're a fantastic event not by any of that but by how you love people so what we need to reset often it it's what i need to reset up it's what you need to reset so our world needs a reset of it isn't it we have so much hatred and so much division and so much you know a breakdown between people uh in families and in communities and in nations and somehow we need god to help us to have a reset when it comes to agape love you see most religions and worldviews center around obedience and around rules and around stuff that you do but jesus centers his whole way around one thing and it's love it's a little bit like this it's a bit like when i was getting ready to come out this morning and the reason like i said that i keep my shirts open at the moment is nothing to do with fashion but it's all to do with lockdown weight anyway i'm moving on but if i if i get him in in a rush and i undo do the buttons up and all of a sudden i get to the end have you ever done that and it's like it looks terrible why because i didn't get the top button right and jesus says love is a top-bottom principle in my kingdom you get love right and everything else follows you don't get love right everything else is a mess and so i want to invite you and encourage you today to ask god do i need a reset somewhere when it comes to love do i need a reset when it comes to life and to ask this question and this is a great question what does love require of me that question right there could change the world couldn't it what does love require me when it comes to that neighbor that's doing your head in when it comes to that family member that's trying your patience when it comes to that work colleague when it comes to the person across the street that you don't want to talk to when it comes to those people in society that you don't want to be anywhere near what does love require of me see over the next few weeks we're going to open this up we're going to do a deeper dive into the rest of 1 corinthians 13 we're going to go through it word by word and line by line and look at what it looks like when we live love out but before we do that we need to pause guys and we need to say if i am to love as i have been loved what does that look like because i wonder coming out of this coved situation where the many of us have lost sight of just how much god loves us what god thinks about us what god thinks about you what god feels about you what god is thinking about when he thinks about you when god sees you what does he see you see i i passionately believe this we will struggle to love effectively unless we are being loved extravagantly and i want to suggest that god's love to me and to you is an extravagant love and if we could live daily in that sense of being loved by an extravagant god it's going to help us to love others as we have been loved you know placement is really important okay now we're online we think often about you know where do we put different things and this worship band in a church didn't think about it when the worship guy sat down behind the preacher because that's not great placement if you can see that there okay it's really not great they just didn't think about that at all before they did that but here's something else a little bit shocking when it comes to product placement two books god is not mad at you he's just not that into you when you read that as a message it doesn't kind of read right does it but you know i want to say to you guys whether you're here in the room whether you're online many of us think god is mad at us and many of us think he's not into us many of us think god loves us because he has to not because he wants to many of us think that god is still mad at us and actually when we come to understanding the love of god many of us struggle just to receive it because of all these different kind of thoughts we've got in our head i heard it once described like this as kind of daisy petal christianity if you ever remember that really old thing where we're in in love you know there used to be like he loves me he loves me not she loves me she loves me not many of us we think of faith like that we think of the love of god like that you know you know he loves me he loves me not i got the job it means he loves me i lost my job it means he loves me not you know i got the relationship it means he loved me i've lost the relationship it means he loves me not i got the answer to my prayer it means he loves me my child is still sick that means he loves me not and our faith and our response and our love to god is based on a fragile sense of whether however it goes determines whether god loves me or loves me not i heard it described many years ago in a book i read as the tyranny of the favor line as well this invisible line where we think that that there's this invisible line and if we hit it then god loves us and if we don't we're just kind of under it reminds me of this story of this 15 year old girl that goes to youth group at her church and she comes back and mom and dad say to her how did it go tonight what did you learn and she says it's our same old same old god is good you are bad try harder so she says that's that's that's the image that's the the placement that's in her head it's like god is good i'm bad try harder that's nothing to do with the love that god has for us we need a reset of love and in the next few minutes that i've got i want to give you guys just six things that are on my heart that i just i'm going to say in this simple you'll say oh yeah i know that i know that and i'm just praying that the holy spirit will take these really simple words and somehow bring them as revelation into your heart number one god is for you god is for you you see many he's not no he's not no he really is at the core of us we think god is mad at us but actually he's not he's absolutely for us and this book is a brilliant book open this whole thing up listen to some of the stuff he says in the book and if the actions of jesus are reflective of who he most deeply is who god most deeply is we cannot avoid the conclusion that it is the very fallenness he came to undo that is most irresistibly attractive to him see we often think that our sin and our mess and our brokenness is what repels god but actually in one sense he argues it's the kind of thing that attracts us because he loves to restore us he loves to redeem us he loves to take he just loves us he's for us even in our mess he is angrier than you could ever be about the wrong that's been done to you you know the wrong that's been done to you you see for you you think the wrong that's been done to me just fills me with shame and god's a way i know god is angrier than ever you could be about the wrong done to you and the mess in your life and the mess in my life this is what he says he sides with you against your sin not against you because of your sin he hates sin but he loves you at our connect group which is the small groups that meet in the week this week we were talking about this and alison my wife talked about um when she goes on a walk around our estate she's often listening to music and often at a certain point in it she'll pray for our estate and for the people in that and she'll put on the inner inner ears that that song the blessing and she'll just speak that over people because that song the blessing if you know it is basically about god saying i'm for you i'm for you you know i as i pray every sunday when i come across i pray the blessing prayer over the businesses and the community of our town of houzon and beyond and i just say god is for you business guys god is for you communities god is for you families god is for you and i don't think we fully understand that but not only is god for you but god's god likes you guys hello god likes you you know i used to think as a christian growing up in church god loves me because he has to it's like on his job description but he doesn't want to and yet it says in ephesians uh chapter 1 verse 5 he loves us in accordance with his pleasure and his will i love that god not only loves you but god likes you number three god delights in you starting to squirm yet some of us are starting to squirm maybe god is not only for you god likes you god delights in you and i love this this verse few verses from the old testament zephaniah you know it very well some of you the lord your god is with you the mighty warrior who saves he will take great delight in you in his love he will no longer rebuke you but will rejoice over you with singing he delights in you and i love this verse so much and a few years ago i was in albania and we were speaking at a youth conference believe it or not um i don't know and at the end one of the guys had said before this one night he said i really feel that at the end he said i think we should give a response for people to come to receive the father heart love of god again and this is going to sound a little bit weird okay and it sounded weird to me as well he said but i believe we should take our towel out of our hotel rooms and i believe that as they come through because i was speaking actually on the prodigal son and the father and all that we should take the tail of the road but we should wrap it around someone and pray for them and it felt a little bit spooky a little bit weird to me but i went with it and i have to say it was one of the most powerful moments i've ever been in because in that culture especially men they were there's a whole absence of fathers and actually as we began to speak and it began to pray and then at the end as literally hundreds came out to the front and as we wrapped a tile around them and they broke in tears and we were able to pray the blessing of god over their lives it reminded me so much god delights in us god delights in us i love that don't you god doesn't just he's not just for you he doesn't just like you he delights in you number four god sings over you you know god sings over you it says that in that verse that we just looked at god sings over you there was a song that um came out in the 90s a worship song very simple song a delirious song cutting edge i think it was before delirious and it literally says i could sing of your love forever and i've sung that song hundreds of times and and that whole i could sing of your love forever i remember being really challenged and and encouraged when i felt god say and i could sing of yours as well so as much as you could sing of my love forever do you know what i could sing of this that idea of god singing over us and then number five god desires you god desires you and again some of you especially if you're guys you might be scrolling a little bit nothing ah but i love as many of you know and allison has told me i've got to stop keep doing this okay but i'm going to do it today and then i'll promise i'll have it again i'm such an obsessive besotted grandad okay my little granddaughter honestly the joy in my life i cannot explain to you and there's two things that she does tally that absolutely mean my heart and the one is where she just kind of reaches her arms up to me to pick to pick her up okay and often when she sees me she'll just walk to and she just reaches for me to pick her up the other thing is when she rests ahead on my shoulders and just stays there and in those moments of just deep joy that i've been receiving i felt god speak to me to say that's exactly how i feel leon when you reach for me that's exactly how i feel when you rest in me and on me i don't want your stuff i don't want your performance i don't want your output i just want you when i look at tally there in the comments i don't say right now tally learn some new words and what about your seven times table you know deliver something i just want to be with her and that reaching and holding and that resting and embracing that's the desire isn't it and that's a tiny amount of desire that's in the heart of god for you and for me and so i want to say to you guys if life is tough for you right now if life is complex right now if life is complicated right now why don't you just spend some time reaching for him why don't you just spend some time resting on him because he desires that with you he desires you he doesn't want what you can do he just wants you god desires you you know it says that jesus it says in hebrews 12 that jesus went to the cross and it says he did it for the joy set before him what was the joy set before and the joy set before him was relationship with you and me the joy set before him was so that we could reach and that we could rest and that we could be in relationship with him and i know that i need that in my life so much because that's how i'm created that's the original settings that god has created to be in relationship with him not just knowing about him but knowing him intimately and all of that culminates in kind of me saying this statement that i want to say over you today god loves you god loves you other people don't other people have let you down other people have broken your heart god loves you and god loves you with an almost like we sing a reckless like like like irrational kind of love and it's not reckless but it appears that and it appears irrational but it's not because it's out of the heart of god and what happens is that you and i we continue to try and earn points with someone who's not keeping score gerald coach the famous english preacher said god is not disillusioned with you i've said this many times because he had no illusions about you in the first place and you and i have got this illusion and we're trying to keep score with god and he's not he's given that up ages ago he said listen listen any school be set or was settled with jesus on the cross i just love you and i just want to be in relationship with you so i want to encourage you today let's stop trying to be good enough let's stop trying to earn it let's just reach and rest let's ask god to reset that love in our life you know paul says in romans 5 you know when christ died for you do you know when christ died for you while you were still sinners while you were still in a mess while you were still messed up and broken whilst you were still holding on to that whilst you were still doing that not when you've got it sorted but in the middle of it and that's amazing isn't it that god loved us and did his best for us in jesus not when we got everything worked out but while we were still in a mess and the same god that loved us while we stood in our mess is the same god that still loves us while we are still in our mess right now he loved us in our mess and he loves us in our mess we love up to a limit god loves up to the end and before we think next week about what does it look like to live that love out let's spend a bit of time together in god's presence receiving again his incredible love and why because you matter to god take a look to the broken into the hurting to the desperate and to the defeated to the common the average the plain and the small i want you to know you matter to god to the washed up and the worn out to the helpless and the hopeless to the cast outs the dropouts the last picks and hypocrites to the unimpressive and the underwhelming to the nobodies and has-beens to people just like me you matter to god you are not defined by your worst days or your biggest mistakes and you're not the sum total of all your setbacks slip-ups failures and faults because who you are is not determined by what you have where you've been or what you've done but who jesus declares you to be you matter to god maybe at some point somebody told you something that simply wasn't true that you're nothing but unworthy unwanted and unloved but i want the loudest voice in your ear to be the voice that breaks the cedars and shakes the wilderness and he says you matter to me before the galaxies were born or the first star gave light before the ocean waves crashed or the night sky cracked with thunder before any creature crawled or any birds saying before the planets were set in motion he said in motion the plan of your salvation from the highest heights of heaven the lord of all creation looked upon your desperation he became like one of us to remake all of us to make an orphan his child to make a rebel his friend to set the prisoner free you matter to god so to all the sons and daughters of god to all my brothers and sisters in christ behold his power and glory and majesty behold the one who matters most that there is an assault right now on mental health and especially on the mental health of men and young men and on friday i heard of a really really good friend of mine whose son who i know took his own life last week this lad has got two young kids so my friend is a granddad like me we've talked about it many times and i know that there is a demonic attack an absolute assault on the mental health of people right now especially men and i think somewhere within all of this we need to ask god don't we to give us such a revelation of the fact that we matter to him that we're loved by him that whatever is going on in our lives he's not absent but he's present and he is able to change things and circumstances and even when they don't he's able to give us the strength that we need to get through and i don't know who i'm talking to here in the room and online as well but i know this there are many of us who suffer in silence not just men but women as well there are many of us who who try to go about our lives trying to please god and please other people and and we crying out desperately just to know that we matter to god and that we count and that we're loved and i want to tell you i want to stand on this stage today and not get all dramatic and theatrical but just to declare we need to wage war on this mental health assault on our generation on our young people and not so young people who think and feel that there's nowhere else to go other than the worst things imaginable and we need to say god would you give us the grace and give us the strength and give us the words and give us the tools and give us the ability to stand in the gap and to be people that declare that god is for you that god is with you that god loves you that god delights in you that god sings over you that god pours his grace and his love and his mercy out over you when you feel unworthy and unloved and unlovable and full of shame and guilt and pain that god still loves you and your mess doesn't cause him to go away your mess causes him to go towards you and there's nothing greater in the heart of god that when you reach up your arms to reach for him or when you rest on him there's nothing that brings greater joy and pleasure to the heart of god than that and if you don't know that's true you can you really can and you know maybe you don't know god yet maybe you're watching or you're here in the room and and you've never come into a relationship with god we'd love to open that up with you and we run something here called alpha and it starts our next alpha course starts a week on monday night the 27th of september it's just one evening online you can sign up for that one evening it's like an hour or something and you'll meet some other people and watch a bit of a video and have some conversation and if it's not for you then don't come again it's free it's cost you nothing other than an hour on zoom and you can sign up by this link that's coming up on our website right now or you can text lcc alpha to 6077 in your name sex lcc alpha your name to 60 triple seven but you know it also might be that there are some people here in the room or online and you're desperate to know that you're not on your own right now we would love to pray for you as well in fact i'm going to pray for you in a minute but if you want one of our team to pray specifically for you then again just follow the link that's coming up on the screen and we'd love to pray for you can i invite you in the room to stand for a moment i wasn't planning on saying any of that i've just said okay i just really felt sturd as i just heard and watched again that thing you matter to god you matter to god and i don't know if there's one person one person here all watching who needs to hear that that could be the difference for you just to know that you matter to god that god loves you and i want to read something out over all of you and i i read this many years ago in fact i've used it at weddings from time to time but i think it's bit much bigger than a wedding and and it's written by max liquido who is a great author and as i read this out over you i want to speak it out over you and i want to ask god to almost like kind of speak it into your life and you wouldn't just hear it up here and in your ears but you'd hear it in here do you know what i mean hear it in your heart so god loves you simply because he's chosen to do so he loves you when you don't feel lovely he loves you when no one else loves you others may abandon you divorce you ignore you but god will love you always no matter what god loves you personally powerfully and passionately others have promised and failed but god has promised and succeeded he loves you with an unfailing love and his love if you will let it confirm you and leave you with a love worth sharing with others let me pray for you today jesus i want to pray for every single person here in this room those watching online those in hagley and wherever they are god may we receive again this incredible love today holy spirit i feel so inadequate to say this only you can do it change our hearts god where our hearts have grown hard where we've forgotten what it's like to be loved by a god who is who is love god would you love us again god may we receive that love again may we know that we matter may we know that you know us and you love us in our mess and in our own loveliness and in our brokenness and in our sin you still love us and god now as we worship you so we've seen this incredible poetic song that all the vivid imagery in this song is is nothing compared to the reality of your love for us and god may we know how much you love us and as we have been loved by you may we love others in that kind of way as i have loved you so you must love one another as i have loved you so you must love one another so lord help us to be loved by you and then and then we'll have a love worth sharing in jesus name amen [Music] he is [Music] i am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory and i realize just how beautiful you are and how great your affections are for me and oh how he loves us so oh how he loves us how he loves us [Music] [Music] sing that [Music] is verse for me he loves like a hurricane i am a tree beneath [Music] i am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] god loves us so much and as we've heard today that no matter what your situation is where you're at that he loves you that it's personal he loves you so as we continue to sing this song let's really hold on to those words we are his portion and he is our prize draw to redemption by the grace in his eyes if grace is [Music] is oh oh us [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: LifecentralChurchUK

Views: 1,213

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: church, meaning, purpose, life, calling, lifestyle, Jesus, God, Spiritual Growth, God’s wisdom, Make better decisions, faith, decisions, peace, worship, giving people hope, evangelism, telling people about jesus, good news, latest news, Sunday, hope, jesus, why do christian believe in Jesus?, Church, life central church, lifeCentral, my next step, online ministry, love

Id: bJejTS00jxE

Length: 47min 9sec (2829 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021