Why Am I Not Living My Best Life - LIFECENTRAL CHURCH ONLINE

[Music] [Music] well good morning everyone it is great to see you welcome to those of you watching online you are really welcome maybe if you're watching from hagley or rowley or one of our microsites in bronze grove or clivery mortimer you're really welcome in fact this morning i heard that there are people watching from holiday as well so there's even somebody watching from venice did you know that birmingham has more canals no it doesn't all right it doesn't we keep saying that but it really doesn't but wherever you're watching from you're really welcome and of course for those of you in the room as well so good to see and i know that over the last few weeks there have been people coming for the very first time so you're especially welcome and people coming for the first time in a long time and it's so good to have you guys back with us as well and maybe if you're watching online and you've not been yet uh two house owing for our in person we would love to see you we're having a great time aren't we yeah yeah see both of them said no there's more than both of them there really is so um it's great to uh just welcome you today and i'm gonna bring our series to a close called reset and i'm gonna open up by asking a question and the question is very simply this why am i not living my best life and if you know what that phrase means it's been out in our culture for about eight to ten years now living your best life you see it on instagram i'm living my best life and this is like this phrase but why are we not living our best life and i want to suggest that the reason we're not living our best life is gonna be down to this little word because because dot dot dot okay and because literally means for the reason that or due to the fact that so for some of you watching maybe here in the room or online whether you're a person of faith or not you might say i'm not living my best life because i haven't met that special person yet if that person came along in my life the love thing then i'll be living my best life or maybe it's because you haven't got your dream job or because you haven't got that lucky break that you've been waiting for or maybe you would answer this in this way i'm not living my best life because of the situation i'm in because of the struggle or the difficulty or the challenge that i'm in or maybe you'd answer this with this i'm not living my best life because of him or because of her last week we looked at love and we looked at what is it to love those people that you know it's one thing to love the people within your circle but we push people out of our circle into another circle what is it to love the difficult people or the different people or the damaged people or the dangerous people and maybe some of you are saying i would be living my best life if only it wasn't for that person but i suggest none of those answers are going to answer the question today because the reason you and i are not living our best life often is nothing to do with what living your best life tells you it is to do with all right if that makes sense because basically living your best life literally means this according to all the definitions it's one that makes you happy and makes you live to the fullness of your potential and that's where the problem is our problem is we're starting at the wrong point because if living our best life is just about what makes you happy and what brings you to the full potential it ladies and gentlemen is all about you reminds me of one of my favorite little illustrations and i've said it many times those of you are old school around the church you're not but i just love this and maybe it's because i'm i'm not a cat person or a dog person okay how many of you cut people cat people in the room both of you dog people lots of dog people okay both of you i was disparaging that was i didn't mean it like that but he's here's the difference between a cat and a dog a dog says you stroke me you feed me you love me you must be god a cat says you stroke me you love me you feed me i must be god and you see the difference there is is that when we place ourselves at the center of the universe in the center of our world we will never live our best lives because we're not living the life that god designed us to live and i want to open this up because i think this is so important it's so important in our culture which is pushing all the time that you can be really happy all the time and if you're not happy there's something wrong i want to tell you we need to push against that it's not the teaching of the bible it doesn't work and you're never living your best life when it's only all about you and i think every single worldview okay that there is is trying to answer three basic questions where did we come from where are we going and why are we here where do we come from where are we going and why are we here and that's why we believe that a faith in jesus answers all those three questions in fact many many people here um in the room and those online we weren't always followers of jesus um we didn't believe in god we didn't believe in the bible but we came to a realization that it makes sense and then when we came to put our faith and our trust and our hope and love in this person called jesus not only does it make sense but it answers the questions that we're asking in life and we've just begun a new alpha course and it's online and there are people on that and again it's not too late for any of you to join up and just go onto our website lifecentralchurch.org uk and you can sign up for alpha join us online it's on a monday evening and you can look at some of the answers to these questions but you know um when john who wrote with looking at paul but when john who also wrote a lot of the the bible the new testament when he talked about jesus in john chapter 13 and it's in the story um that we call the the the last supper when jesus is having that last meal and there's a verse in there where where basically john says that jesus who knew where he was coming from that's origin and who knew where he was going that's destination so when he got the beginning right he knew that he was from god and he knew he was going to god then he says he got up and he served he got up and he washed people's feet in other words when you know where you come from your origin and when you know where you're going your destination the bit in between is when you live your best life and jesus lived his best life because he lived his life loving god by loving and serving other people and guys that's what i want to talk to you about as we bring this series to a close today because i believe that when we love god by loving and serving other people we begin to live our best life and can i just say science proves it science says that actually when you love and serve other people there is kind of like endorphins that are released inside of you chemically it makes you feel better it gives you a better experience yourself when you're serving others psychology proves it serving and helping others is one of the biggest factors in well-being mentally as a chinese um saying that says if you want happiness for an hour take a nap if you want happiness for a day go fishing if you want happiness for a year inherit a fortune but if you want happiness for a lifetime help somebody so important and i want to address this because i think coming out of covid you know and i know we are coming out but we're not out but coming out of this season i think that there's some really big shifts in our culture and in us as followers of jesus that we need to address and to look at and what we've been looking at in this series is these three big ideas that paul talks about and he says listen and in the end at the end of everything there's going to be three things that remain faith hope and love and the greatest of these is love and so we've been looking at what does it mean to reset our faith if reset is not just a soft reset where we switch it off and switch it back on but a hard reset where we restore our life to the original factory settings what does faith look like what does hope look like and we talked about how do we keep hope alive you know it's so difficult and then we spent the last couple of weeks looking at love and interestingly enough the bible in various parts of the bible lots of places puts these three big ideas together and when it puts them together you can see the kind of people that god is wanting us to become and i want to say this is important i think for us as individuals today but it's really important for us as a church and i know some of you may be watching and you're not from life central and that's fine and we love it that you're connecting with us but for us as a life central church we believe coming out of this season that there's something god is saying to us as a community of people and you see paul puts these three things together in colossians one where it says for we've heard of your faith in christ jesus and your love for all god's people which come from your confident hope and then peter in one peter one he says through christ you've come to trust in god and you've placed your faith and hope in god then it says so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters but my favorite um part of the bible where these three ideas are pulled together is the one i want to open up with you today and it's in 1 thessalonians verse 1. chapter 1 verse 2. and paul and he writes this so paul who wrote corinthians writes corinthians writes this as well and he says this we always thank god for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers we remember before our god and father your work produced by faith your labor prompted by love and your endurance inspired by hope in our lord jesus christ now while you just look at those words for a bit he's writing this around ad51 this is probably the first letter that paul ever writes and so he writes this before he writes one corinthians interestingly enough he writes this from corinth okay so he writes from corinth to this little church in thessalonica and in acts 17 you read that paul spent about three weeks in this place called thessaloniki and interestingly enough this was a big city like it was 200 000 people it at one stage it almost became the capital of the roman empire alongside uh but that kind of went to or the eastern part of it that went to constantinople but paul's writing this early on in his kind of leadership and he's only spent a few weeks with these new believers in this place called thessaloniki and he just is so impacted by their faith by their hope and by their love see these three things coming together and what he says is your work was produced by faith your labor was prompted by love and your endurance was inspired by hope and then he goes on in the next few verses to say and not only that but you became you became a model for everyone else in the region and that word model that uses in the original language is the word typos where we get the word type from so you became a type or a pattern or a model in other words the faith and the hope and the love you brought them together in such a way that it inspired other people who looked at you and said we want to be like you i want to say to you life central okay and this is in no way trying to big us up we've always felt that god has called us not just to be about ourselves but to be about other people not just those in our community that we're trying to reach who don't know jesus but other churches we want to resource we want to encourage we want to strengthen interestingly enough i was teaching this week at our bible college in malvern and a couple of people came to me i didn't know and said oh you're from life central we've heard a lot about you i went okay what does that mean no it's all good and we would love to come and see what you're doing because we've heard of how you impact the community by what you do and when i look at this church in thessalonians i think you know what that's the kind of church that i want to be a part of don't you the work produced by faith your labor prompted by love your endurance inspired by hope and you gave it away to other people you became a model you became a type you became a pattern you inspired other people life central we i believe we have a call on us under god to be that kind of church but it doesn't come easy and it doesn't come cheap and we want to look at that today let me read you these words from the message translation such an interesting kind of adjustment on it if you like every time we think of you we thank god for you day and night you're in our prayers as we call to mind your work of faith your labor of love and your patience of hope in following our master jesus christ before god our father and this is the phrase i love it is clear to us friends that god not only loves you very much but also has put his hand on you for something special how many you want to be it under the hand of god to know that he's placed his hand on you for something special you know i believe i've got a message stirring which isn't for today about what does it mean to be under the hand of god because sometimes being under the hand of god is painful sometimes being under the hand of god is pressurizing but i tell you what i would rather be under the hand of god than not and when god has placed his hand on you he's placed it for something special don't ever think that your life doesn't count or doesn't matter because it really does and when we allow god to place his hand on us when we allow this faith and the hope and the love to work together when we channel those things so that we serve god by serving and loving others we become a model we become a pattern we become a type for other people as well so what i want to do as we land this series i want to talk to you about the kind of people that if you like are reset people the kind of people that that god is resetting to the original settings that are going to become this model this pattern this type that will inspire others number one they are people whose faith makes a difference you know paul says your works was produced by faith the word that he uses for work is the word ergon which means it's task it's an accomplishment it's done something there's evidence for it and of course the word faith is pistes which is literally an unfortunate word literally is a surrendered trust it's like we surrender our trust but actually our faith in jesus is more than just a mental ascent is more than just saying jesus i trust you there's something to show for it there's something to show for it guys i'm going to say to you if you were on trial and the charge was you are convicted or you are charged with being a follower of jesus here's the question would there be enough evidence to convict us and i don't just mean do you go to church or do you read your bible because i don't think that's what paul was talking about with he says your works were produced by faith you produce something in your life by faith something happened around you because of faith does our faith make a difference you see some people will work for for for duty some people will work for guilt some people will work for reward but these guys work for faith it was their faith that inspired them to do what they did secondly there are people whose love causes them to hurt how many of you have ever been hurt because of love of course we have we all have that phrase labor prompted by love the the word that paul uses for labor it's about a toil involving weariness and fatigue it's not like i'm a little bit tired it's like it's a toil it's really hard work and i want to suggest that and of course the word love is the word agape agape which is the ultimate sacrificial love and i want to suggest that if if you're and you know some people say to me oh you talk a lot about love but what about truth okay like there needs to be a balance between love and truth and i understand that although jesus never really spoke in those kind of terms which is interesting but here's what i want you to think about if you're not more loving what you have is not true okay because as well as we talk about the balance between love and truth when you look at jesus he didn't talk like that in fact he often said actually it's all about love if you if what you don't have if what you have doesn't make you a more loving then what you have is not true many people say oh but this is the truth and they're not loving then i want to suggest that's not the truth because the only the truth can lead to love and what paul is saying here is that your love was so powerful that it prompted this labor in other words you went through pain because you loved and you can't think about love by just thinking about it as an emotion or a feeling you know and and i don't think you know if we want to be these kind of people whose labor is prompted by love it's got to be more than i've got a loving feeling you know that song because a loving feeling isn't going to do anything for anybody imagine jesus saying actually i'm not going to go to the cross but i've got a loving feeling about you do you know what i mean i'm just going i'm with you in spirit that's absolute rubbish but actually love is going to cost us it's going to be painful does our love for jesus does our love for others cause us some pain because it should c.s lewis said famously if you love deeply you're going to get hurt badly but it's still worth it and just before i move on i want to i want to pause because i just feel that the holy spirit as i was going over this again this morning might want to just say something in this moment to those of you that are in the room or watching online and you've been hurt badly and maybe you're carrying that hurt right now and it's causing you to pull away and it's causing you to be distant and it's causing you to self-protect and i just believe the answer to your healing is not in your pulling away but in your coming closer to him and in coming closer to jesus we've got to be willing to come closer to other people as well and i want to just say maybe there's somebody here in the room right now and you've been hurt badly because you loved deeply that's called being a human being and you are not on your own in that and jesus the one who was hurt so badly by the ones he came to save and to redeem he cried on the cross father forgive them for they don't know what they are doing and maybe if you have been hurt badly you instead of pulling away could allow jesus to invite you and pull you even closer his hands are the only hands that can bring healing to you right now maybe let me just pray for a moment father i want to pray if there is anybody here in the room or those watching online and that resonates with them they have been hurt badly because they loved deeply maybe it was a partner that left them maybe it was a friend that deserted them maybe it was a parent that abandoned them lord whatever it was maybe it was a work colleague maybe it was someone else in church maybe it was a friend a neighbor somebody hurt them badly because they love deeply jesus i want to pray that holy spirit by your power even right now you would begin to touch that heart and that pain and begin to bring healing in jesus name may we be people whose love even though it causes us to to get hurt at times that we still keep loving deeply in jesus name amen and then the third final thing i believe the people that god is looking for guys are a people whose hope enables them to keep going to keep going endurance inspired by the word for endurance it means a remaining behind a patient enduring it means a remaining under pressure and the word for hope that we looked at elpis is a confident expectation in the goodness of god so these guys remained under pressure and kept going whilst having a confident expectation in the goodness of god and i want to suggest to us that our hope has to enable us to remain under pressure it has to enable us to keep going in the pursuit of god and in the pursuit of loving others even when life is tough so you want to live your best life i want to live my best life but it's not the life that makes me happy where i am at my full potential that's not the best life that god has for me the best life god has for me is a faithful hopeful loving life which loves god primarily by loving and serving other people so i have three big questions for you to think about does our faith or does your faith if you're a follower of jesus and if you're not a follower of jesus come to alpha okay check out what is this crazy thing that we're talking about which actually is crazy and true at the same time does our faith make a difference and maybe you want to ask that question you know 18 19 months beyond covid now you know does your faith make a difference if you were put on trial and the charge was you're charged with being a follower of jesus is there enough evidence to convict us does our faith make a difference are there works produced by faith secondly does our love cause us some pain or actually the minute that it begins to feel pain are we out and i want to be really honest today okay as the pastor here i want to be honest i want to be loving but i want to be honest sometimes and especially in this season i hear so many christians that are quitting because they're experiencing a little bit of discomfort does our love cause us some pain it's a really big question and then thirdly does our hope enable us to remain and keep going are we remaining and enduring under the weight of pressure or actually are we wanting to quit as soon as there's a bit of pressure i want to leave those questions on the screen because i want to talk to you really really honestly today okay because i think as i've been praying and reading and researching the evidence all right suggests that for many followers of jesus especially in the uk and in the west coming out of covet it's not all great news now it's true that there are many people who've come to faith through covid okay brilliant there may even be people in the room and you come to faith in jesus or online through covid amazing god's done some incredible things there are many people who would say that their their relationship with jesus is closer and deeper than it was before covet brilliant but but there's some really difficult stuff that we have to come to terms with as well there are many people who've disconnected there are many people who turn their back on jesus and here's one of the biggest things as well for me as well there are many people who've stopped serving through this season in fact when you do an analysis on um voluntary organizations not just faith not just churches they reckon that in the uk there's been a 20 at least maybe as much as 25 percent that's a one in four one in five one in four drop in formal volunteering now there's been a slight increase in informal volunteering and i'll explain that in a minute but there's been a huge drop in formal volunteer now the difference between form of volunteering and informal volunteering this form of volunteering is consistent it's when you're consistently investing in the lives of others informal is when you say oh yeah i'll pick that stuff up and take it round to that to that neighbor you know that's an ad hoc one the reality is informal volunteering is great but costs you very little whereas formal volunteering is not only great but it costs you and i want to suggest it absolutely changes the world and the reality is that for us as a church we're so grateful for all the volunteers in this church but here's the truth we cannot do all that we feel god is wanting us to do in order to reach people because we don't have the people willing willing to formally volunteer again and so we have one service why because we don't have the volunteers for two we're aiming for two at the beginning of november will it be full kids work and youth work probably not why we don't have the volunteers and i'm not saying that to put guilt on you i'm saying that to say listen guys coming out of covid we all need a reset we all need a reset and there are many people saying hey i don't want to go on a rota again you know i kind of got used to sunday morning on my own and just getting up and watching it online and that's great online or going a lot occasionally i don't really want to come midweek and it's winter now it's getting colder and i get all of that the reality is there are kids young people older folks people in need who are waiting for people like you and i to go serve and make a difference and all the time they're waiting i believe the heart of god is waiting for us as well and i think when paul saw this bunch of of christians in thessalonica he said you know what these guys these guys there's work produced by faith there's labor prompted by love there's endurance inspired by hope and they became a model to everyone else that's the kind of people that god is looking for and in my research i came across a guy that wrote these kind of five s's these these are the kind of people are in church they're in any organization there are squabblers all right we don't have many of them in this church but we you know there are strugglers and many of us are struggling and that's that's important but we do have that but they're also there are slackers in reality there are people that want to come and just receive you know we come to church to receive but actually theologically where's that because we are the church and we're here for a broken world aren't we so we're not coming so they're attacking then there are supporters there are those who give financially and that's great and they support and they pray and that's great brilliant but ultimately god is calling for servants because his servants who lay down their life is servants who say i'm here is servants who say you know because of what jesus has done for me and because of the love that i have received from him i want to give my one and only life to serve god by serving other people and it's servants who are going to change the world it's servants who are going to bring heaven to earth it's servants who are going to make a difference it's servants who are going to live their best life and maybe you want you you respond by this phrase here well i can't because i'm way too busy or because i'm too anxious or because i'm too inexperienced or because i'm too old or because i'm too young you know one of the great things through this season you know i i i used to feel like i used to be the youngest pastor in the room believe it or not it's been a long time since i've been the youngest pastor in the room but these days in covid when i come in on a sunday morning and i see the tech team and see the average age is like six no it's not six like 15 or 17 i feel really old but isn't that brilliant that we've got 14 15 16 17 year old guys and girls who are serving and getting the word of god out that's brilliant you're never too young but i want to tell you this you're never too old neither and you know and alice and my wife and there's not a link there between never too old okay so let me just let me just oh yeah this is what happens when you go off your off your notes as she's joined the staff team one of our hearts and passions is is to say god how can we how can we more effectively support engage and release older adults because we've got we've got over 130 older adults and you you want to say to me how old is old it's a year above your age all right that's no it's not okay we've got about 130 over 65 in the church that's a wealth of experience life experience faith experience you are never too old maybe you're not going to be running one of these gimbal cameras or anything like that but you can do a load of stuff for the kingdom of god but i think what all the time we sit on our couch or we sit on our seat and we just consume we are never ever going to live our best life and maybe you're saying i can't because well i want to suggest that you can you know there's a great story i love this story i'm going to be talking a little bit about this at the vision gathering next sunday evening and um it's a story where peter and the fishermen are out fishing all night long they don't catch anything and jesus pitches up and and you know jesus basically says to them hey you need to do it differently you know instead of instead of casting your net there why don't you cast your net there and i know i i have to put myself in the mind of the people you know try and think what was going on and peter was a fisherman and he knew that jesus was a carpenter son of a carpenter and i wonder whether in peter's mind he's going all right mate you know i'm the fisherman okay and i've been all night long doing this and you as the carpenter come along and you just rock up and you say throw the nets over there and i just wonder whether peter could have said i'm the one that knows what i'm doing you you stick to wood and tables and chairs and i'll stick to fishing he didn't say that here's what he said and this is a phrase that you want to write down he said this but because you say so i will that's discipleship isn't it jesus i don't understand what you're asking me to do jesus said might not even like what you're asking me to do jesus ah if it was up to me i'd do something different but because you say so i will and i want to say to you please don't respond because i say so today because that's not what this is about this is about jesus if jesus speaks to you today discipleship is basically saying jesus has spoken i will but because you say so i will because you say so i will god is calling us i believe to push out into deeper water where there is more fish to catch where there's more people to help there's more people to help find and follow jesus god is calling us to reset our lives to be faithful to be hopeful and to be loving god is calling us to live out our best lives that's going to mean that we need to become people who are not just consumers but who are contributors who are servants here on planet earth to be those people that see works produced by faith labour prompted by love and endurance inspired by hope so what do i need to do let me say just one little phrase here and i think this is so important little phrase i've coined i think you need to find a need and feel a fire and that's not just like alliteration and fancy preach at all i think find a need and feel a fire where's there a need and where's there a fire of passion within you and when you can bring those two things together then you've got i think the key to living your best life where's there a need and where is there something within me that i can match to that need i want to say to you right now we have we're excited about what god's doing amongst the lives of children and young people but we're struggling if i can say that just to we have had so many volunteers that said hey you know that's just not my season and we understand that to a degree it's tough within that let me share my heart a little bit on this there's a whole load of families with us who've got children or young people who've got additional needs and right now we don't have the capacity to help them and so many of those families aren't able to come they aren't able to access church as a family because we don't have people that can get alongside them and many of you know that our youngest son simeon is in residential care he's 27 27 now believe it or not but when he was little and uh in the church and we just arrived this associate pastor and then became the lead pastor here and and simi was growing up and obviously as he grew up a little bit the guys did an amazing job in our kids work but they got to a stage where where his needs were so much that we didn't know what to do and there was a group of people in in the church who who saw that there was a need and who had a fire within them and they set up a ministry um for a whole season and it wasn't just for simeon but there were two or three other young people that grew into teenagers and their needs were so different and difficult that these guys week in week out looked after our kid showed him a little bit of jesus and enabled me and allison to be a part of church and josh our other son as well i don't know what we'd have done as a family if it wasn't for those people that found a need felt a fire and became servants and i tell you as a recipient of that kind of love i want to say guys it is literally game-changing it can be family saving ministry when you come alongside someone who's got additional needs and you say hey for a season hey maybe once a month once twice a month i'll give up an hour to sit with with that young person to help them so that you as a family can access church and all that that means in community it can literally save a family you think you're too young you're not too young you think you're too old you're not too old take a look at this i've always kind of had this idea that missions work is for you know adults you know going on mission trips you know i'm just a high school student you know what could i do to make a difference or to be involved in the kingdom of god well a ministry i've been involved in the past couple of years has been the special friends ministry which is a ministry for kids and adults with special needs i went with my family as a volunteer we would be buddied with someone with special needs and then go with them throughout the whole week and have fun i was buddied with the sibling of a special needs child she was five years old and it was kind of difficult getting used to the fact that i was the one with her that would look after her needs and things like that as the week went on i grew up more comfortable we played we had a great time each day she had such fun with all the activities we did and i think you know she learned to trust me at the end of the week she would sit on my lap and i'd give her piggy back rides i think that bond was really rewarding after being so nervous at first i went back the year after that had a really good time the first year and so both those experiences really kind of helped me to kind of relax and go with you know what god's leading me to do the experience encouraged me to go into the special friends ministry in our church not to stop there right after the mission trip you know and just leave it at that you know but to continue with what i've learned and experienced i think after being stretched in those things those were both out of my comfort zone i realized i couldn't be involved with the special needs ministry right where i am 16 years old as a high school student i don't have to be grown up i don't have to be 25 or 30 or 50 i can do it right now that's what god's called me to do [Music] maybe it's not kids with special needs maybe it's not kids at all or young people i don't know what it is for you but but maybe as you as you listen and watch today online or here in the room maybe you're still saying this phrase here i i can't because and that because word comes in whatever the because answer is for you maybe because you're too young or because you're too old or because you're too inexperienced or because you're too busy or because you're too tired or because you're too anxious or because you're too new maybe you think i'm just too new here i don't get it listen you are not too new you are not too old you are not too young you know if god has put anything in you it's there not just for you but for other people as well and i want to say to those of you guys who are new as well and maybe you just joined us through this season we would love to have a conversation with you about what would it mean for you to find a need and to feel a fire for you to be plugged into something that you can serve in and it can be adjusted to you and your lifestyle and your and all of that but within all of that we've got to give something we've got to be willing to give something maybe you say i can't because well i want to say one more phrase to you here's the thing you can't but he can maybe you can't but he can and when we allow him to work within us god can do amazing things through us i want to give you one practical response this morning and i want to ask you and invite you whether you've been around the church for years whether you're brand new whether you're online whether you're in the room wherever i want to invite you to begin a conversation with us about where you could find a need and feel a fire and connect those two things up together here's what you do go to our website lifecentralchurch.org uk forward slash next steps and then on the next steps thing you just fill it in it doesn't take very long there's lots of different options maybe you want to look at some of them one right in the middle of that list i want to join a team we believe in team here everything we do is in team i want to join a team i don't know what team to be a part of i don't know where the need is i don't know how i can connect the fire within me i want to join anything i want to have a conversation you're committing to nothing other than taking a step and having a conversation if you don't do it that way you could do it by text text lcc next steps your name to 60 triple 7 and then you'll get a link to the next steps card but i want to do that because i want to invite you guys as we finish this series next week we're going to baptize people then we've got jeff lucas coming then we start another series and before you know where we are we'll be at christmas we've got an incredible opportunity in this season coming out of covid when our world is pretty traumatized pretty broken and maybe and we are part of that as well i understand that but we have got an opportunity to be people who carry faith who are hopeful and hope-filled and who are loving not just in our thoughts or in our emotions but in our actions and in our deeds and we do it all because of the reckless incredibly overwhelming love that jesus has for us and we want to finish um really this morning by by singing this incredible song called reckless love and uh many of you you know whenever you hear this song reckless love and even you hear the phrase reckless love it's like i don't quite understand that word reckless i've had many many theological conversations with people about this whole thing let me just read to you from the writer himself why he wrote reckless love because i think we want to finish in this place of saying hey this all starts okay living your best life originates in the heart and the love of god and it ends up in the heart and the love of god so that's where it ends up and that's where it begins and this is what he says about this phrase many have asked me for clarity on the phrase reckless love many have wondered why i'd use a negative word like reckless to describe god i've taken some time to write out my thoughts i hope it brings answers to your questions but more than that i hope it brings you into an encounter with the wildness of his love i'm not saying that god is reckless i am however saying that the way he loves is in many regards quite so what i mean is this he is utterly unconcerned with the consequences of his actions with regards to his own safety comfort and well-being his love isn't crafty or slick it's not cunning or shrewd in fact it's quite childlike his love doesn't consider himself first his love isn't selfish or self-serving he doesn't wonder what he'll gain by putting himself out there he simply gives himself away on the off chance that one of us might look back at him and offer ourselves in return his love leaves the 99 to find the one every time so many practical adults that's a foolish concept what if he loses the 99 in search of the one what if finding that one lost search what if finding that one lost sheep is and will always be supremely important his love isn't cautious no it's a love that sent his own son to a gruesome death on the cross there's no plan b with the love of god he gives his heart so completely so preposterously that if refused many most will consider it irreparably broken yet he gives himself away again and again and again the recklessness of his love is seen most clearly in this it gets him hurt over and over make no mistake our sin pains his heart and 70 times seven is a lot of times to have your heart broken yet he opens up and allows us in every single time his love saw you when you hated him when all logic said they'll reject me he said i don't care if it kills me i'm laying my heart on the lion and then he finishes with this to get personal his love saw me a broken down kid with regret as deep as the ocean my innocence and youth poured out like water yet he saw fit to use me for his kingdom because he's just that kind i didn't earn it and i'm sure as heck i don't deserve it but he's just that good oh the overwhelming never-ending reckless love of god i don't even ask you to stand guys if you're here in the room and i want to pray for you and i want to pray for you online as well and maybe in this moment as we respond in worship let's just respond again to this incredible overwhelming never-ending reckless love of god and when you're loved by god like that then you must want to love like god to others our world is cry now for a bunch of people who are ordinary who are average maybe who are unintelligent who are unimpressive but who are radically recklessly loved by god and want to love like god to our world around us can i pray let me pray for you and as i pray maybe for someone here and you never experienced this reckless overwhelming never-ending love of god you can know his love today you can know his love today love to introduce you to him but i want to pray for every single one of us father we thank you for this incredible love that is you you are love you don't just have loving feelings god you are love and god as you poured your love out into our hearts may we be people who pour that love back out to our world may we be people who who produce works because of faith who who have labor pains at times because of love and who keep running and enduring because of the hope that we carry may we be faithful loving hopeful people who are loved by god and then who love others like god and may we as a church be known as that may we be a tight may we be a pattern and a model lord no not just for our building or our this or that but god known because of the way in which we love so lord as we worship you now god i pray holy spirit would you inspire us would you would you minister to our hearts where we have allowed this season to to to cause our heart to grow cold to get a little bit self-centered and selfish if we're honest may we be shook out of that may we be loved out of that and may we come into this season as people who are faithful hopeful and loving for the sake of jesus and for his kingdom i pray and everyone said amen let's worship [Music] before i spoke word you singing over me [Music] you've been so so good to me before i took a breath you breathed your life for me you've been so [Music] oh it chases me down feisty love found leaves the 99 and i could earn i don't deserve it still you give yourself away and all the overwhelming never ending reckless love of god [Music] it's your love it's your love [Music] when i was your fault [Music] me you've been so so kind to me [Music] is away [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] there's no shadow [Music] oh up there's no way [Music]

Channel: LifecentralChurchUK

Views: 575

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, live your best life, mindset shift

Id: oLpKGarUS1M

Length: 50min 26sec (3026 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 03 2021