What Is Love?

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– Hey, I'm Kyle, and this is Crossroads

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Now today we're going to

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do something a little bit different.

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We're going to hear directly from

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our Senior Pastor, Brian Tome

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live on stage at Crossroads Oakley.

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Because I think this message is so important,

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I want you to hear it together alongside

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the rest of our community straight from Brian.

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Towards the end, we're going to be

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taking communion together as a community.

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And traditionally that's bread and wine,

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but I'm giving you a heads up now to say

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grab something to eat and something to drink,

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it'll do just fine.

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Let's get started with Brian.

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– Let's talk about what's on everyone's mind, shall we?

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Private space flight,

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that's what we all want to talk about.

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Richard Branson paid his own way to space.

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Jeff Bezos paid his own way to space.

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They never had to apply to NASA

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to be private astronauts

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and never had to do an astronaut work out

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and beat out a bunch of people

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with sit ups and push ups.

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Very, very smart people, very, very rich,

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but never had to eat astronaut ice cream

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or astronaut meatloaf.

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And some people are really upset that these people

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have the audacity to use their own kajillions

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and actually fund their own space flight up into space.

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One journalist, especially I ran across

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this last week from USA Today, Soledad O'Brien.

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Her headline was this:

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So she says.

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She goes on to question things

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that are good things to think about.

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Like, hmm, is this a thing just to build your own ego?

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Are these resources appropriately being spent?

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And specifically,

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are journalists handling this appropriately?

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Here's what she says:

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Um, no, no, sorry, that's not the job of the media.

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I mean, at least not in my communication classes,

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my media classes and journalism classes,

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and as a communication major in college,

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the job of the media is not to represent

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the powerless and bring down the powerful.

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The job the media is to what?

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To report the news, tell us what's going on.

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It isn't to be indignant or judgmental

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of somebody else's choices.

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Now, I'm no journalism PhD major

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and I don't run a newspaper, but I just think

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that when we look at this we could probably

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learn something about ourselves

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and what our job is,

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or specifically the job of the church,

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the job of the capital C Church.

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Not the job of the 501c3 church that

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the country categorizes churches

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like Crossroads for tax benefits.

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But what is the job of the Church?

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The Church as a body of people

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that have been united with God the Father

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through Jesus Christ's death on the Cross

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and are filled with the Holy Spirit?

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All of those folks, wherever they are this morning,

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whatever they're doing, whatever

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varied beliefs they have about baptism, whatever it is,

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what is our job?

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Our job is to love.

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Love, love, lov.

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Now it's important for us to take a look

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at like macro, huge overarching themes

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of the cosmos, the spiritual cosmos,

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they're important for us before I go any further.

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We have to understand that there is a God

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and you're not Him and I'm not Him.

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That's good news.

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There's a God and we're not Him.

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And we are separated from Him,

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that's why we have different views,

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opinions, convictions.

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Now, the Bible, when it overarches this --

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looks at this overarching plan

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that we're dealing with, it shows us

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and tells us that there is this thing

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in our world that's infected and affected us.

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It's called sin.

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It caused us to think things

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that we don't want to think,

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caused us to believe things that we shouldn't believe,

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causes us to do things that we don't want to do,

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causes us to feel things that we don't want to feel,

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that causes the rancor and the animosity

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that we have inside of our country.

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It causes things in our bodies to break down.

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It causes our planet to break down.

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It causes our emotions to break down.

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And all of us are affected by this.

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And it's a sign that we are in the midst

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of being broken down while God wants to reunite us,

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He wants to redeem us, to bring us closer to Him.

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So Jesus comes to the world as God Himself,

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who had a heavenly existence before Christmas ever happen.

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He's born into Bethlehem

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and He lives the perfect life as only

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a man could who actually had the divine seed

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because He was God before He was born,

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coming into this world.

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And therefore, when He goes to a cross

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and when He dies a brutal death,

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what's happening is God is crushing

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and He's having ultimate victory through love,

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through love on a Cross.

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So that because of all my bad choices

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and all my bad beliefs, all my bad feelings,

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and all my bad actions, when I come to know Christ,

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I don't get punished for those things.

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The effects of that sin are not on me eternally.

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Jesus has handled those because He loved me.

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That is amazing. It's utterly stunning.

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And this is what I want to look at today,

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the rest of our time: What is love?

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[music: What is Love? - Haddaway]

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What is love?

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Oh, baby, don't hurt. Don't hurt me no more.

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– All right, enough of that.

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What is love?

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You love to see me dance

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like a middle aged white man,

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that's what love is, right?

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Eesh. What is love?

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I actually I really believe that our culture

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has no idea what love is.

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And when I say our culture, I'm not talking

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about vast American culture that is

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increasingly agnostic, atheistic.

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I'm talking about culture of folks

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who are in churches, in places like Crossroads.

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What is love?

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Love is not a soft, ethereal, philosophical

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feeling that kind of washes over you.

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It can wash over you.

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It can be something that you feel.

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And I'm incredibly thankful when I feel

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and I sense the love of God.

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But I feel and I sense the love of God

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because of what God has done,

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because of what God is doing.

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Ephesians, and a bunch of verses I want

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to share today talk about love

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and why it is the core thing

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of what we're supposed to be about.

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It's a core thing of what our life

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is supposed to be about is the very love of God.

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And we can't get fuzzy on it.

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Ephesians 3:17-19 says this:

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So that Christ may dwell in your hearts

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through faith – that you, being rooted and grounded

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in judgmentalism -- Oh, no, it doesn't say that.

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You being rooted and grounded in what is right. No.

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You being rooted and grounded in

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being seen as important. No.

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You being rooted and grounded in love,

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may have strength to comprehend with all the saints

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what is the breadth and length and height and depth,

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and to know the love of Christ

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that surpasses knowledge,

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that you may be filled with the fullness of God.

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For me to have the fullness of God,

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I've got to have an understanding

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of the love of God and it is this

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really hard, hard thing because

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it's not possible for me understand the love of God.

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I want to understand it more.

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I want all of us to understand it more today.

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But it's not possible because the love of God

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surpasses human explanation,

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it surpasses human understanding.

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And here we hear the the four dimensions of love,

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the breadth, the length, the height of God,

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and the depth of God.

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In sideways, long way, through all dimensions of God

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and these dimensions, the dimensions of love

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that we see in God are perfectly represented in Jesus.

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And when we sense Him, His love for us,

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however it comes to us.

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Maybe it's because of something I say here,

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maybe because some way somebody serves you

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and when you they serve you,

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you get a better understanding of who God is.

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It's truly life changing when you understand

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God's love for us you can weather the criticism

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that other people have for you.

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You can weather the needs that you have,

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the other needs that you have,

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and you can just continue to get by because

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you have a love that's fueling you,

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because you know that when God is for you

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and God loves you, everything else falls in line.

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In 1 Thessalonians 3:12, it says:

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Increasing, abounding.

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Romans 8:28 is a verse I've been thinking

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about a lot and going in my mind a lot

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over the last couple of weeks as there's been

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just a bunch of cacophony of difficulty happening

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around here and in my life.

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And it says this:

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God causes some things? No, all things.

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God causes most things? No, all things.

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God causes all things.

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So no matter when I'm in a spot of difficulty

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or when you're in a spot of difficulty,

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when you love Him, when you love Him

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and are called according to His purpose,

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He causes all that stuff to work together for good.

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It doesn't make you feel good necessarily right now,

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but it will make good things happen in the future.

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That is the love of God.

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The problem isn't that we don't sense love.

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I think the problem is we don't understand love.

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And if we did understand love,

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we might we might sense love more.

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I'm just going to give you a few more versus

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and I'm going to do a deep dive in one

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that all of you have heard before, but probably

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very few of us have actually had explained to us.

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1 John 3:16: By this we know love.

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How do we know love?

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That he laid down his life for us,

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and we ought to lay down our life for the brothers.

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That's how we know love.

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It's not a bunch of philosophical statements

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about what love is and isn't.

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I know love because Jesus laid down His love for me.

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How do I know what I'm worth?

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I know what I'm worth

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because of what Jesus did for me.

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How do you know what anything is worth, by the way?

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How do you know what anything is worth?

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How do you know what your house is worth?

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Well, what someone will pay for it.

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That's how you know what your house is worth,

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what someone will pay for it.

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And apparently people pay a lot for houses

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these days, right?

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I mean, people are talking about is it

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a housing boom, it is a housing bust,

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is the bubble going to burst?

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The truth is, is your house worth as much as they say?

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It is because people are buying houses

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over asking price.

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That's how you know the worth of what something is,

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what someone is willing to pay for it.

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And the worth of you and the worth of I

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is what Jesus has paid for us.

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God paid His son. He put his Son on a Cross.

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This is how we know what love is.

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This is how you know your worth is.

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It's not how many followers we have

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on Facebook or followers on Instagram

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or how many nice things people say about us.

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As wonderful as all those things are,

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we know what love is based on the fact

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that Jesus said you're worth sacrificing His life for.

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That is crazy and beautiful and astounding.

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Sometimes when I've gotten generosity

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from somebody, whatever it is,

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generosity of someone picks up my meal,

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I didn't realize they were going to pick up my meal

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or somebody, you know, I've had back before

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we were in our very tough, tough financial straits,

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people would give us their old cars

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or somebody give whatever it is.

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When people would give something to you,

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they were inferring worth, they were giving love

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because they were saying, you're worth that.

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When God gives you what He gives you

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and nothing better or higher than Jesus,

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it should be the starting point of us sensing love.

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And whether we feel love or not,

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it doesn't matter if we feel it, you are loved.

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God has loved you,

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and history is altered because of that.

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Yes, someone can get excited about that.

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We all know that our feelings

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don't always reflect reality. Right? Right?

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And sometimes if we don't feel loved by God,

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it doesn't mean that He doesn't love us,

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there's just maybe layers of misunderstanding

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or layers of difficulty and pain

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that's keeping us from seeing and sensing it.

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The Book of 1 Corinthians 13,

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it gives the best full blooded explanation

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of what love is and here's how it precedes.

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It says this:

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Where have you heard this verse before perhaps?

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At a wedding.

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It's hard for me to think of many weddings

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that I've been to where 1 Corinthians 13

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and the love verse doesn't follow,

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Which is actually very strange when you think

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about it because, you know, statistics say

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that 50% of all new marriages end in divorce.

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So this passage must not be helping people at churches.

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It must not be helping people in weddings.

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Something's wrong here.

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I'll tell you what's wrong is not

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the passage or the concept,

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what's wrong is we're not doing it.

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What's wrong is we read love passages

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and we're thinking it's about feelings

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and emotions and it's actually about actions,

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actions that Jesus embodied by laying down

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His life for you and I.

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It says I can do all kinds of

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amazing spiritual things,

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but I don't have love, I'm nothing.

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I can speak in a language, known as tongues,

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the heavenly language, which I've never learned.

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But if I don't love people in my own tongue

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that they understand, I have nothing.

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I can understand the cosmos it says

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and have prophetic utterings and God give me visions

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and hear the very words of God,

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that may be true, actually.

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But if I don't have love, I have nothing.

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And then it says actually here

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it's possible for me to be a missionary

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and for me on the mission field,

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going to some place that's very violent and hostile

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to actually be killed for my faith.

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And actually t not be my love that's propelling

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me to be killed, it's my obstinacy.

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No, you will not have me take my Bible.

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You will not take it.

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No, I will not recant Jesus.

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And it's possible to say,

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no, I will not recant Jesus, not out of love,

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just because you're very obstinate.

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You wouldn't recant your Chevy Suburban either.

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It says it doesn't matter if I give up

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my life as a martyr, if I don't have love,

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I have nothing. Nothing.

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So what is love?

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That goes in and it continues out.

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Now, here's what we can do, right?

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We'll do some really wild.

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We have these things, some of you

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have these things called smartphones,

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they're really wild.

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You can, like, get any information you want anywhere.

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And some of you have on your smartphone

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an actual Bible app.

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And even if you don't have that,

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you can Google right now.

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And I encourage you Google right now,

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if you want to do this and follow along with me,

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1 Corinthians 13 is what we're looking for.

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And we're going to go literally verse by verse,

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pretty much word for word.

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And if you want to follow along,

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you can do that on your device or maybe

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you even brought an old fuddy-duddy paper Bible.

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You won't be able to see it

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because Crossroads is dark rooms,

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but glad you brought your Bible today.

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1 Corinthians 1, that's where.

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I'm going to read out the ESV,

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the English Standard Version.

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If you want to read along or follow along,

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here's what it says, 1 Corinthians 13:4.

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What is love?

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If you and I understand this form of love,

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if you ever get married,

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it will be an entirely different marriage

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than one that doesn't end.

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If you and I actually practice this form of love,

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because that's what love is.

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It's practices, it's attitudes, it's actions.

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It's not feelings that happen to you.

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If you and I can do this in our life,

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we're going to sense a oneness with people around us,

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a oneness with God that we can't get

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when we're just being normal.

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So what is love?

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This is the best definition there is in the Bible.

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Deep dive, let's look at it.

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Patient. Love is patient.

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I'm making you be patient right now.

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When are we patient, right?

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Like, hold on, someone's are talking,

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I'm not talking, time for me to go to my phone.

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We lose the ability to be patient.

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But when someone is patient with you,

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like just now, I could sense there was

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a good number of you who were patient, like,

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"OK, Brian's going to speak at some moment."

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The fact that you're waiting

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made me actually feel loved, like,

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oh, you actually trust me,

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you're actually going to hang in there with me.

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Love is patient. It waits.

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It bears. It hangs in there. It's patient.

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Love is kind. It is patient, love is kind.

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Last couple of weeks have been been

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a bit stressful for me, and I had a friend

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come to my house last week and he came down,

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knocked on my door and he brought a cooler of beer.

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And we just sat on my front porch

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and drank some beers.

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That was love. That was love.

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That wasn't anything other than that.

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He thought about me.

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He went and got something.

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He brought something to me and then we just sat

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and talked, or sat and were still,

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or sat and laughed.

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And there was kindness.

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When he showed kindness to me, I felt loved by Mikey.

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It's a wonderful thing.

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It's a beautiful thing when you know your loved

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and someone shows it, they show it.

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They can't show you your feelings

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or throw your feelings, but when someone

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does something in this kind it's a beautiful thing.

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Love doesn't envy.

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When I envy what somebody has: their truck,

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their house, their kids, their job,

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their, you know, their physique,

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when I'm envying that thing,

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I'm thinking about that thing

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and I'm not thinking about them.

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I'm thinking about that object

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or that attribute that they have.

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And objects and attributes aren't things

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that you love, people are things you love.

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That's the insidiousness of envy

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as we have a culture that is constantly

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selling us 24/7 and constantly lifting

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each other up about how good we're doing

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and you're not.

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It puts us in constant comparison mode.

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And when I'm comparing, I don't love.

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I can't envy, I can't compare

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and love at the same time.

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This is why the ancient Catholic Church

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and actually still modern Catholic Church

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was big on, you know, nunnery robes

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and all that stuff, robes.

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It wasn't like we want to set you apart as so much as,

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hey, when you come into the monastery,

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we all dress the same so we can't envy

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what one another are wearing

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or we can't even notice one another's physique

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because we're going to love each other

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and not compare ourselves to one another.

00:22:55

That was the heart behind

00:22:57

many of those ancient vestments.

00:23:01

Love doesn't envy.

00:23:03

Love doesn't boast.

00:23:07

The next example of love, love doesn't boast.

00:23:10

When I boast, I'm exalting myself.

00:23:13

And when I'm exalting myself, what am I not doing?

00:23:15

I'm not loving you.

00:23:17

When I spend time thinking about

00:23:19

how to sneak in my accomplishments

00:23:21

or sneak in my, whatever it is,

00:23:23

my discipline, whatever it may be.

00:23:25

When I'm thinking about that, I'm lifting myself up.

00:23:29

I'm not humbling myself.

00:23:30

Jesus humbled Himself and went to a cross.

00:23:33

He actually got exalted in the grand scheme of things.

00:23:36

God exalted Him and gave Him the name above every name

00:23:40

because he humbled Himself, He lowered Himself

00:23:44

and died of death, even death on a Cross.

00:23:51

Arrogance, love is not arrogant.

00:23:54

Arrogance never allows ourselves

00:23:58

to believe that we're wrong.

00:24:00

Arrogance always causes us to believe

00:24:02

it's somebody else's problem.

00:24:04

Arrogance causes us to actually not listen

00:24:07

to somebody because somebody else is a less than.

00:24:13

We can't think somebody else is less than

00:24:15

if we're loving them.

00:24:18

I mean, all of us are less than

00:24:20

the very son of God Himself. All of us are.

00:24:23

And yet Jesus didn't act as if we were less thans.

00:24:28

Jesus acted as if we were worthy.

00:24:30

He chose to believe that we're worthy.

00:24:33

Love is not rude. Love is not rude.

00:24:38

How do you build a following on social media,

00:24:41

especially Twitter?

00:24:43

By being rude, right?

00:24:45

Who can say the most bombastic statements?

00:24:49

Who can say the things that their group

00:24:52

wants to believe and say it, and it's rude

00:24:55

and it's punchy and it's a pitiful,

00:24:58

undefensible way as possible?

00:25:00

It's rudeness.

00:25:02

Rudeness, it always dehumanizes other people.

00:25:06

It always forces us to think

00:25:08

that someone else is less than us.

00:25:12

No, that person is a masterpiece,

00:25:17

a masterpiece by God,

00:25:19

uniquely formed together by God

00:25:20

that looks different than me.

00:25:24

I have to think about these things

00:25:25

when I am on a plane.

00:25:30

When I'm on the plane, I don't travel

00:25:33

business coach class unless I got enough mileage

00:25:36

to get, you know, put up there.

00:25:38

So most of the time I am slumming it

00:25:41

with the normal regular folks like myself.

00:25:44

And what's the worst part about

00:25:46

being back with all the normal people?

00:25:48

The normal size of the seats,

00:25:50

that's the worst part, right?

00:25:52

You know, you sit there,

00:25:53

you sit there in those seats.

00:25:55

And if you have a person beside you.

00:25:58

Let me just clear some things up, everybody.

00:26:00

In case you don't know this,

00:26:02

that little armrest in between,

00:26:04

you know what that is?

00:26:05

That's a barrier. That's what that is.

00:26:08

That's not meant to rest your arm on.

00:26:10

That is a barrier that says your area is there

00:26:13

and my areas here.

00:26:15

And that armrest comes down

00:26:17

and it draws the invisible line down on the ground.

00:26:20

So here's the way it works.

00:26:21

If you're to sit beside me, that's a barrier.

00:26:23

That means I don't want your elbow

00:26:25

over that barrier on my barrier.

00:26:27

Like, you can, like, rest up against it if you want.

00:26:30

You can maybe -- I'll even let you

00:26:32

put your arm on top of it,

00:26:34

but you darn well better not have anything over it.

00:26:40

And the last time I was on a plane

00:26:41

a couple weeks ago, someone didn't understand this.

00:26:45

They don't understand this,

00:26:46

Someone was an incredibly unloving person.

00:26:48

They were very rude. They're very arrogant.

00:26:53

And they were like over mine.

00:26:55

And their foot was over on my side.

00:27:00

Come on.

00:27:02

And when that's happened, when I'm annoyed,

00:27:04

when I'm bothered, I have to remember

00:27:09

God made that person.

00:27:12

Jesus died for that person.

00:27:15

And if Jesus die on a Cross out of love for me,

00:27:20

out of love, I cannot punch that person

00:27:22

because they have their elbow over my thing.

00:27:25

I can choose to not do that.

00:27:30

But if I'm just thinking about the etiquette of it

00:27:33

and how I am wronged

00:27:35

and how this person is not thinking,

00:27:37

it never does mean anything.

00:27:39

I have to think about the love,

00:27:41

that God loves this person

00:27:43

and I need to love this person,

00:27:46

even though they're inconveniencing me right now.

00:27:50

And I need to not insist on my own way.

00:27:52

That's what says:

00:27:53

love does not insist on your own way.

00:27:56

It doesn't mean that you abandon God's way.

00:28:00

It doesn't mean that you say

00:28:02

every way is OK with God.

00:28:04

Doesn't mean that.

00:28:05

We keep -- we have this thing in our culture,

00:28:08

we talk about, "Well, this is my truth.

00:28:10

This is my truth."

00:28:11

I wish we would say,"This is my beliefs.

00:28:14

This is my conviction."

00:28:15

No one owns the truth. God is truth.

00:28:18

And I can't have a truth that's different from your truth.

00:28:20

I can have an opinion that's different than yours.

00:28:22

I can have a belief that's different than yours.

00:28:24

I can have a conviction different than yours.

00:28:26

But there's only one truth and God owns it.

00:28:29

And here's the crazy thing, even when

00:28:33

I believe that I'm understand the truth,

00:28:36

I don't have to insist on my own way.

00:28:39

I don't have to insist that we do pizza

00:28:41

instead of Chinese, I don't have to insist on that.

00:28:45

I don't have to insist on my own way

00:28:47

of what we do with our date night.

00:28:48

I don't have to insist on that.

00:28:51

A loving person will give way

00:28:54

to people who are around them.

00:28:56

A loving person will regularly roll over

00:28:58

and allow the other person's desires to happen.

00:29:01

That's part of what love is.

00:29:04

Love is not irritable and resentful,

00:29:09

irritable and resentful.

00:29:11

Is there anybody in America not irritated right now?

00:29:15

Is there anybody in America not resentful right now?

00:29:18

I mean, whatever it is,

00:29:20

the idiots who aren't getting vaccinated

00:29:21

or the idiots who are vaccinated.

00:29:24

Or the -- I heard a new on this most recently,

00:29:27

The plan-demic, the plan-demic.

00:29:32

Or Simone Biles, how could you possibly

00:29:36

let down America the greatest gymnast of all time?

00:29:40

Really honestly. Wow.

00:29:43

Like we're in perpetual as a culture

00:29:45

irritability and resentfulness all the time.

00:29:50

And I don't know about you, but I always have

00:29:53

a justifiable reason to be resentful.

00:29:56

Always do.

00:29:58

And my resentfulness and my irritability,

00:30:01

I'll just be very honest with you,

00:30:04

it is based on the truth of God.

00:30:06

I'll just say right now,

00:30:09

it is based on the truth of God, I think.

00:30:15

But it doesn't matter.

00:30:17

I am to love, which means I am not

00:30:19

to be someone who's known as being irritable

00:30:23

and being resentful because I know the love of God,

00:30:27

because of who God is.

00:30:29

And let me tell you what,

00:30:30

it is a wonderful thing that

00:30:31

God is not resentful towards me.

00:30:32

[applause]

00:30:36

And let me tell you, I do more than enough

00:30:38

things to make got irritated with me,

00:30:42

and yet He's not irritated with me.

00:30:45

Even when I'm wrong, He causes all things,

00:30:48

what things?

00:30:50

All things to work together for my good because

00:30:52

I'm called and I love Him according to His purpose.

00:30:57

And God's just asking me out of love to give

00:31:01

other folks a fraction of what He has given me.

00:31:06

Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing.

00:31:11

Ah-ha! Such a hypocrite.

00:31:14

How many times do we have to hear:

00:31:15

You're such a hypocrite or we're such --?

00:31:17

We love to find people who are hypocrites

00:31:19

defined as you did something that I think that

00:31:22

you don't believe in and we actually rejoice at it

00:31:26

and we love to stoke up the negative feelings.

00:31:30

Love bears all things.

00:31:34

I think Crossroads is the most loving

00:31:38

community I've ever been a part of.

00:31:40

And let me tell you why I think that is,

00:31:42

is because you bear with me, that's why.

00:31:45

You bear with me.

00:31:47

I ride my motorcycle in here some days

00:31:49

and I ride and I choose not to have a helmet on.

00:31:53

And you bear with me.

00:31:54

You know, the Bible says nothing about helmets.

00:31:59

Though it may be a good idea,

00:32:01

and most of the time, whenever I'm on a trip,

00:32:03

I always wear one, but I'm just going like --

00:32:04

you bear with, you go like,

00:32:08

"That's not a choice I would make.

00:32:11

It's probably not a good choice,

00:32:14

but I'm just not going to get upset about it.

00:32:17

I'm going to bear with you."

00:32:19

I had a pastor a while ago, who he said to me,

00:32:23

"Brian, if I said things in a closed door meeting

00:32:29

that you say on stage, I would get fired."

00:32:33

He was serious about that.

00:32:36

There is a thing in many places

00:32:38

you just can't say this,

00:32:40

you can't say that word, you can't do that.

00:32:42

And some of those things may be good moral choices,

00:32:47

but when you love someone, you bear with all things.

00:32:52

And when someone bears with me

00:32:55

over my rough spots, because I've got them,

00:32:56

it make me want to bear with you

00:32:59

over your rough spots,

00:33:01

because I know you got them too.

00:33:03

And when someone bears with you,

00:33:06

you know they love you.

00:33:08

And when you know someone loves you,

00:33:10

you start to feel love, right?

00:33:15

Love hopes all things. Hopes all things.

00:33:23

We as a country are so cynical.

00:33:26

We just think our best days are behind us.

00:33:29

We think the Chinese are overtaking us

00:33:32

in economic might and power.

00:33:33

We think that the government's getting worse and worse.

00:33:36

We're convinced that if someone gets elected

00:33:38

who I didn't vote for, it's going down, down, down.

00:33:41

We're convinced that things are getting

00:33:44

worse and worse and worse and worse and worse.

00:33:46

And just one example of last week

00:33:48

when we looked at what's happened to poverty.

00:33:50

Did you see those statistics?

00:33:51

That is unbelievable what's happening with world hunger.

00:33:55

Things are getting better.

00:33:57

When you believe that everything is getting worse,

00:34:00

when you believe that something can't get better,

00:34:02

you've lost hope,

00:34:03

and hope and love goes hand in hand.

00:34:07

Because love believes the best about somebody.

00:34:11

Love chooses to see the best about somebody.

00:34:13

Love chooses to believe that there is a God

00:34:15

who loved me and died on the Cross for me

00:34:17

and that God isn't done dying for me

00:34:19

and that God hasn't forgotten about me,

00:34:21

because in fact, God causes all things.

00:34:23

What things? All things to work together for good

00:34:27

for those who love Him

00:34:29

and are called according to His purpose.

00:34:31

But when we start to lose hope, we always lose love.

00:34:36

And conversely, when we lose love,

00:34:38

we always lose hope.

00:34:40

Love endures all things. Love endures all things.

00:34:48

It endures when someone gossips.

00:34:52

It endures financial ruin.

00:34:56

It endures hurtful, awful words

00:34:59

that someone says to us or about us.

00:35:02

It endures, it just keeps going on.

00:35:06

And maybe one of the reasons why

00:35:07

there's so many folks who are abandoning the faith

00:35:10

is that they've lacked love that has

00:35:16

as its necessity an enduring quality.

00:35:21

Because love endures.

00:35:25

I love what Billy Graham said.

00:35:28

He says: It's the Holy Spirit's job to convict,

00:35:31

the Father's job to judge, and my job to love.

00:35:39

That doesn't mean when I do something

00:35:42

like here from stage, I'm going to say things

00:35:44

and teach things that are in the scriptures

00:35:46

that are going to sting.

00:35:48

It doesn't mean we shouldn't talk to our friends

00:35:50

and challenge them appropriately

00:35:51

from time to time over the choices

00:35:53

if we feel like God is upset about it.

00:35:54

It doesn't mean those things at all,

00:35:56

but it means that our life

00:35:59

has to be emanating the love of God

00:36:02

and having His presence in our life.

00:36:06

And I think we miss this.

00:36:08

We love our dog. We love our car.

00:36:10

We love our job. We love the Olympics.

00:36:12

We love whatever and this word love just

00:36:15

gets to mean to not be all these things

00:36:18

that we've just talked about today.

00:36:21

1 John 3:16, I'm going to invite the bands

00:36:23

to all come up to our stages.

00:36:26

We're going to take communion.

00:36:27

And this passage is not

00:36:31

a traditional communion passage,

00:36:32

but is a great love passage

00:36:34

and that's what communion is.

00:36:36

I'm going to read it for us.

00:37:03

And we do this because Jesus loved us

00:37:06

in deed and in truth.

00:37:10

The night that He was arrested,

00:37:14

the night that He was actually sweating blood,

00:37:17

He was sweating blood and stressed out

00:37:19

and He said to the Father,

00:37:20

"I don't want to do this cross thing."

00:37:22

He understood what His calling was at that moment

00:37:25

that He was to go and have an awful, brutal death.

00:37:29

If he understand it before,

00:37:30

He understood at that moment.

00:37:31

But He says, "But not My will be done,

00:37:34

but Your will be done," because that's what love does.

00:37:37

Love bears all things. Love endures all things.

00:37:45

And at that Last Supper, He took the bread.

00:37:49

And a few have received Christ,

00:37:51

if you've received the love of Christ,

00:37:53

communion is something that solidifies your faith.

00:37:56

And maybe you haven't received the love of Christ.

00:37:59

Maybe you haven't received Jesus

00:38:00

for Him to be the sacrifice for your sin.

00:38:04

If you haven't, you can do that right now.

00:38:06

Just say something like,

00:38:08

God, I want you in my life.

00:38:10

Jesus, I ask that you would fill me

00:38:13

with Your Spirit and I commit my life to you. Amen.

00:38:24

Then you remember it by moments like this.

00:38:26

Jesus took the bread and said,

00:38:28

when you gather together -- this is a paraphrase --

00:38:32

I want you to remember My love for you,

00:38:35

because as you break that bread,

00:38:37

you are going to remember

00:38:40

how I broke My body out of love for you.

00:38:43

The body of Christ, lovingly broken for you.

00:38:48

Take and eat.

00:38:54

Then you can take that next top part off

00:38:57

so we have the juice underneath.

00:39:03

And that it said that Jesus then took the cup.

00:39:07

He says this cup signifies the blood

00:39:10

of the loving covenant I have with you.

00:39:13

And as Jesus has frayed back

00:39:16

on a wooden cross going up and down

00:39:18

with a puddle of blood coming

00:39:22

all the way down to the ground.

00:39:24

He said this is how much I love you.

00:39:27

This is how much you are loved

00:39:30

by a Heavenly Father who saw you

00:39:33

and thought of you a long time ago

00:39:36

and is still doing it today because He loves you.

00:39:40

This isn't my opinion.

00:39:42

This is the Bible's central teaching

00:39:44

we've looked at today because He loves you,

00:39:46

whether you feel it right now or not.

00:39:48

And I hope that you can feel it, He loves you.

00:39:51

It doesn't matter what you did last night

00:39:53

with somebody sexually.

00:39:54

It didn't matter what you didn't do this last week

00:39:57

that you should have done for somebody else.

00:39:59

It doesn't matter the things --

00:40:00

He looks at you where you are right now and says,

00:40:02

"Yeah, I died for that and I love you.

00:40:04

Your actions don't change the way I love you."

00:40:10

The blood of Christ shed for you as love.

00:40:13

Take and drink.

00:40:21

God, we are trusting and asking

00:40:25

that Your love would shower on us.

00:40:28

Actually, I feel and pray that You give us

00:40:30

the blessing of understanding Your love,

00:40:31

because I know Your love has showered on us.

00:40:36

We want to tell you that we love You

00:40:38

and our love doesn't come close

00:40:40

to what Your love is for us,

00:40:41

and we can't come close to even understanding

00:40:44

the breadth, the length, the height,

00:40:47

the depth of Your love.

00:40:48

I can't even explain it.

00:40:50

God, I ask forgiveness for not explaining it well.

00:40:53

I ask forgiveness for my frailty of mind

00:40:54

and my frailty of tongue because it's too great

00:40:58

and too wonderful for me to understand

00:40:59

and even describe.

00:41:02

But we trust that we've at least gotten

00:41:03

a few drops of it in our minds and our hearts today.

00:41:08

We pray these things and we sing these things

00:41:10

in your name, Amen.

00:41:14

– Thanks, Brian.

00:41:15

Whatever I hear a message like that,

00:41:17

I have the same question in my mind to God,

00:41:20

it's just, God, what do you want me to do now?

00:41:23

I've actually got two ways for you

00:41:25

to respond to the message you just heard.

00:41:27

One, you might have heard that message of love

00:41:29

and feel compelled to give.

00:41:31

If that's where you are,

00:41:32

we want to come alongside you and support you

00:41:34

in that because we recognize

00:41:35

that trusting God with your finances is scary.

00:41:38

So we developed a thing called

00:41:40

the Tithe Test to support you in that.

00:41:42

It works like this, you try tithing for 90 days,

00:41:45

and if at the end of those 90 days

00:41:47

you don't experience more of God in your life,

00:41:49

more joy, more peace, things like that,

00:41:52

we'll give you all of your money back.

00:41:54

To sign up for it

00:41:55

you just go to Crossroads.net/tithetest.

00:41:58

A second way to respond might just be

00:42:00

to tell God who He is.

00:42:02

Say, God, Your love is something

00:42:04

I can't find anywhere else.

00:42:06

We're going to do that right now through worship.

00:42:09

We're going to sing a brand new song

00:42:10

that our band just wrote and released

00:42:12

called Unbreakable.

00:42:13

It talks about this incredible truth

00:42:15

that the same spirit who raised Jesus from the dead

00:42:18

can be alive in us.

00:46:25

– Awesome to be with you today.

00:46:26

If you like that song,

00:46:27

you can find it wherever you stream your music.

00:46:30

It's called Unbreakable.

00:46:31

We'll see you next week.

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