How Deep The Father’s Love…
#GettingBetter
In Ephesians 4 we read these powerful alive and active words penned by Paul and breathed by God 2000 years ago…
(stand)
4 When I think of all this
Now Paul has been writing to them about…
• God’s grace
• The spreading of the Gospel
• The purpose of the church to display God’s glory
• The truth that we are God’s masterpiece
• And about how because of Christ we can come boldly into God’s presence…
When I think of all this I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts, living within you as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love;
and may you be able to feel and understand, as all God’s children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high his love really is; and to experience this love for yourselves,
though it is so great that you will never see the end of it or fully know or understand it. And so at last you will be filled up with God himself. – Ephesians 3:14-19
Prayer
WELCOME – to the 5th Sunday of the year 2017…
AND THIS MORNING – we begin our new series, ‘Getting Better, At What Jesus Said Matters Most.’
B/S…
2000 years ago – during the final week before His crucifixion and death, Jesus was asked a question by a religious leader.
“Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” –
Mark 12:28-31; Matthew 22:36-40
We love because he first loved us. – 1 John 4:19
LISTEN, LISTEN… - We love
We love God, our neighbors and ourselves because HE loved first!
UNDERSTAND – the starting line of the journey of Getting Better… begins with the Father’s love.
NOW THERE – are 5 things I want to say about the Father’s love this morning… AND – I want you to know up front that this is by no means an exhaustive list…
BECAUSE… God’s love is huge!
IT’S – so much bigger than our ‘finite’ minds could ever comprehend…
BUT NEVERTHELESS – I’m convinced that the 5 truths that we are going to be talking about today have the potential of making a huge difference in our lives and will help kick start our journey of Getting Better at what Jesus said matters most.
AND LISTEN – when we get better at loving God, our neighbors and ourselves…
We will get better.
Our lives, our inner being will get better.
GET IT?
NOW… - the truths we are going to unpack this morning are not new. IN FACT - you’ve probably heard them before.
BUT LISTEN – here’s the deal…
IF YOU - allow Him to, GOD will make them new and fresh again, and before you know it you find yourself plunging the depths of the Father’s love.
God’s Love…
Is A Love Beyond All Reason
YOU KNOW – I can still remember the days when my each of my kids discovered that 3 letter word that all 2-3 year olds find and all parents dread.
DO – you know what that 3 letter word is?
Why?
I MEAN – I can remember saying such things as…
• You can’t eat the wax candle, why?
• It’s time to go to bed, why?
• Don’t throw the batteries in the water, why?
• Stop jumping off the table, why?
• You can’t have candy for breakfast, why?
• Stop hitting the window with the broom, why?
• You can’t watch that show right now, why?
•
QUESTION…
WHY – do 2 years olds as why all of the time?
I THINK - there are many reasons:
1. because it’s fun to say
2. because they know in that sinister little 2 year old mind that it drives us crazy
3. because they wants to send us to an early grave…
4. AND BECAUSE – they simply don’t get it, it doesn’t add up… BECAUSE - in their mind what we are saying is beyond all reason, it doesn’t make sense, all the dots don’t connect…
YOU KNOW – as I read and reflect on The Father’s Love that I see so vividly displayed on the pages of Scripture. I – find myself going back to that same little 3 letter word that 2 years olds love to say so much… A WORD – that pretty much sums up the entire thing. Why?
I MEAN – the Father’s love…
• It doesn’t add up
• It doesn’t make sense
• It’s not logical
• It’s not reasonable
• None of the dots connect…
WHY…
• Does God act so crazy?
• Does He give so much?
• Does He continue to pursue such a rebellious and prodigal
people?
WHY…
Does GOD choose to welcome, turn to and bless people who constantly turn from Him, reject Him, ignore Him, who so often decide to walk away from Him and live a life that like the prodigal in Luke 15, is intentionally far away from Him?
WHY… does God do all of that, for people who…
• doubt Him
• choose sin over Him
• fear others things more than Him
• break promises to Him
• are so (stained, flawed, fallen, broken and rebellious)
WHY…
B/S - I gotta admit…
THAT – it just doesn’t make sense… it’s beyond all reason.
AND LISTEN – part of the reason why God’s love that is so hard for us to wrap our brains around is because The Father’s Love is unconditional.
AND – the reason we have such a hard time getting our hearts around unconditional love, is because most of us have had more experience with unconditional loves evil twin ‘conditional’ love…
YOU KNOW – a love, that loves only because of what it gets in return. QUESTION – have you ever experienced conditional love? Have you ever loved conditionally? I have…
I MEAN – when I say ‘I love McDonalds fries, I love my car, I love chocolate..’ IT IS – a conditional kind of love…
BECAUSE – if MD fries started tasting like BK fries, if my car broke down and if chocolate suddenly turned into onions… I would no longer love those things…
YOU SEE – I love those things because of what they give me in return… IT’S – a conditional love.
Most of you know that I am a New England Patriot’s fan.
BUT – I am not sure that if they become the worst team in the league if I would continue to stick with them…
Just being honest
AND – sometimes (though I don’t want to admit it) sometimes I love people conditionally… I love them because they:
• act the way I want them to act,
• give me stuff I need or want,
• make me feel happy or good about myself…
• they love me.
YES – we all at times love conditionally…
AND – we all have been loved conditionally…
BUT – the good news is… God’s love is unconditional – it is beyond all reason.
ABOUT – 600 years ago a fiery nun in the 14th century said it about as well as anyone has… as to why the Father does all of this crazy stuff in regards to us.
O eternal, infinite God! O mad lover! And you have need of your creature? Is seems so to me, for you act as if you could not live without her, in spite of the fact that you are life itself. And everything has life from you and nothing can have life without you. Why then are you so mad? Because you have fallen in love with what you have made?... You clothed yourself in our humanity, and nearer than that you could not have come.
- Catherine of Siena
NO – God’s love for us will always be beyond our understanding. IT – will never make complete sense to any of us.
THAT – is exactly why Paul prayed this prayer for the church in Ephesus.
May you be able to feel and understand, as all God’s children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high his love really is; and to experience this love for yourselves, though it is so great that you will never see the end of it or fully know or understand it.
BUT LISTEN – this morning, this moment, could be the day that many in this room will STOP questioning God’s unconditional love and begin to really accept and embrace it.
What in the world would happen if people actually began discovering the actual message of Jesus Christ – that love is unconditional? What would happen if we began to realize that God was not, in fact, waiting for us to earn His love, but that He was passionately pursuing us with His love? What would happen if the word God out that Jesus was offering His love freely and without condition? - Erwin McManus
NEXT…
The Father’s love…
Is A Love That Delights In Us
The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” - Zephaniah 3:17
As man rejoices over his new wife, so the Lord rejoices over you.
- Isaiah 62:5
UNDERSTAND – God does not love you out of obligation or duty. HIS LOVE – for you is not an in spite of kind of love…
YOU KNOW – where He looks at you and discovers that you are kind of smelly, BUT - He decides to hold His nose and love you anyway.
NO B/S – that is not how God loves, you are not a booby prize that God is stuck with for all eternity.
YOU SEE - God doesn’t just love you because he has to…
He loves you because He wants to.
IN FACT - God delights in you.
HE – rejoices over you as a man rejoices over His new wife!
HE – loves you not because of what you do but because of who you are.
AND LISTEN – His love for you, when you begin to plunge it’s depths will as Zephaniah wrote..
he will quiet you with his love
he will rejoice over you with singing.
NOW OF COURSE – that doesn’t mean that God delights in everything you do…
BUT LISTEN – the fact that you exist – is a very good thing in God’s eyes and HIS face lights up whenever you walk into the room…
I love how Lewes Smedes puts it; “it may be a very bad thing that I needed God to die for me, but it is a wonderful thing that God thinks I’m worth dying for.”
“I’m worth dying for”
TELL – the person sitting next to you, “You’re worth dying for”
TELL THEM – “I’m worth dying for?”
IN – the Psalms David speaks of being the apple of God’s eye. NOW – that little phrase ‘apple of your eye’ is pretty cool and it is used several times in Scripture.
IT’S – based on what happens when you look a person in the eye at point-blank range.
WHEN YOU DO THAT – you see an image (a reflection) of yourself in the eyes of the other person. Pretty cool.
B/S WHEN – you look into GOD’S eyes you will see an image of what The Almighty is so fixated on...
YOU – will see an image of you! The apple of God’s eye!
TELL the person to your right and left… “You are…”
TELL the person to your right and left… “ I am…”
DAVID writes…
Show the wonder of your great love… Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings – Ps 17
THE – Father’s love is…
• a love that is beyond reason
• a love that delights in ‘you.’
NEXT
The Father’s love..
Is A Love That Is For Us
UNDERSTAND – when we love someone, it means that we are in their corner, we are on their team.
IT MEANS – that we want to see them realize their FULL potential and become all God made them be.
B/S… (man, this is soooo good)
GOD (The King of Glory, The LORD of all creation) is not just with you…
HE - is for you.
HE – is on your team…
HE – is in your corner.
HE – celebrates you victories and mourns your setbacks.
AND HE – He most definitely regardless of where your life is at the moment… (mountain high or valley low, hopeful/hopeless, faithful/unfaithful, fallen or standing)…
HAS - plans, dreams, thoughts and intentions for your life.
HEY CHECKOUT – the following Scripture. YEAH – you probably have heard them a bunch of times before, BUT… hear them again as the echo’s the depth of the Father’s love for you.
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. – Jer 29:11
For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. – Eph 2:10
MGCC – the Father is FOR you and He has awesome plans for your life. PLANS…
• to prosper you
• to give you a hope and a future
• to create you anew in Christ
• to put your life on display as one of His masterpieces.
• For you to do the good things HE PLANNED for you to do long ago
TELL the person to your right and left – ‘God is for you’
TELL the person to your right and left – ‘God is for me’
Yes God is for us!
AND WHENEVER – I think of God’s love being for me I almost always think of these words that Paul penned in Romans chapter 8.
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? - Romans 8:31,32
YES – God’s love is a ‘for us’ kind of love…
BUT LISTEN – to say that God is for us does not mean that He will always do what we want Him to do.
YOU SEE – being for someone is much deeper than simply wanting people to always have everything they want and never experience any pain.
UNDERSTAND - If I am really for a person, I am willing to risk saying painful things or allowing them to experience pain…
IF – that pain is the only way to bring about real growth.
The Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son." - Hebrews 12:6
AND – I love this passage in Peter from the msg bible.
You call out to God for help and he helps—he's a good Father that way. But don't forget, he's also a responsible Father, and won't let you get by with sloppy living. – 1 Peter 1:17 (Msg)
GOD – is for you…
AND - that is why he won’t let us get by with sloppy living… HE – won’t let us get by with living a life less that who He created us to be…
The Father’s love is…
Is A Love That Pays Attention
PICTURE THIS SCENE - a couple sits at the breakfast table. One spouse (let’s say the husband) is immersed on his iPhone, while the wife is pouring out her heart. Frustrated, she finally complains…
“You’re not listening to me…”
“Hey, I can’t repeat every word you’ve said,”
And he then proceeds to do just that..
QUESTION – Is she satisfied?
NO!
UNDERSTAND – she doesn’t want him to simply replay her words (I’ve done that it doesn’t work) – besides a tape recorder can do that.
INSTEAD - what she wants is for him to be fully present…
She wants him to put down his phone, look her in the eye, and pay attention to her… being heard is not enough… people want your attention.
IN FACT – attention is so valuable that we just don’t give attention, we PAY attention…
UNDERSTAND – attention is one of the most powerful forces in the world. ALONG with food and water – a baby needs the attentive gaze of a human face. A baby lays in the crib and smiles – the faces smile back… and the baby realizes that someone is watching – is responding, that what the baby does counts.
YOU SEE - a child simply cannot survive without attention.
AND – for that matter no one can… We all need attention.
In his book Love Beyond reason John Orteberg has a chapter called, ‘Love Pays Attention….” writes;
One of the great miracles of life is that God pays attention to us. This is partly why the writers of Scripture speak so often of God’s face. This is the hope of the great priestly blessing that God himself taught the people of Israel.
‘The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make his face shine upon you And be gracious to you; The Lord turn his face toward you And give you peace.’ - Numbers 6:24-26
To turn your face toward someone is to give that person your whole-hearted, undivided attention. It is not the casual listening of a preoccupied mind. It is a statement: ‘I have nothing else to do, nowhere else I’d rather be. I’m fully devoted to being with you.’ THIS is the kind of attention God lavishes on us.
It gets better. This blessing says that God will not only turn his face toward us, he will make it ‘shine’ on us. The shining face is an image of delight. It is an image of delight. It is the face of a proud parent beaming while a child plays in her first piano recital.
It is the radiant face of a bride as she walks the aisle to her groom. We can turn our face toward (pay attention to) anyone, with little effort. BUT our faces shine and beam and grow radiant only in the presence of those we love most deeply. And this says the prayer, is how God love us. God pays attention to us.
AND CHECKOUT - what the Bible has to say to us in Psalm 139 verses 1 through 3. “You have looked deep into my heart, Lord, and You know all about me. You know when I am resting or when I am working” -- Would you read this last part with me -- “You notice everything I do and everywhere I go.”
B/S - God pays constant attention to you, He never takes His eyes off of you.
IN FACT - He never stops thinking about you.
HAVE – you ever wondered…
• does anyone care
• does anyone notice
• do I matter
• Is anyone paying attention to me
THE FATHER ANSWERS – I am…
The Father’s Love is…
AND – 5th…
The Father’s Love Is…
Is A Love That Constantly Pursues Us
In Ephesians chapter one; Paul lets us in on a little secret…
THAT GOD - has pursued us from further than space and longer than time.
LISTEN – God has had you in mind since the foundations of this world. He has loved you before the beginning of time…
HEAR – these words from the one who pursues you…
Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had you in mind, had settled on you as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love.
5Long, long ago he decided to adopt you into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) 6He wanted you to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son.
8He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, 9letting you in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ,
10a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.
It's in Christ that you find out who you are and what you are living for. Long before you first heard of Christ and got your hopes up, he had his eye on you, had designs on you for glorious living, 12part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone. - Eph 1:4-7, 9-12
UNDERSTAND – as you flip the pages of the bible from genesis three to the very last page of the Old Testament…
YOU SEE - a lover in a relentless pursuit of the one he loves… YOU SEE - a passionate God in pursuit of a prodigal people.
YOU SEE – a relentless God pursuing those He loves.
UNDERSTAND B/S…
THERE - is a beauty,
THERE - is a value in you that is so deep, so real – that is causes God to pursue you with reckless abandoned…
YES – there is something about you…
THAT CAUSES - God to:
• act like a jealous lover,
• to launch the greatest campaign in the history of the world to get you back
• to send his prophets to tell of this unstoppable pursuit
• to lay siege on both the kingdom of darkness and our own little kingdoms if necessary to bring us home to Him
• to send His son as a sacrifice for our sins so that we could be together.
B/S – I pray I am making sense here. I pray that I am getting across exactly what God wants you to hear this day… UNDERSTAND – you are not a booby prize that God gets stuck with for eternity… NO – you ARE;
• The pursued one
• The sought after one
• The one - worth stepping down for
• The one – worth fighting for
• The one worth dying for…
AND – His pursuit of you, and love for is like the waves of the sea… they just keep coming and coming and coming…
Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion. – Brennan Manning
(Abba’s Child, The Cry Of The Heart For Intimate Belonging)
LISTEN – I am totally convinced that before we can ‘really’ love God, others and ourselves – we must begin to plunge the depths of the Father’s love for us.
UNDERSTAND – Paul’s prayer for the church in Ephesus is my prayer for us, for you, for me, for MGCC…
May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love; and may you be able to feel and understand as all God's children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high his love really is; and to experience this love for yourselves.
- Ephesians 3:14-17
Circle the words, feel, understand & experience.
QUESTION - why is it important to feel loved by God?
BECAUSE – it is hard to give love when we have not received love.
THAT IS WHY – the starting line for Getting Better at what Jesus said matters most is to experience God’s love ourselves.
IN – one of his books Lucado writes…
We preachers have been guilty of skipping the first step. “Love each other!” we tell our churches. “be patient, kind, forgiving,” we urge. But instructing people to love without telling them they are loved is like telling them to write a check without making a deposit in their accounts. No wonder so many relationships are overdrawn. No wonder so many hearts have insufficient love.
B/S – I do not want to do that.
UNDERSTAND – the last thing I want this series to become is another burden for you.
AND LISTEN – if I were to tell you how you must get better at loving God and loving others without making a deposit into your account, that is exactly what it would become, a burden.
THAT – is why it is so important for me to make some deposits
into our accounts first.
THAT – is why I am beginning this conversation of Getting Better at what Jesus said matters most by…
#1 – inviting all of us to really dive in and begin to plunge the depths of God’s love for us.
To as Brennan wrote, to invite all of us to…
Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion. – Brennan Manning
MGCC – who are you… “God’s Beloved”
We love, because he first loved us… – 1 John 4:19
AGAIN – the starting part for Getting Better at what Jesus said matters most is for… your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love..” Eph 3:17
UNDERSTAND – just as a tree draws nutrients from the soil, we draw nourishment from the Father love.
BUT – what happens if a tree has no contact with the soil….
NOW – we see an illustration of this every year, around New Years Day… YOU SEE – some where around the first of the year, families go over to their Christmas tree and they take off the ornaments & lights carry the tree outside.
QUESTION – where do a lot of the needles on the tree wind up as you drag it out of the house? All over the place… WHY? BECAUSE – 4 weeks rooted in a metal bowl rather then soil had a pretty bad effect on the tree – it became brittle, fragile and easy to fall apart… .
QUESTION…
Are you finding it hard to love God, others and yourself?
Has your love become brittle, fragile and easy to fall apart…? Do you ever get frustrated at your inability to love well?
Did you think when I first told you about this series, ‘great here comes something else I will never measure up to?
UNDERSTAND – the answer to Getting Better is not to try harder but to dive deeper into the soil of God’s marvelous love.
Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion. – Brennan Manning
B/S – the Father loves you, more than you could ever imagine.
Right now, where you are, who you are – at this very moment.
YES – you are loved powerfully, personally and practically by the Creator of the Universe.
Crazy, yes.
But sooo true.
GOD loves you!
You know this week in our FCFH we read John 18,19…
Chapters I have read hundreds of times before.
I posted this on my Facebook wall on Wednesday…
Totally blow away (to the point of tears) by what Jesus 'endured' and what the Father 'allowed' because they both love me! You know... It must be pretty insulting to them when I doubt that love!
#gettingbetter #atwhatjesussaysmattersmost
