Audio Transcript:

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Let's jump right into our text. 1 John 4:7-12. It is short. It is sweet. It is powerful. God's word says, "Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent His only son into the world so that we might live through Him. And this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loves us and sent His son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love on another. No one has seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us." This is the reading of God's holy and authoritative and fallible word. May he write these eternal truths on our hearts.

I said it's about Christmas. I want to make sure you understand it's about Christmas. Not just because I said it because that's what this text is about. The main crux of this text is verse nine, where it says in this the love of God was made manifest among us. That God sent His only son into the world. So, God sending Jesus into the world is His way of manifesting His love to us. We need to understand what the word manifests mean. If you're like me, I picture a magical movie like Harry Potter or something where they just conjure something out of nothing and they manifested it. That's what I think of. That's not what scripture talks about when it talks about manifesting. When scripture talks about manifesting, it's talking about something that has always been there, but you didn't know it was there.

And now you know it's there. Where do I get this from? A couple verses real quickly. Mark 4:22. It says for nothing is hidden except to be made manifest, nor is anything secret except to come to light. So again, it's always been there but it's hidden, but it's hidden for the purpose of being revealed, of being manifest, of coming to light. Another example is 1 Peter 1:20. He being Jesus was for known before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for your sake, for the sake of you. So what it's saying is Jesus is eternal. Jesus has always been, but we haven't always seen Jesus. But He was sent into the world to be manifest, to be made known for our sake to benefit us in some way. And it was at God's timing that he did this and this is Christmas.

It is the moment when Jesus was made manifest to us. It is the moment when Jesus came into the world and made himself known to us. But, the purpose that Jesus was manifested for was so that God can manifest His love to us. So, this is about Christmas and I want us to know when we think of Christmas, we need to be thinking how is God manifesting? How is God showing us His love, a love that has always been there, a love that is eternal, but maybe we don't always see it. Maybe we don't always know it's there.

So if you take anything away from the sermon, I want you to take away that God's love is eternal. And even when you don't see it, it's there. And to make this one point, we'll have three points. So I said remember one thing ... remember three things of that one thing. But the first point we have is you are beloved. The second point we have is now love the beloved, and our third point is we need to un-warp our view of love. So point number one, you are beloved. Twice in this text, John says beloved and five times in the epistle of 1 John, he says beloved. He calls the church beloved, and in verses seven and eight and in our whole text, what I want to make clear is that the word for beloved and for love is the same, and word is agape. Now, maybe many of you have heard that there are different words in Greek for love.

If you haven't, there are four different words in Greek to explain love. One of them is agape. The others are phileo, which it's called brotherly love. That's where we get Philadelphia from, city of brotherly love, but it's not just brothers. It's not actually about siblings. It's about comradery, friendship. This is companion love. Then, there's eros, which is romantic love. This is what we think of in rom-coms and movies and things like that, this feeling, this emotion, romantic love. Then there's storge, which is familial love. So this is actual brotherly love between siblings or parental love between a father and a child or children to their parents.

And it's very important that we understand the difference because God does not say He is phileo. He does not say He is eros. He does not say He is storge. He says He is agape. So, what's the difference. Oftentimes I've heard agape defined as servant hearted love, as a love that is self sacrificial. It is serving others. That is true. That is a huge understatement of the importance of agape love. What it says in our text in verse eight is that God is agape, that He is love and that to know agape, we need to know God. And so, what it's saying is God's love is different than every type of love.

So we have to ask what is it that makes God different from us? If His love is different than our love, what makes Him different? And the word that summarizes all of the things between the difference of God and us as the word transcendent. Big word. Really what the word transcendent means is that God is the absolute greatest. The greatest there ever could be. There are no improvements that can be made, and not only is He the best, He is better than anything you can ever imagine. You can say, "This is the best I've experienced, but I can imagine something better," and God's still better than that.

And that's His type of love. God's type of love is the best. It is the purest. It is truest form of love you can ever experience, and it's even better than you can ever know. Even once you do experience it, it's still even greater. That's why I prayed Ephesians and why I pray it for me and for all of us, because it says that we will be filled with the fullness of God. I want us to know that there is a fullness of God and I want us to be filled with His love and that we can know there's still more even when we're full. But, because it is the same word for beloved and for God's love, He's telling us this is the type of love I have for you. It's not about you because it's about God. It's God's love. It's agape love. So when John says beloved, he's not saying, "Guys, I love you."

He does love them. When I come up here and I say, "I love you," I do love you. That's not what John is saying. He's saying, "God loves you. You are loved by God with the greatest type of love that there could ever be." That's your identity. This is who you are, and it's really important that we understand this as an identity thing because it helps us when times when we doubt it. If you're here today and you're not a Christian, maybe a friend invited you, family invited you, you just walked in, whatever it might be, I want you to know God is constantly pouring out His love, His agape, the greatest, the truest form of love you could ever experience. He is pouring it out on you now, and He wants you to know it. He wants you to see it. He wants you to know it's from Him, that He loves you.

He cares for you in an everlasting eternal transcendent type of way. And, if you're here today and you're a Christian and maybe you're doubting, maybe you're questioning. Maybe you're going through a hard time and it's causing you to doubt God. I want you to know your identity is still the beloved. I get this from our text where it says that God loved us, even when we didn't love him. But I also get it from the context. John is writing to a church. We don't know exactly which church, but it's likely the church in Ephesus because John doesn't have an introduction. He doesn't say, "Hi guys, I'm John. These are my credential." So the church knows him. They know who he is. And he writes it in a way that he loves them. It's clear that he loves them in his writing, so it's a church that's very familiar with him.

And John lived most of his life during his ministry in Ephesus, so it's likely the church in Ephesus. But, whatever church it is, there's a specific issue going on in this church that he wants to address. And we get this in chapter four, right before our text, in verses one through three where it says beloved. Again, he calls them beloved. It's really important. Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this, you know the spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And, every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. The specific false teaching that this church he is writing to is dealing with, so they don't know that Jesus actually came in the flesh.

They're like, "Jesus would have done this for us. It's something He was willing to do. He could have done." It's an expression. It's a phrase that will teach us the type of love that God has, but it's not literal. And what John is saying is if you do not know Christmas as a reality, if you do not know that Jesus came in the flesh as a reality, you're going to question love. You're going to have a hard time with the foundation of love. But remember, John is writing to those people. He is writing to people that are questioning. He is writing to people that are doubting. He is writing to people that are having a hard time, and he still says, "Beloved, if you are doubting, if you are questioning, you have a hard time, you are still God's beloved. That doesn't change it."

This is your identity because it doesn't have to do with you, because it's about the God who has given it and said this is who you are. You are His beloved. I want you guys to know this. I don't just want you, I need you guys to know this. I need to know this for myself. We need to know that God loves us, and once we understand that, we understand that we need to love the beloved. The beloved is Jesus. It's God. In scripture, God, the father calls Jesus and he says this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. If we want to understand what it means for us to be beloved, we need to understand God, the father's love for Jesus Christ.

But the natural response to someone loving us in this way is to love them back. This is in verse 10. It says, "And, this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loves us and sent His son to be the propitiation for our sins." So even when we don't love God, even when we're passively not loving God and even when we're actively rejecting and not loving God, it says He still loved us. And that's great. That's good. But I want to know ... if you're like me, I want to know how does God love us in those times? What does it look like for God to love me when I'm rejecting Him? And the only text ... not the only text. The main text that speaks this to me is the book of Hosea. The whole book.

This is a little weird. Allie, my wife, wasn't in the first service so I could talk about her and she wasn't here. Now I have to look at her as I say this, but she hates when I bring this example up. She's grown on it, but she hates when I bring it up because it's a text about marriage. And so, she wants to make sure I'm not thinking about our marriage in this way, and I don't. But anyway, if you don't know the book of Hosea, it's an intense one. It's a different one than you might say most of scripture is, but if you know all of scripture than you know it's all the exact same anyway. But, the book of Hosea is about God going to a prophet named Hosea and saying, "You need to marry a woman." It's like, "Oh praise God, that's great."

He says, "It's not just any woman. A very specific woman." I'm pausing, because I'm looking around. In the first service, there were kids, so I didn't say the word. I don't see any kids. If there are, forgive me. He says, "You need to get yourself a wife of whoredom." Oh my God, why in the world would you say that? God, you use that word in scripture. Why would you tell someone to do that? And he says, "Because you need to understand, this is what it's the like when I love you." He says, "All of God's people are Gomer ..." is her name. And God wants Hosea to know what God feels when he loves us even when we reject Him, even when we don't love Him. And so in the text, Hosea marries Gomer. They have kids, and the whole time, she's cheating on him and going and running away and spending time ... We aren't told how long, but time that they're providing housing and food and clothing for her.

So, it's an extended period that she is with other men. And God says, "Here's how I deal with Israel, and here's how I want you to deal with her. Here's how I deal with my people." It says God gets angry at her. God gets mad that she is cheating on him. Then it says that He gets furious at the people she is cheating on him with, and so how does God love in that anger when we have rejected Him? This is Hosea 2:14-15. Therefore behold, God speaking says, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her, and there I will give her her vineyards and make the valley of Achor adore of hope. And there, she shall answer as in the days of her youth as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. Huh.

It's not what I expected. It's not the response I get when people are mad at me. It's not the response I give when I'm mad at people. Why does God love this way even when we reject him? I love it. It says He is going to allure her. He's talking about ... the her is Israel, it's His people. Eh wants to show us that he is worthy. He's like, "Come, let me love you. Come let me show that I am worthy, that I love you, I care for you." In the text it says that Israel, all the people are going after other people and things for satisfaction, for identity and for provision. It says that they're going to other people because they want love. The reason why Gomer is running after other people is she wants her identity of love in people.

She's going there and she's getting food and clothing and housing, and she's thinking it's these people who are giving it to her, and God says she doesn't know the whole time it's been me. She doesn't know that ... we don't know ... that God is the one who is always providing for us. When we have food, when we have clothes, when we have housing, when we have love, when we have care, God is providing it to you. He wants you to see it's from Him. And that's what it's doing here. This text might scare us a little bit because we live in a city and it says bring her out to the wilderness. We're like, "God, what are you going to do? That's terrifying." But, what it's saying is God is taking her out of the place where all the temptations are, where the life that she has always lived is where we have always been in the root ... our normal day. And, sometimes we need to get out of our routine to see God and to be with God.

This is why sometimes you do need to take a vacation. This is why sometimes you do need to just go out into nature and be alone with God. Because sometimes we just need a change of pace. We need a change of scenery to say, "God, I'm getting out of this every day. I'm getting out of the temptation. I'm getting out of all the things that are vying for my love and I just want to be with you, be in your presence." What does God do for His people when they are in his presence?

Here's my vineyards. Here's a whole valley. What does that mean. He's saying, "I provided everything for you. Here's the vineyard from which I provided all your food. And not only that, look, it's a whole valley. It's beautiful. It's majestic. It's glorious. Here's everything that I've been using to bless you with, to provide for you, to give to you to show you that I love you." And, it's only a door to hope. It's not the whole thing. It's just the doorway. You're cracking the door open and you're getting a glimpse into the riches of which God wants to bless us.

Please, I beg of you, know that God loves you fervently, gloriously, mightily, with all that He has. He's giving it to you and He is showing that He is worthy of us to love him back. It says that the response for His people for Israel when God does this is that she will answer in the days of her youth as of the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. What is this talking about? It's specifically talking about the exodus and we just have been going through exodus with the teens downstairs, and what is the response of the Israelites as soon as they get out of Egypt? This was last Sunday, not this Sunday because I'm seeing the teen's leaders here being like, "We know what we talked about today but what we talked about last week."

They sang an impromptu song. Moses just starts singing and Miriam's like, "That's great, Moses, but you need tambourines and dancing as well." And, they're just joyous and they're celebrating and praising God's salvation. I think of it as wedding day love. The type of love where you're passionate. You remember the first time you felt love and you're like, "This is incredible."

In my newsletter that I sent out this week ... If you didn't get it, I can send it to you ... I gave a little study guide, and at the end of the study guide, I gave a list of songs that God has been speaking to me through and that have been an encouragement to me to know God's love. In there, half of them are worship songs and half of them are not. I feel like I need to explain that a little bit because whenever someone who is preaching sends non-Christian songs, I feel like people are like, "What in the world is going on? What's happening here?" So, I want to explain it.

One of the songs in there that I put was This Will Be, or Everlasting Love, sung by Natalie Cole. I love this song because one, it's an everlasting type of love. Only God knows an everlasting love. I see a bunch of you singing it in your head. Praise God. But why I put that song in this list is because the whole beginning of the song is her singing about a guy saying you have loved me in an incredible way. You have cared for me, you have provided for me. This is the best feeling I've ever had. I've never known anything like this. And then, before she gets to the end of the song where she just repeats love over and over and over and over, before she gets there, the transition is she says, "I'm going to love you because you deserve it."

God wants us to know He deserves our love back. He has proven that He is worthy of our love. That's why I start with saying you are beloved, because I want you to know God loves you because He is trying to prove to you that He is worthy of your love back. And apart from knowing the love of God, that is the greatest joy we can ever have. The second one is having love reciprocated. I bring this up ... again, I say love is a very personal topic so I'm going to be very personal. I'm going to tell a lot of stories about my wife and I, and when I think about this idea, I think about our relationship.

We started dating September 28, 2016. I said that confidentially first service. She's nodding yes so I'm good. But before then, we were just friends and I had drove her home one day after church and I said, "Hey, I would love to take you out on a date." Her response shows you a lot about our relationship and why I married her was, "I need to pray about it." I was like, "You know what? That's great. I've been praying about this for months whether to ask you or not, and it's not fair of me to require that in this snap second decision, you have to answer yes or now, so you take the time you need to pray about it."

In my head, what I was trying to communicate was that when I was praying about it, before asking her, was that God gave me peace about asking her, gave me peace about saying if she says no, that's okay. I've got God. We're going to be good. If she says yes, it's okay, but don't be overwhelmingly excited because I still go God. That's all I need so I'm good. If we start dating and we break up, it's going to be okay. We both serve at teens, so the things going through our heads were what if we break up? Does one of us have to step down from teens? It would have to be me. She's much better at it than I am. So, I would have to step down so what is this going to look like?

We decided ... Well, I decided in my conversation with God that if we broke up, it'd be okay. We could be a good example of what a breakup looks like to the teens, and God knows we need that. We need good examples of that. But praise God that didn't happen with us. And then, the last one was if we go one and get married, then it'll be great. We can show the teens what God's love is like through that, so praise God. That's what I was thinking in my head and trying to communicate to her when I said it's okay, take your time to pray about it.

What I literally said was, "It's okay. I've prayed about it and God told me it's all going to work out." I can tell by your laughter you understand that that, to her, said we're going to get married. That's what she thought I said before we ever went on a first date. And, that's not what I meant at all. Women, if you have ever been in a relationship where a guy has done something similar to you, have grace on them. I am so sorry. Forgive them. We are just dumb. There's no other word to describe it. We're just dumb. So forgive them, please. Please.

And then, a month later ... It's insane to me that it was only one month later looking back at it and doing some reflection. It shows how insane of a human being I am. A month later I was praying about whether or not I loved her. To say, should I tell her I love her? We've only been dating for a month. We had known each other for a long time. I was praying and I was trying to know is this just an emotion? Is this just a feeling? Is this just affection or do I actually love her? I said in my mind, praying to God, I said, "Do I want to be with her no matter what? That's the question I need the answer to," because if I want to be with her no matter what, then we're good. We've only been dating for a month so there's a whole lot I still didn't know about her, and so how can I answer that question if I don't know so much about her?

My thought was if I assume the absolute worst about her in everything I don't know, would I still want to be with her? She hates when I say that, too, but it's true and praise God, it's been great. It's been fantastic. It's not been bad at all, but I wanted to be prepared if I found out the absolute worst about everything, would I still want to be with her? And that day I decided yes. Yes, I do. It doesn't matter what I find out. I want to be with her. I love her. So we had a date. I drove her home from that date. We get out of my car and I say, "Hey, I just want you to know, I love you."

And being the gracious gentleman that I am, I said to her, "Please, I beg of you do not say it back to me. I don't want you to say it. I want you to take your time, pray about it. Think about it, see if you actually do, and whenever you feel like it, then you can say it." I did give a full 30 to 45 second pause in between saying that just to see if she would be like, "I love you too," and she didn't so I was like, "All right, I guess I got to say it."

No, but that was the end of October. We were dating for only a month. And I told her I loved her. Two months later, praise God it was only that long, Christmas ... We were celebrating Christmas. She was going to be with her family. I was going to be with my family, so we were going to have our first extended period apart. And so, we exchanged gifts and cards and she hand wrote her card. She always hand wrote her cards and drew a little picture on the front, and I still have all of them. And I'm reading the card, and at the end of the card, it says, "I love you, Ally." Aw, not quite yet.

I smiled and I turned to her and I just looked at her. She's like, "Hey, did you see what it said?" Literally poking me, I think. I don't know. Like, "Did you read it? Did you see what it said?" And I said, "I saw what it said. I want to hear you say it. You could write things down, but if you say it, I'll know you mean it." And, and she said it and we were great. I was filled with joy. There was so much joy in my heart. Our date was done. She went inside. We said goodbye, and I drove home. At that time, I lived in hour away and I just blasted love songs. And, I was singing them at the top of my lungs. Everlasting Love was one of them. I was prophesying over our relationship. It's going to be an everlasting love.

No, I wasn't prophesying. But anyway, I was singing joyfully and I could tell you, I have not experienced that joy apart from the love of God. Because when someone loves you back, when for two months, I've been like, "I love you. I'm trying to show you that I'm worthy of you loving me back. I want you to know that this is real. This is not fake. I love you." And, she loved me back. Oh man, that's joy. That's what joy is.

How much more immensely, infinitely so when we return the love of God that has been from the beginning, that is an eternal love. It is literally an everlasting love. I said this in the first service, I used the word literally a lot because I'm trying to teach us what that word actually means. It means it's real. It's practical. We're not just using it lightly, but God's love has always been when we return it to Him, oh, the joy in His heart and oh the joy in our hearts. Amen. I want you to love the beloved, which is why you need to know that He loves you. You need to know you are beloved and then you can love Him back. And sometimes, we don't feel like it. Sometimes we forget. This is why another song I put in that list is September by Earth, Wind and Fire.

Great song, great song. I've been convinced that it is a Christmas song. You cannot change my mind. It is. I'm going to read some of the lyrics for you and listen. It starts off do you remember the 21st night of September? Love was changing the mind of pretenders. I love this song because I can sing it to God and I can sing it to my wife, because we started dating on the 28th of September. So instead of do you remember, I say, (singing)? Yeah, I'm pointing at her and she hates it and she's so embarrassed right now. And I sang in first service too, because that's what I do when I love someone. But anyway, I could sing this to God. And what it's saying is do you remember the first time you felt loved? Do you remember the first time you felt loved by God?

Last week, Pastor Shane said we needed to write down times we have seen God's faithfulness in our life so that when we are in despair, when we are doubting, we can look to them and remember and be hopeful for the future because of the faithfulness of God in our past. We need to do the same with His love. I don't always write things down, but I have them cataloged in my head. And I remember times in my life when God has expressed love on me. Do we remember the times when God has loved us? When He has had compassion on us, when He has comforted us? Remember them. Do you remember the first time? The second verse says, "Remember how we knew love was here to stay. Now December ..." This is why it's a Christmas song. It says December. I didn't make it up. Found the love we shared in September, only blue talk and love ... I don't know what that line means.

Remember. True love we share today. What it's saying is they were in love September, now it's December, they've forgotten about it, but they need to remind themselves. It says, "Remember the love in September." Remember the love of God that you had at first, and remember it here in December. Remember it at Christmas because Christmas is when God is manifesting His love to us, but also always remember it. Whenever you doubt and question, remember God's love. And it says that in December they found the love we shared in September. So in Christmas, in this month of December, rediscover the love you had for God at first. I want us all to do this. I need to do this. We all need to do this. Let's rediscover the love we had for God when we first knew He loved us. And then it says, "Remember, true love we share today."

And that line is basically saying we have to remember the true love we had at the beginning. We need to remind ourselves of it when we forget it, because that love is still as true today as it ever was then. So as you remind yourself of the love that you had for God at the first and He had for you at the first, remind yourself, rediscover that love and remind yourself it is true today. It is just as true. Why? Because God calls you beloved. It's your identity. It has nothing to do with you. It's about Him. And so, He is never changing, His love for you will not change, and so you are still beloved today. His love for you has not changed.

And once we start loving the beloved, when we start loving God back, we are now able to un-warp our view of love. This is from verse 12 where it says no one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us. It says when God starts abiding in us, He's going to perfect love in us. Why does it need to be perfected? Because we all inherently have an understanding of what love is. You can ask anybody. They'll tell you what love is to them, but it's saying we all have a very messed up view of what love is and we need God to change it.

We need God to perfect it in us so that we can see what true love is because He is the source of true love. So what I did is I wrote down 10 ways where we warp God's love, where we warp love in general, and we're just going to go through them. So the first way we warp love is that love is sexualized. Love is about pleasure. It's about sex. My only note for this point is cut it out. If at any point in my sermon that has happened so far, that will happen in the future, you have thought about sex when I've been talking about love, cut it out. It's a clear sign that you are sexualizing love.

I told you this is a very personal sermon. My wife told me I was allowed to say anything I wanted to about her, which is a dangerous thing. And the day after she told me that, I was like, "Are you still sure I can do that?" And she said, Yes." She's trying to work on being open with things in her past, and one of the things in her past that has warped her view of love is that there has been sexual abuse in her past.
Oh, it makes me angry. I'm crying right now. I cried first service at this point too, but I'm crying even more because I'm looking at her as I'm saying this, but it makes me angry because it has nothing to do with her, but it has to do with people who have had a warped sexualized view of love and this warping of love does harm, does real, real damage.

And I don't want anybody to experience that. And so, if this is part of your struggle, there's grace but cut it out. It's going to hurt people. And, if you have been hurt by a warped sexualized view of love, I want to tell you it doesn't change God's love for you. God still loves you. You are His beloved and nothing will ever change that. Do not let what has happened to you warp your view of God's love for you. You are His beloved. I need you to know it.

With that being said, the next way we warp love is we emotionalize it. And by this, I just mean that we make love just an emotion. Clearly, love is an emotion. There is an emotional aspect to love. I love my wife. I have an emotional response. I love God. I have an emotional response. I sing and I praise it into worship. I have tissues in my pocket because every single time I've preached this in practice, I've cried besides once when I just didn't tell the stories so that way I didn't cry. But every time I've told the stories, I've cried because love is an emotion. There is an emotion to it, but it's not just that. What happens when there's not an emotion anymore? What happens when we're really being Gomer to God and we're not stirring up an emotion of love, but we're stirring up an emotion of wrath in Him?

He doesn't stop loving us. He still loves us. He still calls us beloved. Love is not just an emotion. It's a decision sometimes, and agape love is a decision. God said, "I have committed to loving you before the foundation of the world." I knew I loved my wife when I said I commit to loving you. That commitment is just as true today as it was back then, and God's commitment to loving us is just as true today as it always has been for eternity. So, don't make love just an emotion. Know that it's real. It's tangible. It's something God has chosen to pour out on you no matter what.

The next way we warp love is that we make it self-centered saying this is how I feel loved. Where is that in this text? Nowhere. It's not there. What it says is God is love. Love is the identity of who God is. Love is God-centered. It is centered around Him. If you want to know what love is, what true agape love that will surpass every other type of love, just go to God. If you want to know today, I beg of you, cry out to God, pray to Him, ask Him to reveal this love to you because it's better than anything else you'll ever experience. It's true. And when God loves us, He pours out so much of His love that we just overflow and that love falls and pours out on other people. So even in this text where it says love one another three times ... It bookends the text. You need to love people. You got to. It's just in there. You have to.
But even then, it's not about you. It's about God. It's not about them. It's about God. Because God is the source of the truest purest love, and He is pouring it out on us that we are overflowed that we want to share that type of love with other people. We need people to see it. We need people to know it because it's all about God.

The next way we warp love is we make it self-realized saying I know what love is by the way I love myself. In the ways I feel love, that's what I can identify love as. No. Love is God realized. It says if you do not know God, you do not love right. It's messed up, so we need to have a God realized love where we go to Him, ask Him, "Make us realize your love." I'm saying a lot of things over and over and over again because they're really important. We need to go to God if we want to know true love. Nothing I say up here is going to convince you if we don't go to God. The reason why I'm up here trying to convince you is because I've experienced the love of God, so I want you to know it.

The next way we warp the view of love is we make it self-validating. We say, "All I need is to love myself and then I can carry on. What I need to make it through this life is to love myself and to care for myself, and if I got myself, I'm good. I can carry on."

No. Revisit, re-listen to the whole point one. You are beloved. God is validating you. He is telling you, you are valued. You are cared for. He loves you. And, it's still not about you. It's about the greatness of His love. He does love you. You need to know it's about you in that sense that God loves you, but God wants to value you. He wants to validate you. He wants you to know you are worthy because He says you are, not because of anything else.

The next way we warp love is we say that it is earned. And this one, I think we all deal with but if I can be so bold, I will say I think this is one that particularly our sisters in the church deal with and struggle with. And I say that because this is one I know my wife deals with and struggles with because of the hurt that has happened in her past. There are times she doesn't feel like she has earned love, she has been deserving of love. And, God's love is not earned and it's an identity. God doesn't say you need to do X, Y, and Z before I will love you. He says you are my beloved. That's who you are. If you have a list of things where you say I need to change this, that and the other before God can love me or before any other person will love me, no. It's not earned.

God is freely giving it to you. Accept it. Know it to be true, know it as a reality. You're never going to earn it. None of us are worthy of it. It is grace alone that God gives it to us, but God doesn't want us to try and earn it either. He doesn't want us to be like, "Okay, God, I know it's a free gift, but let me work at it so that I can feel validated." No, God says it's free. Don't earn it. Just take it. It's a free gift. Accept it. But, there's a flip side to how we warp love by making it earned and that's saying, "I'm not going to love anybody until they've earned it."

We need to stop withholding love. We do. God didn't withhold love from us, so we cannot withhold love from each other. I see this in our world all the time, everywhere around us, and unfortunately I have seen it in our church as well. And so, dear Christian, stop withholding love from other people in this room. Stop withholding love from brothers and sisters in Christ. In your community groups, stop withholding love. Stop saying, "I'm not going to be vulnerable. I'm not going to be honest and loving of people until they've earned my trust." You need to start it, earn their trust. Be vulnerable, love them, care for them. In whatever ministries you serve in, love them. Love the people you are serving. Love the people you are serving with. Do not withhold love.

And I said this first service, and I want to be clear, the pastors didn't know I was going to say this and they didn't make me say it. Stop withholding love from your pastors. Stop saying, "I need my pastors to preach like this before I will love them." Stop saying, "I need these programs at our church before I will love them." Stop saying, "When we do this or that or whatever, or when I feel loved and they meet what I want in a church this way, then I'll love them." Stop it. They are beloved by God and you cannot do anything about it.

Sorry. So, stop withholding love from them. Stop withholding love from each other. It says, "Love one another," and the one another is talking about Christians. So we need to stop withholding love from one another, but it also says nobody, Christian or not, will understand who God is until they have seen love. So stop withholding love from your friends and families, even if they're not Christians, because if you want them to know who God is, if you want them to know what true love is, you've got to love them first.

And a few weeks ago, Pastor Yan in his sermon gave us homework. Full disclosure, I didn't do it. Well, technically now I did because I did it first service but I'm going to do it again later in this service. But, the homework that he gave us was to write out ways that we can defeat arguments that we see in people's lives against God. Whatever arguments there are to be against God, we should be ready to answer those questions. It's absolutely true. It's in scripture. It's just fact. But, I can tell you no one's going to listen to a word you have to say if you don't love them.

So amend, adapt your homework and make sure it starts by saying, "I am committing to loving them. I am making that decision now to love them. So that way they can get a glimpse of what the God love, the agape love, looks like. And then, maybe they'll listen. Maybe I will have earned their trust and proven I am worthy to be listened to."

The next way we warp love is we say it's unattainable. Sometimes this is because we feel like we haven't earned it, but I feel like a lot of times it's because we feel like I haven't experienced it yet. I haven't felt true love from my friends, from my family, from my church, from anyone else that I know. And if that's you today, oh, I want you to know you are loved. Love is not unattainable. It's the easiest thing to attain because God is already pouring it out on you. I'm going to keep saying it. It's already there. Just let your eyes be open to it. Just receive it, go to Him. If you want to attain true love, cry out to God, pray you to Him for it. He wants to give it to you.

And, I want you to know people are going to let you down. If you're hoping for fulfillment and love in people, you're going to be disappointed. And I can say that because I know it from experience. I think we all do. I've shared some of my story many times when I've been here and I'm going to continue to share it, because it's important and love is very personal. But for me, I was very depressed in middle school. That's why I work with teenagers because I know it can be hard. But I was very depressed in middle school to the point of being suicidal. I wanted to take my own life.

And what I needed to learn in that time was I needed to stop putting my hope in my friends because why I became depressed and suicidal was I was looking for love from my friends. I went to church. I've heard about God's love all the time. Great. I have parents who love me and care ... I knew they loved me. I wasn't looking to them for love. To my parents, I'm sorry. I was looking for love in my friends and they abandoned me. And when your hope is in friends and you no longer have friends to hope in, you're never going to have hope for love. It just makes sense. And so, I thought love was unattainable because the source in my hope was gone, and it wasn't until I was able to recognize I needed to stop that and put my source of hope for love in God that I could ever change. And, I'm going to get into how that change happened in a little bit.

The next way that we warp love is we say it's conceptualized. We make it conceptualized. That love is an idea. It's something we just want to spread across everybody. We just want everybody to have a concept of love. This one also makes me angry. This one makes me very angry because this is what I had done my whole life, and I see the damage it did to me and I don't want that for anybody else. I said I was depressed and suicidal in middle school, and what got me out of there is God sent a friend, a guy named Rich. And Rich came to me one day and he was like, "We should be friends." That was the exact day I had a plan to take my life. And I said to him, "You want to be friends? We don't got a long time." And he said, "Well, why is that?" And so I told him about my plan and he said, "No, no, it's okay. We're going to be friends. We're going to be friends."

And that was all I needed to hear in that moment. That was all that I needed to hear to keep me going, to continue on, to be alive. But my hope for love was still in him, still in someone, not in God. And for three years after that, I still battled with suicidal thoughts. I still battled with depression. And one night we were having a sleepover, we were hanging out having a good time and I was thinking, "I'm having a good time here, but I'm so depressed all the other times." And so, I cried out to God. I prayed to him and I said, "God, why would you let me feel this way? Why would you let this happen to me? I've gone to church my whole life. I've started a Bible study in a public school. I started a Bible study where we convict each other of sin with the high school guys in my school. I'm serving you. Why would you let me feel this way?"

And God said, "I need you to understand something." He said as clear as day, I'll never forget it. He said, "I am the one who sent Rich to save you. I am the one who sent him." He's like, "And in the real tangible way you experienced being saved from death, even more so I saved you when I sent my son, Jesus Christ to die for you." We need to stop conceptualizing the love and the death of Christ. It is real. It is tangible. That is the issue John is writing about here. It's not a new one. It's an old one. But when we don't believe Christmas is real, when we don't believe Jesus literally came, when we don't believe He literally physically died, it's going to warp our view of love. This is a very hard year for me. This past year, I have lost four people that were really close to me and I have been to four funerals this past year.

And that was very hard because it was unexpected, but also it had been six years since I'd been to a funeral. So, it was different. I've changed a lot in six years and it affected me differently. And when I was at those funerals, I was asking myself a question, why do I take death so seriously with my friends and family, but I don't do it with Christ? As I'm there at these funerals, I'm crying, I'm praying, I'm sad because I knew them, because I loved them, because they had an impact on my life and to lose them leaves a void. You feel it. But I know God, I know Jesus. He has had an impact on my life. He has affected me in a greater way than any person ever could. Why am I not broken up that my sin caused him to have to die for me, and by God's grace and God's power alone, Jesus didn't stay there. He has risen from the grave. He has defeated sin and death. Praise God for it.

And as I'm standing there at these funerals, I'm wondering and I'm thinking, man, there were people that stood over Jesus like this. There were people that were there, felt the same emotion I'm feeling now, and it was real to them. I need to make Jesus' death real. We all need to know Jesus' death and sacrifices, greatest act of love for us is real. It's practical.

And for some reason at funerals in particular, we conceptualize love the most because we're afraid to say what it really is. And this is the part where I do the homework that I didn't do for Yan. I was at my Uncle Tommy's funeral, very unexpected that he died, and at the funeral they said, "No, he's still here. You can just reach out and feel his presence. He loves you." Oh, that made me angry. At my Aunt Carol's funeral ... She had had cancer. Her immune system was done and then she got COVID and she passed away not too long ago. At her funeral, they said, "I don't know Carol," because of course, he don't, "But from the stories you have told us, it's clear that she was kind to people and she loved people. So because of this kindness, I am certain that she is in Heaven today. So, if you want to see her again, you need to be kind to people. You need to love people."

Oh, that made me angry. It took everything in me not to get up there and punch that priest in the face and say, "No, this is what love really is." It's God holding me back that I didn't do that. But instead I sat there and I prayed and I prayed and I said, "God, show your love to the people in this room. Help them to know you love them. You really love them. Show your love to them."

And so to my friends and to my family ... I'm talking to the cameras and I'm talking to all of you, but I'm talking to my family. To my friends and family that were at my Uncle Tommy's funeral, to Josh, Mar Rose, Thomas, Logan, Damien, Demetrius, I have hope, real hope that my uncle is in Heaven because my parents have been faithful witnesses of the gospel to him. They have proclaimed the gospel to him and he said he knows it. Whether he does or not is not for me to decide, it's for God to decide, but I have real hope that he is in Heaven. Not because of a feeling but because I know what the gospel is. And if you want to see Tommy again, I pray, I beg of you, pray to God, cry out to Him. Ask him to show you that you are loved, that He loves you so much that He sent His son Jesus into the world because He loves you, and Jesus died to save you from your sins so you can have eternity with God.

I love you guys so much. I want you to experience the greatest love that I have ever experienced and that there ever is. And to my friends and family who are at my Aunt Carol's funeral, I'm not naming you all by name because you know who you are and we'd be here for another three hours if I went through that side of the family. I want you to know same thing. I have real practical hope that my Aunt Carol is in heaven today because again, my parents were faithful in proclaiming the gospel to her, even when I wasn't, and she has heard it and she has said she agrees, and whether or not she does, I don't know.

It's not for me to decide. It's for God to decide, but I have real practical hope that she is in Heaven. And I want you guys to do the same, please. I love you. I want the best for you. I want you to know and experience the true saving love, glorious love of God. Ask Him for it. Ask Him to reveal it to you. He wants to. He's already pouring it out on you. He wants you to know it's there.

The next way we warp our view of love is we make it temporary. We say, "This is only here for now. You say you love me now, but what about later?" This is another one that I told my wife I was going to call her out, that I think she deals with this one, because she always asks ... she said I could say anything, so I'm going to. She asks me the question often, "Why do you love me?" I hate that question. I hate it. I used to answer it and say, "I love you because you are beautiful. You are my best friend. You challenge me to love God more. You challenge me to know God more. You know scripture better than even I do. I love you."

And, I thought that those were good answers. I thought those were answers that were putting my source of love in things that weren't about superficial things, like you love God more than you love me so I love you. And that's true. That is a fact, but that's not what she was asking in that moment. And I needed to learn what she was actually asking, because for her, those things are temporary. What if she doesn't feel like she is beautiful anymore? Tell her that's not an issue because she always is beautiful, she always will be beautiful. That is her identity. God says it so she is. There's nothing she can do about it. You're beautiful.

And to any women in the room, this is your identity. God says you are beautiful. You don't need to change it. God says it. It's your identity. So even when you don't feel like it, know you are. But she wasn't asking, "Am I beautiful?" She's like, "What if I'm not?" She still feels that way, again because of things that have happened in her past, she doesn't always feel beautiful and I need to work and grow in showing her that she is. She says, "I want objective truth. It's your opinion, your subjective." And I say, "My opinion's the only one that matters because I'm your husband."

And I say, "If anyone else thinks you're beautiful in a different way, I need to find them and I'm going to get them." No. But she wasn't asking about that. She was thinking what if I'm not beautiful? What if I'm not loving God more than you are? What if I'm not challenging you to grow in your relationship with God? What if I stop being your best friend? What about then? And what I need you to know, and what I need all of us to know, this is not a temporary love. God is eternal. God is everlasting. His love is eternal. It is from the beginning. It's not going to stop. My commitment to you, my wife, was once and I said it and I made it and nothing's going to change it. Nothing. I've committed to an everlasting type of love. God says the same thing to his bride, the church, to all of you, He has made an eternal covenant to love you. It's not going to stop. It's not temporary.

The last way we warp God's view of love is we make it limited. God's not limited by anything. God is an all powerful God, an all knowing God, a transcendent God. Nothing can limit Him, so nothing can limit His love for you. He gave up everything. He gave up all of His riches in heaven to come and to die and to save you. He didn't limit it. And that's why, again, I prayed Ephesians 3. I want us to be filled with the fullness. It's an unlimited love. I don't want us to just get a taste. If you don't have a taste, I want you to get a taste of the love of God, but I want you to receive the fullness of it, and then when you feel like you have the fullness of it, I want you to know there's even more. It's never ending. Don't limit God's love. Don't limit love that you have for others, either.

I have one last thing to say. I love you guys. I forgot to say this earlier, but when I get up here and I say, "Good morning, church," I started my sermon saying good morning church, and I saw my wife mimicking it in her head, and I saw all of my friends who know that laughing, because it's funny because I'm weird. I get it. But what I want you to know when I say that, I'm trying to tell you who you are. You are Christ's church. You are His bride.

I don't want to do this, but I might have to stop saying it because I might have to say what I'm trying to get at. You are beloved. That's who you are. I want you to know it, and the way I show my love for people is I cook for you. I make food. I love to cook. If I've ever made a meal for you it's because I love you. And every single Sunday, we open our house ... I didn't mention this first service. We live in Lynn, so it's a little bit of ways away, but every Sunday we open our house and I cook for people.

If you're here today and you're saying, "I like what you're saying, but I'm struggling." You're saying, "I don't know if I feel loved. It's nice what you say." Or, "I've been struggling with knowing I am loved. I want to know more about this agape type love," please come on over. Let me cook you a meal. I'm not going to give my address out right now, but if you want it, come on up. I already gave it to two people after the first service. You won't be alone. Please come on over. It's Lynn. It's far away. We'll find out rides. If we run out of food, we'll just empty everything in the freezer and in the pantry. It doesn't matter. I don't care. We'll order pizzas if need be. I don't want you to doubt that God loves you. I want you to know it. I want it to be real.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we praise you. You are good. You are great. Most importantly, you are loving. You have given us, you have poured out, you have made manifest your love to us in this season of Christmas by sending Jesus to come and to live and to die for us. If we do not yet know your love, open our eyes, open our hearts to know your love. Your true love. Your greatest love. If we are doubting, if we are questioning, if we are hurt right now, comfort us, show us your love and help us to perfect our love. Help us to perfect the way we view your love, the way we love others. Help us to un-warp our love, because as we have a warped view of love, we proclaim to the world a warped view of you. We don't want that. Help us to have a right view of love so we can proclaim a right view of you to those who need it most. In Jesus' name. Amen.