My church family, both here in the room and those watching with us online. You know, this morning's message is entitled God's Crazy Love for us. And we're gonna talk about God's Love today. But before we do that, can we just admit that we are obsessed with love itself, aren't we as a culture? We love love. We write about it. We, we, we tell stories and movies about it and, and we write songs about it. So what I'd like for you to do right now there, uh If somebody close to you, if when you hear the word love song, what comes mind, I'm gonna share with you. Uh These are ranked some of the top love songs of all time. I'm not even gonna share the ranking because everyone kind of ranked them differently. But a lot of these songs are on everyone's list. And so I'm gonna share these with you. So I'm gonna see if you can guess what songs I'm gonna share. So go ahead there when you hear the word love song. What comes to mind if any song comes to mind, go ahead and share with the person next to you or comment that you're watching online. So go ahead and share that. So these are some of the songs here that were ranked or seen as some of the top love songs of all time and, and in no particular order, let me share some of these here with you. One of them is from The Beatles. All you need is Love. They actually had like 15 songs so some other hits that involve Love. So Beatles fans out there, they wrote a lot about Love. We have Elvis can't help falling in love. And so that was a classic one there that came through uh Lionel Richie, Endless Love. And so if you want uh Pastor Clark will sing for you that song after service. So, right. You, you're OK with that. Ok. OK. And then we have, we have Celine Dion. My heart will go on. I feel like that only made it because the movie Titanic, right? Is that fair? Uh I'm the type of person that if I'm on a boat with a ledge, I won't encourage my wife Samantha to go up there. I will go up there and just pull my arms out and go hold me like this and then she smacks me and says I'm stupid and, but hey, we've been married for 16 years. So honesty works people and, and so uh my heart will go on Celine down. But the number one song in most people's list, can you guess it. Whitney Houston. I will always love you to which now I will sing for you. Hit it guy. No, just kidding. I won't, I won't, I won't do that. This would not be a good time for anyone. Uh, so love songs are so popular that when we write about, we talk about it, we sing about it and, and the question then is what is love more than just a feeling you can feel love. But what does it mean to actually love someone? Because if it's, if love is just simply an emotion, well, emotions come and go and if you can fall into love, you can fall out of love. And, and we tend to just use the word love for a lot of different things like on one hand, you're standing up on your wedding day and you're saying I love you, but then you guys are gonna go out to lunch after service and might turn to the other 10 I love tacos. And my hope is that your love for tacos is not at the same level as your love for your spouse. Ok. But we use this word across the spectrum of emotions. And so what does it mean at its deepest level to love? And what does it mean specifically to be loved by God? Well, as we take a deeper dive into the love of God, what I want you to understand is more than an emotion, more than simply a feeling, love at its core is a choice and is an action. And if you're taking notes, I want you to write this down that simply put love moves, love moves, love does not stand still. Love, takes a deliberate intentional action towards someone else. Our friends at Phoenix Bible church with Pastor Tim Birdwell there. They actually uh rallied around this, this vision and mission so much. This actually became their vision. This is their vision for their church. So shout out to Phoenix Bible church as we're borrowing your vision for our sermon today. But they, they put that right out on the website. And so love moves because when you experience even just the tiniest glimpse of God's love in your life, it transforms your life forever. Well, how does it do that? How does God's love change our lives forever? What does God do to show his love? And how does it impact then how we love God and how we love each other? So consider this part one of a three part sermon series, but we're gonna break it into three Sundays. And so make sure you come back next week and the week after as we continue this because these are gonna build upon each other. And so today, we wanna start off at the core of what love is and what love does and who love is starting with God. And so we wanna share three actions of God's crazy love for us three things that demonstrate the movement of God's love in our lives that if we embrace it even just a little bit, it changes everything. The first action of love is that love moves, first love moves, first love doesn't wait to react or respond. Love takes the initial step. And this is so crucial because these are not just my words, these come directly from scripture, the Apostle Paul who had a radical experience with God's love himself. He was actually persecuting Christians experience the forgiveness and love of God becomes the mouthpiece for the early church and is as planting churches, raising up leaders gets thrown in jail. He's now writing to different churches and the letters that he wrote, some of them, he wasn't in prison, but most of them, he was uh the letters he writes to these churches are are makes up a good percentage of the New Testament. And so we have this letter that he wrote to the church in Rome, one of the deepest theological books in the Bible. And it was seen in here that in Romans five, starting in verse five, it says, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us for a while. We were still weak at the right time. I wanna pause there at the right time. Christ died for the ungodly that word time in some places in scripture is seen as Chrono, which means chronology, calendar timing. Now, we think of it as a clock or, you know, where you're not on time for a situation. Ok. Or, or if you had a family, I've talked to some family members who uh and friends who set their clocks 10 minutes in advance to do that or they set their alarm 10 minutes advance. So then they can snooze right to get in on time to be somewhere on time. Or if someone says to be early is to be on time, no, to be early is to be early. But hey, that's another discussion for another time. Um But you understand this idea of time is chronology. Kronos. That's not the word used here. This word for time is Kairos and this has a deeper richer meaning because what this means is the divine appointment of God. So this could be a moment, right? If you've ever experienced a time when it was just the right moment, right? Maybe a near miss or you bump into the person that ends up being your spouse or, or a new friendship or you a new connection that leads to a job like wow, that was the perfect time. That's a season of, of events. It could be a sea uh or a moment in time. It could also be a season when you're in the season of singleness when you're in a season of dating or a season of marriage or a season of parenting. That grouping, that type, that season is appointed by God is described as Kairos. So you have Chronos, you have Kairos. So here in this moment says, wow, we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. This means that it wasn't just simply because it was needed. It was because it's how God ordained it to be verse seven for one will scarcely die for a righteous person though perhaps for a good one, he would even dare to die. But God shows his love doesn't speak it. He shows his love for us. And that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Every other religion in the world is some form of works based religion where God creates the world in some form. And then now sets these rules out in place. It sets these rules in place and then says, ok, if you meet all these qualifications, maybe just maybe, then you will be loved and you will be accepted. But where Christianity differs from other religions is that while we were sinners, while we were all messed up, while we were all dirty, while we were just rejecting God running away from God before we even knew God existed in that moment in that season. God looked down and says, I love you so much that I'm gonna give my son. God knows all the craziness in life. He knows what you've done. He knows all the sins you're going to commit. You know, if you, if, if you're going on your first date, you usually want to put your f your best foot forward, right? You wanna, you know, dress up look nice. Uh, almost in my head. Sometimes I, my thoughts because I get a little out there start rumbling together. Um, you, you know, I, uh, I almost was combining smell nice, look pretty and so it just almost said and you smell pretty and uh and go through I remember like when even in that moment when I was trying to talk to Samantha on our first date, like I was stumbling over words and, and things didn't make sense and and right when, when you have that and you feel nervous, you get the little butterflies and you're just kinda like, 00, you look so cute. Oh, you're so nice. Um You don't typically bring all your baggage to the first date, right? Like can you imagine showing up? Ok, you're grabbing dinner at flower child because you want to pretend to be healthy when really you're craving in and out but like it's first date, right? Like you're gonna be healthy like you don't bring your luggage with you. Like usually that's like date three or four, right? Or later like, oh by the way, here's everything I've ever done and struggled with, right? God knows all your baggage and he knows all of your future baggage. He knows a baggage that you don't even know yet. And you know what he sees when he looks down at you is love. That's crazy. But that's God. He made the first move. We see the same writer Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, in Ephesus or Ephesians chapter two verse four and five. But God being rich in mercy, mercy is to not receive something that you deserve like in form of punishment, being rich in mercy. Because of the great love, not even just love, but because of the great love with which He loved us. Even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ by grace, you have been saved. So on one hand and mercy is not receiving something that you should in the negative form, but grace is receiving something that you don't deserve. It's God's unmerited favor. And so there is nothing that you could do to deserve the gift God is giving you. And when you see this gift, when you see it, we understand that it wasn't because we dressed up. It wasn't because we stopped cursing or we gave up this sin or this habit. It wasn't because we just simply showed up and we checked all the boxes and said, dear heavenly Father, please love me. No, he saw all of your baggage. He saw all of your doubts. He saw all of your messiness, all of your questions and he still made the first move. Love moves first. Secondly, we see that love moves through sacrificial giving in my years as a pastor, what I've seen to be true and it's not origin thought, it's not original to me, but it was told to me and I've seen this play out now for the past 1516 years in ministry and, and you see this that you can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving. I'm not trying to be like master Yoda or anything and like and switch it up. But it really, it really does make a huge difference. You can give without loving but you cannot love without giving. How do I know that to be true? Well, if you've ever had a job that you don't love or been told to do something that you didn't want to do or you showed up in a public setting and you put on a little mask, right? And you're like, oh, hey, how are you? How you know I'm fine, how are you? Great. Like the person that you despise and we shouldn't say we despise someone because I'm a pastor and this is a church. But let's be real, right? You show up in a group setting and there's someone you just can't stand and on the outside, you're like, hey, so great this see you, but on the inside you're like, all right, let's go, right. And you got that mental fight stance going on. Right. And you're like, if something comes up, I'm gonna load up and be ready with everything you've done wrong in the last three months. So I'm ready to fight. I will greet you and be sweet. But I over here I'm ready to go. Anyone ever do that? I, I'm scared, um, for my little six year old daughter because I think she's, we've already hit the sassiness of a teenager. She already gives me the teenage girl. Look, you know what I'm talking about? She's like just like I'm like, oh my goodness, like I lead an organization and now I feel insecure because my little six year old just put doubt into my heart. Like wait, maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe I, you know, please like right? Like we go through and like you, we experience these insecurities, we experience these things, but we always try to put up. Well, I'll just be diligent. I'll just do this, I'll give, yep. Here you go. Right. You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving, to love someone to move to, to, to make an action at its core is sacrificial to sacrifice, to move first, to give first because of your heart. For someone else. This idea of forgiving first, the idea of being vulnerable first. The idea of serving first. This is what it means to love. And we see this in scripture, John the gospel of John John 316, the most famous verse in the Bible. But also we're gonna read verse 17. That's just as powerful says for God so loved the world. I am so grateful for the word. So in that sentence, God didn't just kind of love the world. God didn't just think about loving the world. God so loved the world that the word so implies action behind it. God so loved the world. He was moved by that he moved that he gave, what did he give? Have you if you've ever received a gift card or a printed certificate? It'll tell you the value of the gift card. Have you ever been given a gift card? And you're not quite sure of the value on it and then you're not quite sure how much to spend at the restaurant or maybe you've already used the gift card and mistakenly put it back in your wallet and then you go to Starbucks and you make this large order thinking you have a loaded gift card and then you go to pay and it's not there. And then now you're like, oh no, I wouldn't have ordered that if I knew I didn't have the gift. Ok. Now I'm just speaking of personal stories of experience, but like I went to pay with a gift card and then there was nothing there. It was like your balance is zero. I was like, oh, this card is worthless. Here's the thing, the gift, there's the thought that counts. Yes. OK. But there's also the value of the gift itself that speaks to it. So God so loved the world that he gave. OK. What's loaded on that spiritual gift card? The greatest possible gift ever that he didn't say I will send you thoughts and prayers. He gave his only son. He didn't just give you like here's a coupon, here's this. No, he gave his son. He gave the only person that could make payment for the eternal separation from God with an eternal sacrifice. God gave Jesus. He showed his love through sacrificial giving that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world. But in order that the world might be saved through him, God did not come down to simply tell you what is wrong. God came down to bring what is right and to make what is right. There's a story that went viral this week of an employee who went above and beyond. Can you just take a guess at what organization? An employee went above and beyond? And now the world's talking about it. Chick Fil A right? Like Chick Fil A has like the best workers and the best pr people. But there's a story about a chick Fil, a worker in Florida who was working the driver when someone tried to carjack this mom's car with a, with a kid and the employ, the worker set down a thing and dove and tackled the guy and they subdued the guy and the headline, um, the headline read Chick Fil A moves from serving people to saving people. Now, if that was mcdonald's, it would, it's like mcdonald's employee hijacks car and takes off. No, I'm just kidding. You laugh because that could happen. Right. Jesus goes even beyond serving and then, and then actually goes as far as saving. There's a writer, the one who writes the gospel of John also writes a letter towards the end of his life. And first John and this guy was known as a Son of Thunder. Sounds like a wrestling name, right? And now he's writing this like love letter. That feels weird, right? Wouldn't it be weird if, if Macho man, Randy Savage came out with a love song? Oh yeah, like like he came like macho man's book of love poems. Like that would feel weird, right? But this is what happened. So the Son of Thunder becomes the apostle of love. And he writes this in first John four. He 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 did not does not love does not know God because God is love. It's not just something that he does, it's, it's who he is. He says in this, the love of God was made manifest. So it shows made manifest among us that God sent His only son into the world so that we might live through Him in this love. Not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His son to be the propitiation. That's a fancy word for payment for our sins, beloved. If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, and God abides in us and His love is perfected in us, we're gonna continue with this passage in future weeks. But for right now, I want you to notice here that God is love and that His love is manifested or showed when he went to the cross. And so his love moved first, his love moved through sacrificial giving. And then third, if you're taking notes, love moves us towards a place of security, if you've been in a good place in a dating relationship or a married relationship or even a friendship, my guess is that that relationship is based on trust and honesty and open communication. It's this idea of being fully known and then fully knowing somebody. It's a fact that somebody knows all your stuff and is happy to see you. There's the authenticity there, there's the realness, there's the vulnerability their security. Romans chapter eight in verse 31 it says if God is for us, who can be against us, but then he asked this question in verse 35 he says, who shall separate us from the love of Christ. And over these next four verses, you're gonna see him named 17 different items that could separate people because being a Christian back then was not cool. It's not seen as sexy, it was not seen as like you don't make this move to be accepted by a larger group. In fact, you could be killed, you can be imprisoned. They were, they viewed Christians as a threat because here is this group of believers who are not taking things by force, but rather giving to one another where they're offering purpose and eternal life to both genders, to all ethnicities, to everyone, no matter your economic or social status, masters and slaves, Jews and gentiles, men and women were all gathering together and worshiping the same God. This is not safe. And so while their life seemed not to be secure, what Paul is writing is saying, hey, they're gonna try to take everything from you, but they can says what shall separate us from the love of Christ. It's our tribulation. So dis uh or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword. Someone probably experienced all these things, right? You're not writing them unless someone, you heard some story of it happening, right? Every time you enter a store and there is like a silly rule posted on the board like don't do this. You know somebody did that, that required a rule in response. Well, in this case, the only reason Paul would mention these things is because there are people having to walk through them, but he doesn't stop there. He says as it is written, he says, for you, for your sake, we are being killed all day long. We were regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. People don't sing that verse like that's not a top Christian pop song. We are all cheap to be slaughtered. Is it your turn to die? Like that is not a great verse by itself. I am so thankful for the very next word here in verse 37. No, no, that's not us. He says no, in all things, we are more than conquerors. We're not just conquerors, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Pausing there for a moment. That word conqueror comes from a couple different root words. That one of those root words is the same word that Jesus uses in John 1633 when he says, fear, not take heart for. I have overcome the world. That same writer John and first John 55 talks about he who overcomes or who is it that overcomes the world. But the one who believes in Jesus. And so what he's saying here is you're not just a conqueror. That would be pretty cool though, right? You go from slave to conqueror. I would take that. But he said no, you are more than a conqueror. Why? Because of the love of Jesus, it says in verse 38 for I am sure that neither death nor life. Ok. Death. I understand how that could separate. How does life separate? Well, have you had any relationships separate? Because your life just went in different paths? Have you ever felt like life has just beaten you up? If you, if you feel like going into Monday right now, going into the fourth quarter, you feel like life is up right now. You feel like you're just being rushed and attacked on all sides. You say, no, no, not only can death attack, but life can attack too. And neither of which can separate you from God's love says, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else and all creation. So it's like in case I missed anything in the previous 16 statements, anything else, by the way, nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in our, in Christ, Jesus, our Lord. What this means is that in Christ's love, we find our identity and we find our victory. So much of life is spent trying to find a place to belong and trying to win in some area of life, both of which are secured in the love of Christ. God knows what you looked at on the computer last night. God knows how you treated people at your job, how you spoke to or neglected a family member or a friendship. God knows the attitude and the mindset behind God knows the rejection of himself from you. God knows all these things and you know what He does. He says I love you. I love you. You wanna know how crazy it is. God's love that when Jesus died on the cross, he took on the very wrath of God. He had to because without it, there would be no justice. And see, it's the justice of God that actually bases our forgiveness because you can't judge like a criminal, can't just go around to other criminal and say you're free, you're free. They have no authority to do so. So in order for God to be good and to be just, there had to be payment for the sin that was made. But that payment came through Jesus. That means the very wrath of God was poured on his son. Here's what blows my mind that even the wrath of God cannot separate you from his love because he, when he looks down, he doesn't look down simply on your sin. He looks down on the sacrifice of his son. And that not only covers our sin that conquers death, that's why we can be more than a conqueror. And that if God's own wrath can't separate you from your love, do you really think that your mistake or your issue or your struggle is gonna make God not love you anymore. We live in a world that says you're not enough, you're not enough. You need to feel bad, you need to feel guilty, pursue all these pleasures. But as soon as you fall, we're gonna turn on you, you're gonna get canceled, you're gonna be isolated, you're gonna be separated. You're not good enough. You'll never be good enough. And God breaks through all of that and says, I want you if you're reading the book, Francis Chen writes this, you're gonna discuss this more in your growth groups this week. But he says the good news, the best news in the world, in fact is that you can have God himself. The best part of Christianity is not simply to be nicer. It's not simply to act slightly differently. The best part of Christianity itself is Jesus and the love of God Paul when he's writing to the church in Ephesians and it's not gonna be on your screen, but he's writing, he could be in his end of days and he's praying and he's pleading with the church. And in Ephesians chapter three, he pleads with them with all strength and with all power that you might know, even just a glimpse of the height, the width, the breadth, the depth of the love of Jesus. Even just a glimpse of the love of Jesus in your life can transform everything because you no longer have to live trying to get something from the world that's really an empty gift card that has nothing on the balance, that really nothing that this world can take from you. There is nothing that this world can throw at you. A sickness, an illness, a job loss, a betrayal, a hurt, a sinful habit or addiction. Nothing in this world, death or life, past or present or even future. Nothing in this world can separate you from God's love. And so what that collectively means is that we can just go, I'm not huffed because that security, that freedom comes from knowing God and knowing that God loves you, then you can approach other relationships, making the first move, sacrificially giving and having that security of knowing that true love comes from Him. Will you receive it today? Dear God? We just come before you in a culture that writes about love sings about love, talks about it. May we just understand that true love comes from you? And it's crazy. It's crazy that you would come from heaven to earth while we were still sinners, while we were messed up and far from you. And you would die on a cross for our sins and rise again and conquer death. So that then we can become more than conquerors through your love so that we can go into this week. And while there's uncertainty in health and in our job and in our futures, what we know to be true. What we know to be certain is that you love us and that changes everything. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for giving us security and identity and victory. Thank you for moving first and showing your love, their sacrificial giving. Maybe we follow your model and what you've done and approach our relationships in the same way that we can love others the way that you have loved us. Because even when we fall short, your love is greater still. Thank you God. Thank you. May we take this gratitude into our weeks and the security of your love into our hearts and live differently because of it? I thank you God and your sons and we pray amen. Will you stand and sing with me?