How Does He Love Us?

[00:00:00] Good morning, church. How is everybody? [00:00:04] Little dark and gloomy. Perfect day for some Jesus. Amen. [00:00:10] Let me pray, Father. That song echoes in my heart. [00:00:22] I want you closer. [00:00:25] For every single person here and every person listening online. Father, I pray that we can draw close to you. [00:00:35] That love isn't this giant overarching idea, but we can get some definition to it today, Father, so that we can abide in it. [00:00:49] And that because we abide in your love, our lives are different, our souls are different. [00:01:01] I cannot do this without you. And nobody here wants it without you, Father. So I pray with all that I am, will your spirit come on this place in a different, special kind of way today. [00:01:15] Let your spirit fall down. [00:01:18] In your son's name we pray. Amen. [00:01:21] I was listening to an interesting podcast and it was on the philosophy of feeling loved. [00:01:29] So the idea is that most people, even if they have people in their life that do love them, most people do not feel loved the way they want to feel loved. In fact, the statistics, like 70% of people right now do not feel loved, loved. [00:01:49] And I was thinking about what happens to the human soul when you don't feel loved. [00:01:54] What, what does that ache in our heart produce? [00:02:01] I was thinking about in my life, there have been moments of, you know, just like all of us not feeling loved or maybe not feeling appreciated or not feeling seen or heard or feel fill in the blank. [00:02:15] And I was thinking, for me, oftentimes what happens is I try to become more lovable. [00:02:20] Anyone else? Like, I'll try to make myself more fun or more joyful. So when I walk in the room, it's fun and joy and Sarah's here and maybe now I can feel some love for some of you. You distance yourself. [00:02:40] If you're not gonna love me, I am surely not gonna love you. [00:02:45] Anyone know that feeling you guard up? [00:02:50] For some of us, we live with this ache of people pleasing. And there's an ache when the soul is not loved the way we were designed to be loved. [00:03:03] But there is an answer to this ache. [00:03:08] And I don't know in this room who feels it today. [00:03:11] I don't know who's listening online. And this ache is alive and the gap is real. [00:03:20] But there's this passage that Jesus draws us to, and I wanna seek it today because I think when we understand will help us to feel loved in a new way. [00:03:36] Not just by people, because people are going to hurt. [00:03:43] Not just by our families, because sometimes our families are broken. Any amens? Just kidding. Don't do it. If your family's sitting next to you. [00:03:55] But there's love from our Heavenly Father and he asks us to abide in this love. [00:04:07] He talks about this image of there is a vineyard and there is a vine, and the vine is healthy and vibrant. [00:04:20] And he connects us to this vine and he says, I am the vine, you are the branch. [00:04:28] And there's this picture that when the branch is connected to the vine, it produces something healthy, it produces something beautiful. [00:04:39] But the picture is powerful because it's not the branch that is striving to produce, it's the vine giving the branch life and the vine that produces the fruit. And as long as the branch remains, as long as the branch abides, as long as the branch holds onto this life giving source of the vine. [00:05:06] And the picture is that Jesus is the vine and we are the branch. [00:05:11] And then we get to John 15, and this is where I wanna spend our time today. [00:05:16] And we are gonna look at John 15, 9, 12. [00:05:26] This one verse has challenged me all week. [00:05:32] As the Father has loved me. This is Jesus talking. [00:05:37] So he's saying, as the Father has loved me, Jesus, so have I loved you. [00:05:44] Abide in my love. [00:05:48] As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. [00:05:55] And it got me thinking, how does the Father love the Son? [00:06:00] In scripture, where do we see the kind of love that the Father shows the Son? Because if we can understand that kind of love, then we understand how we are loved by Jesus Christ. [00:06:14] And if we can abide in this love, if we can remain in this love, if we can learn how to truly feel loved, it produces something. Let's go to verse 10. [00:06:32] If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. [00:06:41] These things I have spoken to you so that you may have joy. [00:06:46] Let's try that again. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. [00:06:54] This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. [00:07:01] There is a flow that I want to talk about today. There's a flow. The Father loved the Son. [00:07:09] The Son loves us the same way the Father loves Him. [00:07:13] And then he connects to abide in this love. And when you abide in this love, you get full, you have joy, there is life. [00:07:26] And then he connects this commandment. Obey my commandment. And then in verse 12, we kind of see what this commandment looks like. And it says to love one one another as I have loved you. [00:07:41] Hurt people Hurt people. Have you heard that before? [00:07:45] Every single one of us has been shaped by the way people have loved us. And we have been shaped by the way people have hurt us. It's all of us, every single one of us. [00:07:56] And so when we think about what kind of life we are leaving, what kind of legacy we are leaving, we have to ask ourselves, how much love are we doing and how much hurt are we doing? [00:08:08] And church. I understand that some of us have paths. [00:08:12] I understand that some of us have been hurt. [00:08:16] I understand that it was not your fault, most likely. [00:08:19] But at some point in our life, we have to take ownership for our life. [00:08:26] At some point of our life, we have to say, I'm going to create something different by understanding how God loves me. [00:08:37] And love is this big sweeping term. So it's like, what does this really mean? So today we're gonna dig up three ways that the Father loves the Son. [00:08:48] If we can understand how the Father loves the Son, then we're get a clearer picture of how Jesus loves us. [00:08:55] And then we're gonna learn to step into it, to remain into it, to let Jesus be the vine to hold abiding is this day after day trusting this day after day remaining. [00:09:15] So number one, the Father delights in the Son. [00:09:22] Anyone in this room or online kind of hard on yourself? [00:09:26] Show me a hand. Are you hard on yourself? [00:09:29] Okay. Little less than half the room. [00:09:34] I did a thought audit once. [00:09:38] I was doing a book, Winning the War in youn Mind, and one of the first things you had to do was do a thought audit. And so you had to listen to the thoughts in your mind and kind of record them and say, what am I telling myself all day long? [00:09:51] And I could not believe how cruel I was to myself. [00:09:56] And I didn't realize it. Like, if you would've asked me, I would've been like, no, we're good. No, I'm a confident girl. No, I'm loved by God. Like, I would have believed all those things, but then I listened to my own thoughts and this idea that the Father delights in the Son makes sense to me. [00:10:18] But that the Son could delight in me. [00:10:22] I have a whole lot harder time. [00:10:24] Any amens in this room? [00:10:27] I'm a girl that works good when you talk to me. Okay. So let's do this service together. Amen. [00:10:33] Okay. All right, I wanna show you two passages where we get to see how the Bible tells us that the Father delighted in the Son. Let's look at Isaiah 42:1. [00:10:45] Isaiah is talking about the Messiah that's to come. And this is the Lord talking. [00:10:51] And it says, behold, my servant whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights. I put my spirit upon him, and he will bring forth justice to the nations in whom my spirit delights. [00:11:07] Let's look at one more. [00:11:09] Jesus is being baptized. And we talked about it the last time I preached. The skies opened up and this Holy Spirit descends like a dove. But a voice from heaven comes and it says, behold, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. [00:11:27] As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. [00:11:34] I used to work at our West Campus and in our West Campus. We were in Elyria at the time, and my family was all split up, so Jacob came here. Primarily. [00:11:45] My daughter Lex, who does worship, she was over at our old Brooklyn campus. And so every Sunday, the family would kind of divide and conquer. But every once in a while, the kids would surprise me and they'd show up at church or they'd come and see me during the week. [00:12:02] And I remember one time I was with my friend Ashley, and it was before she had kids. [00:12:08] And my kids walked in and I was like, that look of delight. Do you know what I'm talking about? [00:12:17] The look of total delight. And I remember Ashley looking at me and saying, you light up when your kids walk in the room. She's like, I wanna be a mom. Like that. And I was like, it's easy. They're the best kids in the whole world. There is a delight when my kids are around. [00:12:33] Jacob helped my granddaughter yesterday make cupcakes. [00:12:37] And they were finally baked, and she put some sprinkles on them, and she said, sunny, do you want to have a cupcake? And the look of delight on that little girl's face, the delight in my heart. [00:12:51] And to know that God, who is in heaven, delights in us. [00:13:01] Church, we do not see. [00:13:04] We do not sit in it enough. [00:13:07] I think so many of us sit in our shame. And so many of us sit in the things we wish we could do better. And so many of us sit in striving and proving and doing all the things or feeling like a loser. But there is a love that delights. [00:13:24] There is a love of Jesus Christ that when you come to him, there is joy. [00:13:37] I was listening to Jenny Allen. She's a speaker and an author. And she said that she, for so long believed that it was just like how she loved God would be by what she produced. [00:13:50] And one day this clicked in her heart and mind that. That Jesus delighted in her. [00:14:00] And she wept in tears cause she said I just still to this day after 20 some years of ministry struggle to believe it. [00:14:10] But she said I sit in it every morning and I let this love. [00:14:17] I let this delight shape my soul and shape my day. [00:14:27] As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. [00:14:32] Abide in this love Christ delights in you. It is not an earn it, prove it, strive for it. [00:14:45] The God who knows all things and delights in you. [00:14:50] What would happen if we lived in that love? [00:14:58] When we are broken and we live from this brokenness, we are needy. [00:15:04] Any needy humans in this room, we're needy. And we strive for acceptance and we strive for people pleasing and someone to make me whole and and performance based. But what happens is when we sit and we allow the Father to love the Son and the Son to love us and this love to encapsulate us and know that there is delight in us, it changes the love that flows from us. [00:15:39] The love of Christ delights in you. [00:15:42] Life changing love. [00:15:44] If I feel truly loved, I don't have to use people church. [00:15:53] If I feel truly loved, I don't need their approval. [00:16:01] If I feel truly love and seen and valuable by God, then loved people love people. [00:16:13] We often try to give people what we are seeking from them to give us. Have you noticed this? [00:16:19] And then we get annoyed and mad when I've done all the right things and he's still not. [00:16:27] I've done this, I've tried for months and she still won't. [00:16:31] We do this comparison. But when we let the love of Jesus Christ delight in us, how we love others, we can show up differently. Not as a needy soul, not as a broken, messed up person. [00:16:49] But now I show up in the life of my husband and I say the Father delights in the Son, the Son delights in me. [00:16:58] I wanna delight in you. [00:17:01] Women, if you're married, there's nothing more powerful than letting your husband know that you delight in him. [00:17:11] I heard John Piper say it once this way. He said if I showed up and it was my wife's birthday and I gave her some flowers and I just said it's out of duty. Here you go, have a good day. [00:17:23] He said, or if I show up and I give her flowers and chocolates and I say if you it is my delight to love you men, how it awakens a woman's soul, how it softens a woman's soul. [00:17:41] How Christ loves us, affects how we love others. But it has to start by abiding. [00:17:48] We have to abide in his love I think I'm gonna run out of time. My dad told me last night, I was talking to this. He's like, babe, you bit off more than you can chew. I He said last week, I said, skip, skip, skip, you're gonna be doing the same. [00:18:04] We'll try to shrink it in. Let's go number two. How did the Father love the Son? The Father is present with the Son. [00:18:13] Jesus lived in the profound awareness that the Father was with him, always with him, never leaving him. Let's look at a couple verses. John 8, 29. [00:18:26] And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone. For I always do the things that are pleasing to him. [00:18:33] Everywhere Jesus was, the Father was with him. One more. John 16:32. [00:18:40] Behold, the hour is coming. Indeed it has come, when you will be scattered each to his own home. And you will leave me alone. [00:18:50] Jesus is talking to his disciples. [00:18:52] The time's coming for him to die, and everyone's gonna leave. But this is what he says. Yet I am not alone. For the Father is with me. [00:19:06] What does it feel like to know that you are not alone? [00:19:11] That you don't have to carry the weight, you don't have to carry the burden. That there's someone with you. [00:19:18] When's the last time you sat in a love like that? [00:19:23] Every moment of Jesus life. [00:19:26] Through the love and the delight, through the healing, through the forgiveness of sins, through all the things, all the time. The Father was with him. Through the suffering, through the pain. [00:19:40] Oftentimes Jesus would go off by himself and he would just want to be in the presence. [00:19:46] Father, I talked a little bit about this on Wednesday. There's nothing like the presence of God that will shape and mold you more than this. His presence. [00:19:58] As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. [00:20:03] Jesus makes a promise that he will never leave us, that he will never forsake us, that he will be with us always. [00:20:13] I find myself hungry for the presence of God. [00:20:17] I'm in a unique position. Cause I work at the church. And you would think if you work at the church, that your spiritual life would just naturally thrive, right? Like God is your job. You know what I'm saying? So it's gonna flow from you. But what happens is the church becomes your job. And all the things that the church is doing and all the ministries we're trying to accomplish, and the future that go on here, and the weddings that happen, and the staff that's leading thousands of people. And so what happens is too often I can want to know God better. [00:20:56] But I don't spend time in his presence. [00:21:02] I am trying to be ordained. It'll be a lifelong process for me. [00:21:07] One day, one day church, we will get ordained. [00:21:10] But I find myself learning and wanting to learn more and wanting to learn more. But there's this thing that when you go to seminary, a lot of pastors come out of seminary and they know more, but they love God less because they have been consumed by the knowledge and not by the presence and church. I don't want the knowledge without the presence. [00:21:39] We had chapel, so the way our meetings work here is once a month we get all the staff together and do chapel together. Because often our Sundays don't look like yours. Like we don't get to sit and listen to the sermon we're preaching, or they're leading worship or they're in kids ministry. And so we try to get the staff together where we can just sit and be in the presence of God. [00:22:02] And I was listening to Jovan Anderson, our old Brooklyn campus pastor, one of. And I. He was. He was talking about this abide in God's love. [00:22:14] And I so needed it. [00:22:17] Just so needed it. Like, no one needs anything from me. All I have to do is abide in his love and it produces. [00:22:28] If I abide in his love, it produces. [00:22:32] And so I went home and I got on my knees and I turned on worship music. And I just said, I just want to be in your presence, Father. It's all I want. [00:22:43] You don't even have to say anything. I just want to be with you. [00:22:49] And something so beautiful happened. I almost didn't want to tell you because it feels so personal. It feels like it was just. [00:22:56] But I want you to know that when you go to Jesus, there is healing. [00:23:03] There is a refreshing, a reframing of fuel that nothing else can do. [00:23:10] And so I was sitting just listening to worship and just saying, I just wanna be with you. It's all I want. And do you have those moments in life that are seared? [00:23:20] Like the moments of trauma or pain? Like, you. You remember where you were? You maybe even remember the smell? You remember what you were wearing? Possibly. Like, we have these moments of life that are seared in our head. Am I the only broken person in the room? [00:23:37] Okay. Do you have moments where you could, like, see it? [00:23:42] Okay. [00:23:44] For some reason, this. It only could be God. Cause I couldn't even do this. I couldn't even imagine something so beautiful. [00:23:51] So I had a moment when I was a teenage girl and I thought I was pregnant and I was On a vacation with my family. [00:24:01] And I went and I sat on this rock and overlooked the ocean. [00:24:06] And I felt so scared. [00:24:11] I felt so alone. [00:24:13] And this moment popped up in my head. [00:24:16] Except this time I wasn't alone on that rock. It was Jesus behind me. [00:24:21] There was another moment that played. And instead of being alone in this moment, it was Jesus next to me. And it was like these moments of pain that had been seared in my life. Jesus came beside and he just showed me that his presence was always with me. [00:24:37] It never left me. [00:24:40] Church we have a God who is present. [00:24:44] We have a God who loves us and delights in us. We have a God who shows up even when we don't know it. Whatever image is seared in your mind, allow the picture of our Jesus, our Heavenly Father coming and sitting next to you and wrapping his arms around you. [00:25:03] There is a love that God offers our soul that nothing will fill or can do or drug that makes you hyped or food that feeds your stomach or cute jeans that you buy at the store or a hug from your husband or worse. You know what I'm saying? There's nothing that can fill us like the presence of God should have wore a T shirt. [00:25:36] When the presence of God touches us and we know that we are not alone, that should flow in how we show up for others. [00:25:46] I think I talked about this in one of mine and dad's podcasts. [00:25:52] There's a man named Rick Warren. He led one of the most awesome churches for years, Purpose Driven Life. I think it's the best selling book outside of the Bible. [00:26:03] And his son had committed suicide, but they hadn't known it yet. [00:26:09] And they had tried to reach him and tried to reach him and tried to reach him and they couldn't reach him. So they went to the son's house and there was no answer. They couldn't get in and so they had to call the police. [00:26:25] And they're on the driveway knowing in their heart what they're going to find. [00:26:33] And the pain of life is crippling. [00:26:38] But then people from their life group start showing up and they just stand with them. [00:26:44] They don't say anything, just their presence. [00:26:49] And he said it was one of the most God honoring, beautiful, life changing moments of his life. Because in his deepest pain, people just showed up. [00:26:58] Not to try to say the right thing, not to have the perfect thing. Just their presence changed everything. [00:27:08] As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. [00:27:12] Abide in my love. [00:27:16] How we sit in this love. How we allow God to Love us will shape how we love those in our life. [00:27:24] Number three. This is my favorite one, hardest one to understand. [00:27:30] So let's see what we can do. [00:27:34] The Father glorifies the Son and the Son glorifies the Father. [00:27:40] I talked to dad about what this word glorify means because it's interesting, because Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, they are complete, they are secure, they don't lack anything. [00:27:57] And so when we think about the word glorify, like, in my life, if God was gonna glorify himself through me, he might shine or radiate from me. Like, I can glorify God by how I shine my light for him in this world. [00:28:14] But the Trinity has a different kind of relationship because they are secure, they are complete, they are whole, they need nothing. [00:28:25] But often, through Scripture, time and time again, you see that the Father glorifies the Son. [00:28:31] This is my Son whom I loved. My beloved Son. I am well pleased. You see the Son glorifying the Father and you get this picture of like, okay, then what does this glorify mean? [00:28:46] And so I was talking to the genius himself, Doc, and you wanna know what he said? [00:28:53] Okay. He said that they get to praise one another. [00:29:01] They delight in elevating one another. [00:29:07] The Father delights in praising the Son, the Son delights in elevating the Father. [00:29:17] Their relationship is secure, it's whole, it's complete. [00:29:23] As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. [00:29:28] We get this awesome picture in John 17. I'm going to skip one through five and I'm gonna go to verse 22. [00:29:37] In verse 22, we see this picture that Jesus says this. He's praying to God. [00:29:49] The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one. [00:30:00] Next verse in I in them, and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. There's this idea that when we are connected to the vine, when we abide, when we allow the love of Christ to flow fill us, he elevates us. Church all through Scripture, it says, I will be your God and you will be my people. [00:30:37] We are elevated because we are connected to Jesus Christ. He raises us up. He elevates us just by being connected to him. [00:30:49] Now listen. There is a secure love for found from God the Father to God the Son, from God the Son to us. It is secure. [00:31:01] There's no insecurity in it. [00:31:05] And this one is going to challenge every single one of us. [00:31:10] Because even when we are secure, we have insecurities. [00:31:16] And often it is shown in how we love or how we don't love. [00:31:24] And so when we sit in this love of total secureness, where the Father elevates the Son and the Son elevates the Father, we don't have to say, I'm looking for glory in my life. We say, how can I glorify God when we are looking for from this secure love? We can say, okay, my insecurity says, what about me? [00:31:51] But love says, how can I honor them? [00:31:55] How can I elevate them? How can I lift them up? As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. [00:32:06] The kind of love that Jesus Christ offers us elevates us. [00:32:14] So that now we don't come from an insecure, messed up, broken love. [00:32:22] We don't offer that back to each other. [00:32:26] We sit, we abide, we remain, day in and day out that the love of God elevates. [00:32:38] Who? Who do you elevate in your life? [00:32:43] Is it about how you can get ahead? [00:32:45] Or what people are thinking of you? [00:32:48] Or any insecure thought? [00:32:57] See, it's with a pure and holy love that he loves us. [00:33:03] There's mutual adoration and praise. [00:33:07] Our life should reflect or become an expression of the love we've received. [00:33:12] Insecurity says, notice me. [00:33:16] Love says, let me notice you. [00:33:21] Insecurity competes. [00:33:24] It needs recognition. [00:33:26] But love celebrates and gives recognition. [00:33:36] How we doing? [00:33:40] Okay. Okay. [00:33:45] I long for a healthy love. [00:33:49] But nothing can flow out of us that we haven't put in. [00:33:55] And so there is a reality of if we want to be the men and women that God is calling us to be, if we want to be the church that God is calling us to be, it does not start by performance, does not even start by anything. [00:34:16] It starts by us remaining in the love of God. [00:34:22] He delights in you. [00:34:25] He is present with you. [00:34:28] He glorifies you because he is so secure. [00:34:34] Church can we love in this kind of way? [00:34:38] Can we take the time every single day to rest in a love that is all encompassing? A love that satisfies the soul because it is life changing. [00:34:51] I wish I could show it to you all. And I know some of you have experienced. I know most of you have experienced. [00:34:57] And so you know that hunger of just wanting more and wanting more and wanting more. [00:35:02] But here's the good, the goodness of God, he is faithful. [00:35:11] As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. [00:35:16] Abide. [00:35:17] Dear Heavenly Father, there is no one like you. [00:35:22] Where my words fail. [00:35:25] Let your spirit speak where human capacity is just weak. Father. And how I can even talk about this stuff. [00:35:37] Let your spirit guide us closer to your son. [00:35:44] Oh, how I long for every single person who hears my voice to. To know of your love. [00:35:51] Not a superficial love, not a love that's for other people, but a love that is deeply personal. Father. [00:35:59] A love that changes the trajectory of their future. [00:36:06] A love that changes how they love. [00:36:10] Father. Will you show them your delight? [00:36:14] Will you show them your presence in your goodness? Will you show them their security in you? [00:36:22] In your mighty and awesome son's name we pray. Amen.