 The thing that has become eminently clear is that if we do not invest in our youth and really work on intentionally bringing them, they will not come. So it gives me great joy to see the young books coming up. So faith, hope, and love remain, but the greatest of these is love. And I'm always the guy that asking questions. Why is it the greatest? Why is love greater than faith and hope? And what is this love that's supposed to be greater than faith and hope? Because, you know, I mean, we need lots of healings. We're talking about cancers. We're talking about people who struggle with all kinds of illnesses. And we go to healing prayer services all the time because we want physical healings and stuff. And yet the greatest healing that humanity needs above all else is not physical. It's faith to trust in God's Word and His goodness. Verb. We need that. Why? Because before Satan could get Adam and Eve to commit original sin in a garden, he had to get him to do one thing first. Remember? He had to get them to doubt in God's Word and His goodness. He had to sow the seed of doubt. And they never had it before until the serpent came. But that's what we were born with, the doubt. Does God really want my very best? Hmm. So we stand in a position of judgment over God. How can I trust you? You know, because we say, this faith is so, it's so important. But yet the scriptures say that the greatest is the love. So how can that be when the faith is so critical? Why are we here? We're here because there's a trinity, the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. And they, they share this amazing relationship, this, this intimacy of love. But the love of God is so different than the love of the world. The world is trying to illustrate love as being a plethora of everything else, but the real love that God created us for. And the truth is that none of us in this room will ever be satisfied until we're 100% completely free to love. But we're not free. Not yet. Not completely. No way. And we keep buying into the world that we grew up in and kept, keep going to things in the world believing that those things are going to give us life instead of this love. But it's the love that's going to do it. But what is this love? Again, I'm like, okay, Lord, what is this? Because for me, that was in my conversion experience, that was one of the big things that radically transformed me because as I started to read the word of God, I said, Oh my gosh, this is all about love. And there's a little boy in my little black box that I've been hiding for years that didn't understand that kind of love. The kicker for me was, why would God die for someone like me? I mean, if you knew who I really was, you wouldn't, but he did. So let's look at this love of God because you see, we're living in a fallen world and the world doesn't understand the love of God. The world doesn't comprehend it. But we're being sent to the world to show them this love. But what is this love that is the greatest? What is that love exactly? Well, how about just the first big one? God created us. He gave us life. Boom. I exist because God loved. You exist because God loved. God took time, energy, and creativity and thought, wouldn't it be cool to make Ralph a hobbit? We will make him short in stature. His hair will fall out quickly, only on his head. It's really not that funny. We will fashion in him a heart that is capable of experiencing for God's soul of the world that he made you and endowed you with amazing gifts and abilities and talents and humor and great stature. The world wants to rob us of that piece of love. You're not big enough. You're not tall enough. You're not buff enough. All the girls are looking at the big buff guys like John. I love you, bro. I spent so many years wishing I could be big and buff like them and I never once realized how cool it was to be a hobbit. Really, I'm on airplanes all the time. My knees never touched the seat in front of me. I'm sitting on a plane next to this big dude who's taking up all of his seat and half of mine and I'm just leaning back going, how's that working for you, bro? God made me me because he loves me. He made me unique and everything else in the world that's unique like diamonds. There's nothing. Nobody else liked them in the world and their oppressions are valuable but the world tells us we're not. So surely that's got to be enough proof for this world that the love of God is greatest because he gave us life because most of the world doesn't acknowledge that God gives us life. But we do. God gives us this amazing life, right? Genesis 127. So God created mankind in his image, in his image, in the image of God he created them. Male and female he created them. Surely that's enough but it's not because we live in a fallen world, fallen from grace. Well that's not enough. Then surely the mystery of the incarnations got to be God's soul of the world that he humbled himself. He left the majesty of heaven to enter the nastiness of our human existence and he took on flesh. The second Philippians said, yeah, second Philippians. He did not see equality with God as something to be grasped at but humbled himself and took on the form of a slave. Surely that's got to be it. Surely to see that the almighty God, the great I am, humbles himself down to be one of us. Why? Because we were lost. Surely that's got to be it. Surely that's what we all needed to see that he came after us and he had to do it in a way of humility that he totally emptied himself out. Surely that's it but it's not. It's not enough. It's not what the world needs. The world needs more. More proof. We need more. More proof. Why? Because we still don't trust completely even though he humbles himself and he comes and becomes man and then he goes through this amazing stuff that's not enough. He even does it in such miraculous ways as he begins to bring Mama Mary onto the scene and Angel Gabriel comes. It's not even done in a normal way but that's not enough. It's great love but it's not enough. How amazing that he would come and take this beautiful creature, our mother, and come to her and say, will you give me flesh? Will you cooperate with my will? I need your help. I need your help so that the world may know this love because the world is starving and she is the perfect model for you and I because she didn't understand how it works. She's not God. Okay we got to we have to acknowledge that she was free of sin and was always hanging out with God. I mean there is that. I'm going to give ourselves a little slack but she's the model and now you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the most high and the Lord will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. Even the incarnation is not enough but surely the next piece is obvious because Jesus came to bring the kingdom of God to us and show it to us. That's gotta be it right because everyone began to see the signs and wonders. He began to preach. He began to do all these different things. He taught us about the true kingdom of God not the one we see here that which is the false world of Satan the false kingdom of Satan but the true kingdom of God he came down to bring it to us. Why? Because we were the lost sheep and the truth is you can be a good person all you want but if you don't know the Lord and have the Holy Spirit alive and activated in your heart you can't see the kingdom and you can't get in. So surely Jesus's act of coming and giving us this love of teaching us the truth of his kingdom that should be enough. Nope. Well how about the Beatitudes? You know when he sat there and told us blessed are right he gave us the attitudes of which we need to be. That surely has to be it. Nope. He taught us that what we're living isn't really love because it's selfish and self-centered and we're looking at it for ourselves. What's in it for me? The consequence of original sin. See when you lose capacity to experience the love you lose understanding and knowledge of what it really is. That is what mortal sin does to us. So surely that would be it as he teaches us what love really is. How to treat each other. How to interact with each other because we're just beating a snot out of each other. We're judging people and now Satan has stirred up the pot in our world today and now how you look is worthy of judgment. Whether you wore a mask in COVID or not whether you got vaccinated or not we immediately jumped up into the judge's chair and began to cancel people just like we're being trained. So the Lord surely coming and showing us look guys that's not it. This is it. This is the real love. This is what I made you for. This is what you have the capacity to experience but you're being robbed of it. What is this love? Is that enough? Nope. Well then he came to reveal the true identity of who we really are. Master please show us how to pray. Okay imagine being the apostles there at the feet of the foot of the Lord and all of a sudden he says this is how you pray. Ready here you go guys. Bow your heads. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So funny as Catholics you all start going. Such creatures have happened. But imagine the Lord says here's how you pray. Now if you're one of the apostles at that point you're going to be sons and daughters of God. So Jesus comes and shows us this amazing truth of our identity because the battle of our spirituality much of it is our identity. What you believe you are is what you start trying to live out. What you think is your truth is what you continue to live out. And Jesus is trying to come and penetrate the lies and cast them out so that we can take on the truth that I may be a hobbit uniquely made by God short and stature less and hair on my head but I am a son of God. I belong to him unless I choose to reject him. So every day I got to decide do I want to get up and I want to live my life as a son of God or am I going to live my life as a law sheet scrapping and doing what I need to do to get the band-aids I need so that I can just exist in this world because God made me to flourish. He made us to thrive, John 10.10. I've come so that you could have abundant life. Are we living abundantly or are we thriving? Are we grasping on to the worldly stuff we think gives us security? The boat of our finances or if we let go and said no, that's great. It can be used here but I was made for more. Surely this new identity that the Lord is giving me, the truth of love is right there. That should be enough to prove to this world that that's it. This is why it's the greatest. Nope, not enough, not for this world, not for this world. Well then Jesus began to bring out the big guys. He started teaching, he started healing lepers, the blind, the lame, those with all kinds of illnesses. He cast out demons. Now all of a sudden the amazing signs and wonders are occurring and everyone looking around going, there is no way you are a normal guy. Sorry, because this dude I saw, I've grown up watching this guy. He's been at the temple door every day at the gate. Every day he comes and he begs there and I have never seen him walk till you came. Who the heck are, what do we do with this? He healed everybody that came to him. He did all these amazing signs, surely that should be enough proof that we would believe that God loves us. Nope, but surely, I mean he did so many things. Matthew chapter 8, 16 to 17, that evening they brought to him many who were possessed with demons and he cast out the spirits with a word and he cured all who were sick. This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah. He took our infirmities and he bore our diseases. This has got to be it. I mean look at all the amazing things he's doing for people in the world that he did. He walked around and when people were hurting he healed them. Blind Bartimaeus crying out, come on, help me. And he says, bring them here. The woman hemorrhaging. The Roman centurion who he healed a servant and he didn't even have to go to his house. Come on, that's great love. It's not enough. It's not enough. Not for this world, because this world is, yes it's filled with pain and sin and brokenness and bondage. It's not enough. The world wants more proof. The world wants more proof. Why is it not enough? It should be enough. He came and he did all of that stuff. He should be walking around with us today because he did it, but it wasn't enough. They wanted more. Prove to me. Prove to me. Why should I follow you? Is this love really real or not? Yeah, you can do some miracles. Okay, nobody else can do it fine. We'll give you that, but you know in my sinfulness I can't buy into that. The teaching, the healing, the deliverance wasn't enough. The binding consequences of original sin hold us back. And despite the fact that Jesus had authority over Satan while on earth, it wasn't enough. He had authority. He had power over Satan. He could have done anything he wanted with Satan, but that great work was not enough. More was required. More needed to be given. More needed to be shown and proven otherwise the world is not going to be free, nor will the world accept what Jesus has come to teach and to bring. But on that guy asking questions, why? Why is that the case? Why is more required? I mean he did so many things. He helped people with all these physical things. He came and used what he had to help others. Isn't that what we're told we're supposed to do? Why is that not enough? It wasn't enough because the love of God is total. The love that the Father shares with the Son and the Holy Spirit is the complete donation gift of self to each other. Complete without reservation. Without reservation. So after three years of walking around and teaching and training up his apostles and modeling for them the things that they would be doing in the future, he had to go on and do one more thing, even though it's what we owe God for our sinfulness, for our rebellion, for our choosing ourselves above him. It's what every one of us owes God, but Jesus now comes and says, I love you so much, I want to do it for you. So he takes on our humanity. He comes as a model. He comes as a guide. He comes to show us the way to bring the truth and to give us life. But that life cannot be achieved by doing good works and only be achieved. So God in his infinite wisdom chooses the Roman Empire, brutal people, to be the time period in which he inserts his son into human history. And Jesus doesn't just come and die for us. He comes and brutally suffers, beaten to the point of death, but not allowed to die. That would be too merciful, beaten. His skin ripped off his back, shoulders, buttocks, hamstrings, so that we could live, so that we could thrive, so that we could have abundant life, so that we could return to our Father. This is the love. This is the love. It is the greatest act of love the world has ever known. Verb. The choice to give your life away completely, even though you don't feel like it. Hmm, what a novel idea. Even though I don't feel like loving you, because right now I'm kind of hurt. My back is ripped off. No offense, but I'm going to walk away. But he doesn't. He stays. He continues on. Why? Because the complete gift of self means that Jesus doesn't just humble himself from heaven. It doesn't just come down and become man. It doesn't just go and start ministering and teaching and healing and doing all the things that he is God could do. But the only way to show the real love is to come and actually do it. And so he comes and he gives himself to us and he says, come follow me. I've given you gifts, but that's not what I want you to just do is go do gifted things for other people. I've given you talents and abilities, but that's not what I want you to just do and be satisfied with the fact that you're doing a ministry. I've called you to come and follow me, to deny yourself, pick up your cross and come and die with me in the same way that I have loved you. I am now calling you to go out and love them and love me back with every ounce of your being, every ounce of your brokenness, every lie you are living with, with every bonded secret in your black box you have that you don't want anybody else to know. I want you to die with me with all of that. Because in that power, it is the strongest power to overcome anything Satan can do in this world. There is nothing in this world greater than the love of God. Nothing can compare to our God. I hear my wife's words over there, honey, you're screaming. Jesus has sent us to the world that the world might come to know this love, but the only way we're going to live this out are the really good news is we can't do it by ourselves. He really just wants to come and love through us, but to do that means we really do have to give it all to Him. Every part you think that is unworthy of the kingdom, give it to Him. Every part you think I could never get up there and do that, He doesn't want you to, until He calls you. He just wants you to give all you got, no more reservation. All you have, and He will take that gift, perfect it, project it in front of the world, and you will touch people that I never could get close to. You will bring people to Jesus that I will never even know, but that's how it works. If we would but choose to receive the gift of love He's given us and give it back, then we will transform the world. Then He will transform the world. That the world would know that the love of God is real. How will the world know when we live so radically different than what the world does and they come to you and go, why do you do that? Jesus loves me. He loves you without reservation. We just got to enter in. Can we do that now? Could we wade into that love that is so powerful? And as we wade in, what will we bring Him? What's the stuff in the box? What's the hesitations? What are the things we're holding on to? Because we're getting ready to go home. Wouldn't it be neat if we went home with these new marching orders that says, every person I encounter, complete gift. How do I give you everything I got in the time that I have? What is it that you want me to give this person today? Instead of that voice of telling you, so you can't do that, what would they think of you? Or nobody can know this part of your life route that you were broken and addicted to porn and all the rest of that stuff. Nobody can know that stuff. Really? Sure they can. Why? Because once you give it to Jesus, it becomes light. Light that lets other people see what's going on in their lives gives them hope. Wow, if Ralph could be healed, maybe I could. I want to invite the team members to come up on stage and let's just enter into a time of praying and just asking the Lord to come and minister to our hearts.