 Hello, man, I am so humbled to be here with you today following the incredible morning and outpouring of the Holy Spirit that we've experienced this far. So I pray that I can hold it all together to share with you what I believe that the Lord has for you this morning. One thing I have to say though is I am so eternally grateful for God's amazing word of truth. When we came to Calvary Chapel, Ontario at the time, that is when the word of God really became alive to me. And I just so appreciated Pastor David's faithful, faithful, faithful teaching of the entire Council of the Word of God. I remember being involved here in two protests, not here. We went to, I think it was a strip club, wasn't it? We were in our young days. We went to a strip club and then we went to Universal Studios. And I don't remember why we went there though, but I want to tell you not one of our signs said God hates you. Not one of the signs said you're doomed for hell if you don't change the way you are living your life. It was all about the love of God. And that's exactly what we see in the word of God. We've had people leave our church because my husband has the guts enough to share the truth of God that we are to love people, not to hate them or to send them away. Like Patty said, it's the act. It's the sin. It's not the person. And you know what? There is nothing good in us that we would be doing the very same thing if that happened to be our bent. I had my own issues. You've had your own issues. And it's the love of God that has set us free. And I am so eternally grateful. Amen. Anyway, let's pray before I start crying and just ruin the whole morning. Father, we are so thankful for you, for your love, for your word, for the outpouring of your Holy Spirit. You are such a good, good God. Father, and I pray God, as your Holy Spirit, I believe, has been moving mightily this morning, Father, that you will continue to speak to each and every heart in this room. Father, we want to know you. We want to know the power of your love. And Father, we want to be the vessel that you use to share that very love that we've experienced in her own lives to others. So God, we want to submit our hearts to you for you to do whatever it is that you want to do with us. So let me ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Well, 1 Corinthians 13, absolutely incredibly convicting chapter in God's word for my particular bent in life. But the apostle Paul, who my love with all my heart, he was very purposeful in wanting to live a life that was so God-honoring, so God-pleasing. And he wanted fellow Christians to understand who God is, what God's power can do to a life as he transforms us, as we submit to the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he was willing to share the truth, no matter what the cost. He did not follow the Lord Jesus Christ to become part of a popular group. He did not want to elevate himself because the exact opposite happened when he became a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. He was one of high standing in the community, and when he came to Christ, he was not liked very much. And in that, I believe it gave him even a more love, passion, zeal, and boldness to share the truth of who Christ is. Because he was very religious. He was doing good, godly things without the power of a living God within his life. So in 1 Corinthians, apostle Paul had been giving instructions to the church, to the Christian church, on worship, on communion, on the spiritual gifts, on oneness, on unity of the brethren, so many other things that the believers needed to be corrected on. Because they were still, just like us church, still a little self-centered and self-seeking. The Corinthians church was a very troubled church at this time. They were carnal. They weren't living a life that rightly represented the transformed life of a believer. This church had issues. And as this church was living in their issues, the world that they were supposed to be reaching with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, they were watching. And Paul wanted to make sure, you guys, we need to be careful what we're doing and where we're going and how we're behaving as God's child, so he wants to correct them. Because they were involved in pride and drunkenness and ignoring sin and abusing the spiritual gifts. There was division amongst the brethren. They were suing one another. They were even abusing communion. They would get those occasions together and just have a time of partying and still really honoring and having that time glorifying the Lord. They were not submitted to leadership. They didn't want to be submitted to God's authority. They just had a lot of issues. So the apostle Paul, in first chapter of the book of first Corinthians, he begins with this. I am writing to God's church in Corinth, to you who have been called by God to be his own people. He made you holy by means of Christ Jesus just as he did for all people everywhere who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. So this letter is instruction for the Christian, reminding them that they are no longer who they used to be. They are now new in the Lord Jesus and they have to start living their lives to bring glory and honor to him. As the apostle Paul concludes chapter 12, speaking about the gifts that God gives to the church as he sees fit, because he's the one that gives the gifts. He's the one that assigns the gifts. He's the one that assigns the leaders to the church, but he wants us to use those gifts for his glory. Not to walk around puffed up because, oh, I have the gift of knowledge. You should hear me. Or I have the gift of wisdom because I'm so good or whatever it is because that's what the church was doing. Look to me, I can speak in tongues. I am really spiritual. And Paul is like pulling out his hair if he had any. I don't really know if he did or not. But this must have been making him crazy because you see this man had been transformed. He had that lightning moment when he knew that he knew that he knew that he was one that was so loved by God. And he wanted the very love that he had experienced to be experienced by all fellow believers. So for fighting and being prideful and trying to one up other Christians, where's the love of Christ and all of that? That has no place in us. So that's why he is so bent on making sure that those are good things. You have gifts, that's good. You can prophesy, that's great. Even if you have faith to move mountains, that's amazing. But I want to show you something that's even more excellent. Because even if you can do all that stuff and if it is not motivated by the love for Christ and for our fellow man, then it is worth nothing. Now if you really look at that scripture for a second and think, man, if I have faith enough to move a mountain and I don't love my sister, that doesn't mean anything. And don't we all, oh man, if I had faced of a mustard seed so I can move a mountain, that would be so awesome. And God is saying, no, that is not really what is so awesome. What is so awesome is that you can love your brother and sister with my agape love. Because you see that that love is gonna set you apart from this dying world. And that's what church, that's what it's supposed to be. That's what we need so desperately. Paul was passionate, passionately in love with the Lord Jesus Christ. And he desired that Christians would fall in love with Jesus Christ and serve him wholeheartedly with the same passion and the same zeal that he experienced. In Eliot's Bible commentary, he says this, the apostle had always been conscious of the mighty power working within him, mastering him, bringing him into captivity to Christ. But there suddenly flashed upon him the realization of what that power is. And he cannot but at once give utterance in language glowing with emotion to the new and profound conviction what has set his whole soul aflame. And that was love. Love was the power that was alive within him that compelled him to do what he did, not only for the kingdom, but for his brother and sister as well. So Paul says, I wanna show you a more excellent way, something that is much more useful in the kingdom of God. So I'd like us to look at First Corinthians chapter 13 and I'm gonna read verses one through three out of the new living translation. Says this, if I could speak all the languages of earth, of angels, but didn't have love for others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. If I had the gift of prophecy and if I understood all of God's secret plans and I possessed all knowledge, if I had such faith that I could move mountains but I didn't love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body and I could boast about it, but if I didn't love others, I would gain nothing. In David Guzik's commentary of First Corinthians 13, he says, normally no one would doubt the spiritual credentials of someone who gave away everything they had and gave up their life in dramatic martyrdom, dumb. But those are not the best measures of someone's true spiritual credentials, it's love. Love is the best measure. Many Christians believe the Christian life is all about sacrifice, sacrificing your money, your time, your life for the cause of Jesus Christ and sacrifice is important, but without love, it profits nothing. It is absolutely useless. Each thing described in First Corinthians 13, one through three is a good thing. Tongues are good, prophecy and knowledge and faith are good, sacrifice is good, but love is so valuable, so important that apart from it, every other good thing is completely useless. All morning and afternoon, we have been hearing how amazing God's love is and when God's love is embraced by an individual's life, transformation happens. You start to see life through completely different eyes because you're no longer looking at life the way we used to see it. We look them through the lens of Jesus now and it's amazing how he can transform us. I know that he is the Holy Spirit, has been convicting us and prayerfully showing us that we have not yet fully grasped how loved we are by the Father. And as much as many of us love God, we don't know the full extent of that love yet and we nor do we fully love others the way God wants us to either. So we still have a lot of work to do if we're being honest with the Lord and asking Him to please search our hearts because none of us are perfect. And we have to fight constantly the lie of the enemy that he throws at us often when we are in those self-pity moments of our life when we are feeling unworthy and unloved and we start to believe that lie. We think how can God love me? I'm so, I'm such a wretch and we are. You know, we're sinners but we're saved by the amazing grace of God and we have to take every thought captive. Just a while ago, my husband and I celebrated our 45th Wendy Daniversary. I know, amazing. He's so lucky. No. But it was a bittersweet moment for us because we just lost my brother-in-law a while back and we were gonna all, the whole family, all 22 of us missing my oldest grandson which would have made it 23 but we were gonna be in Maui spreading Gary's ashes. And I thought it would be a wonderful idea if we could renew our vows together. 45 years, all our family together which is very rare these days getting all of us together in one place and I was really excited and we had talked about it sorta and Randy would like, oh yeah, you know, that's good. Okay, well that's cool. He's starting to get the idea but then he was downstairs reading or something and I came down and I'm in a great mood. I said, hey babe, are you excited about us doing our vows? And he goes, well, if you want to oh, yeah, that's how I felt. All of you, he had no clue but yes, that's how I felt. And I looked at him, I said, if I want to? And he goes, well yeah, if you want to, you know, I'll do that, never mind, forget it, I don't wanna do it. Cause I got hurt, okay, I got hurt. And in that hurt, the enemy is messing with my head like crazy. I'm serious, this man, he cherishes me and I know that, he loves me, he would die for me and I know that. But at that moment, the enemy is telling me, you were pregnant when you got married, he had to marry you. Okay, and I didn't even know where that came from because we had talked, we planned on me getting pregnant so I can get out of the house but that's a whole other thing. So, but okay, so that's one place where I'm going. And then I'm thinking 45 years and he doesn't wanna tell the entire world he still loves me, that he's so madly in love with me. I mean, my mom was going nuts. You know, so I'm, shut up Jeanette, I know that he loves and stop it but throughout a couple of days, I'm doing this. I'm not being ugly to him so I thought I was being spiritually good cause usually I could be ugly. And I wasn't, I wasn't being overly nice but I wasn't being ugly. So, it was a couple of days later, whatever I go, I told him, finally I said, you know what honey, I'm sorry, I said I just want you to know what was going on in my brain. I said, this is where I went when you said, if you want to, I thought we were done. We were headed for divorce court. You know, I mean, this is just bad and he looked at me and he goes, how did you get there? You know, and I said, I don't know. I really don't because the truth is the man loves me. He still thinks I'm the most beautiful woman in the face of this earth. I mean, and I'm so thankful that his eyesight is going but you know what I'm saying? He loves me. I have never doubted his love for me, ever. But listening to the enemy, I start to do that. And sweet sisters, we do the same thing with the love of God. We know that he loves us. And when we start to listen to the enemy's lies and they get bigger and bigger and bigger until it is so hard to grab them all back together and say, forget it, I'm not gonna go there. See, the Apostle Paul knows that too. He says, you take every thought captive. Get rid of those ugly thinking. That's not from the word of God. You are so loved and so precious in God's sight. Don't ever lose sight of that. He is a good God. One of our greatest needs that we have as human beings is to be loved. We desperately desire to know that we are loved unconditionally, that we are accepted, that we are important to someone, that someone really cares for us, someone really accepts us, and someone has our backs. And sweet sisters, that is our Lord Jesus Christ. First Corinthians four, excuse me, First John four, eight, and 16 says that God is love. Whether you feel like it or not, we have to know it to be true that God is love. He is a very essence of love, as Jenna said earlier today. He will always act towards us in love because he can't do otherwise. There is nothing evil in him. He is all love. Love is who he is, loving us is what he does. God has wrapped us up in his love so securely that he has given the best that he had, his only son. John 3 16 says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And this is such a popular verse, but sometimes it becomes so cliche, just something that we throw out there that we're not really seeing the weight of the words. He gave his son, not just his little baby, here you go. Our Jesus left heaven's glory to pay the price for our sin because you're so loved. He went to great lengths to show you how much we are loved. It meant allowing him to die in our place and paying the price with his death on the cross so we can have eternal life. He does not love us because we're lovable or because somehow we've made ourselves worthy enough. He loves us because he is love. Whatever or whenever we turn our backs on God, whenever we decide we don't want to love him or we don't want to accept him as our Lord and Savior, we're turning our back on that love, that still does not stop his love poured out toward us. And gosh, that is such an amazing thing. It doesn't matter how we feel, he loves us despite of those feelings, he is amazing. We may never be able to grasp it fully with our human understanding, but God is ready to make it real in our hearts. As we open up our hearts and we are receptive to his word, then we become secure in that love, so secure that now we're able to reach out with the love that we know to others. And that's what the church is about. It's the love that we have accepted in our heart from the Lord Jesus Christ. His agape love that we can now freely give to others, doesn't matter what you've done. I can still love you and we can move forward in our relationship. Love of God, because we are changed from his love, we can embrace one another. We should look for evidence of God's love every single day of our life. You know, I don't know when the last time it was when you woke up in the morning and just jumping out of bed thinking, oh today, Father, I'm so thankful that I'm loved by you. You know, we're not in the habit of doing that. We just kind of get up and do our own thing and go our own way. And sometimes we're not even aware that we're God's child because we're so involved in just living our own life. But I really believe the more we can ponder the love of God for us, the more that love of him can be such a transforming power in our life. And then we are able to share that very love with those in this dying world. Arthur A.W. Pink says this, there are many who talk about the love of God who are total strangers to the God of love. The divine love is commonly regarded as a species of amicable weakness or a sort of good-natured indulgence. It is reduced to a mere sickly sentiment, pattern after only human emotion. The truth is that on this and on everything else, our thoughts need to be formed and regulated by what is revealed to us in scripture. That there is an urgent need for this is apparent not only from the ignorance which so generally prevails, but also from the low state of spirituality which is so sadly evident everywhere among professing Christians. How little real love there is for God. One chief reason for this is because our hearts are so little occupied with him. God so loved the world that he gave to us so we can experience that love. Max Lucado says, God loves you personally, powerfully and passionately. Others have promised to love us and have failed, but God has promised and he has succeeded. He loves you with an unfailing love and his love, if you will let it, can fill you and leave you with a love that is really worth giving to others. I think we need to understand it when the apostle Paul is writing to the Corinthians, this is a completely foreign concept that a God that is so filled with love would give of his son to die for you, to give you a blessed, full, completed life. I mean the gods in the Greek and Roman world were so lustful and mean and just a completely foreign way of thinking about God. So this whole new concept of a God-bay loving you just to love you, that's like it makes no sense. And even though we've read about that for years and years and years, sometimes it still makes no sense. You mean really, I don't have to do anything at all to earn God's love? No, nothing, he did it all for us. You accept it, you embrace it, you enjoy it. And when you are so filled up with the things of God, you are a blessed person. And in those blessings like Patty was talking about, just overflows to everybody else. See, because when he grabs hold of your heart, you can't contain it. There's something that goes on within us, Holy Spirit, that is causing us to come alive better than ever before because we're experiencing the love of God. When was the last time that you reflected on how much God loves you? We can remind others how loved they are, but we need to remind ourselves too. I think we can counsel one another on how great God is and how he died for you and how can you feel like that? But sometimes we need to eat our own words, don't we? So we can remind our own hearts that, no, I am a beloved of the Father and it's a good thing. Have we come to really understand how great his love truly is for us? And there's this story and I love it because I think it so eloquently shares the love of God. And I know many of you've heard it before, so bear with me as you're gonna hear it again. But I just think it's very moving. There is a man by the name of John Griffin and he lived in Oklahoma in 1929. He lost all he had in the stock market so he moved to Mississippi where he took a job as a bridge tender. In 1937, he was involved in a horrible accident. One day his eight-year-old son, Greg, spent the day with his dad at work. He poked around the bridge office and asked a whole bunch of questions. Then a ship came through and John opened up the drawbridge. After a moment or two, he realized that the son was no longer in the office and as he looked around to his horror, he saw him climbing around the gears of the drawbridge. He hurried outside to rescue his son but just then he heard what he knew was a fast approaching passenger train. The Memphis Express. It was filled with 400 people. He yelled loudly for his son but the noise of the now clearing ship and the oncoming train made it impossible for the boy to hear his father's pleas. All of a sudden, John Griffin realized his horrible dilemma. If he took the time to rescue his son, the train would crash, killing all aboard. But if he closed the bridge, he would sacrifice his son. He made the horrible decision, he pulled the lever and he closed the bridge. It is said that as the train went by, he could see the faces of the passengers. Some reading, some waving, all oblivious to the sacrifice that had just been made on their behalf. There are some things in this story that reminds us of God. God too allowed the jaws of death to close in on his son, Jesus. Thousands go by oblivious and indifferent to the sacrifice that Jesus Christ has made on their behalf. But the reason I tell this story is not to retell an old emotional tale but to tell you that there is one thing wrong with this story as it compares with our God. God was not like John Griffith. Unlike the Memphis Express that caught John Griffith by surprise, the sending of Jesus Christ was not a panic move. It was planned. Jesus's death was a result of our loving God who in his wisdom said that there was no other way than to have our Savior, Jesus Christ, die in our place. God is complete love and nothing has caught him by surprise. Jeremiah 31.3 says, "'The Lord appeared to us in the past saying, "'I have loved you with an everlasting love. "'I have drawn you with loving kindness.'" God's love wasn't just a momentary whim. His love for us didn't just start a while ago. His love is from all eternity to everlasting. It is a love that will always last. He loved us before the world began and his love will endure forever for each and every one of us. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing. In Ephesians chapter five, verses one and two, scripture says, "'Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children "'and walk in love as Christ has loved you "'and given himself for us an offering "'and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma.'" And I love the way the message says it, says this. Watch what God does and then you do it. Like children who learn proper behavior from their parents, mostly what God does is love. You keep company with him and you learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious, but it was extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us, but to give everything of himself to us. You love like that. Like man, could you imagine the power in the church if we would love like that? Just recently, I have been rejoicing. A couple of weeks ago I'm still amazed at God's miraculous grace and answering prayer because my prodigal has come back to the Lord Jesus. And I am flabbergasted. I am amazed, I stand in awe of the work that God is doing, has done and will continue to do. 10 years of heart-wrenching prayer and heartache and tears and love and love and love. I want to tell you something that Jesus sent to me on an email or excuse me, on a text message just this week. As we are now experiencing fellowship again together and there is no greater joy. I believe as a mama, personally for me, there is no greater joy than to know that my children, my grandchildren, my nieces, my nephew, my family walks with the Lord Jesus Christ. Because you see to me, Jesus is everything. Eternity is everything. And I want my loved ones with me. So no greater joy. There is also no greater pain when you see your children walk away from God, doing their own thing and knowing the consequences that are gonna come back to hurt them. See because if they belong to God, God is gonna go after them and God is gonna discipline them and they're gonna hurt. And I never, nor my husband ever wanted to be the parents that say, didn't I tell you? I said, I would just been waiting for God to come down and get you. I felt like that sometimes, but God is so good. Like Janie said, the Holy Spirit just many times just put the clamp over my mouth. And if my husband's listening, I know you're praying that he continues to do that a lot for me with you. But this is what Tracy just texted me. Mama, sorry, Eve, I'm crying. Mama, thank you. I'll say it again. Mama, I am so happy to share this journey with you. And I am so thankful for your unwavering love, your support and your prayers. Thank you for being patient with me and showing me unconditional love. And there were many times, sweet sisters, that I had to ask the Holy Spirit to please help me to love my child. When she was making decisions and doing things that were very heartbreaking to me. But it was God's love that she could see through me, working in me, and honestly, that loved her back into the kingdom. Something she shared with me when she recommitted her life to the Lord, she goes, mom, as she's crying. She goes, you know what really spoke to me? I dug out my old Bible. And as I was reading, I was seeing God's love notes that I had written down as he spoke to me when I used to be in his word. Lady, his word is powerful, powerful. And I know it's not gonna be, oh, this is so wonderful and I wanna go to church, you know, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, not that kind of stuff. I know it's gonna be hard because see the enemy is very upset right now, very. And I know she has an uphill battle. But you know what? God is going to be with her every step of the way. And when God can't be, I'm gonna be interceding for her just like her father will be. And God's love wooed her back. It is God's kindness that brings us to repentance. When we experience God's love, we can't stay the same people. We can't. The Holy Spirit resides within us and he's moving each one of us closer and closer to the image of Christ. If we allow him to, are you willing to allow him to use you to be that vessel in someone's life that they're able to see the love of Christ in? I pray that we are, because time is short, time is very, very short. We are to be imitators of God's love. In closing, there was a speaker who started his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. Who wants this? He asked and hands went up throughout the audience. I'm gonna give this $20 to one of you, but first let me do this so he crumples up the bill. Who still wants it? And the hands are still going up in the air. Well, he said, what if I do this? So he dropped the money to the floor and he's ripping it all up and stomping all over it. And he picked it up and it's all wrinkles and it's dirty. And he goes, now who still wants this? And again, hands went up in the air. Well, you've all learned a valuable lesson, the speaker said, no matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it didn't decrease in value. It's still worth that $20. The speaker says, many times in our lives, we are dropped, we are crumpled and grounded into the dirt by the decisions that we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless, but no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value in God's eyes. Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you sweet sisters are priceless to him. You are priceless. He has loved you with an everlasting love. No one can snatch you out of his hand if you are his child. May we embrace the love that he has given to us and then because of that love and with his love, just let it go to others so others can be transformed as we have been transformed. Let's pray. Father, we love you. God and I pray that you would help us, that you would show us, that you would teach us what it means to love you more, Father. God, we want to experience the fullness of your love. And whatever that means for each one of us individually, Lord, we ask God that we would be submitted for that. Lord, I ask God that you would work in our hearts, conforming us more and more to the image of Jesus Christ that we can really live our lives to bring glory and honor to you. No matter what tomorrow holds for us, may we know that you are holding on to us. We love you, Father. In Jesus' most holy name, amen.