Chris Hodges - Love
Alright, who's glad to be in church today, anybody? Come on, give Jesus the best praise you've got, everybody! Oh, it's so good to see you. Welcome today to week number one of a nine-part series on "The Fruit of the Spirit," and I'll tell you more about that in just a second. As always, give me a minute, Grants Mill, to look into the camera and say hello to all of our other locations. We are one church that meets in 26 rooms across Alabama and Georgia. Love every single one of you guys so very much.
And of course, we have the incredible honor of bringing this service and then also all that we are as a church into the Alabama Department of Corrections Facilities, which I'm happy to report today, everybody, that I've been saying for a number of weeks or months that we have 26, today, number 27 is joining us, everybody! We're so glad! Everyone of you guys at Walden, thank you for joining us. You're part of our church family, and we're glad that you're along for the ride as well. And of course, there are people right now watching live online somewhere around the world or maybe later on demand. We love you guys so very much. Thank you for joining us.
This is a special week for us too because we have our Women's Conference, that we have our annual Women's Conference going on, and there's so many of you ladies that register for this event that we do back-to-back conferences to fit everybody in. We don't have to do that for the men, but anyway. So, we have on Thursday and Friday is the conference, and then we redo the whole thing Friday, Saturday. And of course, we have Miss CeCe Winans coming and our very own Charlotte Gambill, and DawnChere Wilkerson is speaking to us among others. And so, ladies, if you have not registered yet, Grants Mill is full, but there's some room at the other locations, and if money's the reason why you're not doing it, don't let that be the reason.
We always build in scholarships. Just email us at [email protected] and a team will help you. We'd love for you to be there and register. Please don't let that be the reason why you're not coming. We'd love to have you there. Today we're starting this brand-new series, and one of the things that we're doing that's unique to it, some of you guys that have been around here a long time would remember this, that for years, actually, I looked it up. It's a little over 18 years of our church. I gave you handout sheets, like handout sheets, like message notes, and you could physically fill in the blanks until about 2018 or so.
We noticed more of you were not filling them in. You were actually taking notes on your phones and other devices, and that's when we decided to go more digital with those same message notes, and we still provide those. Those are on our app. But for this series, we decided to go a little old-school, everybody, alright? So, for you young people, this is what you call paper, okay, paper. And so, it's a little journal on "The Fruit of the Spirit," and if you didn't get one coming in, get one going back out. And every week, there's each of the weeks, some extra things you can study on your own between Sundays, places to take notes.
So our team worked very hard putting these together for you, and of course, you just pick one of those up on your way out. Let me tell you why we're doing this series. There's a number of reasons, and one of them is very important, and that is that God has this hope in all of us is that we're actually bearing the fruit of Christianity. Let me say it this way: the hope of Christianity isn't just for us to go to heaven, the hope is that we become like Jesus and then people want the God that's on the inside of us. So like, God wants us to bear fruit and have values. Let me say it that way. And it's very, very important because I believe people are hungrier for God than they ever have been before. But here's the problem: people aren't rejecting God, they're rejecting us sometimes.
And so, we need to allow God to work inside of us because we can't make a difference if we ain't different. And I know that's bad English, but that's very good preaching, right, everybody? Like, we have to be different. God has to do something on the inside of us that is an evidence of our Christianity. In fact, let me tell you a quick little story and another resource that we're gonna make available to you after Christmas, all of our Christmas services. Tammy and I had the opportunity to spend New Year's Eve with John and Margaret Maxwell. If you don't know who John Maxwell is, he's considered to be the world's greatest leadership guru. He's written 87 books, sold more than 40 million copies of these books, and he wrote a book this year called "High Road Leadership," and it's his response to the toxic culture of our world and especially what happened in the 2020 elections.
And it's okay to have opinions and have a position and something you believe, and you need to vote your faith and vote your values, that's fine, but it's not okay for us to be treating each other the way we're treating each other. And the world's gotten so divisive and so toxic, and everybody's making you pick sides, and then whatever side you pick on, the other side hates you. This is not the way it's supposed to be, everybody, especially in the house of God. So he wrote a book, and it's a leadership book. It's not a Christian book. It's a leadership book called "High Road Leadership," how we need to take the high road, just like Jesus did.
Now, he didn't quote Jesus, but he been thinking. And on this trip at a breakfast, once, he said, "Chris, I wanna get this message in the church, and I wanna show how Jesus lived out these values, how Jesus was a 'high road' leader. I mean he was the one saying, you know, 'walk the second mile. If someone slaps you on the cheek, you don't punch 'em back, you turn the other cheek.' He had a different lifestyle. He was a 'high road' leader". He says, "And I'd like for you to write half of it with me". And I'm like, just to have my name on a book with him, you all, I can't believe it. And so, it comes out nine days from now, yeah, and so, I'm very excited about it, and this is what it looks like. It's called "Jesus, the High Road Leader".
And next Sunday, we're gonna have copies for all of you guys, all right, that wanna purchase one at cost. So every time I write a book, by the way, I always negotiate with the publisher. Like, you can't sell these at retail. Do what you want to outside of the church, but in this church, I want 'em to be... I don't wanna make a penny on anything in our own church, 'cause you're my family, everybody, alright? So order it if you want to, or you can wait till next Sunday. We'll have this, this for us. But here's the deal, instead of asking what would Jesus do, remember the WWJD bracelets? How about we do what Jesus did? Stop asking the question and just start doing it, alright?
And that's one of the motivations for this series. Second one is "fruit" is important because it's letting us know, and don't miss this, if you're getting your Christianity right. Like, there has to be something to be the evidence, and it can't be this denomination argument versus this one or this person's belief versus this one. Jesus said, "Hey, don't worry about all that. The fruit will tell you who's got it right". And the Bible says this is the fruit of being full of the Spirit. So, this is not even something you can really work on, this is who you are. Let me say it this way: how we are and how we're living is the evidence of what's going on on the inside of us.
Now, if that concerns you, great. That's why we're studying it, right? But it concerns me, 'cause there's some times, I'll think, you know what? This is not on that list. In fact, this anger, or this impatience, or this, you know, lack of self-control, this is the actually the opposite of that, which lets me know God still needs to do some work in my life. So that's another reason it's an evidence of what's happening. It lets us know if we're getting our Christianity right. And the last reason I would have you study this together is that, look at me, everybody, God wants you to have all this. He's a good God. He'd love for you to have more love in your life. Wouldn't you love to have more peace? Wouldn't you love to have more joy? Wouldn't you love to have more patience?
Wouldn't you love to be... I just wanna be good. I wanna be kind. I wanna be faithful. I wanna have self-control. And so, God wants us to have all these, and so that's why we're gonna study this, alright? And so, I have two jobs to do today. One is to start the first fruit, which is love. I'll just go ahead and tell you that. That's the first one, and it's the most important one, and it's first on the list. But because this is the beginning of a brand-new series, I have to set up the series too. So, the first part of this message is a different message than the second half. The first half is just explaining to you how all this actually works.
So let me show you not only the text, let me show you the context. Let me show you the whole thing. The verse is found in Galatians 5, but let me show you what it says before it gives you the actual fruit. It says this: "So I say, walk by the Spirit," the Spirit means the breath of God, the thing that happens on the inside of you, watch this, don't miss this, that makes you want to do all the things of God, the breath of God, it's the power of God. And when you have that power, not on the outside of you, but on the inside of you, "You will not gratify the desires of your flesh".
Now, all of us know that part. That's the part of us that goes against the things of God, but we all have a little bit of that in us, or a lot of bit of that in us. "For the flesh desires what is contrary to the things of God, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are actually in conflict," and some of you are feeling it right now. So some of you had that experience this week, or last night, or at some point when you did it, you think, why did I do that? Why did I say that? Why did I act like that? Because there's a war going on between the flesh part of you, the non-God side of you, and the part of you that God's inside of you, and it's at this war, and it's just trying to settle the war so that you do not do what you want.
And by the way, notice that he didn't say, "So that you do what God wants". No, this is all not just for God, this is for you. God wants you to have this. "But if you're led by the Spirit, you're not under the law," now let me explain that. In their days, there was the law. There was the 10 Commandments among 400 other commandments. And he goes, "Whenever you really are led by the Spirit, whenever you're living a Christianity where the Spirit of God is on the inside of you, you don't need the law, because you don't need something else externally telling you to do what's already been written on the inside of you".
This is very important for me to explain. And then he says, "The acts of the flesh are obvious: and there's sexual immorality," by the way, those two words is one word in the Greek, it's "porneia," where we get the word pornography, "impurity, debauchery," debauchery means living out whatever your senses want you to do, "idolatry, witchcraft" by the way, that Greek word is "pharmakeia," where we get the word in the English "pharmacy". So, you say, "What's the connection between drugs and witchcraft"? Illicit drugs is having a supernatural experience but you left God out of it. Isn't that interesting?
So, "Hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage," doesn't it sound like America right now? "Selfish ambition, dissensions," we have dissensions, "factions," groups, "envy; drunkenness, orgies and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this," and let me paraphrase this. You can see what it says, that those who live like this never get the best of what God has to offer. So the kingdom of God is not a place. The kingdom of God is what God wants to do when he's the king of your heart. He wants to put the kingdom of God on the inside of you. So there's a bigger thing that God wants to do inside of you, and he wants you to have all of that. "But the fruit of the Spirit is," and here's the list.
There's nine of them: "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control," and then he says it again: "When I teach you these, I can't tell you how to do them. I can't give you the law. These have to be on the inside of you," which I wanna pause right here and make sure you understand one of the bedrock teachings of Church of the Highlands that we decided long time ago that we were gonna embrace, which I'm gonna give, first, the credit all goes to God, but I truly believe that one of the reasons why our church has grown and why people are so attracted to Church of the Highlands and the God, the way we give you God in this place is this teaching, this bedrock teaching, that is the second story of the Bible.
First story is Creation, Genesis 1. Second story is that God says, "Okay now, when you pursue God, there's always gonna be two choices for you to pursue God," and now, we teach this extensively in our freedom curriculum, "the tree of life or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil". Some people thought the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the sin tree, so it's the God tree, sin tree. That's not what it says. You can do it through the knowledge of good things and bad things, like you're just, just gonna understand it in your mind, or you can have the tree of life, where it's on the inside of you.
Here's what the difference is is that when you have the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you only have learned behavior that you don't want to do, but you're just gonna have to obey it, versus the tree of life is where you become the behavior and now you wanna do it. It answers the question of "how am I gonna be godly"? And that's a great question that religion's trying to solve in a variety of different ways all across the world right now. Like, how are you gonna become more godly? Are you gonna do it through "you better, you ought to, you better not," a bunch of rules? Or, are you gonna really have this love of God on the inside of you where it's no longer "I have to," it's a "I get to," so that we're not here out of obligation. We're here because we're in love with Jesus. Can I get a better "amen," somebody, right?
Are we gonna serve God through the fear of reproof or the love of good? Parents, you understand what I'm talking about because all of us had to make our kids obey. So if they didn't do it, "Well, you're punished. Then you can't. You better stop. I'm the parent, stop". And we made them, but if we never put the value on the inside of them so they obeyed you but they didn't believe in it, then when they went off to college, they did everything opposite of what you told them to do. Okay, religion many times is that way. Preachers get up here and say, "You better not," and like, "Okay, you're right, but I still want to do this".
So when we have Monday through Saturday, we look like that. Now, that was the key theme of this entire book of Galatians, where the fruit of the Spirit is. Galatia, let me give you some context, is a city in the middle of what is today modern-day Turkey, so these are not Jewish people. Paul plants a church in the middle of Turkish people. So they're in the middle of this area called Galatia, and what's so interesting is that the church was still led predominantly by Jewish leaders that were now Christians, but they brought in some of their Jewish laws to these Gentile believers. And one of the things that the Jewish leaders, new Christian leaders, wanted to give the Gentiles, the non-Jews, was circumcision. Because the Gentiles weren't circumcised whenever they were children.
And so they said, "Okay, you're a Christian, you love Jesus, praise God. He died on the cross to save you from your sins, but now you need to get circumcised". Can you imagine that in step one of the Growth Track, everybody, right? Like, you can't be in the club unless you do this! How many of you know it would've been women only, "Honey, you go on in. I'm gonna sit in the car. You sign us up". Be like, you know what I'm sayin'? I ain't going in there, you know? Okay. And so, Paul's dealing with this, and I'm gonna show you why this is important when it comes to these fruit. 'Cause in Galatians chapter 1, so this is the first chapter of the book that has the fruit of the Spirit in it.
He says, "I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in grace, the grace of Christ, and you're turning to a different gospel," one that requires you to follow certain rules, circumcision, "which is really no gospel at all". In other words, if I stood here and said, "Hey, love more, and I'm gonna show you how, and if you don't, you're wrong, you're just wrong". No, see, that would be law-based teaching of these fruit, and I'm not gonna do that. It's no gospel at all. He goes on to say, "Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and trying to pervert the real gospel of Christ," which is not "have to," but "I don't have to love, I want to love".
So in chapter 5, he says it this way: "Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised," if you're gonna be somebody that's just gonna follow the rules, "Christ is no value at all. Again I declare to you every person who lets himself be circumcised is obligated the whole thing". In other words, if you're gonna go the "rule way," you gotta get him all right. 'Cause now you're not putting your hope in Christ, you're putting your hope in you.
Now watch this, verse 2, he says, "So you who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; and you have fallen away from grace". And I say this because I had this fear when I was putting together this series that I didn't wanna just teach it to you. I didn't wanna come here and say, "Alright, here's how you learn how to have joy. I'm gonna teach you how to have peace". You can't do it that way. Peace has to come on the inside of you, and now, it pops out the fruit of peace to the people around you. And we gotta make sure that when you hear what we're saying to us, you hear it that way because, "You can't learn fruit". You can't. You just can't, "You can only let it be the byproduct of who you already are".
So instead of teaching you this stuff, I'm gonna try to get it on the inside of you so that you bear it. And I just wanted to lay that foundation before we even got into the first one. You say, "Chris, how does that really happen"? Well, there's one constant theme that you're gonna hear all nine weeks that allows you to have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self. There's one constant theme that as you can't learn it, we fall in love with Jesus. And the more you become like Christ, and it becomes not "what you have to do," but now it's "who you are," pop!
Now, all these fruit come out, and that's why, again, it's a great revealer of how well we're doing in our love relationship with Christ. Okay, so let me show you a verse before we get into the first quality. Jesus said, okay, "Remain in me," and one translation says "abide". Like, talk to me not on Sundays, but on Monday mornings too. "Remain in me, and I in you. 'Cause no branch can bear fruit by itself," so in other words, you have no hope. Look at me, church. You have no hope of being full of love, joy, peace, you have no hope, no hope at all on your own, "Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I'm the vine; you're the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; but apart from me you can do nothing".
If you're a note taker, jot this little phrase down: The gospel is not a learned behavior. The gospel is a transformation of the inner person. So now, this all pops out, these fruit, which is why when we teach this to you, we're not gonna train you in it, we're gonna have you ingest it so then it comes out of you. I hope you see that. One more verse, it's probably my favorite verse that I've had my greatest biblical revelation of any verse in the Bible. You're gettin' ready to see the verse that has meant more to me, comes alive more to me, than just about anything, and it has shaped the way we do ministry here at Highlands.
It's John 14:15, where Jesus said, "If you love me, you will do what I command". And there are two ways to read it. You can read it out of that wrong tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and if you do, here's how it goes: "If you love me, prove it. If you love me, don't tell me you love me if you're not doing what I told you to do". And that's not what it says. Although, that's how a lot of us read that verse. But here's how it read, watch this: "If you love me, you'll do what I command". In other words, don't focus on doing the commands, focus on loving me, and the commands will come out.
So I always ask people, "What side of that comma are you living on"? Or are you trying to do the commands so you can be in love with God, or you're in love with God, and therefore the commands come out? Do you see the difference, everybody? Okay, as we approach all these fruit, I just wanna make sure you understand that that's how we're going to frame them, shape them, and give them to you, so here we go, everybody. And the first one is love. And I don't have to tell you. I probably don't have to read any of these next few verses to you to let you know how important this one is to the entire Bible. It is the verb of the Bible. Love is what God has done, "For God so loved the world," right?
1 Corinthians says it this way: "Three things will last forever: faith, hope, and love, and the," read it out loud with me, "and the greatest of these is... (love)". It sure is. In fact, in chapter 14, it says, "Make love your greatest aim". So, is there a lot of things important in Christianity? Yeah, we're aiming at a lot of things. We're aiming at knowledge, discipleship, growth, wisdom, development, giving, all important, but if you read the rest of 1 Corinthians 13, and go read it. It's one of the shortest little chapters of the Bible. You've heard it at weddings: "Love is patient, love is kind". But the preamble to the chapter says this: "If you have give all your money, if you have all wisdom, if you have the faith that can move a mountain, but you have not love, you are a resounding gong, you're a clanging symbol. It's worth nothing without love".
Let me say it this way: This is going to shock some of ya. God is less concerned about what you know or what you believe. He's more concerned about how you act and what you do, and that's why Christianity's got to get this right. Can I get a good "amen," everybody, right? That's right. 'Cause we put the emphasis on "what I believe" and "what I know," and God said, "Like, yeah, but why don't you just try to be a little nicer there? And why don't we love people better"? And I'll show you this. I'm gonna show you. And these are strong.
In Matthew 5, this is in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said this. He said, "Therefore, if you're offering your gift at the altar," so if you're coming to church to worship, or to tithe, or whatever you do at church, "and there you remember your brother or sister that you have something against, get on outta... leave your altar, leave the gift at the altar". He says, "And first be reconciled to them; and then come back". In other words, Jesus said, "Don't talk to me until you've talked to them, 'cause you can't separate your faith from how you're treating people". Are you seeing that, everybody? Chapter 13: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another," and then here it is, "By this, that's how they're gonna know," not by, "What church do you go to"? "Church of the Highlands". No, no, no, it's how you treat people.
And by the way, I have a dream that whatever they say about us, they say, "But I'm gonna tell you they're the most caring, loving people, that they're the best in our city," right? You know, let that be what they say. Matthew chapter 22: "Teacher," one person asked Jesus, "what is the greatest commandment," of the 440 in the Old Testament, can you reduce it down to one? It's just too many. Jesus said I sure can: "Love, love, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the first and the greatest commandment," and to which they would have said, "I didn't ask you for two," to which Jesus would have said, "But I have to give you both. You can't separate your love for me and your love for people, because you can't love me and hate people, and you can't love people unless you love me. They're inseparable".
One more, Galatians chapter 5, just 'cause it says it the strongest. By the way, this is in the same chapter with "the fruit of the Spirit": "The only thing that counts," now you don't ever get language like that in the Bible that strong, "The only thing that counts is that you're a person of faith and that faith is expressing itself in unconditional love," loving and valuing all people. One of the chapters of the book that John and I wrote is that if you're gonna be a high road leader and one like Jesus, you don't love and value the people you agree with, you love and value everybody, because everybody matters to God. Can I hear a good "amen," everybody, right?
Okay, so if I've created an enormous amount of "uh-oh" conviction or frustration, I did my job, everybody, right? Okay, 'cause now the question should be in your own heart and mind, okay how? And how are you gonna get this in me, oh PC, without teaching me it? How am I gonna get this on the inside of me so this is what's coming out of me? Three things, jot 'em down if you're taking notes, and I sure hope you are, and that is: You have to understand the depth of God's love for you. I get this from this beautiful verse that comes out of Ephesians chapter 3, and it goes like this: "I pray," and by the way, I got up very early this morning, and I prayed this over every single one of you.
You need to know that this morning, you were prayed for, "that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's people, to grasp," to understand, "how wide, long, high, and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love," not here, but here, "that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with the measure of all the fullness of God". And for everybody who's listening to me right now, you say, "PC, I still don't get it". I've actually asked God, asked the Lord. I said, "Lord, let me have a portion of the service where I'm teaching and people are taking notes, and they're learning and growing".
But actually, I'd hoped at this point in the message, this is a point where you would actually be experiencing the message and feeling it, and it just doesn't go in here, it goes inside of your heart. And probably the best way to understand this is for me to tell you a story out of Luke chapter 7, where Jesus said, "One of the Pharisees invited Jesus to his house and so Jesus went there to the house, and he reclined at the table. And an uninvited prostitute came".
So she was actually, she was a known sinner, and she learned that Jesus was there, "So she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume," some scholars say it would be worth a year's salary, so whatever that is for you, that's a lotta money, "And as she stood behind him at his feet, she started crying," so Jesus is teaching all these people in this house of this Pharisee, and this prostitute's weeping, "and her tears are hitting his feet. And she's wiping his feet with her hair, and then she pours this alabaster jar of perfume," worth a year's salary, "on him. And when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself," now time out right there. You never say stuff just to yourself. Jesus knows your thoughts.
So he's going, man, dude, "'If this guy was a prophet, he'd know this is a bad woman doin' this. She's a sinner.' And Jesus said, 'Simon,'" so he knows, busted, alright, "I have something to tell you". He says, "Alright Jesus, go ahead". And he tells another story. He says, "Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. And one owed five hundred denarii," that's hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, "and the other owed fifty," which is still a large sum, but one's a big, big, big sum, "And neither of them had the money and the lender decided to forgive the debt". And Jesus says, "Which one of the two do you think will love him more"?
And the Pharisee said, "Well, I guess it's the guy who owed the most". And Jesus said, "'You're right.' And then he turned toward the woman and he said, 'Simon, do you see this woman? I came to your house. And you didn't give me any water, but she gave me tears and she wiped them with her hair. And you didn't give me a kiss, but she hasn't stopped kissing my feet. And you didn't put oil on my head, but she spent $50,000 with the oil on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven.'" The reason why she's doing this, she's loving much because she's been forgiven much, "But whoever has been forgiven little loves little".
And let me just time out right here and say this to all of us, lean in. Nobody's been forgiven little, not even old Simon. Like, we're all the woman. We're all the one with the 500 denarii, not the 50, all of us, including me. And the more you understand that and you realize that God has wiped away everything you've ever done and paid for your sins, and you ready for this? He keeps doing it over and over, you know, like the sin you said last Sunday, "I'll never do that again," and you did, he still, in fact, the Bible says, "He delights to keep letting you off the hook. It is the joy. This is his joy to show mercy to you," Micah, the book of Micah says. Like, if he had a refrigerator, your pictures on it, even what you did last night and he knows it. He knows your thoughts. He knows everything.
Look at me. And he's deeply in love with you, and there's nothing you can do to stop it, and the more you realize that, the easier it is for, "Then I'm gonna treat others that way too". When I was a youth pastor in Colorado Springs, maybe I should say when Tammy and I were youth pastors in Colorado Springs, we were just one year married, I taught piano lessons because they didn't pay me enough, and so I needed more money, so I taught, and I'm classically trained. I had a handful of piano students, and one that I had was named Jared Anderson. He was a prodigy.
I taught him his first piano, and then I'll never forget after about three years, he was the only student that got so good that I just said, "I have nothing else for you. You're now better than me, way better than me". And he went on to be a great worship leader, still is, writing some great songs. And when he was very young, in his 20s, he wrote a song that we used to sing all the time here at Highlands, and I've been singing it all week, 'cause it just speaks to this moment, and it's ministered to me. It goes like this: "Lord, I'm amazed by you. Lord, I'm amazed by you. Lord, I'm amazed by you, how you love me".
And then the bridge goes like this. Sing it, CJ. "How wide, how deep, how great is your love for me"? "How wide, how deep, how great is your love for me"? And here's what I've noticed. I've been singing it all week just thinkin' about this message, 'cause, you know, it takes me days to let these percolate inside of me, and I guess Tammy's really the judge of what I'm getting ready to say, but I feel like I've been treatin' people better, and I feel something happening on the inside of me. 'Cause I've just been pondering the great love of God. But you can't just understand it, you have to receive it. Like, I'm gonna let this be something I take and I receive, and for some of you in this room, you've already talked yourself out of it, 'cause you think there's no way God wants me, not the way I've act. But there's nothing you can do to get him to stop loving you that way.
In fact, you have to have it because capacity to love others comes from the fact that you've already been loved. 1 John says it this way: "We love," why do we love? "Because he first loved us". So you have to receive it. In fact, if you want a little bit of your little pastor trivia, people call me PC for Pastor Chris. You want a little PC trivia? It's been in my favorite verse since I was 15 years old, and it's Romans 5: "That God demonstrates his love that while you were still being a knothead and rejecting him, he died for you". He didn't wait for you to receive him. He wasn't like on the cross like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Don't drive the nails".
Are y'all gonna receive this, no? While they were still spitting on him, he loves you. When we were in Colorado Springs, we had three of our first five kids in, they're Colorado natives. My second child is my oldest son, Michael. When he was two years old, Tammy went to a shower on a Saturday, let me just point out, without me. And for all you ladies who want husbands to come, don't invite us. We don't wanna go. Like, we don't wanna go to showers, okay? This new trend, like, no, no, no. We're supposed to watch football. Knock yourself out at the shower. Men, I helped you out right there. I mean, you owe me.
Alright, you owe me. Thank you very much, thank you, alright, thank you. But anyway, Tammy goes to the shower, brings little Michael with her, and while she was sitting in a folding chair, Michael climbs up on the back of it, standing on the little bar that braces the back legs, hanging on the back. Tammy doesn't know he's there. Stands up. Now with her weight gone, all of his weight pulls the chair right on top of him, and the metal chair hit him right on the bridge of the nose and sliced it. They said when I got the word, they said his nose is hangin' off his face. I'm like, "Well, that's great".
So, ended of that football game, I was headed to the emergency room, and Michael was fine. He was laughing. He was actually coloring. And they'd got him all stable, and he's fine, and the doctor said, "We're gonna need a specialist for this". Like great, if you can't handle it, get out the way. You know, like, we'll take a specialist. And so, the specialist comes in. He had absolutely no personality whatsoever. Y'all know the kind of doctors I'm talkin' about, like this? And he just does stuff, but he didn't tell me what he's gonna do. He just starts doing stuff. Like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Tell me what you're gonna do before you do it, please. I'm the dad here. I'm the dad". He goes, "I'm gonna fix his nose".
I'm like, I can tell this is gonna be a problem, you know, just could tell. And so, they start to wheel him into the surgery room, and I follow. He goes, "You ain't comin' in here". I said, "Oh, yes, I am". He goes, "Well, you're not gonna like it". I was like, now he's insulting me. Like, "I can handle this, my brother. I'm gonna be in there with him". And Michael's still laughing, cuttin' up and everything, and I'll never get, they laid Michael back, and they put him in a papoose, tied him all down, and he's just laughing, and they hold his head real still, and he's just laughing.
And then the doctor looks down with these giant binoculars, and he's just laughing. And then they brought out this needle, and he wasn't laughing, and his face turned to terror. I'll never forget it. And he got his hands out of the nurse's hands and turned, and I'm sitting off to the side, and he looked at me like, like, isn't this where the dad swoops in and saves the child? Is this not the moment? And he didn't know I couldn't, like, this was what was good for him. And I'll never forget. They grabbed his face abruptly and held it still, and this needle goes in his nose, and they start for 40 minutes, puttin' nine stitches in his nose. And for 40 minutes, he cried out, "Daddy, Daddy"! Just screamed.
It was like the most torturous sound ever, and you know you can't stop it. Like, it was good for him. And I'm drivin' home, Michael's asleep in the car seat, I'm wrecked, just wrecked, and this thought came to me. I feel like God spoke it to me. He said, "You know that's what I felt like, right? 'Cause my Son cried out too, and I didn't swoop in and save him. I let him go through all that torture for you". And the more you realize that, and better yet, the more you receive that, the fruit of love will come out everywhere. Here's the last one. We need to go. But you're not just, you don't just feel it, you choose it, listen to me, 'cause love is, it's not just a feeling.
People talk about love like it's uncontrollable, "I fell in love," like it's a ditch or something. No, it's not a ditch. Just fell. I fell. I didn't want to, I just fell in it, you know. Like, no, you didn't. 'Cause they'll use the same to say "I fell out of it. I can't help it. I just don't love him anymore". No, love's a choice. Love's a choice. And the Bible says you have to put it on. "Put on love". The way we say it is, and don't forget this little lesson, choices lead, and your feelings will follow. Love is getting up in the middle of the night when your child is vomiting. That isn't fun, but you love 'em. Love is being patient with your husband when he's irritable. Love is being patient with your wife whenever she's emotional. No, you just, you choose it 'cause you love them.
And by the way, don't miss this, that's why your giving is so important. You don't feel giving. The Bible says that in Matthew, "For where your treasure is, your heart follows". Notice it doesn't say, "You give to the things you love". It says, "Your love will follow the things you give to". And if you want to be a lover of God, invest in the things of God, and watch your love relationship with God grow. In fact, let me say it this way, and I never say it this strong, but I just felt led to say some of you need to choose to do it. Like, just give to the things of God, and watch your love follow.
So here's my final thought. We need to go. You're gonna to do it for something. In fact, let me stop and say this way. You're already doing it for something. You're already loving something that way, and I don't know if it's God or not, but if I looked at your checkbook, your time, your energy, and your affection, it's going to, something's your biggest love, and you better be careful if it's not God.
Some of you have not chosen God to be that top love, but be careful because whatever I love becomes an obsession. I love saying that in the middle of a football season, "Hey, love it, but don't be obsessed with it, people". Because whatever you obsess about, you'll imitate, and whatever you imitate, you become, and I'm recommending you do that with God, because whatever I love changes me into that which I love.
And so Father, I'm praying that the people of God love you and others, just like you asked us, and Lord, we don't wanna learn this, we wanna be this. So Lord, help 'em understand your love, receive your love, and then choose to live this way.
Heads bowed, eyes closed, please be very still. At every location, just give me five more minutes. We always end on time. We will today. But if you're here today, and you have had a hard time receiving the love of God, and something on the inside of you is drawn to give your life to God, maybe you've even been a lover of God but he's not high up on the list, he's just on the list somewhere, and you're ready to reorder your heart list, where God is your first love, your most important love. Some of you need to rededicate your life to God today.
Some of you have never become a Christian, and you're ready. Make up your mind right now if I'm talkin' to you, and I'm not gonna have you stand up or come to the front, but if I just described you and you say, "Chris, today I'm ready to tell God I wanna love him the same way he's loved me," I wanna pray for you right there in your seat. Campus passers are coming, heads are bowed, no one lookin' around. If I just described you and you want to be included in this prayer, lift your hand right now, say, "Count me in, count me in," yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.