Leverage: Love

In the final week of our "Leverage" series, our friend Charlie Craige preached on leveraging love. Love is more than emotion, preference, or words—it’s devotion expressed through action. In this episode, we unpack Jesus’ greatest commandments: loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and loving your neighbor as yourself. We explore how misplaced love leads to idolatry, selfishness, and emptiness, while God’s love brings identity, healing, and purpose. Discover how receiving God’s love transforms the way you see yourself, serve others, and live with eternal purpose instead of wasting your life chasing lesser things.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

If you spend any time with me or or or my family, then you know uh Boston is a really special city to us. We almost we almost actually planted this church in Boston. It was one of the first places that we've felt God calling us to go. And then through our son and through some other things, God redirected us and kept us here in Atlanta. And we're so thankful that he did. But Boston has continued to be a city that is really special to us. And when I was a college young adult pastor, we began this partnership with them, and we got to send all kinds of young adults and college students to the city of Boston. And what they do is they partner with a local church plant and they serve them missionally in the city, and then they serve their local church uh for that entire stint while they're in the city of Boston. And I think we actually have a picture of one of the teams that we sent, and you'll probably recognize some faces. So I think there's five people from this team who literally moved their lives to plant this church with us here. And a lot of that, a lot of them were deeply influenced by this opportunity where they went and lived on mission for eight weeks as church planters, and then they came back with this burden of going, like, man, I think God really wants us to be part of this. And and we took advantage of that and said, Hey, well, actually, we're planting a church. And and they came with us to help plant this church. There's someone else who went on that. She's a part of church planting in New York City, and all of them are very engaged in their local churches. And so we just saw the fruit of this ministry be really amazing. And so I'm really excited to bring up my buddy Abraham Tallini. Abraham, Abraham actually lives with me with our family too, so he's like really special to us. He means a lot to our family, uh, means a lot to our church. And we're really excited. This is his last Sunday here. So literally, next Sunday, you'll be on your way to Boston or in Boston? Almost. On your way. But he's gonna, yeah, last Sunday here. And then he's gonna be eight weeks in the city of Boston serving with Coa Forest Forest Hills.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Yeah, City on the Hill, Forest Hills. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

So Coa Forest Hills, if you want to look up that church, that's gonna be where Abraham's serving. Um, we also have a QR code here where you can kind of keep up with him. Abraham's gonna have like a newsletter. There's giving opportunities there because this is this is costing money for him to be able to go do that. Our church, our church is gonna make up whatever difference does not happen through the generous donation of people in his life. So no matter what, Abraham's gonna be completely supported going to Boston this year. We we want we want this, we want to be winning his sales as his local church as he goes and serves Jesus to this local church. Do you want to just kind of share, you know, 30 seconds with a little bit about what you're looking forward to?

SPEAKER_02 2:21

Yeah, so this year is a really different for me because I get to help run Jensen as a program. I I don't necessarily have a team, I have 50 people under me. And I'm directly responsible for 21 guys and their coaching and development in the city. So this was my very first year, and I had a team of 10 total. Now it's I'm a little more alone, but I'm in charge of a lot more. So I'm overseeing them. I'm also interning with my church, City on Ill Forest Hills, as like an executive administrative intern. So I'll be working with their executive pastor and doing stuff like that. So that's what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_03 2:58

And then he's coming back to Atlanta forever. But but man, so we we want we want to one, just we we want to honor that. Like when whenever, like as a church, we have an opportunity. When someone is being faithful to Jesus and stepping out and taking risks, that's something that we as a church want to get behind and we want to celebrate. So we want to celebrate that and honor that. We also want to just pray over him and commission him together as a church. And so, man, would you just extend a hand if you're comfortable doing that? We're gonna pray over him and we're gonna commission him as a local church. Jesus, we are just so thankful. Every single one of us who know you know you because someone shared the good news of your grace and of your love with us. And now you have invited us to partner with you in your mission so that no one in our city or any city anywhere would not have an opportunity to hear how much you love them and respond to the good news of Jesus. And so, Lord, as a church, we want to celebrate every moment, whether it's whether it's big steps or whether it's it's little steps, every moment that people take to one, get closer to you, but two, to serve you and be a conduit of your of your mission in the world. In 2 Corinthians 5, you tell us that you've given us the ministry of reconciliation, that people are separated from you, and that we get to be ministers of your reconciliation to bring people back together with you to their rightful, yeah, to their to their rightful father, their rightful home, their rightful place in your love and in union with you. And so, Lord, we just want to honor Abraham. We honor his story. We honor the fact that you, Jesus, saved Abraham, that you came after him, that you saved him, that you loved him, that you rescued him. And now, out of his gratitude and out of the overflow of his worship, he's choosing to take that story and share it with others who desperately need you. Lord, we pray for the city of Boston. We pray right now in the name of Jesus that that you would just begin to till up the soil and soften the hearts of the people there to receive the gospel and to respond to them. We pray for fruitfulness of the local churches there. We pray for more churches to be planted in that city, and we pray for more churches to be planted in our city. We pray for more missionaries to live to live on mission with you and for you everywhere that they live, work, and play, here in Atlanta, to Boston, and to the ends of the earth. But Lord, right now we commission Abraham Tallini in the name of Jesus. Holy Spirit, would you fill him? Would you gift him? Would you empower him? Would you strengthen him? Would you give him courage and boldness? We pray against any any anxiety, any fear. We pray against any any voice of the enemy that would love to discourage him, that would love to shrink him down and make him small for what you've called him to. But we believe, Lord, that you have trained him and equipped him and prepared him for this moment and what you're sending him out to accomplish. And so, Lord, we want him to know with all the love and all the support from his local church that we want to commission him today in the name of Jesus. He belongs to you. We pray that you would give him ground for the kingdom of heaven everywhere that he goes in that city. Would you surround him with friends and supporters there in the city of Boston? And may and we pray that he would come back, not exhausted, but energized, full of vision and vigor for your mission as he comes back home eight weeks from now, Lord. We love him and we commission him today in the name of Jesus. Everybody said. Amen. Amen. Can we give it up for Abraham? Awesome. Man, what a privilege it is as a local church to send people out. And uh we hope to be able to do more and more and more and more of that in the days ahead. We hope it stirs something up in some of you. Maybe you're sitting here and you're going, man, what does that mean? What does that look like? And maybe the Lord could stir something up in you. And maybe one day you're standing up here and we're commissioning you to go do something awesome for the kingdom of heaven. Now I'm gonna read our scripture and call up our boy, our boy Charlie Craig here to bring the word. I'm really excited. Charlie's a great preacher. He's we get to partner with him. He's he's the director of FCA at Georgia State. And what he's what what God has used him to do over the past couple of years on that campus is amazing. I actually went to school there, and and there was not a whole lot of life for the for the kingdom of heaven when I was a student there. And now to be able to go and see whether it's worship nights or whether it's the huddles that they do together, the movement that's happening there through students and through student athletes, through not just Charlie, but but especially Charlie, is something that's been really beautiful to see. And we get to support their ministry and him as a as a local church, and he he goes to church here. And so it's really beautiful that we get to hear someone from our church bless our community with the word today. So uh he's gonna be preaching out of Matthew chapter 22, verses 36 through 40. And so I'm gonna read that for us. Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment, and a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and prophets. This is the word of the Lord. Can you welcome our friend Charlie Craig?

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Thank you, I appreciate it, man. Thank you. Man, it always feels interesting being introduced at a place that you're at every single week. I'm like, I'm here every every Sunday. But no, thank you for the opportunity. Thank you all for um supporting the Ministry of FCA at Georgia State. And I'm looking forward to sharing this word with you. We're gonna talk about leverage love. Everybody say leverage, leverage. Say love. All right, what are some things that you love? Like for me, I love walking, I love hiking, I love to eat a good meal, as you can probably tell. You don't get this big by accident. You know, I I I love traveling, love road trips. You know, some people are like crazy about sports. Anybody, some folks will say I love sports, yes. Anyone here love music? Anybody love tacos? I mean, there's yeah, there we go. We're unified now. That that unified the body of Christ when we said, Do you love tacos? I love that. Man, there's a lot of things that we say that we love, right? And you know, if I, you know, say all of those things, and then I'm like, man, for my married people in the room, do you love your spouse? Yeah. People who have kids in the room, do you love your kids? Right? Do you love your friends? Do you love your family? And and you and you hear this word love, you're like, man, I love tacos, but I also love my family. Like, and it's like a different kind of love that that's that we're talking about here. And I want to break this down for us just a little bit as we talk about what it means to leverage our love. One of the things that I love is what I get to do on a daily basis, and that's minister to coaches and athletes at Georgia State University through the ministry of FCA. And I love it so much that I inconvenience myself a lot of times. I put in a lot of hours, a lot of odd hours. I have a lot of tough conversations. I do things that I'm not necessarily uh excited to do. Why? Because I love the people that I get to minister to and do life with, and I love what God's called me to do. So this love that we're talking about costs me something. Amen. Right? Love for tacos doesn't cost me anything except for like maybe the waistline that I wish I would have. But but but this love for people, it's gonna cost me something. This is kind of love that Jesus is talking about in Matthew chapter 22. There's the kind of love of like, man, I love all of these things in my life. But then there's that deeper kind of love when we're talking about people. Like I can stand here and say I love coffee, which I do, but I can also stand here and say, I love my family, love my mom, love my dad, love my sisters, love my niece. And it's a different kind of love, but it's the same word that we're using here. So, in saying all of that, I think the challenge for us is if I get this kind of expression of love mixed up and I begin to love people in my life in the same way that I love coffee, then that's not gonna quite turn out the way that it needs to be. It's not gonna be a healthy relationship. Amen? Does that make sense? If I love the people in my life the same way that I love a good road trip and I love traveling, like that's that's not gonna be healthy. All right, right? Things are gonna be out of whack and out of order in my life. I don't love God in the same way that I love my favorite sports team. Amen. I don't love people in the same way that I love country fried steak and lima beans. Amen. True love, everybody say love. True love is something that is expressed and it's not hidden. People will not know that you love them unless you say it and unless you express it. All right, everybody say express it. Right? There's no way that the people in your life is going are going to know that you love them unless you somehow, some way express that love for them? What are your expressions saying about what you love most? Hello? We're good. What are your expressions saying about what you love most? What are your expressions saying about how you love God? What are your expressions saying about how you love your family? What are your expressions saying about how you love the people in your life that you say that you love? Because again, it's impossible to love someone without expressing it. Are you expressing your love to the extent that you say that you do? Love is reflected. Everybody say reflected, it's reflected through our actions. In Matthew chapter 6, verse 21, it says this, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. What's Jesus talking about there? Your treasure. Your treasure is gonna be your time, it's gonna be your energy, it's gonna be your resources, all of those things. Where those things are, that's where your heart is going to be. What's my heart? That's my affection, that's my concern, that's the things that I care about deeply. That's the love, like where my treasure is, that's where my love is going to be. So where am I placing my time? Where am I placing my energy? Where am I placing my resources? The Bible says, Jesus says that that's where my heart is going to be. That's where my love is going to be. We all have love to give, and we're all going to place that love somewhere because that's how God created us. So it's wise that we get an understanding on how we are to leverage the love that we have. Because we all have love to give. And we're all going to place it somewhere, whether we're intentional about it or not. So it would, what my mom would say, behoove us to gain some wisdom on how we are to leverage this love. So I don't want to get to the end of my life or get to the end of a season in my life and and have the regret of, man, I really misplaced like the love that I have to give. Or I really wasn't intentional about the love and the passion that I have to. Like, I really wasn't intentional about these things. I get to the end of a season in my life, or I get to the end of my life, and like, man, I wish I would have done things differently with the love that I know that I have to give. I never express that love because I let other things just get in the way. I never express that love because I misplaced that love and I put it in the wrong place. It's like I don't want to get to the end of a season in my life and say, man, I did not manage or steward well the love that God has given me to give because he gave me love so that I can share it. Amen. So I don't want to waste my love. What a waste would my love be if I expressed my love for a team more than I express love for God who made me and expressed love for the people that he placed in my life. What a waste if I express more love for a title or for a position more than I express love for the God who knit me together in my mother's womb and the people that I journey this life beside. What a waste would that be? What a waste if I celebrated my accomplishments more than I celebrated my Savior who gave me life and the people who walk beside me in the life that He's given me. What a waste it would be if I become successful in the eyes of the world, but failed to love God and failed to love the people that He placed in my life. The thing that I'm saying right here today in front of all of you is that I do not want to waste my life. Amen. I do not want to waste the love that God's given me to share with the people around me. And I'm saying, I will not waste my life. God has given me love not to be selfish with it, not to hold on to it for myself, but to be generous towards God and towards the people that God's placed in my life. Everybody say, I will not waste my life. I will not waste my love. When you love anything more than you love God, then God calls that idolatry. Like if I love anything in this world, anyone around me more than I love God, then God calls that idolatry. If I love anything more than the people around me, if I love anything more than the people that God's placed in my life, then what's that called? That's called selfishness. So I don't want to be falling into idolatry and misplacing my love in that kind of way. And I don't want to be falling into selfishness either and misplacing and mistewarding that love, my love, in that kind of way. And here's something that I have to understand and get a hold to. All right. I don't want to be deceived in the sense of, man, I love doing stuff for God more than I love God. Amen. Does that make sense? All right. I don't want to be guilty of like loving the things that I can do for people more than I actually love people. Like if I love doing things for God more than I love God, that's still idolatry. All right? Here's the crazy part too. If I love doing things for people more than I actually love people, then that's something that can become toxic. It's something that can become codependent. It's something that's just simply not healthy. So I have to leverage my love in the right kind of way. Because at the end of the day, people say this whole time, God knows my heart. And guess what? He does. Right? God knows our heart. And the position of our heart is going to produce fruit in our lives. So at some point or another, it's going to be exposed to the people around me as well. Like, what's the position of my heart? Do I really love God? And do I really love the people that God has placed in my life? Or do I just like doing things for God and doing things for people for whatever reason that might be? So, how do we leverage our love in this kind of way? How do we leverage our love God's way? I'm gonna read the passage one more time, Matthew chapter 22, verses 37 through 40. And it says this Jesus replied, You must love the Lord your God with all your heart. Everybody say all with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And he says this, the second is equal to it. And he says, Love your neighbor as you love yourself. And he goes on to say, the entire law of the prophets, the entire law from God is based on these two commandments, to love God and to love people. To love God with everything that you have, with your heart, with your soul, with your mind, to love God in that kind of way and to love the people in my life the way that I love myself. This is Jesus, I believe. This is Jesus breaking down like what freedom really looks like in our lives, like what true health really looks like in our lives, to be able to love God well, have a right relationship with God, and to have right relationship with the people around me. Jesus breaks this down, and this is what it means to live free, and this is what it really means to leverage our love. Love for God creates healthy love for myself, which makes it possible for me to love other people well. All right, if my relationship with God is healthy, then my relationship with myself is going to be healthy, and that way I can have a healthy relationship with other people. So, right relationship with God helps me to see myself the way that God sees me, which helps me to see other people the way that God sees them. I'm gonna be honest with you, this is gonna be a message where you're probably gonna want to go back and listen to this because I'm gonna go really fast. This is gonna be some really good stuff, all right? Not just because I sat with this for a long time, but because this is gonna be some healthy stuff to help us be able to get relationship with God right, get relationship with ourselves right, amen. And then be able to love other people in a healthy way. So let's talk about loving God, point number one, right here. This will be this will be my longest point. Loving God. Everybody say loving God. The first step to loving God with all your heart is understanding that God loved and pursued you first. Amen. I'm gonna need a better amen than that in the room today. Y'all got to help me out today. All right, somebody say amen. All right, right? To have a healthy relationship with God, I'm gonna have to understand that God pursued me first, that God loved me first, that the Bible says when I was afar off, doing my own thing, living my own life, when I was actually an enemy to God, the Bible says that God pursued and loved me first. 1 John chapter 4, verse 19 says, We love him because he first loved us. Amen. Romans chapter 5, verse 8 says, God demonstrates his own love for us in this, that while we were sinners, amen. Come on, that makes me happy. That that while we were sinners, that Christ died for me, that God loved me, that God pursued me in that kind of way. Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 and 9. In case I decide to get prideful and like I'm all that spelling myself, whatever you want to say right there, it says this for grace, everybody say grace. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing. It's not of my own, my own doing, but it is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that anyone can boast. Do we see what God is saying right here? He's saying, I pursued you first. That God created you, God created me, not because he had to, because he wanted to, because he loves us. And if I ever think that I'm earning God's love, then I don't have an understanding of what the gospel really is. If I ever think that, man, I'm making this thing happen and I'm doing all these things so that God can smile on me, that God can love me, that God can accept me, then I don't have an understanding of the gospel because the Bible says that before I was able to produce any good thing, that God was looking at me and God was loving me and God was seeing me for who I am. And he said, That person needs me to create a way of salvation for their lives. Amen. Isaiah 65, verse 1 says this, and this is God speaking. And he says, I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me. I don't know everybody's story in this room right now. Maybe you're in a place and you're like, man, I'm just here just because somebody drove me to church. And I'm saying that God wants to reveal himself to you before you even have an interest in who God is and the plan that he has for your life. That's how God found me. That before I had an interest on who God is, before I had an interest of doing anything for the Lord, before I had any type of interest, God was pursuing me and revealing himself to me. I had nothing to do with it, it was all God. Everybody say it was all God. If you're looking for a job to do in order to gain salvation, I'm gonna give you a job. All right. Are you ready for your task? Everybody say I'm ready. Receive. That's your job. It's to receive God's love. If you're looking for a to-do list, I have a to-do list for you today. In order to receive love from God, you have to receive love from God. That is your job description. Receive God's love. Receive salvation from God, receive relationship with God, to accept and trust God's invitation. Jesus does not force connection, but he invites it. And I'm saying, I'm going to receive that invitation. I'm going to accept that invitation because I can't do life on my own. I can't save myself. So I'm going to receive salvation from God by faith. When we get a revelation that God loves us, then our response is going to be to love him back. Like when I get that revelation that, man, God loves me, that God's pursuing me just because that's who he is, then my response is going to be one or two things, honestly. It's going to be I'm going to love him back, I'm going to accept that, or I'm going to reject it. And I'm going to say, I want to do life my way and just go about my own business and I'm good with all of that. I'm going to do things my own way. I'm either going to receive the invitation or I'm going to reject the invitation. But when I decide to follow Jesus out of gratitude, if I say gratitude, not obligation, not out of duty, I love God with all my heart, soul, and mind. When I get a revelation of God's love for me and I decide to receive that love in my life and receive that salvation, my response is out of gratitude. My response is out of relationship. It's not out of obligation. It's not of me trying to pay God back because I owe him, I gotta earn this thing. It's out of I'm loving God with all my heart, soul, and mind because he loved me first and he pursued me first. So then the question might be well, how do I love God in this kind of way that Jesus is talking about with all my heart, soul, and mind? And how do I grow in this relationship? Because any healthy relationship, you want it to be growing, right? Yeah. Any healthy friendship, any healthy relationship, you want to be growing and getting to know each other better. You don't want to remain stagnant, but you want to be going to the next level time and time again. So my response to God's love is to trust him wholly. So how am I going to grow in my relationship with God? How am I going to grow in my love for God that Jesus is talking about? It's going to start with trust. Right? So I trust God holy, and in doing so, I surrender my whole self to him, knowing that he's the only one who can sustain me. That it is whole life devotion. Everybody say whole life devotion. There's not just an emotion, it's not just a list of things to do, it's not just religious activity, but it is I am devoting my whole life to this relationship. And God isn't just number one on my list, but God is the center of my life. And everything that I do revolves around Him. So when Jesus says, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, he's saying, with all your affection, with all your desires, with all your priorities. Psalm 73, verse 25 says, Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. So I'm loving God with my whole being, with my all of my desires. He says, Love with all your soul. What does this look like? This is my inner being, right? To love God with my whole life, to love God with my entire identity. Romans 12, verse 1 says, offer your body as a living sacrifice. This means that your life belongs to him, your purpose belongs to him, your calling belongs to him. Everything belongs to him because he loves you and you trust him with your everything. And that's how you love him with everything. Then he says, Love him with all your mind. This is your thought life, your beliefs, your perspective. That I'm loving God throughout my belief, with my perspective, with where my mind is tracking. Loving God includes what? Learning his word, thinking upon his word, and thinking about what he says about me, and having a perspective of what truth truly is. That I'm rejecting lies from the enemy, and I'm allowing scripture, God's word, to shape how I see everything. Romans 12, verse 2 says, to be renewed by the transforming of your mind, to let God transform and change the way that you think. This is how love for God is cultivated. Everybody say cultivated over time, all right? That this isn't just something, it just happens, all right? That this is a cultivation of relationship with God, that I'm not just staying stagnant, but I'm growing in this relationship. My lifestyle begins to change. That I begin to learn and desire the ways of God, and I drop the desires and the ways of my own living and my own perspective, and I pick up God's way of life. That my behavior, I want us to understand this so so deeply, that my behavior and my lifestyle is produced from my love for God, not the other way around. Amen. Right? That my behavior and my lifestyle is produced from my love for God, not the other way around. John 15, verse 5, Jesus says, I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Like the whole point is the relationship. Like that's the prize. The prize is relationship with God. The prize is being connected to Jesus. The prize isn't the fruit, the prize is the relationship that then produces the fruit in my life. Jesus says, hey, apart from me, you can do nothing. Apart from me, you can do no good thing. The point is the relationship, because the relationship produces the fruit. Without abiding and remaining and being connected to Jesus, then there is no goodness. That's not what Charlie says. That's what Jesus says. He says, Remain in me. But too often, what and I'm bad at this too. Too often we want to clean ourselves up. We want to produce a godly lifestyle so that we can have relationship with God. But you need relationship with God in order to produce a godly lifestyle. So the prize is the relationship. Well, John 14, verse 15, Jesus says this.

unknown 31:06

Right?

SPEAKER_00 31:06

He says, if you love me, then you'll keep my commandments. And the answer, the response to that is yes. If you lock in with relationship with Jesus Christ, then the Holy Spirit of God empowers and enables us to keep the commandments of Jesus. This is not a prove it verse in the Bible. This is a relational verse in the Bible. Moment of silence. It's a relational verse. That he says, if you love me, right? Say it one more time. Say, if you love him.

unknown 31:47

Right?

SPEAKER_00 31:48

He says, if you love me, then you'll keep my commandments. So it's not a hey, prove that you love me by doing what I say. It's hey, hey, fall in love with Jesus. Build relationship with Jesus. Get more connected with Jesus and watch and see how your lifestyle changes because of your relationship with him. Can I get a good amen in the house today? I'm telling y'all, this is good news today. And if nobody else is happy in the room, I'm happy in the room. So how do how does this practically happen in our everyday lives? This is from our people who need a list. I have like a list of a thousand things on here that you can do to grow in your relationship with Jesus. And I'm not going to go through each of these one by one. But if I want to build a relationship with somebody, then that relationship is going to take time. Everybody say time. Right? So spending daily time with God before you spend time anywhere else. Like if you want to be practical about this and you need a to-do list, then here's the to-do list of this is how I receive relationship. All right. Reading scripture to get to know God, not just to gain information. All right. It's a perspective shift. That I'm reading the Bible not so I can be smarter about scripture, but I'm reading the Bible so that I can know God better, to talk to God throughout the day, so I'm invaluing Him in my everyday life and every moment in my life. To practice quick repentance. All right. So when this is how I say it to our guys, as you're just saying, is that man, spiritual maturity is going to be reflected through how quick you run back to God when you mess up. Because you're going to mess up. Like stuff is just going to happen in our lives. There's going to be something that I don't respond to the right way. And if I'm spiritually maturing and spiritually mature, then when I fall down, how quick am I to run back to God versus trying to run away from God? Removing competing idols and distractions in your lives. Obey God even when you don't feel like it. Amen. I say it this way: that righteousness leads, then feelings follow. All right? So my righteousness is going to lead the way, and my feelings will follow along. So so obeying God even when I don't feel like it. Invest in godly community. Spend time around people who genuinely love God. To worship outside of a church gathering, to have a time in your your own time of saying, man, I'm going to make this a priority. How can I lift up the name of Jesus without having to have Sam and Mara lead me in praise and worship? All right. How can I uh invite God and get my perspective shifted from my circumstances and onto God without having to be around everybody and say, man, this is what intimacy with God looks like. To say that I'm pursuing God no matter who's around and what's happening. To serve people sacrificially, to meditate on God, on the gospel often, like to meditate on what it is that God saved you from, to produce gratefulness in that kind of way, to guard what you consume, because what you consume is going to shape your mind. It's going to shape your perspective, going to shape your lifestyle, to pray for greater love for God. You know, a good way to love God more is to say, God, will you help me love you more? All right? All right, to simply say, hey, I can't do this on my own and in my own strength. God, will you help me to love you more? To practice verbal and physical posture of surrender every single day. To open up your hands before the Lord and say, God, my life, my relationship, my career, my money, my platform, all of this, my future, it belongs to you. To verbally say that, to get in a position of surrender and say, all of this belongs to you. God doesn't need to hear it. I need to say it. Then to remember eternity. Everybody say, remember eternity. A love for temporary things weakens when you regularly remember eternity, that heaven is a reality, that my home is not here on earth, but my home is to be in heaven. And that's what I how am I investing in eternal things versus temporary things? To use your gifts for the kingdom of God, to reflect regularly on God's faithfulness in your life, to be honest with God emotionally. Hey, if you're not feeling it, say, hey God, I love you. We're in this moment right now. I'm really not feeling it. And I need your strength to get me through this moment right here. Like, God, I really don't want to be here right now, but I'm here and I'm showing up because I know that you have something for me. Like, like being honest with God. To abide, this is important, to abide instead of striving. Everybody say abide. Right? Love for God is not manufactured through religious performance, it grows through closeness to Jesus. All right. So this is loving God. And then Jesus goes on in this passage, Matthew 22, and he says this statement that's such an important statement. And I think a lot of times in my life I've looked over it until recent years, like, love your neighbor as you love yourself. And a lot of times we have this thing of like, man, there's two things I'm doing. I'm loving God and I'm loving people. I used to say it this way: love God, love people, and don't forget to love yourself because you are a people. All right, amen. So what Jesus is saying here, he's saying, love your neighbor as you love yourself. This is the challenge for us. You cannot pour from an empty cup. Amen. Loving others start with seeing yourself through God's eyes, seeing yourself through your father's eyes. It's difficult for a lot of people to love others well because they don't know how to love themselves well. That makes sense. And I've lived here for a long time. I've like, man, it's difficult for me to have healthy relationships with other people because I don't have a healthy relationship with myself. And that's where the disconnect or part of it is that loving yourself in a healthy way is simply seeing yourself the way that God sees you. It's impossible to see other people the way that God truly sees them if you don't see yourself the way that God sees you. The world says that self-love means doing whatever makes you happy. All right, that's what self-love is, that's what the world will tell us is that self-love is doing whatever makes you happy. But healthy, godly self-love says I am not perfect, but I am still loved by God. That I am not my mistakes, that my identity is not in my performance, my identity is not in my popularity, it's not in my possessions. God created me intentionally and God redeems me completely. That biblical self-worth says, I know whose I am, and I know that God saved me and that God saved me for something. Amen. Many people struggle to love others because we struggle to love ourselves. If we constantly feel rejected, insecure, unseen, worthless, then eventually what are we gonna do? We're gonna project that pain onto other people through jealousy, comparison, anger, isolation, or through people pleasing. Right? I'm gonna tell you this ministered to me before it ministered to y'all. So I'm saying all this hard stuff, knowing that I had to deal with this all week before I get up here and like, hey, praise the Lord, everybody. You gotta love yourself. Man, this this is this is healthy, this is good. Amen that you cannot consistently give away what you refuse to receive. When you receive God's love, then you stop competing with other people, you stop living for approval, you stop tearing yourself down, and you become free to genuinely love people. The more secure you are in God's love, the more stable your love for others become. When I know that I am loved by God, chosen by God, forgiven by God, and secure in God, then I can forgive others, serve others, celebrate others, and love others without needing something in return. That I have to see myself the way that God sees me, and I have to have a perspective and an understanding that God indeed sees me for all that I am, the good and the bad, and he loves me. That God sees me and he loves me. And my perspective has to be that I am who God says that I am, that if I'm going to love other people the way that God calls me to love other people, then I have to see myself the way that God sees me. And the statement is everybody say, I am who God says, that I am. That in Genesis chapter 1, verse 27, it says that I am made in the image of God. In Psalms 139, verse 14, it says that I am fierce and I am full of wonder. In Ephesians chapter 2, it says that I was created by God for a good purpose. In Galatians chapter 20, it says that I am loved by God. Ephesians 1 4 says that I am chosen by God. In John 10, verse 14, it says that I am known by God. In Psalms 33, verse 18, it says that I am seen by God. In John 15, verse 5, it says that I am empowered by God. 2 Corinthians 5 21 says that I am the righteousness of God. Amen. In Romans 8 37, it says that I am victorious and I am more than the conqueror through Christ Jesus. In Isaiah 53, verse 5, it says that I am healed and I am whole. In Philippians 3, verse 20, it says that I am a citizen of heaven. In John 15, verse 15, it says that I am a friend of God. In 1 John 3, 1, it says that I am a child of God. And I have to see myself the way that God sees me and live my life with the perspective of I am who God says that I am. Can I get a great amen in the room today? I know we're in the library. I know we're supposed to be quiet, but y'all could be loud today. That's okay. All right. Can I get a good amen in the room today? So loving other people the way that I love myself. So I've got to have a healthy relationship with God if I'm gonna see myself the way that God sees me. And if I'm gonna love people the way that God has called me to love people, then I have to see myself the way that God sees me. And therefore, I have to have a healthy relationship with God. So this is a whole godly, healthy, wonderful cycle that God wants to place us in. And it's the life of freedom. So again, Matthew 22, verse 39, point number three, my last point is you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself. So he talked about loving ourselves. Now let's talk about what it means, what it looks like to love our neighbors. Jesus is not calling us to love people out of being exhausted. He's not calling us to love people out of insecurity or out of performance. He's calling us to love other people from a heart that has been filled with God's love. Amen. The healthy love for others flows from receiving the love of God personally. When we know that we are forgiven, chosen, valued, and cared for by God, we stop trying to use people to fill us and start serving people from an overflow. 1 Corinthians 13, verses 4 through 7 says this love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, it does not boast, it's not proud, it does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not uh anger, it keeps no record of wrongs, wrongdoing. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. That sounds pretty serious, right? It's like that's a relationship. We're like, man, we're going somewhere in this relationship. That's the kind of love that God's called us to love with. And here's the challenge for a lot of us is a lot of us throw this word, I you know, I love you, bro. We throw it around like I love you, sis, or I love you. And we don't have an understanding of what this really means. And we can use that phrase in a way that tries to gain loyalty, that tries to manipulate, that tries to gain something that could be self-serving. And God saying, No, no, no, this is what real love looks like. That this is what true love is. Expecting much while giving little is not the Jesus way. Amen. Whether I gain or whether I lose, my aim is to live according to Jesus' standard, to live according to Jesus' way. And this is the way that he loves us. This is the way that we're called to love other people. Jesus did not try to exalt himself so that he could avoid people, but Jesus lowered himself so that he can lift up people in their lowest moment. Amen. And that's that that's leadership right there. Like Jesus isn't trying to like like exalt himself so that I can avoid the little people. But Jesus is saying, hey, I have this title of authority, son of God, and I'm going to lower myself so that I can lift up people in their lowest moment. And this is the way that we're called to love. Jesus loved sacrificially. He gave his time, he gave his attention, he gave his compassion, and ultimately he gave his life. Real love is not just emotional, but it is intentional and it's costly. Love serves when it's inconvenient. Love forgives when pride wants revenge. Love stays patient when frustration rises. Love chooses people over selfish comfort. With the love that God has given us, we're called to be generous with it. Generous love encourages people, prays for people, listens to people, serves people, gives to people, makes room for people. The kingdom of God advances when believers stop asking, What can I get? and start asking, How can I reflect Jesus to somebody today? Like, man, what if we woke up tomorrow morning, which is Monday, and be like, man, how can I reflect Jesus to somebody today? That annoying coworker, and we all have them. How can I reflect Jesus to that person today? That person that just gets on my last nerve, and when I see them coming off, I'm like, man, how can I get out right now right here now? How can I reflect Jesus to them today? I'm preaching to myself this morning, and y'all are just here as you know. Well, I'm struggling with. How can I reflect Jesus to somebody today? Some of us love things more than we love people. And we use people to try to get things when in reality we should use things to love people. What do you mean by that, Charlie? What if the things that we enjoy became bridges instead of idols? Amen? Like God is not against us loving our road trips and loving our fancy stuff and loving a particular God's not against, like it's that's not bad in and of itself. But what if we use that stuff as a bridge to connect with people instead of idols in our lives? What if we use our interests, our hobbies, our resources and our passions as tools to connect more deeply with others? Then if you love hiking, then use hiking as an opportunity to build relationships with people. If you love boating, then use boating as an opportunity to build connections with other people. If you love God, like what's your thing? How can I use the thing that I'm just crazy about and passionate about in kind of a weird way? How can I use that to connect with people around me, to walk with them, to listen to them, to encourage them, to connect through something that we both enjoy? That's how we use things to love people instead of using people to gain things. Amen? Go back and listen to the message of the children. What about difficult people who don't see things the way that I do? What about people who have caused me serious harm and serious pain? Jesus tells us to love them. And some people have experienced betrayal, abandonment, manipulation, abuse, rejection, violence, and deep emotional pain at the hands of others. Jesus is not ignorant of that pain. The scripture never minimizes evil or pretends that wounds are not insignificant. Loving people does not mean pretending evil did not happen. Loving people can look like removing, um, can uh having healthy boundaries in our lives. That loving people well and in a godly way means that there needs to be boundaries, means that we don't need to stay in abusive situations, means that we do not need to enable sin, that we do not need to give someone unlimited access who hurts us. That God is loving, but God is also holy. Say holy, say just, say truthful, right? So God makes space for these situations that we're walking through in our everyday lives. What someone did to you may explain your pain, but it does not need to define your future, amen. In many situations, our love, our forgiveness means not rehearsing it, not talking about how terrible the offender is. It's not suppressing it either, but it is surrendering that person out of your hands and into the hands of God. Amen. That I'm not holding on to my offender, I'm not holding on to the offense and making that pain my future, but I'm saying I am going to surrender that person, that situation, that that that that hurts, I'm going to surrender it, surrender them into the hands of God. And how can I do that? Because I know that God is just. I know that God is righteous. And however God decides to deal with them, I have to be predetermined to be at peace with that. That God's going to deal with them. That God's going to deal with that. And that's his job. And I have to be at peace with however he decides to deal with it. Matthew chapter 5, verses 43 through 48. Jesus says this. But I say, love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. In that way, you will be acting as my true children, as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there in that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect. And I'm surrendering that stuff, those people, into the hands of God and saying, I'm gonna pray for him. I'm gonna love them the way that God tells me to love them. I'm gonna trust that God is just, that God is truthful, that God is righteous, like he says he is. Your love cannot pour out what you have not received. Right? You cannot pour out a love from God that you have not received. But when your life is rooted in the love of God, love becomes more than a commandment, it becomes a natural overflow of a transforming power from God. It's an overflow from a transformed heart. John chapter 15, verse 13, and saying you guys can come up. It says this greater love has no one than this. To lay down one's life for his friends. So, what does that mean to lay down my life? Not around teams a whole lot. And sometimes you hear you'll hear people get excited and say, Man, I'll die for you, bro. It's like, no, you're not. No, you're not. Alright. And Jesus is saying, Man, no greater love than this, than to lay down one's life for a friend. And Jesus did lay down his life for us. What does that look like for us today, laying down my life? Your life is measured in your time. When I say time, right? Measured in your resources and your expectations and your agenda. How do I lay down my time? How do I lay down my resources? How do I lay down my expectations and my agendas? How do I lay down that stuff for the benefit of someone else? The most valuable resource that one has is their time. Giving of your time to benefit someone else, there's no greater love than that. There's no greater love than that. To say I have a certain amount of time and I'm gonna lay that down for someone else's benefit. There's no greater love. Jesus calls us to love God fully and to love people faithfully. But we cannot love others well until we first allow God to transform us from the inside out. The more filled you are with God's presence, with God's spirit, the more your life becomes a reflection of his love to the world around you. So here's our prayer today. Every head bowed, every eye closed. Prayer is simple. It's Holy Spirit, will you fill us? Holy Spirit, will you give us a fresh revelation of God's love for us in such a way that it empowers us to have a healthy relationship with ourselves so that we can have a healthy relationship with the people that you place in our lives. And maybe you're here in this room today and you're saying, Man, I'm struggling. I struggle to receive love from God because I feel like I'm not good enough. I feel like I need to do something. Maybe you're here today and you're saying, man, I'm struggling with with my soul of having a healthy relationship and healthy love for myself. Maybe you're here today and you're saying, man, there's some things that I need to repent from because there's some bad and some offenses that I've done to other people, and I'm not loving other people well. Wherever you fall on this spectrum, man, I need a relationship with God, I need better relationship with myself and see myself the way that God sees me. And maybe you're here today and you're saying, man, I need a healthy relationship with other people. We have a prayer team that's gonna be available for you up here. And um you can find one of our prayer team members up front and um just have him pray for you. And say, hey, this is what I'm dealing with, this is where I'm at, and I want to surrender it to God, and I want to give it to God. So we're gonna sing for a few minutes and during this time of worship and song, find you someone to pray with and believe God with to help you move forward and leverage your love, whether he's called us to leverage it.

SPEAKER_01 57:23

Worthy of all praise we could ever bring Worthy of every breath we could ever bring. Worthy of every verse we could ever be, if we so there is no idea, there is not decided you oh show me who you are, show me that we saw we can see that we have Jesus Jesus Jesus, the only one you could ever say with everything that we could ever be live for you only there is no idea there isn't a beside you show me who you are showing me with your side in the sky, oh this year, it is your eyes in love to close there is no like you there is none beside you, open up my heart, show me who you are, show me with your heart and lead me in your love to me Oh you lead the skies Oh you lead the skies our fetch our de flesh for it out Feel Jesus our flesh our development Jesus our fetch our development Yeah Jesus we just pray We pray against anyone who's shutting their heart off to you right now in this moment that the idea of receiving your love whether it's their past experience or a deep cynicism that's worked its way into their hearts that's resistant to you, we just pray against that right now in the name of Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:28

Lord, if there's an openness of heart that needs to happen in order for someone to experience the healing that could actually open them up to receive what you long to give them, Lord, we pray healing right now in the name of Jesus for every heart in this room. Lord, I think that there's people who have been carrying bitterness for a long time. Unforgiveness. Your word tells us that that unforgiveness literally becomes. Becomes a blockade to being able to receive what you want to give us. And our ability to actually give that to other people. And so, Lord, there's some people who need to need to receive prayer for the sake of having their heart healed, that they could give forgiveness. To actually open up access to their heart in order to be able to receive what you have for them. And Lord, I sense a stirring that that specifically. This could apply to multiple people, but specifically there's some men in this room who the idea of affection, Lord, they've wired it into their head that that's a feminine emotion. They don't feel permission to feel love. They don't feel permission to give love. They don't feel permission to receive love because someone told them that that's not what they do. And Lord, we pray against that in the name of Jesus. The idea of pouring their devotion and affection on Jesus, they don't feel like they have permission to do that. Feeling like they have the permission to love other people. They don't feel like they have the permission to do that. They shut their hearts off from being able to feel that kind of emotion. Lord, I pray that those men or maybe those women, whoever they are, that that applies to God, that they would receive prayer to open up access to their hearts again. Have soft hearts. Holy Spirit, we pray that you just continue to minister even as we walk out these doors and people go on throughout their weeks. Lord, don't we pray in the name of Jesus this would not be just 90 minutes of gathering and hearing something and then just walking out the door and shutting it all off. We pray that, Holy Spirit, you would continue to minister, that you would continue to work, that you would continue to transform people into the image of Jesus because that's who we need to be, that's who we're created to be, and God, that's who the world needs us to be. Thank you, Jesus. That you did not shut your heart off to us. May we not be people who shut our hearts off to you and to one another. May we live full lives with our whole hearts out of the overflow of who you are and what you've done for us. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen, amen. Well, um, can we honor Charlie for ministering to us to the Word today? Take care of you. Man, aren't you so thankful to have someone you know in our church you can minister to us that way? We're so thankful. Um, well, as we always do, we're gonna move into a time of lingering. If you're here for the first time, you may not know what that means. That just means we're gonna protect this space. If you're here, maybe you didn't feel comfortable walking forward during that moment, you just need more time, more space to respond to the Lord. This is gonna be protected for you. And so you can stay here, you can respond. Our prayer team is gonna continue to be here if you would like to receive prayer, if any of that connected with you, just encourage you to don't walk out the door. Respond if the Lord's calling you to respond, receive, let us serve you in that way. Um, so please, please uh take us up on that offering opportunity. Um and then um and then it's something we want to just encourage you to do that if you're here and you feel led to make any kind of spiritual decision, maybe that's maybe maybe that's responding to Jesus for the first time, maybe that's rededicating your life if it's been a long time and you want to want to kind of give your heart, reorient your life back towards Jesus, you want to kind of put a stake in the ground and make a decision to do that. We have ways for you to let us know so that we can follow up with you and minister to you because once again, this is a whole life orientation around the person of Jesus. And I know there's some of you in this room, you're like, I long for that kind of life, and we want to help you live it. That's what we're here for. Um, we're excited next week is Pentecost Sunday. We're gonna be we're gonna be doing a one kind of week talk through Pentecost Sunday, and then we're gonna launch into a series through Ephesians. And so we got a lot of great things coming up. Um, we invite you to continue to join in and lean in with us. After this gathering, we invite you to join us in like five, ten minutes. We're gonna do two baptisms out in the courtyard because God's changing people's lives and we want to celebrate that. And so um, and so for those of you who need to leave, this is the end of the gathering. You can leave. For those of you who need to continue to respond, continue to respond. For those of you who want to join us out in the courtyard, please join us out in the courtyard. And as always, we hope you know that Jesus is for you. We are too. Have a great week. Love you guys.