WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.080 So before the baptism today, I'm going to speak on a rather large theme, which I'm going 00:00:08.080 --> 00:00:14.120 to narrow down, obviously, and I'll have to miss out a huge amount in this. 00:00:14.120 --> 00:00:23.000 But the theme is from verse 8, which says that God is love. 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:25.160 And that will be our theme for this morning. 00:00:25.160 --> 00:00:26.160 Stand-alone theme. 00:00:26.160 --> 00:00:28.440 We're taking a little break from our study in Romans. 00:00:28.440 --> 00:00:34.399 We'll come back to Romans, I think, once in March, and then from April onwards we'll go 00:00:34.399 --> 00:00:35.399 back into Romans. 00:00:35.399 --> 00:00:41.320 But there'll be a few different standalone themes in the next few weeks. 00:00:41.320 --> 00:00:45.480 So today, obviously, is also a baptismal service. 00:00:45.480 --> 00:00:52.439 And whether it's the baptism of a child of Christian parents, or whether it's the baptism 00:00:52.439 --> 00:00:56.920 of an adult who hasn't been baptized and who comes to know Christ as their Savior, then 00:00:56.920 --> 00:01:05.960 that whole sacrament relates and speaks about God's loving commitment to rescue us. 00:01:05.960 --> 00:01:10.040 And He's done that in great love. 00:01:10.040 --> 00:01:15.120 It's part of His purpose to realign anyone who calls out to Him and who believes that 00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:20.320 He is, and who believes that He's true, and who believes that He has lived and died and 00:01:20.319 --> 00:01:27.039 rose again to be a sacrifice, to be a substitute, to be a redeemer. 00:01:27.039 --> 00:01:35.559 Then baptism is a symbol and a sign of somebody coming to faith in Jesus Christ, or believing 00:01:35.559 --> 00:01:39.959 that the promises are not only for the believer but for their children also. 00:01:39.959 --> 00:01:45.719 And having done so, recognizing that that is actually the key to everything. 00:01:45.719 --> 00:01:47.319 It's the key to everything in life. 00:01:47.319 --> 00:01:51.199 It's the key to our being, our identity, our hope. 00:01:51.199 --> 00:01:55.719 It provides the answers, not all the answers to everything, of course, but it does provide 00:01:55.719 --> 00:02:01.679 the fundamental and basic answers to our humanity, who we are as people, and who we are in relation 00:02:01.679 --> 00:02:04.759 to a God who made us and the world in which we live in it. 00:02:04.759 --> 00:02:09.840 It provides answers to the most fundamental and basic issues that we have. 00:02:09.840 --> 00:02:14.079 Because of course, the core of who we are is love, isn't it? 00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:17.920 However we see that, and however we perceive of that, I think we would all agree, we would 00:02:17.920 --> 00:02:25.200 all recognize the centrality of love in the world in which we live. 00:02:25.200 --> 00:02:26.800 I was toyed about whether to use this illustration. 00:02:26.800 --> 00:02:28.200 I'm just going to use it very briefly. 00:02:28.200 --> 00:02:32.040 But the annoying thing is that I've forgotten the name of the guy who I was watching this 00:02:32.040 --> 00:02:36.400 morning on BBC. 00:02:36.400 --> 00:02:37.400 He's a journalist. 00:02:37.400 --> 00:02:45.120 I can't remember his name, but he recently announced that he had second stage prostate 00:02:45.120 --> 00:02:46.640 cancer. 00:02:46.640 --> 00:02:51.280 He has put up a basaline interview, and it's very moving. 00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:55.920 If you have time to find it and watch it, I should have taken down his name. 00:02:55.920 --> 00:02:59.680 I can't remember who. 00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:00.680 Bill Turnbull, excellent. 00:03:00.680 --> 00:03:06.400 I knew someone would know that, someone intelligent, up-to-date person would have known that. 00:03:06.400 --> 00:03:07.400 Bill Turnbull. 00:03:07.400 --> 00:03:10.879 I was very moved by it. 00:03:10.879 --> 00:03:17.879 At the core of what he said, and I don't know what he thinks of the gospel or anything 00:03:17.879 --> 00:03:22.920 like that, but the core of what he said was he's very fortunate at his age to be what 00:03:22.920 --> 00:03:29.439 he is because the greatest thing he'd done was be committed to his wife for 30 years, 00:03:29.439 --> 00:03:31.920 and the greatest thing he had was his family. 00:03:31.920 --> 00:03:36.240 Love was at the very core of what he saw as existence. 00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:38.320 That's true, isn't it? 00:03:38.320 --> 00:03:40.719 Whoever we are, and I found that very moving. 00:03:40.719 --> 00:03:46.159 So the theme today is God is love, and I think it's the greatest reality in the universe, 00:03:46.159 --> 00:03:51.080 absolutely the greatest reality, but also it's the one that we wrestle with most. 00:03:51.080 --> 00:03:55.920 It is a truth that we, if we're honest, I think with ourselves, we wrestle with more 00:03:55.920 --> 00:03:59.680 than any other truth, and I think we wrestle with it on at least two levels. 00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:03.879 One is something that people may often speak to you about and ask you about and say, well, 00:04:03.879 --> 00:04:08.960 if God is all powerful, as you say, and He's also all loving, why is this world and my 00:04:08.960 --> 00:04:11.400 life in such a mess? 00:04:11.400 --> 00:04:16.120 It's not much of a love He has if He says He's so powerful and He's so loving, but 00:04:16.120 --> 00:04:17.360 things are in such a mess. 00:04:17.360 --> 00:04:21.920 We often feel guilty and we feel alone and we don't feel the concept of God's love, 00:04:21.920 --> 00:04:26.319 and we look around us when we don't see the concept of God's love, and I think part of 00:04:26.319 --> 00:04:32.399 that is indeed part of what God reveals Himself as to the issue, because our concept of love 00:04:32.399 --> 00:04:38.560 and what it should look like is often from ourselves out, what we feel, what others feel 00:04:38.560 --> 00:04:43.319 for us, what they show us, what they do for us, and we think the same with God. 00:04:43.319 --> 00:04:48.519 We think, well, you know, if God is love, then He should make me feel that I'm loved 00:04:48.519 --> 00:04:49.519 by Him. 00:04:49.519 --> 00:04:51.919 He should do more for me, and He should have a… 00:04:51.919 --> 00:04:56.079 I have a list of things that I want Him to do to show His love for me, and when that 00:04:56.079 --> 00:05:01.319 doesn't match up to our expectation, we deny Him, and we deny His reality. 00:05:01.319 --> 00:05:05.519 Well, He can't really be a God of love, because that's not what I think love is like. 00:05:05.519 --> 00:05:07.719 We're uncomfortable with that. 00:05:07.719 --> 00:05:12.719 So I think at that level, and related to that, is that we can't really imagine a love that's 00:05:12.719 --> 00:05:15.879 different from our understanding of love. 00:05:15.879 --> 00:05:20.800 It's the thing, isn't it, that's spoken most of in the universe and the theme of 00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:25.319 every song in the universe, and so we have a great depth of understanding. 00:05:25.319 --> 00:05:30.000 We've got the final word on what love is and its definition. 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:36.240 And so we find ourselves judging love by our own… or judging God by our own understanding 00:05:36.240 --> 00:05:41.680 of love, rather than allowing Him and His revelation of Himself to speak. 00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:45.560 We might not agree with that revelation, and we might struggle with it, but at least we 00:05:45.560 --> 00:05:50.759 need to let Him speak and put His love into its own context. 00:05:50.759 --> 00:05:52.240 Because something… it is a love. 00:05:52.240 --> 00:05:58.000 It's a genuine love that does expose us, and it challenges us about our perspective 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:01.879 on life and about the universe in which we love. 00:06:01.879 --> 00:06:03.720 I just want to say a couple of things. 00:06:03.720 --> 00:06:10.079 The first thing is that love is God's gift to humanity, okay? 00:06:10.079 --> 00:06:13.319 He's the great gift giver. 00:06:13.319 --> 00:06:16.319 James 1.17 says, every good and perfect gift is from above. 00:06:16.319 --> 00:06:21.000 So it's a gift that very often we as human beings, I think, take for granted. 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:26.720 Sometimes we abuse it, we twist it, we disfigure it, and sometimes it's disordered by us. 00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:32.760 But nonetheless, our ability to love, the deep bonds of love that are evident today in family 00:06:32.760 --> 00:06:38.800 and friendship and in commitment and husband and wife and friends and relations, that's 00:06:38.800 --> 00:06:45.160 a reflection of the nature and of the character of God and the gift that He gives, the one 00:06:45.160 --> 00:06:47.240 in whose image we are made. 00:06:47.240 --> 00:06:52.400 Even in our rejection of Him, even when we cast Him aside, even when we stick our fingers 00:06:52.399 --> 00:06:58.519 up and we have no time for Him, He pours out love onto the world that He has made. 00:06:58.519 --> 00:07:01.719 And that means we matter. 00:07:01.719 --> 00:07:06.359 It means we matter in this big universe, this big impersonal universe. 00:07:06.359 --> 00:07:08.479 It means that we matter. 00:07:08.479 --> 00:07:09.679 God gifts love. 00:07:09.679 --> 00:07:15.679 But also, God is love, and that's the theme of what John is saying here, as he expresses 00:07:15.679 --> 00:07:19.039 what God has given him to express about himself. 00:07:19.039 --> 00:07:21.279 So it's not a characteristic of God. 00:07:21.279 --> 00:07:25.799 It's like, Derrick's a minister, Derrick loves sometimes. 00:07:25.799 --> 00:07:27.519 I love or someone else loves. 00:07:27.519 --> 00:07:28.519 It's not a characteristic. 00:07:28.519 --> 00:07:35.000 He's not a being, even a divine being, who happens to love and happens to do other things. 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:36.799 But it says God is love. 00:07:36.799 --> 00:07:42.079 In other words, from His very core, from His very being, His very person as He reveals 00:07:42.079 --> 00:07:44.199 Himself, He is love. 00:07:44.199 --> 00:07:46.519 It's His nature. 00:07:46.519 --> 00:07:51.919 But it's not all that He is in His totality in the Bible, there's three other descriptions 00:07:51.919 --> 00:07:53.919 similar to this that the Bible uses. 00:07:53.919 --> 00:08:00.839 It says that God is light, God is spirit, and also God is holy, or God is a consuming 00:08:00.839 --> 00:08:03.479 fire, these three descriptions of Him. 00:08:03.479 --> 00:08:10.039 So He's all and all at the same time in His totality and the totality of His beings, He's 00:08:10.040 --> 00:08:17.160 perfectly loving and perfectly just and perfectly pure and perfectly truthful and a perfect 00:08:17.160 --> 00:08:18.280 spirit. 00:08:18.280 --> 00:08:21.520 We are none of these things in perfection. 00:08:21.520 --> 00:08:25.439 We have elements of them because we're made in His image, but we are none of these things. 00:08:25.439 --> 00:08:29.160 And He acts therefore in accordance with His character. 00:08:29.160 --> 00:08:35.120 That's what He says, and that's what we struggle with so much because He is both perfectly 00:08:35.120 --> 00:08:39.399 loving but also perfectly just. 00:08:39.399 --> 00:08:43.360 And we are created by Him and are accountable to Him. 00:08:43.360 --> 00:08:48.799 And that creates obviously an issue as we rebel against Him or as we ignore Him or turn 00:08:48.799 --> 00:08:52.079 away from Him. 00:08:52.079 --> 00:08:57.879 But God is love not only in His being like that, but He is love in His being without 00:08:57.879 --> 00:08:58.879 us. 00:08:58.879 --> 00:09:08.679 You know, it's very hard to define love in isolation on your own unless, I guess, we 00:09:08.679 --> 00:09:10.120 talk about self-love. 00:09:10.120 --> 00:09:16.879 And I think sometimes people have that impression of God that God just loves Himself as an isolated 00:09:16.879 --> 00:09:17.879 being. 00:09:17.879 --> 00:09:22.559 But I think that's where the huge significance of the revelation of God of Himself as a unique 00:09:22.559 --> 00:09:29.079 being, both one God but three persons, which is beyond our capability to understand. 00:09:29.079 --> 00:09:33.919 But it speaks of Him therefore in His very core being as a relational person, God the 00:09:33.919 --> 00:09:42.000 Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, these names we take when we baptise, recognizing 00:09:42.000 --> 00:09:45.719 who God in all His complexity reveals Himself to be. 00:09:45.719 --> 00:09:50.679 He's complete within Himself, within the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 00:09:50.679 --> 00:09:57.360 That means there's this inter-trinitarian love that before the creation of the world, 00:09:57.360 --> 00:09:58.360 He wasn't an isolate. 00:09:58.360 --> 00:10:04.279 He wasn't kicking about in a kind of isolated heaven, lonely looking to create someone to 00:10:04.279 --> 00:10:08.840 love because He had this perfect love within His own character. 00:10:08.840 --> 00:10:17.600 And so I think very often our great struggle is with God as God, as He reveals Himself, 00:10:17.600 --> 00:10:25.759 the One who is both given life and given love and given creation, but who also reveals Himself 00:10:25.759 --> 00:10:31.559 or reveals His relationship with humanity as One that was broken from the beginning 00:10:31.559 --> 00:10:40.039 because humanity wanted to break from His Lordship and wanted all His gifts and wanted 00:10:40.039 --> 00:10:45.679 all the goodness of life and all the beauty of life but without Him. 00:10:45.679 --> 00:10:49.759 Simply that we wanted to be gods in control ourselves. 00:10:49.759 --> 00:10:52.279 You know, thanks. 00:10:52.279 --> 00:10:53.759 That was tremendous. 00:10:53.759 --> 00:10:54.759 Wonderful. 00:10:54.759 --> 00:10:56.840 Thank you to God for that. 00:10:56.840 --> 00:10:57.840 Bye. 00:10:57.840 --> 00:10:59.679 We don't want you now. 00:10:59.679 --> 00:11:00.679 Leave the room. 00:11:00.679 --> 00:11:02.960 We'll just go out on our own. 00:11:02.960 --> 00:11:04.360 We don't need you. 00:11:04.360 --> 00:11:05.519 We don't want you. 00:11:05.519 --> 00:11:06.759 We don't like you. 00:11:06.759 --> 00:11:08.039 We don't want to be accountable to you. 00:11:08.039 --> 00:11:09.200 So we got rid of... 00:11:09.200 --> 00:11:10.200 It's... 00:11:10.200 --> 00:11:13.200 Corey and I have talked about this last week about... 00:11:13.200 --> 00:11:16.720 And we'll keep using the example, I guess, of the prodigal son. 00:11:16.720 --> 00:11:23.279 The Bible, Jesus uses the idea of the prodigal son to speak about humanity and God and the 00:11:23.279 --> 00:11:26.240 rebellion and also the hope and the healing. 00:11:26.240 --> 00:11:27.799 It's the prodigal son's syndrome. 00:11:27.799 --> 00:11:32.120 You know that you're a great dad and all that and I love what you've done for me but I really 00:11:32.120 --> 00:11:37.000 want you dead so I can get the inheritance that I would get from you normally when you 00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:38.959 die and I want to spend it all. 00:11:38.959 --> 00:11:40.439 I don't want to be at home. 00:11:40.439 --> 00:11:45.559 I can't be bothered with the restrictions that you have when I'm at home but I want 00:11:45.559 --> 00:11:50.159 freedom and I want all the gifts that you can give me but I just want to live without 00:11:50.159 --> 00:11:51.759 reference to you. 00:11:51.759 --> 00:11:54.639 And that's obviously it's only half the picture, isn't it? 00:11:54.639 --> 00:12:00.600 But that is a great picture that the Bible gives and the consequence, of course, is as 00:12:00.600 --> 00:12:11.519 His justice is equally fused into His being along with His love is that He justly condemns 00:12:11.519 --> 00:12:13.240 the humanity that He loves. 00:12:13.240 --> 00:12:15.279 And justice is a huge concept. 00:12:15.279 --> 00:12:19.000 We're not going to look at it today but it's of course, it's part of our makeup, isn't 00:12:19.000 --> 00:12:20.000 it? 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:21.519 We all know about right and wrong. 00:12:21.519 --> 00:12:23.679 We all care about right and wrong. 00:12:23.679 --> 00:12:27.480 We have different views of right and wrong, of course. 00:12:27.480 --> 00:12:31.360 And usually we love justice and we love wrongdoing. 00:12:31.360 --> 00:12:34.639 Well, we don't love wrongdoing, sorry. 00:12:34.639 --> 00:12:38.519 We love when wrongdoing is dealt with, is what I meant to say. 00:12:38.519 --> 00:12:44.199 And especially if we've been wronged, we love that in the sense that we feel that justice 00:12:44.199 --> 00:12:45.199 has been done. 00:12:45.199 --> 00:12:50.399 I think sometimes we're not so keen when our own wrongdoing is exposed. 00:12:50.399 --> 00:12:56.439 We recognize that there is an element of disorder in our understanding of justice. 00:12:56.439 --> 00:13:03.639 But that's, God says it's why we often feel lonely and guilty and we thrash out, therefore, 00:13:03.639 --> 00:13:08.279 we thrash out at God because we think, how can He possibly love? 00:13:08.279 --> 00:13:13.480 And we don't like the idea of His justice as our maker and as the one to whom we're 00:13:13.480 --> 00:13:15.279 accountable. 00:13:15.279 --> 00:13:20.839 We think of other reasons for why the world is broken, and yet He says it's because we've 00:13:20.839 --> 00:13:25.839 abandoned Him and we don't love Him and we are separated from Him in justice from the 00:13:25.839 --> 00:13:27.000 offer of life. 00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:32.360 Death is the great disaster that we just simply can't compute, that we don't have answers 00:13:32.360 --> 00:13:33.799 for in our lives. 00:13:33.799 --> 00:13:41.600 We just struggle within that to conceive of a God who could possibly love us in this world 00:13:41.600 --> 00:13:44.319 of brokenness and death and disease. 00:13:44.320 --> 00:13:51.960 We don't understand Him or our culpability before Him, or even the fact that He's left 00:13:51.960 --> 00:13:53.800 us to our own choice. 00:13:53.800 --> 00:13:58.200 But very gratefully, that's not the end of the story, is it? 00:13:58.200 --> 00:14:03.000 It's only part of His own diagnosis because we recognize in what John is speaking about 00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:06.879 and speaking about God, His love is that He has sent His Son. 00:14:06.879 --> 00:14:08.360 He has sent Himself. 00:14:08.360 --> 00:14:15.560 In His goodness, the all-just and all-loving one provides the only solution in His being 00:14:15.560 --> 00:14:19.879 and His relationship and broken relationship with us that there could be. 00:14:19.879 --> 00:14:27.440 He becomes one of us, except as the second Adam, He perfectly lives out life and He perfectly 00:14:27.440 --> 00:14:34.279 lives out love and a relationship with His Father, but yet pays the price on the cross 00:14:34.279 --> 00:14:35.279 for our failure. 00:14:35.279 --> 00:14:36.399 It becomes our substitute, in other words. 00:14:36.399 --> 00:14:38.720 We know that concept of substitution, don't we? 00:14:38.720 --> 00:14:41.360 He dies in our place. 00:14:41.360 --> 00:14:47.600 He takes God's justice and punishment against our rebellion in Himself. 00:14:47.600 --> 00:14:54.759 So God's justice is satisfied, of course, perfect satisfaction, and His love is satisfied 00:14:54.759 --> 00:15:00.639 because He provides an answer and a hope and a forgiveness and a way forward because He 00:15:00.639 --> 00:15:06.639 takes what is due for us and offers life and hope and forgiveness. 00:15:06.639 --> 00:15:08.639 It's the stupendous act of love. 00:15:08.639 --> 00:15:14.360 The Bible says greater love is no man in this and He lays down His life for His friends. 00:15:14.360 --> 00:15:15.480 We know that, don't we? 00:15:15.480 --> 00:15:17.279 We know that in life. 00:15:17.279 --> 00:15:21.720 Someone who loved that much that would lay down His life for His friends is a great act 00:15:21.720 --> 00:15:25.240 of cost-committed love. 00:15:25.240 --> 00:15:32.200 And that is a cost to God that's beyond our understanding, simply mysteriously beyond our 00:15:32.200 --> 00:15:33.200 understanding. 00:15:33.200 --> 00:15:39.879 God, who in Himself takes the cost, takes the pain and offers the solution to those who 00:15:39.879 --> 00:15:41.639 didn't love Him back. 00:15:41.639 --> 00:15:43.240 It's instigative. 00:15:43.240 --> 00:15:44.480 He loved first. 00:15:44.480 --> 00:15:46.080 We love Him because He first loved us. 00:15:46.080 --> 00:15:47.080 It's deep. 00:15:47.080 --> 00:15:48.080 It's passionate. 00:15:48.080 --> 00:15:53.320 Lots of different ways of describing God's love in the Bible, extravagant, fully committed, 00:15:53.320 --> 00:16:01.720 possessive, jealous in a perfect way, in a protective way, and fully voluntary within 00:16:01.720 --> 00:16:03.920 the Godhead that He would come and do this. 00:16:03.920 --> 00:16:07.520 And for us, He adopts us in His family. 00:16:07.520 --> 00:16:08.520 We are forgiven. 00:16:08.520 --> 00:16:09.520 We have hope. 00:16:09.520 --> 00:16:10.520 We have His presence. 00:16:10.520 --> 00:16:13.600 And we have eternal life. 00:16:13.600 --> 00:16:14.600 So the cost is great. 00:16:14.600 --> 00:16:20.240 And also very briefly, we see that when we're seeking to define love as we have it in the 00:16:20.240 --> 00:16:26.200 Bible, that Christ Himself in His person as God and the flesh absolutely defines it for 00:16:26.200 --> 00:16:27.200 us. 00:16:27.200 --> 00:16:31.680 He shows us what it is to love the way God intended us to love. 00:16:31.680 --> 00:16:35.600 And it's love that's for God the Father first. 00:16:35.600 --> 00:16:37.039 You know, God was well pleased with Him. 00:16:37.039 --> 00:16:43.840 It was a relationship in the incarnation of great fellowship and love to the point where 00:16:43.840 --> 00:16:50.159 on the cross, or just before the cross, He said, not my will, but yours be done. 00:16:50.159 --> 00:16:56.039 Because He loved the Father and He wanted to provide this salvation for us. 00:16:56.039 --> 00:16:57.039 And also love for others. 00:16:57.039 --> 00:17:01.319 And this is maybe what it, the rubber hits the road for us. 00:17:01.319 --> 00:17:06.519 The love of God was a love which loved the outsider, loved the helpless, that wept with 00:17:06.519 --> 00:17:12.359 those who wept, rejoiced with those who rejoiced, was honest, particularly with their religious, 00:17:12.359 --> 00:17:16.200 exposed their hypocrisy, those that were church scores. 00:17:16.200 --> 00:17:21.000 He exposed them for just living an outward religion and not a religion of the heart. 00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:26.200 It was attractive to some, it was repellent to others, it was rejected by most. 00:17:26.200 --> 00:17:31.000 But it was a love that was utterly selfless and costly and committed. 00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:33.279 So if you have time, look at His life. 00:17:33.279 --> 00:17:40.840 And so as we close, just before we move into the baptism, just a couple of applications 00:17:40.840 --> 00:17:41.840 of that. 00:17:41.840 --> 00:17:45.440 If you're not a Christian today and you're with us in church, it's absolutely delightful 00:17:45.440 --> 00:17:48.000 to have you in church with us. 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:52.440 We love to have lots of people with us in church. 00:17:52.440 --> 00:17:58.559 Whatever their own thinking and persuasions are and what their thinking is spiritually, 00:17:58.559 --> 00:18:02.680 we, it's just a pleasure to have you. 00:18:02.680 --> 00:18:08.400 I would ask you just to do one thing, which is maybe put aside the failings and the sometimes 00:18:08.400 --> 00:18:13.160 hypocrisy of Christians you might know, or the church that you might be aware of as an 00:18:13.160 --> 00:18:15.120 institution or whatever it might be. 00:18:15.119 --> 00:18:18.799 And I'm not by any way excusing any of that in us. 00:18:18.799 --> 00:18:25.000 But do take time to consider what God Himself reveals, I think, in the Bible clearly. 00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:33.000 Take time to consider His diagnosis about life, about death, about our own hearts, and 00:18:33.000 --> 00:18:35.719 about His remedy and about His love. 00:18:35.719 --> 00:18:40.839 Take time to read maybe one of the Gospels, particularly maybe John, which is written 00:18:40.839 --> 00:18:46.240 so that we may think about and consider Jesus more. 00:18:46.240 --> 00:18:52.639 And do consider His love and His great love for you and the great love that He's expressed 00:18:52.639 --> 00:18:57.879 in your own life, even with maybe some of the brokenness and the difficulties and the 00:18:57.879 --> 00:19:00.039 challenges that you face. 00:19:00.039 --> 00:19:06.759 I would encourage you, with all my heart, and will pray that you would consider Jesus 00:19:06.759 --> 00:19:11.440 Christ and His living Word to us. 00:19:11.440 --> 00:19:17.440 But also how does His love play out for us as Christians, both as parents, as a church 00:19:17.440 --> 00:19:21.440 family, as individuals? 00:19:21.440 --> 00:19:22.440 What difference does it make? 00:19:22.440 --> 00:19:23.440 You know, we know it. 00:19:23.440 --> 00:19:24.440 You know, you may be brushing it aside. 00:19:24.440 --> 00:19:27.240 I don't need to learn any more about God's love. 00:19:27.240 --> 00:19:28.240 I know all about God's love. 00:19:28.240 --> 00:19:32.759 First of all, could I just say, don't presume that because we love naturally in our lives, 00:19:32.759 --> 00:19:37.039 which I hope we all, I'm sure we all do, that we're sorted. 00:19:37.039 --> 00:19:43.240 You know, I think like all of our very beings, we know as Christians, every aspect of our 00:19:43.240 --> 00:19:47.359 character is a little bit dissembled, is broken. 00:19:47.359 --> 00:19:52.319 And like every aspect of our character needs to be redeemed and transformed. 00:19:52.319 --> 00:20:00.160 So it's not self-absorbed, but it's living and it's reflecting the love and the gift 00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:01.640 of God's love in our lives. 00:20:01.640 --> 00:20:03.040 So do remember that. 00:20:03.040 --> 00:20:09.400 And also, we need, I think, to recognize the challenge then of redeeming our hearts to 00:20:09.400 --> 00:20:12.120 love the way Jesus wants us to love. 00:20:12.120 --> 00:20:20.360 So it's not just kind of soft and sappy and sentimental, but it's much more rigorous and 00:20:20.360 --> 00:20:25.160 beautiful and challenging and transformational in many ways. 00:20:25.160 --> 00:20:33.040 And so I think to finish with looking at Jesus' example in the same two ways, learning to 00:20:33.040 --> 00:20:39.680 love God better and learning to love others is the challenge of grace in our lives. 00:20:39.680 --> 00:20:43.800 When we learn to love God, it's much more, it is, but it's much more than just feelings 00:20:43.800 --> 00:20:45.160 and our circumstances. 00:20:45.160 --> 00:20:50.200 It's not just our circumstances that will define whether God loves us or not. 00:20:50.200 --> 00:20:54.320 He loves us because what He's already done completely and utterly. 00:20:54.319 --> 00:21:01.519 And prioritizing that our relationship as Christians with God is primarily and firstly 00:21:01.519 --> 00:21:05.359 a reordering of that, that we'll actually love God. 00:21:05.359 --> 00:21:13.079 And that's the biggest challenge, isn't it, for all of us, that we love God first. 00:21:13.079 --> 00:21:18.359 And that is the greatest act of gratitude that we can give back to God and that He enables 00:21:18.359 --> 00:21:20.279 us by His Spirit to do, is to love Him. 00:21:20.279 --> 00:21:21.279 That's why we worship. 00:21:21.279 --> 00:21:22.279 That's why we put Him first. 00:21:22.279 --> 00:21:24.759 That's why we seek to tell others about Him. 00:21:24.759 --> 00:21:29.119 But also learning then to love other people. 00:21:29.119 --> 00:21:33.359 And that's a really significant and important part of understanding and knowing God's love 00:21:33.359 --> 00:21:34.359 in our own lives as Christians. 00:21:34.359 --> 00:21:39.599 In other words, we're to work at the love of grace in our lives so that it looks like 00:21:39.599 --> 00:21:41.039 what Jesus wants it to look like. 00:21:41.039 --> 00:21:45.039 That means it's from our hearts, but it means it's sacrificial forgiving. 00:21:45.039 --> 00:21:48.000 We're willing to be wronged. 00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:49.160 We go the extra mile. 00:21:49.160 --> 00:21:52.000 We're self-forgetful. 00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:55.960 We love those in the family of God in the church, and sometimes that can be the toughest 00:21:55.960 --> 00:21:57.680 thing of all. 00:21:57.680 --> 00:22:00.440 We love those who don't love us in return. 00:22:00.440 --> 00:22:03.720 Those who are hostile to us and our enemies, maybe. 00:22:03.720 --> 00:22:08.200 Reaching out to the needy and the helpless, the outsider, our neighbor, whoever that happens 00:22:08.200 --> 00:22:11.799 to be, and it shrinks at no cost. 00:22:11.799 --> 00:22:18.119 That reflects a little bit of learning to love others the way Jesus loved other people. 00:22:18.119 --> 00:22:21.960 And therefore, it's not going to be based on mutual attraction. 00:22:21.960 --> 00:22:25.960 That is probably the most fundamental difference between the love of God in our lives and the 00:22:25.960 --> 00:22:27.279 natural love that we have. 00:22:27.279 --> 00:22:31.240 Most of our natural love is based on mutual attraction, and that's a good thing. 00:22:31.240 --> 00:22:33.799 There's nothing wrong with that at all. 00:22:33.799 --> 00:22:35.079 Nothing wrong with that kind of love. 00:22:35.079 --> 00:22:38.920 But the love of Christ in our hearts goes beyond that. 00:22:38.920 --> 00:22:40.680 Of course, we love nice people. 00:22:40.680 --> 00:22:44.240 It's absolutely common sense, isn't it? 00:22:44.240 --> 00:22:50.440 But we also are to love those for whom there's no mutual attraction to us in our lives. 00:22:50.440 --> 00:22:53.759 And vice versa, it is a love for the undeserving. 00:22:53.759 --> 00:22:56.960 It's the hardest thing of all for us in our lives. 00:22:56.960 --> 00:23:00.039 We often want revenge. 00:23:00.039 --> 00:23:01.880 We want quid pro quo. 00:23:01.880 --> 00:23:02.880 They treated me like that. 00:23:02.880 --> 00:23:04.840 I'm going to treat them like that. 00:23:04.840 --> 00:23:05.840 That's how they acted. 00:23:05.840 --> 00:23:08.000 That's how I'm going to act. 00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:13.160 We treat others negatively or maybe sometimes positively in the way they've treated us. 00:23:13.160 --> 00:23:18.680 We find it easy sometimes to hold grudges, to gossip about others, to paint the worst 00:23:18.680 --> 00:23:20.880 possible picture. 00:23:20.880 --> 00:23:26.600 Even sometimes, and I think in my own heart, that sometimes we like to hate because it 00:23:26.600 --> 00:23:33.519 feeds our own sort of feeling of self-righteousness and justification for the actions that we 00:23:33.519 --> 00:23:34.519 might have taken. 00:23:34.519 --> 00:23:37.799 It's sometimes a disordered love we have. 00:23:37.799 --> 00:23:44.200 And only Christ can change that because it's completely counter-cultural for us to be wronged 00:23:44.200 --> 00:23:52.680 and to love our enemies and to do good to them who have no desire to do good to us in 00:23:52.680 --> 00:23:54.360 our lives. 00:23:54.360 --> 00:23:59.240 And we can only do it when we see that that is what Jesus has done for us. 00:23:59.240 --> 00:24:03.880 So these are some of the challenges, I think, and the beauty of the love of God. 00:24:03.880 --> 00:24:13.680 In baptism, we recognize the huge cost of God's love for us in redeeming us. 00:24:13.680 --> 00:24:19.880 And as we seek to bring up our children in His love and in His grace, all of us together 00:24:19.880 --> 00:24:28.519 as a family, then we seek His blessing and His promises to be worked out in the lives 00:24:28.519 --> 00:24:31.360 of our children as well, which is a great thing. 00:24:31.360 --> 00:24:36.320 So let's bow our heads very briefly in prayer before singing again. 00:24:36.320 --> 00:24:39.440 Father God, we thank You for Your love. 00:24:39.440 --> 00:24:41.240 We thank You for Your grace. 00:24:41.240 --> 00:24:46.519 We thank You for Your honesty. 00:24:46.519 --> 00:24:48.000 Sometimes we recoil from that. 00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:54.079 We don't like to think of ourselves as reliant on anyone else, especially on God whom we 00:24:54.079 --> 00:24:55.880 can't see. 00:24:55.880 --> 00:25:01.640 We think sometimes we've moved beyond all of that thinking with our scientific knowledge 00:25:01.640 --> 00:25:04.279 and our sophistication. 00:25:04.279 --> 00:25:10.759 And yet we recognize and know the fundamental realities of our beings and of love and of 00:25:10.759 --> 00:25:18.640 family and the recoiling we have from brokenness and especially, obviously, from death, which 00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:21.279 we believe Jesus speaks into. 00:25:21.279 --> 00:25:25.960 So help us today, we pray, and bless our time together now in baptism. 00:25:25.960 --> 00:25:33.200 And we thank You for the privilege of being able to share in the sacrament today. 00:25:33.200 --> 00:25:34.359 We ask it in Jesus' name. 00:25:34.359 --> 00:25:41.359 Amen.