Won't You Be My Neighbor | Part 4

We're supposed to love people in a crazy way. And so today, I want to finish off by talking about, okay, if we put all that together, how do we not get stuck?

And I want to show you I want to tell a story about my grandson, even though they say, as you get older as a pastor, don't tell grandpa stories and people will know it will date you. I think my face dates me. The fact that I read a newspaper and then I tell stories about long ago. So let's just and so I want to show you a picture of my and plus with that, how can you not want to talk about him?

I mean, look at those biceps. Those are big biceps. Daniel could learn something. And he's wearing my Scottish hat. Doesn't he look like a true Scotsman right there? That's awesome. So anyways, this is Phoenix, my only begotten grandson.

And he's four months old. And he's been rolling a little bit, but he just recently got to that level of rolling that he's kind of baby Yoda face, where he's sitting there, you turn, you turn back, and he's not there, he's over there. And you're like, how did he even get there so fast?

And so he loves it. So it's like he's a little bit more mobile and he'll roll around. Well, the problem is sometimes we put him on that little play mat thing that has little arms that bend over and then you hang all the toys. I call it Mama really just needs to go to the bathroom by herself right now. And so

you put him on that and sometimes he's like, I'm done with this stuff, and decides to roll away. Well, somehow he keeps occasionally

getting himself caught where he has one leg on one side of one of those arms and one on the other. I don't know how he got to that in the first place, but he gets that way. And then you know, I can even hear him in the other room, he starts with this cry that you realize babies

have different cries. They start figuring one sounds real manipulative, it's like, you know. This is really frustrated. You can tell he's just mad.

And you come in and you realize it's because he's got his legs wedged around this and every time he rolls this way, leg gets stuck, he can't roll over. He goes this way, he goes back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and finally he just plops his face down into the ground. And so you can even see the red on the back of his head. He's a Scottish kid, all right. He's like, and

he's just mad. He's frustrated because he's stuck, but he's also frustrated because he doesn't even know how to communicate. He's like, how do I tell people I'm stuck? So he just goes mad. And I think that's where some of us are probably sitting at this point in this series.

When we talk about loving people like crazy and and loving in the way God tells us to. I think most of us, especially if if you're a Christian, you go to church, you hear this, and even if you're not, you're like, you know what, I think the world could use more love. And you want to love people like that,

but we keep getting stuck. Like, oh, how am I supposed to do that? Don't still have the time. And we keep rolling and we keep getting stuck and we get frustrated.

And we don't even know what to say or do about it. So what we want to talk about today is how do we keep rolling through life loving people without getting stuck. And if we're stuck, how do we get unstuck?

And so the big idea, kind of like if you want to know the secret to really not getting stuck when it comes to loving others is simply this, when I know love, I will show love. When I know love, I will show love. What do we mean by that? Well, if you have your Bibles, you can turn to the book of first John.

It's kind of easy. It's right before second John, and that's right before third John. It's right before Jude, and then that's right before the last book of the Bible that seems to scare lots of people.

But, yeah, no, we're gonna look at the letter of first John, and it's written by the apostle disciple John, who had walked with Jesus. And and and what's interesting about John was when he was one of those 12 disciples, he's probably the youngest one, he's probably a teenager.

And so at this point now, he's the oldest one because he's the only original disciple still alive. And they think probably dating scholar, he's probably 75 or 80 years old when he wrote this. So he probably hadn't you know, last time he walked with Jesus physically was like maybe sixty years before.

And and so he has now become the grandpa of the church. Like he is the one. And so he's writing these letters. John goes out all these churches to kinda, you know, the Holy Spirit inspires them to share this wisdom and and love. So he's lived a whole lifetime of of of knowing Jesus.

And he came back to the same theme over and over and over again. And it was what he grew to understand in his long life that all that really mattered in life was loving God and loving others.

He got the nickname of the Apostle of Love and it wasn't like a bad Barry White song. It was literally like he just he knew that, hey, the more I walk with Jesus, the more I've walked with Jesus, the more I've trusted the Holy Spirit.

He's always encouraging the Christians in the churches to realize you have to love God and love others. Christians Well, in John chapter First John four, starting in verse seven,

he walks through that, this idea that, hey, when you know love, that's how you will be able to show love. And he starts to say, the way you can love God and love others is only when you know and are connected to God's love itself. And so I just want to walk through this passage,

verse seven through 21, and in here, I think we can break it down. I think there's three things. There's three things that we have to understand and grasp and embrace in this passage in order to be able to consistently love the people that are present in our lives.

And the first one we'll see right here, verse seven says this, Dear friends, let us continue to love one another for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God for God is love.

So it starts off, it's really encouraging but a little bit concerning and scary. It's like saying, hey, if you don't love others the way God's called us to love others, there's a good chance you don't really know God's love. You're just playing a game. You don't get it.

So he starts off with, you have to understand that, that we need to love others because it's a natural byproduct of God's love for us. It just is. And he says, because God is love. So right here, what he's starting to kick off here is this whole idea of be clear about his love.

That's point number one. If I'm going to ever love others consistently the way God's called me to, that crazy love, I have got to be clear about what it means for God to love me. Be absolutely clear. When you hear God loves you, what do you hear? What do you think that's saying? Do we really understand

what that means? Basically, what is this thing called love? It's interesting. They did research, who I never know who they are, but this was interesting research. I don't know what the point of the research was, but they gave me a good sermon illustration. And that is, they asked four to eight year olds to define love.

What is love? And I got like 10 answers here that I highlighted out of this study. And I put them in order of some start off a little bit more like they're cute and all that, like you'd expect from kids, but they progressively get deeper and more profound actually. And you're going to be shocked at the wisdom that can come out of a four year old.

But the first one here was from Chrissy, age six, trying to define love. It says, Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs. Well, Chrissy, if that is true, then I don't love anybody because Bill doesn't share food. Number two,

Emily, age eight, says, Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and talk more. My mommy and daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss. Thanks, Emily. Mary Anne, age four.

Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day. You don't hear that about cats. Just saying.

Karen, age seven. When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you. Karen needs to watch less Cartoon Network. Lauren, age four. I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all of her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.

Lauren's in for a rude awakening. She goes, Wait a minute. That wasn't love?

Claire, age six. My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night. That's a good one. Sweet. Now they start to get a little bit more profound here. Nika, age six. If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate. Profound. Teri, age four.

Love is what makes you smile when you're tired. And then these last two I think are the most profound. First one, Bobby, age seven, love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen. And then the most profound one to me, probably because he has a very wise name, Billy, age four,

four year old Billy says, When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth. That's deep. He should be the Billy preaching. I don't think I've ever said anything that profound. He's four. Call him up.

But think of it, love is they say your name different. Your name is safe in their mouth. Do you think your name is safe in God's mouth?

When you imagine Him saying your name, how do you imagine Him saying it?

Is it, Hey, Bill, again? We're dealing with this again? Really? You're lucky. You're lucky I'm love.

Or do you feel like your name is safe coming out of his mouth? See, got to be clear on that. So what does John, age 80, say real love is? Because he defines it next.

He says, God showed how much he loved us, in verse nine, by sending his one and only son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love. Here it is. This is the profound thing we have got to be clear about. This is real love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us

and sent his son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Did you get that? That's the part we have to really be clear on about how God loves us. Because we could say I believe in Jesus. We could say we come to church and still miss the profoundly deep clarity on what it means for God to love you and me. You know what it means? You have to understand that he loved you.

And without him loving you, you could never love him back. And here's the profound part. God loves you because of who He is, not because of what you do. That's what that's saying. God loves you and me because of who He is. If you don't get clarity and don't really understand that and embrace that,

you might suddenly turn into what the Bible is constantly battling in the New Testament if you try to read it, these false teachings, was called legalism. And the pit of legalism is here's funny thing about legalism, you have to do all these things in order to earn God's love.

Well, does that mean we should not do all those things? No. Someone who's a legalist and someone who's not a legalist probably still need to walk in the same patterns life. It's not what you do, it's what you think what you're doing is doing.

See, legalism says, I have to honor, I have to go love, I have to go do these things, I have to go otherwise, God won't love me. And that's no. God says, I chose to love you first. You realize if God did not die for us and come after us, none of us would turn to Him.

Even if you came to life, just one day woke up and said, I've to get my act together and I came and I've been seeking. We even say that in some of the church like, is this a seeker church, like for people that are seeking God? You realize nobody is seeking God. God seeks you. This is a a finding

church. This is where people that God is calling to can come and find because He already invited them. Even if you think you went looking, what do you think made you decide to wake up and go look? It's God loved first. We can't love without Him loving us first.

And you can't choose to show Him enough love to earn His love because the only way you can earn the presence of God, the only way you can be around Him because you earned it was by being perfect because God is perfect.

And that's what separates. We can't earn it. We're stuck. So what did Jesus do? He loved us first. He came and died for us even though we're the ones that offended him. So he says, if you want to see, be really clear about what love really is, just look at the cross. That is love. That we

actually rebelled against the God who loves us, ran after our own ideas, our own things. We don't trust Him. We're afraid of Him. And then he chose to come down, take on the nature, body of a human. Think about it. He loves us so much, Jesus went through puberty for us.

That's love. Are you clear on how he loves you? Because what it says over and over in scripture in this passage is, it's only when I truly can start to grasp the incredible grace and unconditional love of God that that's the fuel and the motivation to then love him back and then let his love flow through us to others

because you have a gratitude. It's not I have to. It's not I'm doing this for his love. I'm doing this from his love. I'm following him not to get Him to love me. I am following Him and trusting Him because I can't believe He loved me so much. Does that make sense?

You have to be clear on that. Some of you have grown up in church and you still subtly did it backwards.

So then when you hear a message that says we should really love people like crazy and that means you need to invest your time and your money and all those things and I'm not going to apologize for saying if this is your church, you should do that because that's what it says how we love.

If you don't understand that it comes from his love for you and that profound sense of gratitude of that, you just get mad when I tell you to do that and you're not doing it. But it's not about that. It's about missing out.

If I'm going to truly love the way I've been called to love, I got to be clear about His love for me. Because you know what? The way the world works and the way we accidentally start operating ourselves, it's a natural inclination is, when you hear God loves you, if you don't feel like life is going well,

we always say, well, if God's love, then what about if God's love, then why is this? If God's love, why don't I have? And and and John's answer is, seriously? The cross. Because the cross is about eternal life. It's putting us back together with God for all of eternity.

Yes, we're going to suffer a little bit in this world because it's a broken world. And in a broken world with broken people, broken people break people. Hurt people hurt others, including themselves. We hurt ourselves. We hurt and that's the world we live in. But God dove into it headfirst because He loved us first.

That's the Gospel. Are you clear on that? Have you ever surrendered your life to that love? Because that's what it means to be a Christian. Because only when you embrace start to love others consistently.

Now some of you are like, okay, I'm clear on His love, but there could be another reason that gets us stuck. And it's what he goes into next. He says in verse 11, Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. Should just be a natural byproduct.

But then he goes and he says, No one has ever seen God, but if we love each other, God lives in us and His love is brought to full expression in us. So as we choose to love others, there's something about when we let God's love not just come to us but flow through us, that that actually brings God's love to its most full expression in our lives.

It's something we desperately need.

And and and he says, and God has given us the spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. So if you become a Christian, embrace Jesus' love, you now have God the Holy Spirit in you. And the God the Holy Spirit says you have the dunamis power of God from the Holy Spirit. Dunamis is where we get dynamite from in the Greek. It's and it's that dunamis power that raised Jesus from the dead. So you realize that if you really do have

an understanding of God's love and you've accepted it, you now have the same power within you that raised Jesus from the dead. You have that ability to lean into and trust to help you to love others.

And it's a mark. He says, Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent His Son to be the savior of the world. All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. And then here's the transition, verse 16, For we know how much God loves us, be clear about His love, and we have put our trust in His love. That's the second point. You have to be very clear about how He's loved you.

Be clear about His love. But the second point is, but I also need to stay near His love.

I need to be clear and stay near. That's when it says that we put His trust. So it's like, I'm really clear. And the more I understand clearly how much He loves me, the more I can then choose to say, I'm going to trust that love. And the way we trust that love is is you stay near him. That's how you become like Jesus. You know how to be like Jesus? You want to know the secret to being like Jesus?

Is being around Jesus. It's that simple. You want to be like anybody? What's the best way? Hang out with him. Be around him. Get to know him. And I think some of us get stuck in our love for others because, yes, I am clear, I do get how much he loves me, But I've just slowly wandered away from being near him

and so I'm disconnected from that. And then I listen to all the voices that make his my name not sound safe in his mouth and I fall for the fears and I start going down the path that the Bible says seems right to us but in the end leads to death. So I start chasing after other things

to give me fulfillment and contentment and peace. And I'm not near him. So a lot of us get stuck in loving others because we just don't get here. Now, know, the Bible is full,

full of insight on what it how do you draw near to Jesus? What helps us to know Jesus? What are the things he says, here is what you can do to be near to Jesus. Here's what I'm challenging you to do. And you know what one of them is? What we're doing right now.

Gathering together. She says, neighbors, do not neglect the gathering of the brethren. Public worship. There's something about when God calls us as a church to gather as a body, hear the word taught and preached to worship

in through prayers and giving, but also through our singing and the rally cry of the church together. There's something about that that helps us be near to Jesus. If that's true, then, you know, it's weird is when I first got into ministry back in the dark ages, you know, it was like thirty years ago.

They they they did studies and they said the average Christian that says, I'm a committed Christian. They asked committed Christians how often you go to church. Thirty years ago, a committed Christian would tell you three times out of four. So in a month of four weeks, three out of four weeks.

By the time I was pretty much finishing up my youth ministry career, it had dropped to two out of four. Five years ago, it was one out of four. Study just came out recently that said now it's one out of six. And this is people that are actually saying, Oh, I love Jesus. I'm a follower of this. I'm committed.

And you know what? That's true even here. Now we have a lot of you crazy people. I see your faces every week. The way sometimes you frown at me, I don't even understand why you keep coming back, but you do. But we do have a core of that. But that happens.

I mean, why do you think Christmas and Easter are so crowded in here? It's not like all of a sudden 4,000 more people come out of nowhere. That's the day that everyone decides to show up regularly comes to church because they know it's double grace weekends. You get double points. So

you come. And so we end up with like more because you realize how many people come to this church at least once every six weeks? It's well over 7,000. We only have like thirty three eight here any given weekend.

How can I say I want to become more like Jesus if one of the prime things he says, this is how you can be near Jesus? We act like it's just some optional thing. I'll do it when I don't have anything else to do. I mean, same with public worship, private practices is another big huge one, all through Scripture.

Reading the Word, praying, spending time with God on your own. And not just studying the Word, letting the Word study you. That's what meditation is. Is. It's let it go through you. We need to spend that time alone. And a lot of us are like, I just don't have the time for that. I mean, let be clear.

Jesus Himself, who's God the Son, probably had a pretty full to do list, right? Being God of the universe and all, Savior of all mankind, everyone was coming to Him for healing and teaching. He would draw away on His own for long periods of time just to pray. So just ask yourself, what does it say about your view of life

and God and yourself if you say, oh yeah, Jesus may need to pray, but I'm too busy.

And guys, we're the worst.

And I don't try to be abrasive. I was just raised by a sergeant who was a professional athlete. So basically, cut through the and just say it. How arrogant is that of us?

Or how naive is that? If you don't have time to be near Jesus, you don't understand what time is for. And you're either incredibly naive or incredibly arrogant. And either way, you're going to miss out on what God's called you to. You'll keep playing the church game, but it's not going to take you anywhere.

Being the church is one of the ways that we be near Jesus. Serving, giving, engaging. All of those indicators that the Bible says is here how to be near Jesus to be like Jesus is on the downhill slope in every major category in people in our culture that say they're committed Christians. What are we committed to?

I don't get it. We're missing out. We need to be clear about His love, but we need to stay near His love. If you want to be like Jesus, you need to be near Jesus. You need to the Holy Spirit.

And that's the way you do it. Those two things, be clear, stay near. Be clear, stay near. Be clear, stay near. That's why I will know His love, I will show His love. But it goes beyond that. There's another third step that can maybe hold us back and get us stuck and that's fear.

Sometimes we get it, we want it, we're just afraid, we don't think we can, we don't there's something that makes us think we just can't do this. We're not trying to be stupid, we're not trying to be arrogant, we literally just feel like I can't, I do not have the time, I do not have the money.

I do not have the I'm just afraid of it. And look what it says here starting

in verse 17. God is love, and all who live in love live in God. He's repeating himself here. And God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So as we live near Him, as we trust Him, love starts to grow more perfect. And then he says something that seems to be very distractionary

and scary. He goes, So we will not be afraid on the Day of Judgment. Wait, where did the Day of Judgment all of a sudden get thrown into this? He's like, he just subtly snuck his little throat punch right in there. Yeah, love, love, love. Bam. No, he goes, but we can face him with confidence

because we live like Jesus here in this world. That's the whole point. Be like Jesus. But I need to be near Jesus. And if I do that, I can confidently face God on the day of judgment. And you're like, wait, what day of judgment? If I'm a Christian, I'm not judged, right? Yeah, you're not going be judged for your sin.

We'll have an eternal life because he doesn't love us because of what we do. He loves us because of who He is, but He does ask us to do some stuff. And so do you realize there is a judgment for all Christians? Every one of us that knows Jesus is going to answer,

what did you do with the time I gave you? What did you do with the money I gave you? What did you do with the relationships I gave you? What did you do with what I gave you? Did you trust me or not?

And you know what? He's not saying this and God isn't saying this to just scare us and, oh, I better get in line because then that's just legalism. What he's trying to say is this is a mirror. I mean, don't you love and hate mirrors at the same time? It all depends on what you see in the mirror, right?

But I bet, how many of you have some kind of mirror near your front door? How many of you have a full length mirror right before you go out? Come on, you know you do. What's the last thing you do? You look in that mirror, don't you? Well, by the looks of some of you, you probably didn't today, but I'm just teasing you.

I'm wearing 49ers jerseys and Seahawk stuff. Look in the mirror. Nope, the reason you want look in the mirror because you're like, dear God, I almost went out in public like that.

And so you think about it, it's like that's what this is. He's like saying, Hey, listen, you do realize you'll stand before God and answer. And you know what God doesn't want for you? Yeah, He's not going to eternally damn you if you know His love. But you know what? You're going to have this moment where you're going to have a lot of regret

and not be like, Oh, good, I got away with it. We think that not doing things God's way means we had more fun in life. God knows that trusting Him, even if it's scary,

is what we were built to do. And we will experience more of life and in the end, we'll see that we had an internal impact that God allowed us to be a part of. And you will have great regret when you see what you decided to spend your money on as opposed to what God could have done with that. That what you decided to spend your time on as opposed to what God would have done with your life if you leaned into that.

And he's saying, I don't want you to miss out. And if you just choose to embrace my love and stay near my love, you'll be more like me and you've got nothing to worry about. You'll be able to confidently face me. There's no fear. Because look what he says. He goes, that kind of love, such love has no fear.

See, if I don't embrace God's love, I can't love him back. But when I embrace His love properly, I'm clear, I stay near it, I can now start loving Him back. And that changes me. Because He goes, that kind of love has no fear because perfect love expels all fear. If we're afraid, it's for fear of punishment.

And this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. See, this is what I said. It comes back to if we're just afraid of getting judged, then the whole idea is you don't get it. You just don't understand his love. So when I say that we should do these things, don't want you to go, you know, he said I better do it. He's going to track me down and bring Chuck

Norris with him or something. And but no, it's saying this is a mere moment. This is saying where God's right. I say, no, I'm trying to warn you. If you don't want to love others, you and you choose to do other things, there's something wrong with your understanding of how I love you.

There's something wrong with our relationship. And you need to ask yourself that. So if you're like, no, I'm not going to do what God asked me to do to be near him. I'm not going to do what he's asked me to do to love others.

I don't want you to force yourself. I want you to go sit with the Lord and go, why am I refusing to do this? Is it because I'm not clear about His love? Is it because I haven't stayed near His love? Is it because I have a fear of actually doing it?

It's one of those either you're not clear, you're not near, or you have a lot of fear. And you've got to address those. Otherwise, there is a dangerous thing at the end. He says in verse 20 well, first he says in verse 19, we love each other because he loved us first. And then verse 20, if someone says I love God,

but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar. And you know when you hear hate, we all we like to like do what the guy who asked Jesus, Well, who's my neighbor? He wanted to be able to qualify it in his own little box so then he could say, I'm doing it. When you hear, If you hate another believer,

I get every one of us probably has an idea in our head of what we think that means. And it usually has something to do with an attitude. I just don't like someone.

I talk bad about someone. That's probably one of the things that's one way to hate. Do you realize the number one way when he says hate? He's talking about love and hate. Hate is the absence of love.

Hate is refusing to love. And the Bible is really clear. Sin is not just bad things we do. Sin is the good things we know we ought to do that God's called us to do that we refuse to do. That's just as much of sin as doing the bad thing. Matter of fact, the longer you walk with the Lord, that's the kind of sin you'll struggle with the most.

And so if you what he's saying is, if you refuse, if you withhold love from your fellow believers, which he's talking to churches, he's mean, you have a church. You should be a part of a church. There's no church of Rambo. I'm all by myself. That's not how God works. Christianity is a team sport

and we're called to be a part of a church because we all have different gifts and we need each other. That's why we need to serve in our church because that's how we love the fellow believers. That's why we need to give financially. That's how we love the fellow believers and reach people and spread the gospel. That's how we do this. So what it's really saying is a much bigger thing. Meaning, you say you love God, but you don't actually get engaged in your church body, you don't serve, you don't use your gifts, you don't give, you don't apply, you don't get into community, you don't do these things. It's just being honest. You are a liar.

You're a flat out liar that's playing a game. That's scary.

But once again, don't hear what I'm not saying. What John is trying to say is you need to look in that mirror. So if you're someone who says, no, I love God, love Jesus, I come, but your only connection is showing up here when you feel like it? Not me, The Holy Spirit through John says you're a liar. You're living a lie.

You're living a fake thing. And the reason he wants to hold that mirror up is it could be one of those three things. It could just be fear. It could be you've wandered away and you're not near. But the scary one is maybe you've never been clear about his love. Maybe you're not even a Christian.

And he wants you to deal with that. That's what you need to do. Sit down and deal with that question because if he goes on to say, how can we say love God if we don't love the people we can see? How do we love a God whom we can't see? And it finishes, you've been given this command.

Those who love God must love their fellow believers.

And I think some of it is just fear. And here's the funny thing. Whether you're clear, you stay near, there's still always going to be fear in stepping out. Always. There's always a fear in stepping out and trusting God. It's you remember how it says perfect love casts out all fear. To be cast out doesn't need to be in.

It doesn't say keeps out, it says it casts out. Perfect love, fear is always going to get in your face. Courage is using real love to say this scares the but because of the love, I'll take the step.

That's what it is. And so that first step is always scary. Let put this right. The night before I got married, my friends took me out and had a little party. That's a bachelor party. But we're a bunch of we love Jesus, so it wasn't sick. What they did was they threw a bag over my head and drove me off somewhere, pulled the bag off and I look up and we're up on this hillside at this place that has a big crane and the crane is where you bungee jump.

And they're like, you're going to bungee jump. I'm like, why would I want to do that? That sounds terrifying to me. And they go, well, the jump you're about to do tomorrow is way more terrifying than that. So if you can't do this, you're a coward.

And I'm like, okay, okay. And I was so stressed because I'll be honest, I am afraid of heights. They freak me out. Now they don't here's the weird thing. They're like, but I've seen you I've

been up on the Empire State Building. There's something about if I'm near something tall, if I have a shield like a railing or something that comes up at least lower chest, if it's this high, I feel okay.

If it gets lower, I progressively get more freaked out. Like at the Grand Canyon where there's some places where there's nothing, I can't get too close. And it's not that I'm not totally terrible. I can go look if there was real. I have this weird, bizarre thing where I feel like it's pulling me over the edge.

Am I the only one? Do I need a counselor? Don't you ever feel like I feel like it's sucking me in and so I can't do it. So it's like I'm going so

I really don't want to go climb up on a crane and jump off of it. But they talked me into it. So I'm like, I'm going do it. But you know how you start you say down here, but every step because you walk up the middle of this crane, it's hollow, it's grading, you're right through, so you're feeling it. And the problem is this crane is, you know, it's yay high, but it's on a hillside that goes straight down and then you see the valley below. So as you go up, you don't just feel the sense of the height of the crane, you feel the sense of the height of being on the side of a cliff.

And so I'm getting and then it's windy. The crane is moving, even in the center part.

I get up to the top and I got to walk out to this guy out on the edge. He's sitting on a stool on this little platform. I don't know if they just attached it. He's just sitting there. It doesn't bother him. But I start walking out and the crane's moving more. It's like I'm moving. So you know that sense you're getting pulled over?

I'm literally getting a sense I might get thrown over. And as I'm walking, they do have a railing, but I don't what what kind of railing is it? Like, this high. It's like for pastor Mark Collins. I mean, it would go to his neck, but for me, I'm like,

I looked like a little old man walking on this thing. I was about to start crawling. And I was like, Oh my gosh, what am I doing? I'm so glad they didn't have cell phones with cameras back then.

And it's like I was walking out there terrified. This guy is waiting for me. I walk up and he goes, First time? I go, How do you know? And he can guess. And he goes, Well, because you're talking to me in my ear while you're hugging me. And I'm like, Yes, first time.

Nice to meet you. And he goes, All right. So then we got to talk. He starts strapping stuff on. He goes, I'm not going to strap it to your feet. You're a first timer. We'll strap it to the harness in the middle here. And then he goes, I know what you're thinking. The way it's fixed, it will spin around. It can't wrap around your neck and hang you and kill you. I'm like, wow, you do know what I'm thinking.

He goes, a matter of fact, if you want to do flips, you can. Oh, now you don't know what I'm thinking again. You think I'm going to do flips.

I'm terrified standing here. And so he starts looking up, also he looks at and goes, how much do you weigh again? And I tell him, he gets on the radio, yes, all right, guys. So it's the orange one, right? Yes. Are you sure? He said he weighs you should be okay? Yes, think you're fine. Are you sure? You should be okay.

Yes, I think you're fine. I mean, do you want to hear that when you're standing on a crane and you're about to jump off of attached to some highfalutin rubber band? I was like, okay. So then he straps it on, hooks it up, he's like, we're good here. He goes, here's how this is going work.

I'm going count to three and then you're going to jump. Go, all right, well, what if I don't jump at three? Let me put it this way. You're going over the edge at three either way. Are you threatening? Are you going to push me? Assist.

And I'm like, is that even legal? He goes, it's just you, your word against mine, because we're the only two ones up here. I'm like, oh my gosh, this guy is going to make me go on three. So I'm like, fine. So I sat there and he goes, one, two, and I jumped

on two. He goes, two, I go, yes, and I just jumped off. The scary thing is as I jumped, he goes, wait, that's all I heard, this whip as I fell. I heard him like, what did he mean? Why did he say wait?

Maybe I got it all wrong. Three wasn't just to give me incentive to go. Maybe there's a reason you have to wait till three. Maybe there's some guy down on the bottom with the other end of the bungee. I don't attach it till he says three. I don't know. All he does is go.

And then I'm like, this is what I was afraid of. As I'm going down, I'm looking like a terrified Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible. As I go down and I realized why he was asking about my weight because he didn't want fatty to go splatty. And as I go,

I got that close to the ground. I was like, this is what he meant. And I'm like, this is what I was afraid of. It's not the fall. It's the it's the sudden stop that I'm afraid of. And so it goes, and it stopped. But then there's the return trip. And here's the problem,

when you weigh the moment like as he's trying to figure out the exact right way to go, how accurate what kind of like margin do you build? Is it only by the ounce? Like if I drank water before I jumped, did I overcorrect?

But anyways, they got me to the exact point that I stretched that thing as far as it could go, which meant extra power on the way back up. So I go, wow! And I went up I actually went higher than where I originally jumped from. I went right back by the guy, Why did you say wait? But

then when I got up to the highest point, there was this moment where your momentum stops going up, gravity starts to catch you again. And there's this brief second that I go, I'm an astronaut. I felt weightless for just a nanosecond. I'm like, Mom would be so proud. And I'm like, Yes.

And then I fell again. And it was still terrifying, now, I go, I'm all right. So I guess I started doing flips. I did. And when I got to the bottom, my friends go, dare you to do it again? I'm like, sure. Now when I walked back up, I was still scared.

The funniest thing was the walking out of the crane. That was the scariest part again, but it was still but it wasn't as scary, was it? But when I went back up, the guy goes, what were you thinking? Why would you why did you jump on two? Why did you say wait? And he's like, no, because I was confused.

I go, do you mean? He goes, well, when people have jumped before, we just say jump when you want to. We know the count to three thing is to get new people to be convince them to go. And he goes, so what's the big deal? He goes, in the history of us doing this, you are the first person who ever jumped on two.

No one has ever jumped on two. Most of time, it's three, come on, come on. And we say you're going push, I probably wouldn't have pushed you off. And I'm like, oh, now you tell me. But he's like, it's and he goes, why did you do that? And I said, because as I sat there waiting, my heart was about to explode.

And one more second wasn't going to suddenly change anything. One more second just made me sit there stressed out in fear for another second. So I was like, I'm not waiting another second. I'm going on to. And so I went.

And that's what I think we need to be as followers of Jesus. That's my prayer for us as a church called Rock Point. That's my prayer for you individually. Because imagine what your life would be like right now. If when it came to something God asked you to do. Love people and it's radical, you gotta jump. Love him in that way. What if you win on two?

Because some of us we wait till three, four, five, six million, 7,000,000, 10,000,000.

You keep thinking that a few more seconds, a few more time is going to make it less scary. We keep saying, I'll serve when I have a little more time because it's just too scary right now. I'll give when I have a little bit more money because it's just too tight right now. I will lean in and love that person in my life, maybe it's my spouse, when I feel like they've responded to me a little bit more first because I might get hurt if I choose to love them. I have to wait a little a few more seconds, a few more seconds, a few more seconds. I'm gonna tell you, it doesn't matter how long you wait. It's never gonna be easier. Matter of fact, it only gets harder.

Because if you don't learn to honor God and jump in the scary moments and you wait until you have more money, guess what you're do with more money? Get in more debt and spend more money and have more worries about losing more if you actually trust them. What are you going do? Same thing with your time. Same thing with your talents. You're going to find other ways to spend it, get yourself in a bigger scenario,

and actually have more fear. So what is the answer? Jump on two. Jump on two. What would happen if you did that? What is is God trying to say? I need you to jump and trust me, I need you to. What if you just went on two? Don't wait till you're pushed. Just jump.

Don't wait till you're forced. Just jump. Matter of fact, say that with me. Say jump on 2. All right, say it again, only on 3, say jump on 2. 12. 12.

Services didn't get that. 3 did. You were one of them. Good job. Jump on 2. We should put that on a hat and just jump on two. Teach your kids to jump on two. Just jump because it never gets easier. Matter of fact, you're missing out on the fun

because that's what God designed us to do. When you jump, yeah, was terrifying. You're falling. Sometimes you're falling. Sometimes you almost hit your ground. Sometimes you're shooting back up. Sometimes you're weightless. Sometimes you're spinning when you said you never would. But the whole time, it might have been terrifying, but it was exhilarating.

That's the life God wants for you. And when I don't trust Him, I miss out on that. And the reason I probably am missing out on it is because I either am a fear or I am not near or I have never been clear about how He really loves me. It all comes back to His love for you. And John, he understood this.

Here's 80 year old John, who actually did you know John was the only one of those 12 disciples that when Jesus got arrested and they all scattered in fear? John's the only one that actually stood at the foot of the cross and saw Jesus on the cross. So when Jesus, night before, this thing called the last supper

freaked them out because they still didn't understand why he would die. Victory doesn't usually seem like that. But he knew he needed to die for us to have victory.

When Jesus took bread and broke it, said this is my body broken for you. He took the cup and said this is my blood spilt for you for your forgiveness of your sins. And he said, do this in remembrance of me? They're like, what's going on? John is the first one to stand at the cross and go, This

is what he meant. When John says this is real love, don't you think he's remembering sixty years before? The only disciple that literally watched him show what love really is.

And you know what? Of those little kids saying what love is, I saved one for the end here because I think it sums up everything John just said, everything we've just talked about. Simply this, it's from Cindy, age eight. She said, I had my piano recital and

when I walked out and looked at the crowd, everyone was staring at me, I was scared. But then I saw my daddy and he was waving and smiling and he was the only one that was doing that.

Then I wasn't scared anymore. And she played her song.

Loving others is a byproduct of being loved by God, but it's also the song God built you and I to perform. We're supposed to play this beautiful song in our life, but a lot of us are fearful cause you're looking out at the world and it sounds crazy and their love is staring at you. And now you're afraid

and you don't want to play your song.

Look for your dad. Look for the face of God. Because guess what? He's smiling. He's waving. He's for you, not against you.

And trust that and not be scared is to look at the face of God. And the smiling face of God, his love is most clearly seen from the cross when Jesus waved to us by putting his arms out. When he took our sin and he sacrificed himself. And that's why Jesus said, do this in remembrance of me.

Why have all the things he could have told us to do together in remembrance of him? He goes, I want you to remember the cross. Because when you look at the cross, you're looking directly at the loving face of God who loves you because of who he is, not because of what you do. What we do should be a response

to his love for us. And so this is a reflection moment. So here's what we're going to do. I believe that he asked us to do this because this is the mirror. And so for some of you, you are clear on God's love. But maybe you haven't been as near as you should,

or maybe you're just fear and you need to jump on two on something. Start praying. Just start talking to God right now. We'll take communion in just a minute.

But some of you, the first thing is your issue. You're not really clear on God's love. You for some reason, you've rejected it. You just can't seem to accept it. You need to surrender your life to the love of Jesus. That's what it means to become a Christian.

So before we take communion and sing a song about being like Jesus, I want to pray with you about actually being with Jesus. So if that's you, I want to show you how to surrender your life to Jesus right now. You can pray with me and then this will mean something.

So if everyone close their eyes and if if if you need to be clear about the love of Jesus in your life and you've never surrendered to it, just pray with me. Pray something like this prayer I'll lead us in, but make it your own words. Make it between you and God in your heart. Just pray something like, Jesus,

thank you for making it clear to me how much you love me. Thank you that you love me first so I can even love you back. I'm sorry for how I've kind of ran with my own fears and my own ways

thought. Thought. Going little bit I

be a I'm

than

so your love can flow through me. Thank you. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus, amen. So he took the bread, he broke it. He said, this is my body broken for you. Take and eat. He then took the cup said this is my blood, spilled for the forgiveness of your sins. Take and drink.

You willingly died your innocent life, faith caused.

And killing your status is nothing. The king of all kings came to serve. And washing my feet and covering me with your

is all I need. Take everything.

Lord God,

more of you and less of me.

I thank you that you love us like you love us. God, deeper than we could ever comprehend. Thank you for loving us.

God, I thank you for the cross. I thank you that we can stand at the foot of the cross and look up and see our God.

We can see our savior. Lord, you set the example of love. And we thank you. We long to draw near to you, to be like you, to see you clearly.

Your love may pour through us, God. That those around us may see the love of God in our lives. We wanna be a people, Lord, that jump on too. So as we step into our week, God, may this be the cry of our hearts. May there be more of Jesus, More and more of Jesus and less of us. We love you, Lord.

Thank you for loving us. It's in Jesus' name we pray, and all God's people say.