Love Completely

It would be hard for me to change my life. I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing. I'm gonna try to do what is right. I'm trying to get to see my kids. Probably not focus so much on money and more on family and the time being spent with family and friends. I would do everything that I haven't done yet that I want to do. Just try to bring as many people as close to God as possible before I go. What would I stop doing? I really want to slow down on that eating, cuz I eat too much. If I can slow down on that, that'll be good. I would stop wasting time. What would I say to others? These are hard. Some really hard questions. I would grab my Bible off the shelf over there and hand it to him and be like, there's your manual. Try to be right. Try to be right, but this is not us home. We only bear the deal. I just make sure I tell everybody every day I love you.

Well, let's continue our new series for the new year, One Month to Live. Good morning, everybody. My name's René, and I'm one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. And I wanna say good morning to everybody in the auditorium, and also good morning to everybody who joins us over in the venue service in Munsky Hall. I don't know if you guys knew this, but in the 10:45 hour, there's well over 200 people over in Munsky Hall in the middle of Munsky, who join us for the venue service. And they will, next weekend I think, be celebrating their one year anniversary, one full year of venue services.

So here's what I want everybody here to do. I want everybody to turn back toward the cameras in the back of the room and wave to everybody who will be watching us over in the venue service. Because we love you guys, and we're glad that you could join us here. And you're not missing a thing being over there in the venue service. I just wanna let you know that. But hey, this whole series One Month To Live, of course it's about living and really learning how to live. It's not about dying, but it asks the provocative question, what would you do if you had one month left to live?

And last weekend, I asked you to actually write a bucket list, if you'll remember. That was your homework of what you would do if you had one month left to live. And that must have hit a nerve for a lot of people. Because everywhere I've gone this last week, people have stopped me. Most people that I honestly don't even know, and they've said, hey, René, I wrote my bucket list. And I wonder what people think who hear that, like from across the store, or from across the street downtown. René, I wrote my bucket list. People all around town are thinking, there's all kinds of people who are dying, who are writing their bucket lists. And I say, that's great, what's on your list? And people have shared some of the things that are on their list. And there's some very interesting things.

They said things like, I wanna go skydiving. I wanna go to the Holy Land. And one woman said, I wanna make a video for each one of my three kids that they can watch at crucial events in their lives after I'm gone, which I thought was a great idea. In fact, they were all great ideas, all different. Everyone's list is so unique, but I have noticed one thing is the same. There's one item that has been on absolutely every single list. One thing I have heard from every person. And what do you think it is? Love more. Love more, exactly. Every single person has said, I would wanna spend time with the ones I love and make sure they know that I really, really love them.

And so I wanna talk about that today. Today's message is love completely. How do I get motivated to love the ones in my life completely? Grab your message notes that are tucked inside the bulletins that you were handed as you came in. Those will help you follow along with the message this morning. And while you're getting those out, somebody emailed me something about love this week. You might have seen it too. It's an email that's been going around, but I love it. A group of children, 48 years old, were asked the question, what does love mean? And here are their funny and sometimes very insightful answers.

Dennis, age five. Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on aftershave and then they go out together and smell each other. Andrea, age seven. You know you love someone because your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you. Just like in the cartoons, right? Marissa, age four. Love is when your older sister gives you all her good clothes and then she has to go out and buy new ones. That's real love. But now some of these, as I said, are pretty insightful, like Sandy, age eight. When my grandma got arthritis, she couldn't bend over to paint her toenails anymore, so my granddad does it for her even after he got arthritis too. That's love.

Well, that really is love. I think a lot of these kids are looking at relationships that they are witnessing. Jake, age six. Love is when a little old man and a little old woman are still friends, even after they know each other so well. How many of you, that's a description of your marriage, actually? Yeah, I hope it is. Sue, age six. If you wanna learn how to love better, you should start with someone you hate. That sounds like Jesus to me. Love your enemies. And finally, Vanessa, age eight. You really shouldn't tell someone that you love them unless you mean it. But if you do mean it, you should tell them a lot. People forget.

That's true, and you know what? I wanna talk about three truths that these kids all demonstrably know. Three truths that you knew when you were a kid. It's just that as grown ups, we get busy and we forget these truths. Let's talk about three truths to remember every day about love. And here's where these truths came from. A few years ago, I picked up the best selling book, The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. How many of you have read that book, The Purpose Driven Life? We did a book study of it here in this church. And there were three short sentences that popped out at me in one of the chapters. In fact, I'll never forget it, it was day 16 of The Purpose Driven Life.

These three short sentences rocked my world. And I wanna give you these three sentences today because I really feel like if I had one month left to live, this would be one of the messages that I would preach in that month, these three sentences mean that much to me. I preached them in the last message before my sabbatical ten years ago. And then probably not much more than a day went by during my sabbatical that these three sentences didn't just kinda echo in my brain and really deepened my walk in several ways. I think that if you write these down and then memorize them and practice them, I think you'll have a happier life, I think you'll live a healthier life.

I think there'll be even far fewer divorces and separations and relationship problems in this church. If we all learned and practiced these three sentences, they're that important to me. Because these are what the Bible has to say about how to have a great life and what matters most to God. Write these down. Number one, the best use of life is to love. The best use of life is love. Now, I know that this can sound all 60s kinda flower power shallow, but this really is deep. In fact, I love the correction that Martin Luther King Jr. gave on this. It's Martin Luther King Jr. weekend and in his Nobel Prize winning acceptance speech at the University of Oslo in 1964.

He said that all mankind has advanced in so many amazing ways. But he said that despite all of the comfort and advancements in science and in technology, clearly that's not what we need most. He said what we need more than anything else is love. And then he says, when I speak of love, I'm not speaking of some sentimental and weak response, which is little more than emotional bosh. He says, I'm speaking of that force which is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John, let us love one another, for love is of God. And everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God, he that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love.

Now personally, I think that was kinda risky for him to go there in a University of Oslo acceptance speech, but I'm glad that he did, because this is an undeniable biblical truth. Look at all these verses I put underneath this point in your notes. And I could have gone, I could have put 100, 200 verses here that all preach the same thing, I don't know how we miss it. Like 1 Corinthians 14:1, which says, make love your greatest aim. Now just as kind of an exercise in tactile learning, so that you're actually using your body to learn something. What I want you to do is to pick up a pen or a pencil, rummage around in your purse or your coat until you find one. And if you don't find one, get one of those short little pencils out in front of you from the pews.

Because here's what I want you to do for these next few verses, just to demonstrate how important this was to God and to the scripture writers. If you actually do something with your fingers, it'll make sure you won't forget this. Where it says make love your greatest aim, I want you to circle greatest aim. That means make it your number one priority, your greatest ambition, your life purpose. Don't put it in your top ten. Don't put it in your top three. Make it number one. That's how important loving is to God. This next verse, the context, one day a guy comes up to Jesus and basically says, Jesus, I need cliff notes for the entire Bible. Summarize it all for me. And Jesus says, okay, here it is. How do you think Jesus is gonna summarize the Bible? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.

Now I want you to circle no commandment greater. None, love God, love people, that's it. Jesus is saying, miss that, you miss the point of the Bible. Miss that, you miss the point of life. Two verses from Galatians, Galatians 5:6 says, the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself in love. Now I want you to circle only thing that counts. And then a few verses later, Galatians 5:14, the entire law is summed up in a single command, love your neighbor as yourself. Circle, entire law is summed up. The whole Bible, every single one of its commands all add up to this. These two verses from the book of Galatians in the Bible had a context. Historically, they were specifically aimed at a Galatian church that had forgotten this.

The church started out loving Jesus and loving each other, but they'd slipped away into legalism and into lists and into performance orientation. And they were much more concerned about keeping their church pure and about making sure everybody jumped all the hoops to become a true Christian than they were about love. And so Paul writes the letter to the Galatians as a corrective to their legalism. Now, do you think that kind of slipping away from love ever happens in churches today? Think that ever happens today? I'll never forget. I was working on our love book that we put out about three years ago. Do you remember that one? And I was at a coffee shop here in town and I had the first proof of the book out on the table in front of me. And big letters on the cover, it said, love.

And a woman about my age at the table next to me leans over and says, oh, I see you have a book about love. I said, yeah. And she said, I'm reading some books about love. I love to think about love. And I'm feeling a little awkward at this point. And she leans over a little bit more. And she says, is that the book on love by Eckhart Tolle? And I said, no. And as she gets even closer and I'm feeling more awkward, she can read the full title on the cover, Love the Heart of God's Plan. And she says, oh, it's Christian. And the tone was like, oh, it's by Hitler. And I said, yeah. And her face falls. And she just gets up and starts to walk away. Like, she'd been there for an hour, but that was enough for her to actually be made to leave Aptos coffee roasting. Because, oh, a Christian is next to me. That's it. I'm leaving.

And I said, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm a pastor here in town. And she looks back. And now the look on her face was as if I had said, I'm a werewolf here in town. And I want to drain your body of blood. But I said, can I ask why you seem so bummed about this? And she said, oh, a Christian book about love just makes me think of a lot of bad things. I said, really? Well, like what? And she goes, let me put it this way. The word Christian and the word love together is a serious disconnect for me. And I said, well, would you mind telling me why is that? And she said, well, I'm from the Midwest. Like that was supposed to help explain it. And she said, growing up, I saw so many mean Christians. And this was her last line to me before she wheeled around and left. I haven't seen her since. She said, they were about everything but love.

And to this day, that phrase has haunted me. Because how many times could somebody say to me, René, today you have been about everything but love? I mean, love, I would say, if somebody were to ask me, is my highest value. But how many times at the end of a day could somebody legitimately say to me, René, look at everything you've done. You've been about everything but love. Look at the way you talk to your kids. Look at the way you talk to people at work. Look at the way you talk to yourself. Look at the things on your to-do list. You've been about ambition. You've been about guarding our church. You've been about perfection. You've been about performance-oriented. You have been about everything but love.

It is so easy for Christians who want so badly to be holy and sometimes define that as being perfect to be about everything but love. And I think this tendency is why the Bible reminds us over and over in verses like the ones we've been looking at and verses like this one in 1 Peter 4:8, "Above all," Peter says, "above all, love each other deeply." Again, circle an important qualifying phrase here, "above all," not "above most things," "above all." It's amazing to me that so often we act like loving people is something we have to squeeze into our schedule, right? Like we have to find time for people. We have to fit them into our lives. As if loving relationships are an important part but just another important part, along with many other important parts, wrong.

The Bible doesn't say love should be part of your life. The Bible says love is your life. That's what life is all about. Now, if that's true, why do we -- and I speak for myself here -- often allow our relationships to get the short end of the stick. When we get overloaded, what do we do? Where do we cut back? Well, we start to do what one author calls relational skimming. We start relationally skimming so we can get everything else on our to-do list done. But as someone once said, not everything that's important in life is urgent in life. Would you agree with that? Not everything that's important in life is urgent in life.

You know, I am well aware that Christmas was three weeks ago. Doesn't it seem like a lot longer than that, by the way? Christmas was just three weeks ago. But I want to read you an article that, since I found this a few years ago, I like to refresh my mind with this, and I read it to myself every year. It was printed in one of the New York magazines. It's called "Santa Land Diaries." I just want to read you a couple of paragraphs. It was written by a guy who worked as a photo elf at Macy's, the downtown Macy's in Manhattan. And he took pictures of kids posing with Santa. And it's very funny, but it's a very touching article.

He says, "People stand in line for two hours at Macy's to see Santa Claus. They get cranky, and so does Santa." His goal becomes, get him on and off the lap in 45 seconds flat, except for one Santa. He writes, "I was the photo elf once for our oldest Santa. The identity of this Santa is a mystery. All the other Santas keep their names on their lockers and on their coffee cups in back. This one deliberately keeps everything blank to maintain the illusion. He was outstanding, wild but warm. As the parents and child would enter the room, and if there's a daughter, Santa takes a look at the little girl, holds his gloved hands to his chest, fakes a massive swoon, and then he slowly comes out of his faint and says, 'Elf, elf, are you there?' 'Yes, Santa, I'm here,' I would say. 'Elf, I just had a dream. I was standing in front of the most beautiful little girl in the world.' And then I say, 'It wasn't a dream, Santa. She's standing right here.'

And Santa rubs his eyes and says, 'Oh, my, you are the most beautiful little girl I have seen in 617 years.' And he scoops her into his lap, flatters every aspect of her character. The child is delirious with joy. And then the Santa gestures toward the mother and asks, 'Is that your sister I see standing in the corner?' 'No, that's my mommy.' And then Santa calls the woman over and asks, 'Have you been a good mother?' And then he says, 'Do you tell your daughter that you love her? Do you tell her every day?' And the mother is always blush and say, 'Well, I try, Santa.' And then he addresses the father and says, 'Come over here. I want you to come over here. I want you to tell this child how much you love her. I want you to do it so I can see you. Tell her how much you love her.' And the dad does. And then Santa ends the visit saying, 'Always remember the most important thing is to love others as much as you are loved.'

The parents choke up and often cry. They grab Santa's hand and often my hand. They say, 'It was worth the wait.' The most severe case is hand Santa a few bucks. We're not supposed to accept tips, but most Santas do. This one just looks at the money as if it were filthy Kleenex and hands it back. And then he closes his eyes, leans back and prepares for the next family. Now listen to this. He says, 'After a day of this, something occurred to me. This Santa Claus, never even, not once, asks what the children want.' And he involves the parents to the point where they surrender their need for documentation. They lay down their cameras and gather round for the festival of love.

You know what? I think that Santa was onto something. Remember, far above all our other hopes and dreams, the most important thing is to love and be loved. In fact, the Bible says only three things will last forever. Faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. Again, circle the greatest. There is not one thing you can imagine or think of that is more important to God. Everything else is eventually going to burn, but love will last. Let me put it this way. Show of hands. How many of you want to leave a legacy after you die? How many want to make a positive contribution to the world? Well, God has shown you how to leave a lasting legacy. What you have to do is love.

Doesn't this become crystal clear at funerals? I've done a lot of funerals. I've done a lot of funerals lately, sadly. But I'll tell you what, max 90 seconds, usually not even that, is spent on dad's or mom's occupation and achievements. The entire rest of the service is spent on their love and on their faith. It becomes crystal clear when you're sitting there at a funeral. And, you know, the whole country went to a funeral this week, didn't we? The memorial service for the victims of the shooting in Tucson, Arizona. The next day here at the office, everybody was talking about what the president said and whether you voted for him or not, it really fits in perfectly to what we're talking about this morning.

He said in times like these, quote, "We recognize our own mortality and are reminded that in the fleeting time we have on this earth, what matters is not wealth or status or power or fame, but rather how well we have loved." And I just want to suggest that you take that to heart. Each day this week, when you wake up, stop and pray, "God, whether I get anything else done today, and I may not get anything else done, but Lord, if all I accomplish today is spend some time with you, loving you, and spend some time loving others, that is my priority today. If I get that done, I had a good day." Because if you miss that, you miss the most important thing in life, that the best use of life is love.

And number two, the best way to love is time. The best expression of love is time. You spell love, T-I-M-E, because it's impossible to love without spending time with somebody, or spending time writing somebody, spending time communicating and acting in loving ways. There's a man that I've spoken at a couple of conferences with, a best-selling author named John Trent, and he has a great story. He says that after a conference one time, a woman grabbed his arm and said, "Can I tell you a story? It's a story of what my son did with one of my little granddaughters." Listen to this.

She said, "My son has two daughters, one who is five and one who's in the terrible twos, and believe me, they are terrible twos." She said, "For several years, my son has taken the older daughter out for a date time, but he'd never taken the two-year-old until recently. On the first date, alone with the younger one, he took her out to breakfast at a local fast food restaurant. They'd just gotten pancakes, and my son decided it would be a great time to tell her how much he loved her. Feeling unsure about how much she would understand, he began. 'Jenny,' he said, 'I want you to know how much I love you, and how special you are to me. We prayed for you for years, and now that you're here and growing up, well, we couldn't be more proud of you.'

He stopped talking and reached for his fork to start eating, but he never got the fork to his mouth, because his little daughter reached out her little hand and laid it on her daddy's hand, and her eyes went to his, and in a soft voice she said, 'Longer, Daddy, longer.' And he put down his fork and told her some more reasons that they loved her, and then again he reached for his fork, but a second, and then a third, and a fourth time, he felt her little hand on his and heard the words, 'Longer, Daddy, longer.' John Trent says, 'That dad never did get much to eat that morning, but his daughter got the emotional nourishment she needed.'

And here's the capper, a few days later she ran up to her mom and said, 'Mommy, Mommy, Mommy! I'm a really special daughter! Daddy told me so.' Time. In one study that I just rediscovered doing research for this message that's just fascinating, dads were asked to estimate the time they spent with each one of their children every day, and all the dads said, 'Oh, I know it's a low number. I know it's way lower than it should be,' but they estimated 15 to 20 minutes, and then the researchers actually got permission to clock for the next two weeks the interactions and to find out how much actual time the dad spent with their kids, and it was shocking, because the actual average amount spent by those dads with their kids was 37 seconds a day, and that was divided into 2.7 daily encounters.

Man, 1 John 3:18, there's a reason it says, 'Dear children, let's not merely say we love each other. Let us show the truth by our actions, and the greatest gift of action you can give anybody is your time.' Think of it this way, time is your most valuable commodity, right? Because you only have a certain little amount of it, and so every time you give somebody your time, you're giving them a portion of your life that you are never ever going to get back. But a lot of us are in time-starved relationships. I think really that's at the root of so much relationship trouble.

I mean, I was thinking about it this week. A lot of things can rob a relationship, right? Work can rob a relationship, other relationships can rob a relationship, hobbies perhaps can rob a relationship, even too much church activity can rob a relationship, computer time can rob a relationship, but what's the common denominator of all those things? Time. Time taken away from the primary relationship. Check this out. The average American now watches TV or plays on the computer, in other words, screen time that is not work-related, over five hours a day. That's over 30 hours a week, that's 1,560 hours a year, and let me put that number in perspective, 1,560 hours a year is the equivalent of spending 97 straight days at 16 hours a day watching TV or playing on the computer. That is bound to hurt a relationship.

Somebody says, 'I don't know how I can possibly find more time for those I love.' Well, I know a way you can find three months of extra time a year. And realistically, I'm not even saying unplug the TV and the laptop 100 percent. I'm not even saying get rid of them, I'm saying just limit them. I mean, if you think about it, if you watch TV just two-thirds of the average American's time, you will gain a month per year of extra time with your loved ones. So here's some homework for you this week. You know that bucket list that we had you write last weekend. On that list, you probably wrote, 'Spend some time with the kids or spend time with a loved one.' Well, this week, I want you to actually do it.

Specifics. Try to actually spend that 15 to 20 minutes a day with your loved one that those dads thought that they were spending. 15 minutes a day. Talk to them. If you have children, each child, if you have a spouse or if you have a best friend, that person, 15 minutes a day, talk to them, look at them in the eye, sympathize with them, focus on them. Maybe you need to apologize to them. Just make 15 minutes a goal. Even if you don't reach that goal, at least you'll do more than you are doing now. Why? Because the best use of life is love. And the best way to love is time. And finally, the best time to love is now. Now. Not next week, not later when things settle down, not when we reach a certain standard of living. It's right now. Because you never know what's going to happen.

You know, after one of the services two weekends ago, somebody told me about a long time Twin Lakes Church member who for a while taught school up in San Francisco. He taught the fourth grade. And there was a boy in his class that had a slight learning disability and was really bullied by a couple of other boys in the class. And so the teacher decided he would try to put a stop to it. And he pulled the two bullies aside and told them, you know, you know that boy that you guys are bullying? Well, he's dying. His days are numbered. I was totally lying. But he told them, he's dying. Now don't tell him I told you, but I thought you'd like to know. And they completely changed the way that they treated that boy. They included him in their games. They treated him well. Only thing is, end of the year, those kids came to the teacher and said, you know, he looks pretty good. Are you sure he's sick?

And the teacher said, I didn't say he was sick. I said he was dying. I said his days were numbered. All our days are numbered. And you know what happened? They beat him up in this pink San Francisco. The school board suspended him. No, just kidding. That's not true. But those kids learned a lesson is what happened. I mean, look around. Just for a second here. Look around in this room. Don't look at me. Just look around at the crowd here in this room. Just look around at everybody. I always get to look at you. You look at you. You know what? Chances are you personally do have more than one month to live. Chances are you have more than one month to live.

But chances are pretty good that in a crowd this size, especially if you put together Saturday night service, this service, the 10:45 service, the venue service, you have over 3,000 people in those four services, chances are pretty good that a few people in that group will not be here next time this year. In fact, that's almost a guarantee that not all of us will be here next year. So treat each other well. Treat each other like the time you have together is limited, like time is precious because it really is. Every time you meet with somebody, every time you say good morning to somebody, that is one less time that you have to say good morning to them in your life. The Bible says make the most of every opportunity because time is precious. The best time to love is now.

Now, speaking of opportunities, I'm very excited about this. Mark briefly mentioned it, but many of you told me that you wrote things on your list like make a difference in the life of a complete stranger or adopt an orphan. But you're stumped at how do you actually do that for real? Well, do not miss next weekend. In fact, the next two weekends, we're going to have the whole lobby full of tables with possibilities from ways you can support an orphan to ways that you can tutor kids in Watsonville that are at risk after school to ways you can build a playground and a mission in the Tenderloin district up in San Francisco. Dozens of practical ways to fulfill some of those items on your bucket list. You can sign up for them right here next weekend. It's our annual World Outreach Week. Don't miss it.

Nobody will be looking for your money, by the way. It's not primarily designed as a fundraiser at all. It's designed as a way for you to get opportunities to give your time in ways that you've been longing to give your time. It's a perfect application of One Month to Live. That's the next two weekends here. Now look at this Proverbs 3:20. I don't want us to read this verse together. Let me hear you. "If you can help your neighbor now," say it, "don't say, 'Come back tomorrow and then I'll help you.'" Now if this is good for neighbors, it certainly applies to families too.

George McGovern was a presidential candidate and I was thinking after I wrote this message, I thought, "Wow, this is kind of risky because I try to be politically neutral." And here I'm quoting three Democrats in this sermon. So I'm going to quote three Republicans next weekend just to kind of balance the scales. But he was a presidential candidate and years and years after that, he wrote a book about his daughter, Terry. You might be familiar with the story. She died in 1994 of complications from alcoholism. She was found frozen to death in a snowbank where she had fallen in a frozen stupor. And after she died, McGovern poured over her diaries and talked to all of her friends because they had fallen out of contact. And he was trying to figure out what was she thinking.

And it was a shock because he read in her own writing her diary from the time she was a teenager where while he was spending 18 hours a day fighting for political causes, she was writing over and over that she missed her daddy. And his book about this is just gut-wrenching. He talks about alcoholism. He talks about her depression. He has some great insight about it. And don't get me wrong, I don't think that McGovern's absence in her childhood makes him culpable for her alcoholism and so on. There's a lot of complications there. But he does say this. Now, this is not me drawing past her conclusions here. This is George McGovern writing from his heart.

He says, "My advice to parents, 'Show more love to your kids by spending more time with them, especially during their adolescent years, no matter what it costs your career. That way neither one of you will have regrets.'" He writes, "I'd give everything I have, and I mean everything, for one more afternoon with Terry just to tell her how much I love her and have one more of those happy times that we used to have all too infrequently." I read that and I thought, "Wow." You know, the question is not, "Are we ever going to regret our overloaded schedules? Are we ever going to regret this frantic stress to the limit lifestyle that practically everybody in this room is living?" The question is not, "Are we ever going to regret it?" The question is, "When?" Because I think we'll regret it.

Do you regret it when it's too late? Why not regret it now and then move on with no guilt? Make some changes now. The time to love is now. Some of you are going to leave this morning thinking, "Sounds good, man. That was right on. I'd known that stuff, but I forgot it. I'm going to apply this for sure." But then tomorrow you'll think, "But this week I'm super busy. I'll do it next week." And then it doesn't get done. I'm telling you, do it now. Take the chance that you have today to go down to the beach with your loved ones, throw a Frisbee around, take a drive, give somebody a call, have some fun together.

And you can probably tell I'm speaking with some degree of seriousness and emotion on this. It's a weird time that's going on at Twin Lakes now. We're having so many wonderful highs, just incredible blessings in terms of giving and people finding the Lord and attendance. And yet also it's been a challenging time in that we're going through a five-week span where there's been 35 people associated with a church who have passed away. 35. Last weekend I officiated at a funeral Saturday. Mark did a funeral Saturday. Pastor Gary Williams did a funeral Saturday. Mark had another funeral Sunday. Four funerals here just in one weekend, last weekend. And it's really got me thinking about the brevity of life and the necessity for every one of us to both be kind of sobered up by that but also to be let loose, to walk out of here just feeling the sunshine and holding a hand and taking a risk, calling somebody where there's been that wedge saying, "Hey, I'm sorry that I was too heavy-handed," or "Our relationship's been clumsy, awkward. I just wanted you to know I love you." And take the risk and take the time.

Now let me close with this. This is not a self-improvement seminar, right? This is church. And the point of church, a Christian church, is that we cannot do this on our own. We not only need each other, the community of faith, but we also need God. We need His power available through Christ in us to do this thing. This is the bottom line. Like the Bible says, "Walk in the way of love, but then look at what comes next." Just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God, that's how it works. The bottom line, Christ's love both inspires and empowers me. It inspires me.

There is something that happens to me when I get that God rescued me, when I get that God cares enough for me, that He loves me enough to sacrifice for me. It fills me up, and then I long to love the world like He loves the world. You know, I'll never forget the first time it became personal for me. I was a teenager. I was in high school. I was living in a room that had been carved out of our garage, and I was looking out my window at the neighborhood, and I was thinking about Jesus dying on the cross for me. And for some reason, I'd heard it my whole life, but suddenly it occurred to me the only possible reason that a supreme being would go to those lengths and do something like that for us is because He loves us.

There's no logical reason other than I am passionately in love with you, and suddenly I was, for the first time in my life, so overcome with the love of God that I just began weeping and laughing and weeping and laughing, thinking, "Wow, that God loves me," and my face just moist with my tears. I looked out my window, and I was overwhelmed with a sense of love for my neighborhood and then for the whole world. And I thought to myself, "What I want to do the most for the rest of my life is let the whole world know how much God loves them," because suddenly I had realized the extent of God's love for me. Now, sadly, some of that passion was dried up by a legalism that I got into on my own, but then I rediscovered that passion again, that when you realize God rescued you, no matter what sins you've done in your life, He still loved you so much that knowing you would do those sins, He came to earth and die on the cross to rescue you, to forgive you, to have a relationship with you.

When you realize that, you just want to overcome every barrier to extend that love to others. It not only inspires me, it empowers me. And as we end this service this morning, I want to not end it in a place where you feel guilty, where you're focused on, "Oh, I should do more. I should be better. I should be more loving." No, end the service this morning in a place where you're focusing on the fact that God loves you in all the ways we've been talking about today. You are perfectly loved. You are unconditionally loved. You are absolutely entirely forgiven. And as you dwell on God's perfect love available to all who accept it in Christ, not on your own imperfections, that is when the truth of His love changes you from the inside out. And you realize with fresh conviction that the best way of living is to love. And the best way to love is time. And the best time to love is now.

Would you all stand with me in a word of prayer? Let's all rise. And let's bow our heads together. With our heads bowed, I invite you to say in your heart, "Maybe for the first time or maybe for the thousandth time with fresh conviction this morning, God, thank You for loving me. Thank You for dying on the cross to rescue me. Thank You that I can say, 'I am Your beloved. And now let me be an agent of Your love.' In my life, Lord, I pray that You would shine through all I do, through my love, Lord. Let me bring Your love to others. Let everything I do point to the ultimate source of love. And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen."