YOU ARE SO LOVED – More Than a Man Series

Not too long ago I woke up to just another ordinary day, headed for work proceeding on the route that I take every day to work. I like to go through Wynfield Creek. If you are in Huntersville you might know that neighbourhood. But it is a beautiful neighbourhood, especially this time of the year when all the plants and the trees and the flowers are just lovely as you drive through there. And so I was just taking my routine drive and I had the Christian radio station on when a song came on by Mark Schultz’s called, ‘Walking Her Home.’ And as I began to listen to that song, something unexpected happened. I literally fell apart. I found myself weeping and sobbing as I was listening to that song. In fact, I want to read you the lyrics as I sort of set up this morning. I was thinking about my love for my bride as I was driving to work and this song came on. So here are the words:

Looking back He sees it all It was her first date the night he came to call

Her dad said son Have her home on time And promise me you'll never leave her side He took her to a show in town And he was ten feet off the ground

(Chorus) He was walking her home And holding her hand Oh the way she smiled it stole the breath right out of him Down that old road With the stars up above He remembers where he was the night he fell in love He was walking her home

Ten more years and a waiting room At half past one And the doctor said come in and meet your son

His knees went weak When he saw his wife She was smiling as she said he's got your eyes

And as she slept he held her tight His mind went back to that first night

(Chorus)

He walked her through the best days of her life Sixty years together and he never left her side

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A nursing home At eighty-five And the doctor said it could be her last night And the nurse said Oh Should we tell him now Or should he wait until the morning to find out

When they checked her room that night He was laying by her side

Oh he was walking her home And holding her hand Oh the way she smiled when he said this is not the end And just for a while they were eighteen And she was still more beautiful to him than anything He was walking her home He was walking her home

I have heard the song several times since and I am still having a hard time with the lyrics. But I literally had this moment in my car where I was weeping uncontrollably. You know that uncomfortable crying where you are wondering if there are any dudes around and hoping there aren’t. And I thought I must call my wife because I was so overwhelmed. It was like in this moment I was literally out in the future and time is going so fast. And I thought about what would it be like to not be married to her anymore, and knowing that could really happen someday. I may be walking her home; I may be saying ‘honey, you go to Jesus.’ Or she may be saying that to me someday.

And I was just so overcome and I felt so much love in my heart. It was like God just said, ‘hey, do you want to feel what love really feels like?’ Check this out. And I had to pull over because I was just so overcome with it. And overcome with this idea of thinking I needed to do a better job being a husband. I needed to do a better job of being a dad. I needed to quit being so selfish. I needed to be more sensitive. And I need to learn how to cherish my wife better. Why don’t I get it so much? How can I miss it? It is all going to come down to that moment someday. And I called my wife, and I couldn’t even talk, I was just overcome. But my wife loved it. It is amazing, you know, if I had called up Matt Hatfield and said, ‘He Was Walking Her Home,’ he would say, ‘dude, you’re weirding me out, bro. Okay. Chill out.’

I don’t know what happened to me. I don’t know maybe my wife put some estrogen in my smoothie, but I was weakened in that moment. And I just felt floored. And I talked to her and I shared with her how much I loved her. I wanted her to know that she was so loved. And I also wanted her to know that I was miserable at knowing how to do this thing called love at times.

But I will say something to you right now. Many of you in this room this morning may not have that experience of a husband or a wife that you cherish in that

Page 2 of 14 pages 11/1/2009 YOU ARE SO LOVED – More Than a Man Series love. You may feel lonely in this room. In fact you may feel unloved. When you look at the world, it may feel hateful and you may think where is the love? But what I felt for my wife, I can tell you this. There is a God that would say to you in this room right now, ‘you are so loved.’ And as I have thought about how wretched I am this past week, I thought, wow, God, you love me, and I have been blown away.

But what I want to talk to you about this morning is this idea of God’s love for us and what that should do in our lives. And I would like to ask, if you would, to turn in the Bible to John Chapter 3 as we continue on in our series called, “More Than a Man.”

Last week we talked about how Nicodemus came out to Jesus one dark night. And as he showed up to meet with Jesus, Nicodemus had an unusual conversation with Him. He learned that he was lost, that he needed to be born again. And basically we said to be born again means that you are born physically, but you are dead spiritually; and you need to be born again spiritually. And they had this amazing conversation. And I shared with you from that passage when Jesus talked about the wind and how it moves where it wills. And I said the wind is the Holy Spirit. And that is what God does. He just sometimes moves in ways we don’t expect. Sometimes you come to church and you feel no wind. Other times you come to church and you feel the wind and it is like God. He just moves and He changes your affections for Him. He transforms your life in ways that you cannot imagine.

As we wrapped up last week in verse 15 of John Chapter 3, we are going to look at verses 16 to 21 today. And it is important for you to notice as you look in your Bibles you will see that the words of Jesus are in red. But many scholars would say that those aren’t the words of Jesus in verses 16 to 21. Now they are not rejecting the inherency of Scripture, they are just saying that those are probably the words of John, the author. Because in the Greek there are no quotes, and what they were doing when they were translating Greek into English is they were trying to figure out where the conversation ends, and where the next conversation picks up, where the story ends and where the story begins to pick up again.

And some have even gone so far as to say, you know what, the story between Jesus and Nicodemus probably ended after verse 12. I don’t believe that is the case. I believe it ends after verse 15. Why? Well, look at verse 13 if you will of Chapter 3 and it says, “No one has ascended into Heaven except He who descended from Heaven, the son of man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the son of man must be lifted up.”

One of Jesus’ terms, if not His most famous term for Himself, was He referred to Himself as the son of man. So I think this is Jesus still talking to Nicodemus saying the “son of man must be lifted up.” But at this point I believe John has wrapped up the story with Jesus and Nicodemus and now he is going to begin to narrate from verses 16 to 21. Literally the whole Bible can be in red because we believe all Scripture is God-breathed, but what you have to figure out when you are looking at the original language is who is talking when. Right? And since there are no quotes, some people have said the

Page 3 of 14 pages 11/1/2009 YOU ARE SO LOVED – More Than a Man Series conversation goes through verse 21, others have said it stops after verse 12, and still others have said it stops after verse 15. And I believe it stops after verse 15.

So now we come to John and John is going to just wax eloquently on the love of God. And the language that you see here that helps me to believe that this is probably John’s writing instead of Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus is when you read I, II, and III John. Some of the language that he uses of light and darkness you see in his letter like in I John, so it seems very much like John’s type of language.

And so knowing that this is God’s word, and that John was inspired by God to write down his thoughts, after writing this story about Jesus and Nicodemus, he says in verse 16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

No doubt this is the most well-known verse in all of God’s word. It is the most popular verse in Scripture. In fact if you go to football games, or you watch football games, they might not even know what that verse says or means, but you will see there, John 3:16. This verse has been called the nutshell of the gospel, or the gospel in a nutshell. And this is no doubt the gospel, the good news that God came into the world to save sinners so that we might have life now and forever.

And what I want you to look at is the first part of verse 16 which is, “For God SO loved the world.” You are SO loved. He loved the world with a deep, profound, glorious and unexplainable love that words cannot even begin to describe the kind of love that God has for us. His love is other worldly, but it reaches our world. “For God so loved the world.”

I want you to realize first of all that His love is for the world, that God loves the nations, that God loves all the tribes, that God’s love is expansive, it is big, and it is huge. It is not localized, it is globalized. God has a global heart. In fact God was, and is, the first missionary to ever invade planet earth. God sent His son Jesus Christ as the missionary to really explain and articulate the pure, unadulterated, pristine gospel that we know so dearly in our hearts if we have been born again.

And so what do we know about the world that God loves? What do we know about the object of God’s love? We know that the world that God loves is sinful, depraved, unrighteous and filthy. That there are God haters. We know that the world, including myself before I knew God, didn’t desire Him, but desired to live our own way. And it is that kind of world that God loves. And it speaks to the profoundness of God’s love. It speaks to the height of His love, to the depth of His love and to the breadth of His love. It lets us know that His love is something we are not quite used to here in our world called planet earth. Our love is conditional; yet God’s love is unconditional. Our love is kind of performance based, but God’s love is person based, based on Himself and His goodness, His love and His nature.

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And so God loves the world. And it is amazing, the one who knows us better than we even know ourselves, more than anyone knows us also loves us more than anyone could ever love us. We struggle to love those who do love us, but God is not that way. This could bring an end to all marriage problems if we could love like God. I will tell you why we have a divorce problem in our world, and a big divorce problem in America; it is because we have a love problem. We don’t know how to love like God. We don’t know how to love unconditionally. Our love is performance based. Do this, meet my needs here, live this way, let me see your actions like this.

And I am so grateful that God did not put out a rule or a law that said if you do all this and if you can arrive at that, then I will send Jesus. Then I will love you. No. He invades. He makes initiative and He loves us. And that should give us great comfort to know that even though you and I are filthy, rotten, dirty sinners who once were God haters we were, and are, deeply loved by God. You might think, man, what is so good about that? Well think about it. No matter how bad you were, how bad you get, no matter what you do; it doesn’t go out of the reach of the amazing love of God. It is not, oh, I don’t love you anymore.

And we were talking about this at our men’s study this past week on Thursday morning. And I am so grateful that God is unchanging. I don’t believe that we serve a God that is mutable, that He changes. I believe He is immutable, He doesn’t change. If God could change, then I would be nervous, because what if He changes for the worst. Right? And then if He could change for the better, then He is not the best right now.

But His love is the best that can be right now. His love is as deep as it can be right now. His love is as rich as it can be right here, right now. And if you think about it you get a great comparison in the first part of that verse 16, “For God so loved the world.” And you see the contrast. If anything, God should hate us, and we should love Him. But what happens is we hate God, and God loves us. Go figure. And you have this God comparison in this moment to this world that is filthy, rotten, sinful, having no desire for God. And then you have this God who is holy, righteous, powerful, just, awesome, amazing, glorious, worthy, splendid and it is just breathtaking that He looks at us and says I love you.

And He even does something about us with a sacrifice of His love. “He loved the world so much that He gave His only son.” I mean Jesus left His Heavenly comforts and came to humanity, and He dwelt among us. Think about that sacrifice. Aren’t you glad that God doesn’t only say He loves us, but He demonstrates His love? Romans Chapter 5 and verse 8 says, “But God demonstrated His love for us in this while we were still yet sinners,” while we were bad, while we were wretched, while we didn’t care about God, “Jesus died for us.” I mean that is profound. It is so deep that it should do something to the inside of us. It should make us want to love Him in return. It should move us. Jesus left Heaven to come here to a dump, to die for us.

And it says that “He gave His only son.” God gave us His best. God gave us Jesus. And I have to step back and think about this idea of trust and go, okay, God, as a

Page 5 of 14 pages 11/1/2009 YOU ARE SO LOVED – More Than a Man Series believer, if you were willing to give Jesus to me, then can’t I trust that you will give me the best in every other area of my life? Even if it is suffering, even if it is pain, even if it is confusion, even if I am struggling, can’t I trust you, God? You gave your only son for us so you must know what is best for me.

You see in marriage it wouldn’t work the best if we just said we loved each other and we didn’t demonstrate it. God demonstrated His love for us. He didn’t just say He loved us. Right? I know in my own marriage that I will frustrate my wife more than anything when I will be telling her that I love you, I love you, I love you and the trash is waiting. We are building another new mountain range in our house, right? She doesn’t feel very loved like that. Heather won’t feel loved if I say, yeah, you want a date? How does next June sound? What do you think? We will do that. No, she won’t feel loved that way. She wants to be pursued, cherished, romanced and hunted down. And I tell her sometimes, please look to Jesus more than me for that. I want to love you more, but I have a loving problem in my heart. I don’t know how to love as much as I should.

And so we see the reason and the purpose that He sent His son Jesus. “That whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” Should not perish and live eternally separated from God in Hell, but have eternal life through Christ. Listen to what the Bible says in Ezekiel Chapter 18 and verse 23, “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked declares the Lord God? And not rather that he should turn from his ways and live.” Have you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ in this room this morning? Have you experienced His life changing love in this room this morning in a profound and deep way?

Look with me if you will in verse 17. “For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God.” Listen, God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world; the world was already condemned without the son coming into the world. And if you have not experienced Jesus Christ you are still in your sins. You still have guilt in your heart and life. You are still separated from God. You are condemned by the fact that you have not believed on Jesus Christ. We are already condemned. He didn’t have to come into the world to condemn the world, we are already condemned. Jesus came into the world because He loved the world. And He came into the world to save the world so that we wouldn’t be condemned.

The Bible says for you who are believers in Romans Chapter 8 and verse 1, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are IN Christ Jesus.” You see that is the place to get, IN Christ Jesus. We want to be IN Christ. And the only way we are going to be IN Christ is to believe ON Christ. Right? We are to believe in Jesus and we are to look to Jesus. You say what must I do to be saved? “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”

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You say, Bobby, do you believe that Jesus is the only way to Heaven? You better believe it. Well, Bobby, that sounds a bit exclusive. I am an exclusivist. I believe that Jesus is the only way to Heaven. Why would I be preaching today if I didn’t? Why would I be pleading with you to place your faith in Christ if I didn’t? Why would we be sending a missions team to go to Guatemala if they didn’t need Jesus? Why would God send us into the world to do missions if the world didn’t need Jesus?

Of course I believe Jesus is the only way. In fact Jesus believed that He was the only way. He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one gets to the Father except through me.” John here believed that Jesus was the only way. Look at verse 16 again. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only son that whosoever believes” what? “In Him, shall not perish.” And look at verse 17, “For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved,” How? “Through Him.”

Verse 18, “Whoever believes IN Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already.” Why? “Because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God.” So Jesus is our hope this morning. He is the way that we are going to get to Heaven. He is the way we are going to experience life. He is the way we are going to experience forgiveness of our sins. He is the way our guilt is going to be removed. He is the way we will not live condemned, but freed. It is through Christ and Christ alone. Jesus would have been a fool to die on a cross for our sins if there was another route to Heaven. Jesus knew that He was the only way to Heaven and that is why He died for our sins.

Let’s keep going. Verse 19, “And this is the judgment, the light has come into the world and the people love the darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil.” Now when I was a kid I was a very committed Star Wars fan. Do we have any Star Wars fans in here? Well, I was a big time Star Wars guy. I loved watching Star Wars. In fact I would just watch it over and over again. You remember those disk players where you would stick the record in? And we would watch those movies. And boy, I just remember watching Star Wars and just loving it.

In fact I don’t know how my mom ever got to this point, the Force must have been with her, but she allowed me to decorate my room with Star Wars wallpaper. And my room was black and I loved it. It was dark and I loved it. And I always looked forward to getting my action figures and my new Star Wars toys. And I would get my spaceships and I would go outside and I would look for lizards. And I would take the lizards and I would shove them in my spaceships and I would fly them around. I remember that. And I loved my Star Wars.

But I learned at an early age, and looking back I don’t know how to explain it, but Pastor Bobby was drawn to the dark side. As a little four year old boy I liked the dark side. I can remember at a young age grouping people into the light side and the dark side. And I liked the dark side. I don’t know why, but I did. And actually I do know why, because I was depraved and I was without God. And I was sinful. I wanted to do

Page 7 of 14 pages 11/1/2009 YOU ARE SO LOVED – More Than a Man Series things that made my friends’ moms and dads very nervous to let them hang around with me.

And I was drawn to the dark side. Well, why was I drawn to the dark side? Because I loved my sin more than God. I wasn’t thinking about how to honor God as a teenager when I showed up at the parties. I wasn’t wondering what was in the best interest of God’s glory when I showed up at the parties. I thought only about my glory. I thought about what was best for me, what was best for my popularity, what would make me feel the best, what I thought was most useful for me. Little did I know that all along I just needed God. But I was drawn to the dark side.

And if you do not know Jesus Christ, you are drawn to the dark side. You say, well, what do you mean? I’m not out there just doing all this immoral stuff. If we are not drawn to God, we are drawn to the dark side. It is God or the dark side. That is what we are drawn to. And what happens is we can begin to enjoy the dark side. Like we were driving one of my son’s friends home one day and we smelled a skunk in the car. And he said something to the nature of ‘I used to not really like the smell of skunks, but I have smelled them often and now I like the way they smell.’

And that is what we are like with our sin. I didn’t like the way that whisky tasted the first time I took it, but then I loved its consumption. I didn’t like smoking off that green bud the first time I tried it, it made me cough. But something happened, and then it went down really smooth. Maybe you felt guilty the first time you had sex outside of marriage, but something happened. Your conscience has been quenched and now you do it freely and you no longer even feel guilt about it. That is because you are smelling skunks and enjoying it. That is what has happened. And we have all been there, sniffing skunks. Why? Because we love the darkness, we love the dark side.

So verse 19 says they love the darkness. Why? They like it more than light “because their works were evil.” Verse 20, “For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come into the light.” Why don’t they come into the light? Because let’s face it, we hide our sins, we get secretive with our sins. I mean let’s really get this here. It’s 2:00 in the morning, there was some parties going on in the Lake Norman area for sure. I doubt some people over at Davidson College who were partying through the night thought, you know, I saw a banner at there at Life Fellowship Church. They have a service starting at nine. Let’s just take our keg there and carry the party on.

No, they don’t do that. Why? Because they want to hide it. They wouldn’t be thinking about let’s just bring the keg over to Life Fellowship. I guarantee you that a guy who has a grand bag of dope this week didn’t call his buddy up and say, you know, there is a nice coffee break room at the local police department. Let’s just go in there and roll a few joints and smoke it. Right? I guarantee you the person who is wanting to cheat on his spouse didn’t say to the lady, you know what, let’s just hook up on a date and then invite my wife along. Why? Because we don’t bring our sins into the light. We cover them up. We hide them. We try to go unnoticed.

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And it is really, really bad and ugly before God when it is happening with a believer. Your conscience drives you crazy, doesn’t it, when you live with your secret sins? When you go on that computer, and you feel the gnawing, and you just try to cover your tracks so your wife won’t find you. Well guess what? God is not a bit fooled by your debauchery. But guess what? He loves you so much and it is the only thing that will bring you out of that lifestyle.

It says they don’t come into the light. Why? “Lest his works should be exposed.” We don’t want it to be exposed. To expose means to bring into the light. We cover things. We cover our tracks. Those secret things that we do we just try to cover them. We try to hide from God. You know the story in Genesis and how it went. It went like this. Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit and right when they were done eating the fruit, they immediately said, hey, God, remember that tree you said not to eat from? Ahh, I just ate it and it tastes terrible. And I got this weird feeling and I don’t know what it is called. In later day’s language it was called guilt. Forgive me, God, can you help me with this? Excuse me, are you there? That’s exactly what they did. Right? That was the first thing they did, they went right in the presence of God and exposed it and said, hey, I have a problem here.

NO! That is not what they did at all. They made some fig clothing, they took leaves and covered themselves. Adam got all dressed up and said, how do I look, Eve? And Eve said you are missing a few spots here. Let’s cover you up. Eve got her leaves and she said how do I look, Adam. Right? And what happened immediately when they sinned. They started blaming each other. And when you are hiding your sin, when you are covering something up, you start getting angry and accusatory and blaming. And that is what we do when we are in the darkness.

But then God in love, right from the very beginning, from the very first people that He created, He intervenes. Where are you, Adam? You are so loved. He came after him. And that is what God did from the first fall every day, every year, every century, every millennium; He has been pursuing us while we are trying to hide in the darkness.

I came across an illustration a long time ago and I found it again this weekend. And I think I will read it to you. It is about a seventeen year old boy whose name is Brian and he had a limited amount of time to write a story for class. He ended up writing this story called, ‘The Room.’ And shortly after he wrote it, he was in a bad car accident. He survived the accident, but after he stepped out of the car, he stepped on a power line that had fallen, and he was electrocuted and died. And his parents took this story that he had written and they basically framed it to remember what he had written. I want to read this story by this seventeen year old boy. Please understand that I am not endorsing every piece of theology that he has written. I just want you to hear from this boy who was alarmed at the thought of his sins being exposed. Listen to this, please.

“In that place between wakefulness and dreams, I found myself in the room. There was no distinguishing features save for the one wall covered with small index card files. They were like the ones in libraries that list titles by author or subject in

Page 9 of 14 pages 11/1/2009 YOU ARE SO LOVED – More Than a Man Series alphabetical order. These files, which stretched from floor to ceiling, and seemingly went endlessly in either direction, had very different headings. As I drew near the wall of files, the first to catch my attention was one that read ‘People I Have Liked.’ I opened it and began flipping through the cards. I quickly shut it, shocked that I realized and recognized the names written on each card. And then without being told, I knew exactly where I was. This lifeless room, with its small files, was a crude catalog system for my life. Here were written the actions of my every moment, big and small. In a detail my memory couldn’t match.

And a sense of wonder and curiosity, coupled with horror, stirred within me as I began randomly opening files and exploring their contents. Some brought joy and sweet memories, others a sense of shame and regret so intense that I would look over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching. A file named, ‘Friends’ was next to the one marked, ‘Friends I Have Betrayed.’ The titles ranged from the mundane to the outright weird. Books I had read, lies I had told, comfort I had given, jokes I have laughed at. Some were almost hilarious in their exactness. Things I have yelled at my brothers, others I couldn’t laugh at, things I have done in my anger, things I have muttered under my breath at my parents.

I never ceased to be surprised by the contents. Often there were many more cards than I expected; sometimes fewer than I hoped. I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the life I had lived. Could it be possible that I had the time in my seventeen years to write each of these thousands or even millions of cards? But each card confirmed this truth. Each was written in my own understanding. Each was signed with my signature.

When I pulled out the file marked, ‘Songs I Have Listened To,’ I realized the files grew to contain their content. The cards were packed tightly and yet after two or three yards, I hadn’t found the end of the file. I shut it, shamed, not so much by the quality of music, but more by the vast amount of time I knew the file represented. When I came to a file named, ‘Lustful Thoughts,’ I felt a chill run through my body. I pulled the file out only an inch, not willing to test its size. I drew out a card and I shuddered at its detailed contents. I felt sick to think that such a moment had been recorded.

An almost animal rage broke upon me. One thought dominated my mind. No one must ever see these cards. No one must ever see this room. I have to destroy them. In an insane frenzy, I yanked the file out. Its size didn’t matter now. I had to empty it and burn the cards. But as I took it at one end and began pounding it on the floor, I could not dislodge a single card. I became desperate and pulled out one card, only to find that it was as strong as steel when I tried to tear it.

Defeated and utterly helpless, I returned the file to its slot. Leaning my forehead against the wall, I let out a long, self-pitying sign, and then I saw it. The title bore, ‘People I Have Shared the Gospel With.’ The handle was brighter than those around it, newer, almost unused. I pulled on its handle and a small box not more than three inches long fell into my hand. I could count the cards because it contained itself on one hand. And then the tears came. I began to weep, sobs so deep that the hurt started in my

Page 10 of 14 pages 11/1/2009 YOU ARE SO LOVED – More Than a Man Series stomach and shook through me. I fell on my knees and cried. I cried out of shame from the overwhelming shame of it all. The rows of file shelves swirled in my tear filled eyes. No one must ever, ever know of this room. I must lock it up and hide the key.

But then as I pushed away the tears, I saw Him. No, please, not Him. Not here. Oh, anyone but Jesus. I watched helplessly as He began to open the files and read the cards. I couldn’t bear to watch His response. And in the moment I could bring myself to look at His face, I saw a sorrow deeper than my own. He seems to intuitively go to the worst boxes. Why did He have to read every one? Finally He turned and looked at me from across the room. He looked at me with pity in His eyes, but this was a pity that didn’t anger me. I dropped my head, I covered my face with my hands and I began to cry. He walked over and He put His arms around me. He could have said so many things, but He didn’t say a word. He just cried with me.

Then He got up and walked back to the wall of files, starting at one end of the room, He took out one file and one by one He began to sign His name over mine on each card. No, I shouted, rushing to Him, all I could find to say was, no, no, no as I pulled the card from Him. His name shouldn’t be on these cards, but there it was, written in red, so rich, so dark, and so alive. The name of Jesus covered mine. It was written in His blood. He gently took the card back and He smiled a sad smile and began to sign the cards.

I don’t think I will ever understand how He did it so quickly. But in the next instant it seemed I heard Him close the last file and walk back to my side. He placed His hand on my shoulder and said, ‘It Is Finished.’ I stood up and He led me out of the room. There was no lock on its door. There were still cards to be written.”

What a story about a dream that he had of when his sins would be exposed. It was as if he realized in that moment that God had given Him a gift to really think about the importance of the life that he had been given.

Verse 21, “But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” See when you are walking with Jesus, and you blow it, you sin, you will confess it, you will go into the light. You will get right with God. Why? Because you want to walk with Him. And it says right here, “Whoever does what is true,” that is what a believer does. A believer does what is true, but we only do it through the power of God. It says they will come to the light because it has been carried out in Him. And Jesus is the one who gets the glory, not only for our salvation but even for our sanctification. Jesus gets the glory for forgiving us for our sins. Jesus gets the glory for showing us mercy, for teaching us how to live a new life. Jesus gets the glory for even moving on us in such a way that we feel convicted enough by His Holy Spirit to confess our sins.

Can I say this to you this morning? You need God way more than you even realize. You desperately need God every one of you in this room. It is so huge how much you need God. You cannot exist another moment without God. He sustains you. Right now He is giving you breath to breathe. You can say glory to God for that. You

Page 11 of 14 pages 11/1/2009 YOU ARE SO LOVED – More Than a Man Series must understand this right here. As I look at this passage the problem is not that you aren’t loved by God, you are SO loved by God. The problem is you love God so little. And that is my problem. We love God so little that we hang onto our sins. We love God so little we want to stay in the darkness. We love God so little we are not willing to lay down addictions for His glory. And so we continue on in our addiction. And we are bound up. Why? Because we don’t love God enough. If you have an addiction in this room, you don’t have an addiction, you have a love problem. You don’t love God enough to say here it is, it is for you, I’m giving it to you. That’s our problem. We love so little, and we are loved so much. And you need Him so desperately this morning. And so do I. Let’s pray as the worship team comes.

Father, help us to love you rightly. Forgive me for my small love. That is my problem as a man. I don’t love you enough. It is bigger than a sin problem. It is a love problem. It is a love problem, God. Divorce is a love problem because we don’t love each other enough. Rebellious kids have a love problem. Rebellious Christians have a love problem. God, we have a love problem, and the only way we will ever figure out this thing called love is we have to meditate on your love. The only way we can learn love is we need to look at your love. And I want to pray for anyone in this room that has not looked to Jesus, if you don’t know Jesus.

You need to look to Him, believe on Him and you will be saved. Don’t trust in your own righteousness. You have none. It is false righteousness. You need the righteousness of Christ this morning. Will you believe on Jesus? Don’t trust in your religion, trust in Christ. Trust in His blood atonement on the cross for your sins. Believe He rose from the grave and just tell Him that. “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” You can do it right now in the quietness of your heart. You can shout it out. You can say I believe! If Jesus loved you enough to die for you, would you love Him enough to live for Him? In Jesus’ name. Amen.

COMMUNION SERVICE FOLLOWS:

The communion elements are going to be passed at this time. We have the privilege, the overwhelming privilege to remember the greatest event in history, where Jesus defined His mission to earth on a cross. As the elements are being passed I want you to quietly think about if you know Jesus. If you are not a Christian this morning, communion is for Christians, for those who believe in Jesus. If you believe in Jesus this morning then you can take communion. But if you don’t believe in Jesus it will be irrelevant.

If you are a Christian who is covering your sin this morning, can I beg you, can I plead with you to make sure that your heart is right with God before you take this. None of us know our hearts completely, only God knows them entirely. But would you just take some time and say, Oh, Jesus, forgive me for whatever that thing is that you need to be forgiven for. Ask Him. He loves you deeply and He will forgive you. But don’t take this with unconfessed sin.

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It is my hope ,and it has been my prayer, as I sat outside in the rain last night praying for the Spirit to move. I wanted God to show up here this morning. I did not want to show up in vain and just be a talking head. I literally dream of a church where Christians come unglued for Jesus Christ. I dream of a church where we lay down our sins because we are so deeply and passionately and radically in love with God. A group of men and women, boys and girls that have total adoration for the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. That is my heart’s cry for you right now. If you are sitting here and you are completely unaffected by God’s love, that is disturbing to me. Because God is a glorious God and the point of this passage should take hold of you and me, and we should be literally feeling like we can’t hardly sit still. I have a world that needs Jesus and I need to go out in the world and shout out a few words. You, world, are so loved.

But sadly in our professionalism and in our lukewarmness, in our lackadaisical me-centered Christianity, where it is all about me and so little about God, we live day in and day out with ninety-nine prayers out of a hundred being ‘give me, God, give me,’ instead of ‘make me, God, make me.’ I am wanting right now for you to do business with God. I mean really, really do it. You may think, Bobby, you seem like you are a little bit intense at the moment. I am!

Do you realize what we are about to do. This is for real. It happened. The first person to ever inaugurate communion was the one who is more than a man, the man Jesus Christ. He held a piece of bread in His hand one night and He held the chalice and He knew where He was going. And later He would be sweating great drops of blood at the thought of going to the cross. But we can look back now and go, He really did it. Jesus, you pulled it off. You said you loved us and you proved it.

And when you walk out of the room today, I want Life Fellowship to be changed forever. I want the community to know that there is a church that has been lit up by the torch of Jesus. That word ‘light’ in the Greek can literally mean torch. Jesus is the torch of the world. And I don’t care if you stay and worship until 5:00 tonight weeping, I want you to cry out for revival. We aren’t going to have revival if everything has to fit in a time structure all the time. We are not going to experience revival in our life if we are always thinking about going to point B. If we want revival, folks, if we want to experience God, if we want to know the presence and power of God gloriously working in our lives, then we need to worship Him, call out to Him, cry out to Him. We need to confess our sins and repent.

Before I go into another sermon, I just want to tell you that I can’t believe that God gave me the privilege to communicate the gospel. It just blows me away that I have the privilege to share God with you today. I want to talk about God the rest of my entire breathing life. And I want you to join me. I want to talk about Jesus. I want to talk about His death. I want to talk about dying to sin. I want to talk about living a resurrected life. I want to talk about repentance. I want to talk about how souls are getting saved. I want to talk about how a world needs revival. I want to talk to my kids about Jesus. I want us to do all of this.

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I guess what I am trying to say is that I just want us to be a bunch of Jesus freaks at Life Fellowship. And you can get a little excited today. It is okay, church. Because Christ is alive and I guarantee you when you get in His presence it is going to be glorious.

Now let’s remember. Would you join me in taking the bread. He said, “Take eat in remembrance of me.” And He told His disciples that this is His blood, it is going to be spilled for you on a cross. And He was telling them that they were so loved. Take this drink in remembrance of Him. Glory to God.

The preceding transcript was completed using raw audio recordings. As much as possible, it includes the actual words of the message with minor grammatical changes and editorial clarifications to provide context. Hebrew and Greek words are spelled using Google Translator and the actual spelling may be different in some cases.

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