You Choose, but the Promise Still Stands

Title: "You Choose, But The Promise Still Stands | Pastor Joel Mason (Sunday Service)" URL: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSlKYu2z1JM" Transcript: "(00:01) All right. I love the conversations, but I'm going to go ahead and I have a feeling you'd just keep right on talking and talking. So, especially since Brian's not here this morning, I have a feeling you would. But, anyway, that's uh Yeah. Thank you, Richard. >> [laughter] >> So, good morning. Happy Mother's Day to those of you who fall into that category. (00:24) As Renee was talking about her mom, mindful of my mom, uh had a very strong spiritual impact on my life. Her uh faithfulness in prayer, her trust in the Lord in in difficult times, uh just the example that she set. And I real really feel like this is going to tie in well. Mother's Day ties in well with what we're talking about today. (00:43) We're talking about the love of God. I believe that moms parents, moms we're talking about today, have an opportunity and really the privilege to be able to introduce children to the concept of God, the understanding of God, but then to model God to their children. And really his attributes and his characters. (01:03) And that's what we've been looking at in the series that we are in. And um in this series, one of the the underlying foundational point of it is that as we begin to look at the promises of God, it's in those promises that we discover the character of God. He makes promises based on who he is. And so, the more we discover the promises, it's not just to go, "Well, God's promised me this and this and this. (01:28) And so, I'm going to get these things." God's wanting us to understand as we uh understand and accept his promises and begin to live by his promises, those are the doorway to God's having uh presence in our lives. When we begin to trust and live by his promises, we know them, we apply them, we live by them, we actually are inviting God into our lives to express his character in us. (01:51) So, as we get started this morning, I thought it would be appropriate if we just give a little thanks to our moms with a little video here this morning. >> [music] >> To the mothers and all the women who've cared for us. >> [music] >> To the grandmothers, the spiritual mothers, and the waiting mothers. >> [music] >> To the foster moms, the single moms, and the stepmoms. (02:21) To the mentors, [music] friends, guardians, and guides. To those [music] who loved us, taught us, and showed us the way. To those who [music] carried us, held our hand, and watched us grow. To those who experienced blessing this year, and to those who went through loss. To the heroic women all [music] around us, we want to say, thank you. (02:49) Thank you for [music] your courage, your kindness, and your faith in God. Thank you for shaping us, nurturing us, and walking with [music] us through life. Thank you for showing us what it looks like to love and follow Jesus. Thank you for [music] your prayers, your wisdom, and for never giving up on us. Thank you [music] for boldly stepping into this high and holy calling. (03:14) Thank you for the long nights and the short years and for the [music] incredible joy. Whether this is a day of reflection, rejoicing, or remembering, we acknowledge [music] you. We honor you. And we thank you today. Happy Mother's [music] Day. >> [music] [music] [music] >> So again, happy Mother's Day. (04:06) You really do have an impact and have had an impact. I want to encourage you in the process of being a mom and the responsibility that goes with it. Uh we have a great example in our father in God uh has set the example and the standard of what it is to to love and and I think moms, when we think of you, we think of the love that you have expressed. (04:28) God has set the standard and I want to look at that today of how he has loved us and and really the effect that can have on our lives. So let's let's dive back into that. We're in a series called I promise and uh we've covered several things in this that I think are worthwhile remembering. One, God has promised that he will be all that we need. (04:50) And that's kind of where we started. The foundation of understanding the promises of God is a based on this uh his statement to us, his promise, you don't need anything else but God. And he he says that to us personally, you don't need anything but me. And if we will begin to understand that, our lives can be radically changed. (05:08) And then along with that, we looked at God's promise uh that we can find him. So not only does say we we can uh he is all we need, but he is not uh he doesn't play a bait and switch situation. Hey, this is what you'll get with me, but hey, you're not going to find me. So uh my joke's on you. But the um the reality is he really does want us to find him. (05:30) Ask, seek, and knock he calls for us to do. He wants us to discover him. If we will seek him, we will find him. If we seek him with our whole heart. And God desires to be found because he knows the impact that has on us, how it's life-changing, it's life-giving. And And also promised to set us free in Jesus. We looked at that. (05:50) That all of us are born into this world as slaves to sin. It is what we inherited from our four uh parents, Adam and Eve. We We uh rebelled against God. We've continued the rebellion and the effect of that enslaves us, but God has set us free to be able to be those who discover what it is to be a slave to the giver of life and the joy that comes from that. (06:12) Then we looked at the promise that God gives wisdom and guidance to ordinary people. Uh to people like you and I. And we looked at Adam to our Adam uh Brian took us through looking at Abraham and the uh example that the promise that God made to Abraham to bless him to to make him the father of many nations, but to bless the world through him were promises made to us as well and they carry forward because they are based in a God who does not change. (06:42) And so it uh we looked at those that God wants to be uh the one that guides. He wants to be the one that gives direction. He's the one that wants to give wisdom. He's the one that wants to respond to our prayers and be a source of provision. And so we have looked at that and in that discovered uh another aspect of God. (07:00) He doesn't abandon us. He follows through on what he says he will do. And so today uh as we're in this mindset of Mother's Day, we're going to look at the love of God. And what it is that uh God promises in regard to his love. So I want to start with there In fact, if you are familiar with the Bible at all, you will know that the concept of God's love for us runs all the way through scripture. (07:29) In fact, that's what the pages of scripture unfold. It's the love of God. And his pursuit of those who abandoned and really did not see uh the full I'll say advantage of or the not have a knowledge and understanding of the fact that they were living in the presence of God, they abandoned that presence and with that God said, "I'll still love you. (07:50) I am going to pursue you. I will give to you what you need out of love." And so we think of verses like John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever will believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life." It's based in the love of God. We're going to I don't have actually time this morning to hit all the verses that talk about the love of God. (08:10) But I want to look at some uh some central theme Bible about the love of God based on the fact that God promises to love us. And we're going to look at that and then we're going to look at just in briefly at the end of how to apply and respond to the love of God. And so um I'm going to start with a verse in in 2 Chronicles 16 and verse 34 it says, "Give thanks to the Lord for he is good. (08:37) His faithful love endures forever." Um many many times throughout the Old Testament the idea of God's love is referred to as his faithful love. That faithful love is and we're going to look at it more closely here in a minute is the idea of it's it's unchanging. It's unwavering. It does not Sometimes it's here and sometimes it's not. (09:00) With God that love is consistent. His unfailing love. In other words, and we'll look at this too in specifics, God doesn't love me or you based on what you are doing or what you have done. Now, I want you to let that sink in for just a minute. Because we tend to as human beings, we tend to love people kind of based on how they have loved us. (09:29) That's God says that's not what I have promised to do. I love you because of who I am, God says. And out of my I will express love to you. I created you to know and live in my love. So, the first thing I want us to to look at I'm going to look at three things this morning. And the first one is this, God's pro- God promises his love never ends. (09:55) There is not an end I can't outrun the love of God. There is not something I can do or some place that I can go where I have suddenly just stepped over the boundary line of God's love. God's love never ends. Throughout scripture, this truth is uh it's repeatedly stated. In the Old Testament, God's expressing his love to the people of Israel and he he is very honest about how they have rejected him and they turn away from him and they will wander far from him, but in repeated over and over again, God says, "I have not abandoned my love for you. (10:30) My love is there for you." And he's honest about who they are and what they've done, but he also states clearly, "I will not abandon you." I have been reading and I mentioned this, I hope you're reading along with me. We've been reading together through the Bible again this year and right now I've been just finished the book of Isaiah, just started the book of Jeremiah and the one of the themes that runs through there, if you're familiar with those prophets, is they're talking to both the two kingdoms now that are divided and he's (11:00) talking to them and saying, "Look, you have In Jeremiah, he uses the terminology of they have prostituted themselves to other idols." And in that, he he clearly lays out how they have walked away and abandoned him, but you know what stays consistent all the way through? God's love for his people. He is not abandoning them. (11:24) Now, sometimes we think love as being permissive. That's kind of a cultural thing in our day today. Love kind of just lets let them do what they want. Let them decide. How do they feel? Try not to get in the way. Love becomes the soft love that that actually is not love. It's usually laziness. And it's not wanting to take on responsibility or challenge. (11:51) God is not lazy and God does not shy away from responsibility and God says very clearly to us when we as human beings stand before him we wander off he'll tell you what you've done. He'll point it out. He'll convict. His spirit will challenge and he will want us back where we we benefit from his love. You see his love the Bible's very clear that God's love is available to everyone but not everyone experiences fully experiences the love of God. (12:21) We all will experience the the Bible's clear about this. We all experience love of God in multitudes of ways. We don't often realize it's from God nor do we seek to know it nor do we allow for that God that love of God to transform our lives. But God's love coming from his character has no end. Think about that with me. (12:44) If God is eternal then and his love is from his character then his love is eternal. If you want to develop this more I'm going to reference it a couple of times here this morning but if you want to look at um a book that or letter I should say that really helps to highlight the love of God look at the the epistle the letter of first John. (13:08) It's all based around the love of God. Um if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to cleanse us of our sins and and from all unrighteousness. So God does that but what was the purpose? That's in first John 1. John is talking about uh, the need to confess and recognize what has pulled us away from God so that we will live within the the blessing of the love of God. (13:35) And by time we get to chapter 3, oh, what love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God and that is who we are. Chapter 4 goes in, in fact, uh, chapter 4 verses 9 and 10, I want to just, uh, uh, read those verses to you. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. (13:58) This is real love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as a sacrifice to take away our sin. You see, God's love is not, uh, dictated by your or my behavior, so I can't outrun it and God's love is not determined by some certain amount, he's only got so much and then it runs dry. God's love is available for all and God already demonstrated the extent of his love by putting his son on the cross. (14:25) You can't go to a further extreme. And so, that's what really led that whole truth led the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 8 to pen these words. And he says this, "I am convinced that nothing, uh, can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor demons, neither our fears for today, nor our worries about tomorrow, not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. (14:53) No power in the sky above or in the earth below. Indeed, nothing in all of creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus, our Lord." Nothing can separate us. There's no end to it. God's love is available to all. Now, the one thing that separated us from God's love, he has said, or separated us from the effect of God's love was sin and that's what Jesus took care of on the cross. (15:23) Our rebellion against God, God in love took care of that on the cross. So that his love could be applied to everyone who would turn and seek him. Jeremiah 31:3, it says, "Long ago the Lord said to Israel, I have loved you my people with an everlasting love. My unfailing love I have drawn you with unfailing love I have drawn you to myself. (15:50) " Here he's speaking to Israel and it's that unfailing love again. It's that that everlasting love. The love of God has no end. It's repeated over and over through the Psalms, it's repeated through the prophets, it's repeated through all the way through scripture. We see this truth that God's love is everlasting. Now, the second truth we find out about God's love is this, that God promises that his love is unconditional. (16:18) And I want you to think about that because and I'm going to come back and address this a little bit more at the end, but I want you to think about it. God's love as it comes from him is unconditional. So it's not based on the merit that you and I deserve the amount of we get the amount of love by based on the amount of love we've earned from God. (16:42) His love is available fully to everyone. It is unconditional. His unconditional nature of his love was demonstrated on the cross and that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. When we were in full rebellion, God still expressed his love. So that literally means that God is not looking at you to determine based on your past failings or or how educated you are or how much money you've earned or how important you are in people's eyes or how many followers you have on social media. (17:13) God doesn't determine his love based on those things. God's love is available to everyone. God's love I actually should that should actually uh be a transformative truth to hear. God's love is unconditional because I don't know about you, but there are things that I've done in my life that I could probably see God going, "You know, loved you up to that point. (17:39) " And little late now. But God's love is unconditional. Romans 5:8 says, "But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." Ephesians 2:4 and 5 it says, "But God is so rich in mercy and he loved us so much that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (18:04) It is only by God's grace that you have been saved." You see, it is God's love is based in himself, not based in your value. And somehow you're trying to earn value with God to be loved by God. Now, I want you to think about that for a minute because I have had many a conversations with people that live from the perspective that God's love is conditional. (18:27) In other words, God's not happy with me right now, but I know when I do these things, then I can ask God to do this for me. And so somehow when I am uh choosing to live in a way that rejects God and I recognize that, then if I can just get past that, then God will love me again. I ask you a question, is that true? No. (18:55) That's what we're talking about right here. It is not based on your circumstance nor on any condition in your life. Some of us may find ourselves in circumstances that in by anybody's perspective, man, those are harsh situations or things are difficult to understand or maybe it's like you made a really dumb decision right there. (19:15) God's love is still present, fully present. The choice will be what do you do with it? We'll get to that one in a couple minutes. But his love is unconditional. That is his promise that it is not based on you, it is not based on me, it is not based on my circumstance or my achievements, it is based in the character of God. (19:37) He will love you with a unconditional, everlasting The third thing that God promises is this, that his love is unchanging. Now maybe you say, "Well, there's some crossover in things you've already talked about." Yes, but I want you to think about it from this standpoint. God's love does not change. In In Psalms 136, we read this. (20:00) Verses 23 to 26. He remembered us in our weakness. His faithful love endures forever. He saved us from our enemies. His faithful love endures forever. He gives food to every living thing. His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of heaven. His love endures forever. We talked about uh the aspect of God's love never ends, but it also doesn't change. (20:38) And in that therefore, in the middle of that, it's unconditional. In Psalm 136, if you want something to read this week, go read it. You may have thought that the uh the author there was getting a little repetitive and he does. He keeps repeating the refrain, "His faithful love endures forever." And he walks through circumstances of life, but God is still faithfully loving me. (21:02) But God is still faithfully loving me. God still demonstrated his love for me. As he walks through all of these different circumstances and situations, and his statement is God's love doesn't change. You know, it's interesting. Um Solomon, who is referred to as probably the wisest man who has ever lived. (21:26) He demonstrated wisdom. People came from all over the world when he lived to hear him speak and talk and to listen to his judgments and to gain insight from his wisdom. And he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes. Some of you may be familiar with that book. I enjoy that book. And in there he gives an honest appraisal of life. He he looks at and at all the things that we can choose to do with our life. (21:53) The freedom we have of the choices that we have. But in all of those things, as he gets back, he finally just comes back and I'm going to paraphrase here, gets back to it and he goes, "You know, the only thing that really matters is to seek God and to know him." The only thing that really matters. Now, why do I bring that up? Because often times we will substitute a lot of things in life for the love of God. (22:19) We do. We will We are people that put more importance on feeling than we do really on what we know. And we are looking today at what we know. God's love is not to engender in us a feeling oh, I feel loved, but a knowledge, I am loved, and therefore I can know God better, I can seek him more clearly, I can surrender to him in the areas where my life does not just demonstrate a love for him because of the love that he has for me. (22:54) Am I Am I learning from that love? So, in the statement that Solomon makes in Ecclesiastes, that in you know, uh in light of all of the foolishness of this world, he wants us to bring us back to seek God, know him, and in knowing him, you'll begin to understand how much he absolutely loves you. You see, this this world, as Solomon talks about the things that of that he pursued in life, he was extremely wealthy. (23:27) He extremely tried to find joy in life through music and arts. He tried to find joy in life through sex. He tried to find joy in life through alcohol and and diversion. He tried to find joy in life through books, wisdom, and learning. He tried all of these different things to find joy in life, and he brings it back that God is a source of joy, and that God loves you, and in that love is where the depth of life is found. (23:55) God's love is unchanging. The love that that of God that Solomon would point us to is the same love that's available to us. The love that put Jesus on the cross was a love that wants you and I to know a depth of life, to experience it. You see, when Adam and Eve rejected God in the garden, they weren't just What did the snake say to them? You will be able to determine right from wrong, good from evil. (24:24) But what he didn't tell them was, in choosing that, you are downgrading the value of God's love in your life. You are willing to walk away from being in the presence, the ever life-changing, life-giving presence of the love of God to try to do things on your own. Here's [snorts] what's great about God's love. (24:46) It didn't change from the day that he created Adam and Eve to the day that it is here, and it is still the same love that put Jesus on the cross, and it's the same love that gives purpose for you and I to know and walk with him. Jesus is the full expression of God's love. And if we are going to learn to grow and appreciate the love of God, the promise of his love, then we have to be careful what we try to substitute in place of God's love. (25:15) What we are willing to take as a a this, as Solomon said, will give me an experience and a feeling. And God says, "My love goes further beyond an experience and a feeling. My love gives you stability and protection and perspective and gives you discernment. My love puts you in a place where peace reigns. (25:38) My love will give you the full expression of my will. My love will set you free from the effects of your own foolish choices. My love will bring out the full value of what I created you for. My love will give you life." That's why we can rejoice in the fact that God's love never changes. Think about what it would be if God's love changed randomly. (26:05) God decides, "Well, this morning, don't really love Joel too much today. Hate to be him." >> [snorts] >> You see, sometimes that's what we think though when we pray or when things go wrong. God, why did you abandon me? >> [clears throat] >> I encourage you to go read the Psalms because this is a truth that runs through the Psalms. (26:27) What do they often do in the Psalms? I'll I'll take David for example. Not all the Psalms are from David, but David will take a Psalm and he'll state a truth about God and then in that [clears throat] he'll go, "But and he'll go through all the things that are wrong and the circumstances are awful. (26:44) God, have you abandoned me? Why am I here? This is awful. It sucks. What's going on?" Then he comes back and goes, "But you've never changed. You are still the same. You still love me. I will rejoice in you and my life will be a reflection of what you have done. We need to learn See, and this is a truth that David >> [clears throat] >> learned. (27:08) We often will read the Psalms to find encouragement because I'm in a tough time, so what did God do here? How did How do we do this? The Psalms are intended to expose to us the character of God in the everyday life. And life can be hard. Anybody here discovered life can be difficult? Yeah, it can be. But God's love for you hasn't changed. (27:35) And the answer that is so often right there before us on the pages of scripture is, "Walk [clears throat] with God. Bask in His love. Realize it will not and has not and will never change. He loves you with an everlasting love, an unchanging, unconditional love." Excuse me. God wants you to deny you and I to know what it is to be loved. (28:12) We often end our service with, "You are loved." We don't just say that cuz that's a cute little thing to say at the end. Everybody feels better. We say that because it's true. If we were not loved, if you were not loved, why did Jesus die on the cross? We just read earlier why. Because of God's great love for you, while you still rebelled against God, God said, "I love you. (28:41) " on the cross. But love is not a cheap thing to be given away or played with or acted like it's not important or ignored. Love is intended to be the conduit of experiencing God in my daily life. I want to just end with a with a thought here this morning as we think about this. There are the promises of God that he will his love is unconditional. (29:10) It is um it is unchanging and it is forever. But I want you to think about something. All of [clears throat] those things can be true and I can still not experience fully experience the love of God. You see when I when I say that God's love is unconditional, we oftentimes misunderstand what unconditional means. (29:34) We think that I can do anything we want and God has to love me. No, here's what unconditional means. God's love is always available, always present, never changing, will last forever, and it's right there before you handed to you freely. But there's a weird thing that has to happen and this is true with love at any point. (29:56) You got to accept it for it to have a transformative effect on your life. Doesn't that make sense? We have a weird thing going on in our culture today. Uh there's a term for it and I'm not remembering the actual term, but it's the kind of the abandonment and ghosting of family where we will decide that the love that I've received by those who are closest to me is not the love that I think I deserve because I want to define what that love should look like. (30:30) So it becomes in that we it's [clears throat] a interesting thing that's developed in probably in the last 15, 20 years. I'm sure psychologists would be able to give you more clear perspective on that, but it allows for this mentality that what the love that has been expressed toward me, if it doesn't meet my requirements, I can reject it. (30:53) It's a very sad. A lot of people are extremely hurt because of it. Families are torn apart. Sadness reigns in the midst of what is still still available. Here's the thing that I want you to see is in those situations, it's most of the time one-sided. Because one person is thinking love doesn't meet my requirements. (31:17) You didn't love me the way I wanted you to love me. And selfishness when applied to love leads not to nothing but wounding. Now, selfishness in my relationship with God and his love will also lead to wounding. It wounds the heart of God, but it will greatly ruin your own life. God's love is available to you. (31:46) His His love He has promised, it's unchanging, it's unwavering, it's eternal, it's unconditional, but you have to choose it. I have to choose it. See, this is what's really interesting about a promise. This promise with God is He can make the promise, >> [clears throat] >> but I have to live by it. It's true with any of these that we've looked at. (32:11) The promise can stand, and just because I don't recognize it doesn't mean it's not true, but that's sometimes how we think. I can say that God's loving, but if I don't choose to to fully embrace and allow that love to embrace me, it doesn't matter if it's unconditional. It doesn't matter if it's eternal, because I'm rejecting it. (32:33) And so therefore, God still acts in love toward us. As the Bible puts it this way, his mercy falls on the just and the unjust. He allows his goodness to be felt by everyone. The sun still rises. You don't have a sun ri- rose for me today, but it didn't for you because you're pretty bad. Sun rises for everybody. (32:56) That's true with his love. It's there every day for everyone. Have I chosen to accept it? That's why in Romans it tells us when it comes to Jesus, if Jesus was the full expression of the love of God, then have you accepted what Jesus has done? Romans tells us what? If you believe in your heart Jesus is Lord and confess with your mouth that he has risen from the dead, you'll be saved. (33:24) But that saved we often misunderstand. I'm not going to feel a long time on this. It just moves us in I will be moved into the a relationship with God. But I've got to recognize and accept the love of God. I want to end with you 1 John 4. I mentioned and I'll encourage you to go read through the through the letter of 1 John. (33:45) Chapter 4 of starting with verse 7, it says this, "Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves Anyone [clears throat] who loves is a child of God and knows God. I almost just stop right there tell you to underline and circle that phrase right there. (34:06) Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. Do you see the connection between the love of God, receiving it, and loving? You know God. It's the path of knowing the character of God is knowing and accepting his love. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. (34:32) 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. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. 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. (34:53) >> [clears throat] >> We could spend a great deal of time on what John is stating out for us there, but he's talking about the love of God, everything we've talked about this morning, and that if I choose to accept that love, God's love begins to be transformative in my life. It begins to change the way I see other people, the way I treat other people, the way I respond in situations. (35:13) God's love begins to be evident in me, so much so that it says, "Nobody's seen God, but if you live in the love of God, God is seen in you." How cool is that? I love that. That's what we need to walk away with is God promises that his love is unconditional. God promises his love is forever. God promises us an opportunity to fully live in the presence of his love because we become in his love an expression of him in this world. (35:49) God's love is available to every one of us. He's promised that. But I got to choose to accept it. That's what John's talking about there in those verses is to recognize how God expressed his love on the cross and to accept what that love that was put forth for you, receive it, and live in it. I hope that challenges you this morning. (36:11) As we move forward in this week, it's easy for us to move more with the mindset of the culture that wants to determine what love needs to look like from God. It's already been expressed. And until I say I accept the love of God as he has expressed it to me on the cross and desires for it to be known in me and that I might live in the midst of his love, I'm still playing with these ideas of my own creating. (36:42) It's time to let them go and receive the love of God.