Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Love, Part 2: Wasted Love

Episode Date: June 28, 2014

When was the last time you felt truly loved? We were created to desire this mysterious emotion but no one knows how to give or receive it perfectly. Find out what it looks like to have real Love. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, I'm so glad to have all of you with us today at all of our life churches and our network churches. We love you guys so much. Those of you on the other side of computer screens at church online and countries all over the world, you are a part of our extended family. And I've got great news for you today. We've got an amazing guest speaker back to share God's word with us. Now, before I introduce him, I've got to tell you that next week is one of the best weeks. all year long to reach out to people that normally wouldn't go to church and to bring them.

Next week, we're starting the first week of At the Movies, where we take really popular movies and we pull messages out of the movies and teach Scripture in a way that really engages people in a very emotionally and deep and spiritually way. So I want you to think, who do you know that wouldn't normally come to church and bring them next week as we start at the movies? Today, though, we have back one of my very good friends, the pastor of City Church in Seattle, truly one of the most gifted communicators, this guy has an ability to hear from God and to communicate God's word in a way that just inspires, challenges, convicts, and transforms.

Even more so, what I love about him is that he truly, deeply loves God. He's a great husband. He's a great dad. He's a great friend to me and to our church. Would you show love and honor to our good friend, Pastor Judith Smith? Are you good, church? Happy to be alive. It's a good day to be in church.

It is a good day to be in life church. You love life church? Hey, I've been in church my whole life. It doesn't get any better than life church. And I trust that you're praying for your pastors. You love them. And make sure that you don't let church just be somewhere you attend. It's a community we do life in.

jump in, get involved, and we're blessed. We're blessed to have friends, relationships. We're not isolated. We're in love with life, in love with people, and in love with God. And, well, I'm excited to extend from last week we talked about love. I want to talk again about the love of God. And as I said last week, you're going to be encouraged. That's the goal. That's the point. You'd be encouraged today. If you feel discouraged or you feel down, you can maybe worried or anxious or stressed, I really believe you're going to leave today, just full of God's love for you, with a sense that God's going to turn your situation and your circumstance around. God's faithful.

And maybe you're here today, and you came just really difficult, weighed down by some situation in your life, maybe a sickness, maybe a financial crisis. I believe in a God who can save, deliver, provide. God is faithful, and God is going to help you right here right now. Do you believe that? And you're happy? All right. Go with me to Matthew chapter 4.

If you don't have your Bible today, that's no problem at all. I'm going to read it to you. Matthew chapter 4, and we're going to go to verse 23. I'm definitely one of those guys. I believe the Bible is God's word. It's God's story, God's narrative to us, humanity. And I believe the book is mostly about God. God's extraordinary love for humanity.

And we're going to do our best to make sense of that together. Matthew chapter 4 and verse 23. Speaking of Jesus now, it says, now he went through all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. I want to underscore that in your reading. We're just going to try to unpack just a portion of this sentence. Let's read it again.

He went healing every disease and every affliction among the people. I'm going to stop this right there. I want to, what's titled this message, wasted love? Wasted love. Would you pray with me? Jesus, we love you so much because you first loved us. In these moments, in these brief moments as we approach your book, we don't just want information. We want more of you.

We thank you for your grace. Thank you for your love. God, please let the supersonics. come back to Seattle. Hear my cry, Lord. Thank you that I didn't marry anybody ugly. In Jesus' name, and everybody said, you got to thank him why you can.

Come on, church. We talked about marriage a little bit last week, so let's just continue talking about marriage. I didn't know early on in marriage. There are certain words you should stay away from in marriage, right? never, never say never. Always, never say always. And last but not least, fat. Never say fat. Three words you never say in marriage. Never always and fat. Now the reason that I was taught in pre-marital counseling, that's where I learned everything I know about marriage is that you

avoid these words because marriage is about appreciating wherever you are in the moment, the season you're in, and not inflate. the past on your spouse presently. Right? Now, I'm famous, okay, look, I have issues. I have some broken golf clubs to prove that and some broken tennis rackets, but don't judge me. I'm a work in progress just like you, okay?

Thanks for being so quiet. I feel that judgment all of a sudden. I get very uncomfortable. God bless. God bless. Like, I'm the guy that's kind of emotional. I don't know if you can tell that, but like I'm the expansion. in the marriage, Chelsea's the condenser. Do you don't mean by that? Like, you're either one or the other in

communication and marriage. Like, I'm always expanding. Like, I'm the guy that's, you know, when Chelsea's like, Chelsea always has to say, so are you saying? And when she gets it right, I say it again, because I'm so excited that she understands what I'm saying. You know what I mean by the expander? I'm emotional. I like to talk. Like, I stop talking only when absolutely necessary. Chelsea's the condenser. She starts talking only when absolutely necessary. We make a great tandem. You ever seen like two expanders get married. God can't even help you. I'm just kidding.

But so I tend to kind of like just start talking. And, you know, when things get emotional in marriage, I say stuff like, you always do that. And they say you can't do that in a marriage. You can't do that in a relationship. Because what you're doing is you are taking the past and you are inflicting it on the present. And that makes for bad relationship.

Because the whole idea is forgiveness. It's kind of a theme. Okay, so the idea is right, and you can't say you never, again, that's past stuff. Let the past be the past, right? That sounds like such a great counselor right now. Let the past, be the past, leave never always, and I just throw in fat because you know that's never, ever, ever, okay. Now, I'm not great at this, but this brings us to a point about God, which I think is absolutely extraordinary. God, not only does he never inflict our past on us.

But wait, God has this ability, it's called foreknowledge. He knows your future. He knows your future. So God is so gracious and so loving. Not only will he not inflict your past on your present, he won't inflict your future on your present. Now that's extraordinary to me. I don't know about you, but when I get like a sense or a suspicion about it,

someone, I can't even handle it. A sense that they might do something, I'm like, hey, hey, hey, hey, right? But God, think about how extensive and extraordinary his love is, his love for you, his love is so present. And that's what I want to talk about for a moment. God's love is present. Now, this brings us to Jesus and this healing that he does recorded in Matthew's gospel. I want to read it again to you, Matthew chapter 23. He went about healing every disease and every affliction among the people. I remember reading that, I thought, every, every, every, yeah, every. Every single sick person.

It didn't say deserving sick people. It didn't say good sick people. It certainly didn't say righteous sick people. Every sick person. every disease and every affliction among the people. Wait a second. I'll start thinking about this. So he healed hands that would hit.

He healed eyes that would lust. He healed feet that would run away. I say, God, this, you really got to start utilizing this foreknowledge a little bit more efficiently. Right? I mean, if I was God, I'll be all right, all right, please line up right here.

Anybody wants to be healed? Everybody line up, okay? All right, you want to be healed? Oh, I bet you do. You want those legs to be healed, don't you? But I know what you're going to do with those legs, so I won't heal you. Move along, little buddy. Okay, you want to heal those eyes?

I don't think so. Like, this is what I would do. How many are grateful that you and I are not God? I want you to think about this. Jesus heals bad people. He heals people. who will use the miracle to do bad things. Which brings us to another portion of scripture in Luke's gospel,

and maybe you've heard of it, but these guys have leprosy, and there's exactly 10 of them. They're pleading with Jesus. Jesus heals all 10 of the guys with leprosy. Now, he knows the percentage of which who will be grateful and thankful for his healing. and that percentage is one guy, 10%. Is that the correct percentage? 10%.

I took pre-algebra for three years, but the third year, the third year, I got an A. I cheated. Don't judge me, okay? I'll do it. 10%? Can we be honest?

If you got 10 people in front of you and you know only one of them is going to acknowledge, be grateful, are you going to heal all 10? You probably would. Not me. I'm like, oh, y'all want to be healed? I bet you do.

Guess what? Only he's going to be healed. You ask why? Because I know what I'm doing. You guys are ungrateful, self-serving. He said, you're healed. He didn't take away the healing. He heals bad people.

We talked last week about God loving bad people. He takes it to another level. He heals bad people. He heals bad people who will take their healing to do bad things. God, what is motivating this? What kind of love is this? Now, this brings us back to our passage we talked about last week because we didn't go into the portion where Jesus is compelled by the note that he's written.

He comes back down the road several miles. and by the way, he's late in the story. He waits two more days down the road, and on the fourth day comes and he heals Lazarus. Most people believe the reason he did this, and I tend to agree, is because the Jews believe that by the fourth day, there was no hope for resurrection.

This was their custom. By the fourth day, they would bury the body. It would be officially over. I believe Jesus waited for the fourth day, so that they knew that he had the power over life, and death. Now, something very odd unfolds before Jesus heals Lazarus. Now, some of you familiar with scripture, you know where I'm going, but it is odd. He comes down the road. Why is he coming? Well, he's going to heal Lazarus. And when he gets there, he cries. I remember thinking,

You know, maybe I'm not smart enough to understand this, but I'm pretty sure, obviously, I had the luxury of reading on, but, um, boy, Jesus, you're going to heal him. So, why are you wasting this emotion? Did, did, did you not know? It's just mysterious. It's like the shortest verse of the New Testament narrative, right? Jesus wept, right? It's, come on, if you went to Christian school. You need to memorize one verse in New Testament.

Done, right? I did that. But Jesus wept. Why? Why did he weep? Do I know for sure? Maybe not, but I got a hunch. Why did he weep?

If he knows he's going to heal Lazarus, why did he weep? Did he waste his tears? Did Jesus waste his healing power on bad people? people who would use their healing to do bad things. Did Jesus waste his power on nine lepers? Now, logically, I'll be honest, I kind of would answer, yeah? Maybe? Wait, it's like, God doesn't waste anything. That would be acting inconsistent with the contents of his character. Nothing about God is wasteful. God is by definition purposeful at all times.

everything he does is completely intentional. There are no oops or oh no with God. So Jesus cries. Why? What's the message here? I mean, I started talking to God and looking through other scriptures and, you know, I don't know why I want to know so bad, but I'm just looking at this all by myself in my Bible and I'm thinking,

I want to know why you cried. And it dawned on me because God's love is always now. I want you to think about that. God's love is always consider the self-control of this love. God's love is always now. Here's how I explain it. If I was God, that's ridiculous. Bear with me.

If I was God and I knew that at 42, you were going to do something so ridiculously dumb, at 27, I would be mad at you. And I would be right. So you wake up on your 27th birthday. Go, good morning, God. And my response would be, hi. God, is that you? Sure. God, why are you? It's my birthday today. I know. Did I, did I do something? Oh, yeah, you did. What was it? Oh, it's not what you've done. It's what you're going to do. Well, what do you mean? It's when you're 42. But God, I'm 27 today. Yeah, but I'm God and I know what you're going to do. So stop arguing with me. But I'll try really hard. Tell me what it is. And I want to be. I want to be. I'm God. I'm God. And I want to do. I'm God. I'm God. And I know what you're going to do. So stop arguing with me. But I'll try really hard. Tell me. But I'm. But I'm

don't do it. No, it doesn't work like that. I know what you're going to do. That's what makes me God. So today, on your 27th birthday, I am mad at you because of what you're going to do at 42. And by the way, that would be justified. Would it not? Would anyone contest that? Would anyone argue that God knows what you're going to do when you're 42? Somebody like, I used to be 42. God knows what you're going to do at 92. He, no, how many hope you get to 90? to holler at your boy. All right. So, yeah, but God knows what you're going to do. I cannot steward that knowledge, just in case you're wondering. I don't know about you. But if I knew, I'm going to be mad now. What kind of love is this? God, you know Lazarus in moments is going to be

healed. But let me ask you something. Does that lessen the pain that marriage? and Martha are in in that moment? Is the pain not real? Isn't that interesting? Jesus doesn't walk up and go, oh, Mary and Martha, stop it, I'm here now. Come on. Lazarus is going to be fine.

Come on, buddy. Come on up. Mary and Martha's like, oh, sorry. Yeah, I know we're good. The tears weren't real. We just, yeah, we knew you'd come. Yeah. Who is this God?

Who knows? He's going to save Lazar's. but before he does, has such extraordinary empathy and love for the pain of humanity that he takes time to cry. And God can't fake tears. He cries with Mary and Martha. This God is extraordinary. He heals bad people.

He blesses bad people. And even when he knows. I don't mean to be to, in any way, belittle grief and belittle people's desire to be empathetic when we're in grief. But my dad passed away about six, seven years ago. Excuse me, it's been only four years. But he's my hero, right? He was pastor in the church in Seattle. And I was planning to be his youth pastor, like, forever, right?

If your dad started a church and planted a church, you usually never want. want to pastor a church, right? It's like, adults are mean. I want to hang with young people because you can tell them what to do, right? So youth pasturing was like the best role ever. And then I was the best man in my buddy's wedding. And I got a phone call during wedding pictures that dad said, son, they've diagnosed to give me a diagnosis of multiple myeloma.

Jesus is my healer. Believe he can heal me. Went through a five-year journey with no absolute, no inkling of cancer. By the six-year, things deteriorated fast. I was in the pulpit most Sundays and before I knew it, my hero. To be honest, I only my dad, but my best friend was gone. And I remember the first Sunday, man, like it was yesterday. I'm standing in front of 5,000 people.

They're looking at me like, we miss your dad. And I'm looking at them like, so do I. And they're looking back like, you're not as good as your dad. And I'm like, shut up. You know, like, we weren't healthy. We were all hurting. kind of look at each other and I preached for like three, four weeks and spent all the sermons I had and I was kind of like, well, that was good while it lasted. And a miraculous journey began

to unfold. But, you know, people would come to me during the journey and say, hey, you're going to see them in heaven. And I appreciate their heart. I really do. But I kind of figured that out a while ago, but I'm not in heaven. I'm going to be, and I'm looking forward to it, frankly. I'd like to be down here a little bit longer, really like my wife, and we're having a lot of fun. But you're going to see him in heaven, they'd say. Yeah, I will, but I really wish I could see him now. And my tears were not because I'll never see him again. My tears were how many years until I get to see him again. And the pain's real. God is ever present.

Do you realize how extraordinary our God is? He understands that, well, you got to love that verse. He remembers we're dust. He gets our plight. He gets that we really don't get eternity. And in these moments, though resurrection has changed everything, and we will be in eternity together, and we have the hope of heaven,

and we ought to hold on to eternal life, and heaven ought to be a major theme of our existence on this planet, and yet the only context we really have ever experienced with our five senses is this troubled planet. And when our loved ones are gone, even though we are only separated temporarily, the pain is real and it's deep and it's challenging and there is a lot of pain. And Jesus comes to Mary and Martha and says, let's cry. Let's just cry. And I ran into that verse in Romans.

I think it's Romans 12, 14 or 15. Or it might be Romans 4, 14 and 15. But it's in the book of Romans. And it says, weep with those who weep, laugh with those who laugh. I remember seeing that scripture. If you grew up in church, you know, it's just kind of like, come on, we're going to love people. Weep with those who we eat. But that's God.

That's God. He knows everything, and yet he'll weep with you now because his love is present and his love is now and his love is here. His love is available. God does not inflict your past on you. God, you're amazing. And he won't inflict your future on you. He'll love you now. He'll heal you now. Minister to you now. Be with you now. Is he wasting? his power? Is he wasting these, his power? Is he wasting these tears? No. That's God. That's God's extraordinary love. You go through 1 Corinthians 13 and I urge you to go through that great love chapter. And I remember reading 1 Corinthians 13 and forgive me for reference and growing up as a pastor's kid so much, but I used to think 1 Corinthians 13 was kind of about like me and my love for God.

And I realize that 1 Corinthians 13 is it's describing God's love. It's a description of the height, the width, the length, and the depth of our God's love. God's love never fails. God's love is faithful. God's love is constant and God's love is today. God's love is now. You don't have to worry about carry over. You don't have to worry about him reaching into your future and bringing it back to your past. You are by definition free to enjoy God today right now in this moment. I love that scripture in 1 John.

It says perfected, perfect love casts out all fear. perfect love, perfected, finished, accomplished love. God perfected and finished his great act of love for all of humanity. And now if we will be caught up and preoccupied with what he has done for humanity, it will completely eradicate and remove all fear. This is crazy, but as God followers, we have been given license to never fear again. And the fear of God. God is better said to be the awe of God. We are in awe because fear has been removed. Fear of future, fear of repeating our past, whom the sun sets free today is free right now in this moment completely today. You are completely and utterly free. You don't have to anticipate anything wicked and evil.

You have been set free to anticipate good things. Will challenging times come? Will there be difficult? times. Life is difficult on this planet and it has a way of doing that. But we have been set free by the love of God. Perfect love cast out all fear. Part of fear is the expectation of bad things tomorrow. You can rest easy in the love of God. God is sovereign. God is in control. God is present and God loves me today. It'll set you free. Jesus says, come to me, come to me. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. I'll show you. If you'll come to me, I'll show you how to take a real rest. I urge you today to lean into this present now love that God has for you. I'll end with this illustration, but parenting for me has been a really unique experience,

as I'm sure it is for most parents. We've got a nine-year-old now Zion, a seven-year-old, Elliot, who I call El Dog, and a little five-year-old, daddy's little princess, grace. And man, I love these kids. They are gloriously, wonderfully challenging. I realized one day, and it was an embarrassing discovery about me, that I was so busy missing when they were little. I call them my little nuggets. I love these little guys. I remember thinking, what's wrong with me? I'm so fickle. I remember looking at it. I'm thinking, oh, they're starting to talk normal. They're saying they're ours normal now.

I miss when they say their R's wrong. I miss when they were a baby. I miss. And then, you know how parenting is? It's so funny. It's like, oh, I can't wait till we're out of diapers. Oh, my gosh. I cannot wait till we're out of a car seat.

Oh, my word, I cannot wait till they can buckle them own selves in. I cannot wait till they can feed themselves. I cannot wait till they, bear with me, wipe themselves. I cannot wait till they drive themselves and the cycle goes on and on. And I remember the Holy Spirit just nudging me. Judah, what do you want?

You want to go back? You want to go forward? Or do you want to enjoy today? That's what God does with us. This is what God does with us. God's a today God. God is a now God. Don't get caught up in what's going to happen tomorrow.

And certainly don't get caught up in what happened yesterday. Enjoy today. Didn't Jesus teach this? Don't worry about tomorrow. Enjoy today. Enjoy God's love that is present and now. God is with you. God is for you.

And God loves you. I don't know what you're going through. I don't pretend for a moment to understand what you're facing. And the challenges and difficulties of your life. But I just sense today in church that the Holy Spirit is just trying to nudge you to relax a little bit. Is that okay to say in church? To lean into his love and let yourself just live today.

You know, we're going to be in heaven before we know it, and this life will be over. We don't have too many days to hope and wish we could go back to the good old days or hope and wish for another day. All we have is today, and we serve a God of today. Gotta weep with you today. God will laugh with you today. God is with you today. He knows what you're going through right now.

Lean into him, communicate with him, talk with him. God loves you so much. When I was flying home after my dad passed away in Las Vegas, I was crying and just talking to God, you know, moments that you don't want anyone ever to see you in. And I was going, God, you know, really? Like, that's my dad, it's my best friend. Now I'm supposed to pass for this church. And I don't know who I'm going to ask and talk to.

And I don't know if I can do this. I felt like the Holy Spirit just spoke to me and said, since when am I not enough, son? since when am I not enough each and every day? And right there, before I landed home after watching my dad slip into eternity, I made a decision, you're enough. You're enough for right, and I'm going to take a day at a time. And I promise you that I would not be standing on my two feet today. There is nothing short of the love of God that helped me keep my head and my sanity. We're just relishing every day.

I'm just going to take today and lean into your love and be thankful and grateful for the love that you have for me right here and right now. And I pray, I really pray, that you'll experience that freedom and that rest today in the present love of God. Can I pray for you? Jesus, thank you. Thank you that you never waste your love. And I thank you, Father, that your love is faithful and your love is true, and your love is always right now. We lean into you in this moment, and we say we trust you, only with our past, but we trust you with our future. I thank you, Father, for rest and ease now in your extraordinary love for us. We love you because you first loved us, and we thank you for that in Jesus' name.

Amen. Fathers, we continue in an attitude of prayer today. Thank you so much for this powerful message of hope that your love is now. God, help us to experience your presence and your current love in this moment. As you take a minute today at all of our churches and you just reflect on what the Spirit is saying to you, I believe there are many of you that you are hurting right now. It may be the pain of something that someone did to you in the past that won't go away. It could be the heaviness, perhaps, of something that you've done, and you're carrying that

with you. It may be the fear of what's coming up in your life, and there's just, there's a weight on you right now. And at this moment, you simply need to experience the now love of God. If that's you at all of our churches, and you really want to know his presence, a peace that goes beyond our human ability to understand. Would you just slip your hands up right now? all of our different churches, and I want to take a moment and pray that you would experience this, all of our churches just lift up your hands right now as an indication of faith that you need his now love. God, we thank you so much that just as Jesus wept in the moment, God, that you feel for us. God, even though you know that you're working in all things to bring about good, God, you still

love us, you care for us, even the intimate details of our lives. And God, I pray, I pray, at this moment that no matter what burden someone is carrying, the weight, the guilt, the fear, God, that your Holy Spirit would personalize your love in the moment, God, that we could all recognize your presence and that your Holy Spirit would wash across us, God, that we would truly embrace a supernatural peace that goes beyond our own human ability to understand. God, help us to experience your unconditional love in a way that touches our hearts and transforms and heals our souls. God, we're open to what you want to say to us, do in us, and show us through your love. As you keep praying today at all of our different churches, I'm very moved by what

Pastor Judith said that even if we're 27 and we're going to do something wrong at 42, that God continues to love us. And I want you to think about that because there are many of you that if you look back over your past, you recognize you've done a lot of things to displease God. The reality is, if I can just be real honest, you're going to continue in your future to do things that displease God. And this is what makes God's salvation so amazing that because of His grace through Jesus, who was perfect, that the sacrifice for our sins risen from the dead that when we call on God through Jesus, even though practically we still do wrong.

Positionally, we are in Christ, forgiven, and made new in the presence of God. And when we put our faith in Jesus, God no longer sees our sinfulness, but he sees the glory of his own son, Jesus. In fact, we could talk about our past, or we could talk about our future. But there's a scripture in the Bible

that says, today is the day of salvation. And I believe with all of my heart that for many of you, Today is the day that you will trust the Son of God to forgive your sins and make you brand new. That's why you're here today. This message is speaking to you because God purposed in his heart before the foundation of the world that you would be here today and experience this unconditional love and grace from our God because today is the day of your salvation and you know it.

You recognize you're a sinner and you know you need a Savior. Today you simply surrender your life and call on Jesus to make you new. That's why you're here and you can sense it. In all of our churches, those you would say, yes, I give up, I surrender. I trust my life to him. I call on Jesus and give my life completely to him to save me. That's your prayer today. Would you lift your hands high right now?

All of our churches, you say, yes, that's my prayer. Lift your hands and say, I surrender my life to him. Those of you at church online, if you would just click right below me, It's your indication of faith that you're calling on Jesus today to make you new and to make him the Lord of your life. And all of our churches, would you just do the honor of praying with those around you who are calling out to Jesus? Pray aloud. Pray Heavenly Father. Today I trust you to save me and make me new. Jesus, I believe you are the son of God who died for me and rose again so I could live for you.

today by faith I ask you to save me to be first in my life to be my Lord my life is not my own I give it to you use me to make a difference in this world

I surrender to you in Jesus name I pray would you all worship God in a big way welcome those born into the family of God how many are you glad you came to church on a Monday today Monday That's good.

You guys were outstanding. Normally I love to meet people that I haven't met, but I'm going to go back and greet John.