3ABN On the Road

Matchless Attraction

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Ty Gibson

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Series Code: OTR

Program Code: OTR000980


01:01 Hello and welcome back to 3ABN's spring camp meeting
01:04 2010 and our very first pillars of our faith event,
01:10 has this been an incredible weekend so far or what. Amen.
01:14 We have been praying so hard that God would pour out the
01:17 Holy Spirit not only on the speakers for their anointing,
01:21 but on all who are here and all of you who are joining us
01:26 by television from around the world that you would.
01:30 God would really do a work in our hearts
01:33 that he would give us ears to hear what the Holy Spirit
01:35 has to say and I believe that we have,
01:39 we have certainly not being disappointed thus far
01:42 and I think God is in midst to doing something incredible.
01:45 Well, it is my great privilege today to just once again
01:50 come out and see all your pretty faces,
01:52 you know this is, this is a beautiful church
01:55 not the building you're the church you go in
02:00 and out of the building. The church goes in
02:01 and out of this building, but it's a wonderful
02:02 beautiful church and right now in the next hour
02:05 we are going to have a wonderful sermon away just
02:08 a moment to introduce the speaker, but first we have
02:11 Pastor John Lomacang, who is my pastor.
02:15 Pastor come on out and I have to tell you that
02:19 I tell John all the time that, where are you John
02:24 are you back there. I hope they are not gonna
02:26 make me sing. Oh! There you are.
02:33 Okay, they didn't tell me that, but anyway
02:36 I tell John is a wonderful teacher of the word,
02:40 but to me one of the greatest anointing
02:43 for ministry of music, really rests on this man
02:47 and he is going to sing a beautiful song right now.
02:50 Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
03:14 O soul, are you weary and troubled?
03:23 No light in the darkness you see?
03:32 There's light for a look at the Savior,
03:41 And life more abundant and free!
03:51 Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
03:58 Look full in His wonderful face,
04:06 And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
04:16 In the light of His glory and grace.
04:39 His Word shall not fail you, He promised;
04:48 Believe Him, and all will be well:
04:55 Then go to a world that is dying,
05:02 With His perfect salvation to tell!
05:13 Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
05:20 Look full in His wonderful face,
05:29 And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
05:40 In the light of His glory and grace.
05:51 In the light of His glory and grace. And grace.
06:29 Glory to God thank you so much John.
06:32 It is my honor today to introduce the next speaker
06:35 and you've heard him already a couple of times,
06:39 but this man I truly appreciate the ministry
06:44 that he has because he is so focuses
06:47 on the love and grace of God and I know that
06:50 this has been a growing experience to my experience
06:53 has been the more I study about the love of God
06:55 and you just can't study it from the word,
06:58 but the more I experience the love of God in study
07:01 from his word, the more I realize how little
07:04 I understand the love of God. We never will to
07:07 we were actually there right, but the pastor Ty Gibson
07:11 is the co-director and speaker for Light Bearers Ministry
07:15 for 25 years they have had this ministry
07:18 and did you know they have a ship to get this over
07:21 500 hundred million pieces of Literature.
07:26 Five Hundred, half a billion, glory to God they are
07:29 shipping it everywhere around the world
07:31 and last year along they shipped out 53 million pieces
07:36 of Christian literature. So, we are very, very honored
07:41 to have him here and he is going to bring to you
07:44 today a wonderful message called Matchless Attraction.
07:51 Thank you Shelly, thank you, good morning everybody.
07:53 How are you today? Great. Ah! Are you happy to be here?
07:58 Yeah. Ready to dive in the God's word. Yeah.
08:01 John, wherever you are in the hearing of my voice
08:04 thank you I have, I don't remember ever hearing
08:08 turn your eyes upon Jesus that beautifully rendered
08:11 wasn't that just incredible. Amen. I would pay
08:15 monthly payments to have a voice like that
08:18 and to be able to sing. I would, I would go into debt
08:22 on my credit card in exchange for that voice
08:26 for that ministry. I wanna speak with you
08:29 this morning about what we are going to refer
08:32 to as the power equation of the gospel.
08:38 What is that we are going to be looking for in God's word?
08:40 We are going to be looking for what the power equation
08:45 of the gospel. We are going to discover the God's love
08:49 is a non-coercive love that actually gets down deep
08:56 into our hearts and draws forth a voluntary unforced
09:03 response to the Lord. God is in the business of saving
09:08 you and me to the uttermost depths of our soul
09:12 while keeping our free will intact. And it's going to be
09:18 an incredible journey as we draw close to the Lord
09:23 day by day realizing with deeper and deeper
09:28 understanding, how truly great his love for us is?
09:32 Now the power of equation of the gospel
09:34 in the simplest terms that I can place it before you
09:37 is simply this. To the degree that I comprehend God's
09:44 love for me will precisely be the responding degree
09:53 to which I will be made able to love God in return.
09:58 My love for God is created by encounter
10:04 with his love for me. I love him because
10:08 he first loved me, his love is original,
10:13 my love for him is, it is residual,
10:17 it is responsive to his for me. Now the best way
10:20 I know to take you into an understanding of this vital
10:24 topic is to take you way back from me
10:28 to the absolute worst summer of my life.
10:34 And it was a surprise to me that it turned out
10:37 to be the best summer of my life.
10:39 It was the worst summer of my life because I grew up
10:42 in Los Angeles, California and my mother
10:45 rather abruptly and without notice informed me
10:49 and my younger brothers and sister that we were going
10:53 to be moving out of Los Angeles up north to the
10:57 small town of Sacramento. Now, a teenager
11:04 doesn't like the idea of moving can you relate?
11:06 Los Angeles is all I ever knew, all my friends were there.
11:12 It was familiar, I wanted to stay there,
11:16 I told my mother you can go ahead move, I'm not going.
11:21 I said Mom, I have friends.
11:24 They will give me a place to live,
11:25 I couldn't find one friend, who would let me move in.
11:31 My Mom said we are moving to Sacramento
11:33 and you are going. And so, we moved to Sacramento,
11:39 my whole world was turned upside down.
11:43 I didn't know a solitary person in Sacramento.
11:47 We moved there in the summer. School was not in,
11:53 I took my skateboard and I went outside
11:55 in the new neighborhood and I began to just ride
11:57 around the neighborhood by myself. And I finally saw one
12:02 guy, who was also riding the skateboard and I felt woh!
12:06 There is somebody I can potentially skate with
12:08 maybe he knows, where their some empty swimming pools
12:11 or some half pipes or something.
12:14 So, we struck up a conversation and we began to ride
12:17 together and as the summer moved on
12:19 and came to the conclusion of the month of August,
12:24 right before the new school year was to began,
12:27 he said hey there is an end of the summer party
12:30 at a friend of mine house and why don't you just come
12:33 to this party with me it's going to be great,
12:35 all my friends would be, I said I don't want to.
12:36 I don't know anybody you are the only person
12:38 I know. He said no it will be fine just, just come.
12:42 So, finally I yielded and I very nervously walked
12:46 into this house and they were I don't know probably 50,
12:51 60, 75 teenagers swarming around
12:55 in and out of this house. Teenagers are intimidating.
13:02 I was so nervous I didn't know what to do,
13:04 I walked in through the front door and I just very quickly
13:08 moved across the room and sat down on the sofa.
13:13 My one and only friend, my new friend came
13:15 and sat beside me. He said don't you want to mingle
13:17 with it come on, come on, come on, let's do,
13:19 let's just, I will introduce you to some people.
13:21 I said now I just want to seat right here.
13:22 I love going into a busy house and positioning
13:28 myself strategically, where I can watch the people
13:34 come and go and do whatever people do
13:37 when they don't know they are being watched.
13:43 This is my absolute favorite way by the way
13:45 to wake up my wife. I always wakeup before her
13:49 and sometimes I just lean and close and I just look at her
13:56 and somehow without even touching her she knows that
14:00 I am staring at her. And she just opens her eyes
14:06 and she is awake finally, I love waking her up,
14:10 I hate the fact that she doesn't wake up before me.
14:14 I love watching people and I'm sitting there
14:17 on the sofa watching the door open,
14:20 watching the door close. Some teenagers coming,
14:23 some leaving, it's all mundane nothing of interest.
14:31 I'm feeling little tired, my friend is seating next to me
14:35 and all the sudden the door opened and this time
14:39 when the door opened, it opened me because
14:44 in through that door what? The most beautiful creature
14:48 I have ever seen in my life. I said to my new friend
14:55 do you know who she is? And he said everybody
14:59 knows who she is and then he said to me,
15:02 but dude she is way out of your league
15:05 don't get any ideas. I said that is for her to decide.
15:16 I said you know her, he said yeah I know her.
15:17 I said will you make the introduction? Will you just,
15:20 just take me to her? Tell her my name, tell me her name.
15:27 I said by the way what is she?
15:29 He said what do you mean? What is she? She is human.
15:35 I said no precisely what is the genetic mix?
15:39 I mean what is this? He said I don't know her dad
15:43 is like a tall white guy and her mom
15:45 is like a short Mexican lady.
15:48 I said wow! That is, that's the DNA I've been looking for,
15:52 right there. I already loved her.
16:00 He said alright, he said it's your punishment man.
16:04 We walked up he said my name, he said her name,
16:08 our eyes oh! it couldn't have been more than just,
16:12 just nanosecond she looked and she looked away.
16:15 And so I did what any self-respecting
16:21 young man would do, I made myself omnipresent.
16:27 And this is before I was converted
16:28 I didn't even about omnipresence. I paid attention
16:31 I knew where she was in the house and I just kept going
16:35 wherever she was positioning myself
16:39 where she would be at times. Hello, I'm Ty,
16:42 remember Ty I just met you at the door when you came in.
16:46 What you weird, she went on. Thirteen-year-old girls
16:51 are like that, you're weird they say.
16:54 Well, she didn't even give me the time of day
16:57 not even a passing notice, but I tell you what
17:00 my motivation level was so high. I was a kid,
17:06 who was a natural born introvert and I was cured.
17:14 The school year began and as providence would have it
17:19 and again this is before my conversion I knew
17:21 nothing about providence and yet God was leading
17:25 I guess you not. She providentially
17:29 was in math class. The teacher on the first day
17:35 of school announced that this young lady
17:38 would get an automatic A and B the one who would tutor
17:43 the other students in need of mathematical tutoring.
17:49 What do you think I needed? I needed some very serious
17:54 mathematical tutoring. I raised my hand
17:58 immediately me, pick me, pick me, I need help,
18:02 I don't even know two plus two anymore.
18:08 And so she began tutoring me in math and I continued
18:13 fanning ignorance about math. Until finally I said
18:19 I think that you probably need to come
18:21 to my house after school for some intensive tutoring.
18:26 I don't get it? I don't understand this?
18:29 I wanted you to meet my mom. My mom, my mom
18:34 was to that point in my life the most incredible
18:40 wonderful person I had ever known.
18:42 I mean I loved this lady like words can't describe.
18:46 She raised me and two younger brothers
18:49 and younger sister alone pretty much just moving
18:54 from one potential man after another hoping
18:59 longing for love. I mean my mom
19:02 if I have ever known anyone, who was hungry for love
19:05 it was my mom. Almost suicidal,
19:09 she didn't live past 42 and the memory of my mother
19:13 in my mind is a beautiful memory and one of the
19:16 most beautiful things about my mom is that the moment
19:21 I brought this young lady home they became
19:24 immediate friends. My mom began to teach her
19:28 how to cook and I was just like yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,
19:32 yes, yes, yes this is it I know it's it.
19:35 I know she is the one, but now back to the sofa.
19:46 There I was strategically positioned in the room
19:50 and beauty itself walked through the door.
19:55 My friends I want to introduce to you in the word of God
20:03 what we're going to call the power of attraction
20:08 that's what I was experiencing kind of on a micro level
20:11 just on the human plane. I was experiencing the power
20:15 of attraction, I was forgetting about myself,
20:19 I was encountering a beauty of personhood
20:24 that I would go on to have the privilege
20:26 of discovering for year after year, after year,
20:29 after year to this very day. I was encountering
20:34 a beauty of personality in character in personhood
20:38 that was just looking me out of self concern.
20:42 Now, this is on the micro level. I want to talk
20:46 to you about the power of attraction on the macro level,
20:50 on the divine human level. God has actually structured
20:55 the inner workings of the human mind
20:57 and the human heart in such way that we are wired
21:01 to fall in love. We are literally made
21:07 as we learned in our session yesterday afternoon,
21:10 we are literally made engineered tailor
21:14 made for love. And God just happens
21:18 to be the most beautiful person in all the universe
21:21 and I'm convinced that if we can just get a glimpse
21:25 of who he really is we will find the attraction
21:32 to the Lord overwhelming. Turn with me in your Bible
21:37 to the Old Testament Book of Hosea.
21:40 When is the last time you read the Hosea?
21:43 Listen, all the other prophets of the Bible,
21:47 they received visions and dreams and prophecies
21:52 and then they wrote down those visions and prophecies
21:56 and dreams. Hosea stands apart and distinct
21:59 from all the other prophets in the sense.
22:02 Hosea didn't just receive a vision from the Lord.
22:06 He didn't just receive a prophecy from the Lord.
22:09 God made him a living prophecy. He said Hosea
22:15 I want you to fall in love with a woman,
22:22 who will be unfaithful to you. I want you to fall in love
22:25 with a woman, who is pursuing other lovers.
22:28 Look at verse 1 of chapter 3, verse 1 of chapter 3,
22:33 than the Lord said to me imagine that
22:36 the Lord said to me, to Hosea, this is what
22:40 I want you to do go again and love a woman
22:44 who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery,
22:50 now notice very carefully what are the next two words
22:54 after the comma. Just like, just like, so, so,
22:59 God is building a bridge of understanding
23:03 in Hosea's heart and mind, so that he could be a living
23:08 testimony a living prophecy to build a bridge
23:11 of understanding in our minds. What's the bridge? Hosea,
23:15 I want you to fall in love with a woman,
23:17 who is pursuing other lovers and Hosea
23:21 this experience that you are about to have will be
23:25 just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel.
23:31 Hosea when you fall in love with this woman
23:36 and you feel in your heart the terrible feelings
23:42 of a jilted lover, when you feel what it feels like
23:47 to love somebody with every fiber
23:49 of being only to be rejected by them.
23:55 Hosea when you feel those feelings
23:58 of rejected love tell my people that that's
24:02 what is like to be God. This is an Old Testament
24:09 insight to the sin problem and how it impacts
24:15 the heart of God. I mean we come to the
24:18 New Testament and we see this powerful statement
24:22 so full of meaning, the sin is transgression
24:26 of the law and if we are not careful we will,
24:29 we will so sanitize the idea of sin that
24:33 we will imagine it to be merely breaking rules
24:38 recorded on tables of stone, but we need to remember
24:42 that when the Bible speaks of the law,
24:45 sin is transgression of the law, we need to also put
24:48 in their Romans 13:10 love is the fulfilling
24:52 of the law, we need to remember what the inspired pin
24:56 has told us that the law is actually a transcript of God's
25:01 character. So break the law is not merely to break
25:07 an external code of ethics on tables of stone.
25:12 It is to break the living, beating,
25:16 sensitive heart of God. The law is an expression
25:22 of the content of the heart of the almighty.
25:25 So, he says to Hosea. Hosea I want you,
25:29 I want you to fall in love with a woman,
25:33 who won't love you in return and then tell my people
25:39 that that's would it feels like to be God.
25:44 To love you and me my friends with every fiber
25:50 of his divine being only to not be loved by him
25:56 in return, so the question becomes what will God do then?
26:01 How will he respond to the sin problem,
26:05 to our unfaithfulness, what will he do?
26:09 Well, go back to chapter 2 of Hosea
26:12 and I want you to notice that God has a very specific
26:16 plan of action. Notice verse 14, this is in the context
26:23 of the sin problem in the larger scope of things
26:27 and more immediately in the historical context
26:30 the unfaithfulness of Israel and so God says
26:34 the way I'm going to respond to the sin problem,
26:38 the way I'm going to respond to human unfaithfulness
26:44 is verse 14 therefore, behold I will what's that word
26:50 in your Bible. I will allure her to me,
26:54 I will bring her into a quite place in the wilderness
27:00 one version says and I will speak comfort to her
27:04 another version says I will speak to her words of love.
27:07 Notice that you and I, God's people,
27:11 human beings are personified as a she,
27:14 as a woman in this text. God says you're unfaithful to me,
27:20 so what I'm going to do is I'm going to allure you
27:24 to myself what would be some synonyms
27:27 for the word allure. What do you think
27:29 of when you think of the word allure?
27:31 Is that a positive word or a negative word
27:33 in your thinking? Positive. It can be positive,
27:36 it can be negative right. But what would be the some
27:38 of the positive synonyms to be allured is to be what?
27:43 To be invited someone said. Drawn, attracted,
27:51 captivated someone said oh! I like that. Would.
27:56 Do you like the word would? Yes. How about this?
27:59 How about this? This is in the context
28:01 of a love relationship, so how about this
28:05 to be coded. Right. To be coded.
28:09 God says I'm going to code your affections for me.
28:14 I am going to reestablish a heart to heart connection
28:19 with you and the way I am going to do it
28:21 is not by forcing you, not by coercing you,
28:26 not by manipulating you, but the way I am going to save
28:31 you from sin is I'm going to allure you away from it to me.
28:37 Literally God says I am going, I am going to love you
28:41 out of the sin problem. I am going to cultivate
28:46 in your heart a responsive love for me.
28:50 Now listen, the only person in the universe,
28:55 who actually could force us in the subjection
29:01 to his will and get away with it and be answerable
29:04 to nobody up or beyond himself. No one would say,
29:09 excuse me that's not allowed. Would they?
29:14 No. The only person in the universe, who could force us
29:19 in the subjection to his will simply chooses not to. Amen.
29:24 God is working on the principle of attraction,
29:28 the principle of alluring us to himself.
29:32 Now, watch where this goes because here in Hosea
29:36 we have a prophecy unfolded to us,
29:40 of what we can expect to take place in our individual
29:43 Christian experience as we progress and develop and grow
29:46 in grace and what we can expect to take place
29:50 eschatologically for the corporate body of God's people.
29:55 Here is the prophecy of what's coming go down to verse 18.
29:59 And in that day context what day?
30:03 The day when I allure you to me in that day says
30:09 the Lord you shall no longer, you shall call me my husband
30:15 and no longer call me my master. Is that fascinating?
30:21 I mean what is being said here? What that, Let's just,
30:25 let's just flesh this out a little bit? Okay.
30:29 What is the nature of a master servant or master
30:33 slave relationship. What are the, what are the kind of
30:37 emotions that are involved? What are the kind of
30:39 motivations involved in a slave master relationship.
30:44 Subjection okay, was like the driving motivation?
30:47 Fear exactly. What's the basic nature of the relationship
30:54 between a slave and a master? You do what I say or else.
30:59 And if you ask why, why do you want me to do?
31:02 That's in such, what is answer of the master,
31:04 because I said so. How dare you ask, right.
31:10 Basically fears the driving motive.
31:13 God says I don't want ultimately a relationship
31:17 with you that is like a slave servant kind of thing.
31:23 I don't want that kind of dynamic between you and me.
31:26 Now in the early stages of our born again experience
31:30 just like raising children there is a place for God
31:34 to say you know do it I say because I said so because
31:37 you are beyond the capacity for understanding
31:44 the rationale process here. It is in your best interest
31:47 to do it I say before you can understand
31:49 what I'm telling you because I have your best interest
31:52 at heart. So, do what I'm telling you.
31:56 But as we grow in grace, does God want us
32:00 to actually grow up into a self-motivated relationship
32:08 with him in which we do what he says because
32:12 we actually love him? Yes. Not merely to get to heaven
32:17 or escape hell, but because a new motivation
32:21 has taken hold of our heart to be at Desire of Ages,
32:24 page 480, it is not the fear of punishment nor the hope
32:29 of everlasting reward that leads the followers of Christ
32:35 to seek him. But they behold his matchless
32:39 love revealed at Calvary and I love this last line
32:43 and the site of him attracts. Isn't that something,
32:48 is not the fear of punishment that is the ultimate
32:52 motivation for serving God. It's not the hope
32:54 of everlasting reward, but the love of God
32:57 is an attraction worthy of all the energies
33:02 of our lives. God says in that day,
33:07 in the day of allurement, in the day when you come to know
33:11 me as I am and you began to love me in return.
33:17 You will no longer call me my master,
33:20 but rather you will call me my husband. Wow!
33:27 What are the emotions and motivations in a good husband
33:31 and wife relationship? Love is the motivational
33:36 factor isn't it? It's like the language of Jesus
33:40 regarding his father. Jesus said I do always those things
33:45 that do you know? Do you know? Please God
33:49 when you are in love you do what you do for the other
33:52 because you actually want them to be please.
33:55 You want to make them happy, you want to minister
34:00 to them in such a way that you raise the quality
34:02 of their heart and mind in relationship to you.
34:08 God says I am going to allure you to me and my question
34:16 this morning is a very simple one. Have you experienced
34:23 the alluring attractive beauty of Gods love for you?
34:31 I mean seriously, I know it's a simple question,
34:33 but have you actually found yourself spontaneously
34:41 not in a public gathering to be seen by anybody,
34:44 but just in the privacy of your own heart and mind,
34:48 in the privacy of some room. Just, just completely
34:52 no show for anybody just you and God have you ever,
34:56 have you ever actually spontaneously dropped
35:00 to your knees and sensed God's love for you personally?
35:08 As if you were the only person in all the Universe to love?
35:14 And have you in the sense of his love for you,
35:16 have you given your heart voluntarily back to him.
35:22 That's listen, that attitude, that spirit of voluntary
35:27 attrition in worship and in service to God
35:30 out of the heart of unforced, uncursed, pure love
35:37 that is the spirit of eternity future.
35:41 Everyone, who inhabits that future kingdom
35:44 will be there not because they were constrained to be,
35:48 they are forced to be there, manipulated to be there,
35:51 scared not to be there for fear of punishment
35:54 or hope of reward. There won't be any mercenary
35:58 motives in that kingdom. Do you find yourself
36:02 growing up in your spirituality to the point
36:07 where the courtship of the Lord has given way
36:14 to a marriage between your heart and his.
36:17 It's a personal question I know.
36:20 Flip all the way back to Ezekiel chapter 16,
36:24 this is a bovine one of my top five favorite chapters
36:31 in all the Bible. A story is told here,
36:36 a parable is told here and God is telling the story
36:38 and he projects himself into the story,
36:42 so that we can know what life is like in this great
36:47 controversy between good and evil from God's perspective.
36:51 I mean don't you, don't you want to know
36:53 what's going on in God's heart and mind.
36:55 I mean we think so often of you know what's play in us
36:59 and we are suffering and going through and calling up
37:02 the Lord that he would sympathize with us.
37:04 I would like to ask you, I would like to ask myself
37:07 this morning that we would somehow by the grace of God
37:10 that we would reach out and understand the heart
37:12 of God, and by his grace sympathize with him.
37:19 God tells us a story here and he is the central
37:22 figure in the story. He says I was walking along
37:27 as it were a dusty path on earth and as I was walking
37:32 along what did God see? Has anybody already read
37:35 verses 12-8 what did I see? I'm walking along
37:38 and God says I saw an abandoned baby
37:41 in an open field. So, get that picture clear
37:45 in your mind, God says I am walking along
37:46 and I look of to the side of the road and what do I see,
37:49 but an abandoned baby squirming in its own blood.
37:55 That's the story. The baby is lying there,
37:59 there is no mother, there is no father,
38:01 the baby is just there in the process of dying,
38:05 the blood of birth still on it's flesh.
38:07 The scripture says that the umbilical cord
38:09 was not even trimmed properly.
38:12 What are all the physical indications?
38:17 This baby was as it were yanked from the womb
38:21 and abandoned in this field with no care whatsoever.
38:27 No one he says, no one washed your body with water,
38:31 nobody covered you with cloth to keep you warm,
38:35 nobody cut your umbilical cord, you, you just,
38:39 you just cast from the womb into an open field
38:43 and I want you to notice the language that God
38:47 uses to describe the condition,
38:50 the situation that this baby is in.
38:54 Notice the words when I saw you there thrown
38:58 into the open field, there was no one who took pity
39:03 on you to do any of these things for you.
39:07 No pity, you know what another version says?
39:11 The Today's English version says no one loved you,
39:17 just that simple. Now, there is a definition
39:20 of our predicament? You see now somebody,
39:22 my mom she loves me. Well, my loved me,
39:25 she loved me with a defective damaged fall in human love
39:30 the best she could. I have friends who love me
39:37 with a fallen, defective, damaged human love.
39:43 There is a sense listen, I know somebody loves you.
39:48 There are those who love me, we all have relationships,
39:50 but listen to what God is saying here.
39:54 There is a sense in which nobody can love you like
40:00 God loves you. Amen. Nobody can receive you
40:04 and give the affirmation and the acceptance
40:07 and the forgiveness and the sense of cleanliness
40:12 before him. Nobody can love you like God.
40:15 He says nobody loved you; that is your condition
40:18 as a fallen human being. But notice as the story goes on.
40:22 God says nobody loved you, your cast into an open field
40:25 you are abandoned. Look at this verse 6,
40:29 and when I passed you by I saw you struggling in
40:32 your own blood and I said to you in your blood
40:37 I said live. Yes, I said to you in your blood live,
40:42 what is God's mandate? What is his, what is his aspiration
40:46 for you and me? Live, he wants us to live
40:49 but he doesn't just want us to live, he wants us to thrive
40:53 this is in Old Testament rendering of the idea
40:57 of the gift of eternal life. This is God saying
41:00 I want you to have life and I want you to have it
41:03 more abundantly. I want you to enter into a whole
41:07 different dimension of existence in which you
41:11 in relationship with me are completely restored
41:15 to what I made you for in the beginning.
41:18 I want you to live he says in verse 6. So, verse 7
41:24 he says I made you to what? What's the word?
41:26 To thrive, I made you thrive like a plant in the field
41:31 and you grew and you are matured. And you became
41:36 very well, what does God say? You became very beautiful.
41:43 God is in the process listen of beautifying you and me.
41:51 He is in the process of cultivating in our hearts
41:55 and lives and characters the beauty of his own character
42:00 in a way that each of us in our own personality
42:04 and character can reflect back to him like nobody else.
42:08 God is in the process of cultivating beauty
42:14 in you and me. He says I made you thrive, you matured,
42:18 you began to grow up spiritually,
42:21 you began to develop, you began to feel what I feel
42:26 and to think like I think and you began to love like I love.
42:33 That's what it means to grow up spiritually.
42:36 Now, watch this you matured, you became very beautiful,
42:39 please excuse this part it's in the Bible.
42:43 I blessed to say your breasts were well formed.
42:46 Question is this a boy or girl now?
42:50 So far it's a just abandoned baby in a field right.
42:54 There is no gender indicated all the sudden you come
42:56 to this verse she grows up, she passed through puberty
42:59 right and God says you became very beautiful.
43:02 Obviously, she is a woman. God is here portraying himself
43:08 as the ultimate lover, pursuing and coding
43:12 the affections of his bride, which is a metaphor
43:16 throughout scripture. But I want you to notice
43:19 something she is female, she has passed through
43:21 puberty and noticed what God says in verse 8
43:24 this is absolutely stunning. This is the Almighty creator
43:29 of the universe talking to you and me this is an even God
43:32 giving Ezekiel a vision and then Ezekiel writing it down.
43:39 There are places in scripture you will find
43:40 quote marks like the Ten Commandments,
43:43 where this is God dictating. This is, this is Ezekiel
43:46 writing down, this is what he said. Here is the God
43:52 the creator of the universe speaking to you and me.
43:54 Verse 8, when I passed you by again,
43:56 that is after you move through this developmental process,
43:59 after you matured and became beautiful
44:01 and I made you thrive, I passed you by again
44:06 and I looked upon you and behold, your time was the time
44:14 for love. So, I spread my wings over you
44:19 and I covered your nakedness.
44:22 Yes. I swore and oath to you and entered into a covenant
44:29 with you and notice these tender words.
44:32 And you became mine says the Lord God.
44:40 Again today's English version renders the text,
44:43 when I passed you by again I saw that it was time for you
44:47 to fall in love, so I married you. Isn't that incredible?
44:55 Amen. Dear friends the question this morning is this.
44:59 Have you come to the place, where it's time for you
45:04 to fall in love with the Lord. I mean seriously.
45:10 When I was a child Paul says I spoke as a child,
45:13 I thought as a child, but when I became a man,
45:17 when I grew up spiritually I put away childish
45:21 things, right. Listen, God is asking
45:27 you and me especially at this junction in human history
45:32 to stop doing religion and church as usual. Amen.
45:36 He is asking for us to put the pedal to the medal
45:39 to rev up our passion for God and to mature
45:45 to grow up in Christ. To grow up as Paul says
45:50 into the full stature of men and women in Christ.
45:55 We are like little brothers and sisters and Jesus
45:57 is our elder brother and Paul says we need to grow up
46:03 to become the full stature of men and women in Christ.
46:07 And growing up involves coming to the place psychologically
46:12 and emotionally. Listen, where you make the pyridine
46:17 shifts from the motive of fear to the motive of love,
46:26 where you make the transition, where you seize to think
46:32 of your salvation and to think of sin and to think
46:37 of your whole spiritual experience in terms of doing
46:42 what I got to do because I better do it because
46:44 if I don't I will be lost. That's a five, six, seven,
46:49 ten-year-old spirituality. The motivation of I do
46:56 what God tells me to because I had better or else.
47:00 Now there is a place for that and it preserves us
47:03 early on from getting into all kinds
47:04 of trouble doesn't it. But listen, listen, if, if,
47:10 if you have a child who is three, four, five years old
47:14 and when it's time for dinner the spaghetti
47:16 is over his ears and in his hair and it's all over his face,
47:19 it's funny, is there it? How cute. But if he is 21
47:26 and the spaghetti is still just all over the place
47:33 is it funny anymore. No. You are like ah!
47:39 could you get over it. Cutlery, the fork, the spoon,
47:45 the knife eat like a grown up, right. It's funny,
47:51 it's cute when a child is young, it's not cute anymore
47:56 anymore when you grow up.
47:59 There is a place for a very limited parameter
48:06 of understanding and say you know.
48:07 I just, I just want to make it, I hope I make it.
48:09 I just wanna get to heaven. I don't want to be lost and,
48:14 and, and when you navigate through life,
48:17 everything is in reference to yourself and your salvation.
48:21 What about this? What about this? What about making
48:24 the move in which a higher and more powerful
48:29 motivation grips us and we began to serve God
48:32 not so much because we have to,
48:34 but because we want to. Amen.
48:36 What about Ezekiel 16:8 what about God saying us
48:40 to us. I passed you, what this. Can you hear delight
48:43 in his voice. God says I passed you by again
48:46 and I saw that it was time for you to fall in love,
48:48 so I married you. God would be so happy
48:54 if we would accelerate our spiritual growth.
49:00 And come to the place, where we love him
49:04 because he first loved us. Now, flip quickly to the
49:08 New Testament and watch how Paul develops
49:11 this powerful idea first in Ephesians chapter 3,
49:16 Ephesians chapter 3, this is the just one of the high
49:21 points of scripture here, where the apostle Paul
49:23 is praying for you and me and all believers
49:27 after him. Notice this very carefully watch
49:30 the language and you have to put some,
49:32 some intellectual energy into this. Paul kind a wordy
49:36 at times; notice this verse 14, Ephesians 3:14,
49:42 for this reason I bow my knees to the father
49:46 of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, he is praying isn't he.
49:51 Verse 15, from whom the whole family in heaven
49:53 and earth his named. Notice this here is the prayer
49:58 that he would grant you according to the riches
50:03 of his glory to be what's that word strengthened
50:09 with there is another power word might through
50:12 his spirit where in the inner man in the interpret.
50:16 Where does this strengthening need to occur
50:19 in the inner person at the motive level
50:23 of our hearts and lives. Verse 17, watch this that
50:29 Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;
50:33 that you being rooted and grounded in love,
50:40 may be able to, watch this word, comprehend
50:44 what are the synonyms, what is it mean
50:45 to comprehend something it means to,
50:47 to grasp it, to someone said understand it,
50:51 to apprehend it, to get it, to see it
50:54 for what it is. Right. Paul says I pray that you
50:58 would comprehend the love of Christ,
51:04 which passes knowledge. The source beyond
51:08 mere intellectual understanding just like a relationship
51:15 with the friend or wife or husband it's not,
51:19 it's not pure intellectual experience is it?
51:25 I mean I think of your own relationships.
51:28 You don't contemplate brothers my brother you don't
51:31 contemplate your wife and your relationship
51:34 with her as a scientific equation do you?
51:39 No it's experiential, it's relational,
51:44 it's beyond knowledge, it's beyond mere intellectual
51:49 facts and figures. Paul says the love of Christ
51:53 is to be comprehended, but it's beyond mere knowledge.
51:59 It's relational, it's experiential,
52:01 you can only know the love of God like you know a person
52:06 not like you know math are you with me,
52:09 not like you know biology, but like you know your son
52:12 or your daughter or your grandmother.
52:15 It's a personal kind of knowing, it has an intellectual
52:18 component yes, but it's experiential.
52:24 Paul is praying here that you and I would comprehend
52:27 with all sins what is the width and length
52:31 and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ,
52:35 which passes knowledge watch this, so that you might be
52:39 filled with all the fullness of God. Incredible fill to the
52:48 brim with the very presence of God and what is the means
52:55 by which that in feeling occurs.
52:58 Paul very clearly says it is through the comprehension
53:02 of God's love for you for me. Comprehension is the
53:07 access point by which God gets into our hearts and lives.
53:13 To the degree that we comprehend the love of Christ
53:18 it will what Paul say produce strength
53:22 and might and power within us on a moral level.
53:26 Notice these words, it is just, just, just incredible
53:30 language here. From testimonies volume 2,
53:34 page 135, listen. "Love is power intellectual
53:44 and moral strength are involved in this principal
53:49 and cannot be separated from it.
53:53 Love cannot live without action and every act
53:59 increases strengthens and extends it.
54:03 Love will gain the victory." Love is power what kind
54:08 of power intellectual and moral power,
54:12 the love that is spoken of in scripture the love of God
54:17 is not a silly sentimental cotton candy sweet
54:20 Hollywood kind of love, it is a powerful love
54:28 that actually gets into the fiber of our characters
54:31 and molds and shapes and transforms us.
54:35 The Pen of Inspiration says love is power.
54:40 Intellectual and moral strength or how about
54:42 this line, just one sentence here from Desire of Ages,
54:45 page 493 listen. Nothing reaches so fully
54:52 down to the deepest motives of conduct
54:58 as a sense of the pardoning love of Christ nothing
55:05 and what is this love reaching down into.
55:07 Is this just to make us feel warm and fussy
55:10 and sentimental. What is this say?
55:12 It reaches down to the level of the motives
55:19 for our conduct. What drives you, what drives me?
55:23 You wake up in the morning what are the driving
55:28 motivations? While this statement says nothing,
55:31 nothing in all the universe reaches so fully
55:35 down to the motives of the conduct as a sense
55:38 of departing love of Christ. All this words
55:40 from page 478 of the same book Desire of Ages listen,
55:44 the contemplation of the love of God manifested in his son
55:49 will stir the heart and arouse the powers of the soul
55:57 like nothing else can. Right. To the degree that you
56:05 and I take into our minds and hearts in understanding
56:11 of God's love for us will be precisely the degree
56:17 to which we are then made able to love him in return.
56:22 We love God for only one reason my friends
56:25 and that is because he first loved us.
56:29 First John 419 and so we are called upon
56:33 through scripture to behold what manner
56:36 of love the father has restored upon us
56:38 that we should be called as sons and daughters of God.
56:44 That doesn't yet now appear what we shall be,
56:45 but we know this that when he appears
56:48 we will be like him for we shall see him as he is
56:55 and it is that beholding action that produces
57:00 the likeness to him in our hearts and lives.
57:05 It is as if you and I are strategically positioned on
57:10 a sofa in a room and the most beautiful person
57:14 in the whole universe is just walk through the door.


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Revised 2014-12-17