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00:00:00 thank you good morning church morning and uh to the man of the mirror guests welcome to you as well uh Ricky very touching uh testimony to be sure thank you Elder Arnold for the invitation to be here at this beautiful Church beautiful campus and all these other incredible churches that are meeting on the campus as well so so you have been doing all of the right things you have checked all the boxes you're in a small group you serve you attend church services you are generous with your offerings
00:01:14 but it just seems like something isn't clicking something isn't quite right the world is a Relentless juggernaut that is rolling over people every day crushing hopes crushing dreams crushing plans that you had uh PL crushing relationships you're worried about the way things are going unjust suffering Wars politics road rage you're not only worried about the way things are going sometimes you are filled with anxiety even though you are doing all the right things you have been struck by a Calamity or maybe you are afraid of a
00:02:22 Calamity that's about to strike maybe it's something that is happening in a marriage relationship maybe it's a health problem that you are afraid to even go to the doctor or you've been to the doctor and now you're the only one that knows and you don't know how to tell your family or maybe you're just stuck maybe you're just stuck in a career that doesn't seem to be going any anywhere or you're stuck in how to help your children or you have a a child who is going astray or maybe you have someone who you're
00:03:23 suffering at the hands of someone who maybe has betrayed you or not kept their word it might be somebody who is not a believer in Jesus but it could just as likely be someone who is a believer in Jesus and it's tearing you apart inside and so you see these things and you know that God is good you believe that and you know know that God is great and you believe that but you can't help wondering God I'm I'm doing all the things that I thought I was supposed to do that I am convinced that I am supposed to
00:04:24 do but why is this happening to me God do you know what's happening to me God do you care if you do know because it doesn't seem like you care if you do know and God if you do know and you do care do you have the power to do anything about it because if you know and you care it doesn't seem like you have have enough power to do something about it so God I know you love the world but I just am not sure you love me so what I want to do today is I want to just talk to you about a lesson you know the most
00:05:27 difficult lessons to learn are the ones we already know so this will be a reminder a a refresher hopefully for you and if you've never heard this message before then I I pray pray right now for your your mind to be open to what uh God has to say through his through his word the title of the message is the Staggering love of God and I guess I should have learned how to use this before I started my talk if you cut the Bible it bleeds agape love so I've talked a little bit about uh I think there's a delay I think
00:06:40 that's what's going on or am I doing something wrong why don't you advance them for me okay you can go ahead and adance that yeah so I've been talking to you about what happens when Agape appears to be in short supply now what I want to talk to you about is the next thing and that's God's message of love I was in a uh a long-term business crisis where um I knew that God loved the world but I was not so sure that he really loved me and and uh like you I was doing all of the right things and I was crying out to God so
00:07:35 when I became a follower of Jesus uh I knew that I had been saved by faith but I figured that it was up to me to prove that he didn't make a mistake so I went to work I'm a hard worker and I get things done and so I I just began to pour myself in into work and if they if there was something that needed to be done I would do chairman of the building commit committee I'm in uh whatever it is teach a Bible study teach a teach a Sunday school whatever it is I'm I'm in and so I was working uh myself to
00:08:12 death and one day I was uh praying and uh I got a letter from one of the men who was uh in my employee I had a a big company and uh the recession hit and I had to let a number of people go and uh I got a letter from a Christian brother he had been running one of my seven offices around the country around the United States and uh I had to I had to let him go there just was no money and we had prayed together we we shared each other's lives and it was Agony for me to to have to do this and I got a letter from him and the
00:09:09 letter began Dear Mr Morley this was a guy that IID prayed with and uh and i' loved him deeply and I still do but he was so angry uh he started this letter Dear Mr MO and then things went downhill real fast from there and it was this costic seric vitalic venomous outpouring of rage and anger and and I and I get it but something happened all of a sudden I felt this this tentacle of bitterness sort of reach out and begin to wrap its way around my heart and i' had never been a better person before I've never I in
00:09:57 fact I don't even know that I'd ever experienced bitter this until that point but I I knew what it was when it came and I I said I cried out I prayed I said God on top of everything else that's happening to me right now please don't let me also become a bitter person and so at that point I'm not sure that I was that far along in my journey so I didn't have a lot of reference points but I heard a voice in my head and the voice said praise me I'm not uh I I really appreciate the praise and worship team so much but I'm
00:10:36 not I'm not a praise and worship guy I'm sort of a I'm a contemplative you know I'm a a guy that goes off into a corner somewhere and and thinks about things uh that's that's how I praise God so I didn't really know what he meant by Praise me but I uh I read the letter and and I was I I left the office I I decided I can't that's it for the day I'm I'm going home and uh so on the way out to the car he says praise me I'm praying as I walk out to the car he says praise me so I had some Christian music in the in the car
00:11:08 and so I I I I cranked up the music until the the the windows in the car were rattling and uh and then just boom just like that bitterness was gone never came back just like that so I'm driving down the road on my way home it's only a 10-minute drive but I'm on the way home and I'm thinking about how how men uh get themselves into trouble because they they don't really honor and respect the Holiness of God I'm a student of RC sprawl I know that some of you are reformed I uh my Seminary degree is from Reformed
00:11:58 Theological seminar Seminary and RC Sproul was my professor um and so I I and his main message is on the Holiness of God and so uh I was praising God for his Holiness and to take away this bitter spirit that had tried to to to get hold of me and I was praising God for that and thinking about uh uh RC's message about Holiness but then just how how ironic it is that that that men get themselves into trouble because they don't respect an the Holiness of God But the irony is is that when a man or a woman is at their
00:12:37 lowest point the nater of the valley of whatever Calamity or stuck stuckness or or problem that they have the irony is is that it's not the message of God's holiness at that moment that they need it's the message of God's love I just I just needed to know that God loved me so I'm thinking like this and then I'm drive a little further and I'm coming up to my turn my leftand turn to go home and there's a railroad track just before the stoplight and I hear a voice in my head again and that voice says I want you to
00:13:33 take my message of love to a broken generation and I've just shared the most intimate thing that's ever happened in my relationship with God with you and I was overwhelmed with emotion so I crossed the railroad tracks and I pulled up to the stoplight and I put on my sunglasses because I didn't want anybody at the stoplight to see how emotional I had become and I heard the voice again this is like the third time in like 20 minutes less than 20 minutes less than 10 minutes and the voice said again I want you to take my message of
00:14:21 love to a broken Generation Well I knew what the broken generation was uh I grew up in a in a home beautiful parents but my dad was abandoned when he was two years of age and so what it meant to be a man and a husband and a father was never exampled to him he did the best he could but I have no recollection of ever hearing the words and I'm not not saying these things were never said I'm just saying that I have no recollection even today of these things ever being said I have no rec recollection of ever being
00:14:58 hearing the words I love you uh I believe in you I'm proud of you nothing about sex education career options schooling anything like that I quit High School in the middle of my senior year so I knew what the broken generation was and uh and then I was a a Believer I was a young believer and so the idea of taking God's message of Love well I'm going to I'm going to do that and so I be I was already very passionate about sharing my faith and I just became more passionate about sharing my faith we started a Bible
00:15:44 study called The Man in the Mirror Bible study it's still going on uh and then that led to the ministry man in the mirror and now we work with uh churches and Men all over the world and uh just helping men find meaning and purpose uh in a relationship with with h Jesus Christ but it's so interesting though I knew what the message of uh I knew what it meant to be a broken generation but I kept saying okay what is this message of love God could you amplify that for me what is this message of love no
00:16:24 answer and I prayed over and over again Lord I I'm out here doing your work but tell me I you know I want to I I I understand that this is my calling I'm supposed to take your message of love to a broken generation but what is this message of love and for 10 years I prayed and no answer silence every time I prayed and asked God what is this message of love that I'm to take to a broken Generation Now meanwhile I've written the man in the yearbook and we started this ministry and we doing all these things
00:16:57 and we're going and blowing because I get things done I'm not going to sit around and wait on God to tell me what his Message is I'm just going to go ahead and get get to work but I still want to know what the message is so if you're ever willing to tell me I'd be happy to hear you know at the 10e Mark at the 10year Mark I hear this uh uh text or read this text in 1 John chap 4: uh 91 and then 19 this is how God showed his love Among Us he sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him
00:17:39 this is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins we love because he first loved us so when we do our service and when we do our small groups and when we do our tithes and offerings and we when we do our church attendance Christianity is not primarily something that we do for God Christianity is primarily something that God has done for us he sent his one and only son as an atoning sacrifice we the reason we love him at all is because he
00:18:26 first loved us so I want to share a few things with you verses can you advance the slide the big idea that I learned is that Jesus Christ is God's message of love God God's message of love for a broken generation is Jesus Christ and then next I want to talk about the person of Jesus Christ who is okay if if Jesus Christ is God's message of Love who is this Jesus and you could take a photo of these verses I'm not going to read them in the Bible but you could if you wanted to look them up later you can look them
00:19:15 up he is the visible image of the invisible God think about that Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God all the fullness all the ploma all the fullness of the godhead all the fullness of the deity lives in Jesus in a bodily form he is the exact representation of his being and Jesus said to Philip he said he said he who has seen me has seen the father elsewhere Jesus said I and the father are one Jesus Christ is God he is God has reduced himself to H he reduced himself to human flesh for a short
00:20:16 season so that we might be better able to comprehend his nature and so this message of love that God has we all know it for God so liked the world that he gave his only son it's not that he liked it's that he agap the world for God so Agape loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whosoever would believe in him would not perish would have everlasting life How great is the love the father has lavished on us that that we should be called the children of God and that is what we are Jesus says this he says Jesus says
00:21:11 As the father has loved me so have I loved you so the same way that the Father in Heaven the same way that he loves Jesus the the way that the father agap Jesus that's the same way that Jesus Gap is you but that's not all Jesus said in his high Priestly prayer he said said that you sent me and and uh and and and you love them Father you love them the same way that you love me so Jesus is saying father you love me but you love them the same way that you love me all the love of the father all the love of
00:21:57 Jesus that's the message of love and so how does how does Jesus Express this remarkable incredible love one day Jesus was uh he traveling about he got out of a boat and and the people had gathered there and it the it says in it it says that he looked on them with compassion because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a Shepherd so how do you you know when we look on people how do we look on them well I'll be honest that that's not my first necessarily my first impulse my first impulse is if it's a guy as I
00:22:50 wonder if I can take him or not uh but that's because I grew up in a rough neighborhood um Jesus had compassion if I was a pastor and I had a church I would have a sign over my church Matthew 11:28 where Jesus says come unto me all you who are weary and burdened has the Juggernaut of the world relentlessly crushed over you come unto me all you are weary and burdened and I will give you more work to do well there's plenty of work to do right but Jesus's first impulse his he leads with come under me all you were we and
00:23:38 burdened and I will give you what rest take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I'm gentle and humble and hard and you will find rest for your souls do not worry about what you will eat eat or what you will drink or what you will wear the non-believers they run after all of these things but your father in Heaven knows exactly what you need seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and he'll give all of these things to you don't worry about tomorrow tomorrow has enough worries of a stone take heart I have overcome this
00:24:26 world this juggernaut I've overcome this world no one can snatch my sheep out of my hands no one I will never leave you or forsake you in my father's house there are many rooms and I'm going to prepare a place for you when the Apostle Paul PA had been crushed he had some kind of a a thorn in the flesh nobody knows what it is lots of everybody has a guess I have several guesses nobody knows what his Thorn In the Flesh was in his kindness the Holy Spirit did not tell us what the thorn in the flesh is so that
00:25:24 you can take whatever your Thorn In the Flesh is and you can read it into the Story three times he pleaded that God would take away this thorn in his flesh and then Jesus spoke to them and he said my grace is sufficient for you for my power my dunamus from which we get Dynamite the word dite my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in your weakness whatever Calamity it is whatever is crushing you however you're stuck whatever relationship problem is an opportunity to experience the grace that
00:26:25 Jesus has because of his agape love Paul goes on therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's power May rest on me that is why for Christ's sake I Delight in hardships insults persecutions difficulties insults for when I am weak then I am strong because he was tapping into the the the love loving kindness and the grace of God Jesus tells a story about a man who asked a neighbor for three loaves of bread because he had some guests but the man said I can't give it
00:27:19 to you it's late at night or something like that Jesus said even though he won't get up because you know he's your neighbor because of your Shameless audacity in asking he will give you as much as you need Jesus said God will give you everything you ask for my Father in heaven will give you everything you ask for in prayer if you believe and it is according to his will but never less than as much as you need so I had always thought I always looked at the upside for prayer that God will answer the
00:28:24 prayers and he will answer prayers according to his will but here's the idea there's a lower minimum that Jesus is promising you and me because of his great love so I will give you anything you ask for in prayer because of your Shameless audacity but never less than as much as you need you might come to me with something that I know is not the right thing for you to have or not the right time for you to have it but I know what you need Jesus says in The Sermon on the Mount your father and heaven knows what
00:28:59 you need before you even ask Martha was doing all the right things Martha was a hard worker like you are she was checking all the boxes Martha and Mary the sisters of last they invited Jesus into their home and Martha was in the kitchen the Bible says she was distracted by all the preparations all the the word from the diony the word from which we get the word Deacon by the way uh she was distracted by all the preparations all the things that needed to be done and she went to Jesus and she said
00:30:06 Jesus don't you care that my sister is not helping me here in the kitchen and what did Jesus say many of you know perhaps all of you know Jesus said Martha Martha you are upset and worried about many things but only one thing is needed and Mary has chosen it and it will not be taken from her what was that one thing she was sitting she had chosen the logos she had chosen Jesus she was sitting at his feet listening to his teaching she had chosen to embrace the Agape of Jesus while Mary was uh Martha was busy checking all the
00:30:57 boxes so watch this brothers and sisters marry first there will be plenty of time for Martha Jesus wants to Lavish his staggering love on you you've again the big idea for this message is that that Jesus Christ is God's message of love so what what is our response to such a incomprehensible love we hear it all the time we read it all the time the the great commandment the most important thing to do is loving God and the second most important thing is loving people so Jesus said the first commandment is that you would love the
00:32:11 Lord your God with all of your heart all of your soul all of your mind all of your strength that you would bring the totality of your being to the loving to God every ounce of your energy the sum of your strength however we love God because he first loved us we we we need to be engaged with the agape love in embracing the agape love of Jesus and allowing him to speak into our hearts and our lives so that we can love God I always thought I always thought that I needed to love God in order for him to love me and the
00:33:09 exact opposite is the true uh exact opposite is true God loves me and that empowers me and enables me to love him so how many of you have ever had a kidney stone how many of you have had a kidney stone so I've had two and they say it's uh say it's like having a baby I don't mean to insult you women by that but if that's what it's like it's I know it's tough um and so this the first time that I had it I didn't know what was happening I thought I was dying and it was 4:00 a.m. and I was supposed to be on the way to
00:33:47 teach a Bible study and uh I woke my wife up and I said I think I'm dying and I did you know what men do when they not around other men and just with their wies I think I die and so she said okay okay okay calm down and she lay had me lay down in the backseat of the car and we went to the hospital and so now it's like 4:15 or 4:20 a.m. well the place is like empty and uh we we go in and find somebody and I said oh please help me you've got to give me something for this I'm so they uh they gave me a shot of
00:34:30 morphine praise God and they obviously had seen this many times before so they they knew that I probably had a kidney stone so they strapped me onto a gurnie and had an orderly wheel me down into the bowels of the hospital where the radiology department was and I was a little surprised when we got there there were like seven or eight other gurns that had already lined up uh that early in the morning so that the orderly pushed me against the the wall and and he left and my wife being the Mother Teresa of our
00:35:02 house she uh with her merciful uh approach the life she came down with me and she was standing there and uh I said oh Psy I feel a love for God right now like I have never felt before I feel the the power of Jesus I feel the presence of the Holy Spirit coursing through my veins she said shut up you dummy that's the morphine but wouldn't you like to have that kind of love for God Jeremiah was a prophet and Prophets and pastors sometimes don't get along because the that the pastor his job is to be a shepherd and to calm the Sheep
00:36:02 down settle the sheep and what is the prophet's job it's to stir things up right and so he's calling down burning sulfur and hellfire you know on the on the sheep and the pastor trying to you know calm them down so sometimes they don't get along so Jeremiah got into a dispute with one of the the priests paser and paser had Jeremiah locked up and uh put in stocks and in Jeremiah chapter 20 he's Jeremiah's complaining he said God I don't understand you all day long what do I do I do exactly what you asked me
00:36:35 to do I and and what do I get I get insult I get reproached I here I am I'm I'm get locked up and then in Jeremiah 20:9 he apparently turns his attention to his private journal and he says but if I say I will not mention him or speak anymore in his name his word is in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones I'm weary of holding it in indeed I cannot wouldn't you like to have that kind of love for God we can only have that kind of love for God when we receive the truth that he first loved
00:37:31 us so we want to love God Jesus Christ is God's message of love and we want to love people a new command Jesus says a new command I give you that you love one another as as I have loved you so you must also love one another last week just before I came out here this happens all the time a friend a good friend of mine uh a monthly lunch buddy of mine for 30 years told me about a a man that he was starting to meet with and they getting ready to meet with they had not had their first meeting yet I take that back
00:38:19 they had met over lunch and then my friend had decided they would meet uh periodically and then he would uh disciple him well this man is uh probably like an absolum probably the best looking guy in Orlando Florida you know very muscular very fit person very popular charismatic person and he's very devoted to his Hobbies very devoted to his Sports so much so that that he possibly is neglecting his family family and so my friend who this is why we need each other because he's a seasoned guy but he was
00:39:07 asking my advice on how to confront this brand new guy about his habits about his Hobbies about possibly neglecting his family and I I've been through this before and I said said uh I said Rick I said God does not call us to fix other people's behavior God calls us to show them Jesus Christ and then in the in the process of them coming to understand just the The Staggering love that Jesus has for them in the process of that and uh and being around other people then Jesus does the transformation but if we set up rules
00:40:02 and we set up regulations and we set up Traditions that you have to do and or we have opinions that people need to follow um or we make our preferences into doctrines that people have to buy into these things in order to be part of of the Jesus family we run people off so church is not God's message of love it's a tool small groups are not God's message of Love they're a tool and all of the other things that we do are tools but Jesus Christ is God's message of love so let us love people the same way that Jesus I've just talked
00:41:01 about the same way that Jesus we should be saying to our friends come onto come onto Jesus with me come along with me to Jesus and find rest for your soul I'm going invite the worship team um to to come up and sing we're going to sing and at the conclusion of that song I'm going to come back and I'm going to tell you one more story and I'm going to give you an opportunity to respond and whoever is doing the keyboard maybe you could stay up with me here okay yeah just silence your hearts and let's not sing let's just listen
00:41:57 how's that or is that not the way we do it here I forget what I said see there's an opinion that I shouldn't have had all right let's do that let's do that yeah that's good church can I um first thing can we have a hand for guest speaker Pastor Patrick sharing the word of God with us this morning and now if I can invite all of us to stand and and respond in song as we've heard love God love Jesus first for he loved us first even before we knew him he's worthy of every song is worthy of every praise he's worthy of every
00:42:44 breath that we breathe [Music] [Music] worthy of every song we could ever sing worthy of every praise we could ever bring [Music] worthy of every breath we could ever breathe live for [Music] you Jesus the name above every other name Jesus the only one who could ever sa worthy of every breath we could have a breae live for [Music] you and holy there is no one like you there is none beside you open up my eyes in Wonder and show me who you are and fill me with your heart and Me in Your Love To those
00:44:34 [Music] me she worthy worthy of every song we could ever singy of all the praise we could ever worthy of every breath we could have a Brea live for you oh live for you Jesus Jesus the name above every other name Jesus the only one who could worthy of every breath we could have a Brea for you oh for you holy and holy there is no one like you there is none beside you open up my eyes in wonder show me who you are and fill me with your heart andad me in your love to Holy and holy there is no one like you there is
00:46:17 none beside you open up my eyes in Wonder and show me who you are and fill me with your heart and Lead Me In Your Love to go around me [Music] [Laughter] so you may be seated thank you worship team I'll take over yeah so I want to tell you a story you've worked hard I was working hard and I was in a business crisis that uh lasted uh seven years and I was sitting around one day and I was just recounting to God how hard I was working I was I was checking all the boxes I was doing all the right things you know
00:47:58 maybe you're doing all the right things or would like to do all the right things your heart's in the right place but I just needed a breakthrough I just needed a breakthrough and so I was writing out a prayer on my computer which I was doing every day and I I I wrote God I I just need some relief here you know you know how hard I have been working God to to be in your word every day and to be a man of of prayer and to be a Godly husband and to be a dad who's in the picture and you know how I've
00:48:43 been running my business as a man of integrity and you know how I've been faithful Steward with the finances and you know all the good deeds I've done and you know how many little old ladies I've helped across the street you know all of these things God I just need some help and that voice came again and said Pat nothing you do will ever make you good enough for me to love you I love you because I made you so maybe maybe you have never fully you know that God loves the world but you haven't been
00:49:26 quite sure that he loves you today's a day where you can receive that love from God or maybe it's a time of renewal for you so I have in my hand a crisp new American $100 bill how many of you would like this $100 bill raise your hand if you'd like the $100 bill all right so okay everybody wants the $100 bill right okay now all right all crumpled up now who wants the $100 bill okay so everybody still wants $100 bill right okay all right all right now now who wants the $100 bill we still want the $100 bill well
00:50:15 why do you want the hund why do you still want it because the condition of the bill does not alter itsue value so it doesn't make any difference how tattered your life is how crumpled up you feel how stomped on you feel your value to God is unchanged he loves you with an everlasting love and that love is it's the starting point so that you can do all of the other things that you want to do and should do uh to particip participate in a body a community and and to serve and to be in small groups and read the Bible but
00:51:04 as a response to God's love his great love his staggering love for you not as not as the means by which you can get to that love but rather because you're coming from the point of view that you already know that you have that love so what I'd like to do is is uh open up I the some of the elders and pastors and so forth will be at the front and uh if if you have had the the Juggernaut of the world Crush you and you've been stomped on or betrayed and abused and you just need a fresh sense of God's love for you like
00:51:50 to invite you to come forward and pray with someone you can tell them what's going on or you don't have to tell them what's going on that you just would like to have prayer for you to experience this staggering love of God come unto me all you are weary and burdened and you will find rest for your souls father in the name of Jesus your message of love to a broken generation would you fill each and every brother and sister here with the abiding conviction that you are your love is the starting point not our love for you but
00:52:38 your love for us and we ask this uh that ask this in the name of Jesus Amen all right and so I don't know how you do it here but if if you we're not going to do a big altar call thing but you're welcome to come forward and would encourage you to come forward thank you it's and an honor to be with [Applause] [Music] you so we as we depart let's just uh go with the benediction and again we encourage all of you as you quietly leave it's a rare opportunity for Patrick to be here we're going to do this very quietly and just going to do a
00:53:21 benediction and as you depart the hall you feel God spoke to you this morning I know some sometimes there small little step of faith that that just to come forward and say can I pray for you you know and you don't need to reveal too much and and as Patrick said we really hope this morning you felt God moved your heart your the hearts of your eyes were open the eyes were hard to open and you really felt his staggering love so let's just close with the benediction and we'll just leave quietly and let
00:53:50 encourage some of you to stay back the pastors and the elders and Patrick will be in front and we here just to walk with you hold your hand pray pray with you and maybe just say nothing and just that you may experience god let's just end with a benediction may the Lord God who so loved US Open the Eyes of our hearts oh Lord that we can just see how much you've so loved us that you died for our sins yeah we are now meant to be a new person and that's such a slow painful walk and now may that same God give you
00:54:34 power give you hope give you love give you Joy that as you leave this Hall you would realize your purposeful life is to have life abundantly to the fullest and God's people say amen God bless you all have a good week ahead stay back and we all here just to receive your prayers and to talk to you
