Extravagantly, Relentlessly Loved

Feb 14

Series: As For Me and My House
February 14, 2021 - Don Worcester

And if you ever get introduced, make sure it’s Veronica introducing you. So a weird praise report, I found a gift card just the other day. I don’t know if that connects to anything here, but, Praise God! I’m going to go spend it this afternoon.

Welcome to our online community. Wish you were here. But some of you are in different time zones and different zip codes. Thank you for being with us and bless you, and I hope that we’re a blessing, too.

So this weekend, some couples did a Marriage & Go experience from Living Streams. Don and Renee Worcester put that together. It’s couple that I know. Here’s what Marriage & Go is. We’re hosting it. Living Streams is hosting it between — some folks did it this weekend, but it’s going to be live on the Living Streams website until February 28. So that’s two more weeks. Here’s the deal.

If you have a chance to get away somewhere, what the Marriage & Go is designed to do is: if you can get a little time and a little space, last spring we had a whole bunch of folks who we were going to get to be with in person, and then Covid changed everything. One of the pastors that we were going to be with said, “Hey, could you possibly put something together that would be fun, engaging and helpful, and you could package it?” And I just go, “Wow, I don’t think we can. But we’ll pray about it.”

So we prayed about it. We got some other people praying with us. We got a team around us. And we started putting together some different elements, kind of with an idea that we could deliver this kind of via the internet. So if you have an internet connection, if you have wifi, we put the whole package together. So there’s teaching in there. There are activities in there. There’s other engagement things for couples. And if you can get away, there are four major sessions and if you can get somewhere, that’s awesome. But we’ve had couples that have done Marriage & Go on their back patio after their kids went to bed, over the course of a couple of nights. You can decide. I had one couple that did it in their car because they have five kids and that’s the only place they could kind of get away from their kids.

It’s going to be on the website until the 28th. Here’s the thing. If you need a little wellness shot for your marriage, this just might be a little something to just affirm and confirm good things that are happening. If you’ve got a few things going on and you’re a little. Stuck, or a little sideways, we’re going to have some conversations that could really be helpful. And if you’re just stuck and going on the rails, maybe this would just kind of give you the beginning of a fresh start. Marriage & Go. It’s on the Living Streams website. If you take a look at it, see what you think.

Okay. It’s Valentine’s Day. I want to tell you that I remembered that today was Valentine’s Day. How many people here remembered that before today, that it is Valentine’s Day. Yes. God bless you. I see your hand. Not as many from the guys. But I will tell you, the very first year we were married—Renee and I have been married twenty-five years—and the first year we were married, I got to February 14th, and quite frankly, there’s a whole bunch of things I did that day, but it did not occur to me, maybe in the back of my brain, February 14th, what is that? I don’t know. But when I walked in the door at the end of the day, and Renee had this beautiful table set, it just looked lovely, and she looked lovely, and there was a Valentine’s card right there. And I walked in, and my ADD distracted brain goes, “It’s Valentine’s Day!” Okay? It’s hitting my brain just as I’m getting a hug from my amazing, beautiful, thoughtful wife. And I kind of panicked. Okay? I mean, so busted!

I’m just looking for anything to distract. I go, “Oh, you got me a card!. Yeah, I couldn’t find a recycled card that I thought would capture my feelings, so I just wanted to share them.” I am just making stuff up. I am so totally busted. I’ve got nothing, right? And she’s got dinner and she’s got the rest of it, and I go, “Okay, so I guess in your tradition, you celebrate Valentine’s Day on the actual day. Is that what you do? You know, we’ve never even talked about this. That’s so interesting. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with, if you want to do it today. I wish we’d talked bout it.”

I mean, I am just trying to not look like what I am—a totally clueless, brand-new husband who dropped the ball. And she was so gracious. You know, she goes, “Okay. Yeah. Did you want to keep running with this whole theme, or do you just want to have a nice dinner?”

I go, “Okay. I totally forgot everything.”

She goes, “Yeah, yeah. It’s pretty clear. Okay. I love you. I’ll bet you’ll do better next year. Let’s have dinner.”

So gracious. So kind to sort of kind of just invite me in in this gracious way. You know, there’s something gentle and good about the kind of love that draws us in, even when we drop the ball. Particularly when we drop the ball. Today is St. Valentine’s Day. So when David said, “Can you preach on February 14,” my brain now, many years later, goes, “That’s Valentine’s Day.”

So I do want you to know that there really is a St. Valentine. He lived in the third century in Rome. He was a member of the clergy at that time. Claudius II was really bent on building up his forces at that time. Claudius came to this observation that bachelors fought better than married men. And so, in an effort to kind of keep his military strong, he banned marriage. He said, “None of you guys can get married. We want to keep you focused on being a soldier. Marriage gets you all distracted.” So he banned it. It was illegal in Rome during Claudio II for people to marry.

As a member of the clergy, Valentine said, “Well, I’m going to continue to marry people. If they’re in love and they’re ready to make a commitment…” He was warned to not do that. This was really against the law and Claudius had been really clear about that. He continued. He would not repent. He would not relent. He was arrested and ultimately beheaded because he just wouldn’t back down.

Here’s the thing. It wasn’t that Valentine was in love with love. He was not. He wasn’t in love with love. He was in love with God. And he felt like he was walking out and working out the call of God on his life to say, “Two people that love each other and are committed, that is a good, holy thing. I’m going to continue to do that.” He wasn’t in love with love.

He was also kind of, not necessarily, I think he thought love was awesome, I don’t know if he would have a love is love tee shirt, but he would certainly say what John tells us, that God is love. However great love may be, that he would say, “God is love.” Right? It’s not that God is loving as a quality or characteristic, that he is the very source of love. He’s the very definition of love. It’s not a quality about him, it’s actually him. He is the definition, if we want to know what it is.

Valentine sort of had this foundation that motivated him and pulled him. Romance is great. Romance kind of really took off in Europe in the 1800’s, when there was a lot of industrial revolution going on, saying, “Life is all about work.” And the enlightenment was saying, “No, life is all about thinking.” This idea of going, “Yeah, but we have hearts and relationships.” So romanticism sort of emphasized those things, it was a pretty significant movement. There is part of that in our culture. Romanticism and tenderness and affection, those are really good features of a relationship. But they’re not always a sufficient foundation for a relationship. But they’re really good features, right?

In Revelation chapter 2, John is writing to the churches and he kind of says in writing to the church at Ephesus, “You’ve been really faithful. You’ve been consistent. You’ve served. But here’s the one thing. You’ve lost your first love.” And he doesn’t say, “No big deal. DOn’t worry about it.” He actually says, “You’ve lost your first love and that kind of affection and love and those elements,.”

He goes, “I don’t want that to be expendable in your relationship. I don’t want to have a church that loses that love. If I have a church that loses love, it’s not a church. I don’t want your relationships to just be like the church at Ephesus to go, ‘We’re faithful. We’re good roommates. We’re doing this”

He goes, “How’s your first love? How’s your tenderness? How’s your connection?” Those elements that he says, “Hey, you know what? Go back. Actually repent and reconnect to that.” Because there is something about our hearts being connected that God goes, “That’s essential. That’s good. Don’t be casual to that.”

Now Valentine also lived in a very secular culture. He was a spiritual man living in a secular culture. In the secular culture of first century Rome, and probably a lot of our experience as well, there aren’t sacred things. There aren’t spiritual things. There are just things. There are just bodies. There are just needs. There are just ideas. And whatever is real in the world is just whatever we can see right here. Just a material world. So meaning, or purpose, or sacred, is really just some outside concept that’s not real.

For Valentine, as a spiritual man in a secular world, those things are real. Right? The secular culture just says, “Hey, this is just a marketplace. Love and relationships and sexuality are just an open market. We shouldn’t restrict it. We shouldn’t restrain it. We should just let it happen. We should just buy and sell.” That’s what the Romans did.

And here’s the thing. When we take things and reduce them down to just this secular world, flesh, we lose so much. It’s a reduction of what God has. If we’re working in that small world where we have to go, “Hey, go out and prove your value. Go out and prove your beauty. Go out and prove your significance.” If we’re living in a secular wold that says we’ve got to earn it, we’ve got to prove it, we’ve got to win it, we’ve got to deserve it, that can be exhausting, on any given day, to prove that you’re beautiful or valuable or smart or funny or capable or athletic. That can be exhausting that we’re constantly working for love. That’s not enough. That’s not it. The word of Christ says you don’t work for love, you work from love.

I’m going to pull something out and I want you to guess where this came from. Anybody? Yeah. You know what? I hear a bunch of right answers. Nobody said a lemon factory. That’s weird. A lemon factory. Nobody said a lemon kit. Right? Like, everybody looked and said, “Oh, that’s a lemon. It came from a lemon tree.” Right? And here’s the thing. This lemon wasn’t manufactured by my tree. The lemon tree doesn’t have to prove it’s a lemon tree. It doesn’t have to be popular. As far as I know, my lemon tree has no followers on Facebook. I don’t know where it gets its self esteem. I mean, no followers on Facebook. Right?

But the lemon tree didn’t manufacture this. Here’s the thing. I’ve never heard my lemon tree kind of god, “Whew. I’m tired.” It does not appear to be exhausted from producing lemons. The lemons are coming out of something that’s alive inside of the tree. It’s the fruit of the tree, right?

And, as far as I can tell, my lemon tree doesn’t even need lemons. Like, what does a lemon tree need lemons for? It’s producing hundreds of them. It doesn’t need them, right? And here’s the thing. The fruitfulness that comes out of our lives, you know what? It’s not for us. God produces fruit out of our lives. You go, “Well, what do we need the fruit for?” Well, there’s other people that need fruit. We just get to give it away, to go on. And there’s seeds to grow another lemon tree inside.

I’d say the manufacturing of our value, the manufacturing of our work, it goes, “prove it, show it, win it, wow us,” that’s a kind of secular pressure that comes on us. That is not the good news. There’s something very different, but it doesn’t intuitively make sense to us because Paul tells us that it’s really not of this world. Beyond this romantic notion, and beyond this secular notion, there’s this other kind of relenting worldview, this relenting truth.

It’s hard to recognize this in our world, because it’s not from here. And in Galatians 1:11& 12, the church in Galatia was struggling with some of these same things. All these alternative gospels of where the good life is. So Galatians 1:11&12:

11 I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

Paul is kind of saying, if you’re really going to embrace this gospel love, this relentless love, you need to know it’s not of human origin. It won’t make sense through the framework of this culture. Romantically, practically, intellectually. It won’t make sense. It’s not from here. If you’re going to be gripped by this bigger love, it’s going to feel a little alien, because it is. Because it’s not from here. Paul goes, nobody taught me this. This wasn’t handed down from a tradition. And he didn’t learn it.

When Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” They said, “Well, some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah.” And then, here’s the big question. He looks at them and goes, “Hey, who do you say that I am?”

I think everybody freezes for just a minute on that question. “Who do you say that I am?” And then, out from Peter, who’s kind of impulsive, he goes, “You’re the Messiah. The Son of God.” And then Jesus goes, “Peter, no man taught you that. You didn’t read a book on that. You’re not in a program on that. You didn’t go to a seminar on that. You didn’t educate yourself into that position. That wasn’t an observation. That’s not a speculation.” He goes, “My Father revealed it to you. He opened up your heart to something and showed you.”

And if God gives us a new revelation, that may be the beginning of a transformation. When God takes a truth and opens it up inside of us, that’s revelation. And that can open up spaces in us that can transform us from the inside out.

What is the gospel truth? What is this bigger truth that goes beyond romance and goes beyond a secular understand? Here’s the gospel truth. And here’s why the world goes a little sideways. The gospel truth, the gospel proclamation, declaration over all of us is this: We are each so completely broken, broken on the inside, broken. And we are completely, extravagantly, relentlessly loved and pursued by God.

Well, which one is it? And you go, “It’s both.” Unless we have both, we won’t have anything. It’s both. We’re really broken. And God wants to enter the brokenness and do something beyond what we can do. And that is, in this world and in our own lives, it’s hard to picture how we can connect to our brokenness and then connect to any kind of sense of love from God. And I think our culture kind of promotes that idea. You kind of go, “Hey, if you’re broken, you’ve got to go get cleaned up and then you can maybe qualify for something. Maybe you can put in a spiritual application somewhere and see what you can get.” And that’s not the gospel, that you can clean yourself up and do it.

My oldest son works in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He supervises a salvage yard. It’s a very big, active yard. They buy scrap metals and other things from all over the state, and even around the United States. But here’s the basis of a salvage yard. Whatever value all of these things had, and it’s a wide collection of things, but whatever value they originally had, they’re broken. And now they’re going to a salvage yard. They’re going to get parted out. There’s something inside those computer boards. There’s some metals you can melt down and extract. It’s an airplane engine, but it’s got all kinds of precious metals if you take it apart and pull them out.

Here’s a broken thing that maybe has a part that’s valuable. I think, because we’re broken the world tells us, “You know your best option? Just part yourself out, because you’re broken. And you know what you’re hiding. Maybe there’s a part of you that you can trade out. Maybe there’s a part of you that someone wants, but just go ahead and part yourself out.”

People sell stuff cheap at the scrap yard. You know what? Some of us have given ourselves away or sold ourselves cheap, too. And God does not look at us that way. God doesn’t take that perspective. If you didn’t hear Alec Seekins’ message last week on enemy love, man. Do yourself a favor and listen to a message on enemy love. And listen to Alec’s story about what happens when relentless love catches up to the brokenness of people. Something not of this world, right? There’s a bigger, more powerful message.

When people are just parting themselves out, when people are being torn apart and literally scrapped, that is a lie of the culture. That is a lie sometimes of our own hearts. That’s the guilt and the shame inside of us. But this bigger truth, that Jesus comes and he goes, “You know what? I’m not trying to salvage some part of you.” The gospel is not about salvage. The gospel’s about salvation.

Salvage is about picking through a broken thing and finding something valuable. But salvation is about a healing of all of us. Right? Jesus says he’s the Messiah who’s come to bind up broken hearts, not scrap them. He’s come to open our eyes to see new things. He’s come to release us from the places that we’re hurt and hiding, and he’s got the key. And he’s come to go, “You know what? I’m going to give you your life back. We’re going to start again. I’m going to restore you.” That’s salvation, not salvage. It’s good news. But that’s God’s news to us. That’s not something we can generate for ourselves.

My youngest daughter, Abigail, turned eighteen recently. I was so sad and so excited about that, because I do not know how this little baby girl got to be eighteen, but she did. And I’m excited. She has collected snow globes when we go places, which is a very fun little tradition. This particular snow globe is from Nashville. There’s a really cool giant guitar that is bigger than the skyline of Nashville. It’s very cool. We got this back.

Here’s the thing about a snow globe. Every part of a snow globe is essential and important. The globe is critical in a snow globe. It kind of matters. You need the globe. The snow is critical in a snow globe. You’ve got to have snow in a snow globe. The water lets it kind of shimmer and float and do all that. So you need the water. And the really cool icon, the really cool image in the center, man, that’s cool. That’s Nashville, and apparently it’s snowing in Nashville right now. All of it is essential.

God is not interested in salvaging part of our lives, cracking us open and taking out the middle. God goes, “Man, I gave you a body. You know what? No matter what you’ve done with your body—guess what? It’s precious to me. And I gave you a heart and I want to restore and redeem and bind it up. It’s precious. And I gave you a mind, and how you think and how you understand matters to me. I want to engage you, and I want to help you understand and think. And I gave you a soul.”

And here’s the deal. Our souls are always hungry for the light. Our souls are always hungry for the light. And there’s a lie that tells us we’re supposed to conquer sin in the dark so we can somehow get to the light. And that is a lie from the pit of hell. Scripture never asked us to conquer sin in the dark, because we can’t. It’s a lie. We’re not designed to be in the dark conquering sin. We’re designed to confess sin in the light. That’s what we’re designed for. That’s what wholeness looks like. That’s what the good news, that’s what love looks like, the love that enters that.

In 1 John 1:7-9, it says this:

7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Part of what happens, when we bring that brokenness, when we say, “I’m not going to hide this. I’m not going to try to figure this out. I’m not going to be doing this on my own and working it out so I can somehow present myself. I’m going to just say, ‘God, I’m a mess. I’m just going to open the door to your love and your grace and your mercy.’”

When we do that, when we kind of acknowledge,”You know what, I’m not doing well. This is not working out. My heart is broken. I have been hiding this.” When we open that door and the love of God floods in, something really different can happen in our lives. And part of that something is healing. And part of that something is power. And part of that something is hope. But it brings us to a different presence. It makes us present to his presence. And when we get present to his presence—which is powerful and beautiful and capable—something on the inside can really also begin to heal. It can really also begin to believe. It can really also believe to be connected, to go, “God says all of who I am is important.”

If you’ve scrapped yourself out, I want you to know, God wants you back. If somebody took something from you, God purchased it and he’s giving it back. If you gave something away and you’re carrying guilt or shame, God goes, “You know what? I brought that back to you.” Because that’s who he is. And he wants you to know who you are.

The sin and the brokenness never has the last word. God has the last word. And if he buys you back, you’re bought back. And if he says you’re clear, you’re clear. And if he says you’re good, you’re good. And if he says you’re beautiful, no matter what you’ve heard or thought or what anyone else has said, he’s right. Letting that truth get to our hearts and our lives, letting our souls have that truth, man, that opens up something beautiful.

When our kids were young, it must have been fifteen years ago because Abigail was three. She was on my hip. We went on a hike in Colorado. And we hiked back a mile or two to this waterfall. And it was a pretty good waterfall. It was coming off of a glacier. But there was a relatively shallow pond that you could walk out towards the waterfall. So we initially were just going to take a picture of the waterfall. You know. Worcesters, waterfall, cool. But Jacob and Emma started taking their shoes off. They went into the water, you know. And then they started venturing closer to the waterfall. And so, the two fo them were heading out on the waterfall, and then Abigail wanted to go. So I put her on my hip and I went out. None of us planned on going in the water. We just had our regular clothes on, but still. The waterfall, there’s something compelling about a waterfall. Something sort of like draws you in.

So we’re being drawn into this waterfall. We get all the way out to it. Jacob and Emma are doing this thing where they’re starting to touch it. And it is cold and loud and thundering. And you can see this, “I’m excited and I’m scared. This is great.” All those things. And Jacob finally turns to me and goes, “Dad, can I go in?” And I go, “Do you want to go in?” And he kind of had this “Yeah. No. Yeah. I do. I…” He goes, “Will I be okay?” And I go, “Don’t know. I’ve never been in this waterfall.” Which is another I don’t know. Right? And Emma is right on his shoulder, behind him, and he’s still pausing. “I don’t know.” Something is going to happen. Right? And then he just turns and he goes, “I’m going in!” And he steps in.

I heard the scream and then he disappeared into the waterfall. And he’s inside the waterfall somewhere and everything else. And I don’t know that he was in a long time, but he came out of the waterfall and man, he was very present. He was very alive. He was still screaming, I think, when he came out. Emma only hesitated minute. “If he can do it, I can do it. I’m going in!” She went in, screams, disappeared. Giant waterfall going on.

Abigail, the three-year-old, is watching older brothers and sisters go in. And she’s looking, and she’s got this same kind of perplexed, and I’m going, “She’s three, and I really don’t know what will happen if we go in the waterfall.” But she’s kind of got the look. And I go, “Abigail, do you want to go in the waterfall?” And she just tightens up her grip on me. She said, “Yes.” She just holds me tight. I go, “Let’s go.” And we stepped into the waterfall.

If you haven’t stepped into a Colorado glacier waterfall in a while, it’s a little brisk. A little abrupt. I think I heard myself screaming, and I think I heard Abigail screaming. And the waterfall’s coming down. It’s cold. It’s pounding. Visually, you are underneath and it is flooding you. We’re screaming. But no one can hear us. I can feel her gripping me. She just got a good grip and said, “Yeah. Let’s go in.”

Maybe you have to hold on to God a little stronger to go, “Take me in.” But here’s what happens. That’s holiness. That’s holiness that hits us and rinses us and revives us and brings us back. It’s holiness. That’s not some abstract concept. Eugene Peterson, in his book The Jesus Way, talks about what a poor definition we have of holiness. What a horrible idea we have of holiness. That it’s bland. That its stiff. That it’s restrictive. And he says in his book The Jesus Way:

But holiness is in wild and furious opposition to all such blandness. The God life cannot be domesticated or used. It can only be entered on its own terms. Holiness does not make God smaller so that he can be used in convenient and manageable projects. It makes us larger so that God can live out through us extravagantly, spontaneously. The holy is an interior fire,…

And I think of a beautiful waterfall.

…a passion for living in and for God. A capacity for exuberance in the presence of God. Holiness is the most intense experience we can ever get out of sheer life, authentic, undiluted, firsthand living, not life looked at and enjoyed from a distance.

When God’s love captures and renovates our brokenness, we’re on holy ground. We’re in a waterfall of grace and love that washes us, cleanses us, revives us. And I’ll tell you what. Things heal on hot ground. Things restore on holy ground. Things connect on holy ground. And it’s not holy boring. It’s holy awesome.

When Isaiah had his encounter with the holy in Isaiah chapter 6, he has this event. He’s going in to sacrifice to God and then the whole temple is filled with the glory of God. So he has this up-close, personal encounter with God. In Isaiah 6:5, here’s what he says. When you get that close to the waterfall. When you get that close to holy:

5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.

Isaiah is in this situation. The revelation of the glory and holiness of God is there. And he goes, “I’m a dead man.” What happens when you touch the holy? What happens when you enter the waterfall? And then he has the angel with the live burning coal coming to touch his lips.

7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

I think Isaiah thinks that coal is going to burn him up. But when God touches us with holiness, it burns up the sin in us. It burns up the guilt. It burns up the fear. Maybe he thought the holiness was going to burn him out. But it didn’t. The holiness actually animates us. It burns out everything that’s not from God, which is all the stuff we don’t need and all the stuff that doesn’t make us alive. And then he says this:

8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

The guy who was terrified and said, “I’m a dead man,” after he is touched by the furious love of God, he isn’t afraid of his sin anymore. Isn’t afraid of his capacity anymore. Isn’t afraid of going anymore. And when God says, “I wonder who should go,” there’s his hand up. “Send me. Not because I’m perfect, but I am broken. I’ve been bought back by a love that’s perfect. You can send me.”

If there’s a place that you’re hiding this morning, if there’s a place that you’re stuck, a place that you’ve given away, we’re gong to have people up. Man, don’t be fighting int he dark. You’re not meant for the dark. God welcomes us to the light. We don’t have to be afraid of his grace and mercy. We can come as we are, where we are and let him minister. If you’re hiding, don’t hide. If you’re hiding, let that love come and touch you.

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