Emily Sermon

For you who don't know me, my name is Emily Dimitru. I am the community outreach director here. And Your last name? Dimitru. My last name is Dimitru. Yeah. I got to marry that man over there, so pretty exciting. And, yeah, before we dig into the word, which we have a lot of it today, we're going to first just talk about the map on the wall there. So, you guys have probably all seen it.

Maybe this is your first time here and you're like, oh, that's a pretty hip church. They got a map on the wall. Yeah. So, it is the map of Fort Garry. It's just a section there. We have three churches in our neighborhood that we partner with, well, two actually. So, we have, hey, Abby, do you wanna point to Anchor Point? So, we got Anchor Point right there, so that's us. We got Church Of The Rock.

And then we have Grand Memorial a little bit further down. I don't want you guys to see that map and think that that is exactly the right coordinates or anything. There's a little bit of creativity. Artistic flair. Artistic flair. Thank you. But, so that is the community that I have the joy of getting to know and walking alongside and ministering to. So, yeah, I would like to just share with you guys a little bit about Fort Gary Collective, which is a charity that we have been able to start.

I wanna share the heart behind it and kinda, you guys have probably heard Fort Garry Collective and you're like, oh, that sounds cool. Like, what's actually going on? Fair enough. What what's going on? Let me share with you. So we wanna pray for our community. That's the first thing. Before anything else, we don't wanna build our own kingdom. We wanna build God's kingdom. And so, where the streets are, the green streets there, we just wanna pray for those family members, for those community.

I know Connor has amazing stories of, like, walking down the streets and praying for them, and then a year later, those houses that he was praying for, those kids come to youth, and they had no connection to the church beforehand. And so God God works. God works, and we want to invite him to working in our community. So if you guys are thinking like, hey, Fort Gary Collective, cool charity, I would like to volunteer. I invite you all to first join me in praying for the community and just, learning to love our neighbour as ourselves. And so that's what that map is. It's just a reminder. But, what Fort Garry Collective does, I kind of discovered this a couple months ago, is we advocate for people in need.

So anyone who comes in, anyone who emails, anyone that says, like, hey, I have a need, we do our best to either point them in the right direction or help them as best as we can. So we help with resumes, we help with finding jobs, we help with housing, with food, anything that we can really help with. We're not trying to reinvent the wheel, and we're not trying to take away from all the resources around here. We actually want to partner with them and come together. So it's just a big and it's not like a resource center. We're just, like, you know, the go in between that and just advocating for a lot of individuals. And something that Donovan has said a lot, we wanna show extraordinary care to the community by being in proximity with them. I wanna also give you guys, we've talked about the old police station just down Pembina there, 1350.

I kinda wanna give you guys an update what's going on there because we've had pictures up, we've talked about it, but, I wanna give you guys the nitty gritty of what's going on. So, right now, we do not own the police station. Will we ever? I hope so. Maybe for a dollar we'll get it. That's our prayer. But we want it to be a center where, yeah, like I just said, individuals are able to come and there's gonna be a lot of different, organizations that kinda run out of there and all work together. Right now, the police station is part of the housing accelerator fund. It's what the Manitoba government is trying to do to get more low income affordable housing for individuals, which is a great initiative, but it sometimes makes it a little bit difficult for a church, for charities, to be able to then purchase or attain that property.

And so I've been learning a lot about different, like, government bylaws and all these things, things that I don't understand, all this jargon that is way beyond me. But, my my dear friend Nancy and I, we went to a bunch of different, government buildings a couple weeks ago to go ask questions and just to talk because I I just wanted to get down to it. I actually wanted to talk to an individual instead of emailing and just leaving voicemails. So we go to three different buildings and every time they send me to the next one, and then they send me to the next one, and then they send me to the next one. And at the end of the day, all I got was the same email that I've already been emailing So, it's it's kind of hard to to see where we can go from here But, and that individual that I email Pray for him I don't think he likes me very much. He never answers my phone calls. So, but, so that that's what we're working on right now. So, there's not much headway.

But, you know what? If God, he's already blessed us with this building and so I'm going to work out of this building, out of my car, and if that's all I get, praise God. Praise God that this is a place that we can do that. We're also going to be, launching a website soon just for you guys to kind of follow along and see the heart behind it and see what volunteer opportunities come up. We also are partnering with Care Impact through the Care Portal, which they bring social services and churches together, and they allow, like, when there's crisises and stuff, then they send it out to the church to see who can respond. So we're working on that. There's some training we have to do. So if you've already joined the care portal and you're like, this is cool, why can't I see anything? It's because we need to do some training just to make sure that we're, like, following along onto them. Because Wendy Park has worked so hard to create those relationships, so we don't want to be overstepping or anything.

But a couple of the different things that we've already been doing, we did the community garbage clean up, which was really fun. And, we got it in right before it started to, like, pour in a big storm, but we did leave some stragglers out there. So I felt really bad. But they they got their hot dog later, but we just forgot maybe that there were some more people cleaning up. And we joined other community events. There was a chili there was a chili skate day a couple like, a while ago that we joined. We invited that apartment right beside us to come over for supper and we we got to meet them. And, we wanna do it again because we wanna just keep inviting and learning how to love our neighbors as ourself.

We made care kits. So we, like, got a bunch of different hygiene products and a group came together and we made these little care kits. So if you meet someone, who just needs a little bit of extra, then you're able to give them and it's a great way to start a conversation. And then lastly, because I work under a charity, I, I'm able to go into the prisons and speak to the inmates. And, I get to go to the women's correctional center and I get to lead an addictions bible study there. And because of, like, the red tape around it, I'm not allowed to directly say that I work at Anchor Pointe church, but I can say I've heard of a church called Anchor Pointe that will help people. And so, we're just trying to figure out how we can build that relationship and really help those that once they're coming out, that there's a place for them to go. Because there's a lot of stress within that.

So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's, it's actually like it's my dream job. I absolutely love it. So before we, before I share a story with you guys, I just wanna read a quote from the the working preacher commentary. It's, Jesus sides with those on the margin. Those considered down and out.

Those not accounted as much in the eyes of the world. That's how Jesus loved radically and showed extraordinary care. And I pray that we live by example. So I wanna share a story with you guys. This story is near and dear to my heart. It's about my friend, Wayne Muswagon. So, I met Wayne on the corner of McGillivray and Pembina quite a while ago. It's when we were having our Friday night ministries.

I had just pulled up or I had just, yeah, pulled up and he was walking towards me and then the light turns green. And so, I yell at my window. I'm like, come to the church. It looks like a tent just down the road. I felt bad for yelling at him. I didn't know if he heard me. And so, we were having our Friday night prayer and lo and behold, thirty minutes later someone comes and says, hey, there's someone looking for help. And so, I walked out there and there was Wayne.

And he was already sitting down with Terry having soup and buns, so it was just great that, they could make that connection. And, that evening, I got to hear a part of Wayne's story and that's when our friendship started. It was Yeah. His life has not been easy by any means. He deals with, just a lot of difficult situations. And often, it can be easier to numb the pain than to deal with it. I think we've all gone through times like this and it'd be easier to just ignore it. And so, I got to work with Wayne through that and I got to be a support and a friend.

But every time I saw Wayne, no matter what state he in, he was in, he was always smiling. I don't know if you guys remember seeing Wayne around. He was always smiling. He was always like full of joy in life. He actually took up residence underneath our trees for a while. So I'm not sure if you guys remember, he was the best welcomer we've ever had because he was always here. So take note, welcome team. That's a great place to start.

And then, and, yeah. I got to meet with his social workers and mental health workers, and we worked on applying for apartments and trying to walk alongside him as he worked through just different life circumstances that weren't that weren't easy. But it's crazy how quickly someone, like, kind of just, works their way into your heart once you hear your story, once you get to know them. And you start you start having a love for them like none other, and it's because I think it's because it's the love of God. Like, when you pray, God, open the eyes of my heart. I wanna see your children as you see them. You don't start seeing problems and projects. You actually start seeing who God sees them as.

And I I believe that's what God wants us to do. Wayne and I had regular phone calls. He would call me often from McDonald's and just tell me that he was safe and what he was eating. So, I always enjoyed those phone calls. I thought they were funny. He would leave messages on my phone just being like, Emily, I wanna check-in and see how you're doing. He then vacated our property and he went and stayed at a field underneath a tarp for a while. And he'd always tell me that him and the weasels were getting along really well.

They would, they would often steal his food, but they kept him warm at night. So I was like, wow, What a guy. He, that's impressive. And, yeah, I just I just, oh, I I cherished our friendship so much. But, yeah, we can only love because Christ first loved us. So about a month a month and a so ago, Donna and I were having a conversation with an architect from shared ground about the police station that if we would get the police station, like, how could we actually use it for housing and what would that all look like? And it was it was an amazing conversation. Guys, you don't know how many people, like, are for this, a part of the city, like, end homelessness Winnipeg wants to be a part of this. And there's so many organizations that are, like, that are going for it and saying yes.

And then there are some that are very much against it. So I was talking with an architect and the whole time in my mind I was like, oh, transitional housing. This will be a house where Wayne can actually live and he can feel at home and he can just, like, he can just be warm. Right? And in the middle of this conversation, I an email popped up, and I I received an email right then and there that Wayne had passed away. He had, yeah, I wasn't told how he had passed away, but just that he hadn't made it. And, yeah, I think some of us have experienced this before, probably more often than not, about someone you love so deeply and you are so excited for their life and then they're just gone. So I really miss those phone calls and those voice messages. I wish I wish I wouldn't have deleted them off my phone.

But that was it. His life here on Earth was over. No more struggling in the cold, no more panhandling, and no more stories over coffee. And it brought me to this question, which has happened before, but why do we care and love when it all ends in heartbreak and loss? Is love worth it even when it takes and never gives back? Is love worth it when it ends in death? I've had a couple of individuals that I've worked with in different times that have passed away due to addictions. And it's actually not gonna stop happening. I wish it would, but it's not. And so is it worth it? I had to ask this question. We've probably all had to ask this question at times.

Is love worth it? Yes. Oh, guys, a hundred times over, yes. Love is worth it, but not Emily's love. Emily's love is not worth it, but a love that is bigger and greater than ourselves, better than anything we could ask or imagine, that is what is worth it. If I'm just living out of Emily's love, I'm gonna fail every time because I'm only I'm like nothing. I'm nothing compared to him. And his love is way, way better. And this is a battle that we are fighting, but guys, we are fighting on the winning team.

When he died, he said, it is finished. There are gonna be victories, there are also gonna be losses. But our reward is in heaven, praise God. We don't wanna receive our comforts here on earth. So I get to share with you what I've been learning through working in the community, as well as we get to look at the word and, and how God desires his children to live and to participate with him in love. I was, I was really debating just honestly only reading scripture today. I I love doing that. But, there is a lot of big passages, so I hope you guys brought your bibles or your phones and you're ready to follow along.

But before we get into that, I just wanted to look at what is the world's standard of love? I've learned many different theories while studying psychology in university, but they would change over the years depending on the different, the new studies that would be introduced. So is it a feeling or an action? Is it an emotion? Maybe just something that comes and goes depending on who we're with. This week, I was reading different psychologists and scientists' definitions of love and the study behind what love really means. Many, if not all the conclusions were the same, is that it has to do with someone's own experience. So love is defined by everyone's own interpretation. Whether it's measured by the chemical release or whether it's like by a physical response, it all came down to everyone's own experience and feelings, which meant that love can come and go. If love is a feeling that can just come and go, then where is the love? Right? There's all these songs that we hear now about love and self love, but really that just directs us back to ourselves instead of directing us to the one who is love. The one who is defined by love.

So that's the worldly perspective. But, if God is the standard of love, if God is the standard of those who have called him their saviour, if he is the standard of our love, then where would this leave our feelings of love that come and go? Are those from the world? What are those from? In Greek, there are a couple of different words for love. Whereas in English, we only have one, but, there's, like, the brotherly love, the romantic love, and then there's the godly love, and there's a couple more. But we're going to be talking about agape today, which is the godly love. The selfless, unconditional, and sacrificial love that transcends circumstances. It's the love that God has for his children, those made in his image. So if our standard of love is God, it gives us our right direction. Right? It gives us it shows us where we should go.

So I want to spend lots of time going through scripture and looking at what the Lord says about love, agape. Not to prove my own point, not to be like, oh, Emily said this, so we should do this. No, not at all. It has nothing to do with me, but everything to do with learning and growing in His truth about love. I'm gonna start by reading, First Corinthians 13. Probably some of you guys have heard this many times over. You've probably heard it a lot of, heard at, oh boy, heard it a lot at weddings. But, I'm just gonna bring us there because it's beautiful.

So if you guys wanna turn there, we're gonna be reading a lot. So just bear with me, but we're gonna start in first Corinthians thirteen one, and we're gonna go till verse 13. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I'm a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have and if I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now, faith, hope, and love abide, these three. But the greatest of these is love.

So, what are we like without love? I think it's pretty easy. There's a pretty great definition here. I was actually thinking about just standing by the drum set and slamming on the cymbal when I was speaking and if it wasn't of love. But, so it's a noisy gong and if we don't have love, I am nothing and I gain nothing. No matter how much knowledge or faith we have, so much faith, like it even says if it's the faith the size of a mustard seed you can move mountains. Whether we have that but it doesn't have love, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I am nothing.

So I can safely say that without love, we have nothing. That's a bold statement. I think actually only God can truly say that because he is the definition of love. So, no matter what we do, if it's not rooted in God's love, it is nothing. So, what is agape? The selfless, unconditional, sacrificial love that can only come from the Lord. When we say, what is love? If God is the standard of love, and if God is love, then we can say, what is God? Right? He's the characteristics of love. And so, what is God's love? And, right away, it's also clearly written, patient and kind. Does not envy or boast.

It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. That is all the Lord. That is the new creation, the rebirth, dead to myself and alive to God type of love. That has nothing to do with Emily. There have been times in my life where I thought it would be a great idea to work on patience.

Right? And so, you know, you write down the word patience and you draw a little box beside it. And then that week you're like, okay, I'm gonna work on patience. And so you go through the week being like, thinking about patience and then at the end you're like, yeah, you know what? I did pretty good. And then you move on to kindness. And you work that week on trying to be kind and thinking about it. But it had everything to do with something that I could achieve, a characteristic that I needed to make happen in my life. Then I could love like God. Little did I know it had nothing to do with me, but everything to do with looking at him.

So, what are we fixating on? What are we letting sit on the thrones of our heart? What thoughts saturate our mind? But when we look at the one who is the standard of love, how do we see ourselves in others? How does God call us to live? Which is a part of our new nature, it's what he creates in us, not something we have to strive for. He desires for us to look to him, come before him, and let everything else fade away in comparison to looking at him. As we draw closer and closer to him, everything else becomes dull. When I was a child, I spoke, thought, reasoned like a child. I only knew things in part. I didn't have the whole understanding, was looking at life through my own understanding, where the world revolved around me. The world revolved around little Emily. But when I grew up, the childish things grew into more understanding.

And you can see things more clearly because you have greater knowledge and understanding. At least that's the hope. Right? That's kind of how we hope our lives lead us to. And our parents definitely hope that. But there's so much more clarity that's to come. The partial world we see will become complete when the one who is complete comes and makes us complete at the wedding feast. Praise God. This worldly love we see is nothing.

Oh, guys. It's nothing compared to the love of Christ that comes and makes us complete. We see Christ bringing fulfillment to his love by dying for us. But he's still coming back to bring full sight, the 2020 vision. So, what kind of treasure or vision are we trying to receive? Are we trying to receive one that's momentary and just satisfies our flesh right now? Or, are we trying to find the one that lasts forever? Paul talks more about this, not having yet attained full sight, but pressing on and striving for more, In, Philippians three, seven to 21. So, if you guys wanna turn there as well, it's gonna be another big portion. This is Paul. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of their surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him. Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.

Only let us hold true to what we have attained. Brothers, join in imitating me, and give your eyes and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it, we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. We are waiting for that heavenly citizenship. That is where our citizenship is in. And we are waiting for our lowly bodies to be transformed.

We see things only partially, but we wanna see things clearly. Here on Earth, we have not reached perfection, but we still are seeing things just dimly. Revelation 21, three to eight. This is a powerful, powerful passage. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Oh, praise God.

Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, behold, I am making all things new. Also, he said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. And he said to me, it is done. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty, I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his god and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

Our citizenship is in heaven. We get to look at the one that is perfection. The one that makes all things new and who when abiding in us reveals his love to us. So, as we're in the middle of prayer and fasting, I wanted us to bring, wanted to bring us to Isaiah 58. Probably many of you guys, we've talked about it, we've suggested that you read it, but it's a really great passage when we're talking about, fasting and having God as the standard of love. So I won't read the whole chapter. I encourage you guys to do that on your own, but a little bit of background here. So the prophet Isaiah was addressing the Israelites during the Babylon exile.

Israel thought that their fasting was actually bringing them closer to God. So why was God not answering them? They had thought that their fasting was drawing them closer and closer, but it was actually just taking them away. So when we are just looking at ourselves, when we are fasting, when we're just trying to do it out of our own strength and for ourselves, for our own betterment, it's in vain. It's in vain. When we fast, it's because we wanna come to the Lord, we wanna seek His face, we wanna know Him. So, I just wanna encourage you guys that as we're in a time of prayer and fasting, when we're fasting, it's a great idea to fast but it's a great idea to fast because you're coming before the Lord and you want Him. You don't wanna just fast to be like, oh, I'm gonna have a good detox and it feels good. It does.

It's actually such a great benefit. But, guys, the benefit is God is way better than the other benefits. And so, we are called to fast to draw close to God, not to prove our own piety. So, Isaiah 58, three to five. Why have we fasted and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves and you take no knowledge of it? Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice be heard on high. Is such the fast that I chose a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the Lord? In the day of our fast, are we just seeking our own pleasure or discomfort and not seeking the pleasure of the Lord? Fasting is to draw near, to hear the Lord, get rid of distractions so that we can focus on God.

When we look to Him, we are led into a life that has nothing to do with us but everything to do with Him, the creator. Having God's love as the center of our lives allows us to know his heart since it is his love that lives in us. So, I'm gonna read from Isaiah 58, six to the end. Is not this the fast that I chose, to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house, when you see the naked to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily. Your righteousness shall go before you. The glory of the Lord shall be your be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer. You shall cry, and he will say, here I am.

If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of your finger and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places, and make your bones strong. And you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt, and you will raise up the foundations of many generations. You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in. If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, and the holy day of the Lord honorable. If you honor it, not going your own ways or seeking your own pleasure or talking idly, then you shall take delight in the Lord. And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth.

I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. And as I spoke that, I realized I did read the whole chapter. So, so fasting that pleases the Lord is getting before God and seeking him. When we look to the standard of love for answers, then his love will captivate us because if we abide in him, his love abides in us. The fast that the Lord desired for the Israelites was to care for those around them, loosen the bonds of wickedness, feed the hungry, and clothe the naked. When the Israelites sought the Lord and came before him, this is how he wanted them to live. We are new creations when we have chosen God to rule our entire life. Lives.

Fasting is the process that John the Baptist talked about. I must become less and less, and he must become more and more. That process process of decreasing of ourselves will lead us into an increase of God and his love. Love is shown in many ways. I never want to say that if you aren't feeding the hungry or clothe the naked that you're not loving. No. God has created so many beautiful ways to love. And I just pray that we walk in His love and we look to Him.

This part, this part gets me really excited because this was one that took me quite a long time to, realize. So, God's love, God's love reveals to us how loved we are. And when we are living out of that place of knowing his love for us, we can love out of his love for others. So, do we know how loved we are? Do we actually, of God's masterpieces, his beloved, do we know how loved we are? Guys, imagine if we lived out of how loved we are. I was talking with some friends the other day and we were talking about how it's so easy to remember that one bad comment that someone told you out of like a million good comments. We just fixate on that one bad one and we let it take over our thoughts. It gets played over and over in our mind and soon it becomes the soundtrack of our lives. The very heartbeat within us is one of discouragement.

That's where the devil likes to play. He can't create anything new, so he jumps on the discouragement soundtrack and goes along for the ride. I have lived there, growing up, I, I still do, I have dyslexia. So in elementary, I, I had a teacher, he used my work as an example of what not to do in front of the whole class. And that whole time, I was like, I am not worthy. I am not worthy. And I, like, I was like, I am dumb. I don't know how to read or write.

And it was really hard. And I lived with that for a long time. And, yeah. You know what? It still is easy for it to come up and to be something that I think about. But that is not where God calls us to dwell. He so desperately wants us to know him. And he so desperately wants us to gaze upon him. So what if the soundtrack, the heartbeat of our lives, was so in tune with the creator's heartbeat? If we dwelled in the essence of his love and allowed that to take over our thoughts.

Man, imagine if that was what was going on in our mind. You're so loved. You're so loved. You're loved. And not in a self, like, not in a self righteous way, like, oh, I'm so good. But like, no, you are loved. Because once you hear that and you believe it, you're able to live out of that. So a phrase I wrote a while ago, something for me to remember was, I want to dance to the rhythm of his heartbeat.

I really like movement and dancing, and so I was just imagining, man, if I just, like, knew his heartbeat and that was the rhythm that I was dancing to and walking and living out my life, that would just be amazing. So, I want us to think, do we know how loved we are? And imagine if we lived out of how loved we are. We don't have a God who is just passive and self seeking. He desires that we do life with him, abide with him, look to him, have your heart, soul, mind, strength consumed by him. So a very simple example from my life is that I crave sunshine. It's really important that I know where the south windows are so that if ever the sun comes out, I'm able to go there right aways and stand there and be in the sun. Or if the sun's out, I'm out side enjoying it and reaping all the benefits I can. Our, Aiden and I's apartment, the first thing I walked in, big south facing windows, I was sold.

I didn't care about anything else about the apartment. Sometimes it has a weird smell. It's probably got black mold in it but it's got sun. And so that's all I cared about is I wanted that sun. And I can tell if I have been in the sun that day. Besides the fact that my face is probably rosy from the rays, I feel happy and I'm filled and I'm refreshed because I spent time in the sun. I actually really get consumed with the thought of being in the sun and reaping its benefits. It's something that, like, I wake up in the morning, if I see if it's sunny, then I'm like, oh, I have to.

Like, it's hard for me to want to be indoor. Well, it's not hard to be indoors when it's cold. It's hard for me to be, like, in a basement of somewhere when I know the sun is out. And so yesterday when it was sunny, I was like, oh, praise God, we have to go to the Leaf. So we drove to the Leaf and the parking lot was full. And I was like, oh, my goodness, what's going on? And it sounded like something really cool was going on, but not one that we wanted to pay for. So, we were like, I was like, Aidan, we just need to go find sun. And so, we actually just drove around and we went to the CMU, library and the cafe there because I was like, they have self facing windows.

We will go there. And sure enough, I had to roll up the blind and I just parked my chair in front of the sun for two and a half hours. And it's Oh, it was so good and I I loved it. Bless my husband's heart, he just sat there kind of out of the sun, not as much and just was there with me. So when I haven't been spending time in the sun and feeling the warmth, it it wears on me. I think some of you guys can relate. It's been a bit cloudier this winter and it's been hard. And when it's cloudy and cold it is hard to get up and go.

But praise God that the sun is still shining when it's cloudy out. So is the effort I put being in the sun more than the effort I put in being in God's presence? Do I care more to be in the sun than to be in God's present? What does my soul crave? You know that sunkissed feeling or that, like, look that someone has when you're like, oh, they just went somewhere tropical, and you're kinda like, I'm a little bit jealous but I'm happy for you. And you know when someone has that like sun kissed look because they've been in the presence of the Lord and you're like, oh, that person knows God. They spend time with God and they have that glow and everyone's attracted to them. They're all like, man, I wanna be with them because I know with them, if I'm with them. We're opening the word and I'm getting encouraged. I'm getting filled. Man, and that is like, that's what we want.

Right? We want that deep desire to be in the presence of the Lord because it gives life. God desires to be with us. He's jealous of our time and invites us into a love that has way more benefits than being in the sun. First John four, the author reminds the readers the importance of letting love consume you. Where it comes from and how loved you are. So, if you want your guys' mind to be blown, I want you to read all of first John. I'm just gonna read first John four, seven to 21 today. So, I invite you guys to follow along.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only son into the world, so that we might love, might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us. But, this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us of his spirit.

And we have seen and testified that the father has sent his son to be the saviour of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God, God abides in him and he in God. So, we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love. And, whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgement. Because as he is, because as he is, so also are we in this world. This next passage is beautiful.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because He first loved us. If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he's a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him. Whoever loves God must also love his brother. I think that's pretty self explanatory right there.

There's a lot to unpack, but we're just gonna take it back a little bit today. So whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfect in Perfected in us. God loved us. In return, we actually get to love others. What would it look like if love was perfected in us? This kind of brings us back to first Corinthians 13. Probably patience, kindness, not rejoicing in wrongdoing, but rejoicing with the truth. So actually, nothing that we could do to conjure up, it all comes from the one who is the standard of love.

So to bring this to a close, I just wanna bring it back to what would happen if we lived out of how loved we are? What would happen to those struggling around us? The naked, oppressed, the poor. What would our workplaces look like if we actually loved like Christ loved? Our families and our friendships. What would our church look like if we all decided that we were tired of hearing Satan tell us that we are not loved and we chose to live out of how loved we are? I dare you guys to do it. It's pretty amazing. So, Colossians three twelve to 17, put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.

And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. I want to see God's kingdom come. I want to see His will done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Jesus, who is, was, and will be love, was willing to go into dark places, touch the untouchable, and love the unlovable. He loved so deeply, he couldn't imagine heaven without us, so he gave it all up to die a criminal's death so that he would invite us into a love and life that lasts forever. So from the words of John, first John four eighteen, perfect love casts out fear.

I dare us to live out of how loved we are and see what the Lord is gonna do. And if you guys haven't experienced this love, if you only have heard of it and you don't know it in part, I really invite you guys to to pray and to ask God to talk to those around you. And I invite you guys to experience that love because once you have that love, once it captivates you and takes over everything, it's a life that's so worth living for. Yeah. So with that, I wanna invite the worship team up, and I'm gonna just pray to close.