My name is Tim Giannosa. I am the pastor of Valley Grace Church in Ceres, which is formerly a campus of Big Valley Grace. For the last six years, I’ve been pouring into that campus and I’ve been a part of that. It was launched by us. And about a year ago, we decided as the leaders of Big Valley that we think God’s doing something really unique on that campus and we need to maybe look at what else he wants us to do. So through a lot of prayer, a lot of time, a lot of discussion, Pastor Joel, the elders, we all got together and said, “I think God is moving us to launch that campus as an independent church.” And so in December, we did that. And so we’ve been a church now for about six months.

Big Valley, thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you for what you have done, for how you have prayed, how you’ve supported, and all that you gave to establish that as a campus and all that you have done to help it become an independent church. What’s happening is nothing short of a miracle of God. We’re watching people come to know Christ. We are watching people show up from that particular area.

You’ll notice I called it Valley Grace Church — that was very purposeful. We wanted to keep our roots and our heritage of Big Valley, but we didn’t want to focus on a whole region. We wanted to focus on Ceres. That’s really where our focus is. We said, let’s be Valley — this part of the valley is where we’re going to focus and who we’re going to love. And God is opening doors we couldn’t have imagined. God has given us favor within the community that we couldn’t have planned for. And we are so incredibly grateful. We’ve seen more people step into discipleship and into our small group ministry than we’ve had in the past. We have seen more baptisms than we’ve seen in the past. And we have seen God change and alter people’s lives in dramatic ways.

So I want to say to you today — thank you. Thank you for having vision. Thank you for having an amazing prayer life that launched us out there. And thank you for allowing us to go. Thank God. But we are very much still family. We are very much still in partnership in so many different ways.

The way Big Valley has done this and the way we’ve been able to continue to walk together is literally a playbook for all other churches. I’ve been around churches for a really long time — around many churches — and to watch the way our elders and our senior pastor have loved a group of people in a specific city, and watched how God has unpacked a mission and they’ve been faithful to stepping into that mission even when it wasn’t the way it started. They said, “Hey, God’s doing this now. Let’s adjust.” What an incredible story that we’re all a part of. So thank you, and thank God for that.

I get to be a part of the tail end of First John, and we’ll be looking at First John chapter four. It seems like it has been an amazing journey for you as a church. I have the real pleasure of stepping into this particular passage. But before I do, I want to tell you about a relationship I was able to engage with.

Somewhere around 2022, my daily comings and goings had allowed me to be part of seeing a particular woman over and over again. As I saw her in my daily life and we were talking, I just got to know a little bit about her, listen to her, watch the joy on her face, and hear the things she was saying. And pretty soon, I’m like, “Hey, are you a follower of Jesus Christ?” And she goes, “Absolutely. I love Jesus.” And she began to talk about her walk with Christ with such passion and so much life. I’m like, “Wow.” And then through the day, she began to tell me about her family and her church and her girls that were in high school and their walking with Jesus.

And sure enough, I started to hear about her husband — how they met. The story was a little confusing, I was trying to put all the pieces together. And one day my mouth just kind of dropped. I said, “Am I understanding you to say that your husband was a skinhead and part of the Aryan Brotherhood?” Yeah, that was him. And I’m like, “Oh, okay.” But no longer. “No, he is the most amazing man ever. He is so gentle and so kind and so loving and he loves Jesus.” And she just sees me staring at her and she stopped and she said, “Yes, I’m a Black woman and he married me.” I’m like, “How does that happen?” And she goes, “Jesus. Jesus is how that happens. When you experience the love of Christ, it changes you. And now I have the most loving husband you could ever imagine. He’s so faithful and kind. He tells his story everywhere. He’s still got crazy tattoos all over his body — they’re who he was but not who he is — and it’s all part of his story about what God did in him.”

And I was like, wow. That is so amazing. And yet that is the exact story of First John — that when you encounter and know the love of God, it does something radical in you. It’s an outrageous love that when we know it, it permeates our life and all we can do — we are compelled — to outrageously love others.

And John gets to business right here in this part of chapter four. He just breaks it down in a very specific and no-nonsense way. So join me and let’s jump in. We’re going to start reading in 1 John 4, beginning in verse seven.

“Beloved.” Let me just stop there for a moment. I know you’ve talked about this word during the series. I know you’ve talked about it because it’s mentioned so many times. But it’s such a beautiful word — beloved. We are loved by God. We’re God’s beloved. He loved us. And that is so tremendous — to be called the loved ones of God. We’re loved by God. That is incredible in itself. But it’s more than that. We are the beloved together. We are the community of the beloved. There is something different about the body of Christ, the family of God. It is unimaginable and unthinkable what God does. If you look around this room on any given day, you look at any church, and then you start taking churches all over the world who call on the name of Christ — because Christ has loved them first, because they are his beloved — they gather under the banner of his beloved and they love one another. They’re the beloved to each other. They form a family not by blood bonds, but by the blood of Christ. Not by genealogy or genetics or anything else, but by the blood and sacrifice and love of Jesus Christ, we come together as his beloved people.

If you thought that church is a place you show up to, a place you come to, a place you sit and there’s some cool music — no. Beloved, you are showing up to a family. You are showing up to a group of people who have been dramatically and radically loved by God and who now dramatically and radically love one another. You have entered into a family that is unlike any other family on planet earth. It is a family that loves one another sacrificially. And it is a family that extends beyond any family we could ever experience on earth. And you’re like, “No, no — blood is thicker than water.” Well, that’s great, but it’s not thicker than Jesus. Because we extend into eternity. We extend with one another into eternity. Everything else ends and goes away here.

So church — beloved — let us understand our call, the name associated with us, the family we get to be a part of. The beloved ones of God.

Let’s keep reading. “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.”

He’s drawn a line here. He’s given us great confidence and assurance and at the same time said, “You have something to weigh against.” He’s saying love comes from God. We know love because God is love. And when God enters into our life, when God calls us, when God makes any action, when God works in any manner, when God makes his presence known in any way, it is an act of his love — to draw us near to him, to work in our lives, to sacrifice on our behalf for our betterment.

And you’re like, “I’ve known love and I didn’t know Jesus and I still knew love.” No. No. You knew emotion. You knew feeling. You even knew some kind things to do for each other — anybody can do that. That’s all good. But you did not know love. Love is God, and love is sacrifice. And it’s the most outrageous, bold, ridiculous, crazy sacrifice. Put whatever word you want on it — but it is a sacrifice unknown to anyone but God, and only known to those who’ve experienced it from God. It is a sacrifice like none other that has ever existed. It is a love that only has in mind the person it’s loving. Only has in mind the best of the person it is directed toward. Only has in mind that they would be able to know Christ and walk with Christ. That they would be saved from their sins. That they would be redeemed. They would be restored. They would be transformed. That is the essence of God’s love. That is the sacrifice of his love.

And on a day where we remember so many who so faithfully sacrificed on our behalf that we could sit in an auditorium like this with no fear of condemnation, no fear of anybody barging through our doors — that we can walk out into our streets and declare the name of Jesus — we had many people that gave their lives as a sacrifice for that. No doubt. And we are so grateful for that. But let us not — in no way belittling any sacrifice that was made, because it was great — but let us not confuse that with the loving sacrifice of Christ. It is different.

You see, Christ came to die. Christ came to sacrifice. Every movement and word of Christ was sacrifice. He left eternity and stepped into this mess. Everything he did was sacrifice. Everything he did was to die on our behalf. Everything. And that is a different type of love. That is a different type of sacrifice. And that is a sacrifice that has eternity hanging in the balance.

Let me describe to you the depth of this sacrifice as Isaiah shared it — long before it ever came to be. From Isaiah 53: “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces, he was despised and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering. Yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him. And by his wounds we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to our own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

That’s a different type of love. That’s an outrageous love. That’s a radical love. That’s a confronting love. That’s a love that is purposed to save us no matter the cost to itself.

Going back to First John, continuing in verse nine: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.” This didn’t just solve the problem of our eternity. It didn’t just solve the problem of our salvation. It was his love that gave us life. Life here. And when John was talking to his disciples in the Gospel of John — not this letter, but the gospel — he says, “This life that I’m offering you is one that is abundant. It is one that is measured by him as greater than all that the world offers.” That’s the life we get — that we might live through him.

“And this is love — not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation of our sins.” Propitiation. It means he took our place. He stepped in to where we belonged. There was no sin that was against him. There was no penalty that was against him. There was no crime against him. There was only sin and crime and penalties against us. And what is due for my sin — that I have turned my back on God who is life himself? I have stepped into death and that is my penalty. And a righteous God — not a whimsical God, but a righteous God — must carry out a righteous sentence, because I willingly turned my back against God. I willingly defamed his name. I willingly said, “My way, not your way.” And he said, “Then I give you the result of that, which is you’re going to walk in death, because I am a righteous God.”

But he said, “But I will solve it. For all who will say yes to me, for all who will receive my grace and my mercy and my forgiveness, I will pay the cost. I will pay the penalty. I will stand in your place. I will be killed in your place.” And not because someone takes his life, but because he willingly gives it. We’re told very clearly in scripture that no one takes the life of Jesus — that he freely lays it down. That is a loving sacrifice we have never experienced or encountered until Jesus. His whole entire purpose was to give himself for us. It was not, “I wonder if this will work out differently. I wonder if we’ll get to the end and write a different story.” It was: I’m going to give my life. That’s the love that has been lavished upon us.

“Beloved, if God so loved us” — verse eleven — “we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. But if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”

Now, if we go back up to verse eight: “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” We won’t love perfectly. In fact, it may come difficult to us. It’ll take us a lifetime to learn how to even begin to love with even a fraction of the love that God has loved us. While that’s true, there’s this new stirring in us when we walk with Christ. There’s a different step to us. There’s a different cadence to our life. We don’t always understand it and we don’t always know how to live it out. But suddenly we have this desire to love others in a way we’ve never done before. We have a desire for people’s salvation. We have a desire to see people grow up in Christ. We have a desire to meet needs where needs need to be met. We have a desire to lavish love and mercy and grace on people, but we don’t really get it yet. We don’t really understand. We’re going to have to learn how to get there. This word abide — that we will abide in him — is us learning how that’s going to happen.

But he says if you don’t have that stirring at all, then you don’t have God, because it’s the only way that we can have it. So what I’m not doing is measuring how well you do or I do. No. Is that stirring up in you because you’ve experienced the outrageous love of God? Is it stirring in you to go love in that sacrificial way? It’ll take a lifetime of learning. But if it’s not there — if you’re like, are you kidding me? I’ll do a few nice things, but let’s back off. I’ve got plans. I’ve got goals. I’ve got objectives. And in fact, most of the time if you’re in my way I’m just going to kick you and keep going. But I love Jesus. No, man. No. The one who loves Jesus might still have some of those thoughts, but you really wrestle with them. The one who loves Jesus has been so dramatically loved that we’re going to weigh those thoughts. Those thoughts are going to weigh upon us. For if God is in us, then that love will come out of us.

“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.” Have you ever said to yourself — or maybe you’ve heard it said — “If only Jesus was right here, it’d be so much easier. If Jesus was right there with us, he’d be telling us what to do. We’d be doing it. We’d be walking with him.” Like, I could believe if I could just see Jesus. You keep telling me about Jesus. I can’t see Jesus. Well. It says, “No one has ever seen God.” Now for 32 or 33 years, people got to see actual Jesus — but for all the rest of human history, nobody has ever seen God. And yet, it’s saying that when we abide in his love and we go live that love out, it is perfected in us. So what that’s saying is this: when someone says, “If I could only see Jesus” — you are. You are seeing Jesus. Not actual Jesus — I’m not saying that. But I am saying you are seeing him manifested through me. You are seeing his incredible love that dramatically changed my life. You’re getting a glimpse of his love. You’re seeing what he wants to do in your life by what he’s doing in me. Because just me myself? I don’t even like you. But because of what Jesus does, because of who he is, I sit here and I love you, my friend. I want to meet your needs. I want to help you out. I want to direct you towards Christ. I want to help you grow up in him.

Here’s what love is. God and that amazing love he has is to see the need, meet the need, in spite of the cost. To see the need, meet the need, in spite of the cost. God knew our need. Our need was to be made right. Our need was to be loved in spite of the fact that we were his enemy. Our need was to be loved even though we were living in transgression, living in sin, living as enemies to him. Our need was to be forgiven. Our need was to have a way made. And he saw that need. He met that need. And he did it at full sacrifice and at full cost to himself. That is what love is.

So to say I love you is to say: I see what you need — certainly Jesus, certainly to grow up in Jesus — and I’m here to meet that need. To tell you, to explain to you, to show you, and to love you like he did. At whatever cost, I’ll surrender my life that you might know Christ. That is love. To know the love of God means that, brothers — beloved — we ought to love one another. He made that sacrifice because he was driven by that love. He followed through on that sacrifice because he was driven by that love.

Paul explained it this way in Ephesians: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.” Enemies. If you have seen yourself as anything other than that before you received the love, grace, and mercy of Jesus, you are wrong. Before you received the love, grace, and mercy of Jesus, you were enemies of God. You didn’t deserve it — but it was lavished upon you, and lavished upon me.

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” Meaning he made us sons and daughters. He gave us a place at the family table. We are his and can never be taken away from him. “In order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ.” He saved us to go show the incomparable riches of the grace that he wants to give everybody. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” We are not the gift to God. God is the gift to us. And we would do well to live our lives in such a manner. We would do well to receive the love of God in a manner that says: I am undeserving, but you are so rich in mercy and grace — thank you for your sacrificial love. Not receiving it as: I am better than these guys so it’s a good thing you love me.

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” One mission, one vision, one purpose. It is clear — we were saved, we’re redeemed, being transformed. He is working our lives into his masterpiece to do what? To go do the good works he planned. How long ago? Before the creation of time, he planned this for us. What are those good works? To love and declare who Jesus is. To love like he loves and to tell the world of that love. To be the physical demonstration of Jesus in people’s lives.

Well, I don’t really know what my career is supposed to be. To love Jesus, to go display that love and to tell people. Well, I don’t really know where I’m supposed to live. You live in a way and manner that tells people who Jesus is and declares his love. Whatever our lives are, they’re for one singular purpose. God is causing our lives to be on a trajectory to intersect with others so that we can be the visible demonstration of his love to the world. And what is that love? It is not, “Hey, hope you feel good today. Whatever. Just let me pat you on the back.” That is not love. Love is: I will lay my life down so that you might know Christ. I will sacrifice all that I have that you might know Christ and grow up in Christ.

And yes — even if you’re my enemy. If we were enemies of God and he loved us lavishly, then the question we have for us today is: who is your enemy? Who is the one that caused you tremendous pain? Who is the one still seeking to cause you pain? Who is the one that has knocked your knees out, collapsed your life, caused doubts — that rage boils up when you think of your enemy? Do you love them? Do you love them? Because if we receive the love of God, then we must love them with the same love that Christ loved us with when we were his enemies.

2018. Botham Jean was sitting in his apartment eating ice cream. The door of his apartment opens. A woman walks through. Turns out she was on the wrong floor. She thought it was her apartment. She walks in — she’s an off-duty police officer who believes there’s an intruder in her home. She pulls out her weapon and she kills Botham Jean. She immediately understands what she did and is in absolute horror over what happened. She’s arrested, convicted, and about to be sentenced.

Brandt Jean is Botham’s brother. He sat through the entire trial, through all the sentencing. And his whole desire from the moment he heard about his brother was: whoever this person is needs to die. I want this person wiped off the face of the earth, because my brother was a good man. And he sat there through day after day of the trial. And he said there was something that just began to change in him. Because he had a faith in Jesus Christ. And his brother had an outrageous faith in Jesus Christ. And he remembered what he had been saved from. He remembered his brother’s salvation. He’s looking, he’s understanding, he’s moving, he’s changing, he’s adapting. Different thoughts are starting to come up. Things are starting to change in him. And he gets a moment to go up on the witness stand to speak in front of the court about the sentencing — about what he would hope the sentencing accomplishes. And as he sits there, he looks directly at the convicted officer and says, “I forgive you. I have no ill will for you. I would request this — would you go to Christ and receive his forgiveness? Because he desires to forgive you. And if you will go to him, you will experience life and forgiveness like you have never experienced before. I have experienced that and I am offering it to you.”

And then he looked at the judge and requested that he could hug this woman. And the judge paused — and then said yes. And you see both of them move so quickly to the center of that courtroom. There’s a lot of commotion. And you hear this weeping, this wailing that comes from her because she is being forgiven. And what you hear from him is: “You’re okay. He forgives you. I forgive you.” It was coined and nicknamed the hug heard — the hug seen around the world. That’s what the love of Christ does to you. It transforms you. It makes you new. And it compels you to give it to others. Church, we’ve been loved so that we would go love.

We also get to experience his love not just through redemption, but we experience it through the Spirit. “No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected.” Verse thirteen: “By 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 testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior 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.” That’s what the Spirit does. The Spirit shows us, reminds us, tells us of the great love that God has for us. “God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” What an outrageous loving God that we have.

You see, he could have just solved our problem. He could have just said, “Hey, you need a Savior. I’m your Savior. Here’s a really sufficient and complete book of how you’re going to live. Go do it. And we’ll see you on the other side.” But he didn’t — because his love continued to sacrifice. His love continued to give. And he said, “For all those who believe in me, for all those who receive my forgiveness, for all those who believe that what I have done is true and who I am is right, and who have surrendered their life and given it to me — for all those, I will indwell you with my Spirit. I will show you, remind you, overwhelm you with my love on a daily basis.”

He could have left us alone to figure it out. But instead: I will walk with you. I will teach you. I will show you. I will remind you. I will bring back to your mind the way of love and the way of sacrifice and the way of righteousness. The greatest way that we can sacrifice for others is to live righteously, holy, and godly lives. Because righteous, holy, godly lives are a benefit to wherever they’re directed. I cannot live a holy, righteous life without wanting to sacrifice and wanting to give myself so that they can experience the same love, the same forgiveness, the same mercy, the same grace that I’ve received — so that they can have the Spirit walking with them and cultivating the life that God desires. That’s the God we have, that he indwells us.

Because we have this incredible outpouring of God’s Spirit in us, because we have this outrageous love, here’s what’s going to come out of us.

We’re going to be able to unconditionally forgive people. In Matthew 18:21–22, Peter goes to Jesus and says, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Is it as many as seven times?” And Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times” — or seventy times seven. It’s a perfect description of a number that’s sort of unending. You’re not going to get to that amount. It’s continuous. That’s a great way to read it and understand it. But there’s just a little bit more to that understanding. It’s unconditional. It’s this perfect way of forgiving that is unconditional.

And you’re like, “Whoa, you just crossed a line. Because there’s some forgiveness that doesn’t deserve to be given.” Oh, I know. Oh, I know. And you’re the recipient of it. I know. And I’m the recipient of it. Because my sin does not deserve to be forgiven. I’m an atrocious human being. Just today — some of the thoughts that entered my head, some of the ways that I would prefer to treat people. Terrible. And that’s just in the last six or seven hours. And what does my God do? He forgives me. He lavishes his love upon me. And yet we get the incredible privilege of experiencing that love and then going and giving that love — in the form of forgiveness — to others.

We get to bear one another’s burdens. That love is going to come out by not just having unconditional forgiveness for people, but by bearing one another’s burdens. Those burdens are many — mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, theological. There’s so many burdens that wrap somebody up in their life. And our job — what we get to do in love — is to step into their life and bear some of those burdens. Lift them up and hold them up. Yes, at great sacrifice to ourselves. We have the privilege of being used by God to bear one another’s burdens. In Galatians 6 it says, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ — to love others as he has loved us.”

We get to sacrifice and meet the needs of others. We’re going to love them by meeting their needs. I know a couple that has no kids — and when they come across couples that seem a little stressed, they’re like, “Hey, can we come babysit your kids? Can we take your kids for a weekend?” And the couple is like, “Uh, no, you’re psycho. What are you calling me for?” And then they build a relationship. They say, “Hey, we just love you. We want to love your kids because we want to help you out. We want to release one of your burdens.” We sacrifice to meet the needs of others.

In Philippians 2, Paul explains: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.” So my love is always looking not at what they can do for me, but at what I can do for them. I don’t love and engage in a relationship because of how it’s going to benefit me, but how it’ll benefit them. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather in humility” — because we have had God’s love lavished on us, because we are the ones who were in the gutter — “value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ.” See a need, meet the need, no matter the sacrifice. That’s an outrageous love. That’s an outlandish love. And the Spirit’s going to direct you to the one you’re to love.

Now I’ve got to talk a little faster. I didn’t have this next story last night because the story didn’t exist last night — it only started today. Remember I said that God has this plan — he’s intersecting our lives with people. Our whole passion and goal is to be the representation, the image bearer of Christ. We go wherever he wants us to go. We do whatever he wants us to do. We sacrifice, we carry burdens, we forgive, we do all of this. Why? So that somebody might know Christ and grow up in Christ.

So today I show up at our church to do some setup. While I’m there I see a man that I know, and as I see him I say, “Hey, how you doing?” He goes, “Man, I’m barely making it.” And I’m thinking, “I am busy. I have to get things done. I bet somebody else can talk to him. I was just trying to be nice and say hello.” But I go, “Hey, do you want to talk? You can share what’s going on.” And he began to unpack a story — something going on in his life involving a person who is atrocious. A person who has done horrendous, terrible things. This person has even been to jail for these terrible things. And this person is in his life. And he’s now being called on to serve this person, to help this person. And he goes, “You don’t get it. I don’t want to.” And he began to unpack a lot of emotion, a lot of other thoughts.

And I’m like, “I get you, man. Because this can be terribly hard. I’ve had some people do some terribly hard, hurtful things to me. I have some of those same feelings that I got trapped by. I get it, brother.” I go, “Hey, can we talk about this in just a couple of moments? I do have something I could say to you.” He goes, “I would love that.” And I need to be honest with you — I was taken so far back. I just needed to catch my breath for a minute before I sat down with him. Because listen to this. Remember, Pastor Joel said last November, “I want you to teach this weekend.” And then in January, everybody decided what this passage would be. And then I got this passage.

If he had shared this story with me before I’d prepared this message, I would have shared other passages with him. I would have shared a different pathway. This passage — 1 John 4 — is not part of my normal arsenal when I talk to somebody through this. And all of a sudden I’d spent all this time working through this message, working through this passage. It’s been working in my heart tremendously. And now I’m sitting barely with my eyes open this morning, talking to a man who needs to hear this. And I’m like, “Oh my goodness. I am the recipient of God orchestrating things since the beginning of time so that I could be in this moment, with the full message of God’s word, knowing that I’ve experienced this love — and knowing the outrageous love that’s been shown to me — that I get to share with this man who can potentially, I pray, go and share the outrageous love of God with someone else.”

So we sat down and we walked through it. I’m texting people here — “Hey, I may not make it in time. I’ll get there as soon as I can.” Because I’m watching something happen. I’m watching a transition and a change in his heart. Not because I had some crazy words. Because I had the right passages and the right scriptures, because God had orchestrated my time, my moments, right here. And he says: now love him, because I’ve lavished my love upon you. This is what he does with our lives. Keep your eyes open. Keep your hearts available. Be ready.

And finally — we get to experience God’s love through fearless confidence. “By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence on the day of judgment. Because as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”

Beloved, we have the deposit of the Holy Spirit to remind us that we are his forever. And we get to walk through this life with the fearless confidence that the day I show up to the throne room and the judgment seat — when this life is over and I face the Lord my God — he will not pull out some sort of accounting and go, “Well, you had enough over here, but not quite enough here. Let’s flip-flop these. And Joe, we’ll take one of Joe’s and give it to you and uh maybe you get in. Maybe you can be with me. Maybe I’ll recognize you.” That is not our hope. But that is the hope of the rest of the world. That is not our hope.

We have this incredible confidence — this fearless confidence — that when I face my God, my judge, he will say, “Whoa. My son. My son, you are covered in the blood of Jesus Christ. Your sins — I don’t even know them anymore, because you have been deemed righteous. You carry the seal of the sacrifice of Christ on you. You, my son. You, my daughter. Welcome home.” That is who we are. And that is the love that is lavished upon us. And it’s that fearless confidence that lets us go out into this world and say, “No matter what I lose in this world, no matter what I have to sacrifice in this world, I will bring train after train after train with me to eternity. But it won’t be filled with the things of this world. It’ll be filled with those who’ve experienced the love of Christ and got to see Christ through me because I’ve experienced his love.” Yes. That is what we live for. That is what describes us. That is what we run after. And we run after it no matter what that loss is.

There was a man — an NFL football player. You thought you were going to get through a whole sermon without a football illustration. Silly you. He played for the Chargers. And he encountered a group of men who were relentless about telling him about Jesus — because they didn’t view the NFL as the place to get rich or make their name great. They viewed the NFL as: this is where I will tell people who’ve never heard about Jesus, Jesus. I get to live with these guys. I get to walk with these guys. We are entrenched in one another’s lives and I’m going to tell them about Jesus.

Well, this guy Miles — when he got to the NFL, he got hooked up with some different guys. And these different guys got him hooked on drugs. By the time this whole thing was developing, he was a daily drug user. How he was still making the NFL, he would tell you he doesn’t get it. But he was still performing. He wanted to shake it, but he couldn’t. He wanted to get rid of it, but he couldn’t. He wanted hope for something different, but he was about to lose everything. He didn’t know what to do. These guys kept telling him about Jesus. He didn’t know what to do with Jesus. He just knew his life was teetering on the brink of destruction.

So they went on a chartered flight — just the team — on the way back from a game. And here’s Miles coming out of the restroom. The only thing he was doing there was lines of coke. He’s walking out, begins to walk down the aisle. And this big old nasty linebacker stands up in the middle of the aisle. One of the guys that loves Jesus. And if you know anything about football or the NFL, all inside linebackers are nutcases — that’s not the guy you want to stand up. And he stands up and yells down the aisle of the plane, “Miles! Miles! If you die today, what will be your fate?”

And Miles McPherson said that terrorized him. He didn’t have an answer. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know anything. And he continued to wrestle, going back and forth, going back to the things he was doing, and these guys were sharing with him. And one morning at 5:00 a.m., he wakes up and he said, “It’s done. It’s over.” He surrenders his life to Christ and he walks away from everything. He continued playing in the NFL. And within two short years — not because his career was over, but because God said “Your career is over” — he quit the NFL. Because God had called him to something new. God said, “I want you to be my messenger. I want you to go love people in a way that’ll be radical and different than you’ve ever seen before, Miles.”

So Miles starts going to school. He starts getting involved in discipleship. And then Miles McPherson becomes a pastor down in San Diego. And Miles McPherson today — twenty-some years later — is being used in some of the most miraculous ways you could ever imagine. At his church right now, there are over a hundred ministries devoted to reaching people at the depths of sin — people who are enemies of God. And that is what the love of Christ did in him, and how it developed. But it’s not just the story of Miles McPherson. It’s the story of those guys. The guys who said, “I’m here for this one reason — and I will sacrifice everything so that someone else can know and experience the love of Christ.” They loved Miles at his worst. And now he’s loving thousands at their worst. What will God do with you?

Big Valley, what will God do with you? Will you go out and show the love of Christ? Will you take the love that you’ve been radically and dramatically changed by — and will you go lavish it on this world and sacrifice that they might know Christ and grow up in Christ?

Join me in prayer. Father, we love you. We thank you that you loved us first. And we thank you that we can even know love because of your great love. We thank you that you teach us how to sacrifice. You don’t just say go love people — you show us how to love people. Thank you that you never abandon us or forsake us. That you’re always with us. You’re teaching us and guiding us and causing our lives to intersect with others. And so Father, give us a passion to be your love with flesh on. We love you, Jesus. In your name we pray. Amen.

If you need prayer, it’s right through those doors — the prayer room. And if there’s any way I can help you or talk with you, I’ll be right here. Go get some lunch. Go enjoy each other. Go love one another, beloved.