How He Loves!

Sadly last week many of us saw one of the greatest quarterback’s ever to play football lead his Kansas City Chiefs to win the Super Bowl. It mad me very sad, but I have to say, everyone, even the referees knew you shouldn’t allow Patrick Mahomes another chance to score.

How Great a Quarterback He is!

The reason I bring the pain back up is because I wanted to just talk about the word How.

How

To get a little nerdy “How” is a word that can begin a question or it can begin a declaration. Like I just did in the sentence about the greatness of Mahomes.

Why is it important to know the difference because as we really concentrate on our singing part of worship to God, Phil asked me to specifically have us take a long look at this song,

How He Loves

The How in How He Loves, is not a question from the song writer John Mark McMillan, as in how does God do it? Like how does one delete an app or repair a bathroom sink? But a statement similar to How great a quarterback Mahomes is, McMillan is exclaiming something much greater, the Love of God.

John Mark McMillan has a powerful origin story for this song which we will cover later but for now let’s look at the Love of God.

The Bible tells us,

1 John 4:8–10 CSB

8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Love comes from God. God defines Love. It isn’t all that God is, so Love is not God but you cannot know love with out knowing God. Love finds truth and fulfillment in God.

God is Love.

Profound, profound statement. Kenny and I were with each other on a long drive yesterday and discussing Mission and vision statements. If you didn’t realize it, the mission statement of New Day is all about love and is stated in our closing verse,

1 John 3:16 NRSV

16 We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.

God defines love and love as God defines it is a giving up of oneself for the glory of God. God in Jesus does this with the death that forgives us of our sins.

It’s a love of giving. God giving up life, God giving forgiveness when we aren’t worthy. God giving hope to where there was no hope. Take what you have and give. That’s the love God has for us. Overwhelming generous love. It’s immense love, so we sing.

Oh how He love Oh how He loves us / How He loves us so

The song’s chorus, which does repeat many times

It’s a cry of the heart in intense messy wonderment of God’s generous and eternal love.

The best way to understand the chorus is to understand the state of mind when the writer wrote the words. So let’s get the song’s origin story.

I want to start the story by introducing you to John Mark McMillan’s friend, Stephen Coffey. On November 1, 2002, during a church prayer meeting, Coffey prayed out loud

"I'd give my life today if it would shake the youth of the nation"

the same night, Stephen Coffey was in a multi-car accident and died of serious injuries.

The next day, his close friend, McMillan wrote "How He Loves" as a tribute to Coffey and out of a need "to have some sort of conversation with God" where he could speak to his frustrations and emotions over his best friend's death.

This conversation end up giving us a song-prayer similar to Psalm 51 or Psalm 23, full of raw intensity as you might be able to imagine McMillan in tears repeating over and over How He Loves. He, God, inspires through his love and answered the intense prayer of Coffey which inspired a song that has inspired millions to realize the overwhelming love of God. As the Bible says,

Psalm 34:18 CSB

18 The Lord is near the brokenhearted; he saves those crushed in spirit.

As McMillan become more aware of God’s love in the midst of intense grief, he came to know what many of us know, God’s love shines brightest in the midst of our deepest struggles. It is overwhelming and powerful. In his grief McMillan wrote these words:

He is jealous for me loves like a hurricane / I am a tree bending beneath / The weight of His wind and mercy

Joel 2:18 CSB

18 Then the Lord became jealous for his land and spared his people.

Nahum 1:2 NLT

2 The Lord is a jealous God, filled with vengeance and rage. He takes revenge on all who oppose him and continues to rage against his enemies!

Zechariah 8:2 CSB

2 The Lord of Armies says this: “I am extremely jealous for Zion; I am jealous for her with great wrath.”

God is God. We should worship nothing else. No other power has power over anything that God has not allowed. Not Kharma, Not astrology, not cards, nothing. When God is the only power nothing else comes even close. His immense power is over His people and those who follow Jesus are adopted into his family.

Romans 8:14–16 CSB

14 For all those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!” 16 The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children,

We are God’s children. Jesus goes over and over into ways in which God loves you and calls you his own. One of the most amazing pictures that Jesus depicts when he describes what God is like is that of Sheppard. When he says,

Luke 15:3–7 (CSB)

3 So he (Jesus) told them this parable:

4 “What man among you, who has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open field and go after the lost one until he finds it?

5 When he has found it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders,

6 and coming home, he calls his friends and neighbors together, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost sheep!’

7 I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who don’t need repentance.

The original symbol of Christianity was not a cross but a man with a sheep across his shoulders, the good shepherd.

God is Jealous for you, followers of Him. Your life culminates in the ability to worship and love Him and others. He won’t lose you.

His love for you is so powerful that McMillan writes it in a way completely understood by Americans on the east coast and anyone who has seen on the weather channel, the full weight of his mercy is like being hit by 75 to 125 mph winds and you are the palm tree. The all consuming awe of such power. But unlike a power that destroys this is power that gives.

And then when that full power hits you of his overwhelming love, perspective changes.

When all of a sudden I am unaware of / These afflictions eclipsed by glory

Afflictions, what a good bible word, all the bad stuff. Like death of a love one, financial disaster, loss of relationships, illness. These are eclipsed. They fall into the shadow of God’s glory, like a light shinning in your eyes when all you can see is the light, God’s glory overwhelms the affliction.

Another metaphor, If you really were a sheep, like the wooly animal, just eating whatever and going wherever. I’m not a sheep expert but I have heard they are pretty dumb animals. And I presume they really wouldn’t know how much trouble they are actually in by being away from the herd. That alone they are perfect food for wolves, lions, bears, any kind of predator. I can just imagine me as a little sheep chewing in a bad spot, when all the sudden it feels like you flying, like you lost all control, and your moving in the air. No longer eating. Instead, all of a sudden you are Swooped off the ground, being carried by the shepherd. , he rescues you.

If you’ve ever picked up a dog or another animal that doesn’t like it, you know at first they are amazed, scared and confused. It’s a sudden startle.

Often in the midst of our darkest moments, we become much more fully aware of just how close the good shepherd always is to us. And how much we desperately needed his care.

So the song continues:

I realize just how beautiful You are / And how great Your affections are for me

Romans 8:28 CSB

28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

1 John 3:1a (CSB)

1 See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children—and we are!

God is affectionate towards you. He died for you. He delights in bringing you in on His victories. He is your heavenly father. For those that were blessed with good fathers or even attempt to be a good father you know how much more awesome and loving a Father God is for us.

He is the father that even if you feel that currently you are a lost worthless sheep, He right now finds you. Picks you up and welcomes you to new life, if you will accept the overwhelming grace of his salvation.

The opposite of all this love is not what you might think. It isn’t evil in the sense of going and robbing people, pushing over senior citizens, or kicking puppies, or whatever mean thing you can think of. It actually is thinking it is all up to you. It is the highest sense of self, a sense that your joy is up to you, your security is up to you, your family is all up to you, your morals are all up to you, the way people think about you is all up to you, that is the opposite of the Love of God.

Because all of us come to point in life when we realize that if it’s all up to me, I’m not good enough. When we are young we might just think we are stupid and need to learn more. When we get older we might blame how much we didn’t have, how hard we fought but how unfair it was due to our limitations, and then as we get older, when it appears we might know enough, we now find that no one wants to listen because we just aren’t in the moment enough any more. We are out of date.

My friends, everyone, everyone, comes to a point when they realize their joy falls short if it is all on them, their morals get screwed up if its only on them, none of us are made for it to be all on us. We are made by a God who told us

Matthew 11:28–30 CSB

28 “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

When we accept that all of life isn’t up to us, we don’t measure up, we are in need of a savior, and we have a loving Savior. Life isn’t up to us but it is up to God and his amazing grace, we can sing the next part of the song with honesty.

We are His portion and He is our prize

1 Peter 2:9 NLT

9 But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.

God’s own possession. You, who follow Jesus are His. Chosen for Goodness.

Ever been in a place where there is an emergency and someone shouts out, “Is there a doctor?” Something bad is happening and they shout is there a doctor?

You may not be a doctor, but if you are ever in a place and think, There needs to be something good here, someone good here,

Is their someone good here? You are the doctor of Good.

You are God’s chosen for Good wherever you are at. You are God’s possession for goodness. In this possession is blessing.

1 Corinthians 9:23–24 CSB

23 Now I do all this because of the gospel, so that I may share in the blessings. 24 Don’t you know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way to win the prize.

God is your prize. The victor God, the one who leads all things to the Glory of those who follow Him.

Remember these words are written by someone in the midst of extreme grief and yet because He knows the prize He has in Christ even in the midst of extreme sadness He can delight in being in God’s family.

The song goes on again about the power of God’s love for us,

Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes / If grace is an ocean we're all sinking

Ephesians 1:7 NLT

7 He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.

It all gets back to this. It’s not on us. It’s on Jesus. He saves us, he delivers us, He takes care of us, He comes alongside us, We are made to join Him, to love Him.

It’s messy. It’s not easy. But much more hard is being without Him because we are not made to live this life without God and His people.

It’s so messy that Mr. McMillan in his grief wrote the most controversial line of this song.

So Heaven meets earth / Like a sloppy wet kiss / And my heart turns violently inside of my chest / I don't have time to maintain these regrets / When I think about the way that

Sloppy wet kiss for many seems weird in a church song. I agree, but the imagery is one of those kisses a returning soldier gives their spouse upon coming home. A rescued loved one returns. It doesn’t matter how many people are around the intensity of that love at that moment makes everyone stop in joy.

When one of Lori’s classmates, David Crowder, from Baylor School of Music, recorded this song again with his worship band, David got permission to change the words to this

So Heaven meets earth / Like an unforseen kiss / And my heart turns violently inside of my chest / I don't have time to maintain these regrets / When I think about the way that

The imagery isn’t as intense but it’s less awkward singing next to your parents or kids in church.

So let me give you TMI, too much information. It’s hard to love others the way that God loves us. I struggle with it all the time. Love can turn to hate very, very fast.

I love others insistently. Sometimes family, sometimes others who God has led in my path. I imagine you do to. Love others, I hope you do. But loving others is hard. It’s hard to get rejected. It’s hard to get mistreated by others. It’s hard to not get the full truth or to get used by others. I see people on social media almost every week swearing off other people because they hurt them.

Yet God showed us that this is not love. Love doesn’t require reciprocity. Ohh, big nerdy word their. Reciprocity means to recieve equally. I give you a fry, you give me a fry. You help me out, I help you out. For many they think that is Godly. Helping others is, but God’s love, well think about it.

God saves you from your sins, you save? Nope, you can’t. God delivers you to goodness, you? Nope, you can’t. God’s love for us is unbalanced and unfair because we always get more of God’s love then we deserve. And we are supposed to love in the same way. Where is the self care in God’s love. God went to the cross for us.

Yet do we trust God, that if we love as He calls us to love that He will provide joy, happiness, peace, Can we trust God?

James 4:10 CSB

10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

My friends I haven’t figured it out but I do know in my head what God has directed us to do. To accept that He does love us. oh How He loves us. And then to know that the way He loves us is the way that we are to love one another.

Romans 5:8 CSB

8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

1 John 3:16 NRSV

16 We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.