Ultimate Love

The only problem was there, both retellings of the prodigal son real life situations but they're really the same story. It's kind of hard to find a better story than the father in The Prodigal Son. In terms of true real incredible love. You know the story could easily or quite simply though the boy just want to share of The Inheritance early so we could enjoy it while you still young and he goes off and has a good time and get this life all complicated and finally figures out that he needs to come back and that's what he does to find a loving welcoming father who literally is looking for him. When the young boy scout on the way home, today, I want to move toward closing out or study of Living victoriously, and over the last three months, we've looked at those Three Creeks. Three key elements from 1st Corinthians chapter 13 of face and head over. Then finally, we're talkin about love as we finish this out. God and unconditional love. now, to you that may make perfect sense, and it may sound okay in a sentence but to most of the world, There's a dichotomy in that sentence. They don't see God as someone who loves unconditionally. They see God is a person to being rather who has all kinds of conditions that have to be met in order for the person to qualify for the love of God. Well, that's a very dangerous.

Point of view. And it's also not consistent with what we find in scripture. But it is important. I think that we've talked about and think about those kinds of use. I think one of the things that might help us, if we change the terminology instead of saying unconditional love, because that means different things to different people. Especially means something very different in psychological and sociological terms. And so if we were going to really make a change, I think we ought to move to something more like ultimate love. The manifestation of agape love to the level that God can and will end of Love would really turn out to be the ultimate love that we could find. Are there conditions to God's love?

Are there conditions to Salvation? Yes. Are there consequences to rejection of God's plan for our lives? Yes. Now a lot of people when you say that they'll sit like you just told me that God loves me. Yeah. Can you think of situations in your own life especially as a parent Wear Your Love? Not only included boundaries, but required them is part of what love your sharing and teaching is important for us to know where that love is and how that boundary is affected. For mowing, you might just think about a wealthy man, he has multiple companies. He tells each of his kids as they're growing up, the for children that if you want a good job in the family business, prepare yourself and I will make sure that they takes place and as The Story Goes, to of the two of the people in the family, do exactly that they prepare themselves, educationally they prepare themselves experientially, they prepare themselves in their personality and various kinds of things. So the dad is very, very funny when the time is right. The third shot kid just says I'd rather do something else. That's his fine. I'm the last kisses I'm not going to do it cuz I'm going to find out if he really means it. Will does dan stop loving the two that make other choices?

He doesn't self, loving them at all. He's simply laid out what his expectations were. He's simply asked him to meet those expectations and if they did, they would find certain consequences coming their way these good jobs. And so, they really get to choose The kind of Direction. They're going to go in the direction they're going to live. Now, our world changes is all around. If you loved me, you would accept me. Absolutely. If you loved me, you would approve of me. Those are different things, but when you don't approve of me, you make me feel bad about myself. I'm not the one that's making you feel bad about yourself. I'm the one who has to have some boundaries here and and if you choose to live outside or to ignored the boundaries that are they are it's not me saying it's a person that I don't love you and it's not God saying that either. He allows us to make choices. People come along and say will, you know, if he really loved me, if you really loved me, you would help me. If you really loved me, you would fix it. If you were This and those are things that as a society or as a culture or even as Humanity that we added to the equation. And a lot of times people are frustrated with God, they're frustrated with Christianity because they feel like it promises something that it doesn't deliver. And the reality is, got this because I love you. I'm going to tell you where you need to be I'm going to tell you where you're happy. I'm going to tell you where you're the most safe. I'm going to tell you the things you need to know. So that the life that you live to be the kind of life you would like to have no. Paraphrasing. God is a dangerous thing to do, but I do believe that is what he's saying to his. You then have the freedom to act on that or not. And that's up to us if we do that. You think the prodigal son? Had any scars when he came home?

You know, he has some emotional scars, he may actually have physical scars. Baby been hard for Dad to see to recognize those scars. That was there, you know, new parents that perfect little baby, and you're thinking boy some days, those knees will be skinned up and some of those phones will be broken then this Perfection and it is not going to last. Those are the things that just really happened. When is a parent, what you want to do is you would have say OK. My child is never going to be in a situation where they can have a skinned up knee or broken bone. I'm going to protect him at all costs and in all circumstances and we wind up actually doing them a great disservice. When we try to to go with that particular direction.

We take it further sometimes. And especially the people who are around us, you know, if you loved me, you would forgive me. True. And you would never remember what happened? God can do that. He can manage that. He is capable intellectually of forgetting. The things that we've done that are sinful and harmful negative, we as people, however, are not gifted it out of your area, we can't do that. Do we even want to Probably for both parties. There are things about the memories of violating consequences of violating boundaries that are helpful and useful all the time. When we forgive, we remove the consequences for this. I want you to be forgiven is what God would say about. We say, as people were being God's instruments and when you look at God's relationship with Israel, does he forgive them? And take away consequences for bad behavior.

I'm not. Sometimes he does there times when you can with the enemy is breathing, down the neck of the Israelites. God has brought this individual in this Army, literally as a punishment, and the people lives, we will do something and goggles that, okay? I'm going to do that. I'm going to do it. There are other times when he decides to know the discipline is too important. I just let it slide by.

Hebrews chapter 12.

So then you completely forgotten this word of encouragement, that addresses you as a father of dresses, you as a father addresses, his son. It says my son do not make light of the Lord's discipline and do not lose heart when he rebukes you because the Lord disciplines, The one he loves. He disciplines us because he cares about us.

Can we discipline can be loved without enabling in rescuing? That is possible. And that some of the hardest calls to make when I was a young boy, my grandfather had a brother and I thought, I wish. I knew his real name, honestly, I believe it's asking so skinny, maybe better than that, his real name, but he had, he had some problems with alcohol and he would come to my grandfather, like a birthday, or a Holiday Inn. And he would say, art, can you give me money for the to ride the bus to work? And my grandfather would give him a dime. Now, even then the docking was a lot of money, especially if I was you, I'd get you a ride to work. And I remember asking my grandfather who was a very generous, man, why did you give him a dime? And my grandfather's will, he's going to get a dime for some alcohol and walk to work. My grandfather, understood that. Meeting this, brother's request was actually not loving. Because he was enabling a behavior that he was trying to help this brother with, and we can fall into that same circumstances. Well, and it's so easy for us to feel guilty about not helping and not doing. And when we step back and say, like God, sometimes we need A boundary. So that we can make clear what it is that we stand for what we believe in.

Go back to the 1st Corinthians chapter 13 6, through 8. Love does not Delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth, we talked about that week last week, it always protects always trusts, always hopes, Always perseveres Love, Never Fails to the passengers on to talk about some things in that particular context formula. Always always, always. Always never. These four words are for that Paul chooses. Don't remember you. So I can see what church family about interactive problems that are taking place and he's trying to teach them about how to deal with those relationships in a more Equitable way so that they can manage those relationships in my Christmas stocking about 22 minutes till they can be reconciled to each other. That was important and I believe that you probably could have chosen other words to use in this formula. But the 4th at Paul chooses here, is it love always protects with Jonathan was a very little boy.

Every morning, his first three words were where mama is. Cuz he knew mama was the protector. He knew that she loved him and that she was passionate about how she and that you would find a buzz saw for me cuz that was necessary. Is that he wanted to make sure that he was connected to this person who is going to protect him and children are particularly conscious of that. Will see that. We the great gift that we give to Children is to let them know that they are protected their protected by our love their protected by the love that comes to us through God's love it. So that protection is a very important thing and when we love each other, we protect each other, we help each other love, always trust. That was a little tricky in it. Because a lot of people go to say, well if you forget me, you'll trust me you'll take me back to the place I was initially. Well, you don't know if you look at a number of different versions, you'll get a maybe a little clearer picture of what's being communicated. Their loyalty is a good word with the word you're going to see more is believes. And that's the next one is Hope. And that's where belief and hope you do, really join hand. Because we want to believe that it's going to be okay. You want to believe it's going to be better now. It's it's apparent from the

Story of The Prodigal Son that there is some feedback taking place between the family and the kid because the older brother knows some details. So that apparently is it totally in the dark. Unless the older brother is keeping you in the dark about what's going on with the brother everyday? I mean every night that is sitting down. Hoping believing that it's possible. That this young man can still be touched.

Hope, it's not just a fantasy. it's a long and fulfilling for fulfillment as we talked about recently and then you get down to the the last one and then we'll just protect

It always perseveres. I've shared with you before the cutting from the play Raisin in the Sun, you may be familiar with that. Play of the family comes into some money, they have various ideas about how it should be used but one son Walter takes the money. Use this, is it in the foolhardy way and loses it. And so, this great opportunity is is really taking

And his sister, it is so upset, that she says, what's there left in Walter to love? And the mom, as you would think the mom would do just, says, wait a minute, there's always something and someone to love. And that's the kind of things, I think, Paul. So I can you about this perseverance. It's not that this person is always good. It's not that this person is always doing well, but there's always something there, but you can lay hands on, there's always something there that you can grasp. There's always something there, you can believe in and trust and hope and continue to pray about so that we get to that place where it just says, simply Love, Never Fails.

It is so important. That we have people, we can count on that. We have people who will always be there and we know that God is always there but like that story, it just helps to have somebody with you knowing me a person to manifest that symbol that reality that God loves us at all times. And we're going to continue to do that. Kind of love and ideal. If you'd like to look at it that way long time ago, I caught thought of not talk but I helped coach a soccer team and the young guys that were playing if you've ever had soccer been involved with soccer, you know, that there's just never seem to just let the ball get kicked down there and then in a while, the ball come back to you, you know, the other team will rule change over, the possessions will change that when you talk to your players about really pursuing that ball. A lot of us safe from a coach. You see, you're not going to get there and you're 20 yards away, so why run? Well. There's a whole lot of difference between where you are, when that person takes possession of the ball. Number one, if you're like five yards away when you impact, what they can do next, they have to make a decision very quickly. Their options are limited, and sometimes we look back and be unconditional, love that. I get this thing but I can't do that. I'm not perfect. but the closer you get to the opponent, the closer you get to be ideal, the more you have it impact the more you have the opportunity to impact these relationships and when were looking for True Victorious, living. The relationships are going to pay such a big part. That cost. That's really how we impact that personal part of our life. Would you play with me?

Dear God, we thank you for your other that we can't measure it. We can't actively accurately fully described it the father we appreciate it and we thank you for the fact that so many people have been willing and able and capable of showing love We just pray that we can be touched by your love that we can be patient with those who were sometimes difficult to love and then we can know that we ourselves could fall into that category fairly easily. We thank you for the love. It was manifest through your son and we pray this prayer for him. Indian The chapter 5 verses 6 through 8. You see at just the right time when we were still powerless. Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will someone die for a righteous person though, for a good person. Someone might possibly Dare To Die. There's somebody out there, you would die for.

There's probably in a lot of cases people in this room. He would die for people in your family, people that you care about deeply. If you are an older person and you wanted to extend the life of a younger person is all kinds of hypothetical.

That you would die for, I believe. Because we care about them when we love them. So very much But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners. Christ died for us when we were the bad, guys. He died for us when we were unloading, he died for us. When we were disobeying. He died for us, we were wrapped up in how many worldly things and it wasn't this comparison. Single is this person good enough that I could sacrifice for them? Not the case at all. We celebrate in our culture, the baby Jesus, and that's a wonderful celebration. We celebrate in the springtime. Jesus. Resurrection. It is interesting that we leave out the cross.

We don't want to think about that baby that grew up and died. When were suffering when we were celebrating Resurrection. We've already forgotten about the sacrifice. We're just celebrating the fact that Jesus came back to life. Is easy to see those things with that cross is where we give ourselves to God, and we determine whether or not we're going to do what we want to do. What God has in mind for us to do? This morning, if that needs to be different in your life would encourage you to make that ever changes. You need the bank if you'd like, help doing that, if you'd like help knowing what you need to do it because it is that as well. Are we standing sing this song together?