I want to share my heart with you
as a pastor this morning about the year
2011 and I've been in prayer and what
I feel the Lord speaking to me is
going to be our future as a congregation
this coming year.
I have a message for you this morning
entitled, Love will soon cast out fear.
Love will soon cast out fear.
I believe that God is going to do
such a profound work of love in your
heart that all the fears that we're facing
right now, the fears that you're facing this
morning, the fears that you're going to be
facing tomorrow, all of these things are going
to lose their power.
1 John chapter 4 please if you'll go
there in your Bibles.
1 John chapter 4.
Now Father, I come before you this morning
and I thank you Lord for the anointing
of your Holy Spirit.
I thank you God for strength and power
that is so far beyond any natural ability
that any of us have to speak or
to even hear.
Lord, you are the initiator and the finisher
of our faith.
Everything comes from your hand.
Know God we ask you in Jesus' name.
Lord, let the weight of your word sit
upon this sanctuary today.
Lord, open our hearts and open our ears
and open our minds to eternal truth and
reality.
Help us to understand these things O God.
Not just words on a page but let
the word find its place in our heart
and in our minds.
Thank you Jesus for New York City.
Thank you for planting this church here at
this time.
Thank you that you're going to be merciful
to this city and move it to prayer.
Again Lord, we pray that every church in
this city be filled to capacity with praying
people.
Lord, send a fresh anointing on every pastor
who longs in any measure to preach truth.
Oh Jesus, touch this city with mercy.
Touch it with mercy God from end to
end and side to side.
Let the mercy of God touch New York
City.
Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Lord, we thank you for these things God.
Thank you Lord that no matter what comes
we know that you'll be merciful because we
ask you to be.
Lord, we thank you for this.
Bless this word today O God.
Give me the power to speak it.
I thank you for it in Jesus' mighty
name.
1 John chapter 4 beginning at verse 16
to verse 19.
And we have known and believed the love
that God has to us.
God is love and he that dwells in
love dwells in God and God in him.
Herein is our love made perfect that we
may have boldness in the day of judgment
because as he is so are we in
this world.
There is no fear in love but perfect
love casts out fear because fear has torment.
He that fears is not made perfect in
love.
We love him because he first loved us.
Our love is made perfect.
Now the word perfect in the original text
means simply mature.
Taken out of a place of childishness and
brought into that place where God would have
us to be.
This is how we know that the love
of God in us is perfected that in
the day of judgment we have a boldness.
We have a confidence.
Now there is a day of judgment coming
when you and I and everybody who ever
lived will stand before the throne of God.
We understand that day.
But there are also times and seasons of
judgment that come to this world.
And there is a confidence that comes when
the love of God is made mature in
the hearts of those who know Jesus Christ
as their Lord and Savior.
To have boldness, to have confidence no matter
what comes our way because we have the
same heart and the same spirit that is
upon Jesus Christ.
Now you and I live in a time
when there seems to be so many reasons
to give in to fear.
World economies today seem to be teetering on
the edge of meltdown in a way that
most of us never dreamed we would have
to experience in our lifetime.
There is a fear of future provision and
stability and it dominates much of the public
media as well as much of our own
inward thoughts throughout the day.
If you are an honest person today you
will say that these things are probably on
the increase in your mind.
How will I face tomorrow?
How will I get through tomorrow?
Will provision be there?
Will I be able to keep my job?
Will my house be there?
Will I have clothing?
Will I have food in my house?
Day to day you and I are inundated
now with statistics about the perilous deterioration of
our planet.
The fact that we are facing potential shortage
of energy supplies.
The media are constantly bombarding us with statistics
about the global shortages of food.
We are living in a time of seemingly
unresolvable and terrifying prospects of war involving weapons
of mass destruction.
You know we delude ourselves as a society
and as humanity in general in thinking that
somehow we are different from those that have
come before us.
We can have these weapons and we will
operate with them in restraint.
But of course you and I know that
is a fallacy.
We are facing the breakdown of the family.
That very unit that God established in the
earth to bring about stability and nurturing and
order in the home, in the nation.
The nucleus actually of divine order is the
family as God established it.
And we are watching this constant erosion of
natural love and the seeming increase in random
and senseless acts of violence.
Nothing is safe anymore.
No school is safe.
No college is safe.
No gathering is safe.
No church is safe.
We are living at a time when people
are inwardly exploding.
Now folks what a tragedy.
We have raised a young generation, told them
there is no God.
Taken Christ out of the schools.
Don't teach the word of God.
We have raised a generation on violent music.
We have sat them down in front of
media that, I forget the statistic, but most
young people by the time they reach the
age of 15 have seen thousands of acts
of violence on television.
And then wonder why they acted out.
Suddenly we are shocked and surprised that they
have become what we have taught them to
be.
And as a society have allowed them to
be.
And you add to all of this the
mockery of Christ and his church.
The nonstop push in society to cast off
all godly restraint to their behavior while they
denigrate the truly godly as narrow, bigoted, out
of touch, unworthy of any serious consideration.
And even go so far in society sometimes
as to consider the Christian church the source
of all the problems.
Now no wonder many of even God's servants
are beginning to feel the effects of fear.
Even the most godly among us are aware
that something is happening in our generation.
Things are changing so rapidly.
We are so quickly spinning into something that
it seems to be out of our control,
but thankfully it is never out of the
control of the hand of God.
Listen to what the psalmist said in Psalm
2.
He says, Why do the heathen rage and
the people imagine a vain thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves and
the rulers take counsel together against the Lord
and against his anointed, saying, Let us break
their bands asunder and cast away their cords
from us.
Let us push off the restraints.
Let us get rid of this group of
people who claim to belong to God who
have a book that they call the Bible
that has a code of moral behavior.
Let us break these bands.
Let us cast away these cords from us.
But verse 4, the psalmist said, He that
sits in the heavens shall laugh and the
Lord shall have them in derision.
In other words, all of these efforts are
simply going to produce deeper confusion, deeper chaos,
a society that is spiraling more and more
and more out of control.
Psalm 112, the Lord speaks of the security
as it is of those that are godly.
This is one of my favorite psalms actually
in the scriptures.
It says, Praise the Lord.
Verse 1, Blessed is the man that fears
the Lord and delights greatly in his commandments.
His seed, that means his children, shall be
mighty upon the earth and the generation of
the upright shall be blessed.
There's a reason to walk with God, folks.
There's a reason to read this Bible.
There's a reason to pray in the morning
and at night.
God says, I bless your children.
Now listen to me fathers that have lost
your children.
You've lost your homes.
Your families have disintegrated.
I understand we deal with a lot of
that today.
But the promise still applies even to you.
Even if your sons and daughters are not
under the roof of your house, you start
walking with God.
You go into the prayer closet.
You start doing what the scripture says.
God is not limited as we are in
our natural strength and our natural mind.
Your child, your son or daughter could be
in Australia and God will still touch them
when you begin to walk under the covering
of the word of God.
There's suddenly come into the heart this thought,
I need to get right with God.
I need to walk with God.
It will happen, folks.
It will happen.
We've heard the testimonies of it even in
this house over and over again.
Wealth and riches shall be in his house
and his righteousness endures forever.
Unto the upright there rises light and darkness.
His grace is full of compassion and righteous.
A good man shows favor and lends and
he will guide his affairs with discretion.
Surely he shall not be moved forever.
The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance.
He shall not be afraid of evil tidings.
His heart is fixed trusting in the Lord.
He will not be afraid.
He will not be afraid of whatever comes
on the news tomorrow.
He will not be afraid.
His heart is fixed trusting in the Lord.
His heart is established.
He shall not be afraid until he sees
his desire upon his enemies.
He is dispersed.
He is given to the poor.
His righteousness endures forever.
His horn shall be exalted with honor.
The wicked shall see it and be grieved.
He shall gnash with his teeth and melt
away the desire of the wicked.
Or actually that means the wicked one shall
perish.
There's a trust that God is going to
put into the hearts of his people.
That's you and me in this generation that
we're living in.
Now you legitimately asked me the question this
morning, how will God keep us from giving
into the power of fear in these times
that we're living in?
Now 1 John 18 where we began again
in chapter 1 John chapter 4 and verse
18 says, There is no fear in love,
but perfect love casts out fear because fear
has torment.
He that fears is not made perfect in
love.
Here's how God is going to keep us
from fear.
He's going to bring us to the full
understanding that he loves us with a perfect
love.
A perfected love.
A love that only belongs to God.
A love and in those to whom he
chooses to share it.
Verse 19 says, We love him because he
first loved us.
He loved us before we even knew or
cared that he was there.
When you were clubbing, when you were stealing,
when you were lying, when you were cheating,
when you were cursing, when you were gambling,
when you were speeding, when you were violent,
when you were raising your fist at every
driver that cut you off in New York
City, he loved you.
He loved you.
You clap like you almost believe that.
He loved you.
He loved you before you and I knew
that he was there.
When I was a young cop and I'd
be sitting at the table gambling at noontime
and I'd be cursing the name of Christ,
he loved me.
He loved me with a perfect love.
An everlasting love, Isaiah calls it.
Jeremiah chapter 31 verse 3 says, Yea, I've
loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with
loving kindness have I drawn thee.
In other words, he drew us to himself
because he wanted to be kind to us.
Not that we loved him but that he
loved us, the scripture says.
That's first love.
I've loved you with an everlasting love.
His love brings incredible hope and change.
The prodigal son got up, that's a son
that had been given life and he just
went very far away from his father and
all of us did that at one point.
And as he got up to come home,
instead of being condemned, he found a father
that was running down the road towards him.
One of the most pure and graphic illustrations
of the love of God in the entire
New Testament other than the cross of Jesus
Christ.
This is a red letter in my Bible
that means it's coming from the actual mouth
of Jesus Christ.
He's describing the love of God for every
son, every daughter.
Now this son made a mess.
This son was feeding pigs in a field.
And for a Jewish boy that was about
as low as you could get.
Pigs were considered unclean and he was actually
feeding them and allowing them to live.
When the whole of his religion would have
taught him that these things are the lowest
creatures technically on the face of the earth.
And many of us fed things and did
things and allowed things to live by our
very actions.
You know if people didn't go to, if
people didn't watch pornography, the pornographers would be
out of business tomorrow.
And it's people feed things and allow them
to exist.
And this boy was doing that but one
day he just decided to get up and
come home.
He got sick of the way he was
living.
It was his father's love that was drawing
him.
Pastor Williams said it one time and I
agree with him.
The father must have been sending messengers to
him once in a while.
Just little messages about how good it was
at home.
About how much food there was there.
About how all the servants were.
Because how did he know?
He had been away for so long but
says he came to himself and he said
in my father's house even the servants have
a lot of food and I perish with
hunger.
Well how did he know that?
I think there was little messages coming.
And even when we are feeding things that
we shouldn't be feeding these messages of God's
love keep coming to us.
These messages, these invitations, come home, come home,
come home my son.
Come home my daughter.
And as he came down the road to
his father he's not met with a reluctant
savior.
He's met with a God who literally came
running down the road to embrace him just
as Christ came from heaven to earth because
in his heart he loved you.
He was waiting for you to come home
and for me to come home.
And this love brings covering.
This love brings empowerment.
This love brings an invitation to join God
on his journey of redemption throughout the earth.
It's incredible love.
I'm overwhelmed daily now at the incredible love
of God.
The humility of God that he would even
stand me here this morning to speak on
his behalf is the incredible humility of God
that he would use us, that he would
partner with us.
He is so infinitely other than we are.
So much more pure, so much more holy,
so much more intelligence, so much more integrity
and yet he partners with us.
How do we understand this love of God?
It's like you and I going into the
city and finding the most deranged, disadvantaged individual
that New York City has to offer and
saying from this day forward you and I
are partners.
We're going to walk together.
If you ever need me I'll be there.
If you need resources I'll give it to
you.
You can brag about me everywhere you go.
I'll never deny you.
I'll tell them that we're brothers.
If anyone should ask I'll tell them.
And that is closer than the bridge that
God made to come to us.
And he did it because he loves us.
The cross was not a legal obligation on
God's part to redeem us.
The cross was the love of God in
its purest expression.
He was not willing that any should perish.
He was not willing to lose you.
It doesn't matter how you're living or where
you come from or what your parentage is
like or what kind of a family you
have or don't have or your education or
what you've been doing with your life.
You have to know this morning that he
loves you.
He loves you with a passionate love.
He loves you with a love that sent
him to a cross to get you back
again.
His love brings the genuine believer into an
incredible feeling of security about the future.
In John chapter 10 verses 27 to 29
Jesus said these words.
My sheep hear my voice and I know
them and they follow me.
And I give unto them eternal life and
they shall never perish.
Neither shall any man pluck them out of
my hand.
My father which gave them to me is
greater than all and no man is able
to pluck them out of my father's hand.
And then the next verse verse 30 says
I and my father are one.
In other words the full strength of God
is committed to bringing you and us safely
home.
The full strength of God.
It seals us in the hand of God
when you come to Christ.
Now he's talking about the genuine believer.
Are you the strongest?
No.
Are you without flaw?
No.
Are you without struggle?
No.
But are you an honest believer in Jesus
Christ?
Yes.
Have you trusted in Christ for your salvation?
Absolutely.
Do you want to walk with God?
Yes without any doubt.
He says not only do I cover you
but I put you in my father's hand.
And we're going to go together.
We're going to walk together through flood.
We're going to walk through fire.
We're going to walk through trial.
But you are in the hand, the loving
hand of God.
And one day the Lord says I'm just
going to open my hand and just drop
you at the throne of Almighty God in
heaven.
And we will have walked this thing together.
And it is the love of God that
will have brought you through.
Hallelujah to the Lamb of God.
When we get to the throne of God
what do you think?
What do you think our song is going
to be?
What are we going to be talking about
when we finally see the holiness of God,
the absolute otherness of God?
When we see the perfection of God's creation
and understand what he did on the cross
for us?
All glory to God.
Thank you for loving me Jesus.
That's all we're going to be able to
say.
Thank you God.
My purest attempts to be holy in my
own strength were only filthy rags in your
sight.
My God, my God it's been love that
redeemed me, love that carried me, love that
strengthened me, love that gave me the power.
Hallelujah.
The mature understanding of how purely and completely
we're loved of God will open our hearts
to the correction of our father as he
sees we need it.
For whom the Lord loves Hebrews chapter 12
verse 6 he chastens and scourges actually it
says every son that he receives.
When you and I know we are loved
we're not afraid of reproof.
We're not afraid that our father might open
this book and say I've got something to
speak to you today.
You're walking in a way that is going
to hurt your future or hurt the future
of others.
We're not afraid of this book.
This book has no fear to me whatsoever.
I fear more not knowing this book or
not having this book examined my heart than
having it examined my heart.
You remember on the road to Emmaus in
the book of Luke there are disciples that
are walking and they've lost heart, they've lost
hope, they knew the word, they had proximity
to Christ, but they've seen him crucified and
they got to this place of fear that
we're talking about today.
And suddenly Jesus the scripture says came up
and started to walk with them in the
midst of their struggle, in the midst of
their dilemma that they're facing in their minds
and in their hearts.
And they were at the verge of losing
hope.
And there were the type of people who
say Lord would you give me a word
today.
Now some of you came here today say
oh God I need a word.
You have to speak to me.
Oh God I'm afraid of the future.
I'm losing heart, I'm losing hope.
I don't even want to be alive in
this generation.
Speak to me oh God.
And so he opens his mouth and says
oh fools and slow of heart to believe
all that the prophets have spoken.
How would you like a word like that
delivered to you today?
Speak to me oh God oh fool.
And slow of heart to believe.
Slow of heart to know that I died
for you because I love you.
Slow of heart to believe that I am
able to keep everything that's committed into my
hand and bring it through every struggle and
trial and difficulty that you're ever going to
face.
Oh slow of heart to believe.
We are lastly secure in his love.
And with the power of Jesus love alive
in us will no longer fear the future
or the faces of people.
First John 4 18 says there's no fear
in love but perfect love casts out fear.
There is no fear in love.
We are going to in 2011 become more
aware of the love of God than we
ever have before.
We're going to become aware that his love
will keep us.
The devil has no right to condemn us.
That our future is secure.
Fear not little flock he says it is
your father's good pleasure to give you the
kingdom.
Don't let your heart be troubled.
He said don't let it be afraid.
In my father's house are many mansions.
I go to prepare a place for you
that where I am there you may be
also.
If it were not so I would have
told you.
Don't be afraid.
We have to go through a little season
of struggle in this earth and in this
world.
But when this season is over it is
only the beginning of forever.
In a place of such wonderment that our
minds can't contain it.
We have to go through a season of
wonderment.
If we could see a picture of it
today on the screen we wouldn't be able
to comprehend it.
Because it is too much for the natural
mind to understand.
In my father's house where do you think
that is?
There is a universe out there.
We don't remotely grasp what heaven is going
to be like.
The incredible awesomeness of it.
And God promises to keep us.
What did the apostle Paul say?
I am persuaded that he is able to
keep that which I have entrusted to him
against that day.
I have given him my heart.
I have given him my life.
I have given him my future.
I have given him all that I have.
And he is going to keep me until
that day.
Paul didn't need to be walking on a
pathway of ease.
He didn't need to understand.
He just said I know whom I have
believed.
I have had a direct encounter with the
love of God.
Paul had come to this revelation to the
point where he could say that if this
love is not in me no matter what
I do it falls short of the glory
of God.
This incredible love of God.
This incredible revelation of God's love.
In 2011 we are going to be aware
of this love more and more and more.
Because that is how God is going to
keep his people.
And it is going to manifest itself in
loving one another.
Now I am not talking about tolerating one
another.
I am not talking about Sunday morning smiling
at one another.
I am talking about absolutely loving one another.
In the power of God.
Seeing one another as God sees us.
Caring as God cares.
You know on the marquee of this church
when it was established by Pastor David in
1987 they put on the marquee the church
that love is building.
It doesn't say the church that loves it
is building.
The church that love is building.
I believe that was prophetic.
I believe God put that when he established
this church because in this congregation are over
100 nations represented from around the world and
there is a genuine love here that you
won't find anywhere in the world in any
gathering that is similar to this.
But the Lord is going to take us
deeper than we have ever known before.
There is going to be a care and
a compassion one for another.
Pastor David once told me Carter he said
in the coming days the fellowship in this
church is going to be so sweet it
is going to be an absolute taste of
heaven.
No matter how difficult it gets out there
it is going to be kinder in the
house of God.
There is going to be a care.
There is going to be a compassion.
The walls are going to come down.
We are going to genuinely love one another
in Jesus Christ.
Our prayer meetings are going to be powerful.
Praise God.
Thank God for this.
There are people here today that can say
Lord Jesus I am afraid sometimes even to
open up my heart to the fullness of
your love.
I don't want to face the future fearful
and discouraged.
I don't want to be foolish and slow
of heart to believe.
I open my heart to your love and
all that this means for my future.
I open my heart to your love.
Lord Jesus I receive your love.
It is hard isn't it?
Believe it or not that is often one
of the hardest things to receive from God
is his love.
Because in our hearts we somehow know that
we really don't deserve it.
We tend to see God the way we
would act if we were God.
I am very thankful I am not God
aren't you today?
I am very very thankful.
We are incapable of unconditionally loving like God
does.
But once we open our hearts to the
love of God and we instinctively know that
to open our hearts to the love of
God means we have to open our hearts
to people.
We have to see people the way God
sees other people.
That means barriers have to break down.
That means our borders of our tents have
to expand and include other people, other races,
other cultures, other classes.
That means we have to get out of
our comfort zone and allow God to stretch
us and to be the people on this
earth that he has called us to be.
But I want to remind you that this
kind of perfected love, this mature love casts
out fear.
Suddenly you will find yourself not afraid of
the threatenings of whomever.
You are not afraid of the faces of
people anymore.
And that is the promise of the scripture
that this perfected love casts out fear.
You are not afraid of people.
You are not afraid of tomorrow.
You are not afraid of being vulnerable.
You are not afraid of giving.
You are not afraid of stopping on the
Jericho road and helping somebody that needs help.
This is gone.
This fear is gone.
The love of God now is shed abroad
in your heart.
And the scripture says that is why we
can have boldness in the day of judgment
because as he is so are we in
this world.
As he is.
As he loves we are allowing him to
love through us.
What he is doing we are doing.
Praise be to God.
My altar call this morning is very simple.
For 2011, Lord Jesus Christ, I open my
heart to your love and all that this
means for my future.
I open my heart to it.
I don't know how to do this, but
I open my heart to it.
Show me how much you love me.
Instead of opening the Bible and being condemned
all the time, God I want to know
how much you love me.
Show me how much you love me.
And let that love begin to flow through
me.
Now this is a supernatural thing.
You can't do this.
We can't work this up.
It doesn't work that way.
This is something that God has to do
and he's going to have to take some
of us through the valley of the shadow
of death because there are things in us
that don't want this.
We like the measure of God that we
understand.
We like our life the way it is
and we don't want to be stretched.
And so something in us is going to
have to die and God is going to
take us to that place.
We're gonna have to love this city folks
because this city is going to be a
difficult place in a short time.
We're gonna have to love this the people
of the city.
I'm not talking about the buildings.
Talking about the people.
And that love has got to begin here
in the house of God.
It's got to begin in your heart and
in mine.
We're not going to win New York City
with an argument now.
We're gonna win this city with the love
of God in us.
Hallelujah.
It's the deepest cry of every person in
this city is to be loved.
And when that love of Christ finds an
expression through your heart and through mine you
will see a harvest like your mind never
thought was possible start to come into the
house of the Lord.
Now Father I thank you Lord for the
simple word but God Almighty it's profound it's
powerful.
Lord I want to love this way.
I want it with all my heart and
whatever you have to do to take me
there I'm asking you to do it.
I'm asking you Lord Jesus Christ to so
baptize this church in your love that we
not be afraid of God or people.
We not be afraid of the reproof of
your word.
We would simply not be afraid.
We'd not be afraid of evil tithings because
our hearts and minds are fixed on the
promises that you've made to us especially the
perfect love casts out fear.
Jesus son of God help us as a
congregation in this.
Lord we ask it in your precious name.
Now I want to give an altar call
for those who have a hard time to
receive love.
You don't trust it.
You have a hard time with it but
God is calling you deeper and farther than
this than you've ever gone before.
Would you just get out of your seat.
Please make your way down here as we
stand main sanctuary in the balcony and we're
going to pray and believe God for an
absolute miracle.
If there's a prison door in your heart
that's causing you not to be able to
receive the love of God we're going to
believe God that that door is going to
open today.
Just slip out in the balcony go to
either exit in the annex.
You can step between the screens if you
would please and we're gonna worship for just
a moment and as we do make your
way here please.
For those that have difficulty receiving the love
of God you're afraid of the future and
you're afraid of people.
Please just come.
You're the first, the last, the same.
I love you, love you, love you Jesus.
Raise your holy name.
You are the Alpha and the Beta.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last,
the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You
let
them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the
last, the same.
You let them
hang you on
a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let them hang you on a tree.
You're the first, the last, the same.
You let This is a hard message for
some people to hear today.
Strange, isn't it?
You'd be much more comfortable if I'd opened
the scriptures and beaten you to death with
it.
Because that's the way you feel about yourself.
If I'd opened the text and just said
you're this and you're that, and you've failed
here and you've done this wrong, you'd have
no problem with this.
And you could come because that's the image
that you have of yourself.
Now maybe somebody spoke that over your life
at some point and told you you're worthless.
Maybe the voice that you needed to have
there wasn't there.
You didn't have a father, you didn't have
a mother that can tell you, put their
arm around you and say I'm proud of
you son, I'm proud of you my daughter.
I love you, I believe in you.
Maybe that just was never there in your
life.
And it produced this deep inner sense of
unworthiness that makes it difficult to receive the
love of God.
But listen to what God says.
One of my favorite books now is the
Song of Solomon because when you read it
in the context of Christ and His church,
He says you've ravished my heart.
You've ravished my heart with one of your
eyes.
He said just one of your eyes you
stole my heart.
When you turned and looked towards me, God
says, you didn't even have a chance to
make a full turn towards Him.
It was only one eye that got there
first.
And He said the moment you looked towards
me, He said you stole my heart.
And the Lord says, I don't see you
the way you see yourself.
I've cleansed you, called you, empowered you, promised
you.
You and I are going to walk together
not just through time, but through all of
eternity we're going to walk together.
It's going to be an amazing journey, it's
only beginning now.
And today, you know the Bible doesn't say
that perfect repentance casts out fear.
Thank God for repentance, that's a good thing,
but it doesn't say that.
Perfect love casts out fear.
When you know how much, and I know
how much we are loved of God, the
fear of tomorrow is gone, the fear of
failure is gone, the fear of rejection is
gone, the fear of not finishing the course
is gone.
It's all gone.
And you'd be amazed how quickly you begin
to grow in grace.
You'd be amazed how much the power of
God comes into your life and how you
change.
It really wasn't in my life, I can
honestly tell you.
I love the Scriptures, I've studied the Scriptures,
I've sat in some of the most profound
preaching conferences over the years, but it was
the love of God that changed my life.
It was the love.
Lord, I just pray for these that have
come to this altar today, that we would
all have a heart to receive your love.
It's that simple.
Your love comes with protection and correction.
Your love comes with everything.
An understanding of our security in Christ, an
understanding of the cross, an understanding of even
the fear of God.
It all comes.
Through your love.
I pray, Lord, that you open every prison
door at this altar.
Heal every wounded heart.
Give every blinded eye sight.
Lord, do what only you can do, and
do it supernaturally, Lord, at this altar.
Just take everyone at this altar from one
place to another place, and do it by
the power of the Holy Spirit.
It can't be done by natural argument, it
can't be done by human effort, but it
will be done by the Spirit of Almighty
God.
Take us as a congregation, Lord, into what
we've heard this morning.
Take us into the depth of that love,
one for another, and for you, Almighty God.
Lord, you said that on these two things,
everything the law and the prophets have spoken
is fulfilled.
Hallelujah to the Lamb of God.
Thank you for this, O Jesus.
Let this be a house of love.
Baptize this house with your love, Lord.
Baptize this church, every hallway, every corridor, every
office, every classroom, every ministry, let it be
baptized in the love of Almighty God.
Everywhere we go, everything we share, everywhere we
walk.
Lord, as we go to our apartment buildings
today, as we go to our offices on
Monday, as we go to our place of
employment or non-employment, let the love of
God be in us.
Give us the eyes to see people around
us the way you see them.
Give us that heart, O God, for the
people in this city.
Father, we thank you for this.
We praise you for it.
We bless you for it in the mighty
and holy name of Jesus.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah, Lamb of God.