Have you ever heard the phrase, or heard someone use the phrase, people will do crazy things for love. Maybe you've said it. Maybe you've said, hey, people will do some crazy things for love, and the reason you've said it is because it's true. You've seen people doing some crazy things to earn someone's love, or to try to get someone's love, to receive someone's love in their lives. Well, it's true that does happen. As a matter of fact, several years ago, there was a guy who actually listen to this true story, actually faked his own death to propose to his girlfriend, to try to convince her to marry him, and when I say faked his own death, I'm talking about great links. I'm talking he hired a movie director, stunt men, makeup artist, a script writer, all to produce this convincing scene where an accident had taken place, where she would be brought to it, and she would be convinced that he literally had died in that moment, and so this happened. They put it all together. They did it. She was there. She starts bawling and grieving and mourning, and really does believe that he's dead. And then he hops up and is like, ha, ha, just kidding. Will you marry me? True story. He said, I wanted to I wanted her to realize how empty her life would be without me, and how she would have no meaning without me.Can you say narcissism?No, but I mean, in an effort to he, he was looking for love so desperately. Was so unsure that she would actually say yes, that he had to go to those kind of links to actually convince her that she should marry him. That was how desperate he was to find and experience love in his life. There was another story that I read about several years ago, where a teenager actually convinced one of his friends to literally shoot him, like like with a gun, literally shoot him in the leg, all in hopes that his ex girlfriend, who he could not talk into coming back with him would see that he had been shot, he was injured, he might die, and that she too would go, Oh, I really love him. I feel sorry for him, and she would get back with him. Literally had his friend shoot him so he could get back with his girlfriend, because he was so desperate for love, she didn't get back with him. After all that happened, I can't imagine why. But some people will really go to great lengths, I mean, do some crazy things for love.But the reality is, isthat probably most of ushave also gone to some really great links to try to earn somebody else's love, to make them love us. And we may not have had someone shoot us in the leg. We may not have had a fake Accidental Death and gone to these kinds of links, but no doubt, some of us have spent a lot of time and a lot of energy trying to get someone else to love us, because we have a real need for it in our lives. For some of us, it was in our looks. I mean, we've gone to great look look links throughout our past about our looks. We've focused on diets and working out and taking supplements, and tried to have different hair styles and makeup and plastic surgeries and get an entirely different wardrobe so that we could capture other people's attention, because we need them to notice us, because when we're noticed, it makes us feel loved. For some of you that started as a little kid or a teenager and you're an adult and you are still chasing after it in one of those ways, for others of you, maybe it wasn't necessarily your looks, but you started to do some things that you never said you would ever do. You had convictions about certain things, but then all of a sudden, you found yourself so desperate for love that other people were doing things you never said you would do. And you thought, well, if I start doing those things, then maybe they'll like me or love me too. And you started to take drugs, or you started getting drunk or using tobacco and vaping and doing something with your body, allowing your body to be used in some intimate way, where others were using it so that you could feel love. You could get them to love you and stay with you. Maybe for some of you, it was your parents or grandparents, those who who were closest to you in your life never really told you or shared the words I love you. They didn't express it in their actions. Maybe they didn't never say it really in their words. And you were so desperate for their love, you tried to make good grades. You tried. To excel in sports and in music and get into a really good college and establish a great career marry the person that they wanted you to marry, all in hopes that one day they would say, I love you and I am proud of you. And for some of you, it's never come. For some of you, you're adults in your 20s, 30s and 40s, and you're still trying to earn your parents love in some way. For some of you, they're no longer even with you, and you still find yourself wondering and hoping if whatever it is that you've established or done has earned their love, or that they are proud of you because of what it is that you have accomplished, we will go to great lengths to feel loved by other people, and to try to make other people love us. I'd go as far as to say that most of our actions, most of our actions, can be explained in an effort to either Pursue love, trying to get someone to love us, or if we've sounds found someone that loves us in some way. We're trying to do whatever we can to make sure that it stays with us. We're trying to maintain that love and perform in a certain way, get them to continue to acting in that particular way. And that's because there is this universal need that we all have to be loved. We're looking for it. The sad thing is, is again, even when we find it, we feel like we have to work so hard to maintain it, and then oftentimes, even while we're trying to do that, it's never really ultimately satisfying. We need those people to love us in even bigger and deeper ways and do more than they're doing right now, or we just never really feel like it's within our grasp. And so when we think about these things in our own lives, how do we respond? I mean, what do we what do we do when it comes to this need that we all have for love? What do we do if we're find ourselves constantly trying to pursue or earn or maintain someone else's love? With a short answer is that we turn to God because God is love. The Bible says all summer long, we've been talking about God's attributes and his characteristics, his nature, trying to understand more about who the real God is. We all think we know what God is like, because we have this picture in our own minds of what he's like, or what somebody else told us that he was like, but we can often misunderstand who God really is in that will not allow us to be able to interact with him in the proper ways, because we don't really know who he really is. And so all summer long, we've been talking about how God is eternal and immutable and and good and, and all powerful and and all knowing, and all present and all wise, and that he's He's sovereign, and that he's all powerful, and He's holy and he's just, and all of these things that we've been learning about him. And today, as we continue, we're going to single in and focus on this attribute of love. God is love. It is part of his nature. It is part of his character. Now, the thing is, is that when we make that statement, when we see that written, There God is love, there's the potential for all kinds of different things to pop up in all of our heads, because we all have a different idea about what love really is. I mean, we say things like, I love pizza and I love video games and I love movies and I love Netflix, and I love tick tock and all of those kind of things. And so is that the kind of love that we're talking about? And if not, then what? What are we really talking about when we say that God is love? Well, thank goodness the Bible doesn't leave us hanging when it comes to that. It goes deep into helping us understand more about this attribute of love. And we're going to look at scripture and see what it says and reveals what God reveals through Scripture to us about himself. A few weeks ago, when we were talking about one of God's attributes, it was the attribute of holiness, that God is holy in Scripture, we're told in Exodus 1511, who asks the question, Who among the gods is like you, Lord, who is like you? Majestic in holiness, awesome in glory and working wonders. And the only right answer to that is no one. There's no one who is like you, majestic in holiness, who's high and exalted and sitting above all things. There's no one who's set apart and distinct from his creation like you are. There's no one morally pure like you are. And so if this is true about God, He's holy, he's set apart, he's distinct, He's not like us. Then when it comes to love, that's the first description that we're talking about. God's love is a holy love. We're gonna go through five or six of these characteristics of it. You've got notes pages on the back. I would encourage you to write all of these down and continue to sit in them and dwell on these truths. And allow him to use it with how you interact with him. This week. What does it mean that God's love is holy well? It means that it's pure, it means that it's reliable, it's spotless, it's perfect, it's set apart. It's different from the world's love. We're not talking about a superficial love. We're not talking about just emotions. We we are talking about emotions. God does feel love for you, but it goes way above and beyond that. It's the only kind of love that provides real satisfaction, that provides real fulfillment. It goes infinitely beyond and is way better than the kind of love that we see and experience in the world. And you'll see that as we continue. So God's love is a holy love. One of the other things that we see in Scripture is that God's love is a sacrificial love. God'slove costshim something first. John 410, this is love. Okay, well, let's sit up. You want to know what love is? God is love. Well, let's, let's hear all right, he's gonna tell us right here, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. This is love. It's a sacrificial kind of love. What we're really talking about when we're talking about God's love being sacrificial, is this, we cannot separate God's attribute of love from his attribute of justice. See The World, sometimes, whenever the world talks about God's love, it's like, yeah, God is God is love, right? He's love. He loves everyone. And it's almost kind of in this way where, because God is love, and it's who he is, he can just kind of overlook sin, overlook the things that we've done, he just loves us. And so everybody's coming to Heaven one day, and God is love, right? But that is to separate God's love from his justice. God being just means that he upholds what is right. And not only does he uphold what is right, he punishes what is wrong. If you had someone that committed a crime against someone you love in your family, I mean someone murdered someone in your family, and they were standing before a judge, and he said, You know what? It's no big deal. We're filled with love around here. Just let them go. You'd be like that is not just but yet, we want to talk about God being well, God's love. He just wants to overlook everything. But we go, no, no, no, no. Wait a minute. Hold on. He can't get away with that. That's not justice. It's not right, and it's not in order for God to be a just God, and someone who's upholding what is right and wrong. He must punish sin. He must punish evil. So God must deal with this. And of course, the punishment of sin is death. God sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice. Some translations say as a propitiation, the satisfaction of God's wrath.God poured outHis wrath on his one and only Son because the sins of the world had been laid upon him to satisfy the justice of God. We talked a little bit earlier about how people will do some crazy things for love. I mean, some some crazy things. I mean, somebody shoots someone in the leg that's that's crazy. Somebody goes to the great lengths of of this whole scene or whatever. But as crazy as those things are, to try to earn someone else's love, do you know how crazy it really is for the God of the universe to send His own Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins, the only morally pure, high and exalted one who sits above all things, to leave the glory and the riches of heaven to come here in this sin infested, dirty world, actually take the sins of the world onto himself and die for them to receive the wrath of God, so that you and I wouldn't have to receive that wrath and could be in a love relationship with him. Talk about someone doing something crazy for love, those other things have got nothing on how crazy it is that our God went to that kind of links to show us his love for us. And then think of this, to be in a love, relationship with us, that us the depths of the kind of love that we are talking about. It is a sacrificial kind of love. When some of you were listening to me tell that story about the links that people went to show have somebody else love them, you're probably thinking in some way, gosh, I wish somebody would go that crazy. Of a length to show me that they love me, right?Oh, somebody has,somebody's gone to the greatest lengths they could ever go to to show you and demonstrate that love for you God demonstrates His love for us in this and you while we were yet still sinners. Romans, five, eight, Christ died forus. Oh,craziness of it all.God's love is a holy love. It's a sacrificial love. And based on this, because of the things that have been accomplished, God's love is a gracious love. Ephesians, two, four and five, because of His great love, His great love for us, who is God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ. It is by grace you have been saved. It's his great love that drove him to do what he would so that that sacrifice could be made to satisfy his wrath, so that he could gift his love to you. Youdon't have to earn it. You don't haveto prove yourself to Him. His love is a gracious love. He wants to gift it to you, and he can. He couldn't just do it before, not until he sent his one only son as a propitiation for his sins. But now, because of what's been accomplished, his sacrificial love, he can graciously just give that kind of love away. Oh, the craziness, craziness and the depth of that. David ledge, another pastor, writes this about this concept. He says, Guys, you see, God's love is a gracious love for the objects of God's love were the objects of His wrath. That's the amazing thing. This is a love above all loves that shows that he shows toward us in that while we were yet sinners, what a love. Does that not thrill you? He says, The wrath of God abided upon your head, but now the grace of God is being tipped up into your heart. What a love the unlovely, the unlovable have inherited free, unearned, unmerited grace, unqualified. Nothing in you, nothing in me, could ever attract God to us. In fact, just the opposite. Everything in US would repel. Anything holy, anything righteous, anything good, yet God, in His grace, has come to us. Oh, thankyou that it has.God's love is a gracious love to holy love. It's a sacrificial love. Thenext thing we see in Scripture is that it is an eternal love. Jeremiah, 31 three, I've loved you with an ever lasting love. Week one of this series, we talked about his attribute of eternity, that there is not a beginning, and there is no end to God. He didn't, no one created God. He didn't create himself. He didn't come into being at any point in time. He's just always been. He's eternal, right? And so if that's true about God, and God is love, then he's always beenlove.I love what Charles Spurgeon says about this. This is so good. Listen to this. He says, God's love to us is a stream whose source is hidden in eternity. Does not eternal love delight you. God is no stranger to you. He has known you long before you knew yourself. Known unto God from the foundation of the earth. Were you? He was always thinking of you. There was never a period, listen to this. There was never a period when you were not in his mind and on his heart.And there's still never a period where you're not on his mind and in his heart, if he's eternal, and he's love, and it's an eternal love, He loves you. Some of youhave felt love from someone else in your past. They've said the words, I love you, they've showed you with their actions that they love you. You felt that love from them, but as you did life with them in time went by, that love began to fade, and it began to fade and it began to fade, until at some point that person may have even said, I don't love you anymore.I want a divorce.I don't love you, friend,I don't love you, sister, I don't love you, brother, I don't love you, son. And you heard those words and you felt them walk away from you. You felt. The Love you had, it it was there, but over time, it went away. And maybe you've thought the same thing about God at one point in time, I felt like he loved me, but it doesn't quite feel the same anymore, and it feels like it's gone away. Guys, that is a lie from the pit of hell, because God's love is eternal. He will always love you. There's never a time where you are not being loved by God. It goes on and on forever. Not only does it go on and on forever, it is an unconditional love. John 316 everybody knows For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. And when he said whoever, right here, he meant whoever. It doesn't matter what race, it doesn't matter who you are, where you've been, what it is that you've done, whoever. Means whoever. I had someone come up to me after the first service and said that they had met with someone to share the gospel with them, and they were talking at some point in time about God's love and the love that they receive from God, and they live in God's love, and they know He loves them, and how they can rest in God's love, and all the things about God's love. And he paused, and he looked right them, right at them in the eyes and said, Listen, that's great for you, but God could never love me like that.Some of you know this verse.You know that it says, whoever.And yet, in your mind, you've convinced yourself that that whoever doesn't include you, you have a past, you've lied, you've stolen something, you've gossiped about someone, you've abused drugs or alcohol, you've been sexually promiscuous, you've had an abortion, you've come from the wrong place, you've gone too far, you've just done too much. I know it says whoever, but that doesn't apply to me, because you don't know where I've been. You don't know what it is that I've done.Yet, all through the Gospels,we see Jesus hanging out with thieves, liars, thugs, sexually promiscuous people, even those who have murdered other people, guys, you can try to think or talk your way out of God's love, but whoever means whoever, and that includes you, doesn't matter who you are, where you've been or what you've done. God's love has no strings attached. There are no conditions that have to be met by you to receive it into your life. Not only is God's love holy and eternal and all the things we've talked about so far, it's the last thing I want you to see. God's love is unlimited. It's an unlimited love. Ephesians three Paul's praying this prayer over the church at Ephesus and and he doesn't just say, Hey, I'm praying for you. He goes, here's, here's what I'm praying for you. You need to know what I'm praying and out of all the things, think about all the things Paul could pray for them. So whatever he's sharing them must be the most single important thing he wants them to know. And is praying over them, and he says, I pray that you may grasp how wide and how long and how high and how deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love, not just that you would grasp it, but you would, you would know it and experiencehis love in his life that surpasses all knowledge.Paul says, Out of all the things that I want you to know and happen in your life, I need you to know. I'm praying that you know how wide and long and high in the in deep it's it's an unlimited kind of love that we're talking about. But it's not just knowing that about God's love. It's knowing that that unlimited love has been poured even into our own lives. The apostle Paul wrote this in Romans, five, five, God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us God's love, the love that he described is how wide and long and high and deep that surpasses knowledge, that love has been poured out into your hearts. Some translations, when they're translating the Greek word poured here say that God's love has flooded ourin most hearts.Now some of you, you. I may look at that and go, Okay, I recognize that the moment I put my faith and trust in Jesus, that my sins were forgiven, the Holy Spirit to came came to live in me, and that his love was poured out into my life at that time.But since that time,I've done this and I've done that, and I've treated these people this way, and I've talked about other people this way, and I've abused that love that we're talking about. And so even though it was poured out into my heart there, it has to have drained away and be less than what it was at that point in time. But the thing we miss in this right here, I mean, it is past tense. And so what we need to see here is that in the original Greek, this is written in the perfect tense, which means this, that it happened at a singular, particular point in time, right there's a time that you're living your life, you're going along, and all of a sudden you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior, and his love was poured into your heart in that moment. But the thing about the perfect tense is it doesn't mean that it just happened at a point in time, but it happens at a point in time and it has ongoing results. Not only was the love of God poured into your heart at that time, it keeps being poured into your heart over and over and over and over and over again. It's like a waterfall coming over. His love just never, ever stops being poured out into your life. It was poured in in that moment, and it continuously runs all the way through you cannot have his love be drained from you or any less than what it was before you have this. What this means is that you have all of God's love dwelling in you all of the time. All of God's love dwelling in you all of the time. This is good news, my friends, good news, God can't love you any more than he does right now, and God can't love you any less based on what it is that you do from here on out, Scripture tells us that God delights in you. He rejoices over you. Scripture even tells us that he sings over you.He is lovein knowing that this is who God is, and knowing that it's been poured into our lives and changed who we are and what we experience that has impact on us and that has application for us. And so as we conclude today, let me just show you how this specifically applies to each one of us today. If God's love has been poured into you and always continues to be poured into you and it's unlimited and eternal, then the application for us is to rest in His love. The reason we have to make that our application is because there are a lot of us who if we looked at our lives, what we would see is that we're trying to chase after God's love in some way. We know that he's love. We know that it's been poured out into our lives, but if we examined our actions, we would be going what it is that we're doing is trying to earn his love, trying to make sure that he loves us as much as he once did, because we don't feel it necessary necessarily in our lives, and so if it's been poured into our hearts, and it's holy and eternal and fulfilling and satisfying, we rest in His love. Maybe one of the specific questions, if it's talking about this is going, Okay, God, would you reveal to me how I'm trying to earn your love, how I'm trying to prove myself to you through my actions and whatever it is that I'm doing. The other question to maybe ask him is, where am I looking for love outside of you? Would you reveal to me in my life where I'm looking for fulfilling and satisfying love from other people or through my accomplishments that I already have in you. If you find yourself chasing after it in all those ways, you are not resting in what God's already provided from you, and you are spending your time trying to earn something that he's already given to you. Carried along with this idea of resting in his love also means that we can quit carrying our shame. If you have all of God's love all of the time, then you can quit living in shame. You don't have to hide from God. You don't have to make up for what it is that you've done. God knows what you did.He knows what you're doing.He knew what you were going to do. He knew what you're doing right now. He knew all that before he ever sent Jesus to the cross about you, and he still sent Jesus to the cross for you.So why are you hiding? You.Why are you carrying around the shame? It's because we've allowed Satan to convince us that it's part of who we are and we should feel this and we've got to earn our way out of it from him. But it is not true. Rest in his love. Quit carrying around shame and listen. The third application is, if you've been filled up with God's love, then we give it away a new command that I give you Love one another, just as I have loved you. Well, how's Jesus loved us with a holy, eternal, fulfilling and satisfying love. So guess what? That frees you from a lifetime of having to earn it from other people. If you're not going to have to spend the rest of your life chasing after and earning and proving yourself to get something you already have. Guess what you're free to do now, just give it away. Okay, that's different. Now, Oh, I gotta go love somebody. Maybe God will be proud of me. Then I'm so just, I mean, I'm just drenched in it. It's water foul. I mean, it's water fowl. Won't stop just pouring on me. She's gonna go pour it out into somebody else's life and allow them to experience Remember, it's an unconditional love, sacrificial love. And so who is Jesus leading you to love unconditionally? Who is, who is he leading in your life to love in such a way without demanding anything from them in return. Isit your kids?Is it your spouse, a boyfriend, a girlfriend,a best friend to sacrificial love? Who is God leading you to love sacrificially. In what way will it cost you something? We rest in it. We quit carrying our shame, and we give it away as he leads and empowers us to do so. And the final application is just this. If you've never received God's love into your life, then that's the next step you take. Because again, no matter who you are, where you've been and what it is that you've done, God out of his love for you, knowing who you were, what you would what you would do, sent Jesus to the cross. He took your sins on it. He died. He defeated the power of sin and death forever after, he raised Him from the dead three days later, and now he offers you a gift and says, Here's my forgiveness, here's my love. All that's left for you to do is receive it, and the Bible tells us, we receive it by putting our faith and trust in Him. And if that's you today, and you've never taken that step, I want to give you the opportunity to do sobefore we close you.