Convinced Wk.11 | John 13

What's up, Connection College? How y' all doing? Alright, that was a little weak, but we're gonna move on anyways. Go ahead and open up your Bibles to John, chapter 13. We're gonna be continuing in our series through Convince through the Gospel of John.

But before we read anything, I just want to ask you guys a question. And before I ask it, I know how this question is gonna sound. It's a little morbid, but just roll with it. If you knew that you only had one night, one night left with your family, one night left with your friends, and you just had one opportunity, one dinner, one conversation, what would you talk about? What are the things that you would hope to say?

What are the things that you would hope to talk about with them? I don't think that we would waste that opportunity, Right? We're not going to talk about the weather, what we've been watching on Netflix, how football is going. Some of y' all might do that, I don't know. But we would talk about the things I hope that matter most.

We would talk about the things that we would hope that they would remember when we were gone. The things that we hope that they would take away from that conversation and go on with their life with. Right? And that's exactly what's happening in John chapter 13. And John chapter 13 is this very interesting piece of scripture, especially in the Gospel, right?

We've spent about eight, nine weeks going through these first 12 chapters, going through about three years of ministry. Tyler, would you go ahead and put that first slide up on the screen for me? So we've spent, like I said, eight or nine weeks going through these first 12 chapters, and John spends his time, so much time going through those three years, but then all of a sudden he stops. He hits the brakes on his story once he gets to this point, and he spends the next six, seven chapters going through about 12 hours. He spends that much time going through this very short amount of time that he's spending with Jesus on this last day, these last few hours that they are getting to spend with their Lord and Savior.

Something about what Jesus is saying in these moments, something about what's happening in. In this night has impacted John to such a degree that he spends almost a third of his Gospel writing about it. I think that should tell us something, right? We don't have to be super Bible nerds to notice and take a step back and realize, holy crap, something's going on in these chapters that's significant. Something happens in these chapters that gets John's Attention.

And I think it should get our attention too, right? This is a very heavy night. John, chapter 13 is very heavy. Jesus washes his disciples feet. He tells them that one of them is going to betray him.

And then that betrayer Judas, after he gets up and walks out to go and do the thing that we know he's going to do. Jesus gathers all of his disciples together, all the ones that are left, and he says this. Go to verse 33 there.

This is what Jesus says on this last night. The first thing that he chooses to talk about with these disciples, the faithful ones that have remained, this is what he says. Little children, I am still with you a little longer, but you will look for me. And just as I said to the Jews, now also I say to you, where I am going, you cannot come. I am giving you a new commandment that you love one another, just as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

And by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. And that first line there, when he says little children, that's big. And we don't really notice this, but this is the only time in any of the gospels where this word is used, where he calls them my children. It's a very fatherly statement, right? And it's kind of like most of you guys, right?

I feel like your parents, what do they usually call you by? Your first name, right? But if you ever had like a serious conversation with your mom, your dad, and they pull you aside and like, son, listen to me, what I'm about to say is very important. And you can tell by their demeanor that what they're calling you, it's like this is something that's intimate, something that's very important, something I need to listen up to. And this is the only time he ever calls them this, says, my little children, listen to me.

And that just has hit me so hard as I've been prepping for this, because I just feel like in my heart that God is calling out to you in this room tonight saying, my son, my, my daughter, listen to me, listen to me. What I'm about to say to you is very important. Listen to me.

Put yourself in their shoes. For three years, they followed this guy everywhere. They left their jobs, left their families, everything to be with him. He's their teacher, their friend, their Lord, their whole life. And now he's telling them that I'm leaving and you can't come with me.

And. And out of everything that Jesus decides to talk about, he decides to talk about love. He says, love one another just as I have loved you. So what does it actually look like to love like that? Because it's very specific, right?

He doesn't say, love one another in any way you see fit. Love one another as the world loves each other. He says, love each other as I have loved you. There's a very big qualifying statement there. So before we carry out this commandment, I think we need to come to an agreement on what it means, right?

What does it mean to love like Jesus loves? Right? What does it mean to love as I have loved you? Because most of us, we already have a definition of what that love is. We know, we grew up hearing God loves you, love your neighbor, be nice to people, right?

Be a nice person, be a good person. And that's not incorrect, right? But it is incomplete. If you've been to Engage Global, one of our mission trips that we go on, you've probably heard that phrase before, but I think it applies to so much of how we view Christianity. What we know about God, what we know about what it means to be a Christian.

And I think it especially applies to how we love each other. Jesus doesn't just say love one another. He says, love, as I have loved you. And this kind of love, we're just going to call it the love of God, right? It's different than the love of the world.

It's the love of God. And because Jesus is an amazing teacher, he's already shown them what it looks like before. He gives them this commandment. He gives them this commandment in verse 34. And we need to just go back to the beginning of the book to look at this example that Jesus sets for them on what this love looks like.

Look at verse number one with me.

He says now, before the feast of the passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come, that he would depart from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. Now, that word to the end is also very interesting, right? It means it can mean a couple different things, right? It's telos to T, E, L, O, S. And it can mean that he loved them till the end. Like as in till he died, right to the end of time.

Or it could also mean that he loved them to the fullest, to the fullest measure. He's loved them to the epitome of what love is. He has loved them. And I think what that means, if we read it in that context, that's what it's talking about, right? The thing that he is about to do for them is the epitome of love is love to the greatest extent.

That's what this is. So what does he do? Look at verse 4 and 5. Jesus got up from supper and laid his outer garments aside and he took a towel and tied it around himself. Then he poured water into the basin and began washing the disciples feet and wiping with the towel which he had tied around himself.

He washes their feet. That is the epitome of love, right? Now for some of you, you would never do that, right? That is beyond the pale. That is beyond something that you'd be willing to do for even the person you love most.

But that's what he does. And it's not about the foot washing. It's not about the cleansing of their feet necessarily, but it's what it tells us about. The love of God is my first thing that I want you to write down tonight. The love of God is given humbly and freely.

The love of God has to be given from a place of humility. Jesus, the disciples, Lord and teacher, takes off his robe, puts on the garments of a servant, of a slave, and he bends down to wash the feet of the men that should be serving him, right? They should be the ones serving him at this supper. And I learned something new about this whole foot washing thing that I wanted to share with you guys because it changed a perspective of what I thought about whenever I would read about this, this foot washing, right? Because I think in our minds we kind of usually picture the foot washing taking place.

Like everybody's kind of sitting in a chair, just kind of lined up and Jesus is going down the line washing their feet, right? And the problem I have with this image is at the end of the day, right, Jesus is kind of the center of attention in this. Jesus is the center of attention when he's at their knees washing their feet and everybody's kind of looking at him. But that's probably not how this would have happened. See, whenever they were having this last supper, it would have looked a little bit more like this, right?

Imagine that this Podium's about like 3 inches off the ground. They would have been lying down on pillows and rugs, on their stomachs, on their sides, and they would have been facing the table with their feet kicked out behind them. And they would have been, you know, taking food off the plate, taking food off the tables, having conversation with each other. And their feet would have been behind them. And Jesus would have gotten up, gone behind them, kneeled down and Worked his way around the table washing the disciples feet.

And the thing that caught my attention reading about that is that nobody ever had to look at him. They never had to stop what they were doing to notice this act of service that he was doing for them. They never had to even acknowledge that he existed. But he was still performing this act of service through humility and love. If we are pursuing acts of love with the hopes that somebody will notice us, that is not the love of God.

If we are pursuing acts of service with the hopes that somebody will recognize us and say look at what they're doing. Look at how loving this person is. Look at how nice and kind and giving and sacrificial they're being. Wow. They must be amazing, right?

Look at this person go, great, right? That's your reward. That's what the Bible would say, that we have our reward, right? Somebody noticed you, somebody saw you. Good for you.

That's not the love of God though, that's for you. That's self serving, right? That is look at me kind of attention. The love of God has to be given through humility. The second side of this, right?

The other side is that the love of God is given freely. And I mean this in two ways, right? Obviously number one, we just kind of talked about we don't expect to get anything in return. But there's another side of this that I think is a little harder for us to discern. There's another side of this that in our heart of hearts we expect, right?

We look at people and we kind of measure them up and we look at them and we expect them to be worthy of our love before we give it and just look around at your friend group, right? We kind of see this. We don't make relationships with people that we don't expect to get something kind of out of, right? We don't make relationships with people that don't kind of make us laugh, make us feel good, make us smile, let us know that we're like we're having a good time, right? We are expecting to kind of get something out of this relationship.

We're expecting that they are worthy somehow of being our friend, being worthy of our time and attention and love. Why would I give my time and attention to love and love to somebody who can't give it back to me the way that I'm expecting it, who can't return that to me in some way and make me feel good? Why would I give my time, attention and love maybe to someone who actually has hurt me? Why would I give my time and attention and love to somebody who disrespects me, who actually does things to harm our relationship. Can you imagine if God did that to us?

Could you imagine if that's the kind of love that God had towards us? And even if you think that you're a very loving and kind person, if we try to love out of our own power, that's the thought pattern that we're gonna fall into. It's just natural. Let me ask it to you this way. Would you lay down your life to save the life of someone that you love?

Probably right? That's a pretty easy answer. What about somebody that you don't know, but you do know that they're a good person? You do know that they're innocent. You do know that they don't deserve what they're about to go through.

Would you lay down your life to spare them from what's about to happen to them? Maybe gets a little harder to answer. But what about somebody who's done terrible things? You know that they've done bad things and actually those bad things, some of them have been directed towards you, some of them have harmed you. Would you still love them with that kind of sacrificial love?

Paul talks about this exact same thing in Romans chapter 5, verses 6 and 8.

And I think Jess actually read it earlier says this for while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly, for one will hardly die for a righteous man. You might die for a good man though perhaps somebody would die for a good man. But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. God never demanded that we be worthy before he loved us. God never demanded that we be worthy before he loved us.

And we see it back in John 13. We know that Judas was still in the room when he was washing the disciples feet. So Jesus knew who he was, what he was going to do, and he still humbled himself and served the man that he knew would betray him to his death. None of the disciples were worthy though that's the love of God. It's not based on performance or perfection or striving for any kind of acceptance.

It's about Jesus. It's about the blood. And I know that I am loved not because of anything that I do, but because that Jesus spilled his blood for me.

And here's the thing. Love can be freely given and it can still be refused. We see that in Judas. That's the second thing I want you to see. The love of God must be received exactly as it is given.

If the love of God is given humbly and freely, then we must also receive it freely and humbly. Look at verse six, right? Peter's exact example of what not to do in this moment, as he kind of usually is. In verse 6, Peter says this, or Jesus does this. So he came to Simon Peter.

He said to him, lord, you are washing my feet. Jesus answered and said to him, what I am doing, you do not realize right now, but you will understand later. Peter said to him, never shall you wash my feet. Jesus answered, if I do not wash you, you do not. You have no place with me.

Peter is struggling, I think, with the same thing that a lot of us would struggle with. He feels unworthy to receive the love of God, to receive the sacrifice, the service from his Lord and Savior of washing his feet. And that sounds humble, but I think what Peter is struggling here with is pride. Peter wants to be loved on his terms. Peter thinks that he can wash his own feet.

Jesus, don't do that. Jesus, don't wash my feet. I can take care of that. Hey, it's fine. I got that.

He doesn't understand what Jesus is trying to do. He doesn't understand the pain, the dirt, the filth, the sin that Jesus is trying to wash away Way. And Peter being Peter, after he hears what Jesus says to him, he turns all the way and goes back the other way. He says, lord, then not only wash my feet, but also my hands and my head. He's still trying to set the terms for how God should love him, how God should cleanse him, how God should serve him.

And we do the same thing. We say, God, you don't understand. You don't know the things that I've done. You don't know the terrible things that I've done, the sin that's in my life. You don't know what's behind those closed doors.

You don't know the filth that's on my feet. You could never wash it. God, I don't want you to have to do this. I don't want to show you my dirt. I don't want to show you my filth.

God, don't wash my feet. Or we say, God, no, look, I'll earn it. I can wash it away. I can take care of this. I can take it.

I can take care of it myself. You don't. You don't worry about me, God. I'll work it out. Maybe it looks like praying for forgiveness.

Maybe you were down Here last week, earlier this semester, praying that God would forgive you. And then you walked out and you never felt that burden lift off your shoulders. You never believed that you were forgiven. You never believed that God could ever forgive the things that you were confessing. God could never forgive the things that you've done.

And you're still walking around with the shame and guilt of those things right now. That's Peter. He says, not my feet. Lord, earlier I said that I feel like God is speaking to somebody, speaking to someone, saying, listen to me. This is what I think he's saying.

Son, daughter, let me wash your feet. Let me take care of the things that you think I don't want anything to do with. Let me wash away the filth that you'd rather hide. I can take it. As a matter of fact, I've already taken care of it.

As a matter of fact, I've already taken care and paid the price. You're clean. Just receive it. Receive the love that I have for you. That's all it takes.

The love of God must be received humbly. You have to let him kneel down and wash away the things that you would rather hide. The love of God must be received freely. You can't pay him back. You can never pay him back.

Stop trying. Stop trying to cover up and clean up your own sin. God has never demanded that you be worthy of his love. All he's asking you to do is be willing, be willing to lay down your pride, be willing to lay down your sin and be willing to come to him and say, God, I need you. God, I need the thing that you're offering.

Willing to receive it.

We know, looking at verses 10 and 11, right? Jesus knows their hearts. He tells them, you are clean, but not all of you. He knew that Judas was going to betray him. See, Judas experienced the foot washing, but he did.

He never received the love of God. He experienced God trying to love him, but he never took it in. He rejected it. And I feel like if you've been coming to connection college for a while now, you've heard about the love of God, you maybe experience his love through the worship, through the services, hopefully through our guest services people. I hope that they've loved you, right?

I hope that you've experienced that to some degree. If you've experienced it, if you've heard about it, have you received it or are you rejecting it? But once we have received it, right, how do we actually give it away to go back to the commandment that Jesus has already given us, right? How do we love the way that God has commanded us to love? The way that Jesus is asking us to love?

Because most of us, if we've been around church, we think about loving people and one of two ways, right? It's either a response, okay, God, you love me. And so I guess I kind of owe you to kind of follow through with this stuff I'm going to love as a response to your love to me. Or it's an example, right? Jesus has done it.

So I guess if I try really, really hard, then I can love like Jesus did it. It's an example to follow. And again, that's not incorrect, but it is incomplete. See, Jesus, he calls it an example himself in verse 15. But if all you take away from that is that Jesus did it, so if I try really hard to be like him, it'll happen, you're going to burn out really, really fast.

Because I don't think you can love a Judas by trying harder. You're going to end up hating that person and hating doing it. And I don't think that Jesus was behind Judas or washing his feet, saying, yeah, you're getting this right now, but wait, wait a few days. You're going to get what's coming to you, right? I don't think he was gritting his teeth trying to do it.

I think that Jesus experienced joy and wishing and hoping in all his heart, right, for everyone to receive his love.

If its only response becomes a debt that you can never pay, right? If it's this thing of like, okay, God, you love, so I guess I'm going to love as hard as I can, right? It becomes this burden, this debt. And I don't think that's the way that God intends for us to love. If we're supposed to love like God.

I don't think that God experiences a burden in loving us. I don't think that God experiences a burden in loving you. And if you've felt that way, if you feel like the love you have from your parents, from your family, from your friends, if you feel like that's a burden, that loving you is a burden, I just want to let you know that that is not how God sees you. That is not how God loves you. Loving you is not a burden for God.

He desires you. He desires to have relationship with you.

So what do we do? How do we love the way that Jesus intends for us to love? If it's not a response, if it's not an example, what do we do? Notice the order of what happens in this. In this chapter, Jesus washes the disciples feet and then he tells them to wash each other.

He says, do what I've done to you, do that to each other. But the love of God isn't just something that we copy. It's something that we receive and then it flows out of us. It's an overflow of the abundance of God's love in our heart. Look back at Romans chapter 5.

We just read verses 6 through 8. But verse 5 tells us something interesting about the love of God and what he has for us.

He says, and hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. It's poured into us. Now think about like a cup under a faucet, right? A faucet that doesn't shut off. Remember, God's love is limitless.

God's love is abounding. God's love will never give out on you. God's love will never run out on you. What happens to that cup if you leave it under the faucet? Eventually it's going to fill up.

Eventually it's going to fill up and overflow into the sink, into the other dishes in the sink. Eventually it's going to start affecting the things around it if it stays under the faucet and is allowed to fill up and have this overflow effect. And Paul even tells us again in Second Corinthians, he tells us this in chapter 5, verse 14, he says, the love of God compels us, it drives us. It doesn't just set an example. If we have the love of God dwelling inside us, it is driving us towards people.

It's driving us to love people. It's driving us to love people in a way that we could never love them in our own power. It enables us to love the kind of people that we would never love on our own. So what does that practically look like for you this week? What does that look like for you to love people the way that God loves us?

The way that Jesus loved his disciples. Disciples. Because it doesn't always look, I don't think most of the time it doesn't look like these big dramatic acts of love, right? I don't expect you to go home and wash your parents feet, wash your brother and sister's feet, wash your roommate's feet. But I think you can look like something very, very simple.

Taking out the trash that isn't yours, that your messy roommate seems to collect all the time, right? Letting it go, not bringing it back up. Not keeping a scoreboard, not expecting them to do it right the next time, not calling them out on it all the time letting it go, not keeping receipts all the time expecting them to change, expecting them to be worthy before you do it. Every time you see that nasty cup left on the sink that's seven days old and is growing mold in it, do you feel resentment at them or do you just pick it up and pour it out and throw it away? Do you expect something from them or do you just love them?

It looks like the person that's sitting alone in class or at the dining hall or tonight in a service, why not go up and sit with them? Do you expect them to have to be the kind of person that would make you laugh, make you smile, hopefully be a friend to you, that you can receive something from that relationship? Or would you go sit with them just for the simple fact of I hope that they feel loved by what I did. I hope that they have experienced something from my giving and my service in this. Not that I hope to get anything back, not that it has to be anything from it.

Not that I hope to have a friend, but I just want them to feel loved. Not checking to see if it's somebody that kind of fits your type of what a friend should be to you, somebody that you might get along with. Maybe it looks like serving where nobody sees. I hype on our setup team every week. I try to find somebody to say thank you to.

They set up everything in the atrium so I don't have to, and it's a huge load off my shoulders, right? And they tear it down at the end of the night. Serving in a place that doesn't get recognition, that doesn't get accolades, that doesn't get any kind of bonus to you, like, oh, look at me, look at what I do. But serving in a place just to simply be a service, right? To be loving might be simple or it might be big.

It might look like forgiving that person that you thought you never could, mending a relationship that maybe they hurt you, maybe they started it.

If it feels impossible to love that person, whoever it is in your mind, whoever it is that comes up, if it's a parent, if it's a sibling, if it's an old friend, if it feels impossible to love them, good, right? It should feel impossible because we're not trying to love them with the kind of love that I'm capable of producing. I'm trying to love them with the love of God, the love that God has put in me, right? If it feels hard, you don't need to try harder. You need to fill up your cup, right?

Jesus tells us in John 15. I think Jordan talked a little bit about this last week, but he tells them, remain in me, and I in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, but must remain in in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him bears much fruit.

For apart from me, you can do nothing. Let me ask you, what is your cup full of right now? What is filling you up? Is it the love of God? Are you staying under the faucet?

Or is it anger? Is it bitterness? Is it unforgiving? Is it full of sin, lust or greed or worldly desire?

You don't clean out your cup by scrubbing harder. You clean out your cup by staying under the flow. If you've ever washed out a cup that has dirty water in it, or that day old coffee that your roommate left, right? If you wash it out, what happens? You turn on the water and it kind of starts looking brown and dirty for a second.

But if you leave it under there long enough, right? It becomes pure, becomes clean. What's left in there is just water, hopefully, and not mold, but it becomes clean, right? Are you sitting under the flow? Are you sitting under the flow of God's love?

Are you staying connected to Jesus? Are you staying connected to him? To allow the fruit of his love to work in you? And you'll notice after staying under that flow long enough, you'll begin to love the person that you never thought you could. That roommate that gets on your nerves and that's so annoying and so aggravating, you realize maybe this isn't so hard after all.

And you'll notice that it's not me. It's not what I can do. It's God in me that's allowing me to do this.

But why? Why should I love like this? Why is it important for me to love the way that Jesus loves? It's hard. It's not easy.

It's not something that I want to do. It's not something that comes natural to me. So why should I do the hard thing? Why should I do the thing that I don't want to do?

It's very simple. In verse 35, he tells them this. You should do this because by this all people will know that you are my disciples. Not by how much Bible you know, not by how much Christian music you listen to, not by the Jesus shirt you wear, the Jesus tattoo that you have, it's by how we love one another that is the identifying characteristic of a disciple of Jesus. Jesus is saying that when the world looks at his people, it should see him.

It should see him reflected back to them. And your roommates, your classmates, your family, they might not ever come here, they might not ever open their Bible, but they are watching how you love.

I was listening to a sermon clip today from a preacher that used to have anxiety attacks every Sunday before he preached. That resonated with me.

But his mentor gave him some advice. So whenever you start feeling that way, I want you to remember that the people in your church need to hear what God has given you. The people in your church need to hear what God has given you. And that just hit me like a ton of bricks today, because I think that is true of us tonight. The world needs what God has given you.

If you have received the love of God. The world needs more of that. Your friends need more of that. Your family needs more of that. Your classmates, they need more of that.

This city, this town, this college, it needs more of that. It needs the love of God. And God has chosen to work in you, through you, to be his ministers of that love to them.

Only you guys can have that effect. Only we can have that effect if we choose to be obedient to it, if we choose to do the thing that God has called us to do.

And by loving like this, we can also have assurance. This same John who wrote this gospel, he writes a letter later on. And in First John 3:14, he tells them that we can know that we have passed out of life, out of death, into life, because we love our brothers and sisters, because of how we love each other. I can know that I've passed from death to life. I know that I can have security in who God has made me to be, and that God has washed me clean.

Because I'm loving with a love that is not of myself. I'm loving with a love that is of God. I can know that. I know that. I know that Jesus washed me clean.

And if that's true, then the opposite is true as well, right? If I'm struggling to love, maybe it's because I've never received that love. If I'm struggling to love with the love of God, maybe it's because I don't have that overflow.

The saddest part of what happens in John 13 is just a couple of words. After Judas took the bread, in verse 30, John says that Judas went out immediately. And there's this little extra part. It says, and it was night. Why would John include that?

Why does it matter? Why does it matter that it was night when Judas walked out? I don't think John is talking about Judas walking out into darkness, into the nighttime. He's talking about him walking out of Jesus life. Walking out into utter darkness, away from God.

Judas sat in the room with the love of God. He had his feet washed with the love of God. And he still walked out into darkness.

There's a sign that we put up every week right at the front doors. Maybe you've read it, maybe you haven't. But it says, come as you are and leave changed.

There's people in this room tonight that unless you leave changed, you're going to leave. Just like Judas, walking out into darkness, walking out into hopelessness. Walking out back into a life of sin. Back into a life that at its best, all it can offer you is a cheap imitation of the love of God. All it can offer you is something that is so less than.

It's not even worthy the love of God. He is willing to give it to you tonight for free. And all you have to do is be willing. All you have to do is be willing to lay it down. He's not asking you to be worthy.

You can come to him with all of your brokenness, all of your anger, all of your questions. He can take it. And I promise you that it'll be the best decision you ever make. I want you to have a Jesus story, not a Judah story. I want you to have an experience tonight with the living God who loves you and wants to wash you clean.

Who is crying out to you, son, daughter, listen to me. I want to wash you. I want to make you clean. I want to take your filthiness that you think I can't take, that you want to hide from everybody else. I want to take it on.

I want to wash it away. I want to make it white as snow.

He wants that for you. I want that for you. We want that for you. So if that's you tonight, if you feel like God is calling on you and saying, let me wash you, would you be willing to do something really bold? Would you be willing to just stand up and let us pray for you, to let us walk you through that?

If that's you tonight, would you just stand up right now?

Can we have somebody from our prayer team come down, please, For the rest of us? I feel like I just want to sit in this moment for a minute. I know I'm running out of time, but we're going to have a time of response. And I just want to challenge the rest of you. What kind of love have you been showing the rest of the world?

Are you loving them with the love of God, or are you giving them a cheap imitation that only you can provide? Or are you loving them with the love of God that only he can provide?

Do you need to come down and just fill up your cup? Allow your cup to be filled up so you can go out and do the things that he's called you to do? If you're here tonight and you didn't stand up, you're declaring, I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian, and I want to do the things of God. I want to live a life that is honoring and pleasing to God.

And he's calling you to go and love those people in your life, to love him the way that he would love them. Are you able to do that? Do you feel capable of doing that right now?

I think the rest of us, we just need to rest in his love. Maybe you feel like you've been striving, just striving, hoping to prove yourself. God, I know that I can do this. I know that I can do this. And you just need to come and spend some time with him.

Say, thank you, God. Thank you for this free gift. Thank you for allowing me to have this, to receive this, to not feel the weight of trying to earn it.

I'll pray and then we can respond. Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you for your love. Thank you for your grace and your mercy.

Thank you for sending your son to pay a debt that we could never pay, so that we could experience a transformational kind of love, sacrificial love, that we could be enabled to experience that and have the experience of loving others with that. Lord, I pray that your spirit would just convict us tonight. I pray that it would move in us tonight. I pray that it would fill us up, that we can go out from here and do the things that you have called us to do. Holy Spirit, move, name of Jesus.

Amen.