======================================================================== LOVE IS EVERYTHING by Steve Gallagher ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon emphasizes the profound love of God as the answer to all problems, highlighting the importance of living in God's love. It delves into the concept of 'agape' love, God's essence, and the need for believers to understand and experience this love. The sermon also explores the depth of God's love through various biblical examples, urging listeners to respond to God's love with gratitude, seeking Him, and unselfishness. Duration: 1:00:56 Topics: "God's Love", "Living in Agape Love" Scripture References: 1 John 4:8, Ephesians 3:17, Deuteronomy 6:5, John 14:15, Exodus 34:14, Matthew 25:40, James 4:7, 2 Corinthians 3:17 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon emphasizes the profound love of God as the answer to all problems, highlighting the importance of living in God's love. It delves into the concept of 'agape' love, God's essence, and the need for believers to understand and experience this love. The sermon also explores the depth of God's love through various biblical examples, urging listeners to respond to God's love with gratitude, seeking Him, and unselfishness. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Mr. Hunter, back there, my buddy. It is wonderful to be in the house of the Lord. To be in the house of the Lord, where he's truly worshipped and loved. I really appreciate what Pastor Ed shared. I was thinking as you were sharing that, in all the strife and problems and sin and self that was going on in the Corinthian church. Then he gets to the 13th chapter and basically, Paul is saying, here's the answer to all your problems. It truly is. The answer, man, this is it. Why can't we get it? To live in the love of God is the answer to all your problems. It really is. You got to give it a try sometime anyway. It has become more and more real to me as the years go by. That love is everything. When it comes to Christianity, it is everything. Everything to do with God's actions toward mankind, and our relationship with him, and our relationship with other people. Love is everything. Now, 30 some years ago when I started in ministry, I would have never made those statements, I promise you. But I have come to realize the truth of it. It is everything. In 1st John 4.8, there's a simple little three-word phrase in that sentence. God is agape. God is agape. As I was thinking about that, I was thinking the word is used in one form or another over 200 times in the New Testament. It was a new word. I mean, it was in the Greek language, but no one ever used it, like punctilious or something. Is that a word, Mark? Quick, hurry. Some word that you never used. It's there, but who in the world ever used it? Agape was that way in the Greek language. It just wasn't used. They had other words. But then the Lord got it into biblical writers that this is a special thing. It's something very special. So I was thinking about this, and it didn't happen like this. Sometimes I tell things that aren't quite true, and this is going to be one of those times. So John's sitting around. It's about 90 AD when he wrote his epistle. He's sitting around and he's like, when I think about all the things that have been said that are written in scripture up till now, for God so agape the world that he gave. All right. He's thought about that. Who can separate us from the agape of God? As we heard, agape is long-suffering. Agape is kind and all the other things. In fact, agape is the foundation of all the fruit of the spirit. So he's going through the New Testament, and he gets up to where he's ready to write his part. I told you this didn't happen, okay? He says, you know what? All that's true and much more, but God is agape. It's the essence of his being. If you want to know what God is, who is this person? What is he like? God is agape. Everything you find in scripture that's talking about agape in the sense of the way the Lord is or the way he calls people to be, that is God. That's what he's like. John liked the sound of that so much that eight verses later he repeated it. God is agape. In John's life, when he got back from Patmos, it's tradition. I don't know if it's exactly like the tradition says, but they said that he was an old, old man and they literally would have to carry him into the meetings. They would set him down in the front and all he would say is, love one another. Just love each other. Just give yourself to each other. Do for others. All he would talk about is the love of God. Someone said to him, John, I know that's important, but there's a lot of other things too. Why do you always say the same thing? He said, basically what he said was, because if you will do this one thing, everything else will take care of itself. It's true. I need to say also that this, I can't think of, I never was good with English terms. What is is? What's the technical term for that word? A verb. God is. Okay. I guess it's a verb. All right. I'll buy that. It is a verb there. I knew that. Just temporarily slipped out of my mind. God is agape. It's not that he was or he will be or he is when things are a certain way. It is the reality of his unchanging being. He will always been, he has always been, he will always be this thing called agape. Now, I know what some of you are thinking. Now, Pastor Steve, wait a minute. I know God is loving, but you're being really pretty lopsided here, aren't you? What about the other side to him? I mean, is this just going to be another one of those sloppy agape talks? Yeah, it is. But just be patient. It'll be a well-rounded message by the time I'm done. Amen? By the way, many of you are going to see the Lord today in a way you have never seen him before. You're skeptical of me, aren't you? I'm telling you. Nathan, one of my counselors sitting in the front row. Let me just touch on some aspects of the Lord. You hold that thought and within an hour, you're going to come back to me and you're going to repent. I want to just touch on some things. God's love is immense and overwhelming. Immense and overwhelming. Now, I asked Brother Nate for a song and he blew me off. Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus. I think, what happened? Did you get it mixed up with that other one? It's a long story. It's complicated, right? It goes back to childhood and something happened when he heard this song or something. But let me read the words to it. It's such a beautiful song and so was that other one we sang. Man, why don't they write songs like that anymore? These frilly, superficial, feelings-oriented, me-centered, deary-centered. Oh, yeah. That's for sure. Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus. Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free. Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me. Underneath me, all around me is the current of thy love. Leading onward, leading homeward to thy glorious rest above. Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus. Spread his praise from shore to shore. How he loveth, ever loveth. Changeth never, nevermore. How he watches o'er his loved ones, died to call them all his own. How for them he intercedeth, watches over them from the throne. Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus. Love of every love the best. Tis an ocean full of blessing. Tis a haven giving rest. Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus. Tis a heaven of heavens to me. And it lifts me up to glory, for it lifts me up to thee. Man, that's a beautiful song and the reality it expresses. A man named Trevor Francis wrote that in 1875. And I'm sure that he must have been studying in Ephesians 3 when he wrote that, when that inspiration came to him. You know, just how you get into the word and you just soak in it, and you think on it, and you meditate on it. And if you do that and you're in the right spirit, I mean, stuff just starts coming to you. It's really a beautiful thing. And I think that's what happened to him. Because in Ephesians 3, Paul is praying for the Ephesian believers, and he's praying that they'll be rooted and grounded in love. Rooted and grounded, rooted and grounded. Established, built upon love. He went on to say, they may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth. And to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, surpasses knowledge. Yeah, you know, really what Pastor Ed read out of 1 Corinthians 13. If you know all things and you do not have love, it means nothing. You are nothing. And you think about some of these seminary professors who can analyze and pick to pieces every sentence of Scripture, and they know it backward and forward in their heads, but they don't know the love of Christ, and they don't live in the love of Christ. What right do they have to teach Bible school students how to do ministry? Alexander McLaren talking about the love of God and kind of along the same line of rolling as a mighty ocean, you know, just that whole thought. Maybe he had just sung that song, I don't know. But he had talked about like being a bottle in the ocean, but, you know, if you don't allow God's love to flow through you, you just kind of bounce along the surface and you never come to know it for yourself. You can learn about it in your heads, but if you don't come into it and allow it to flow through you to other people, you will never experience it. It'll just be a concept, you know, something you kind of think about, and, oh, that's a nice thought, and it'll be just very shallow to you. And you guys have heard, I'm sure, us use the metaphor of being a pipe for the Lord to use, you know, just an ugly old PCP, not PCP, what? PVC. Old drug days. PVC. PCP pipe, yeah. Whoa, things are getting bad here. PVC pipe. Don't get excited, Nathan, you're still going to repent. All we are is an earthen vessel with a treasure inside of us. If God owns you, if you have truly been born again and his spirit lives within you, then you have a treasure inside you. And, yeah, you're marred and you've got baggage and you're messed up and, you know, just all the stuff that we have and we carry through life, but if you've got the Holy Spirit of God inside you, he will flow through you if you will allow him to. And all you'll ever be is nothing but an ugly pipe, but the love of God, his presence will just go through you to other people, and other people will be tremendously blessed by your life. And, anyway, getting back to Ephesians 3, Paul talked about the love of God being wide enough to reach the whole world. And, you know, one day we will stand around the throne and there will be people from every single tribe, every nation, you know, long lost primitive tribes in New Guinea and wherever you can think of, there will be people gathered around that throne because the love of God is wide enough to reach people everywhere. And it's long enough to stretch from eternity to eternity. There will never be a time when the love of God isn't being poured out. What a thing to come into and live in and know that that is what you can expect for all eternity. Now, think of the opposite of what Nate was talking about, being so sucked up into yourself and always wanting what you want and being driven by lust and all the ugliness that comes out. Is that what you want for eternity? For that momentary little carnal pleasure? You better make up your mind which direction you're gonna go and forget about your cheap little formula prayer that you prayed 10 years ago. The reality is what we're talking about. The reality. Nevermind what church you go to and how you spout off that you're a Christian and all this. The reality is what's coming out of your life. High enough to seat us in heavenly places. Wow, man. And this is why Jesus came to earth and why he died on that cross so that he could bring people to live with him forever and deep enough to reach down into the degradation of your sin and your selfishness, the way that you were deep enough to reach into that hell and pull you out by cords of love. Martin Lloyd-Jones says we find ourselves as it were upon the pinnacle of Christian truth. There is nothing higher than this. And he went on because Martin Lloyd- Jones was a very intellectual, very smart man. And people that kind of gathered around him, especially young men and stuff, they loved that about him, how intellectual he was. And he said to them, and man, I bet you he just drilled into them. He said, if your knowledge, you can know all this stuff about the Lord, but if you don't know him personally, relationally, if you don't know his love for yourself, if that love isn't flowing through your life, all your knowledge means nothing, which is basically what Paul said. Man, this is a good sermon. Now, listen, if we're gonna have a good relationship going forth from here, you gotta laugh at my jokes, okay? Because things are gonna go sour if you don't. All right, number two, God's love is relational. You know what a relationship is? It's, what's the word I'm thinking of? Inter-something or other, huh? Reciprocal, that'll work. It's, there's a backwards, not backwards, going back and forth, huh? There's, I hear a voice and I don't see the mouth going. Give and take, thank you, Chris, give and take. Reciprocal, someone said that. There is, yeah, give and take, that's, yeah, that'll do. But why is it that so much of what we hear, when we hear preachers, yeah, I can think of one, one preacher in particular, I won't name him, but he's got a big church in Houston, but I won't name him, who loves to talk about the love of God, but why is it that when I hear it, it sounds so shallow and meaningless and empty? Why is it that when I hear him talk about the love of God, the goodness of God, that I don't get the sense that this is a man who really lives in the reality of that? Because he's like that child in 1 Corinthians 13, the childish person who's completely sucked up into himself and all he can think about in this relationship is what are you gonna do for me? And that's what you guys were pretty much in before you came here, right? What's in it for me? And you're coming into something different, I hope, right? You're coming into a reality, that's what Sunday nights are all about. Man, what does this green book and these weird things he says and all the caps and stuff, what's up with that? What has that got to do with overcoming sexual addiction? Just everything? Nevermind all Steve Gallagher's books, just do the green book and you got it. If you'll live it out, the Lord presents himself in different ways in scripture, and anthropologically, who said that? Thank you. Are you a Bible school student? Aha, there you have it. What he said. He presents himself sometimes as a parent and sometimes as a husband. And his love, I mean, those are the two most powerful types of love there are on this earth, right? A parent towards their child and what a husband and a wife have together when things are right. I mean, those are powerful. I mean, there's the potential for powerful, emotional expressions there. Those two metaphors. And those are the two main ones that the Lord uses so that we can comprehend his love. But it isn't one-sided. The guy in Houston doesn't get that. All he thinks about is what is he getting out of it and how God wants to lavish him with carnal things. That's all he thinks about and that's all he's gonna get too. How sad. Now, I wanna just take a second here to create a scenario and present God as a father, God the father. And think of him having, let's say, 12 kids and he has a family business. And, you know, so he's got these 12 kids and everyone's got different things they're supposed to do, different responsibilities and duties and so on. Okay, so that's the scenario. And I wanna look at Psalm 78. And I'm just gonna blow through it. You can open up to it if you want, but I'm just gonna blow through it because that was what God established with the Jewish people when he poured out the plagues on Egypt. And he rescued his people because of Abraham. He rescued his people, took them through the Red Sea and all that he did to take them out into the wilderness to establish a relationship with them because they were steeped in idolatry and there was a lot of junk and poison in them, you know. They had been totally given over to Egyptian idolatry and so on. And so he was taking them out of that environment and putting them in a place not much different than Kentucky, right? And to reveal himself to them. And I hope that's what's happening for you guys here. Reveal himself to them. And so he's lavishing them with his love and his, yeah, just establishing this relationship. But look at the response he got in return. Verse eight, he called them a stubborn and rebellious generation. In other words, it's like the father tells his son, listen, I want you today to go to the bank and make a deposit. When you get done with that, I want you to run over to the supplier and pick up some stuff and get it back here by 1030 because we've got a bunch of things going on. And his son says, no, I got other plans. I don't wanna do it. And he just doesn't do it. I mean, that's kind of that attitude that was just there, just a resistance, an unwillingness to do what God said. And also in verse eight, they were not faithful to him. In other words, there was a complete lack of loyalty. And what would it be like for a father to have a son where the son had no loyalty to him? Now I can think of a lot of wives that feel that way. I bet a lot of your wives, those of you that are married, have felt a complete lack of loyalty to them. In verse 10, they did not keep covenant with him. In other words, there was a contract, a spiritual contract they had with each other and the Lord perfectly fulfilled his side to it and they didn't fulfill theirs. And also verse 10, they refused to walk in his law. And in numbers 11, Moses said that they rejected the Lord. They rejected him. They didn't want his ways and his laws and just leave me alone. Verse 11, they forgot his deeds and miracles. All they could think about is what have you done for me lately? You know, because they live in the now. They don't care all the tremendous things that he had done for them. Listen, guys, this describes what you have been like in the past. Hopefully you're not this way now, but this is what you have been like. These different responses here. Verse 17, they sinned against him. They rebelled against him. Verse 18, they put him to the test. In other words, they were cynical about his promises. Like a certain person in the front row today. Skeptical from Missouri, the show me state. Verse 19, they spoke against him. And one example comes out of Deuteronomy 1. Because the Lord hate us, he brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us. Just, man, spoke against him. I wonder how many of you have done that in your heart anyway. Blamed him for your sin, for not getting free, right? How many have done that in your heart? You blamed God, I did. Why won't you set me free? I prayed a prayer. You know, that kind of thing. Verse 22, they did not believe in him or trust him. Verse 36, they flattered him. In other words, they, you know, these people honor me with their lip service, but their hearts are far from me. Verse 57, they turned back and acted treacherously or deceitfully. The word really means corrupt. Twisted was their reaction to him. Now, you know, listen, you've got God on his throne and pure agape love is flowing from that throne to this multitude of people who are out there in the wilderness by themselves. And this is their response to him. Verse 58, they provoked him and aroused his jealousy. All right, so this went on for 40 years. The Lord put up with this. But you know, the reality is it's been going on for 6,000 years, because this is the way mankind has responded to the Lord. This is the way I responded to the Lord when I was younger and the way you have responded to the Lord. We just are in it for self, you know, and that's how we tend to think. But you know, part of the problem is the way we see God. We see him like some kind of mechanical justice system. You know, and all we think about is, we just see God in a wrong way. But he is a person and he has feelings. You can't love unless you have feelings. Verse 40, how often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert. Grieved God, grieved him. Now, you know, another place that word is used in the Old Testament, I can't remember what the Hebrew term is, but it's the same word, is when Absalom was killed in that battle. Remember David's son, Absalom? And it said that David grieved over his son. And then it goes on to share what he was saying. Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son, I would have rather died in your place and you to live. And he just, over and over, he was wailing out to the point that Joab had to go and confront him because he was so sucked up into his feelings, he was forgetting that his whole army had, you know, fought for him against this treacherous son. But it's the same feeling. How much have you provoked that in God by the way you have treated his love? How many times, I wonder, has God grieved over you? And it says it in the New Testament, do not grieve the Holy Spirit. Think about the things that you have done, the disgusting, filthy, vile things that you've given yourself over to while a holy, pure God is watching. Me too, me too, okay? I'm not beating up on you, just as true of me. In verse 41, again and again, they tested God and pained the Holy One of Israel, pained. You know, the reality is about love, is when you love someone, you make yourself vulnerable to them. You open your heart to them. And I wonder how many devastated wives are represented in this group. These women, these girls who married you with just a bright-eyed naivety, believed everything you said, gave themselves to you, gave their hearts to you, made themselves completely vulnerable, just opened their hearts and expressed their love to you. And that's what God has done with all of us. And what He's received back in return has been an enormous amount of pain, far beyond the pain Jesus suffered at Calvary. I told you it was gonna be more balanced, right? Didn't I tell you that? Another example of this is Ezekiel 6, 9, where it's the Lord speaking and He says, I was crushed by their adulterous heart, which has departed from me. And that word crushed, one translation says, I was devastated. And that's right. I mean, that's a right translation. I was devastated. That's the word, shabar. I talk about it in sexual idolatry. And in sexual idolatry, I give some examples. Throughout Egypt, Hale beat down everything growing in the fields. Moses threw the tablets out of his hand, breaking them to pieces. The lion mauled him. A great and powerful wind shattered the rocks. Josiah smashed the sacred stones. All of those different usages are that word, shabar. And the Lord is saying, here's my heart, and this is what you've done to it. Quit thinking of Him as some kind of cosmic, what, machine. He's a person with feelings. And we have broken His heart time and time again as a father, but even more so is when you think of Him as a husband. And the real picture, the best picture of that is Hosea, where he tells Hosea to go and get a wife. Go get a harlot, go get a whore, someone who's got eyes for every guy around. Just, you know, someone who just wants to go to bed with everybody. Go get a girl like that, and he finds this girl, Gomer, who's just like that, got that mindset. And he uses Hosea to show Israel what he has gone through with them. And time and time again, she sneaks out of the house and goes and gets in the sack with some guy. And he's gotta just keep taking her back, taking her back, taking her back. Finally, she ends up on an auction block and he actually goes and buys her back. One writer said, the powerful image of a jilted lover explains why in his speeches to the prophets, God seems to change his mind every few seconds. He's preparing to obliterate Israel. Wait, now he's weeping, holding out open arms. No, he's sternly pronouncing judgment again. Those shifting moods seem hopelessly irrational except to anyone who has been jilted by a lover. Man, it hurts. It hurts when you open your heart up to someone. And God has done that to each of you. He's opened his heart and given you his best. And that brings us to the third point. God's love is jealous. Again, he's not a machine. He's a person. The Hebrew word for jealousy is kenah and it's used at least 20 times. Let me just give you some real quick. Right at the beginning of the 10 commandments, he's been telling them, forbidding them to make idols and just idolatry. You shall not worship them or serve them for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. In Exodus 34, you shall not worship any other God for the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God. Deuteronomy 4, for the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. Deuteronomy 6, you shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the people who surround you for the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God. Otherwise, the anger of the Lord your God will be kindled against you and he will wipe you off the face of the earth. Someone needs to tell the guy in Houston about this side of God's love. Solomon said, wrath is fierce and anger is a flood, but who can stand before jealousy? You know, the deeper the love, the deeper the wrath. When that love gets spurned, I'm gonna read Kyle Delitch's, one of the, it's kind of like the classic Old Testament commentary. This is what it says about this word kana, literally glowing fire. It's one of the deepest ideas of the Old Testament. It's two-sided, the fire of love has for its averse the fire of wrath, for jealousy contends for the object of its love against everything that touches either the object or the love itself. On the wrath of God, it is evident that by kana, we are to understand the energy of love following up its violated claims upon the creature. It is the jealousy of absolute love, which seeks to be loved in return and indeed demands undivided love. But this idea includes not only jealousy seeking the recovery of what is lost, but also jealousy that consumes what cannot be saved. It is absolute holy love, which just because it is absolute and holy, repels and excludes whatever will not suffer itself to be embraced. You know, guys, God has loved you far, far, far more than you realize, me too. I mean, but at least, you know, 30, 40, 50 years into this, I'm starting to understand, starting to get it somewhat. But I am clueless, you know, way back in early years and all, I mean, I can look back in a vague sense, but man, just everything was going over my head when I was younger. I was just so out of it. You remember the story in Living in Victory of the Mossad? Did anybody here read that book? Anybody pay attention to it? Mossad, so a lot of you haven't read it yet, is that right? This is one sad audience, that's all I can say. Nathan, this is your fault somehow. Okay, in that book, I tell the story, it's a true story of how the Mossad was after this Iraqi scientist who was living in Paris and he was totally involved with creating the nuclear program for Saddam Hussein. And this was back in the 80s. And so the Mossad sent a team of 50 agents to Paris and they had this whole elaborate operation going on and they were all focused on this one man, his name was Halim. And they were wanting to get him to do what they wanted him to do, which was to give them the plans for the nuclear plant. And so they did this whole operation, I mean, it was intense. And it took months to unfold and all this stuff that happened to get him to that point. And that's what the Lord has done with you and with me. It took him years of putting up with your rebellion and your perversion to get you to the place where you would finally humble yourself and come in here, come to Pure Life Ministries and let him speak to you. And some of you still don't really care. Wow, man, the fire of God's love is a terrifying thing. All right, so I'm gonna wrap it up. You know, it's what I said, love is everything. But our attitude is, at least it has been, listen, okay, that's great, but just tell me what I'm supposed to do. You know, okay, I'll go to church and I'll quit cussing. In fact, I'll even quit drinking. I'll do this Christian thing. But listen, man, there's more to life than just being a Christian. That's just, no, that's not Christianity. If that's what your version of Christianity is, I suggest you become a Muslim or something because Christianity is not that and it's not for you. Christianity is a relationship that's real and it is nothing less than that. You know, when you start to experience this immense, enormous, overwhelming love of God and your eyes start to open to it a little bit, you have to respond. And there's different ways to respond to his love. Gratitude, I mean, I suppose maybe that's a big thing for me and just every morning when I go out to pray, the first thing I'm doing, I don't have to be told to do it, it's not some ritual. It just boils up from my heart is just gratitude, so grateful to the Lord for all that he's done in my life, the discipline, the blessings, the tremendous revelations he's given me, the experiences, the travels, the ministry, just everything, just grateful and respond by seeking him, desiring to be close to him, desiring to know him and obeying him, of course. Jesus said it over and over and over, he equated love with obedience. And he said, if you're not obeying, no, I can't remember how he said it, but I think he said, God's love is for those who obey him. You can check it out later, I think it's John 14. But anyway, if you look at the context though, of our verse back in 1 John 4, here's what John said right before that statement in verse eight, he said, beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. You know, you came in here with a form of Christianity and you need to leave this place with the reality of God's love in you, through you, coming out of you regularly, always thinking about others and doing for others and letting God live his love through you. You know, it's like I've said, you probably have heard me say it, my little formula, we initiate, God empowers. How can I love? I don't have it in me to love people like that, to be unselfish, I'm just selfish, that's all I've ever been. How can I not be what I am? You get outside of yourself, you do something for someone else and you'll find that God is there living through you, his presence comes out of you, he's in your voice, he empowers you, he takes you through, he does it, he does it all. But he doesn't just come on you, you know, like you're some kind of robot and just make you do things and say things. No, you have a will, you have to choose, I want to be this person and I am going to do my best to get out of myself and let God live through me. There's two components to living out the love of God. One is to make yourself vulnerable because you have to make yourself vulnerable to love people. You can't love people behind walls and all I need to do is read what C.S. Lewis wrote and I don't know if you've heard it before or maybe I put it in one of my books, I don't know, but it's good and it just gets right at it. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be certainly wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements, lock it up safe in the casket of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken, it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy or at least to the risk of tragedy is damnation. The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is hell. You've got to learn, guys, to get outside of yourself. And to start taking chances. You'll get hurt, you'll get hurt. The other thing is unselfishness because the self-life is nothing other than the opposite of God's love. It's the very opposite. It is Satan's rendition of life, to live for self. What I want, the way things, the way I want things, so on and so on. And that's what the mercy studies are all about, to teach you guys, here's how to do it. If you want to know God's love, you've got to live in God's love, you know? And when you're showing a sincere interest in someone else, a new guy comes in the program tomorrow. There should be 50 of you that come to him at one time or another in his first week and say, hey brother, welcome here, I'm glad you're here. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help you. Wouldn't it have been nice when you came in, if you'd have had 50 guys come up to you and tell you that you're the center of everything? Yeah, you would have liked that, right? When you're praying earnestly for someone else and they don't even know about it, maybe, you're praying earnestly for them, you're loving them, and God's love is flowing through you. When you're giving of yourself and giving of your resources, especially when you can do it secretly, God's love is flowing through you. You're meeting the needs of other people. You know, Jesus said it this way, when you've done it to the least of them, you have done it unto me. That's it right there. The issue isn't what you do on Sunday morning, the issue is the way you live your life from Monday to Saturday. The issue is who has your heart. What you cherish in your heart is what you are becoming like. My friends and I are walking down the street, bam, Playboy magazine. Totally rocked my world. This lifestyle that I was living just got out of control. In a very short time, my life spiraled completely out of control. The whole time I've been looking at pornography, the longer I looked at it, it began to get progressively worse. I couldn't really explain what it was, but I was instantly addicted. You cannot take steps down a path and avoid arriving at the destination. God wants your heart, Satan wants your heart. Whoever has your heart will control you. Every time you sin, your desire for the things of God dies a little bit. Your faith dies a little bit. Your desire to be free dies a little bit. And with it, the hope to get free. So how do we win this war? And emerge with the victory that Christ has earned for us. What's missing is God's power to transform a person. For God to come in and do a work to set us free up of something that has taken hold in our lives, that we have allowed in there, requires surrender. The Lord was able to show me that, yes, I can set you free from this. And hope, for me, was actually within reach. That was something I'd never felt before. I don't care what kind of sexual sin you're involved in. I don't care how bound up you are. If you will sincerely apply the principles that are in that book, God will absolutely set you free. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/0XQ6_XoP0WE.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/steve-gallagher/love-is-everything/ ========================================================================