Apostolic Lighthouse
The Love of God - Bro Zach Bourgault
Lord Church, are you glad to be in his house tonight? Amen. I am so glad to be here. I normally never get nervous. Those of you that know me know that. I have no problem getting up and singing in front of 2,000 people. But you know, there's something special that comes with it when you get behind this pulpit. And I begin to pray. I had this thought that just been eating on me the last few weeks, and it's going to sound very elementary to some people. But I believe we forget about this many times. And I believe there's someone here tonight that needs to know what I'm about to preach. God knew who was going to be here. And God has a word for somebody. Amen. Are you going to get behind me church tonight? Amen. If you have your Bibles, let's turn to John chapter 4. I know we have a long, hot week ahead of us. It's going to be miserable this week. For those of you that work outside, so I will keep it short and sweet. But I want God to have His way. Amen. John chapter 4 and verse 16, and it reads like this, "And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love, and He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in Him." Just for a few minutes tonight, I want to preach on just a very simple topic called the love of God, the love of God. If you would, put your Bibles down, stretch your hands this way, let's begin to pray and ask God that He is with us just for the next few minutes. God, I need you here tonight. God give me the words to say, God give the people ears to hear. God led the convicting power of the Holy Ghost, rained down in His service tonight. If we're nothing without you, we need you here today, Lord. God be with us in this service, God be with me right now. We'll be sure to give you the praise, glory and honor in somebody said, amen. Amen. You may be seated. Love. Love is a commonly used word in our everyday life. I love to hunt. I love to elk hunt. Let's get precise with it. Let's get about that time of year by the air and in myself. We were talking about it the other day and we love elk hunting so much that we are already planning what we do week to week according to our elk hunt coming up in October. We already scheduled time off. We already block out weeks on our calendar. You don't even think about doing anything around the middle to end of October and that doesn't really work out good for me because my anniversary is around that time. But I still love elk hunting, amen. I love me some steak. I love some shrimp. I mean, if you're not shouting over that, I don't know what will. And I do not like to work out so that does not go hand in hand with each other. But I love a lot of things that I do in my everyday life. But God's love, it doesn't even compare to the kind of love that I say, how much I love elk hunting, how much I love steak and shrimp and doing all kinds of things and writing folders with my boy. God's love for us is something that we can't even fathom. Amen. There are four different words that describe love in the Greek and I'm going to give you the three main ones and the first one is eros. First was the Greek God of love and in Latin he is called amor, that's God of love or cupid, desire, eros refers to a selfish love, it is a self gratifying love. Then we have philia, philia is where we get the English word philadelphia, philadelphia is known as the city of brotherly love. Examples of philia love or lifelong friends, cities with one another, political or business contacts or people of the same tribe or religious society. But neither one of those describe the love that God has for us. The kind of love that I want to talk about tonight in the Greek it is called agape, agape love. Agape is the highest form of love and it is the love of God for human beings as it embraces a profound sacrificial love that transcends and persists regardless of the circumstance. Agape love is not about the person being loved but it tells us it is because of the person being loved may be totally unworthy of that love. Agape love has nothing to do with the object of its love but the character of the one who loves us. We can't earn it, we don't deserve it, God just loves us. He looks out for us, where would we be without the love of God? Every hour of every day, every minute of every hour, every second of every minute, God loves us. Are you thankful for the love that God shows us every day? One of the most popular verses of all time, John 3, 16, we can quote it front to back inside out for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. That verse is still true today church, kids at a young age, they can memorize that verse and we can all quote it but scholars still struggle to explain to us the love of God. We know that God is holy, we know that God is just, we know God is omnipotent, we know God is faithful but we know that God is love. And I know we say we know the love of God but just sit tight, we're really going to find out the love of God. John chapter 3 says, for God so loved the world. In this verse love is used as a verb. Now for you English scholars, I know you're not going to believe it but English was my favorite subject in school. I loved English, I hated math, I didn't even get the word problems, I still don't get the word problems and there was English involved but in this verse love is used as a verb and the word so that is a demonstrative ad verb and when you combine that with the verb love it simply means that God loves us in an infinite manner that we cannot humanly describe or understand. God just loves us and only God can love humanity. Why do you say that? Well only God can really love a pedophile. I know you're getting quiet on me. Only God can love a drunk driver. Only God can love someone that is demon possessed. Only God can love a murderer. Only God can love the thief. We think that God's love is just for the good ones that sit inside these four walls. We think God's love is just for us that haven't done really a whole lot of bad stuff but God so loved the world that means everybody that's the pedophile that's the drunk driver that's the demon possessed that's the murderer that's the homeless man that's strung out on drugs but we limit the love of God. How can God love someone that does something so bad? We couldn't stand up here and say well I guess we all could maybe some of us would lie that we love everybody in this world. We can say we do but what about the people that I just mentioned? We're quick to cast judgment on someone that's not just like us but God loves them. God loves them Romans 5 and 8 says but God commended His love toward us and that while we were He had sinners Christ died for us. Church we're no better than anybody out there on drugs. We're no better than any murderer out there. We just found God's love in time. We just found God's mercy in time. Oh I'm so glad that God's love is not like ours. When we fall God still loves us. When we fail God still loves us. When we come up sure God still loves us. That's the love of God. We can't understand it but if we could understand it then God wouldn't be God. If I can describe to you everything there is to know about God He wouldn't be God. Amen. The two words so loved it demands more of our attention. The demonstrative adverbs so is modifying the verb loved. The word loved is written in the Aristotle's active voice indicative mood. There's a lot of fancy words just to say that there never was a time that God did not love you and there never is a time that God will stop loving you. God knew that we were going to sin but He still loved us. God knew we were going to break His commandments but He still loved us. God knew we were going to fail Him but He still loved us. God knew without a doubt we would fail Him but He loves us. He loves us. God didn't start loving us when we walked in this church and God is not going to stop loving us when we walk out those doors tonight. And I know this is elementary for a lot of us but we forget how deep God's love is for us. God's love hit the boundaries of God's love far out to expand these four walls right here. It goes way beyond this little town that we live in. It reaches farther than this whole county. Come on, God's love is never failing and I can stand here today and say that's why I praise Him where would I be without God's love if nobody else loved me. God loves me. If nobody loves me, my family God loves me. If nobody loves me in this town, God loves me. If nobody wants to sit beside me in this church, God loves me. God loves me. Jesus loves me. This I know for the Bible tells me so. But do we really believe that here? Hallelujah. God's love is sacrificial. God gave Himself to us, 1 John 3 says hereby perceive we the love of God because He laid down His life for us. God gave everything. You can give and not love but you cannot love without giving. I'm not talking about material things for your kid, I get it. I get it. My boy could come up and ask me for something tonight and I would go get it for him. He's a spoiled brat and that's why. But love goes way beyond just buying your loved ones material things. And you give yourself, when you give your all, when you give everything that you have to someone, it's not just material things, but it's you're giving discipline, you're giving instruction, you're giving them direction, you're giving them you and God gave everything that He had because He loves you tonight. God will never stop loving you. God gave His life so you can be free. God gave everything that He had so you didn't have to live in addictions. You didn't have to die lost. I don't understand everything there is to know about the love of God, but I know that He loves you right where you're ready tonight. Hallelujah. First Peter 2, 24 says, "Whose own self bear are sins in His own body on that tree that we being dead to sinned should live unto righteousness." That's the love that God has for us. God He could have picked a different way, I don't know He's God, He can do whatever He wants, but God chose to give not just part of Himself, but it give us everything that He had. He gave us His all, the love that God has to us. We can say we love somebody, but the moment that they kind of do something bad to us, what then? The moment they, well, don't pay us the money they owe us in time, what then? Yeah, we can say that we love somebody, but it's not the kind of love that God has for us. You're here tonight. You don't know the love of God. You don't know this love that we're talking about. I pray that everyone in here knows that love. But if anybody knows about the love of Jesus, I do. If anybody knows about the grace of Jesus, I do. If anybody knows about the healing power of Jesus, I do. Come on, church, are you thankful for the love, the love that God pours out on us every single day. Romans 8 says, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Our tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or neckiness, or peril, or sword, added as written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter, nay, and all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God. You can't run from the love of God. You can't hide from the love of God. You can't avoid the love of God. The love of God will chase you down right where you're at tonight. The love of God doesn't care what you've done. The love of God doesn't care where you've been, it just cares about where you're going. God's loved you since the beginning of time. He's not going to stop loving you tonight, just like the prodigal son feeding the hogs. The love of the Father reached down to where He was sat and loved Him all the way home. You don't have to live this way anymore. You can be set free. You can be parted. You can be forgiven by the love of God. The love of God comes back to the music tonight. I told you I wasn't going to hold you long. The love of God, the love of God, we can't even imagine why God would love some of the people that I mentioned here tonight. God loves those that are in the penitentiary. It doesn't matter what they've done or where they've been, God loves them. I can't explain it. I can't tell you the reason why, but God loves them. And God loves you here tonight. You don't have to leave the same way that you showed up because the love of God is just as strong and powerful today as it was 2,000 years ago. You can't run hard enough to outrun the love of God. You can't dig a hole and bury yourself to hide from the love of God. But there's one thing you can do tonight. You can run to that love. The love of God is still standing here with open arms waiting for you. The love of God still wants you to come home. The love of God is still reaching, is still pulling. The love of God is still drawing. God still loves you today. Let's stand all over this house. God still loves you. God still cares about you today. Let's lift our hands all over the house. You don't know about that love I'm talking about. You walked in here believing that you've gone too far and that there's no way that God in heaven could love you. I have proved you wrong tonight. God loves you. God still cares about you. The additions that you have, they're not too strong for God. The things that you do, and they're not too bad that you can't come home. Come on, the love of God doesn't care. Come on, do you need to experience that love that I'm talking about tonight? These altars are open if you don't know that love that I've been preaching about. If you don't know the love of God, tonight is the light. If you just need to be reminded about the love of God, Church, He still loves you. We may have messed up, we may have fallen short, but the love of God is still there to pick us up. Oh come on, don't forget about the love of God, don't forget about the grace of God. Oh don't forget about the love, don't forget about the peace that passes on your standing. Oh Church, don't forget about how much that he loves those around you. Come on, let's pray, let's touch God, let's learn how to love them with the godly love Church. Let's learn how to be long, separate and compassionate. Let's love them with the love that only God can give us. Come on Church, come on, you're here, you're still needing all about the love of God. I'm pulling for you right now, don't leave here without knowing the love of God. Jesus loves you, Jesus cares about you. Oh