Beyond Ourselves: Is Love the Gateway to Biblical Wholeness?
Here’s a summary of this week’s sermon:
Beyond Ourselves: Is Love the Gateway to Biblical Wholeness?
In the bustling corridors of our everyday lives, amidst the cacophony of our ambitions, fears, and desires, there lies a question: What does it truly mean to love? In a world obsessed with the notion of love as a fleeting emotion, a commodity to be chased and captured, we invite you to pause, reflect, and rediscover love through the lens of biblical wholeness.
Biblical wholeness, defined as "nothing missing, nothing broken," it encompasses the totality of our existence: spirit, soul, body, relationships, and economic well-being. At the heart of this quest for wholeness lies a fruit, not of the earth but of the Spirit: love.
What Is Love, Really?
In the modern lexicon, love is often reduced to a sentiment, a mere echo of Hollywood’s romantic dramas. It’s portrayed as an emotion that, like the seasons, comes and goes, leaving us in a perpetual cycle of seeking and losing. Yet, the biblical narrative paints a far richer tapestry of love.
Agape, the highest form of love, serves as a beacon, guiding us toward the realisation that love, in its purest form, is selfless, unconditional, and enduring. It is this Agape love that forms the bedrock of biblical wholeness, a love that not only encompasses feelings but transcends them to embody actions, commitments, and sacrifices.
The Love Connection: Wholeness and the Fruit of the Spirit
To love as the Bible teaches is to engage in a radical act of rebellion against the self-centric ethos of our age. It is to extend oneself beyond the confines of self-interest and to embrace the other—not because it is easy, but because it is right, and it reflects the heart of God.
Love’s Transformative Power
Love propels us beyond ourselves, urging us to share this divine gift with others. In doing so, we not only become conduits of God’s love but also participants in the broader narrative of redemption and healing that our world so desperately needs.
As we ponder the question, "Is Love the Gateway to Biblical Wholeness?" let us consider love not as an abstract concept but as a tangible, actionable truth that has the power to reshape our lives and our world. In the words of Jesus, "As I Have Loved You," we find both a command and a promise—a command to love as selflessly and sacrificially as He has loved us and a promise that in doing so, we will discover the fullness of life that comes from being deeply rooted in love.
In the end, biblical wholeness, with love at its core, beckons us to a life that transcends our limited understanding, inviting us into a divine dance that weaves together the threads of our being into a tapestry of beauty, purpose, and eternal significance. Let us, then, step beyond ourselves and embrace this love, for it is in giving that we receive, in loving that we are truly loved, and in surrendering that we find the gateway to wholeness.
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Matt Edmundson: [00:00:00] Welcome to this week's Crowd Church service. We are a digital church on a quest to discover how Jesus helps us live a more meaningful life. We are a community, a space to explore the Christian faith and a place where you can contribute and grow. Our service is will last about an hour and in a few seconds you'll meet our hosts for our service who will introduce today's talk.
After the talk we will have a time of worship and reflection after which we head into Conversation Street where we look at your stories and questions that you've posted in the comments. Now we want to invite you to connect with us here at Crowd Church and we've got a few ways. In which you can do just that.
Firstly, you can engage with crowd from any device during our [00:01:00] live stream. And if you're up for it, why not invite a few friends over and experience the service together? See, church is all about connecting with God and connecting with others. And one of the easiest ways for you to do that is, join one of our mid week groups where we meet online together to catch up and discover more about the amazingness of Christ.
You can also subscribe to our fairly new podcast called What's The Story, where we deep dive into stories of faith and courage from everyday people. More information about All of these things can be found on our website at www. crowd. church or you can reach out to us on social media at crowd. church. If you are new to crowd or new to the Christian faith and would like to know what your next steps to take are, why not head over to our website crowd.
church forward slash church. [00:02:00] Next, for more details. And now, the moment you've been waiting for is here. Our online church service starts right now.
Dan Orange: Hello everyone. It's good to be back. And I'm here joined with my sister Ruth.
Ruth Orange: Hi.
Dan Orange: Sister, as in sister in Christ. Sister in Christ as well. Actual sister.
Actual sister. In blood. Yes. Yes. One of my, one of my three sisters. How lucky is he? Yes. Yes.
Ruth Orange: Yes.
Dan Orange: It's really good to be back. Perhaps firstly, we should say happy birthday to Matt.
Ruth Orange: Oh, why? Yes. Today?
Dan Orange: Birthday today, Matt Edmundson. Happy birthday, Matt. Yes. So he's had a fun day doing a course.
We said, hopefully he's got some cake now. Okay.
Ruth Orange: And it was Dan's birthday on Thursday. Happy birthday to Dan.
Dan Orange: My birthday as well. All the great people have birthdays in April. And my [00:03:00] dad's on the same day. Yeah, so we've had a I had a fun week, a busy week, but a fun week. Have you done anything fun today?
Ruth Orange: Not today, but yesterday I went to the comedy club, Dan, and it was very funny.
Very funny. We listened to two Are you allowed to say that on here? What? Can you advertise things? I don't know. Yeah. Mr. P's. They're really good. These teachers, they're just very funny. Yeah. It was good fun. Ah, very good. Yeah.
Dan Orange: I had a fun day with another family member, a brother. Bye. So yeah, three sisters and a brother at lunch today, and then a manic lawn mowing session where we're broadcasting from Liverpool and it has rained for the last year and it stopped today so they were able to mow the lawn.
Yeah, it's
Ruth Orange: nice today, I put my washing on the line. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Very nice.
Dan Orange: Matt says we're not doing two angles. No, we are. Oh, straight at you. Okay. I don't know
Ruth Orange: what that means, but apparently we're not. Yes. I was very confused because you'd touch your hair this side and [00:04:00] then in the camera, you're not on that side, blowing my mind.
So Matt, this is just about enough. Okay.
Dan Orange: So today we have Sharon. In fact, it's a cool talk today. It's got different people as well. So Sharon's bringing the. The talk and then she's got some special guests in there. Yeah, as well. Lots to talk about.
Ruth Orange: Yeah, it's nice. Sorry. Also, can I just clarify that Matt is 50 not 500?
Dan Orange: Yes. Okay. Yeah.
51.
Ruth Orange: Oh, wow.
Dan Orange: Yes, he's gone past it. I'm not quite there. But Yeah Nice so we're continuing our series on The Biblical Wholeness. And so Matt is talking Matt, Sharon is talking about love. So yeah, it's really good. I listened
Ruth Orange: to it this morning. Yeah.
Dan Orange: I'm really looking forward to this. So if you've got any questions, please fire them in.
And then when [00:05:00] we've listened to the talk, we'll endeavour to answer them and talk about them. Even if it's not, if it's questions, if it's just. Anything, comments, as it's going to yeah,
Ruth Orange: wonderment.
Dan Orange: Yeah. And I'll say it now, but we say at the end as well, any prayer requests, please send them in.
We've just had, had loads this week been popping up on WhatsApp. So we've been able to pray for lots of you out there and it's a real privilege to be able to pray for you. So please send in your requests. It's great. Ah, Matt's course is finished. He's getting some cake. Very good. I think let's get straight into it, shall we?
Yeah. So we're going to listen to Sharon's talk. And when we come back, we will talk about the talk. Here we go.
Sharon Edmundson: I want to show you something. This is a branch from my apple tree. The leaves and [00:06:00] the blossom started to form and then they just stopped. On the rest of the tree, the leaves and the blossom are continuing to develop. What's the problem? You don't need to be a gardener to work it out. But I'll come back to that later as it's relevant to what I want to say today.
So we're currently doing a series on becoming whole, and we're looking at wholeness from a biblical perspective, and we're defining biblical wholeness as nothing missing, nothing broken. Within the series we're looking at five aspects of wholeness. Spirit, soul, body, relationship and economic. We started the series by looking at how being right with God is the starting point for spiritual health and that the only way to be right with God is through Jesus.
Today, we are starting a mini series within the Wholeness Series. The mini series is the Fruit of the Spirit, with the focus today being on the Fruit of Love. It all [00:07:00] comes from the following passage in the Bible, which says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self Control.
Against such things there is no law. Today I'm going to look at the following questions. What is love? What does it mean when it says the fruit of the spirit is love? And how are love and wholeness connected? I've got some personal stories from different people to slot in along the way. I'm also going to look at briefly what love isn't.
So what is love? When I say the word love, what's the first thing you think of? Do you think of a parent or a child? Do you think of a friend? Do you think of a Hollywood romantic love, or do you think of something else? Hollywood often offers a very shallow definition of love, where love's based on an emotion.
If the emotion's there, then there's love. If the emotion isn't there, then we're to move on and [00:08:00] find it in someone else. And it's easy to accept that as true. It's easy to believe the lie that if we just find that one person that makes us have those feelings, then life will be perfect. But the Bible would contend that love goes much deeper than that.
In English, we only really use the word the one word for love, and we use it to talk about all different human relationships, and also for our relationship with our pets, and, in my case, chocolate. So we say, I love my mum, I love my husband, I love chocolate, and I love puppies. But all of those relationships are very different.
The Bible, on the other hand, has different words for different types of love. The Bible was originally written in three different languages. Most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, with a tiny portion written in Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Greek. Now, I'm not a scholar of any of these languages, but I'll give you a very simplified [00:09:00] and possibly mispronounced overview of some of the different words for love in the Bible.
So there are four Hebrew words for love used in the Bible. Number one, Ahava. This word is used when talking about lots of different types of relationships where there's a strong emotional bond. For example, it says that Jacob loved Joseph more than all his children. I definitely don't recommend loving one of your children more than another.
Whenever this was the case in the Bible, it did not go well. It's also used romantically. For example, Isaac loved his wife Rebekah. It's also used to talk about God's love for his chosen people, Israel. Number two, Racham. The Hebrew word Racham in the Bible is most commonly translated as compassion, but it's also translated as love.
It can mean a caring, devoted type of love. For example, in Psalm 18, David says this, I will love you, Lord oh. I love you, O Lord, my [00:10:00] strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer. Jewish scholars describe Racham as a perfect, infinite love, like the one between a parent and a child.
Number three, Dod. In modern Hebrew, the word Dod can mean uncle. However, in the Bible, it's frequently used in a romantic context and is usually translated as beloved. This word is used in almost every chapter of the book of the Song of Solomon. For example, My beloved is mine and I am his. Number four, Chesed.
Throughout the Hebrew Bible we see chesed translated in a number of different ways. Steadfast love, mercy, loving kindness and goodness. But none of these words really do it justice. It has such a rich meaning to it. It's a loyal and tender love based on a covenant commitment such as in marriage. or at least as marriage is intended to be.
It's the love that God expressed to his people Israel. It often [00:11:00] refers to the love of God towards people and is similar to the Greek word agopal, which we'll get to soon, or agopeo. There are also four Greek words for love in the Bible. Number one is eros, It's a romantic, passionate love. It's not actually used in the Bible itself, but is used in the Greek translations of the Old Testament.
Number two is Philio. This is a love you might have for a friend. It's a, it's friendly and affectionate. Number three is Storge, and this is a family love. It's the love that parents and children naturally feel for one another. The fourth love fourth word is agape or agape, and it's the highest form of love, along with ghesed.
It's this kind of love that today's verse is talking about. It's unconditional, self sacrificial, patient, and loving. Kind and it never fails. Agape is the word used in 1 Corinthians 13, the most famous [00:12:00] biblical chapter about love, which is often used at weddings, which we'll come to later. Agape is the love God has for his son Jesus and amazingly it's also the love he has for us.
Love's talked about a lot in the Bible. An expert in the Jewish law came to Jesus and asked this. Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Now, I live in the UK and we have many laws that govern us. Wherever you're from, I'm fairly sure that your country has loads of laws too. What would you say if someone asked you what the greatest law in the world is?
What was Jesus answer to this question? Jesus replied, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment and the second is like it. Love your neighbour as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.
The love he's talking about here [00:13:00] is agape love. Even if you're not familiar with the Bible and all the laws contained in it, you may have heard of the Ten Commandments. They are, you shall have no other gods before me, you shall make no idols, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, keep the Sabbath day holy, honour your father and your mother, you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbour, you shall not covet.
The first few of these commandments are about loving gods. And the rest are about loving other people. For example, if you really love someone, you aren't going to steal from them. Jesus said to love our neighbour. So who is our neighbour? Jesus was asked this question and he answered it with the famous story about the Good Samaritan.
Jesus was the master of answering questions with more questions and stories. I don't have time to go into the story now, but the basic message was that your neighbour is anyone you [00:14:00] come into contact with, including your enemies. Anyone can love a family member who is kind to them. It takes a God kind of love to love an enemy.
Loving God and loving other people sounds nice in principle but it also sounds like a lot of hard work, and it can be sometimes, but we're missing something crucial if we're thinking of love as just a lot of things we have to do to please God. The Bible also says this, Whoever does not love God whoever does not love does not know God because God is love.
This verse doesn't say that God is loving, though he is, it's saying more than that. God actually is love. All true love of all kinds flow from the person of God. Many unloving things have been done in the name of God, but this verse tells us that unloving actions, even if done in God's name, have nothing to do with him.
The Bible also says this. We [00:15:00] love because he first loved us. The Biblical principle here is that first we receive love from God, Then we let that love flow out of us to others. This brings me back to my branch. In case you hadn't guessed it, the problem with this branch is that it isn't attached to the tree.
It can try really hard to grow, but it's going to struggle. What it really needs is to be connected to the source of life, the tree, so that the life of the tree can flow through it. God is love. You don't have to be a Christian to be able to love. We can love to a certain extent by human effort, the Bible acknowledges this.
After all, we were created from love, to love. But our human love is very small in comparison to God's love. Often our human love is conditional on the other person behaving in ways that are acceptable or is dependent on getting something back. When we're connected with [00:16:00] God and receive His love, it changes us.
A friend of mine who became a Christian at university said this, When I was growing up, it was just me and my mum. My mum was very hippie. We didn't have a lot of furniture, but we had crystals. My mum was baptised as a baby, but she didn't really have a face. She had a book of Buddhist teachings which I looked at when I was 12.
I liked the idea of Buddhism and thought maybe it could be something I would be interested in. We went to church at Christmas when I was a teenager and it was nice. I got a Bible when I was in Year 9 from a Christian group who came into school. I wanted to read it, but I didn't understand it and forgot about it.
Mum started going to church online during Covid and I would listen along with her. I thought it was a nice, positive thing to do, but I didn't have a genuine belief. At uni, I got into star signs and manifesting, which everyone was doing. I was looking for meaning and trying to make sense of the [00:17:00] world, but none of those things filled me with deep satisfaction.
Before you become a Christian, you don't realise what you're missing until you find it. When you find it, everything makes sense. And I realised that it was God who I'd been looking for. You can't blame people who are into all sorts of things. They don't know what they're missing. Some people try to fill the hole with relationships, some with food or alcohol or drugs, never finding fulfilment.
I was always seeking love in different places, and wanting the assurance and validation from others. I was desperate for approval. It sounds cheesy, but when I became a Christian, I felt like my eyes were opened. I understood the concept of being spiritually dead and blind, and then spiritually alive and able to see.
It doesn't make everything fall into place instantly, but there's a deeper assurance that nothing else fills. There's no agenda with the love of God, it's totally pure. Even the love we have for other [00:18:00] people is not the perfect love that God has for us. It's so nourishing and fulfilling, that's why nothing can come close to it.
Even the love of my mum who loves me so much. Even though I didn't have a dad in my life, I've had other men who are important to me. I've found the fulfilment of a father in God. God just has the best for us. He's a parental figure. Even though your parent may tell you off or stop you running into the road, they do it because they love you.
I felt like something was missing until I found God. Though I didn't have the words for it before, God brings wholeness and healing. Now, my friend Dave always has great stories of how God is working in people's lives, so I asked him for a story about the transforming power of God's love, and I'll let you tell I'll let him tell you one of his stories in his own words.
Dave Connolly: Hi Sharon, here's the [00:19:00] story of a lady who I met a few months ago. This lady grew up in a family that was very dysfunctional, very broken. Sadly, she was exposed to a whole host of things that just caused her pain and torment and left her broken and in despair. As she grew, she seemed to get into darker and darker places emotionally.
She was not in a great place and she seemed to make one bad decision after another. Which led her down the path of depression, self harm, suicide. She describes herself as being totally lost, as if she was abandoned. Her husband had become a Christian and started going along to a local church. So she decided to go and see what it was all about.[00:20:00]
And she went along and she thought the people were really lovely. But she knew her history and she was aware of all the things I'd been in a life and she just felt shame, guilt and even despair, but she continued to go along. One evening, I met this lady when I was preaching and at the end of the talk, I had said, if you need help, if you'd like to know a little bit more, if you'd like somebody to talk things through with you or pray with you, then come to the front.
And the lady responded and some other wonderful lady spent time ministering to her. What I had said was, come as you are, that Jesus came to seek and save the lost. And those words I'd stared at as she sat in her seat listening, all of a sudden, She would say it's like the lights came [00:21:00] on, and it's like she could see hope for the first time, and she was able to continue to listen to what I was saying, and I was talking how Jesus came to seek, that He was actually seeking her, He was searching for her, and He had come to save her, to rescue her, and I talked about how she, and anybody else who was listening, could respond.
To Jesus's invitation to come and encounter his life transforming love. His love that switches on the lights and all of a sudden you see where you are, but you also see the great hope that he brings. And she responded that evening, and with the help of those lovely ladies who prayed with her, and shared with her, she received Jesus as her saviour.[00:22:00]
And I've seen her several times since, and it's so encouraging when I see her. Because the conversation normally goes, Dave, I just can't believe how amazing God's love is, how he saved me, how he came right into my life, right in the midst of all that horrible mire, that brokenness, that Pain. His love was so powerful that it broke into all of my pain and my misery and I experienced his love.
Dave, his love set me free. His love has healed me. His love makes me Look at myself differently. Think about myself differently. His love makes me love me. [00:23:00] Dave, his love has the power to override any negative thinking in my life. And now I know that he loves me. I no longer despise myself. I no longer want to self harm or think about suicide.
My life is filled with love and hope. And every day I know that God is at work in me. And because I've experienced this, Amazing love that is so much bigger and so much powerful than all the negative things that was going on in my life. I now want to share with other people. I want to share with those people who damaged me so badly that God loves them.
Dave, Jesus came to seek and save the lost, why would people not want to [00:24:00] experience this amazing love and freedom? It has transformed my life, she said. This lady is simply talking about receiving the invitation of the love of Jesus, the love of God. And this love is so powerful, it can transform your life.
I hope this is useful, Sharon.
Sharon Edmundson: Thanks for that, Dave. Yeah, it's in my own life as a young Christian, I struggled for many years. Although I'd given my life to God, I didn't really understand spiritual things and how to make God's kingdom a reality in my life. I felt insecure. And when you feel insecure, it's very hard to really love other people, because you're so concerned with your own unmet needs.
I was very aware of the darkness in me and I felt powerless to do anything about it. I came to the conclusion that I couldn't help but do wrong because I was broken and dark on the inside. [00:25:00] And then I had a few great revelations. One of those revelations was through these verses. At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we've now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him?
For if, while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life? I realize that God loved me in my broken state. He saw the darkness in my heart and he still loved me. If he knows everything about me and loves me at my worst, I don't need to hide from him ever.
The next revelation I got was through these verses. [00:26:00] Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come, the old has gone, the new is here. And this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. He loved me, but he didn't leave me in my broken state.
He'd already made a way so that I could be new on the inside. I just had to believe and receive it. Now, this was a time in my life when I really experienced the presence of God in a powerful way. I was really aware of his spirit and his love, and it changed me. But there have been other times in my life when I couldn't feel God's love or his presence at all, but I had to live by faith in what he says in the Bible, that he does love me, even if I can't feel it in that moment.
Also, there are times when it's easy to love other people, and times when I've really needed God's help to love people. There are times when I've said to God, Lord, help me. I know you love this person in front of me. Help me to see them as you see [00:27:00] them. As followers of Jesus, we're asked to live by faith and not by feelings.
For we've seen that God's love can transform our own lives, but if we just stop there, we're only seeing part of the picture. We're created not only to receive God's love, but also to pass it on to other people. If we only receive, and don't give, we're not living in the fullness or wholeness that God intends for us.
So what does love look like? What would you say are the characteristics of love? The famous verses about love that I mentioned earlier, that are often quoted at weddings, are these. Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonour others. It is not self seeking.
It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, [00:28:00] always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. Going back to my branch. If this branch was connected with a tree, it would not only grow, but it would produce fruit.
It's similar with us. When we're connected to God, we grow and produce fruit, like the verse in Galatians says, that the fruit of the Spirit is love. In the Bible, right at the beginning, it says that humankind are made in the image of God. Humans have inherent value because we are God's images. We represent him on earth.
We're created to govern the earth on his behalf. And the way God's kingdom works is through love. So part of wholeness for us is to pass on God's love to others. My friend John has a story of how God's love flowed between him and God. and one of his lodgers bringing healing to both of them. That's the way God's kingdom works.
Here he is with his story.
John: Hello, my [00:29:00] name's John. I used to live in Liverpool. Now I live in Jerusalem. My mother was Jewish Israeli and I was brought up in England. But because of her, history growing up, In the Middle East, she had a fear of Arabs, and she passed that on to me. So I had an irrational fear of Arab people.
And then about five years ago, we met this young Christian Arab lady from Bethlehem. She came to stay with us for about six months. And To start with, there were certain things we never talked about because we knew that we both had these bits of painful background that we, baggage, we carried with us. But then gradually we started to ask each other questions about growing up, background, different things, and it built a bridge.
And because we both had the love of the Lord Jesus in our hearts, we wanted to build that bridge. So in essence, love overcame fear. [00:30:00]
Sharon Edmundson: When I first heard John tell a longer version of this story a few years ago, what really came across to me was the healing that came to both himself and his lodger through the love of God.
What else does this love flowing out of us look like? It looks like my friend sending flowers to the neighbour who was being racist towards her. It looks like many of my other friends adopting children who need a family. It looks like a businessman caring for the welfare of his workers, as well as his profits.
So we've looked at a bit of what love is, but what is love not? In the UK and many other Western countries, it seems now that many people think you can define your own truth about who you are and what is right and wrong, and that if anyone disagrees with that, then they're not being loving. This is not a biblical view of love.
Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus is the one who defines what's right and wrong [00:31:00] and what is truth. Sometimes the loving thing to do is to challenge someone's beliefs or actions. Proverbs says, whoever heeds life giving correction will be at home among the wives. Just because God loves us doesn't mean we can just do our own thing and that he will rubber stamp it.
1 John says, in fact this is love for God to keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. The fact that God loves all of us doesn't mean that we're all part of his family. He extends that invitation to all of us, but we have to accept. He doesn't force himself into our lives. Love has to be freely chosen.
I started this talk with the branch of my tree. If this branch represents you and the tree represents God, how well is your branch connected to the tree right now? Is it fully attached? Is it hanging on by a thread? Or is it [00:32:00] nowhere near the tree? If you're not already a Christ follower, know that you're created for a relationship with your Creator.
His love for you is a pure selfless love and you're created to have his love throwing, flowing through you to others. What is your response to this? If you're already a Christ follower, remember that the Christian life is not about just trying harder to love God and others. Receive from God first. If you stay connected to Him, you will automatically grow the spiritual fruit of love, which will flow out of you.
We've heard a few stories today of how receiving and giving God's love transforms life. If you want to hear more stories about how God is transforming people's life today, then you can watch or listen to loads of stories on our website. Just go to crowd. church and click on What's the Story? Thank you.
Dan Orange: Ah, [00:33:00] thanks, Sharon. Good, wasn't it? Yes. Yeah, really
Ruth Orange: good. Yeah.
Dan Orange: Wow. Where do we start? What is the something there you want to start at? Something that sort of jumped out at you?
Ruth Orange: Yeah, there's a few things, but one, the That comment you put on the chat thing, it just made me think of one of our, I think your favourite film as well, one of them is Last of the Mohicans, because he, I don't know if anybody's seen it, it's such a good film, but the man who's in love with this woman, that's what he says, and he, Yeah, and that's what God's done, isn't it?
He, Jesus has done, he's, like Dan said, he's not active. He's active, he's not passive. Yeah he comes and he finds us and that's, yeah, there's something just beautiful and romantic, but proper love in that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Orange: Yeah. [00:34:00] I love, yeah, it's a great talk. My love just said, I love that talk.
But the love in the Bible, other languages have so much more expressiveness, don't they, in the fact that we've narrowed it down just to one word. The same thing, like
Ruth Orange: Sharon said, you can love chocolate, you can love God, yeah. Yeah,
Dan Orange: and perhaps that it doesn't help us in our thinking of things, that love is so much more than that.
And as Sharon said a couple of times, that love isn't, true love isn't an emotion. When the emotions die away, when the feelings change, love can still be there. And I know in life, people can base a lot of decisions on feelings and what they're thinking now. But God's love is constant, no matter how, what we're feeling about things.
And we can [00:35:00] experience some of that love as well. And I think we can live in that love so we can know that when times are tough, that love is still true. So my love for my wife is still there. When we've had an argument, it's still there when I don't agree with her or when things are a bit tricky.
My emotions and my feelings might be wavering and going up and down, but my love still there because it's a love that is a commitment. It's a covenant between us. And that's what God's done. He's brought that covenant, hasn't he? He's brought that promise that is strong.
Ruth Orange: Yeah. Yeah,
Dan Orange: I love what you said that God searches for us.
Ruth Orange: Yeah. Yeah, and it's, I think [00:36:00] Sharon says it in the talk as well, that sometimes she doesn't feel his love. But that's when, like you said, that's when you have to know and believe that God that you love, and that came for you, does love you and what he says is true.
Dan Orange: Yeah. And God, the Bible says, and Sharon said it in the talk, God is love.
Yeah. And I think if you've known someone love you, if you've known any kind of love in your life, you've known some of God, you've known because he, he created us, he brought us into being and that love is there, isn't it? It flows through him. I think it has to come out of us. It has to be anything good coming from God.
It says,
Ruth Orange: yeah, but yeah, on that, Sharon was talking about image being made in his image. I think it's really interesting. We talked about this a while ago. [00:37:00] Because Dan said, if you've known love, you've experienced some of God's love, but some that image doesn't mean that it's not a mirror image anymore, isn't it?
You can't look at everybody and see. God's love in people is it's a dirty image. It's a broken image. So some people won't have known any love. Some people will have known a love that's not pure. It's not right. It's only when we truly, yeah. Truly know God that we can start to know what actual love is.
And yeah. And it's, and I think also, like she was saying, society now, It's messed it all up, haven't it? We've messed up what love is. Love isn't just saying yes to everything or letting anybody do anything. Like she said, you wouldn't let a kid run out into the road if you love them. Love isn't no boundaries and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, but go back [00:38:00] right right back to that. He is love and you can make sense of stuff again.
Dan Orange: Yeah, I love the story that Dave told about that woman. And the thing that I wrote down that really spoke to me was his love made me love me. Yeah, she couldn't even, she couldn't love herself. She saw in the mirror.
She saw something that wasn't right, that wasn't lovable, but then she saw God's, she experienced God's love and it made her be able to love her. God's love permeates, doesn't it? It goes down deep and it, it frees. Yes. It transforms. Yeah. Yeah.
Ruth Orange: Yeah.
Dan Orange: And it, and the other story as well that love conquers fear.
It goes past our irrational fears, it goes past our actual feels, doesn't it? Perfect love casts out all fear, the Bible says. Yeah.
Ruth Orange: Yeah. And we, I've just read literally just half an hour ago [00:39:00] something Billy Graham wrote about knowing God or knowing his love. And it's like somebody that's only ever seen a puddle, a dirty puddle, being able to describe what an ocean is like.
And then you see the ocean and you, yeah, or you experience part of the ocean, but you can't even see the other side, once you're at one side, you can't see the other side of it. And it's just, yeah, it's, the more we know Jesus, the more we can see stuff, can't we? But I think until we get to heaven, maybe we'll never totally, I don't know, maybe we will know every, everything, but I think it's it's, he's so big.
Yeah. He's so loved. Yeah. But it's lovely.
Dan Orange: Yeah. But it is a challenge Yeah. As well, isn't it?
Ruth Orange: Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Orange: The greatest love is to love God and love your neighbor. Yeah. AKA Your enemy. Your enemy. Yeah. Yes.
Ruth Orange: Yeah.
Dan Orange: Yeah.
Ruth Orange: But I like, but that's what, and he said the fir first. Love God with all your heart, with always strength, isn't it?
You don't, if you can't. [00:40:00] Yeah. Sharon was saying, it flows through love him because he first loved us and that's how we can love our Yeah. Our enemy. Yeah.
Dan Orange: Your enemy might be your, might be a physical neighbour, it might be your work colleague, your boss, the country next to you. Yeah, somebody you've never even met even.
Yeah. Yeah.
Ruth Orange: But somehow, you can do it, you can do it, can't you? Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Orange: I was thinking when, so Sharon talked briefly, and she mentioned the parable of Good Samaritan. And it's amazing that's such a common word now in the English language is Samaritan. But the Samaritans were hated by the Jews and Jews hated the Samaritans.
Now when we hear that word, hear the word Samaritan, all we hear
Ruth Orange: is
Dan Orange: a guy that was hated by the people. As an example [00:41:00] of what true love is,
Ruth Orange: it's
Dan Orange: transformed
Ruth Orange: a
Dan Orange: nation I don't know, it's not a nation, it's transformed an area into representing,
Yeah, of love, how we should love our neighbor.
Ruth Orange: Yeah.
Dan Orange: Another thing that I wrote down was that love has to be chosen. So something I've been thinking about. recently is perhaps the difference between a big difference between religion and knowing God is choosing so you can a lot of religions you're born into it's just what you learn just what you were taught what you do and think you and they might not be bad things Did you choose it?
Did you choose that? Was it decision because you saw there was something there that you wanted or you needed at your heart desired? We need to choose [00:42:00] love.
God chose us. He's just waiting for us to say yes, we want that. Can I have more of that?
Yeah.
Ruth Orange: Yeah like you said before, that activeness of it is, yeah.
Dan Orange: One thing I would say to anyone listening to any of our talks, even just to friends, family, don't just keep doing something because you've think for yourself, think what is this, what is out there, what has, I'm not even going to say God, I'm going to say what has creation, what has my life, what purpose, what am I about?
Ruth Orange: Yeah. Yeah. And if you're not satisfied, don't stop. Don't stop. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it's a bad thing not to be satisfied. Yeah, because just keep going. Yeah. [00:43:00] And how, yeah, how come, yeah, I don't know. That's a whole different thing, isn't it? That's being satisfied, but yeah. And Dave's friend was saying can people not know this, that it's such freedom, no amount of reading or discipline or trying could have set that woman free.
Could have shown her how to love herself and other people. It is something that is transforming, isn't it? And something that he's done and he is changes everything. Yeah.
Dan Orange: Yeah. And come as you are, you're never ready to become a Christian because we can't be good enough.
Yeah. For God, it's God that makes us good. I was talking to someone I was working with this week and he's a young guy, his girlfriend, and they're thinking perhaps now is the time that they try to have a kids and become parents. [00:44:00] And he was saying, we don't know if we're ready, but you're not really, you're never really ready.
And I said, No, you're not. It's such it's the biggest change. You're never ready until you make that decision and you become parents and you have to learn. Yeah. And I think in some ways it's a bit similar that you need to, you just need to fall into God's arms and say, I know you love me.
Help. Help me to know more about this. I'm as ready as I can be. Yeah. Yeah. I'm prepared. Yeah. Yeah. I'm prepared for what you want to do for me. Yeah. In me.
Ruth Orange: Yeah. And just, yeah. And just say yes that the criminal on the cross. What did he do? He did nothing. Did he? He did all the wrong things.
That's why he is there. Yeah. And all he said was, Lord, and it's, yeah. Say, saying Lord rather than it's me, yeah, it's me taking control. No, I want it, I don't want it to be me taking control anymore. It's [00:45:00] yeah, I want it to be you. I want you to be my Lord. Yeah. And I don't know, me and my friend often say, my friend's gone through some really sad things at the moment and my work has been, it's been really tough for the last eight months really now.
I don't know how, I just don't know how people can live and not just get by without Jesus. I just don't know how even if you take away the fact that he gives us abundant life, which is pretty cool, even just normal life. Like I don't know how, because he fills in all the gaps.
He makes things right when work is a struggle. I work and see a lot of where I work. I see a lot of the sadness of life. And it can, if you're not careful, it can really like numb, numb you. And damage really. And so you can only see that sadness not the rest. But because Jesus is my life, you see him instead.
And that [00:46:00] means you see hope. You see the bigger picture the transforming power that he is, yeah, and that things can get better. Somebody that is hurt can be healed. It is possible, but without that it's pretty dire. Yeah. He's just lovely. Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Orange: Yeah. After, there's loads of stories on on what's the story podcast, but there's also.
If you think you're in a dire situation, and you think, how can I get out of this, there's an amazing lady who, she's died now, but a lady called Corrie ten Boom, and she lived and through the Nazi persecution was in a concentration camp, and rather than say, life is hard, but God can help you have a just Google, have a read of some of the things that happened, but how, She just fell in love with God and knew God's love in it.
It's just a great [00:47:00] example of how he can transform right down into the depths of your heart. That's what he does. His love goes deep, doesn't it?
Ruth Orange: Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Orange: Yeah.
Ruth Orange: Yeah. Amazing. And Just because Matt's, there's only one question on there, isn't it, that, what you said, Matt, I don't know, I don't know the answer to that, but I do know, I was reading it when Sharon was talking as well, and I do know that God is no man's debtor.
That's what I felt when I read that, that yeah, because you haven't found somebody, because I haven't found someone. It doesn't mean we are any less whole and it doesn't mean that he loves us any less. He's yeah he's no man's debtor. He doesn't leave us with a missing piece.
I've not got a missing piece because I'm still single. So the answer is not simple, but he's bigger than all of that. All of it. [00:48:00] Yeah.
Dan Orange: He's above, isn't he? He's around, he's great.
I think we should draw this to a close, as they say. God is good. And like we've said, please, if you haven't got any prayer requests, please do send them in. We love praying for you. Yeah, we've just been Getting texts in this week and it just, it's great to be able to, it's a privilege to be able to pray.
So we love doing it and we'd love to hear your answers to prayer. We'd love just to hear that God is doing things in you, repairing marriages. Yeah. So next week, I think it's Dave Connolly. talking on [00:49:00] the next, I'm going to make this up and say the next fruit and spirit, which it is which is joy. Oh, okay.
Oh, very good.
Ruth Orange: Okay. So we'll see you.
Dan Orange: Yeah. We'll see you all next week. Thanks very much. Bye. Bye.
Matt Edmundson: Thank you so much for joining us here on Crowd Church. Now if you are watching on YouTube make sure you hit the subscribe button as well as that little tiny bell notification to get notified the next time we are live and of course If you are listening to the podcast the live stream podcast, make sure you also hit the follow button.
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It has been awesome to connect with you and you are awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear and hopefully we'll see you next time. That's it from us. God bless you. Bye for now.