Thank God for opportunity we have to gather together. We are we are in our 40th year.
We are in our 40th year of ministry.
I started pastoring when I was 12.
40 years right now. And [music] we’re doing our best to just stay
faithful because God has been faithful. He was faithful then. He is faithful
now. He is faithful forever. And I want to just I Yeah. I I just want
to thank everybody who is making the decision to be faithful to God in your
church attendance and your giving, your support. I I I want to just say to you
that when we are faithful to God, we see blessings in our life that we don’t see
otherwise. And so I I’m excited today. It’s another Sunday. We get to be here and be in the
house of God. Love is a wonderful thing, right?
Uh oh. Love is a wonderful thing. [cheering]
Yeah, there we go. There we go. Some of you have been hurt, huh? [laughter]
You’re not sure right now. Trust me, it is. Countless songs and poems have been
written about love. Every year, there’s an estimated 250
million roses that are sold on Valentine’s Day.
Yeah. It’s the single largest floral holiday of the year. If you could put
stock in roses, do it from February
10th. [laughter] Close it out on the 15th and you’ll do well. God is love. Amen.
I said God is love. And God created you and I to love.
And so today we started as you know we started a a series. It’s called for the
win. And two weeks ago we talked about how vision wins and we shared the vision of our
church. And then last week we talked about how team wins and today we’re going to talk about
how love wins. Everybody shout love wins. Love wins. Say it again. Love wins.
Love wins. Now say with me. My heart’s open. My heart’s open. My mind’s ready. My mind’s ready.
Make me better, God. God. By your word. By your word. I receive it.
I receive it. And I believe it. I believe it. And I won’t be the same again.
In Jesus name. In Jesus name. Amen. 1 Corinthians 13. You can see on
the screen or turn your Bible there. It reads like this. It says, “Love is
patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It is not proud.
It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking. It’s not easily angered. It keeps no
record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects. It always trusts. It always hopes and it always perseveres.
And then those last three words. Say it with me. Love never fails. Love never fails.
Say it again. Love never fails. Love never fails. Now,
for a lot of my life, I would read this scripture and I would measure
whether or not I had real love by whether or not I was doing these things.
And I want to help you today if that’s your tendency because this is really not
telling us that you can’t love and also be unkind
because you can you can’t it’s not saying that love is always patient for
you because you can love and be impatient. My wife is never on time,
but I’m getting more patient.
I love you, Sheila. Even when I am
impatient. So, what I want to do is help you understand that this is referring to the
gold standard of love. This is referring to God’s
level, God’s standard. And we read it so that
we can correct behavior
that is not manifesting love.
Strife fails. Envy fails.
Jealousy fails. Impatience with your spouse fails.
Selfishness fails. Are you with me? Anger fails.
Pride fails. But love
never fails. [applause]
When everything else falls apart, love is standing.
And when emotions fluctuate, love stays steady.
When culture shifts, love remains.
None of us are capable of perfect love. God standard of love. We’re just not.
What we are capable of is leaning into love.
We are capable of growing in love.
We’re capable of choosing love and speaking love.
Every day we make choices towards or away from love.
And that’s what this message is about today. It’s to remind us that we’re making choices constantly. It’s not here
to condemn you because sometimes you’re not making a choice that is a love
choice or the high standard of love choice. You can love and make a bad
choice and it’s not love and it’ll fail. And that’s what we want to remind you of is
that every day we have an opportunity to make choices towards
love. And when we choose love, love never
fails. Everybody say, “Love wins.” Tell your neighbor, “Love wins.”
Tell your other neighbor, “Love wins.” Tell yourself right now, love wins.
I want to tell you some reasons why love wins. Love wins because love does.
Love is not a feeling. Love is a decision
known by its actions.
Love love is not silent, passive, inactive, or unexpressive.
Love does. Love does. Everybody say love does.
So when you’re in love, you do. You don’t just say you do.
Love does. That’s why I’m a firm believer in worship
is because we can say tell a neighbor, a friend, I love God. But love, when
you’re acting in love, love actually does.
Feelings come and go. Feelings fluctuate.
Feelings are fickle. Feelings change with our moods.
Feelings are affected by a lack of sleep.
Feelings are affected by stress, circumstances, and conditions.
But one of the reasons why love wins is because love impacts life by its
actions. Yeah, love does.
So when we come to church and we don’t feel like coming to church, love does.
When we choose to worship the Lord and a week has been really difficult,
love does. We’re walking in love. When we are
behaving in a way to our spouse that is consistent with love but
we don’t feel it. That’s love doing.
Love does. Everybody say say love does. See love shapes life by its actions.
And love wins because love does.
Secondly, love wins by being aligned and committed.
Love wins by being aligned and committed. For example, an automobile
can have a great engine in it, can go 100 miles an hour,
can can be really look good. But if there’s no if [clears throat]
it’s out of alignment, you’re in trouble.
You’re headed for a crash. And a lot of times people
assume that everything you know in their life is just based on
a feeling including including like
how you feel about a person
being the only reason why or the only thing you need to consider. consider
when it’s time to get married. I want to talk to single people a little bit today.
And I want I want to just remind you that it’s not all about attraction.
It’s also about alignment. And attraction and align alignment
should lead to commitment. Attraction and alignment should lead to
commitment. See, because love is for marriage and marriage is for
love. Little little bit about my wife and I, Sheila
and I, we we were married. We got married when we were 19
and we’re still here.
Most recent modern thinking in culture is that you weigh
and you weigh and you weigh
and you weigh. And I want to say to you today that
I think we are waiting in many cases waiting too long.
If you fall in love and you check alignment, make sure you
check alignment. Do you have the same values? Do you both love and serve the Lord?
Are you going to put God first, really first in your life? And be beware all the singles of what’s
we call missionary dating which is a lot of singles they say I’m
trying to win them to the Lord so I’m dating them
bad bad choice that you you they have to be one to the
Lord and then you have alignment And when you have alignment,
Joshua said this. He said, “As for me in my house, we will serve the Lord.”
So make sure that when you start to care about somebody, make sure you start
really checking alignment. Like, do we want the same thing? Do we
want to put God first? Do we want to raise our children in church? Do we want to follow the ways of God? Like, are we
on the on the page here? Like, is this really what we want? Check alignment.
Said, check alignment. And a lack of commitment. I see it with
people not being committed to God. Some of you are here today and you’re in this service and you have procrastinated
so much now that you are in a habit of not being and making commitment to God.
Yeah, you come to church, but you have you have put off serving the Lord for a long
time now. And when it comes time to for me or anyone else to say, “Hey, do you want to
serve the Lord?” Raise your hand. Give your life to God. You have you have formed a habit in your mind. Your brain
cells move in such a way it’s to come out to the same decision which is not today,
not right now. So marriage, serving the Lord, those important decisions,
we are capable of putting them off so long that we miss the windows of opportunity
to really get committed and be committed. And you you might say, “Well, Pastor
Kevin, I just don’t want to do it, you know, premature.” I don’t really want you to do it premature. But if you are
in love and you are attracted to one another and you are aligned, what are
you waiting on? Let’s go. Let’s go. [applause]
Well, I hear about divorce. I hear about Okay. Well, according to surveys, married men
and women ages 25 to 55 are almost twice as likely to report that they are very
happy with their life than their unmarried peers.
Did you catch that? So if you want to talk facts, you can hear about all the horror stories or you
can look at the people who have made the commitment
with the person that they love and the person they are aligned with.
Married people enjoy more financial stability and better emotional and
physical health than single people do. And that’s a fact.
Love wins. Love wins.
Some of you are waiting for me to move on. You don’t really like this.
If you’re a mar if you’re if you’re a believer, only marry a believer.
Don’t do that to yourself and don’t do it to your children and don’t do it.
The Bible teaches it really, really clear. How can two walk together except they agree?
What fellowship does light have with darkness? We can kid ourselves. We can like,
you know, put that off, but check alignment.
Okay, I’ll move on. Everybody shout, “Love wins.” Love. Love wins because love gives.
God so loved the world that he what?
Love gives. It sacrifices. It lays down preference.
There there’s three kinds of people. [clears throat] Three kinds of people. First of all,
there’s the takers. Takers are self-focused. They put their
own interest ahead of others needs. They try to gain as much as possible
while contributing as little as they can in return. Those are takers.
And then there’s matchers. Matchers like to preserve an equal
balance of giving and taking. They keep score. Their mindset is if you take from
me I’ll take from you. If you give to me I’ll give to you. Matchers
and then there are givers. Givers are others focused.
They tend to provide support to
other people to causes they believe in
with no strings attached. They ask themselves how how can I add
value to this person? How can I add value to the church? I
believe in God’s great church. How do I add value? How can I add value to the
team that I’m a part of? What what can I contribute to the cause
that’s a giver? And that kind of love, hear me out, is undefeable.
Takers lose, matchers lose, but givers
win. Givers always
[applause] givers always win.
I learned this that my wife is typically she wakes up in a
better mood than me. Amen.
One of her friends asked her the other day if she ever wakes up grouchy and she
said, “Well, sometimes, but once but usually I let him sleep.
But what’s been true is that by her giving without me being reciprocating,
she has impacted my day. She impacts my thoughts. She impacts the
way I approach the day. She impacts what I want to do in return for her
because she just wakes up giving, giving energy, giving life, turning on the
music and saying, “It’s going to be a great day today. Things are going to go well today. Thank you, Jesus.” She does
that every day. She opens up. Promise you. First day we were married.
First day on our honeymoon. We were in Hawaii.
Yep. Spent everything I had. I had no money when I got back. Zero. Didn’t have
enough money for the taxi from the airport. Anyway, wake up. First day
I wake, you know what I woke up to? I woke up to what I just described.
The room had been dark, but the blinds are thrown open and the sun is coming in
and she’s like, “We are in a
Every day’s been the same since then.”
[applause]
And you know what? I am grateful. I It doesn’t always feel good, but I am so grateful.
Love wins because love gives. Love wins the next one because love
builds. Love builds. Everybody shout love bills.
Scripture says Ephesians 4, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths,
but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give
grace to those who hear. Love builds,
therefore love wins. Now when when I’m talking about
building, I’m taking it from this verse of scripture here.
It says only let the things come out of your mouth that
is good for building up. Like that’s that’s the standard. That’s
the goal. That’s the hope. Now I understand sometimes we are
supposed to have hard conversations but if you do it in the right context the Bible says speak the truth in love.
So then there’s a building there’s a building element to it even when it’s
not an easy conversation. But the Bible teaches us like be
building. Don’t be tearing down. Be building. Aim to build when you open your mouth.
A aim to be constructive. So three things think about with conversation. Those of you today who are like I need
to have some conversations. We need to talk more. I need to get my words better. Three things to keep in mind.
One is conversation should be constructive.
Love builds up. Love encourages. Love brings out the best in the other
person. Most people focus too much on the
negative qualities of the other person.
A a word of a word of warning today. Don’t make your spouse your project.
Husbands and wives are not supposed to fix each other.
[laughter] Love is affirming.
Love builds. Love encourages.
If you love, express what you appreciate,
what you are thankful for. Well, they know it. They know I love them. They stop it. Yeah,
love does. Love speaks words of love.
Love affirms. That’s your aim.
That’s our target is to make sure it’s constructive.
The second thing is make it clear. Your spouse should not be required
to know how you feel, what you like, what you want without you telling them.
Not fair. [applause]
He is not a mind readader. He’s your husband
and he rarely hangs out on the right side of his brain.
He’s usually on the left side. The right side is where the nuances are.
The right side is where you know the perception is. Left side is just data,
facts, black and white. So in your mind you think that well he should know I
shouldn’t have to tell him.
We say we say something around our our team our staff we say clarity is kind.
Clarity is kind. So so when you’re communicating
like make it clear. Thirdly, controlled. When emotions escalate out of control,
they hinder positive communication. So remember, death and life are in the power of the tongue. You can win an
argument and wound a relationship.
Constructive, clear, controlled. The next one, love wins by being patient
with imperfection. News flash. You ready?
The person you marry or already married will never be perfect and neither will
you.
A family sat down for dinner after a long, you know, after one of those long
everybody’s tired, nobody’s at their best kind of days. And mom put a plate of eggs on the table. Eggs. Dinner.
And then right in the middle sat a stack of very burnt toast.
First of all, we get breakfast and dinner. The children sat at the table. Dad’s
sitting there. Children are looking at dad. Finally, mom says, “I know it’s not
breakfast. It’s the only thing that is dinner that it’s the only thing that was in the refrigerator.
And I know that that the toast is burnt. It’s burnt. I know.
So, the kids noticed. One raises an eyebrow.
Another reached for extra butter like it might need medical attention.
Mom’s continuing to say, “Sorry. I’m sorry. Dad picks up a slice, took a bite,
smiled, and said, “I love burnt toast.”
After dinner, one of the kids whispered, “Dad, do you really love burnt toast?”
He leaned down and said, “Nope, but I love your mom.
[applause] And burnt toast never hurt anybody
when we choose to be patient with imperfection. Hey, it’s not a perfect day, but do you
have to always point it out? He’s not always getting it right, but do
you always have to comment?
She does not get dinner perfect all the time,
but can you just like eat, smile?
Can you not like just This happened to me this morning. My
wife put something different in the coffee
peptides or something. I don’t know. She thinks we ought to stay healthy. So,
she’s like, “Hey, I put some of this in the coffee.” [laughter]
Remember, I don’t wake up good either. So, we have a collision going on right there.
And I I responded like with, “It’s all right. It’s okay. It’s good.”
She said, “I’ll make another one.” I said, “No, we’re good.” Took a sip of it. My head I’m like, “Oh god, this
tastes terrible.”
But within 2 minutes, 3 minutes, I didn’t I think I took another drink or two trying to, you know, just But she
showed up. She came from behind me and sat down. A real coffee,
the one I really like. Now guys, I’m not sure, but I think had I complained, I
wouldn’t have got the good coffee. I I’m just thinking.
Come on. I’m just thinking [applause] like if we can be patient with one
another’s imperfections, right?
La another one. I think this will be the last one we have time for. Love wins because love perseveres.
Love wins because love perseveres. Let I I just want to read. It’s a long scripture, but boy, it’s beautiful and
it’s it’s worthy of this day as I talk about love wins. Everybody shout it
again. Say, love wins. Love wins. Say it again. Love wins. Now, let me just read to you out of
Romans chapter 8. It reads like this. It says, “Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine
or nakedness or danger or sword?
As it is written, for your sake we face death all day long
and we’re considered as sheep to be slaughtered. Then sense the
the strength of perseverance in these next few lines. No, in all of these things, in trouble,
in persecution, in famine, in danger, in all these
things, we we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. through him
who has an unfailing love. For I am convinced
that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor
depth, nor anything else in all creation. And I want to add neither mistakes, neither
failures, neither doubt, neither worry,
neither fear, neither mess up, mix up, coop up,
neither wrong words, neither wrong steps,
neither bad past. Can anybody get on board with me on this
today? like can you get on board [applause] because I am convinced he
saidn none of this can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus
our Lord. What what are we learning from this verse? We’re we’re learning that love
never fails. The love of God in your life, it hasn’t
failed. It doesn’t fail.
and it won’t fail. Love is so powerful
that it perseveres under pressure and love pushes through
when life is hard. Can I encourage you today to don’t
underestimate it because love is not fragile.
You You think, well, can we make it? Can we make it all these years? Like,
pastor Kevin, it’s great you’ve been married that long, but my husband and I, my wife and I just don’t know. Love is
not fragile. Love is resilient.
Marriage requires perseverance. Family requires perseverance.
It’s not always easy. Serving God requires us to keep going, to hold on to
faith, to bounce back, to overcome. Well, how do we do that? We do it through love.
Because love is not weak. Love is not passive.
Love is not soft. Biblical love is is a covenant kind of
love. It’s sacrificial. It’s enduring.
The world says power wins. The world says self wins.
The world says image wins. But scripture says love
never fails. Love never fails. [applause]
Come on, church. Love never
fails. [applause] Love never fails.
[music] [applause]
When culture shifts, love remains. When emotions rise, love stays steady.
When conflict tears down, love rebuilds. Talking about the power of love.
Talking about leaning into it today. I’m talking about choosing it today.
Not the easy way, Pastor Kevin. Choose it anyway. Cuz love never fails. You go
with love, you win. Love wins. Love
wins. love [applause] win.
Let let me issue a a challenge or just practical application to all of our church family
today at every location this week. I I want to I want to encourage you to
choose patience over irritation.
Choose honor over sarcasm.
Choose forgiveness over resentment.
Choose sacrifice over selfishness.
Choose commitment over hesitation.
Choose to go allin when you’d rather hold back.
this week. Lead your home with love.
Lead your friendship with love.
Everywhere you go, how many of you think maybe I could I could hit the target for like a week and
I could form some new habits by aiming for this for a week.
I want to just issue that kind of opportunity and that challenge
to you today because when love leads, peace follows. When love leads, unity follows. When
love leads, blessing follows. Like when when love leads the way with
words, words of love follow,
one week. Okay? 24 hours
at a time. At a time. At a time. Okay? Because love wins. Come
on, let’s give the Lord a great hand, can we? [applause]
Amen. Every head bowed, every eye closed. I want to invite you today. I I don’t know who God might be talking to
in this service, but I know he’s talking. And And there are some of you that he is saying to you, “Come to me.
Put me at the center of your life. Don’t hesitate any longer. Don’t put it
off any longer.” God’s saying to you, you’re you’re the one that I was talking to today.
So choose me. Choose to love me. Choose to serve me.
Choose to give me your life, your future. Just just choose me. See See
what can happen. Put your hope in my promises.
I’ll make you new. I’ll make a way where there doesn’t seem to be a way.
Choose to love me today, to serve me today. make a decision
to put me first. And if that’s you, if I’m talking to you right now while I’m talking, just raise
your hand. You’re not interrupting me. Just raise your hand and say, “That’s it. God, God is talking to me today, and
I want to choose him. I I want to step forward in my relationship with God.” Good. Hands are going up all over this
room, and I’m believing. Good. God bless you. I’m believing hands are going up all around our locations today. Keep
your hand up high and just say this with me. Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, I choose you.
I choose you. I choose you over feelings, over hesitation.
I choose to not hold back. I choose to not hold back, but to declare you
as the leader, as the Lord as the Lord of my life. Forgive me of all my sin.
Come into my heart. Make me a new person. Make me a new person. Walk with me.
Talk to me. Talk to me. Make me your child. Make me your child.
And I am And I am I am I am yours.
yours. I belong to you. I belong to you. In Jesus name. in Jesus name.
Welcome to the family of God. Welcome to the family of God. Come on,
let’s celebrate decisions today in God’s house. [music]