What My Mom Showed Me About God

Mommy just brought me some water here. Amen. Praise God. Welcome to Salt Church today, guys. Welcome to Mother’s Day 2025.

So glad you’re here with us today to celebrate moms. Amen. Isn’t it beautiful that we get to use the Sabbath day, the day of worship and celebration to celebrate moms that is actually on this day. Amen. We get to that.

It’s just a wonderful thing. And. And just to let you know, all of you guys who want a family picture, we’re gonna open these back doors back here at the end of service. And I know it’s weird because we don’t have a place here in the building to take pictures that’s pretty enough. So we have some wonderful bushes back here behind the parking lot to take.

It’s gonna be honeysuckle bushes and stuff. And you’re gonna get a professional photo with your family today. Or if you’re single, get a professional photo for your mom or your girlfriend or. Or if you’re just buddies and hanging out, you want a friend photo, go ahead and get a photo back there. But we’ll have those doors open for you to bless you today with a nice portrait to take home with you.

I always look forward to these family photos because I don’t get a whole lot these days with all the busyness and schedule. So nice to be here at church and get some photos with your family. Something else. Just real quick. Our men’s meetup is next week.

Next Friday. We were supposed to have it this Friday, but we got stormed out. Our cookout got stormed out. So let me just say this, guys. We do this once a month, and I know you’re really, really busy.

Men tend to be so busy. So busy. We like to brag about being busy, Right? But guess what? You’re not too busy to gather together in the name of Jesus with fellow men of God.

So next week, Friday, 6:30pm at my house, and we’re going to have a bonfire and some burgers, and if you want to cook a steak or something, bring it and we’ll throw it on the grill, whatever that looks like. We’d love to have you to gather around. Just do some bros and some Bible and some fellowship and some really developing those relationships together. Amen. Amen.

So I encourage you to be there for that. So let’s talk about Mother’s Day today. In fact, you know, we were in a series of First Corinthians, and we’ve steered away from that just for this week so that I can share a special message. Normally some of you are like, why is Miranda not speaking today? Why in the world?

In fact, last time she spoke, my wife, by the way, if you’re new with us, my wife over here who brought me the water, you know, she’s a good wife and she’s also an incredible. And I see a lot of things I’m going to talk about today in her. But you’re asking why is she not speaking? Because she’s a better speaker than you are, Leon. And I know that.

I really know that. But she is actually going, her voice is strained right now. She’s actually been going through. So pray for her because that’s why you haven’t seen her up here on stage singing. She’s got an incredible singing voice.

She’s got an incredible speaking voice. She’s an incredible communicator. And I hate that I can’t have her up here on stage to do it today. But so I’m going to do the best I can from a man perspective on mothers and what I’ve learned from not only my wife, but what I learned from my mom. My mom.

What I learned about God from my mother. But today we’re called to celebrate a wide diversity of mothers. There’s a lot of different mothers maybe here today and, and if you’re watching online, you’re unable to be with us today. By the way, all of you who are new, we thank you for being with us today. And if you want to connect with us, there’s this blue card in your bi fold.

You can fill that. If you’ll fill that out for us, I promise you we won’t harass you. We’ve got a gift back there for you as you’re leaving today and we would love to connect you with some of our information about our church and who we are and where we’re going and all of that wonderful stuff about our church. If you’re kicking the tires, it’s a great opportunity to connect with somebody and find out who we are. And we’ll give you more information about our next Connect gathering, which will let you know more about the church.

But we have a lot of different mothers. Regardless of what men say, regardless of what women say, regardless of what our culture says about being a mom. It’s your mothering ministry that we pray for as a church. We pray for that it consistently aligns with the person of God as your mothering and as you’re loving your children and loving those around you. And I know thousands of different moms.

We have single moms. And honestly, I don’t know how single moms do it when they spinning the plates and trying to the ball’s in the air and you’re trying to figure out what to do next and how to do it. I celebrate those who are single mothers who are sticking it out and really nurturing their kids and doing the best they can. I don’t know how you do it. And then there’s women who want to desperately be moms.

And maybe this is the season, a season that God hasn’t allowed that to happen yet, and that’s okay. But maybe you’re one of those moms, or maybe you’re an empty nest mom, or you’re getting ready to be an empty nest mom. Maybe you’re in that place in life. Maybe you’re a mother of a wayward child and you’ve been praying for your child and maybe you even feel like a failure to an extent because you’ve watched your son or your daughter walk away from God. There’s moms here that are in the marketplace working full time.

There are moms that stay at home full time, which is equally as heavy of a job. There’s a mom who’s probably this Mother’s Day, struggling deeply because they faced the horror of losing their child maybe this year or time in the past. And it brings up that reminder. There’s moms who this is your first Mother’s Day where you don’t have your mom. There’s moms who’ve received children through adoption.

There’s moms who have blended families. There’s moms who with teenagers, one day you’re on top of the world, you’re the smartest person in the world. The next day you’re an idiot. Or right. That’s how you are when you’re.

Our kids are entering into those ages, those teenage age, and you feel appreciated one day, and the next day you get out of my face. You don’t know what you’re talking about, mom. Right. Maybe you’re going through that stage in life and then some of you are mothers of toddlers and you’re taking a nap during my sermon because you don’t have any other time to sleep. Right?

So I’m putting you to sleep today. But I want to speak on behalf of of Salt Church and say to all the moms in here, thank you for what you do. Thank you that you put in the time. Can y’ all give. Men need to be giving a big hand clap to all those moms who’ve raised Children who are raising children.

Thank you for loving the way that you do. Thank you. And I want to speak for every intelligent man in the room. Okay? The reason I say intelligent man is because there’s a lot of we couldn’t do what you do.

And we’re intelligent enough to know that. But the fact is there are a lot of men who think that you do nothing. Right. They’re not very intelligent. Okay.

They actually wonder what you do. I was reading something the other day. Someone said, imagine putting these intelligent men on an island. Let’s call it a survivor instead of like a survivor situation. But instead of survivor, we’ll call it M O n Mom.

How to be a mom. You go through this. So here’s what it says. Six married men will be dropped off on an island with one car and four kids each for six weeks. Each kid plays two sports and either takes music or dance classes.

Each man must take care of the four kids, keep his assigned house, cleaning, do dishes, correct all the homework, complete science projects, cook, do laundry, etc. And there’s no access to fast food. Sorry, that was an easy out, right? Not happening. The men only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all the chores are done.

And there’s only one 12 inch television between them all and there’s no remote. The men must shave their legs and apply makeup daily while driving their kids to school. They must help in all classes weekly, clean up after the sick children at 3am, make model Indian teepee with six toothpicks, a tortilla and candle wax, all while getting a four year old to eat their servings of peasants. Then the kids vote the man off the island based on their competence. The last man wins only if he has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment’s notice.

If the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over. He gets the reward of playing the game over and over and over for the next 18 to 25 years, eventually earning the right to be called moment. That’s a pretty accurate description, right, Of a mom’s life. Whether you’re a working mom or you’re a stay at home mom, a lot goes on. And I wondered what would if all the things were put together for a mom, what would the payment, what would be the yearly salary?

How do you figure that out? Well, I asked Chatgpt, you know, because he tends to know everything when I put that in, it says this. If moms were financially compensated for all the work they do at home, their pay could be quite substantial. Several studies and estimates over the years have tried to quantify this, often including roles like chef, teacher, tutor, housekeeper, chauffeur, nurse, event planner, counselor, personal shopper, laundry worker, administrative assistant, yada yada yada. Then it pulls up salary.

com as of 2023, which is the latest estimate. Could be more today. Who knows, right? If a stay at home mom were paid for every job they perform, their salary would be about $184,820 per year. This figure assumes a work week of around 106 hours.

Many moms work well beyond standard 40 hour weeks with different tasks paid at standard market rates. So you see it’s. And my wife, she was the first one to say that’s low, right? This was a 2023 estimate, but still, it’s still low. But think about it.

All the little things that moms do, all these little odd jobs, they take a lot of. They take a lot. So what I want to do today is talk a little bit about what I’ve learned about God from my mom, what I’ve learned from my mom. And I know my mom’s probably a unique mom. She’s unique in many ways.

She’s a woman of God. She was called to ministry at a young age. She was saved when she was a teenager and, and called it a ministry. Met my dad in Bible school. So they’ve known nothing but ministry and nothing but church.

And many of you don’t come from those type of backgrounds, I’m sure, but you have different perspectives of moms. But my mom is also unique in that she’s a tough woman too. You know, my mom, she’s a protective mom. She’s an outspoken mom. She says what she thinks, but she also has compassion.

She has love. She was in the nursing field for years and years with serving people and doing missions trips and things like that. So I’m going to share a little bit about what I learned about God from my mother. So if my mother is watching today, I love you, mom. Hey, I can’t be with you.

You know what I’m doing today. So you’ve been in ministry for years and you know I can’t be with you this morning, but I love you, mom. The first thing is God is love. She told me that God is love. That sounds so simple but so profound.

The way you moms intuitively know how to love is incredible. It comes naturally to you. Love is the only way that anyone can describe the way you love, that when your child is about to throw up you want to catch it. You know, like, that’s called love, right? Or when you read a book over and over and over again for your child and you don’t skip, you don’t miss any words.

You don’t paraphrase. See, Ben, when we sit down with our kids and we need to go and we’re tired and we go to bed, we start paraphrasing and running through the book real quick, telling our own story, right? To get through it real quick. But you don’t do that, Mom. You care for your kids that much.

And you bandage all kinds of wounds, from physical boo boos to emotional, relational, and spiritual wounds, which even today my mom does that. You know, spiritual and emotional wounds. She’s somebody that I can talk to. And it’s that display of love that helped me better understand the love of God. To see how she loved me and how she loved my sisters and how she would go out of the way for my sisters.

It all points to God. It all sees God. And last week we talked about First Corinthians 13. We’ve been going through First Corinthians, and I thought it was interesting when I thought about First Corinthians 13. What if you took and replaced love with Mom?

Let me share this. Mom is patient and kind. Mom is not jealous or boastful, proud or rude. Mom does not demand her own way. Mom is not irritable.

That might be going a little too far. But a mom keeps no record of when she has been wrong. Mom is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Mom never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance. And again, yeah, maybe some of this is a little exaggerated.

Some of you moms are like, I’m not all those things. I don’t see myself that way. But looking at a mom is probably the closest thing that you’ll ever see to the love of God. Because moms are imperfect. They don’t get love just right.

But the Bible boldly proclaims that there’s only one love in the universe that has the ability to transform lives. That’s God’s love. The kind of love that not only God has, but he wants to put in you. He wants to give you that love. That’s why Romans 5:5 says this.

We know how dearly God loves us because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. A heart filled with God’s love is the only love strong enough to totally transform a person’s life. We can’t transform people’s lives that way, but God can. And he wants to put that love inside of us, the love of the Holy Spirit. And as I was thinking about this message, some of you will make it very simplistic.

You’re probably looking at your notes and you’re like, there’s not a lot, Leon. You usually have more notes there. There’s less notes. And we hear all the time, you know, God is love. God is love.

It’s just, you know, we have the bumper stickers. We wear T shirts. God is love. God is love. We wear the wristbands.

You know, God. Hey, did you know God loves you? God is love. But there’s a huge difference between hearing that God is love and experiencing God’s love. Experiencing God’s love.

And my prayer for you is the same prayer that the apostle Paul prayed for the Thessalonica crowd in the church. And he says this. May the Lord bring you into deeper understanding of God’s love. May he bring you into a deeper understanding. Without a deep understanding and without a firsthand experience of God’s love, you will go through life in two categories.

One of those categories would be someone who doesn’t. Who may not be a believer, may not be a Christian who’s going through life searching for that love and desiring that love and hoping that this love exists. Or you are a Christian that doesn’t have a deep understanding and a firsthand experience, and you’re just skimming through the surface of life with some informational data on what God is and his love is. But God’s love hasn’t been transformational for you. So you’re just bouncing through life with all the knowledge of Scripture, but nothing that has really taken root deep down inside your heart.

And this is a big deal. Let me explain how my life became informational and then went transformational. I was saved at a young age. I grew up in a Christian home. I had great Christian parents.

They were both in ministry, served in the church, pastored churches. So I knew about God, Jesus. I heard about Jesus. I gave my life to Jesus. At an early age.

I realized that I needed to be forgiven of my sins. I invited him into my heart. I accepted that love at a young age, and I felt that transformational experience. But it didn’t really go all the way transformational. It was mostly informational because I realized that I can’t live my life without God.

I’m doing it on my own. I had an encounter with God right after college that really led me to Ministry. I was going and doing my own thing, going my own way. And that was probably the greatest experience I ever had with just an instantaneous love of God that was poured over me, but that really didn’t take root the way that it needed to. It was still mostly informational.

Yes, there was some element of God’s power there touching my heart, touching my life. And I knew, I knew that God really loved me. But I never really, really deep down understood what that was. I went to seminary. I learned how to preach the Bible, read the Bible, study the Bible, then went to churches.

And I practiced the informational thing about God’s love. But I didn’t really understood it until 13 years ago when I was in a hospital room and my son was born. It was me and Miranda, a doctor, a midwife, maybe an in law or two. Can’t remember. It was all really a lot going on.

And then all of a sudden there was another child. And I remember when my son Max came out and they told me, hey, hey, you want to see him? You want to hold him? So he looked up at me. I remember him looking up at me.

I didn’t know, like, wow, this is a human life. And he looked up at me and he stared in my eyes. And God immediately inputted into my heart, how could I love a kid I just met? How could I love him so much? I’d be willing to give my life for this baby.

I’d be willing to give my life for this child. And I just met him and God reminded me, that’s my love. But it’s infinitely more, infinitely more than you can think or imagine. How much I love you. I love you that much.

It was mostly a theory up until that point. And when anybody talks about God’s love, they think of it as a general, informational, universal thing. Yeah, God is love. You know, you’re at a Bible study. Yeah.

God is love. God is love. And that’s great. Yeah, God is love over all creation. Yes, he created things.

That’s wonderful. But it’s deeper than that. It’s personal. Of 8 billion people on the planet, you are not just a dot out there. God actually is intimate.

He’s sacrificial. And that’s what God does. That’s what his job description is. The Bible says that God is love. He is love.

And maybe you’ve always thought of God at a macro level, but God wants an intimate relationship with you. He thought of you before you were born. He knitted you in your mother’s womb. He created the universe. And he loves everything that he created.

And he’s so infinitely full of love that but yet he thinks of you, of billions and billions of people. He thinks of you every day. That’s our God. That’s why First John 4 says it like this, and I replace us with me. I want you to take the us out of this scripture as you’re reading it.

If you have your notes, read it. Circle those us parts and put me in there. And this is what it says. It says, God showed his love for me when he sent his only son into the world to give me life. Real love isn’t my love for God, but his love for me.

That God sent his son to be the sacrifice by which my sins are forgiven. That’s love. That’s real love. For some of you, you’ve gone through life saying, God is love, God is love. But you’ve never experienced it that way.

That’s what God wants for you today, to experience him. Not just as a big God up there that’s smiling down on you and maybe doing a few things here and there. You, but that he wants to walk with you, he wants to talk with you. He wants to live in your life every day. He wants to communicate with you.

He wants to be with you. That’s our God. Our God loves us that much that he sent his son so that he could have a relationship with us. That’s our God. And the second thing my mother showed me was that God loves to protect and comfort.

God loves to protect and God loves to comfort. That’s how my mom was. She was a protector. Mama Bear, don’t upset Mama Bear. I see my mom march into schools, march into houses, march into situations when her child is being hurt.

I’ve seen sweet mom at times, you know, pastor’s wife, mom loving everybody, praying for everybody there, for everybody. But, boy, the minute you cross the line with her kids and they’re misrepresented or they’re wronged, Mama steps in. And Mama still does that. Mom prays. Some of you here, you’re praying moms.

Amen. You love your kids. You don’t like when the devil attacks your kids. You don’t like them. The devil misrepresents your kids.

You fight, you fight. You fight in heaven for them. You fight for them. Anybody knows that you have this protective mom, you know, a mom that turns from sweet pea mom to Chuck Norris on heroin when something happens, right? Take her out.

Take him out. Moms are protective. They’re on the lookout. You never hear mom say, you Know, go out and ride your bike up and down the street, across. Do a Frogger thing, you know, or in front of trucks without a helmet.

And you never see that they’re protective. They’re always worried. They’re always, what’s going. Miranda is that. In fact, I’m always like, miranda, just let him go to the park.

No, you don’t understand. There’s people out there. There’s things going on. She’s always thinking about that. Max is 13 years old now.

She’s still worried about him going down the street to catch the bus by himself. Because that’s how moms are built. They’re protected. They protect their children. And within that protection breathes an environment of comfort and care, compassion.

It breeds comfort and compassion. We are able to see the compassionate side of God through the compassion of moms. Because when the children hurts. When the children gets hurt, when they’re riding their bike and they fall down, they run inside. Do they come?

What’s the first thing they do? Mom, help me, Mom. Right? They’re always. They cry out for, mom, I’m hurt, Mom.

They don’t ever say, dad kind of hurts a little bit when they don’t do that. It hurts me if I care just as much. But the fact is, they yell, mom, I lied. I don’t care as much. I’m like, suck it up.

Right? Why do they do that with moms? Cause dads are like, just suck it up. You know, put a plug on it. Just go out there and get it done.

Shake it off. And while you’re in there, grab me a soda in the kitchen. And where’s the remote? Give me the remote. You know, that’s how dads are generally.

Come on, you’re okay. But moms don’t do that. Moms really care for their kids. They sit down, they talk to them, they look them in the eye, they pat their backs and they rub their wounds and they put Band Aids on them. And, you know, when a kid gets sick in the middle of the night, who’s there?

Brandon says, not Leon. I remember when I was little and I’d get sick and I’d run to the bathroom and throw up. And before I could even get to the toilet, Mom’s already clicking on the light, coming in. Like she knew, oh, it’s Leon. It’s Leona.

She’ll come in and she’ll just, you know, take care of me. That’s how moms are. They’re like that. This idea of comfort, this idea of protection is very consistent with What God describes is described as in the Bible. This is the character nature of God.

When we look at moms, a reflection of moms is a reflection of God. First Peter 5 says, Let him have all your worries and cares. Circle all, all, all your worries, all of your cares. For he is always, he is always need to circle that. Always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you.

He is always watching you, caring. He’s concerned. Why don’t we trust God? Why don’t we trust God? Why don’t we.

You trust God with your worries and cares. Probably because you haven’t experienced the real love of God. Maybe your experience with love has been different in this world. When you haven’t experienced someone’s love, you go to everything everywhere else to try to find that love. You go to people who pretend to love you, but they don’t really love you.

You go to substance abuse or you go to something else just to try to find that love. Because you’re lonely or you’re broken or you’re hurting. Why? Because we haven’t really experienced the love of God. And that’s the desire of God.

He wants you to experience his love at a new level. When you trust in him, you feel safe. You feel like you can cry out to God like David said. He said, do not withhold your compassion for me, O Lord. May your mercy and your truth always protect me.

You can cry out to God, brother and sister, you can cry out to God today. If you have hurt, if you have needs, God is always there. You can experience God’s love firsthand. He wants an intimate relationship with you where you call out to him if you’re a mom or if you’re a dad today. How does it make you feel when your kid comes to you and says, help me, Mom.

Help me, dad. You want to help them, right? You don’t ignore them. You want to help them. You want them to call you.

I mean, even today my parents want me to call them and ask them for help because that’s what they do. They’re motherly and fatherly souls. That’s what they’re called to. And God wants, wants to comfort and God wants to protect us. That’s why Jeremiah 29:11.

All of you know this famous passion for I know the plans I have for you to declares the Lord plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a hope and give you a future. He’s got hope and he’s got a future for you. Hope. What is that word hope? That hope we Talked about hope.

Hope keeps going. Love and hope and faith and hope and love. They always remain right. Hope. A good definition of hope is a confident assurance.

A confident assurance knowing that my God’s going to always come through for me. Knowing that my God is always going to be there, no matter what I go through. Whatever I’m dealing with, I know that my God cares. That’s what God does. I love the image of God being in Psalms 1:21, the protective shade of God.

It says, the Lord himself watches over you. The Lord stands beside you as your protective shade. He protects you. He’s your protective tree. He’s there for you.

And some of you may not feel like God’s there. Frankly, some of you may not feel like God’s there because you turn your back on God. But guess what? He’s still there. He’s still there.

He’s working. Even when you don’t know he’s working. He’s protecting you. Even when you don’t know he’s protecting you. Because when we were yet sinners, right?

He died for us. Or maybe it’s just hard to believe because you don’t see it because you’ve lost a job or you’re in financial difficulties or something else has happened in your life that you just. You just have a hard time seeing what God is doing. He’s not really protecting me, but he is. Perhaps he got you out of that job because you don’t need to be there because things are coming down from around the corner.

Or maybe he removed somebody from your life. It really hurt you that that person left your life. But maybe he’s protecting you because you can’t see it, because you got to experience the love of God in that way. So the question now is, so what? I get it.

That’s nice and that’s cute, Pastor. That God is love and moms are love and they’re protective and they do all these wonderful things. You shared these with me. So what does that do for me today? First of all, how does this work?

How does this all work out? How does this all work out? Fancy words and preaching points and all that don’t really do it. We just need to know. I need to know.

How do I touch this love? Well, the first thing you have to do is receive it. It’s a gift that’s available to you. Some of you are here, many who are Christian. You’re thinking in your mind, I’ve done that.

I’ve checked it off. I was saved. At nine years old, I received Jesus as My savior. I, I’ve been a Christian for years and years and years and this is like a one and done thing, but it’s not, it’s not a one and done. You have to do this daily.

It has to be intentional in your daily life. Receiving God’s love. When you wake up in the morning, when you go to sleep at night, receive God’s love. It’s like being in a shower and just letting the shower pour over you. The refreshing nature of the shower, that’s what God’s love is.

It just pours over you. You need to be under the love, the shower of God’s love all the time. Every day you receive God’s love. And you do this by connecting with him, by focusing on him, by aligning your life with him. Waking up in the morning saying, I align my life with you today.

I want to experience your love in such a way, Lord, I’m refocusing, I’m redirecting. All the past is gone. I’m leaving that into water and I’m walking forward in your love. It’s not a one time affair. It’s an everyday thing.

And if you’re here today, you’re not a Christian. You receive God’s love. When you step across the line and you transfer your faith from yourself to God or anything else to God, then you really start to begin to experience the love of God. He wants a personal relationship with you. He wants an intimate relationship with you.

And for some of you, maybe you’re invited here today because your mom made you come to church. It’s Mother’s Day, right? I gotta come to church because mom, she said, you don’t have to buy me a present. You just come to church. Just come to church with me today.

And she’s probably going crazy right now, about to explode because you know, the pastor’s talking about love. I want them to experience, I want her to experience the love of God. I want my child to experience this love. And maybe that’s you. Or maybe there’s a mom that was invited by their child.

They’re excited about you being here, hearing about this as well. What happens when you receive God’s love? You experience his forgiveness. All of us have deep down inside of ourselves this want or this desire to be forgiven of, of some of these things, these deep things that are in our hearts. And you get it right now.

Did you know when you give your life to Jesus, you get it right now. You don’t have to go home today and say, you know what? I’m Gonna come back in a few weeks after a few months, after I clean myself up, and maybe God will pour his love on me. No, his love and his forgiveness is available to you right here, right now. Amen.

You can give your life to Jesus here in this moment. Romans 5:8 says, God has shown how much he loves you. It is while you were still sinners that Christ died for us. While we were still sinners. He said, I love you just the way you are.

I love you warts and everything, all your messiness. I love you anyway. Stop trying to do it the hard way, because it never gets you anywhere. Is the love of God. Let’s say, for example, I’m walking around up here, or you’re walking around with this big, big, fat book, this big, big fat book of everything that you’ve ever done, and you’re like, man, this is heavy.

This is heavy. And this notebook is so long, you know, you don’t even know all the lies, all the mistakes, all the cheating, whatever’s going on, all the things that you’ve done. A journal of your sin. And this is a pretty, pretty thick book. I mean, it’s a heavy book.

And how many of you would need more than one? Let’s just be honest. Today I have a whole collection, right? Have a whole encyclopedia, okay, with descriptions of what I’ve done. Some of you are there, and some of you.

There’s not enough trees in the world to be able to hold all of your sin. But you want to receive God’s love. What do you do? What do you do at that moment? You say, God, I want to receive your love.

I give my life to you. I give my sin to you. I put it on you. Lord, I want a relationship with you. I want to be forgiven of all of this.

And God takes it. And what does he do? He takes that big book and he just tosses it. It in the water. He tosses it.

He tosses it away. He tosses it over. And then I’m curious. I want to see your sin. So I run over and I grab that book up and I look at it.

I say, okay, wait, wait, wait. Let’s see what this person has done. Because that’s what we do as people, you know, that are. That are fallen people, right? We want to know people’s sin.

We want to gossip about it or whatever, you know? And I open up that book, blank, blank, blank, blank, blank pages. Praise God. Because that’s what God does. He takes away everything.

He erases it all from the equation, and then he takes you in, he hugs you, loves you. He erases the equation. That’s why the Bible says he compares it to coins. He compares it to sheep. He compares it to this lost son.

They all end up the same way. When the coin and the sheep and the son were found, what happened? A big party took place. Guess what, God? God has a big party for you planned when you give your life to Jesus.

Amen. I pick up the book, there’s nothing in there. They’re over there hugging. Let’s go party. Let’s go party now.

That’s what God does. He said, they rejoice when they find the sheep. They rejoice when they find the coin. They rejoice when they found their way home. It’s a rejoicing we had to celebrate and be glad.

Because your brother, he was lost and he’s now found. As the prodigal son story says, when you are spiritually found, God rejoices. He praises, he loves it. Do you understand the difference? Everything is a creation of God.

But it isn’t until you put your faith in God that you go from a creation of God to a child of God. You transition from being just a creation, a creation that God loves in a general way to becoming a child of God. As Galatians 3 says, all of you are God’s children because of your faith. Faith in Jesus Christ. When you place your faith in Jesus Christ, guess what?

You are a child. You are a son. You are a daughter of Jesus Christ. You are a daughter of the Father in heaven. You are a brother and sister with Jesus Christ.

Amen. Amen. You are a part of the family. You’re not God’s children because you attend church every week. You’re not God’s children because you participate in a giving campaign.

You’re not because you’re kind to people or you grew up in church or whatever that looks like. You received God’s love. That’s what you did. You received God’s love, and you hand over your faith and receive his love. And if you’re not a Christian and you do that, guess what?

Your journey starts today. If you are a Christian, you do that daily. And you’ll start to experience God’s love at a whole different new level. So what do we do then? We reflect on God’s love.

We reflect. Excuse me, reflect God’s love. We give it to others. We love people and love others. We experience that love and we share that love.

You give that love that has been given to you. You give it away. You Give it away to others. You give the love away that God has put in your life because people are dying to be loved. People want to be loved.

They’re striving to be loved. They’re desperate for it. They’re jockeying for love. You see the world, you see people, they want to experience love. We have a love that we want to share, or we should want to share.

And guess what? The incredible thing about God, when you give away love, you get back what you so badly need. A reason and a purpose in life. So simultaneously, God does something to you, blesses you, and really throws another party. Because he says, wow, you’re doing what I’ve created you to do.

We’re partying today. Amen. Church should be a party. Hallelujah. I know some of you toddler mothers are falling asleep right now, but let’s celebrate.

Let’s celebrate because God has something for you and has done something in you and with you. I meet a lot of people who think that being a Christian is so complex, so cumbersome. And if I become a Christian, I have to do this, and I do not do this, and I have to. You know, it’s just the do’s and don’ts of life, the heart. You can’t do that.

You’ll never get anywhere. Jesus had just a little bit of time left on this earth when he said he grabbed his closest friends together. His days were numbered and his moments were limited. And he didn’t leave them with a complicated list of things to do. Here’s what he said.

Now. I’m giving you a new command. Here it is, guys. Love each other. Just as I have loved you.

You should love each other. And your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples. So receive God’s love and give that love to others. I want to challenge you as you leave here today and as you pass on the baton of love to others so they can taste God’s love. That until one tastes God’s love, they are going to be hungry for something.

They’re going to be hungry for that love. You have a love to pass on to others that they’re hungering for. They’re starving for there’s a deep hunger until you eat at the banquet of God’s love, you’re going to go through life wondering what love really is and never truly experiencing it. So my closing challenge. If you are a follower of Christ today, if you are a follower of Christ today, every day, every single day, go to God.

Thank you, God, for loving Me. Thank you God for touching me. Thank you God for your spirit. And if you call yourself a Christian and you’re not spending time thinking about the love of God, if you’re not thinking about going deeper and deeper and that love and that understanding of who God is, there’s something broken. There’s something broken that what was once an intimate faith has been put on the shelf of religion.

And it’s just a coming to church and going home and doing your works. And you never really experience truly what it means to be a follower of Christ. This is a deep message, even though it might seem simplistic. God is love. When you look at your notes, a couple points.

God is love. Love is this. That there’s nothing deeper than knowing and experiencing the love of God. There’s nothing deeper than allowing God to love you in the deepest place places of your life, opening up your heart and your life to really receive, you gotta receive it, it’s a gift and that it so reflects so that others can experience that love as well. And if you’re here this morning, you’re not a follow of Christ.

Can I invite you to know Him? And we’re thrilled that you’re here today. This is a great place to come and investigate Jesus. But I also want to tell you that God truly does love you. That he cares for you.

He knows every intimate place in your heart, in your life. He understands your needs, he understands your greatest desires. And he has a plan to cross for you and give you a hope future. And whether you like it or not, whether you think about him or not, he’s thinking about you. He’s loving you.

He’s pursuing you. And you’re the center of his will. He’s crazy. He’s crazy about you. And you can move from creation to child immediately.

Immediately. You don’t have to raise your hand, you don’t have to say aloud prayer. You don’t have to go through any format or any special class. You don’t have to do that. All you have to do is believe in Jesus and ask God for a relationship with Him.

Just in the silence of your heart, you can receive him today. And God, I want to experience your forgiveness. I want to experience your forgiveness. Lord, touch my life. I really want your love in my life.

And if we can help you in any way and along the way, we’re here as a church to help you experience that love at a greater level. The last verse really clears up a summary of what I’m talking about today. Ephesians 5. Live a life filled with love for others, following the example of Christ, who loved Jesus you and gave himself as a sacrifice to take away your sin. Moms who are here this morning, what you’re doing is exceedingly important because God, before God and before your spouse and before your children, before your friends, before everyone in this church, I just want to say that we celebrate.

Celebrate your greatest choice as mom. To ask God to reveal his love for you and to serve him and to walk with him if you’re a Christian mother today. And we want to thank you for revealing God’s love to us. Thank you for revealing God’s love to us so that we could carry it on and continue doing that good work. Pray.

Father God, thank you so much for moms. Thank you for your love for us. Not just love for this planet, but love for each person here. Father, we can be different when we receive your love and experience your forgiveness and then reflect on that love. We don’t want to be the same people once more.

We don’t want to just leave it here. God, we thank you that your love is bestowed upon us and that we can carry it out from here. It’s not based on my bank account. It’s not based on my status in my community. You love us for who we are, your people.

And we pray this in Jesus name, Amen. Can we get a good amen in here? Hallelujah. Praise God. All right, so.

So we have a little tradition every year we like to do. If mother’s in the room here, would you just stand real quick? Any mother. Any mother in here. Just let’s stand.

And we want to just celebrate you. And guess what? We got the kids coming out to give you a little gift here. So bring the kids on out. If y’ all could keep the music playing, please, sir.

Here they come. They got roses. And I will say this. Just hand out roses to all the women standing up. These are the moms.

Moms and then those. Then if we have some extra roses, we’ll. We’ll hand them out to moms to others who are planning to be moms or aspire to be moms or just moms to others.