Laced in Love 4-26-2026

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Life Family Church Sermon podcast. If this is your first time listening, you can check us out on our website at LifeFamily. Let's get right to that.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

Lord of God. Amen. Thank you, Jesus. The Lord is good, Amen. And his mercy endures forever. It's the goodness of God that leads us to repentance. The faithfulness of God that always follows through. Thank you, Jesus. We love you, Lord. Hallelujah. Can you say hallelujah? You can be seated this morning. Praise the Lord. Thank you, Jesus. Worship was awesome. Like always. Just so good. Ephesians 3, verse 14, for this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height, to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. This was a prayer that Paul prayed for those at Ephesus, that they would be filled with the fullness of God's love. I pray the same thing this morning for you, that you would be filled with the fullness of God's love. Filled with the fullness of God's love. I want you to say this: God loves me. Do you mean that? When you say it, do you mean that? Is it comfortable for you to say that? Or is it hard to say that? I want it to become so easy to say my daddy loves me. My father loves me. God loves me. I want you to be even more comfortable saying he's not mad at me. For me, for years, that would have been hard for me to say because I walked around in perpetual condemnation. Always felt like God was mad at me. Always felt like I was just never doing enough for God. Or maybe I was making too many mistakes and God was angry at me. But I want you to get comfortable saying God loves me, He's not mad at me, and when He thinks about me, He gets excited. I was telling you about someone standing on the end of that diving board, but then I was down here worshiping, and the Lord said, I was talking about you. I'm just stirred up so much, man. I'm telling you, all morning long, I'm just shaking. I'm literally shaking on the inside. I feel like there's so much that I just want to just pour into your life. God has just been just speaking love over me all week long. And I'm like, whoo, I can't hardly handle it. Like I just should I'm I've been asking the Lord over and over, like, do I need to lay hands on people? Do I need to pray for people? Do I need to, you know, what do I need? Do I need to get some oil and throw it all over them? What do I need to do? Like, help me do something. Like, what do I can't handle this? Like, I'm sensing such a stirring of the love of God. And it's just setting me on fire. Like, I'm serious. The love of God is shed or brought in my heart by the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost, He's full of love. Have you got the Holy Ghost? You've got the spirit of love all over you. You've we've got to learn how to release it because I don't think we can contain it. Like it's just too much. It's too much. It's too much. Um, hallelujah. The characteristics of love is in First Corinthians. Let's go there. 1 Corinthians chapter 13. I want to show you a couple things, and then we're going to we're going to speak what's in my heart, and then who knows what we'll do then. 1 Corinthians 13. Glory to God. Are you there? So though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I can remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy, love does not parade itself, it's not puffed up. It does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But whether there be prophecies, they will fail. Whether there be tongues, they will cease. Whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away with. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For we now see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I'm also known. And now abides faith, hope, and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love. The reason why I wanted to read this to you is because I believe every morning you wake up, this should be a part of your routine, that you read this scripture. Because what this does, it tells you the characteristics of love. What is love? How does love respond? How does love treat your neighbor? How does love treat each other? How does love treat your pastor? How does love treat those who are in the church? Love is the motivator. Love is the initiator. Love always goes first. Think about this. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God was always first. He did everything first. He said, I will love you, even though you're going to reject me. He said, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever would believe in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. So we understand that God went first. Love is the initiator. Love always makes the decision to go first. When you are walking in love and you're wanting to have the characteristics of the Lord in your life, then you will be the initiator of love. Love makes a decision. I will go first in this, and I will commit to loving you. Even though you're not always lovely. You see, I I'm I mean, I've been married over 20, I think 24 years now. Don't hold it against me. Why's my wife's not here? I'm just gonna say 24 years. Um there's it's it's not always been easy. Love marriage is not easy. Did anyone tell you that love that marriage was gonna be easy? Anybody? Because if they counseled you and told you love was gonna or marriage, sorry, I keep getting them, marriage was gonna be easy, then they lied to you. Marriage is hard. Marriage is a commitment. Marriage is something when I say I do, I can't back up and say if men, this is a good opportunity for us to learn something that can help our marriage life. Is that your responsibility as a man is to be the initiator of the love. We have to initiate this love. And not all the not all the time are they gonna do things we like. Sometimes they're gonna do things we think, oh my gosh, why do they do that? Why do they say that? Why are they so hateful? Why are they so moody? But my love doesn't change based on how they treat me. My love remains the same no matter what. Now you might be thinking, are y'all having trouble in your marriage right now? Nope. She's been on vacation, so we're good. No, we're good. But all week long, this has been going over and over in my spirit that love doesn't change based on how others treat you. Your love remains the same no matter how we treat you. And if you walk this way, you will never be offended. Love cannot be offended. Why? Because it's not based on how you treat me, it's based on who I am. And I'm not loving you to try to get something from you. I'm loving you because I just love you and I want to get something to you. That's exactly how God looks at us. See, we look at this and we say, this is how we should love, but this example is how God loves us. Love does not love you because you are lovely. It loves you, period. So let's take the question marks out of love. Let's take the exclamation points out of love. Let's just put a period there and let's love consistently and love with a heart that's fervent and true, not motivated by anything other than what can I do to love you? You see, when you walk that way, it won't take long before you're gonna start seeing the reciprocation of that love. And you'll start to see from a different lens, a lens of love. And no matter how the people at work treat you, you can say, I love them. Not because they're lovely, but because I am full of love. Amen. Verse 7 and 8. It says this, beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. A person that has not come into a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, they do not know what love is. They don't have a revelation of love, and the love of God has not been shed abroad in their heart by the Holy Ghost. You remember that scripture that that talks about don't be unequally yoked with those who are unbelievers? Do you know the reason why it's so important to be around those who are believers and marry those who are believers? Date those who are believers? It's because they don't know what love is until they have a relationship with Jesus. So they'll never be able to love you the way that you're supposed to be loved. Their love for you will be based on physical attributes, and unfortunately, the older you get, the physical attributes change. Can I get a amen? You see, you're not always going to be the perfect specimen of humanity. That will change, but what will not change is the love that you have for one another. I'm not loving you because I want to get something from you, but that is not love. I'm not loving you because you're hot. That's just lust. And it's temporary. Right? I love you, period. Love originates with God. So the more you understand God, the more you understand love. The more you connect with God, the more love connects with you. The more you get filled, he said, with the fullness of God. So the more you hang out with a God who is full of love and who is love, the more fullness of God you will start to become. So it would be important for all of us to spend time and get a revelation of the love of God. Because the enemy cannot touch someone and he cannot persuade someone who is full of the love of God. The enemy tried with Jesus, didn't he? He tried to get Jesus off the path that God had for him. But Jesus made the decision, I'm going to love the Father no matter what. And he would never be offended. In fact, when he was on the cross, what did he say? He said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. So if you have a if you have a hard time forgiving people and it's hard for you to let things go, then get a revelation of the love of God and how much he forgave you. Amen. How good he's been to you, and how merciful he's been to you. And if you sow mercy, you will reap mercy. Have mercy. Right? I need all I can get. I don't want to put anything between the mercy of God and me. I want to love people. People need this kind of love. They don't need the kind of love that tells them everything they want to hear. They need the true love of God, which is his word, because his word is not separated from love. If you hear someone preaching a message that's full of hate, full of division, full of bitterness, it's not the Holy Scripture of the Word of God. It's their own self-motivated, self-uh-indulging way of trying to get something from you. You see, the reason why we do the things we do is not to try to get you to do something for us. When we worship and I preach or I or we take up an offering or anything like that, it's not to get something from you, it's to get something to you. When we give to God, we're just saying we love you. That's it. It's not supposed to be hard. It's supposed to be out of love. It's an abundance of love. I give because I love God. If you're giving and you're just having a hard time with it and you just don't see it, you know what? God still loves you. Well, I know you're supposed to give the 10%. You are, you are. But I don't tithe. God still loves you. But he wants to get something to you. This week, I I have this dog named Ruger, and Ruger's very moody. Um I feel like Ruger is he's got the most personality of any dog I've ever seen. Uh but he's moody. He's either the most loving, lickingest dog you ever see in your life, or he is angry and he wants to bite you and tear your arm off. That's this dog. And when you put Ruger in a cage, he acts like he is absolutely going to kill you. But when you're just hanging out, this dog loves you. He wants to be right beside you every day, and he loves me. This dog has hung out with me all week long because mama's gone. So this dog has just been stuck by my side all week. So I thought, you know what, this dog's getting a little nasty looking. I'm gonna give it a haircut. I hope my wife's hearing this because I hope she forgives me. But as I was cutting this dog's hair, I was doing a good job, and he was really calm, and he even rolled over for me. And I'm like, oh cool, all right. I'm thinking, oh, he's doing good. And then all of a sudden I pulled a hair, and this dog snapped at me. Good thing I'd made up in my mind that I love this dog, but he was having no more of it. And I started thinking on the way here, that dog does not trust me. Unless everything's going perfect for it, it doesn't trust me. Because if he really trusted me, he would lay there and let me prune back all that stuff off of him. That's just nappy. He's got mats all in his hair, he just looks bad. He needs a haircut, and he would look so good if he would give me the opportunity just to shave his back and shave his. Some of y'all guys need to shave your back. I'm just, I'm just no, I'm just messing. Um, true story, I'll tell you this another time. But, anyways, um, but this dog, as I was going, when it was going perfect, he was okay, but the moment it did not go perfect in his way, he got upset and he ran downstairs and got in his cage. And he was mad. Now, every time I say, Come here, buddy, come here, and he'll wag his tail, come up to me, let's go get a haircut, and he takes off and runs. And that's exactly how a lot of us do God. It really is. Is that as long as everything's going exactly how you think it's supposed to go, everything's good. But the moment God starts to prune back some stuff in your life that's not showing his love and his beauty, all of a sudden we get upset, we run and go get back in bondage. That I thought it preached better than that. But it's but it's absolutely true that we have to trust God. The reason why people will come in and out of church and they'll come for a while, then all of a sudden God gets all up in their pudding and they'll get mad and they'll walk back out the church. And then when things go wrong and they get back in bondage, what do they do? They run back to the church. We get them to the point where they're about to be free, walking in freedom, walking in joy, walking, and then all of a sudden they walk back out of the church. Why is that? It's because they're not trusting God's love. You see, you got to trust God in the good times, and you got to trust God in the bad times. You got to trust God when things are going your way, and you got to trust God when things are going south. Amen. I will trust Him with my life. The Bible, he called us to be a living sacrifice. That's someone who is alive and has a choice, but the choice we make is to get up on that offer and say, God, I trust you with my life and I'll do whatever you want me to do. Love is the initiator. So love will always go first. Love goes first in relationships. Love goes first in ministry. You see, every ministry that we do here at the church should be laced in love. Every time you come and you stand at the door to greet someone, it should be motivated by love, no other motivation whatsoever, but I love you. If you come to serve on the Usher team, I'm doing this because I love you. That's why I do what I do is I love you. If you're singing on the worship team, it's not so that you can show off your talents or how beautiful you sing or how skilled you are on an instrument. It's I'm doing this because I love you and I love God. That's it. And if that is the motivation, on the day of judgment, we will stand before Jesus and He'll say, What did you do? And we won't say, Well, I preached before thousands. I won 10,000 people to the Lord and I did this and I did this and I did that. He'll say, What did you do with the love? Because he said, if you have the ability to cast out devils, raise the dead, remove mountains, you might have faith that's impressive. But if you don't have love, you have nothing to offer God. It's unacceptable. So I think if you're giving an offering and you're not doing it out of love, don't give. Never hear a preacher say that, will you? I don't want your mafia money trying to pay off God because you're afraid He's going to curse you with a curse, because if you don't give, you'll be cursed. That's not a motivation that I you can't live up to that motivation. That's not God's way. You don't give because you're afraid you're going to be cursed. You give because you're blessed. Amen. You're motivated by love, or else don't give. Don't give to show off how much you can give. We don't want it. Give because it's coming out of your heart. Give because you're being led by the Spirit. Give because you're motivated to be a giver. Everything you do, when you serve, whatever you do, do it out of love. Amen. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man some would even dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love towards us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. I want to say something. But when we have been in heaven, after we've passed on, when we've been in heaven for 10 million years, and we've been there in the very glory of Almighty God for 10 million years. Think about that. But just think about it for a moment. If you've been in the presence of God for over 10 million years, in the very glory of God, the fire of God, the presence of God for 10 million years, this is what the Lord showed me. The condition of your righteousness right now will be no more better off than it is right now in 10 million years in heaven. That you're just as righteous now as you'll ever be throughout eternity. Now the knowledge of that righteousness is what gets us. Because we will grow in the knowledge of that righteousness. But in truth, you, if you have received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, are just as righteous now as you'll ever be throughout eternity. That I just absolutely got all over me. Because we spend a lot of our time trying to fix ourselves. When it's not the things you're doing that separated you from God. It's your nature that separated you from God. Your nature was a sinner. And when you became born again, guess what? You got a new nature. And let me just throw this in there. That new nature is complete in Christ. You can't improve on perfection. You can't. When he looks at you, he's not looking at you based on all the things that you said this week. He's looking at you and he sees Christ in you. He sees the new nature in you and he loves you. Not based on your goodness, but he loves you based on your nature. You're in Christ. So you took on a new nature when you received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. That is the nature of the love of God. It's in you, it's in there. You have it right now. It's in you. A lot of you need to learn to use this love and start applying this to your life. Because then and only then will you start to see the results you've always dreamed of receiving. When you start loving people the way that they should be loved, instead of loving people for selfish gain, you will start to see the results. Amen. Love will never be offended. And I said this earlier, and I'm going to say it one more time. Your husband or your wife cannot offend you if you're loving them the true way they're supposed to be loved. They cannot. Because I don't care what you do to me, Jesus did not care what they did to him. He wasn't changing his nature. So some of you are having troubles based on I'm not trusting God in the love walk. And I think it will set you, make you, deliver you, keep you free. If you will just learn to trust God and allow the nature of God that's on the inside of you to be released. Forgive that person who hurt you. Come on, somebody. Forgive that person who hurt you. Forgive that person who offended you. Because they're not walking around thinking about it. You're consumed with it. It bothers you. It doesn't hurt them at all. They've moved on. They don't even think it. They don't even know they did it. They don't think about it anymore. You're the one that's holding on to that hurt and that pain. You need to let it go. Forgive that person. Why? Because love walks in forgiveness. Love holds no ill. I know it's hard, but this is what I was talking about when you're standing at the end of that diving board and you're looking, how fun all those people are having in the water, enjoying God, enjoying his presence, enjoying the gifts, enjoying all these privileges that God's given you, but you're still standing on the diving board of unforgiveness and you're looking over, watching, and you're saying, I want to be in there, but I just can't take that leap. It's time to take that leap. Jump in the water. It's fun. Get in. Dive in. Just get in. Amen. It's cold, yeah, it is at first, but man, when you're in there, it gets fun. Amen. Jump in the water of God's love. Don't let anything restrict you. Don't let your past keep you from stepping into that love. Forgive yourself. I made mistakes. Yeah. Join the club. We all make, we've made a lot of mistakes. If you're in here right now and you've made some awful mistakes, will you stand to your feet? Amen. You lousy people. Guys, look, we've looked let's just stop being churchy. Stop being churchy. Churchyanity is stupidity, and you're walking in reverse. Like, come on, let's get real with each other. This is real life. We go through things in life and it hurts. And there's been things that happen to you that nobody should ever have to endure, but you did. And God showed you how much he loved by taking your hand and walking you through the trial because he loves you. Don't stop. Don't give up because things don't go your way, because he very well might just be pruning some things off of you to make you more glorious and more beautiful because he wants to show you off. Amen. So let's just stop playing games. Like when we worship, we worship with a heart that's full of love. We're not worship because, well, if I don't lift my hands, people are gonna think something's wrong with me. We're not playing those games anymore. I'm gonna love God because I love God. I'm not trying to show off for you or anyone else. When I know that God has given me a word to preach to you, I'm gonna say it because I love you. Amen. I'm not gonna hold back because it might be tough. They might get mad, they might take their tithe and go somewhere else. I don't care. Like we have to get down to the point where let's all grow. That's the point of this. Let's grow in the knowledge of Jesus and let's encourage one another. Let's build each other up. Let's not be hateful to one another, get mad because somebody snapped. I don't love you because you're good to me. I love you, period. You can't make me offended.

unknown 34:10

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 34:11

A dead person can't get offended, and that offense is dead. I don't walk in that old nature anymore. I walk in love. And if you want to see the fullness of God manifested in your life, start to experience the love of God, get a revelation of that love, and start walking it out day by day, day by day, day by day. Don't walk in the flesh because you'll receive the reward of the flesh. Walk in the spirit and you'll receive the things of the spirit. Love is walking in the spirit. Amen. Don't go to work in the flesh and expect to receive things spiritual. Go to work and work in the spirit. Love people that you work with, not because they're lovely, because God loves them. And start to make differences and changes in your life. Start to prepare for love. You know, a lot of times we don't think about this. But when I fell in love with Tiffany, I remember I kept my car clean. I made sure that I put up deodorant, sprayed a little extra cologne. I made sure my hair was right. And when I walk up, make sure my teeth were brushed and everything, and I look good as I could look. I did all I can do to impress that girl. Jesus did everything he could do possible to impress you. What more can he do? He showed you the way to do it. And he said, I'm going to love you and I forgive you and I want a relationship with you. And that's exactly how we should treat everyone. Yeah, they're not, you're not always going to want to hang out with someone. I get that. But don't let that stop you from loving them because you don't know what that will do for their life. They could be on the fringe of suicides. You don't know what's going on in their life. You might say something that no one else has ever told them. Just walk up to someone and say, I love you. That will absolutely shock them. They won't know what to do. They'll be very uncomfortable. But you know what it will do? If they were about to commit suicide, you just change their life forever. You don't know what you've done for their life. But we have to be motivated to do everything we do by love. Amen. Let's bow our heads. Father, in the name of Jesus, Lord, I just thank you that we are changing, we're growing as a church. And Lord, as we serve, as we do what we do, everything we do, Lord, let it be motivated by love. I pray that, Lord, you will just reveal to us so that we'll have a knowledge of that love, so that we can walk in the fullness of God. Lord, I thank you that we're not people who are offended, but we're people who walk in love. And we forgive. We forgive those who have hurt us deeply. We forgive those who have done physical things to us, mental things to us, who have kept our life from being what we thought it was going to be. I forgive. And Lord, I pray if there's anyone out there that needs to forgive, that they'll make that choice, Father, because freedom is in the water. Just dive right on in, forgive, and jump in. The water's good. If there's anyone here that does not know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, if you're here right now, I want you to come up to the front. I want to pray with you and lead you to the Lord. If you're in here and you've never made the confession that Jesus is your Lord and you want to stand before God and man and declare that he is my king and I will worship him forever. If that's you, come on up here.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

We want to lead you to Jesus. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

Do this if you don't mind. Will you lay hands on the person beside you and just kind of reach over and just lay hands on the people beside you and just pray for them just for a moment. Just begin to pray for them that if there's anything in their life that's holding them back from experiencing the love of God, just pray over them right now. I don't want to bring people up here and embarrass them when it comes to praying over unforgiveness in your life. Just pray for them. And if you want to receive freedom from that, just receive your freedom. In the name of Jesus, receive your freedom. Any unforgiveness in your life, any hurt, anything in your life that's holding you back from experiencing the love of God, release it right now in the name of Jesus. Release it right now in the name of Jesus. Lord, I pray a blessing over them. Lord, I thank you increase their life, and they'll get a revelation of your love and your goodness and your mercy and your grace so that they can begin the life of knowing who they are in Christ Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

Loved and accepted. Lord, I thank you, Father, for it. Jesus, we love you. We love you, Jesus. Hallelujah.

unknown 40:08

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

Amen. Amen. Has the word blessed you today? Do you feel encouraged and blessed? I just pray that you'll go out and you'll express that through loving people, forgiving people, showing those around you the love of God because they need to see what you've got. Amen. God bless you. We will see you Wednesday night. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

Thanks for listening. We hope that this message helps you draw closer to God as you walk out your faith. We'll see you next week.