The Greatest Love of All

Well, if you haven't noticed, love is in the air. General reminder, friendly reminder to you guys, 10 days, till Valentine's Day. Halloween. Oh boy. Till Valentine's Day. I heard the other day that there's a move underway to make Valentine's Day a month-long observance, kind of like Christmas, to extend the holiday and no wonder Valentine's Day is a marketer's paradise. Every February in America alone, we send 180 million roses. We send or give 36 million heart-shaped boxes of candy. We send 1 billion cards, second only to Christmas, and throw in a little jewelry here and there and a dinner out, and Americans spend $14 billion every February on Valentine's. And I see some of you ladies saying, I don't get any of that. What's wrong here? Something wrong with this picture. Well, again, just a reminder to you guys, 10 days away. Well, I'm kind of a history buff. And so I like to know, how did we ever get stuck? I mean, how did we ever get involved in this in the first place? How did this happen? And so I just looked up on history.com and what's Valentine's Day? What's the history of this? It's a really fascinating story. Back in the third century, Emperor Claudius II had spread the Roman armies so far across the Roman Empire that they were having trouble keeping up with all the encroachments against the Empire, and the Empire was starting to crumble a little bit. Some of the soldiers were getting discouraged. They were missing home. They never got to go home. They were missing their families. And so Claudius II outlawed marriage to deal with that. So nobody would miss their wife. He just didn't let him get married if they were in the army. Outlawed marriage. Well, there was a pastor in a certain town by the name of Valentine who continued to perform weddings. These young couples would come to him and they would go secretly out into the woods somewhere and he would perform a married ceremony for them and they would be married. Well, when it was discovered that he was breaking the law, Valentine was arrested and thrown into prison. I did a little checking and as far as I can tell, this is supposed to have really happened. He was thrown into prison and many of those same couples that he had performed wedding ceremonies for would sneak into town at night and slip flowers or little notes through the windows of the jail into his cell. As the story continues, this pastor was single but he fell in love with the jailer's daughter while he was in prison. And he is gonna be executed on, guess what, February 14th. That was the day he was executed. The day he was executed, he wrote this love letter to the jailer's daughter, expressing his love for her and signed it from your Valentine. And that's how we got into it. We owe a preacher. Valentine's Day, that's how we got into all this. Well, the Bible talks about the greatest love of all and it's not the love of St. Valentine, it's not the love of any other human being. It is the love of God and the love that we can then show as a result of knowing in our own lives and hearts the love of God. Ephesians chapter five, verses one and two, as our text for today, we've been going through the book of Ephesians on Sunday morning and we have seen that in the second half of the book of Ephesians, Paul is talking about how we should live in response to the salvation that we have in Christ. Live out this salvation that you have in Jesus Christ. And so he says many times in the second half of this book, live this way, live this way, live this way. In fact, let's just look at a few of them. Chapter four, verse one, as a prisoner for the Lord then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Chapter four, verse 17. So I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. Chapter five, verse eight, for you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light. Chapter five, verse 15, be very careful then, how you live, not as unwise but as wise. So that term keeps coming up in the second half of this book, live this way, live this way, live this way, and in the verses we're looking at this morning, look at them with me again. Chapter five, verses one and two. Be imitators of God therefore as dearly loved children and live a life of love. Just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Now what Paul wants us to live out today that we're gonna see is to live out a lifestyle of love. And in these two verses, very short, very simple verses, he describes for us the greatest love of all and he begins describing that love by describing the greatest person of love. You see it there in verse one, the greatest person of love, Paul says, be imitators of God. The greatest person of love, the greatest lover of all, is God himself, not Valentine, not any other human being, although many have vied for the position of the greatest lover of all. I read about a young man who thought he could impress a young lady with the extent of his love. His name was Gemini, it fallen in love with a gal by the name of Maria. And so he would drop by her workplace which she detested. She couldn't stand Gem. And so whenever he'd show up, she'd get rid of him as quick as possible. So he decided, well I'm gonna start calling her at home. Well she never would come to the phone. So I'll talk to her parents. Well that didn't last very long either. So he thought, if I'm going to show her how much I love her, I've got to do it some other way. And so he decided, I'm gonna send her, I'm gonna write her a letter every day for a year. And every Friday I'm going to have a gift delivered to her door through the mail. So after a year's time she has well over 300 letters and over 50 packages that have been sent every week by the same mailman. Well it didn't impress her a bit. She still cared nothing for Gem. Gem's love did not reach her heart. She did however, marry the mailman. Well sometimes our best attempts at showing how much we love just kind of fall flat because we are not the greatest lovers of all time. Who is God is the greatest lover of all time. No one has ever loved anyone else to the extent that God has. The Bible is full of this. Familiar verses but let's just rehearse them again. Look at them again on the screen. John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. That's how much God loved us. Romans chapter five, verses six through eight, you see it just the right time. When we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man. Though for a good man, someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this while we were still sinners. Christ died for us. And that great love passage in 1 John chapter four verses eight through 10, whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. This is how God showed His love among us. He sent His one and only son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love, not that we love God but that He loved us and sent His son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. So the greatest lover of all is God. And He demonstrated His love in that while we were still against Him, rebellious to Him, wicked sinners, He gave His only son to die in our place for us. God is the greatest lover of all. Therefore Paul says, we are to mimic God's love. It's exactly what he says. We are to mimic God's love. Now the word mimic may surprise you a little bit. When we think of mimic, we think of a little child maybe making fun of somebody or even an adult making fun of the actions or antics of someone else. But it really is the best word to describe what Paul's talking about here. In verse one, he says, be imitators of God. The Greek word is the word mimitase. And we get our English word mimic from that word. It's not just to follow someone, it is literally to mimic them, to copy the specific characteristics of another person's life. That's what the word means. It means to learn what they do, how they behave, how they think, to learn that, and then to mimic it, to follow it, to imitate it, to live exactly that same way. Now that seems like a pretty tall order. In fact, the idea of imitating God is breathtaking. How in the world can we ever do that? And yet my friend, once again, the Bible is full of commands like this. Again, I'll just throw a few of them on the screen for you. I won't do it, Roger will. But there they are. One of them is be perfect. Therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5.48, Luke chapter six, verse 36, be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. And then first Peter chapter one, verses 15 and 16, but just as he who called you as holy, so be holy in all you do. For it is written be holy because I am holy. So we are to be holy because God is holy. We are to be peaceful because God is peaceful. We are to be perfect in the context that means to love your enemies. That's the perfect expression of love. We're to be perfect in that sense because he is perfect. Five times in Paul's epistles, he tells his readers, follow me as I follow Christ. Same word, by the way, mimic, imitate me like I imitate Jesus Christ. And in this passage, and in first John 4, we are to love like he loves. We are to imitate him in his love. So although it's a breathtaking thought that we should be like God, when you really think about it, it's really God's purpose for us as Christians to be like him. That's what he's doing. We saw last time we were in Ephesians couple times ago, I guess, that he is actually creating us to be like him once again, chapter 4 verse 24. And we know that the Bible says that God works all things together for good to them that love him, to those who are the called according to his purpose and his purpose is described in the next verse for whom he did 4 and 0. Then he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son. We are being shaped, molded into the image of Jesus Christ. We are being created anew from the inside out, from our character out, to be like him. So that's God's whole purpose for us, is that we be like him, that we be like Jesus Christ. Now it is a lifelong process, it doesn't happen overnight, and the end result will not happen perfectly till we get to heaven. It's there that the Bible says, 1 John 3, 2, we shall be like him, when we shall see him as he is. That's when the process will be complete, but the Bible indicates that we should be headed that direction, we should be making progress toward Christ's likeness as long as we live. So when the Bible says be mimics of God, it's simply telling us what God's purpose is for us anyway, to reflect his character, to become more like him. The great Greek general and conqueror, Alexander the Great, is said to have one time talked to one of his soldiers who had been brought into him, the soldier was caught trying to desert the army. He was a coward. That young man's name was also Alexander. And when Alexander the Great found that out, he looked him in the eye, and he said, either change your behavior or change your name. No one named Alexander will be known as a coward. Now there's a sense in which that's exactly what we're seeing here. We are in God's family, we are to reflect his character. We have his name, we are Christians, followers of Christ. We need to change our behavior, change our lives because our name indicates we are to reflect who he is. The greatest person of all, the greatest person of love is God himself. But Paul goes on to say that there is the greatest potential for love as well. Also in verse one, where he says, the imitators of God therefore, as dearly loved children. In those four words, as dearly loved children, we find the greatest potential, the possibility that we can actually measure up to what he has just said about being imitators of God. Now in those four words, there are two thoughts. The first one is this, as children, we share his nature. You see, as children, we share his nature. Now everyone in this room who is a parent or a child, I think that covers everybody. Should know this, we all share to some degree the nature, the characteristics of our parents. That can be both encouraging and embarrassing at times. But we know that our children kind of grow up to be like us, and there are things that we see in their lives, well that's really encouraging to see they finally learn something, they're really living out what we taught them and what we modeled before them, tried to. There are other times when we look at them and we see our faults mirrored in their lives as well. Same thing is true even physically, we bear the resemblance of our parents because we have their nature. Some of you will never be short. You just don't have the genes in you to be short. Some of you will never be tall because your parents, you don't have the genes for that. Some of you will never be thin. Some of you will never be thick. Because you just don't have the genes for that. You just not made that you didn't get that from your parents. So we do resemble our parents why? Because we share their nature. We share in a sense a combination of their genetic structure. And so we are like our parents' personality wise, physically, because we share their nature. The same thing is true spiritually, when you are born into the family of God. The Bible says in 2 Peter 1 and 4, that you are a partaker of the divine nature. There is a sense in which when you get saved, you get a whole new package of desires and motivations and ambitions. They're not perfectly developed yet, and that's why we got to grow. But the ambition, the desire is there to be like Him. So that because our Father is holy, we have a desire to be holy. Because our Father is peaceful, we have a desire to be peaceful. Because our Father forgives, we have a desire to forgive. And because our Father loves, we have a desire to love as well. It's in our nature now. Because we have a new nature, we have a new ambition direction, perspective on life, that we have from our Father because we've been born into His family. So that gives us the potential to love others as God has loved us because we are children, we share His nature. But there's a second thought in these four words, and it's this, as dearly loved children, we have experienced His grace. As dearly loved children, we have experienced His grace. Not only are we as children, we are His dearly loved children. We have a King James Version, it probably uses the word beloved, which is the word used of Jesus, God's beloved Son. There is a sense, my friend, in which God loves you as much as He loves His own Son, Jesus Christ. You are dearly loved to Him. And you can see that best when you remember what we saw earlier in Romans 5, that when we were still sinners, He sacrificed His own Son to die for us. Now there could be no greater love than that. You are dearly loved, my friend, by your Heavenly Father. You are dearly loved. And that gift that He gave you out of His love, the gift of His own Son, Jesus Christ, is purely a gift of His grace. None of us did anything to deserve that, or merit that, or earn that in any way. We haven't lived up to that, and never will. We will never deserve that gift that God's given us. And yet, out of His grace, the free expression of His love for us, He gave us His Son. We have experienced that. And if we've experienced that kind of love and grace that comes from God, we ought to turn around and give that to others. There is the potential there to do that, because we've experienced what it's like. Not only are we His children who share the nature that wants to love that way, but we are also dearly loved ourselves. We've experienced it. We know what it's like. We ought to be able to give that to other people. The greatest potential for love is found in the fact that we are dearly loved children of God. But Paul goes on to describe something else about this greatest love of all, not only the greatest person of love, and the greatest potential for love, but also the greatest proof of love is found in verse one. Back, it's really found in one word in verse one, be imitators of God, therefore, the word therefore communicates the greatest proof of love. Now you've heard this before, it's worth hearing again, I believe, one of the best principles of interpreting your Bible, understanding your Bible is whenever you see the word therefore, you should go back and see what it's there for. Because the word therefore always ties what the writer is saying to something he's just said. And in this case, it ties verse one back to chapter four, verse 32. And let's read those two verses together. They really do go together. Paul says in verse 32, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ, God forgave you, be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children. So what is the greatest proof of love? What is the greatest evidence of the kind of love God's given us and we should give others? It is undeserved forgiveness. That is the greatest proof of love. Undeserved forgiveness. You see what Paul is telling us back in verse 32, is that God's love brings us forgiveness. He loved us, he forgave us, and the measure of his love is measured in the fullness and the freedom of his forgiveness for us. He has offered freely to forgive us, people who were sinful, rebellious, wicked, turned against God by nature from birth, and he was still willing to reach out his love to us, to forgive us. Now there is tremendous lesson there about our forgiveness. See, a lot of people get hung up on the idea of forgiveness because they think, I'm not really expected to forgive anyone unless they ask for it or they repent and turn around and straighten up and do better and then I'll forgive them. You need to go back, we all need to go back to God's forgiveness. That's the model for us here. There are two aspects of divine forgiveness. Two aspects of God's forgiveness, the first is that before you ever had a thought about repenting of your sins and turning to him, God opened up his heart and freely offered you forgiveness in the death of his son, Jesus. God's heart was already turned to you when your back was still turned to him. God's heart was already reaching out to you with love and the offer of forgiveness before you ever gave him a thought, before you ever, ever turned toward him. There's that aspect of forgiveness which is potential which is offered at the cross. And then the second aspect of forgiveness comes obviously at that moment when you turn your heart and life over to Jesus Christ and you receive him as your savior. And at that moment, your relationship with him is restored. The barrier between you and him is broken down and you are brought into a relationship with him as his child, you're part of his family. The Bible speaks of that as salvation. You're saved, you're God's child now and your sins are taken off your record in heaven. You see there are two aspects of forgiveness. One, the free willing offer from the heart of the forgivee and the second is when restoration is complete because of the repentance of the one who needs to be forgiven. We should remember that when we think about how we forgive other people because if God's love brings us forgiveness, then our love must result in forgiveness too. And that's exactly what Paul is talking about here. He's saying God forgave us, was kind and generous and gracious and forgiving us. Therefore we are to be imitators of God as dearly loved children. We are to imitate his love by forgiving other people, forgiving others. The greatest evidence of our love will be forgiveness and there is no clearer evidence of a hard, loveless heart than an unforgiving spirit. If we really love as we have been loved, we will be willing to forgive other people. Think about it. God has forgiven you that way. No matter what you had done, no matter what your past was like, no matter how terrible you were in your sin, no matter how destructive or unjust your life may have been, God offered you freely his forgiveness. And then when you turn from your sin to him, that forgiveness was made complete in a restored relationship with him. The same thing should be true of us. No matter how deeply you've been harmed, no matter how you've been hurt, no matter how you've been slandered, no matter how you've been persecuted or treated by someone else. If we do what the Bible says, we must open up our hearts to others and be willing to forgive them, let it go, release their offenses against us and not let it contaminate our hearts and be openly willing to forgive them. Now obviously the restoration may not be able to be complete until they make the turn back toward you and are willing to receive your forgiveness. But the first aspect of forgiveness that God has offered all of us ought to be in the heart of every Christian toward anyone, no matter what they have done to you. And if you harbor resistance to that or resentment against them, you have an unforgiving, unloving spirit. That's what Paul is saying. Because God has willingly forgiven us, we ought to be imitators of him in expressing that same love to others. I don't know that I've ever read a story that powerfully communicates at any more than the story of Chuck Colson and John Erlichman. Colson and Erlichman were co-conspirators in the Watergate scandal. They were both working in the White House at the time and helped to carry out and cover up the Watergate scandal in 1973 and 74, 72 and 73 and 74 that led to the humiliating resignation of President Nixon. John Erlichman was the deputy chief of staff at an office right above the Oval Office. He and Colson both were convicted and put in prison and served prison time for their crimes. Colson because of the loving outreach of some believers came to know Jesus as his savior and probably many of you know his name today as the leader of a great ministry and one of the greatest spokesmen for Evangelical Christianity, we have in our nation today, leader of prison fellowship. John Erlichman however is a different story. He turned inward bitter, resentful and he vented his anger at Chuck Colson, whom he thought was just using religion to make money out of what had happened to him and so he hated Colson. He wrote every article he could get published against Chuck Colson for 20 years defamed him publicly and in print. Fast forward the clock those 20 years and Colson gets a message one day that John Erlichman is dying in a nursing home. His third wife has left him. He has been alienated from his children. Nobody comes to see him. He is a lonely old bitter man dying all alone. And Colson said, I can't let that happen. So he went to see him in the nursing home. Erlichman was shocked to see Colson show up in his room but Colson came bringing gifts, came bringing help and encouragement did what he could to help in those last few weeks of Erlichman's life. And every time he would go he would share with him the love of Christ. Erlichman could not believe after all he had done to Colson that Colson would actually reach out to him and show him love. Just a few days before Erlichman died he sent a message to Chuck Colson. The doctors say I don't have much time. Colson was sick and bed at the time and was not able to get out. And so he called one of his friends and asked if that friend could go by and see Erlichman. The friend did and led John Erlichman to Christ that day. Why did that happen? Because there was a man who was willing to offer forgiveness. There was a man who was willing to say I will not internalize and hold against you 20 years of public wrongs that you've done to me. I will not hold that against you. I will reach out to you and love you because that's what God did for me. When I was a rebel in a sinner against him he was willing to forgive me. And my friend there is no greater testimony of the love of God flowing through us than our willingness to forgive those who were wrongness and harm us. So Paul says, be imitators of God therefore as dearly loved children. Be imitators of him. Love in the same way that he loved and forgave you, forgave me. But Paul's not done yet. He gives us in verse two, not only the greatest person of love and the greatest potential for love and the greatest proof of love. But he gives us the greatest pattern of love there could ever be. And that's in the love of Christ. Verse two says, and live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Christ is our pattern, you know. He is our example in the way he lived. You want to know what God is like? Read the Gospels. Look at the way Jesus lived. He is our pattern. John says it this way in 1 John chapter 2 and verse 6, whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. Now that's not just us trying in our own efforts. First of all, you have to know Christ is your savior to have the ability to do that because once you know Christ, you have the Holy Spirit indwelling you with you at all times to give you the strength and the power to live as Jesus did. But he is our standard. He is our model. He is our example. He is our pattern. And if he is our pattern, particularly in the area of love as verse 2 says, Paul says there are two things about this pattern of love. First of all, he says that Christ's love sacrifices for us. You see it there? It sacrifices for us. Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. He gave himself up for us. That's substitution. It's clearly stated that way throughout the New Testament that when Jesus died, what he was doing was he was dying in the place of other people. He was not dying for himself or to pay for his own sins. But when Jesus died on the cross, he was dying for us. He was giving himself sacrificially as an offering for us. He was bearing all of God's punishment, all of God's wrath, all of God's condemnation, which we justly deserve. He was taking it all on him and bearing it in his death. He was paying our penalty because of our sin. He was dying for us and for our benefit. And that says something to us because you see, we are to love other people in the same way. The kind of love Jesus showed to us, we are to show to others. We are to give of ourselves for their benefit even when they are undeserving, even when they are imperfect, even when we don't feel like loving them, even when they have failed because we all do the same thing. And so the Bible teaches that in marriage, in friendships, in the church, we are to love as Jesus' love. What that means is you give sacrificially for the good of that other person. The highest kind of love in the Bible has nothing to do with what I get out of it. It has everything to do with what I can do for the benefit and welfare of another person. That's what love really is. It is so well modeled by Jesus on the evening before he died. He is in a small room eating dinner with his twelve disciples. They are celebrating the Passover and eating the Passover meal. And Jesus is weighted down with what he knows is coming in the next twelve hours. His soul will be spent in prayer as he asks God if it's possible that there's any way for mankind to be saved without him having to be turned away from his father. If that cup can pass from him, he will go through agony of soul in the Garden of Gethsemane. He will be brutally arrested and tried and beaten and scorned and hung on a cross. And he knows all that's coming in the next twelve hours. And at a time when he needs the comfort and encouragement of his closest friends, more than any time he's ever needed in his life, all they can think about and talk about at that table is who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom. The gospel say that's what their conversation was when they first sat down. All they can think about was their own fame and prestige and position. And what they saw as a kingdom it was going to be set up because Jesus was now in Jerusalem. They had no clue what he was going through. And at that very moment when Jesus could have rebuked them, called them on the carpet said, I need you now. When he could have said that and been very legitimate in saying that at that very moment he gets up from the table. He walks over to the door. And he takes the towel that a servant would normally take when guests would come into a home and he wraps it around himself. And he takes a basin of water that was at that door that normally a servant would use to wash the dusty feet that people who came into that household. And he takes that towel and that basin of water and he quietly silently, lovingly, humbly, forgivingly goes over and washes the feet of his disciples. That is love. That is sacrificing what you need for the good of someone else. And Jesus said to them, what I have shown to you today, you do to other people. You live at that lifestyle of love to other people. Sacrificing yourself for their welfare, their benefit. That is what love really is. God's love, Christ's love, sacrifices for us. Paul says something else about Christ's love. Christ's love satisfies God. It sacrifices for us, but it also satisfies God. You see it there in verse 2? Justice Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. That is the sacrifice. But notice the next words, as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. This is an interesting concept. Jesus' death was a fragrant offering to God. It smelled good. What does that mean? Well, it goes back to the Old Testament ideas of animals being sacrificed and the smoke would ascend. And the Bible pictures God as being pleased with the aroma of the offerings that were offered. And the ultimate fulfillment of that is that Jesus sacrificed His death, pleases the Father. It is not that God is happy about the fact that sin requires death. It is not even the fact that God is happy about the death of Jesus. What he's communicating here by this fragrant offering that smells good in the nostrils of God, that Christ's death pleases Him. It satisfies God. You see, Jesus' death satisfies all of the holy requirements of God for our sin to be punished. Because God is perfectly holy. He cannot allow sin just to be winked at, swept under the rug. Let's forget about it. I love you too much to ever think about that again. No, no, no. God is also a God of holiness and justice, and sin must be punished. The holy requirements of God's law must be satisfied. And what this passage in so many others say is that it is Christ's death that was that pleasing aroma to God. That it satisfied Him completely. There is nothing else that can do that. There is nothing else in ever indicated in the Bible that satisfies God's requirements for your sin to be paid for. Your good life can't do it. Your church membership can't do it. Your baptism can't do it. Nothing you do can accomplish this. The only thing the Bible ever says was satisfactory to God to wipe away the condemnation that we face before Him. The just requirements of His law. The only thing that satisfies that is the death of Christ. Jesus' death not only. Not only sacrifices for us, but it's the only thing that satisfies God and makes it possible for Him to extend. A young man had piled up a bunch of speeding tickets. And he hadn't paid him any mind. $400 fine. And paid it any mind until one day he was summoned to come to traffic court. He walked in wondering what was going to happen, but immediately let out a sigh of relief when he saw that the judge on the bench was an old family friend. And he thought, oh boy, I'm home for you now. No problem here today. So the judge took up case after case finally came to his. He evaluated what had happened and the young man sitting there smuggling was shocked to hear the judge say, oh, $400 fine. If you do not pay, it's 30 days in jail. And the young man was just flabbergasted. He protested he could not pay the fine and he would not spend time in prison. So the judge said, I'm sorry, you will spend time in prison. And they started to usher him out of the courtroom. The judge at the same time left the bench, took off his robe, reached into his back pocket, got his wallet, went up to the young man, and the bailiff who was taking him out, and said, young man, as a judge, I administer the law, and you broke the law. But as a family friend, I extend to you grace. I will pay your fine, pulled out four crisp $100 bills, and paid the fine. That's exactly what God's done for you. God's law passes just sentence on you and me that we deserve to die because of our sin. And as we're being hauled off to an eternal death, God lays aside the judge's robes. And he says, not only am I the judge, not only am I a Justin holy God, I'm also one who loves you. And I'm going to pay the fine for you. I'm going to give my son Jesus to die and pay all the penalty for your sin. His death will satisfy the requirements of justice. That's how much God loved you and me. Everyone in this room needs to feel loved. Everyone in this room needs to experience what love is all about. We all need that. We read a story about a little girl named Kathy, a young girl who was living in a homeless shelter for children in a major city in our country. And the social workers there realized that something was a little different about little Kathy. Everywhere she went, she carried a little paint can with her, just one of those court paint cans. She would set it by her bed at night. She would take it into the cafeteria every time they had a meal. She would take it to the bathroom with her whenever she went in for a shower. She kept that with her all the time. And so one of the social workers had taken a special interest in little Kathy and had decided she needed to find out what that was about. So she sat down beside her one day at lunch, began talking about this and that and the other. Finally she said, Kathy, I've noticed that you carry this paint can around with you all the time. What's in that can? Little Kathy said, my mother. And social worker was kind of taken back and said, what do you mean by that? She said, my mother's ashes are in that paint can. And with a flood of tears, she let the story out that she had not told anyone else in that home. That when she was born, her mother who was hooked on drugs and contracted all kinds of diseases and couldn't care for her had abandoned her, dumped her in a dumpster in New York City to try to get rid of her. Little Kathy, little baby was found and given to some folks who raised her and eventually found her way into this home. But as young as she was miraculously, she was able to trace down her mother. She wanted to know who her mother was. Found her in a hospital dying of AIDS. At her funeral, nobody else was there. Little Kathy was there. The funeral director, could I have my mother's ashes? Well, she can't afford an urn. So the funeral director found an empty paint can out back and gave little Kathy her mother's ashes. Every one wants to know somebody loves him. No matter how you've been disappointed with human love, I can assure you of this. God loves you like nobody else could ever love you. He loves you so much that he sent his son, Jesus, to die, to pay the just penalty of the law for your sins. It's how much he loved you. And he is willing to offer you forgiveness freely if you will simply place your faith in Jesus. And then when you come to know him as your Savior, he commands you. Mimic that. Emotate that. Live that way. Show other people that same kind of love and forgiveness that I've shown you. Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children. Walk in love just as Jesus gave himself up as a sacrifice for you. And as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Let's pray together. Father, we are awed by your love for us. We know that we do not deserve it. We could not earn it in any way. And we thank you for the grace that has given us your love and forgiveness in Christ. Father, I pray today. There might be someone here who has never really experienced that love that would today turn their heart and life over to you and trust your son as their Savior. And we would experience the great love you have given that forgiveness you offer, the opportunity to be in your families as your child. And then Lord, I pray that you help all of us who do know you to better reflect your character of love and forgiveness to those around us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.