(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

If you have your Bibles with you today, I'm gonna invite you to open it up to Ephesians.

Ephesians chapter three, we're gonna begin with verse 18 in Ephesians chapter three.

And we're gonna be talking about the love of God today.

The love of God in our life and the love of God through our life.

We love to talk about God's love coming in our life.

But today, it's gonna be not so much about it just coming into your life, but working through your life into the world around you.

And I'm a firm believer that you can't give away what you haven't experienced.

In other words, you can't give away, if you haven't been filled up with something in your life, it's impossible for you to pour something out of your life.

So if God hasn't filled you with his love, I invite you to get underneath the authority of his love, Jesus Christ, and begin to let him pour into your life, because when he pours into your life, it won't come without challenges, but then you'll be able to pour out of your life and do great and mighty things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, come on.

Paul says this in Ephesians, as he writes the church at Ephesus, he says in verse 18 of chapter three, he says, may you have the power to understand as all of God's people should, how wide, how long, how high and how deep his love is.

He goes on to say in verse 19, may you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully.

Then you will be able, you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

He goes on to say in verse 20, now all glory to God who is able through his mighty power at work within us to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.

Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations, forever and ever.

Amen.

Paul says this prayer here at the end of Ephesians chapter three, and he basically says, I want you people to know the love of God.

I want you to know how wide, how long, how deep the love of Christ is.

He says, though we can't fully understand it, he says, I want you to remember the power of God's love in your own life.

And in order for us to kind of go back into the letter to rediscover God's love in our own life, it's kind of outlined throughout the first half of this letter.

Because the writer here reminds us of how powerful God's love is.

In Ephesians chapter one, verse four, he says this, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.

How many of you know that's a powerful God?

Come on.

The Bible says in Ephesians chapter four, or chapter two, verses four and five, he says, but God is so rich in his mercy, he loved us so much that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ Jesus from the dead.

He goes on to say, it is only by God's grace that you have been saved.

God chooses to love us, and it's that love that makes us alive to do great and mighty things.

It's a powerful kind of love.

God's love in your life is powerful, and you'll begin to be able to express it powerfully in the world around you when you begin to comprehend the power and the mighty power of God's amazing love.

The Bible says that you were once dead in your trespasses of sin.

You were unable to function and do what God designed you to do in this earth, but when God showed up with all of his mercy and with his incredible grace, you can be made alive in Christ Jesus.

In other words, you can begin to change your focus.

It's not always on yourself.

It begins to get outside of yourself, and it begins to do great and mighty things in the world around us.

It's easy for me to love myself, but sometimes it becomes hard to let that love flow into me and flow through me.

You remember Jesus?

He said, love others as you, what?

Love yourselves.

He says this is the second and greatest commandment of all.

And so the power of God's love can begin to change the world, but you must first know that power of God's love.

You must experience his love in your own life.

This is the power of the cross of Christ.

The blood shed for you on the cross.

You didn't deserve it, I didn't deserve it, but God did it anyway.

God did it anyway.

And if you've experienced that love that comes from Christ Jesus, that unmerited favor, that grace in your own life, it has the power to begin to help you and I become all God's designed us to be.

First, we must know God's love.

We gotta know it's powerful, but it's so much more than just being powerful, it's also empowering.

It empowers you to do great and mighty things.

God's loved us.

The Bible says in Ephesians chapter two, verse 10, the writer says, for we are God's masterpiece.

He has created us anew in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

In other words, God empowers you to be a part.

There's some key words there in that verse.

It says we are God's masterpiece.

Not just you, not just me, but we.

That's a collection of people.

The Bible says we are God's masterpiece, created anew in Christ Jesus by God's amazing love.

Come on.

And you know what?

The Bible says he didn't only create you anew in Christ Jesus, he gave you a reason to live and a part to play in this world that has sin and darkness in it.

The light of Christ is to show up and expel darkness.

Come on.

The church loves to complain about all the darkness in the world.

But what if we started being the light in the darkness?

Come on, and the darkness would be dispelled.

I'm under the conviction that I could complain about all the politicians.

But the church is called to step up to the plate and be the light in spite of the politicians.

Come on.

I don't know if you know it or not, there's an election coming up and you have the responsibility to show up in this country if you're of the voting age and vote for a president.

That's your responsibility.

But the reality of it is, is no matter who gets the office of president, the church is still gonna be the church in spite of who is in the office.

Come on.

We're to show up.

This isn't belittling your vote.

You should get out and vote for somebody with godly values.

Come on, and believes about God things.

Come on.

Step into that.

But the reality of it is, is the Bible says that God gives each and every one of us a part to play in this world.

He's an empowering God.

He empowers you to do great and mighty things.

We gotta know God's love.

He is only powerful with his love.

He's not only empowering with his love, but look what it says in Ephesians 2, verses 19 and 21.

It says this, you are members of God's family.

Speaking to us, the church.

Together we were his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.

And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself.

We are carefully joined together in him.

The Bible says, become a holy temple for the Lord.

So the Bible says that Christ allows us to be a member of God's family.

We're like parts of a house all put together, it says.

And we're the holy dwelling for God's spirit.

And this is a powerful, powerful thing.

Because what it tells me is God is inclusive.

A lot of people want to talk about the exclusivity of Christianity, but God is the most inclusive God in the world.

The God of Christianity is.

For God so loved the world, come on, the world.

That means all people for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son.

Whoever believes in him, whoever believes in him, no matter what tribe, what tongue, what language you speak, whoever believes in him can have eternal life and not perish, come on.

And so that's an inclusive God.

It's not just for certain race.

The Bible says that Christ Jesus came to forgive us of our sin no matter where our background is.

And the Bible says that when we can put our faith in what God has done for us, that we can become a part of what he's doing in the world.

Do you see God as being an exclusive God or an inclusive God?

Because I can tell you right now, when Christ died on that cross, he had you on his mind.

I don't care if you are sitting in the top row, Christ had you on his mind.

You can sit right there on the front, Christ had you on his mind.

And the reality of it is, is this is knowing God's love.

God's love isn't just for the preacher.

God's love is for everybody who will believe in him and trust in him and put their faith in him.

And God's love is vast.

It's great, it's mighty.

You remember the writer in Ephesians 3?

He says, I want you to know how high, how long, how deep the amazing love of God is.

And he says, you'll never fully understand it this side of heaven, but he says, I want you to know that kind of love.

See, God's love is powerful.

God's love is empowering.

And God's love is inclusive.

But more so than that, look what it says here in Ephesians chapter three, verse 12.

Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now boldly and confidently come in into God's presence.

God's word, God's love is available.

So see, if you're really going to use the parts that God has given you to use in this world and love like God has loved, you have to understand that God's love is always available to us through Christ Jesus.

The Bible says when Christ Jesus died on the cross, there was a curtain in the temple and that curtain split from top to bottom.

And it was a symbolic way to say that God is opening the way to him for all people in all times who would believe and trust in what Christ has done on the cross and his finished work on the cross.

He says, now you can enter into my holy presence.

And so I don't know what your background is.

I don't know what you did last night.

I don't know what you did last month.

I don't know what you did last week.

But what I do know is God's love is available to you right now if you would so dare believe it, step into his holy presence.

He will shine in your life.

He'll shine the light of Christ into your heart and change your world.

So many of us are paralyzed because of our past.

And I want you to know that I don't know what your past is, but God does.

And God says, I love you anyway.

And my love is available to you if you would so dare believe in me and trust me and come to me, I will make you holy.

I will set you apart to do great and mighty things.

I will put my spirit in you and I will flow through you if you have the confidence to come in to my holy presence.

See, if we're really going to express the love of God in the world around us during difficult times, we have to first experience love of God.

I just kind of rattled off, you know what, four things that God's love is in your life.

Have you experienced that?

Because if you have experienced that, then you're ready to turn the page in your life and you're ready to begin to express it.

But look, you don't only experience the love of God one time, it's a continual filling of God over and over and over again.

Other words, you don't just come and fill up on a weekend in a church service, it's a great place to fill up, but I continue to commune with his love all week long daily through prayer, through thanksgiving, through the trials, through the temptations, because it is that love that will empower you to express the love around you.

And so I wanna talk for the next few minutes not only about experiencing God's love, but expressing God's love as God's people.

Because truly, that's what we're called to do as a church, right, is to permeate this earth with God's amazing love.

To be bold and courageous with God's amazing love, to be valorous and step into the world around us with God's amazing love.

We changed our name a couple of years ago on purpose.

Used to be Barefoot Church, now it's Valorous Church.

Why Valorous Church?

Because we wanna be a church that's bold and courageous with the goodness of God, the love of God, and we wanna step into our community and be the hands and feet of Jesus during difficult times and difficult moments to show people the love of Christ.

Come on.

And so we're valorous.

And again, man, we'd love for you to be a part of the Valorous family.

But I can tell you right now, you're probably not gonna do your part if you haven't experienced the love of God first.

And again, we want you to experience God's love.

We're gonna continually talk about God's love.

When you come in here, you're gonna hear about God's love in your life.

But you're also gonna be challenged to be a bold and courageous warrior in God's kingdom and express God's love to the world around you.

We're gonna challenge you to give your money.

We're gonna challenge you to give your resources.

We're gonna challenge you to use your gifts.

We're gonna challenge you to come together.

We're gonna challenge you to unify your hearts, to step up and be all God's designed you to be.

You're in the army now, come on.

Be bold and courageous, express God's love.

The Bible says this, not only do we need to experience God's love, he begins to outline in Ephesians four that we need to express God's love.

Look what it says, Ephesians four verses one and two.

Paul says, now that you know God's love, that you've experienced God's love, he says, I, as a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling.

For you've been called by God, not by Pastor Clay, come on.

You've been called by God.

Look at your neighbor and say, you've been called by God.

Tell them with conviction, come on.

You've been called by God.

You've been assigned something by the God of the universe.

Always be humble and gentle.

Be patient with each other.

Making allowances for each other's faults because of what?

Your love.

Now that you've experienced the love of God, begin to express the love of God.

You've been called by God.

And so the Bible says we express God's love first and foremost with respect.

With respect.

You know, that's something the church needs to bring back is respect.

We call it honor.

Honor up, honor down, honor all around.

Honor all people.

Honor God's people.

Honor your brother and sister.

Be willing to forgive their faults.

It doesn't say don't call out their faults.

It says, but be humble and gentle in the midst of it, always being ready for people to come back to the Lord, serve with the Lord, respect each other, because God is love and God is respectful.

Come on.

Love respects.

1 Corinthians 13 outlines love for us.

But the Bible says love endures all things.

The church is going to show up and change the world.

It's going to begin to do it with respect, not by standing on the street corner, pointing at all the faults of people.

It's OK to call out sin.

But the reality of it is you show somebody respect in their sin.

The Bible says you need to come with grace and truth.

Come on.

You need to speak truth into their life.

But do it in a respectful way.

Build one another up.

Call other people back to being all God's designed them to be.

One of the greatest ways we begin to show the world around us who God is is respect them as human beings.

We're created in God's image, in God's likeness.

And this doesn't mean just tell people just to do whatever they want to do, whenever they want to do, and however they want to do it.

No, you do it God's way.

And I'll respect you in the process.

And I'll respect you, and I'll honor you when you get off the path.

But it doesn't mean I'm going to pat you on the back and tell you everything's OK if you get off the path.

I'm going to respect you as a player in God's kingdom, a person in God's kingdom.

But in the reality of it is, I'm not going to always pat you on the fanny and tell you what you're doing is right in God's kingdom.

And I don't expect the same out of you.

Because the truth of the matter is, we're called to respect one another, but we're also called to sharpen one another and help each other get great in life.

And so here, if we're really going to express God's love to the world, be bold and courageous, be a valorous people, we have to do it with respect.

He continues on there in Ephesians chapter 4, verses 3 through 6.

He says, now make every effort to keep yourselves united in the spirit.

Binding yourselves together with peace, for there is one body, one spirit, just as you've been called to one glorious hope for the future.

There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all.

See, God's love is expressed when we're united.

We're about the same thing.

We're hanging on to the same vision.

We're going in the same direction.

We realize that we're here as a church to express God's love to the world around us, and we unite around there's one faith, one Father, one baptism.

There's one Lord Jesus Christ.

There's one that'll make you right with God.

His name is Jesus.

We unite around that oneness.

The color of your skin ain't going to make you right with God.

The language you speak ain't going to make you right with God.

Being an American ain't going to make you right with God.

You know what?

But being a Brazilian ain't going to make you right with God either.

Being an Asian ain't going to make you right with God.

Being of the Jewish descent ain't going to make you right with God.

It's your faith in God's gift, Jesus, that makes you right with God.

There's one God, one baptism, one faith, one hope.

And the Bible says we have to unite around this oneness.

I can tell you right now, it shows up all the time, division.

I need you to know today that the enemy's strategy is simply to divide and conquer.

Let me say it again, in case you didn't hear me all the way up in that area.

The enemy's strategy in your marriage is divide and conquer.

The enemy's strategy in your work life is to divide and conquer.

The enemy's strategy in the church is to divide and conquer.

The enemy's strategy in your family is to divide and conquer.

But with God, if we unify our hearts around God's vision for all those areas of our life, and we have one thought in mind, we can get through the differences and not be divided, but be united and be about Christ Jesus and His amazing love, and the world will change.

The Bible says that basically God is waiting on the church to unite, not to divide.

We're called to be a united people and do great and mighty things.

The Bible gives all these illustrations in God's Word of what the church is.

Church is a family, church is a building, church is a house, the church is an army.

The reason it gives all these descriptions in the Bible of what the church is, is simply so we will unite in our heart around the love of Christ Jesus and then begin to express it to the world around us.

Again, it's not just another religion, it's knowing the love of God and being a part of what He's doing in the world, expressing it to the world around us.

So God's love unites, you know what God's love begins to do, great and mighty things in our life, it's respectful.

And then I wrote it down this way in Ephesians 4, 7, he goes on to say, now that we're united, and it is, He has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ.

So God's love, again, is also empowering and God's love is expressed to the world around it when all the parts do their part.

When all the parts do their part.

Let me ask you a question.

If you belong to Christ Jesus, what part has He called you to play?

What part has He called your family to play?

What part has He assigned to you to change the world?

I would invite you to take an inventory of your life and begin to ask that question because my Bible says that God has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ to show His love to the world around us and express who God is.

What part has God called you and I to play?

And I invite you not to get lazy with your part, become, you know, content with your part, but do your part and step up and let's show the world around us the love of Christ.

Can you imagine what would happen in our community just right here?

If we would all do our part, the love of Christ would be expressed in such a way you couldn't contain what God is going to do.

He would do great and mighty things.

Did you forget Ephesians chapter 3 verse 20?

Let me read it to you again.

I'll go back and read it.

It says this in verse 20, now all glory to God who is able through his mighty power at work within us to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.

Other words, God is able to do that if I'm willing to step in and do my part and express the love of Christ to the world.

That's what we're doing right now during this hurricane.

And guess what?

I just saw on the news there's another one on the way.

So what are we going to do?

We're going to do what we can, we're going to do our part and our expectation is other people to do their part and step up and all of us to do our part.

When all of us do our part, the world around us is changed with the love of Christ.

I can tell you right now, it's easy to get paralyzed in life and not do your part.

It's too big.

I mean, I even felt that way early on this week when I saw the devastation of this hurricane.

I'm like, well, what am I going to do, little old me, what am I going to do?

I don't have enough money in the world to fix this problem.

It's the government's fault.

That's our attitude.

Somebody else is going to fix it.

I need you to know God calls you to do your part.

God calls you to have the heart of love in you.

He didn't call you to be Jesus on your own, but he calls you to do your part.

And when all of us do our part, we have the amazing ability to change the world.

I want to change the way you think a minute today, because I do believe the love of God is needed in this world around us.

And we got to know that not only God calls us to do our part and express the love, but we got to expect results, expect results, expect results.

I expect if we show the love of Christ to our community week in and week out, the seats cannot contain the people that need to come hear the good news of who Jesus Christ is.

I expect results.

Come on.

Look what it says in Ephesians four, verse 10, it says here that the same one who descended is the one who ascended higher than all the heavens.

The reason he ascended and gave these gifts to the church is so that he might fill the entire universe with himself.

It's a powerful verse.

And the reason it's so powerful is it simply expresses what God's mission is in the world.

The Bible says he came, he died on a cross, he defeated death, he resurrected from a grave and then he ascended back into the heavens and he pours out his spirit on men and women alike and he gives us various gifts, why?

So we may fill this earth with his amazing presence.

And we need to, if we're really loving the world around us like Christ first loved us, we can expect results.

In other words, we're going to do greater things than Jesus did because Jesus told his first disciples, you're going to do greater things in this world than even I did.

And if we're pouring out the love that God so generously gave us with our part and our gift and we all unite and come together and do these amazing things, we have the power in our hands to change the world.

We have the power to push back darkness.

We have the power to change the landscape of our community.

We have the power to begin to put a dent in poverty.

We have the power to begin to help our brother and sister who is in need.

We have the power of Christ Jesus in us.

But you got to get healthy.

You got to get healed today.

You got to get healed in your heart because you can't pour out of an empty cup.

Would you let the love of Christ penetrate your life and change your life and heal your broken heart?

Love in action happens when healing happens in God's house and is poured out in the community as it was first expressed to us through Christ Jesus.

My friend, I can't sit on my watch and watch humanity suffer the way humanity is suffering without doing my part and pushing back darkness and sin and brokenness.

I can't die in my skin and watch.

I can't watch people just perish and die in their own sin.

I have the love of Christ living in me in all the days of my life.

I want to challenge you.

Let's be the church that steps up, changes the landscape of the world, changes the community.

Let's put our love in action.

Let's give.

Let's be generous.

Let's be honorable.

Let's be unified.

Let's step up and make a difference in the world.

We can do it.

Come on church.

Love in action.

May God touch your heart today and heal your life so we can be an expression of who he is to the world around us.

Let me pray for you today.

God, you're an amazing God.

Thank you for every man, woman, boy, and girl here.

God, I pray every gift, every person would step up and give what they can give, do what they can do, and God, be all you have designed them to be.

God, if there's one in here today that's wounded by the transgressions of their sin, God, I pray you'd heal their heart in the name of Jesus.

May you today forgive them with the blood of Christ, the cross of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, and may you resurrect them to new life today.

My friend, if you're here today and you feel like you can't go no more, would you let God in?

He loves you right where you are.

He'll come in and transform your life and build you into a new creation.

Just simply today, submit your life to him.

Say, God, today I admit I'm a sinner in need of a savior.

God, today I've been trying all my life to make my life right with you, but today I recognize I need your love in my own life.

Until God, thank you for Jesus.

Thank you for the cross of Christ.

Thank you for the unmerited favor, the grace of Jesus that he showed on that cross.

Until God, you receive that gift today in your heart and life, and you want to be resurrected just like Jesus was resurrected to do great and mighty things.

Until God, thank you for that gift, and it's in his name we pray today, amen.