What Does Love Have to Do With It? Everything!

Well, good afternoon, family. Good seeing all of you. And Susan and I are delighted to take up the gracious invitation of the Seaglies to join you here for the 50th anniversary of the Church of God in Orange County, and also to see so many, so many friends here from all of our other congregations to support this special day.

And so we want to welcome you. I would like to just for a moment just a very special hello to somebody that is watching along with others on the webcam. And I'd like to say hello to Mrs.

Jessie Barr. And life is a circle. She and Gordon were down here for many, many years with Debbie and Derek, and now she's back here with a part of the family.

So Jessie, if you are listening, Susan and I say hello as well as everybody else here. And please say hello to Darby for us. You do not know who Darby is, most of you. Jessie knows. That's her great love affair now. That's her little dog that sits in her lap. So anyway, I want to say hello to Jessie. I want to say hello to everybody, and what it would like to be here.

Susan and I were here from 1994 through 2001. We'll talk about that a little bit tonight when we reminisce about things, and it's always been nice to be able to still be near, to be with you from time to time, Feast of Tabernacles and other events. We were here for the 40th, and that was very special. And we're here for the 50th, and that's even more special. Put in some reservations for the 60th, but that's up to the Mater D upstairs.

Whether or not Susie and I will be here or not. But rather than talk about us, we'd like to talk about God and Jesus Christ today, because that's why we have come together on this very special occasion, not what one pastor is doing or a collection of pastors, but what God Almighty and Jesus Christ are doing for each and every one of us. I'd like to start out the story with a story, and it deals with a husband and a wife, and they are at their 50th anniversary.

But it's not about a church, it's about their marriage to one another. And it's that time of a celebration where the toasts are being made and that the man gets up and he says, to my devoted wife, through all that we have experienced these many, many years, thank you. You have been tried and true.

Well, the wife, being gentle of age and challenged with hearing, much less an audience all being around her, said, I'm tired of you too. Well, we're engaged with somebody very, very special, God Almighty and also Jesus Christ. And hopefully none of us are tired of our time and our journey with them, whether it be five months, five years, or 50 years. Today this message is really going to just center around a four-letter word. I hope we can use a four-letter word in church here and that's going to be the word love.

L-O-V-E. Let's think about it a little bit and go back in our own development as people. Love is something you first experienced from others. A father, a mother, an aunt, an uncle, perhaps a teacher. And then we learn how to dispel it. L-O-V-E. Then we learn to say it to somebody very, very special if that opportunity comes up. Perhaps now your husband, perhaps now your wife. And then we get to experience it with them through all the different seasons and all the different chapters of life.

All of us in one sense have to become what we just call real. We have to be tried. We have to go through the different seasons of life. And so we become tried and we become true. I remember meeting Susie about 47 years ago at Ambassador College. A couple of you are here from Ambassador College days and remember that we dated a lot in college. But we've been married for 43 years now. Not quite 50.

Have a few more to go, God willing. But I remember the first time I, Susan's heard this before, but I remember the first time that I told Susan that I love her. Mustard up my courage. Set it. She didn't run away.

She stood her ground. Still stands her ground. I was all of age 19. I was very ripe and full of years. I think you know what I'm saying. Did I mean it? Did I mean it at that time? Yes, I did. I mean it was all of my heart, as far as full as my heart was at the ripe age of 19. But now, now at age 65, I told you my age, not Susan's. But now when I say it, and I do say it, it has such broad depth and girth and meaning and substance as we've gone through life together. Children, grandchildren, moving from congregation to congregation, dealing with situations in our own life. I want to talk about love today, because love is really what brings all of us together. It is the love of God, and it is the love of God through Jesus Christ. Some weren't here 50 years ago or even five years ago, much less perhaps five months ago. And you're here at the 50th celebration, 50th anniversary celebration of a very special event when God's name was placed here in Orange County. But with that said, I say thank God. I don't say that lightly. Thank God for those of you that are newer that have maybe just been here five weeks, five months, or five years. Because we need you as a congregation as much as you need those that have been around the block, as it were, 10, 15, or 25 years. God in His mercy and in His wisdom so often coats a congregation with a new coat of paint. It's like He puts on new tires but matches it with the old engine.

Those that have been in the church here perhaps 50 years ago or 30 years ago or were with us at the 40th anniversary, we need that new blood. We need that new life. And they also need us. But whether you were here 50 years ago or whether you've only been here five weeks or five months ago, let's consider the thought of 50 for a moment.

It's Jubilee. It's a time of Jubilee. It's a time of where God puts everything back into balance. Into balance. Where we return to God, where we return the sins to the land and or His territory or where He has put us. It becomes a leveling process of equality before God the Father and of course in this day and age before Jesus Christ. So the title of my message for you today is simply this. For those that take title, what does love have to do with it?

What does love have to do with it? Think it was a song that was out about 15 or 20 years ago by Tina Turner. Now please understand if you've ever heard that song, that's not really Susan's and my, you know, every couple has a song.

That's not really our song, but I cover all the genre between Tina Turner, Beethoven, Mozart, and a little bit of Bruce Springsteen to put it all together. What does love have to do with it? The end of the sentence is simply this. Everything. Everything. And that's why you and I are here today because of God the Father's great love and grace and mercy.

That has been bestowed upon each and every one of us. It's often been said that the poem read by the man of 20 reads differently when he is 80. That's how the saying goes, but let's just say for the purpose here, when we've read something when we were very young, it reads differently when we are older. I'd like to read something to you for a moment. You're very familiar with it, so allow me just to read from the 23rd Psalm for a moment. I remember learning the 23rd Psalm in Sunday school. I was in a different church at that time, and my mother, Tommy Weber, was my teacher. And we all learned it.

The 23rd Psalm got a star on the wall at the time. I was all of the ripe age of six years of age. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his namesake, and yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod, your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. So be it. I remember when I memorized that at age six. Other kids have learned it at different times. When I read it, I didn't fully understand that what the 23rd Psalm was talking about was going through with God as a partner through the different seasons of life. Through the different seasons of life. Maybe at times alone, in what we might call the wilderness experience, in which God puts each and every one of us at times in what I call the wilderness experience.

But then he turns around after we've learned the lessons of the wilderness, of being alone, alone but not truly alone, he puts us into community. He puts us into a body like this, because it's only when we learn the lessons of the wilderness. When we have to say, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, even when we are wanting emotionally, physically, life-wise, can we truly come back and add a richness to the community of what we call the church today.

In all of this, in everything that we go through in understanding God's love, there are two questions that will always come back to us, and if you want to write these down, this will be the most important part of the message. Everything else will be filler. Are you with me? Here we go. There are always two questions that come to we that are on this spiritual pilgrimage that may last more than 50 years. It may last 60. I do not know how long it will last, but these two questions will always come down to us.

They're in the Bible. They are the great questions that that shepherd, the Lord, who is our shepherd and in whom we shall not want, will always ask us. Number one, the first question is this. No matter what season of life, this will be the question, who do you say that I am? Who do you say that I am? Perhaps you first answered that 50 years ago. Perhaps you're still dealing with that right now, but that is the question.

It is not a question that just goes to Peter but goes to every disciple, man and woman, young and old. No matter who we are, that is the question that God wants to hear your answer to. Who do you say that I am? The second question that will come about is simply this. Do you love me? Do you love me? See, Christianity can be kind of simple when you get right down to that.

Just two questions. But the real answer is not a yes or a no, we're just saying yes, yes. You're going to hear a lot about that in the second message, what the yes really means and what it entails. But I ask you, who are dear friends that I have pastored to, ministered to, and what's nice is that we remain friends, is simply this.

What is your answer on this day? December 31st, 2016. Not 1966, not 1976. Not when you are by still waters, not when you are in green pastures, but even with the challenges that will yet come in our life. Can we say that yes, you are the Christ?

That yes, the first time when Jesus asks us, do we love Him, we can say yes. We all stand in Peter's place. Peter's not alone. And life is not an event. It's an experience, and it takes time. Many of you, and myself included, my wife, who grew up in Ohio. I came in through my mother, Thomasina Weber. Many of you remember my mother, Tommy. And when we first came into this way of life and moved towards the Church of God that time, there had been great challenges in our life.

My mother had always been a spiritual lady. I told you she was my Sunday school teacher. She was actually the superintendent of the Sunday School. But she had a great quest, and that was simply that, especially in her life, she was an orphan. She was orphaned at age 6 in Depression-era Chicago. And her grandmother, who took her and her sisters in, had always said, Tommy, you may not have a physical father, but you have a Heavenly Father. You have a Heavenly Father. And that's what she taught me as a young boy.

But then something challenging happened in our life that created a greater search. My older brother died—and you've heard me talk about my brother before, and I don't mean to belabor that point. My older brother died at a very tender young age—just a tremendous young man. And it set her searching. And she took a book, and it was called One Man's Destiny. One Man's Destiny. That was the book. And at that time she was also hearing the broadcast coming over on X-A-R-B from Mexico—clear Channel Station—and hearing this man, Herbert W.

Armstrong, that was challenging her belief, making her look into the Bible deeper more than ever. But I think that was a part of what she was looking for to fill that hole that had occurred in our family. One Man's Destiny. And she was like buddies with Abram. No, Abram went out not having a compass, but only the voice and the direction of God that set his course. To be different than all the moltitudes and all the masses that were in Ur of the Caledays.

When everybody was coming one way on the 22 out here, you only saw one car going out of town. And that was Abram, along with his family. My mother began a pilgrimage. She saw something very special that each and every one of us did. Join me if you would in Matthew 13. In Matthew 13, verse 44. Again, the kingdom of God is like a treasure hidden in a field which a man found and hid, and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

And again the kingdom of God, verse 45, is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who when he had found one pearl of great price went and sold all that he had and bought it. Whether five months ago, five years ago, or fifty years ago, all of us in a sense lived through this verse. There was a pearl of great price, and we thought that God had just laid a gift at our table. Many of us went through baptismal counseling.

Many of us were acquainted with a way of life that we were not familiar with, with days that we were not familiar with, with a way of life, not just going to church, but a way of life seven days a week that we were not familiar with. We read booklets. We read articles.

The minister came out and sat down with us and asked us questions, and asked us questions. Do you know this? Do you want to know that? Have you ever heard about this? Do you want to see this? Am I in the right church, or did that happen to you? But I remember one thing, and I'm not saying this to Sully the past, but just simply in my own mind as I share this message with you. I never had a minister ask me or a pastor ask me, do you love God? Do you love God?

Have you told him? Do you love Jesus Christ? Have you told him? Hmm. Now we know the verses. It says, oh yeah, there are those people that say, Lord, Lord, but do not the things that I say to do, and we understand that. But sometimes things go unspoken. See, God created us so that He could love us, and that in return that we could love Him back. When He created Adam and Eve out of that dust of Eden, and He made them, and those eyes of Adam opened up, the one thing that He wanted was to begin a relationship with Him.

Now all relationships are predicated on rules. Absolutely. But He wanted a relationship. He wanted to know that as Adam's eyes opened, that the first thing that He saw was a loving God that had given Him everything. As I reflected this morning in my experience in the church, which is now 53 years, much less keeping the Sabbath at home a couple years before that, I came to a thought, maybe you want to jot this down and dwell on it later.

Church is not an end, it's just the beginning of your study. What do you operate off in your relationship with God? Do you operate off of a list, or do you operate off of your heart? I've known many people that knew the list better than I did in Imperial schools and Ambassador College and in other meetings that I went to. They knew the list.

But there was something that was not correct with their heart, and they veered off. They forgot that pearl of great price, that field of great price that was late before them. I'm just simply here today, brethren, dear friends, you and Garden Grove, Redlands is here, Los Angeles is here, San Diego is here, and everybody, Alpart's in between. I have a question for you. On this 50th anniversary, on this day of Jubilee, are you still just simply operating off of a list, or are you wholehearted towards God? As one person, and nobody lives with a silver spoon, please understand that, but I've come to a point in my 65th year, and I think I could speak for Susie. If not, I'll hear about it after services. But God doesn't have to give me one more thing. I don't have a list anymore. Oh, would I like to live another day? Absolutely. But I don't have a list. God does not have to give me one more thing. He's given me everything at this point. I'm not talking about worldly riches. I'm talking about that God has given me, given you, given us, who He is, what He is. John 17 verse 3 says, and this is eternal life that we might know God and Jesus Christ. A lot of people like to try to go through this folly, those of you that are really smart, I'm not in that crowd, I'm trying to measure eternity, which doesn't work to begin with, does it? You can't measure eternity. The Greeks like doing that. Aristotle, and he's in Alexandria, tried to figure out how big the world was, and they went from there to try to figure out eternity. What God is measuring in us is our love affair with Him and our trust in Him that He has given us a shepherd in whom we shall not want. Join me if you would in 1 John 4. 1 John 4.

I'd like to just read through this with you, and let's pick up the thought if we could in verse 7. Simple hearing from God's Word.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. When it speaks of being born of God, it speaks of an experience that comes from above, an awakening, a planting of that divine nature of Him in us. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. The word agape is a word that came in, is almost manufactured because there was no understanding of what doesn't come from around here. In the famous Scripture, in 1 John 3 and verse 1, where the Apostle John says, Behold, what manner of love has God the Father bestowed upon us? It's very interesting when you go to the... are you with me? When you go to the Greek root, it says basically, it's not from around here. It's otherworldly. It's not manufactured down here below. That's the kind of love. As we've heard for these past 50 years, plus some, the love that God gives us is outflowing, outgoing concern away from self. But let me share something. Let's go one step further. Agape, godly love, is outflowing, outgoing concern devoid of self. Not just away from self, but devoid of self, because God is love. There is His nature, which is eternal, and there is that attribute of His nature, which is love. And this is the God that we come before today and have prayed to in the beginning of this service. He who does not love does not know God for... let me come back. But yeah, if He who does not love does not know God for God is love, in this the love of God was manifested toward us that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him.

Dropping down to verse 16. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and He who abides in love abides in God and God in Him. And love has been perfected among us and thus that we have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love cast out fear, because fear involves torment. But He who fears has not been made perfect in love. Then notice verse 19. We love Him because He first loved us. Sometimes we say, well who goes first? I mentioned the aspect of being able to verbalize, being able to put it into my lips. God, I love you. Because sometimes things go unsaid.

It's like Fiddler on the Roof. Remember Fiddler on the Roof, the famous song where Tavia asked the wife, well do you love me? 25... I'm gonna break out in the song. I could do it in Yiddish. The little Ukrainian twist. No, please understand again. There's more than just verbalizing a word. Absolutely. You know that, and I know that. But God has not just called us to a list of do's and don'ts. God has not just called us to a list of being different for different's sake, but because of who He is, and Father knows best, and we have come to understand that we are to abide by every word of the book.

And we love Him for that. And He loved us first. He started this. Brethren, as we go into these days ahead, which may be dim to our human eye, I would suggest that we that are members of the body of Christ are going to have to learn to love more. More than ever. Be sensitive more than ever. Give ourselves away more than ever. Sometimes to people that are, do I dare say, unlovable. Perhaps untouchable. But isn't that what Jesus Christ said? By this shall all men know that you are indeed my disciples, if you have love one for another.

And that is well and that is good, but we have to extend ourselves beyond that. For we have been called as people of the book and people of the word and people of heart, God's heart, to remember that God has made every man and every woman in His image and after His likeness. And you and I most likely will be sharing eternity with most of them in the future. And you and I can be a lighthouse. We can be a beacon. We can be but a moisture of love on somebody in this church today, at home tonight, at the store tomorrow. When people come in—can we talk a second? Maybe? Remember how challenging it was whenever you first came in over that threshold?

I came in with my family. How many of you were at the Long Beach Women's Club in 1963? Oh, I'm showing my age, Mario. Nobody raised their hand! That's where the church was at the time. And across that threshold into the Radio Church of God was like going from Venus to Mars. It was a threshold. It was different. It took courage. It took guts.

My parents walked away from everything as your parents did and or as you did because you were beginning to experience God's love. What does love have to do about it? Everything. This is what will make our church rich. Let us remember that as Jesus spoke to the woman, the Samaritan woman in John 4, he says there is going to come a time, there is going to come a day when we will neither worship on this mountain or that mountain, but the true believers will worship God in spirit and in truth.

Well, why don't you know, Susan and I were talking, I don't know if it's you, we talk a lot. It was either yesterday or today just how rich God has been to us by sharing his truth with us. It's been incredible. And there is truth. Make no mistake about it. But that must be served on the plate of love. Spirit, or excuse me, I'm going to reverse that a moment. Truth without spirit is only a half-baked recipe. Just think of the man, the Pharisee. Remember the Pharisee, famous Pharisee? He's in the temple, the other guy is in the temple, the publican.

And what does that Pharisee say? He says, oh, that's my Hebrew. That must have been part of the blessing. I wasn't figuring this out. Some of this stuff just comes to me when I'm up here like Mario. He says, oh, I am so glad that I am not like that man. It's very interesting in the scripture, and it says, and the Pharisee prayed to himself.

Fascinating. God wasn't listening to that man. He was praying to himself. He was in an echo chamber of self, self-righteous, operating off of a list, rather than perhaps recognizing and listening to the heartbeat of a man that was being drawn to God. What does this mean for you and for me as we go towards the next 50 years here in Garden Grove?

Allow me to wrap it up. How important is love? It's everything. Join me if you would in 1 Corinthians 13. 1 Corinthians 13, and let's pick up the thought if we could in verse 11. Oftentimes this is called by many the love chapter. 1 Corinthians 13, notice what it says, For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face, now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I am also known.

And now abide faith, and you have been a faithful group all of these years. Susan and I can have no greater thought, no greater verse than to say we have been in Garden Grove. We remain honorary Garden Grove members. We'll talk about that later tonight with some reminiscence. And now abide faith, hope, love. These three, but the greatest of these is love. Let's conclude by reading the Word of God on this incredible 50th anniversary, that He has wrought upon you and me to attend today not because of who we are, not because of our list, not because of our wit, not because of our intellect, but because of His grace, because of His favor, that His name has remained here for 50 years.

Sometimes when we recognize Church of God history we can say, oh boy, what a tremendous miracle that has been. We remain. You have the love and the leadership of a wonderful pastoral couple. I remember many years ago when I found out we were going to have to move, and I said they kept on bringing people before me. They gave me a list. No. No. No. And not that they were not good people. Please understand, you thought I was thinking something. No. Not because they weren't good people, but they weren't the match that was needed for garden grove.

It was not the match that was needed to teach you the Word of God and to put your hearts and your minds in the Word and in the Scriptures and be taught by a teacher. And when they mentioned Mario and they mentioned Cottie, I said yes. And they've been here now almost longer than both Denny and Leanne and Susan and I together. We're gonna start calling him Methuselah. Not Cattie. Not Cattie. Just Mario. We can pick on the men.

Let's conclude with the Word of God. Join me if you would in Ephesians 3. And what a joy to be able to share these scriptures with you on the 50th anniversary. Ephesians 3 verse 13. I'll just let God, Word, speak for itself.

Therefore I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. 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. And this is the blessing that I would bless and offer you on this holy Sabbath day, 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 might dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all of the saints what is the width and the length and the depth and the height, and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, which is better than the facts on the ground in any given season of the 23rd Psalm, whether within community or whether alone, that God's love is unfailing.

It is undying. It is always. And now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundant above all that we ask or think, according to that power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church. The ecclesia, the people that have been called out of this world, surrender themselves to God the Father, have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, have the faith of Jesus, and also keep the commandments to all generations forever and ever.

Amen. As we go forth from this 50th anniversary, always remember that there will be two questions waiting for you through the different chapters in the different seasons of life. It will simply be this. No matter what event, no matter what activity, no matter what turn that maybe we do not understand humanly, but the question will come to us. Who do you, not Peter, not Robin, not Mario, who do you say that I am?

And the question will follow it simply this. Do you love me? Because my Father and I love you with all of our hearts. My question is simply this. What does love got to do with it? Dear friends here today in Garden Grove and those that are watching, the answer is simply this. Everything. Everything. Look forward to seeing you after services.