Leading The Way

Dr. Michael Youssef: God’s love is so extreme in its nature. God’s love is so unbelievable to the human mind. God’s love is so awe-inspiring that God’s love would make you marvel, not just for a minute and not just for a day, not just for a week or a month or a year—it is for the rest of your life and the rest of my life.

Guest (Female): And who doesn’t need God’s love, especially when hate is overflowing in our world? So open your ears, your mind, and your heart to the love of God. Thank you for making time in your day for Leading The Way audio with Dr. Michael Youssef. Let’s listen together to Dr. Youssef as he shares a Leading The Way message he’s calling "Embracing God’s Lavish Love."

Dr. Michael Youssef: There is a television show, one of those reality shows, a group of builders who find a family that is in desperate need and they build them a palatial house, a magnificent house. They could be living in a shack that’s falling apart, but by the time these builders finish, it is not a shack anymore. They could be living three or four kids in a room, and some of those houses are health hazards, but by the time this team of builders finishes the new house, it becomes a mansion.

It becomes a palatial house with designer furniture and exterior and interior designs. Lavish attention is given to the needs of that family, in fact even to the hobbies of those kids. Lavish living, period. What takes place is nothing short of a transformation. Some may even call it extravagance. In every case, the camera is very pointed to capture the utter amazement on the part of the recipient family.

The camera is always anxious to reveal the depth of emotions on the part of the recipient family and the heart of gratitude, thankfulness, and appreciation. Of course, it’s impossible to know how long that feeling of appreciation and thankfulness lasts, but that’s beside the point. For some, I’m sure it will be a long time. For others, probably for a lifetime.

But that does not even come close to how lavished we are by the love of the Father. I want you to turn, if you haven’t already, to First John, Chapter 3. That word, lavish love of the Father, is the most incredible word. Here’s what John is saying. You want a literal translation? Look! Did I startle you? Good!

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God. What John is saying is this: that God’s love is so radical, so extravagant, and so lavishing. God’s love is so extreme in its nature and so unbelievable to the human mind. It is so awe-inspiring that God’s love would make you marvel.

God’s love bedazzles you. It is awe-striking, not just for a minute and not just for a day, not just for a week or a month or a year. It is for the rest of your life and the rest of my life. If you take time and you contemplate the reality of this lavishing love of the Father, and you allow that lavishing love to sink into your mind, your heart, your intellect, your emotions, and your imagination, it would make you not care a whit about what people think of you in the expression of your thankfulness to God.

I’m going to prove to you grammatically from the Bible that the Apostle John was shouting when he was writing this verse, particularly the first word. If he was dictating to a scribe—and we don’t know whether he was dictating or he was writing it longhand—the scribe would have jumped like you did earlier. That’s exactly what would have happened, and I’m going to tell you why.

In the very first word in verse one, it is in the aorist imperative. All of you who hated grammar, I’m going to make you love grammar today because this aorist tense, imperative mood, is going to explain the entire epistle of First John. I’m going to explain it to you in a minute. Do you know what it means to put a word in the aorist imperative? Look!

That’s what it means, and I’m not doing it justice. John said the face of God’s lavish love is meant for you to be stunned, literally, every day of your life and stay stunned. It’s like a guy who said God loves you so much he’s like your grandmother; he’s carrying your picture with him all the time. It reminds me of the Sunday school kid when he came home from Sunday school and his mother asked him, "Who taught the class today?" He said, "Jesus’s grandmother." She said, "Jesus’s grandmother?" He said, "Yes, she talked about him all the time."

I thank God for those people who have experienced the lavish love of God and continue to pass it on to the kids. A number of years ago, Arnold Palmer, the great golfer, was playing golf in Saudi Arabia. The man who was the king at the time watched him play and very much liked the way he played. He became fond of Arnold Palmer. At the end of his visit to Saudi Arabia, he went to see the King. The King said to him, "I want to give you a gift before you depart. What kind of a gift can I give you?"

Arnold Palmer modestly said, "No, thank you very much. A gift is not necessary. I enjoyed my visit and I enjoyed playing here. Thank you for your hospitality." But the King insisted. Arnold Palmer did not want to offend Arab hospitality and he said, "If you give me a golf club that I can remember my visit with." Then he left. The next day, a messenger of the King came to his hotel room and handed him the deeds to a 300-acre golf club.

I was thinking about this. If an earthly king can lavish a gift beyond the expectation of the recipient, how much more the King of all Kings who lavished his love upon us? Look! Amen, amen, praise God. Bless him, bless the Lord. But listen, I know that this concept is very hard for some of you to accept. It’s very hard for you to really put your arm around it and receive it for what it is.

I know some of you think of this extravagant, lavish, irresistible love of God as just a hard concept to get hold of, especially those of you who grew up in homes where the love of the parents was conditional. The parent said, "If you don’t do this, I’m not going to love you. I’m going to love you only if you do this." If you were anything like me, you could never measure up.

You could never be as good as your brothers. You could never be sure if you were accepted. You could never accomplish enough. If you got a B, you should have had an A. If you got an A, you should have had an A plus. You could never measure up. I want to tell you that this kind of upbringing and experience can play havoc in your understanding of the lavish love of God the Father through God the Son.

You feel that you have to be good enough for God to love you or accept you. You feel that you have to work harder, strain, and struggle to measure up for God to accept you. You think, "I have to prove that I am worthy of God’s love to me." Beloved brethren, sisters, listen to me. I have news for you. All parents make mistakes, but if your parents made that mistake and told you they would only love you if you did this or that, or if you accomplished certain things, I want you to remember how He lavished you with His love.

The Bible says while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He didn’t wait for you to improve because you can’t improve on your own. When you insist on earning God’s love, you are perverting the grace of God. I say it with every ounce of love in my heart because I know what it is to pervert the grace of God. The very essence of grace is unworthiness.

Why was it called grace if you have to be good enough for God to love you? That perverting of the grace of God is the Protestant and the evangelical way of going back to medieval times of salvation through works. It’s just a sanitized way. But listen, there are other deadly consequences to this type of thinking. It is the temptation that’s going to come to you every time you become weary of trying hard to earn God’s love.

You become tired and you cannot do it, and then you give up. The reason some Christians' lives are up and down is because they try, and then when they get tired, they fall into that temptation. Then they try again, get tired, and fall into that temptation again. That was the problem with the Gnostics to whom John was writing to refute those heretics who were trying to decimate the church.

They said the body is evil anyway, so you might as well just give in to sin. But John is saying that when you allow yourself to bask in that incredible lavish love and allow yourself to be overwhelmed with this undeserving love that is so pure in grace, you are not going to habitually sin. That’s the rest of that passage.

I know I focused a lot on the first verse, but if you look at verses two all the way to ten, that’s the point John is making. If you try to comprehend how lavish the love of God is through the Son, you are not going to habitually sin. You're going to hate sin. You're not going to carelessly, calculatingly, or callously sin.

You're not going to live in doubt, disobedience, and fear, but in love for the Word of God. John said when you really get that lavish love of God, you're going to be spending the rest of your life purifying yourself. He said while we don’t know what glorious things are awaiting us on the other end, we know that we are princes and princesses in waiting.

We're waiting! We don’t know everything about what is going to happen, but we're waiting because when He comes, we're going to be with Him. That’s enough. I remembered an illustration that will make the point far better than I can. It was said to me many, many years ago by a villager in the Middle East, and it comes right out of the slums in the village.

It will give you the understanding that John is trying to tell you. When you see the lavish love of the Father, all of your life is going to be a matter of being in His presence. When sin comes, you just be cleansed. This man said that in the village, you can see a duck in a pond. That pond is filthy and murky. The water is dirty and muddy, but that duck is in its element.

You take the duck out and you wash it, and within seconds, she’s right back into that dirty, filthy water. But if you notice a dove on the side of a muddy street, and a car goes by and splashes some dirt and mud on that dove, do you know what happens? Watch that dove. It immediately gets busy with its beak cleaning itself. It never rests.

By nature, the dove can’t stand dirt and muck. But not the duck. The duck enjoys being in that filthy water. Then he looked at me and said, "Brother Michael, the way a person knows whether he or she is transformed by the power of Christ and has experienced that lavish love is to ask the question: Am I a duck or am I a dove?"

I have seen people who go to church or even go to prayer meetings when they get into trouble. They pray and they even cry buckets. As soon as the trouble is over, they’re nowhere to be seen. These are the ducks. Why? Because they have never allowed the lavish love of the Father to overwhelm them and change their nature.

They temporarily clean themselves and make an effort, but like the duck, they immediately go back to the murky pond. But for those who have been washed by the blood of the Lamb and covered by the righteousness of Jesus Christ, they live in a state of awe and wonder at the lavish love of God. They have responded to the extravagance of His grace.

Whenever sin comes into their life, they’re like the dove. They immediately can’t stand it because it’s against their nature. Look at verse nine: "No one who is born of God will continue in sin because God's seed remains in him. He cannot go on sinning because he has been born of God." In the first message of this series, we saw the only answer to sin.

It's not rationalizing it or saying the culture made me do it. There's only one way. Verse eight and nine of chapter one says if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. The dove goes immediately into asking for forgiveness.

The duck will continuously and habitually live in a state of lawlessness. The duck may experience temporary conviction, confession, or repentance, but the nature has not changed. Only God can do that. So the question is: Are you a duck? Be honest with God, because if you are, Jesus can turn you into a dove today.

He alone can change your nature. You can come to Him, and He will turn you from a duck into a dove. If you are a dove who is trying to live like a duck, will you listen to me, please? You are living in a state of conflictedness. You were not made for the mud of sin. You're made to be cleansed on a daily basis, washed, and purified. You can begin that state of cleansing by confession.

Guest (Female): So, are you living life as a duck or as a dove? Thank you for being part of this episode of Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. Consider subscribing to Dr. Youssef’s monthly magazine, My Journal, at ltw.org, or ask a ministry representative to get you started at 866-626-4356.

Guest (Male): For years, many have refused to talk about what’s happening. It was dismissed as "over there" in distant headlines, but now it’s here. You see it on college campuses. You hear it in classrooms and conversations. Two radical ideologies, once openly hostile, now standing shoulder to shoulder. In Dr. Youssef’s new book, An Unholy Alliance, he explains why this convergence is happening, where it comes from, and why ignoring it will only accelerate the downfall of our society.

Dr. Michael Youssef: The leaders of this Islamization of the West movement operate on one basis, and that’s fear. Most leaders stay silent; many are afraid of the backlash. But silence has consequences. This is not about fear or political solutions. It’s about truth and the responsibility we have to speak it with courage and compassion. We are to warn, to encourage, and to bring those people to come to Christ. We would say to them, "Jesus loves you," and that’s the message that we the believers have.

Guest (Male): It’s one of the most urgent messages of our lifetime, and if we don’t speak up now, the next generation will pay the price. Order your copy of Dr. Michael Youssef’s eye-opening new book, An Unholy Alliance, and learn how you can make a difference for Christ.

Guest (Female): Learn more about the culture-shifting content and order your copy at ltw.org. Get your copy on the web or by speaking with a ministry representative at 866-626-4356. Or you can write to us at Leading The Way, Post Office Box 20100, Atlanta, Georgia, 30325. Once again, that’s Post Office Box 20100, Atlanta, Georgia, 30325.

Dr. Michael Youssef: If doubt is not dealt with immediately, it can erode the foundation of the faith. It can cause self-condemnation and depression. It can make you cynical and critical. That is why the Apostle John gives us ways by which we must deal with doubt as soon as it shows its ugly head.

Guest (Female): That was just a preview of what Dr. Youssef will be teaching next time on Leading The Way. Make plans to join him for this powerful message when he digs further into this thought. As we bring today’s episode of Leading The Way to a close, allow me to invite you also to watch Leading The Way television.

Each week, dig into the truth of God’s Word and be challenged to love and serve the Savior. Leading The Way television is available in most areas on TBN, NRB, TCT, Fox Business, and more. Visit ltw.org for details. This program is furnished by Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef.