Richard Ellis Talks

Richard Ellis: Unfortunately, what we too many times do is boil everything down to a bunch of rules, to a bunch of things. If I just do these things, then my Christian life will work. If you leave love out of the equation, it will never work the way it's supposed to.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. Thanks for allowing us to share this time with you. You may be stuck in traffic or stuck in life. Either way, today's message is going to help you get on the right track as you learn how much God loves you right where you are. Richard's unique style checks all the boxes with a lot of hope, insight, truth, and of course, humor. Today's talk with Richard will get our conversation started, but we want to keep it going with you. So let's stay in touch through our website, richardellis.com. But right now, let's go ahead and get right into today's talk. Here is Richard Ellis.

Richard Ellis: The title today's message is "Out of Love." I'd like to go to Matthew 22. We read this one a lot, and we're going to read it again today because if you don't get the basic stuff right, it doesn't work. So we're going to go back to some pretty basic stuff today. Matthew 22:35, "Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him," so not really wanting answers, "and saying, 'Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?'" So there's all these commandments, the ten, and they had added hundreds more. Which is the greatest?

And Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.'" So you say, "Yeah, that's what it says. That's the deal." But what is He saying? And what does it mean to love someone with these things: your heart, your soul, your mind, with everything you have?

If you boil it all down and you see what Jesus said, what's the big deal? The big deal is love. But what is the big deal about love, about loving Him first, and not just saying words? We'll see in a minute where the actions come from. Unfortunately, what we too many times do is boil everything down to a bunch of rules, to a bunch of things. If I just do these things, then my Christian life will work. If you leave love out of the equation, it will never work the way it's supposed to.

Go to John chapter 13. John chapter 13, verse 34. Now, this is Jesus speaking. This is to the commandment thing. What's the greatest commandment? We read Matthew 22. Here's John 13. Jesus says, "A new commandment I give you." This has got to be a big deal, number 11. What's this going to be? "That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

Track that with me. If I am going to try to get followers, not social media followers, but true followers, people that I say, "I want you to follow me and I'm going to show you how to live," if when I get done with those people, they can't and don't go out and do what I do, I am not a leader, or they haven't followed. Anyone who knows me any amount of time knows if you get near me, I'm going to hug you and before it's all over, what am I going to tell you? I'm going to tell you that I love you.

You say, "I can't live that way." You follow Him long enough, you will end up living that way. And you will start hearing the words "I love you" come out of your mouth because it's not possible, in my opinion, to love someone and not tell them you love them. These guys say their wives say, "He never tells me he loves me." And you ask him, he says, "I told her at the wedding. What does she want?" She wants to hear it. Even men like to hear that.

You'd be amazed what simple little things. So what has Jesus basically told them? The proof that you've followed Me will be the way you love each other because I have loved you in such a way you can't get around it. And if you love each other the way I've loved you, then everybody's going to know that you're with Me. "Love one another as I have loved you." He doesn't just say, "Love one another." He says, "as I have loved you."

Look how Jesus loved them. There's no way Jesus can, you know, Jesus is Jesus. He's God in a man, man-God. And He picks His 12 guys and He gets close to them. Even at the end, this is so intense to me. One of them gets up from dinner and He knows he's going to go betray Him and commit suicide. He's out. So now we've got 11. Jesus knows the cross is coming. It's just hours away. So He goes out in the garden to pray and He leaves eight and tells three of them, "You come with Me."

There was a place He had to go by Himself, but He kept His buddies with Him. This is not just categorical, stark, stale "How are you, Jesus?" These are men that knew each other, loved each other, walked together. He loved them. What does that even mean? They knew what it meant. When Jesus gets done with people and God gets done with people, they would know. They would know by the way we love each other. This has to be what happens.

An atheist should be able to walk in a gathering like this and watch not the music, not the sermon, nothing. They should be able to observe us and say nothing, just observing us should come up with, "These people are followers of Jesus." They will know that we are His disciples by the way we love each other. So I'm telling you, it's hard. I get this is hard. You've got to get over yourself and you've got to get over your differences.

Look what God puts up with me and loves me anyway. Look what I put up with me and love me anyway, because I know that's healthy. So then I encounter you and you frustrate me or whatever, you know what? I'm going to love you anyway. I don't have an option because my whole life will disintegrate if I don't, because that's what He said to do. John 15, verse nine: "As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love."

But what is it all coming out of? Love. It's relational. It's not obedience-based. You say, "Oh, no, but the Bible says we should obey." Not just to obey. We obey because He loves us and we love Him. "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you."

It's basic love. It's basic friendship. It's basic stuff that most people don't know really much about. I grew up in a house. My dad was 6'9", 262, whatever he was, scary dude. He loved me. I tell you right now, if he were not dead and walked in the back door, I'd run in the back, I would grab my daddy and I would kiss him and hug him and tell him I loved him and he would love me. Did we have our issues? Yes. But I knew my daddy loved me and I loved my dad.

He didn't show me how to have friends. He didn't have a lot of friends. I had to learn that. But you know what? I learned that. I've got friends. And I've got friends that love me and I love them. So for a long time, I didn't have a category for being friends with Jesus. I didn't know what that would be like. He is my Savior. But if He walked in the door, I would probably fall down first, pretty quick. I'd want to put my arms around Him because He's my friend and my friend died for me.

All that starts going together. So I don't have an expectation. You say, "Well, your personality is emotional." I don't care what your personality is. No personality can withstand the love of God. Nobody. If you ever understand really what happened that day on that cross, you will be overwhelmed with such gratitude and such love from God and for God, it'll just it'll take you over. You can't withstand it.

Verse 15: "No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you." Verse 17 again: "These things I command you, that you love one another."

So you say, "Well, do we agree?" Let's say you show up at this church and you say, "Well, you know what? You preach out of the Bible and I've been a Christian three weeks and I don't believe everything in the Bible." I don't care. There's nowhere in scripture that says you have to believe everything in scripture to accept Jesus. You may have questions and may have struggles and we'll work through that. My question is, do you have Jesus? Do I love you? Do you love me? I can work with that.

We're trying to get people to line up with us so fast we don't even get to the loving part. You say, "But what about theology?" Your theology comes out of your relationship anyway. See, this part of my challenge, I grew up with people had their theology was so button-tight, but they looked like they hated everybody. "I'm right. You're wrong. This is what it says." You know, as I describe it, they weren't mad at hell, they were just mad as hell.

And I'm like, if that's what it is to follow Jesus, I'm out. I don't want to be that person. I'm already that person. I don't need to do that. I'm already angry. I'm already trying to figure stuff out. You know, most Christians aren't very good bait. Unfortunately, we are terrible bait. We should be live worms on the hook of life. I mean, we should be something that the world goes, "What in the world? I want that."

John 21, right there close. If you remember the story about Peter, Jesus has been arrested. Jesus predicted Peter would deny Him three times before the rooster crowed. It happened. Peter is overwhelmed. John Tolson sitting right over here. He's my buddy. If I'm in a room and John walks in the room and stands right next to me and someone says, "Who's this?" Like, "I don't know." I'm all of a sudden embarrassed by John? "No, I think I've seen you with him." "Dude," and I start cussing and saying, "I told you I don't know the guy. What the...?"

And a third time? That's not going to be a good scene. And if I've got a brain, I'm going to and a heart, I'm going to be embarrassed later. And so Peter is devastated. And Jesus goes out there, cooks him breakfast. They're out fishing and the questions are not, "Are you going to obey Me? Are you going to follow Me? Are you going to straighten up?" Look at the questions, John 21. So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of Jonah," this the only question, "do you love Me more than these?"

Let's get back to what matters. Do you love Me? And look at these answers. And I don't, you know, I don't have audio on this. But look at the answers. "Do you love Me?" He said to Him, "Yes, Lord," like "I know this isn't going to make much sense and I know what I said, but yes, Lord, You know that I love You." Now, how would Jesus know that he loved Him if he didn't love Him? Jesus knew Peter loved Him. He screwed up. He said to him, "Feed My lambs." He said to him again a second time, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?" He said to Him, "Yes, Lord, You know that I love You." He said, "Feed My..." three times. "Do you love Me? Do you love Me? Do you love Me?"

So where did Peter his recovery come out of? His love from and for Jesus. "You love Me? Then do this." Because if you don't love Me and we're not good there again, this is not going to work. Duty will only propel you so long. Commitment will only propel you so long. My numbers are going up. It's a weird, weird thing to have to stretch this. I used to have four people, pretty tight on that number. I used to have four people that if someone came in with a gun and put it to their heads and said, "They're going to die or you're going to die," then you're shooting me. I will die for them just like that. You don't even have to ask me.

And then these people keep showing up. And I'm like, "Gosh, now what am I going to do? I say I love these people, but would I lay my life down for these people?" And when you get to the place where you you say you love someone, Jesus or anyone else, where you're willing to lay down your life for them, then it's not about commitment. It's not about duty. It's about love. And love will do crazy things. Love will give up its own life for someone else.

You say, "Well, I don't want to get in that category because then I'll lose me." You've already lost you. Because until you figure out that if you can't give your life away, you never have one. If you lose it, you find it. If you hold on to it, you lose it. So Jesus shows up and says, "Hey, I know I'm going to die, but you're My friends and I'm going to show you how this is supposed to work. Then I'm going to die, be buried, raised from the dead and it's all going to come out of love." It's really hard to cancel people you love. It's just not possible.

1 Corinthians 2:9. I read this the other day and admitted that I had been misquoting this. "That eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the heart of man the things which God had prepared." And I think talking about heaven. But I want to read you this again and look at the end of this verse. 1 Corinthians 2:9, "As it is written," and this is talking about before you get to heaven. It's about between here and heaven. "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for" who? "For whom? Those who love Him."

And you say, "Well, if there's all these things that eye has not seen nor ear heard nor entered the heart of man that God has prepared, why don't I see them?" Do you love Him? There's your question. You want to unlock all that? Say, "Lord, there's more. How could there possibly be more than I've seen or thought of or has heard that's prepared for me? I want more. If it's about You, I want more. And You know I love You, so I know You won't withhold anything good."

And because of you have a relationship, a love relationship with Him, then you start seeing, understanding and like, boom, the whole thing explodes. 1 John 2. Read a few of these over at the end and we'll be good. 1 John 2, verse one. Love how he addresses them: "My little children, these things I have written to you so that you may not sin. If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins," in other words, He took the place for our sins, "and not for ours only but also for the whole world." This is not preaching universalism. It just means it's not just us. The whole world, it's available to everybody. It doesn't mean they're going to be saved. They just don't know it, even if they don't like it. He still had to believe.

Verse three: "Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, 'I know Him,' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word," you say, "Well, where's the love thing? It's right here." "But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him." But what is it come out of? It comes out of love. The love of God is perfected in him.

By this we know that we know Him. You say, "Well, I wonder if I'm really a Christian. I wonder if I really know Jesus." Do you love Him? "He who says, 'I know Him,' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him." But it all comes out of love. Go down to verse 10: "He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes."

Now, here's what I'd like you to do. Think just a minute about someone you just really just hate their guts. Don't raise your hand because we don't want to have to escort you out. Just think about it. Is there anybody you just hate? "Gosh, they did this to me or someone I love and I just hate this person." If you got somebody in mind, you're going to have to cut that person loose. Because if you don't cut them loose, you don't get cut loose and your life is just dead stop on that person.

So even if you do it for selfish reasons, forgive them and let them go. You say, "Well, I don't hate anybody. I just don't like so and so." Okay, why don't you like them? "Well, they said this or they do this. They're just really irritating." I promise you, I'm not fully aware of all this. I don't know that I want to be at the moment. But I probably irritate the fire out of some people, right? So I get it. But even if you irritate me, even if I irritate you, the question is, can you love me? Because the book says that love covers a multitude of sin, right?

So if I start with that, I'm going to make it. "Yeah, but he grinds his teeth when he eats." Really? That's all you got? Let me tell you something about this. If it's running this way and it's running this way, there is no way it's not running this way. 1 John 3:14. These are just simple ways. You say, "Well, I'm not sure I'm a Christian." Here's another way you can be sure. "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death."

Pretty simple. "Well, I don't want it to be that simple because I don't like old so and so." By the way, I didn't say you have to like everybody. Because scripture also says as much lies in you, live at peace with people. So I promise you there's Christian brothers I don't want to go on vacation with. I may not even want to get gas with you, right? But the question is not that. The question is, do I love you? And I've had people that I really didn't like and I decided that I loved and I ended up liking them. I was very disappointed about that, but it worked out that way.

1 John 4:8: "He who does not love does not know God, for God is love." So if you come across people and you finally tell them you're a Christian and they look at you funny, it probably's a lot to do with the love piece. It's not about whether you kept all the rules and believe all the right things. They just probably didn't pick up on much love.

My wife sent me the grocery store the other day. It's really not a good experience for me. I don't do well. So I had to go back because I forgot something. And even when I went back, I paid for what I forgot and was about to walk out and realized that I'd forgotten something else that was on the list. I was a frazzled mess. But I was really nice to all the people in the store, which is shocking for me. So even if you're in a tough spot, you can still be kind. You can still love. All the things in 1 Corinthians 13.

The Bible says God is love. Read the list. That's Him. So if I am those things, and the only way I can be those things is for Him to be in me and me get out of the way and love Him and let Him love me and love through me, then all of a sudden He starts showing up and things that I'm not, He is. And people go, "Wow, you used to not be this person." "Nope, I got a resident. Somebody moved in."

1 John 4:20: "If someone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?" Not possible. You're a liar. "Oh, Lord, we love You and I hate Jimmy over here and Susan over here and I love You, though, but I hate them." It's like, whatever, dude. Who are you singing to? You're a liar.

1 John 5. Bunch of this in here. "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him." In other words, if you love Him, you love His kids. "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome."

But look at the sequencing: Love God, keep His commandments. If you don't love God and that's not part of your relationship with Him, you're not going to keep His commandments. You're going to act like you're keeping His commandments, but you're going to get flushed out pretty quick. I'm still a decent sinner. I'm pretty good at it. I still have some game. The problem is it is so disappointing because I love Him, I know He loves me. I'm just like, "Dude, what are we doing? This isn't how I want to live." And He's like, "Yeah, what are we doing? We're friends, dude. You're hurting Me, to say nothing of yourself and whoever else you're affecting. What are we doing?" "I'm sorry. You know I love You." "Okay, let's do this."

But the motivation is out of love, not out of guilt or shame or something like that. Those things will get you moving, but they won't keep you moving. I got more, but let's do John 3:16. That's a good one. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." That's how much He loves you.

Guest (Male): We'll get back to Richard in a moment to close out today's talk. But first, I want to share something with you about the program. Our mission is actually very simple: to take the planet. So it's our prayer that these daily talks from Richard aren't something you only hear and enjoy, but that they inspire you to share with others. Together we can do this. The message of the gospel is something everyone needs to hear, and that's why it's a huge priority to us. And you can join us in this important mission. Call us at 855-6-RICHARD to say you're in, or you can get on board with us through our website, richardellis.com. Well, here's Richard with some closing thoughts for us.

Richard Ellis: So you say, "I don't know anything you're talking about. I don't think God loves me and I certainly don't love Him. And I kind of like me or love me, but whatever you're talking about, I got no clue, but I'm interested." Well, here's how you get past interested and get in.

You say, "God, I am out of love and it seems like You've got more for me and for everybody else. So I understand now that out of love for me and everybody else, that You died on a cross, were buried and raised from the dead: the Christ, the Messiah. And that if I admit to You that I'm a sinner and I need Your forgiveness, that You'll forgive me."

So, I'm a sinner. I believe that Jesus died on the cross, was buried and raised from the dead to save me because He loves me. And I accept the forgiveness of my sins, the gift of eternal life. And I ask You to move into my house, into my life, in the person of the Holy Spirit and fill me and show me what it is to be loved and to love You and then in turn to be able to love myself and the people around me. Change me. Save me. You're the only one who can. Thank You for loving me. In Jesus' name. Amen.

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