This message written and delivered by Ashley Bekkerus.

Something that many of you know about me (and if you don’t, you’ll come to realize today) is that big, heavy feelings are… well, kind of my jam. Like…. I love books, conversations, movies, etc. that will make me cry.

And you know what the best rom com is for that? The Notebook. And the scene that gets me every time is probably the scene that you all imagined: where they’re standing outside of her car and he is begging her to stay but only because she wants to and he says, “I want all of you, forever.” 

Man…. brings a tear to my eye just talking about it. And as I was preparing this sermon, that scene kept coming back to me and I thought to myself, “hmm, that’s a pretty good image of God’s love for us.” And you know what? It is. So, I want you all to go home and watch that movie and that’s all for this week. Thanks for coming, we’ll see you next week! 

Okay, now obviously that was a joke, but i think we talk so often about how God loves us, but it just ends up feeling like a movie scene. We sit here and listen to whoever is up here talking about how God loves us and maybe it brings a tear to your eye and then you go home/leave the movie and go back to your regular life. 

I know for me it’s a lot easier to do that. Because if I really sit down and think about it, do I really believe that God loves me? I mean… the obvious answer because I’m sitting here is “of course I do.” but if I’m honest with myself? I mean… no… not really. 

And if that’s the case then I really don’t feel like I should be here at all. I might as well just go home because I’m not a perfect Christian who has everything figured out. And… maybe some of you feel the same. So, I want to pose this question to you: what if living into this reality of God’s love is the way to real faith/true transformation?

Can you imagine that life? Where you are ACTUALLY transformed by God’s love and not just sitting around a theater listening to it and then going back to your normal lives?

Join us Sunday as we explore what it looks like to receive God’s transforming love.

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