Sermon Tone Analysis

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab them.

Galatians, chapter 3. That's where we're going to hang out today.

Nine verses is the goal.

It's a pretty complex nine verses, and so it's going to take us a bit.

The entire purpose of this epistle is to make a clear distinction between the gospel of Jesus Christ and false gospels.

Galatians attacks two false ideas in particular, legalism and lawlessness.

It dismantles the lies of these ideas and paints a true picture of salvation by grace through faith alone.

MATT CHANDLER | MAR 18, 2012

TOPIC: JUSTIFICATION SCRIPTURE:

Love

TRANSCRIPT | AUDIO

TRANSCRIPT

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab them.

Galatians, chapter 3. That's where we're going to hang out today.

Nine verses is the goal.

It's a pretty complex nine verses, and so it's going to take us a bit.

The word love in our culture is almost a bankrupt word.

I try to bring your attention to this.

It means everything so it means nothing.

Then another thing we seriously wanted to consider is regardless of how aggressive I get up here, people continue to come here from all over the Metroplex.

So we've planted churches kind of all over in the hopes of saying, "Hey, here is a like-minded church.

Here is a situation we think you might fit in that's closer to your house."

Every once in a while God does some things, and instead of doing church plants we do campuses.

So this week we have agreed in principle with Trinity Christian Church in Fort Worth, so right on the Forth Worth/Arlington line, to purchase their building for $1.85 million.

No campaign needed for that.

We can just actually buy that building.

It's going to take another $1.5 to $1.7 million to renovate or retrofit that.

As Dallas and Denton know, actually when you purchase a campus or you receive a campus, most of the time it's falling apart.

I was going to use a big word and just decided to pull the flaps on that.

It's falling apart.

So we're going to need to put some money into it to get it ready for us.

Usually what happens when we launch into a campus is the first Sunday we had better be ready to roll because we don't start with 150; we tend to start with around 1,000.

So there is a work we're going to need to do there to get us ready to roll that out.

Here is what I need to let you know if you're a covenant member of The Village.

We don't need to vote in order to purchase the campus, but what we want to do is get feedback from you, hear your heart, and make sure you understand why we're doing this and what this is all about.

So in the weeks to come we're going to roll out more and more information, primarily through The City but in other venues, to enable you to ask questions and answer your questions.

Then the other piece I need to mention is the retrofit will be between $1.5 and $1.7 million.

So we're going to ask our members for permission to borrow up to $2 million, but more than likely we won't need $2 million, in order to do the retrofit.

You can love anything.

Now to remind you of some history here, the Flower Mound campus, which I'm standing in right now, asked for permission from our members to borrow $7 million.

We only borrowed $5 million and then paid off that $5 million in two years.

We're hoping this works a lot like that in that we don't need to borrow anywhere near that $2 million and we can get it paid off extremely fast so we can operate in a way that is debt-free.

So we're really excited.

We've been praying a long time about what was next for us and where God would lead us to next.

The elder room has been very excited the last few weeks as God has allowed these things to just kind of come together.

He needed to kind of make a way and make a path for some of this, and he just absolutely did at every turn.

So we're excited about the possibility of a Village Church, Fort Worth.

So you're going to get more information.

Then the weekend after Easter, April 14 and 15, the covenant members of The Village Church will vote on whether or not we can assume the $2 million in debt.

So let me pray for us, and then we're going to get into what I think is a spectacular text.

I kind of have to say that, don't I? Let's pray.

Really when we use the word love, nine times out of 10 we're saying, "I like this a lot."

Holy Spirit, I just thank you for your work.

I thank you for how you save, how you draw, and how you've blessed this community of faith.

I pray as we begin to dig into this text that you would weigh heavy on our hearts, that you would encourage us, that you would, where need be, rebuke us, that we might grow further in our understanding, and that even maybe some today for the first time would come to know you and love you in a new way.

It's for your beautiful name, amen.

So you can love weird things.

You loving tacos, historically, and if we look at the root of the word, is crazy.

That you love fajitas wouldn't historically even make sense, but yet the word has been in our culture really emptied out of its meaning.

The word love in our culture is almost a bankrupt word.

I try to bring your attention to this.

It means everything so it means nothing.

You can love anything.

Really when we use the word love, nine times out of 10 we're saying, "I like this a lot."

So you can love weird things.

You loving tacos, historically, and if we look at the root of the word, is crazy.

That you love fajitas wouldn't historically even make sense, but yet the word has been in our culture really emptied out of its meaning.

There is no weight that remains in that word.

It is a fluffy, happy word that carries none of the strength and the stamina the actual word possesses.

There is no weight that remains in that word.

It is a fluffy, happy word that carries none of the strength and the stamina the actual word possesses.

So let me try to unpack it like this.

When you love someone, there are certain things you are drawn to do.

You tend to encourage their strengths.

When you see something in them that is of value or virtue, you tend to praise it.

You tend to go, "Man, you're so good at that.

It's like a natural ability.

You work so hard.

You're so good at that."

People love that kind of love.

To be loved like that is of supreme value.

We love that in our culture.

If your love for me is all about me, I love that love.

I'd do that love all day long.

If love is you encouraging my strengths and pointing out where I excel, I love the way you love me.

In that not only does it point out strengths and celebrate strengths, but love will also say, "Oh, you like this? Well if you like this let me help you get this.

Oh, you don't like this?

Let me do what I can to make you not have to experience that."

Again our culture would say, "Yes and amen, that's love.

That's what I want."

The reality is, though, although all of those things are easily a part of love, actual love is denser than that.

It's thicker than that.

The reality is, though, although all of those things are easily a part of love, actual love is denser than that.

It's thicker than that.

So yes, love encourages.

Yes, love edifies.

Yes, love protects.

Yes, love serves.

But love will also move from edification.

It will move from encouragement.