1 00:00:00,800 --> 00:00:05,619 Christ may dwell in your hearts, 2 00:00:05,619 --> 00:00:11,261 then you are being rooted and grounded in love. 3 00:00:11,261 --> 00:00:14,409 This is critical. 4 00:00:14,409 --> 00:00:16,708 The love does not come first. 5 00:00:16,708 --> 00:00:19,903 Christ comes first. 6 00:00:19,903 --> 00:00:23,012 I say this for this reason: 7 00:00:23,012 --> 00:00:25,757 We can want the experience of love. 8 00:00:25,757 --> 00:00:27,753 We want to feel loved. 9 00:00:27,753 --> 00:00:30,509 We want to feel warmth. 10 00:00:30,509 --> 00:00:32,000 But if you start there, 11 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:34,601 that's the wrong place to start. 12 00:00:34,601 --> 00:00:36,356 We may want a sense 13 00:00:36,356 --> 00:00:38,842 that somebody outside of us loves us. 14 00:00:38,842 --> 00:00:41,531 We may want a sense that God loves us. 15 00:00:41,531 --> 00:00:44,350 But if you start by looking for that experience, 16 00:00:44,350 --> 00:00:45,632 you'll never find it. 17 00:00:45,632 --> 00:00:47,293 Nor do you want to seek 18 00:00:47,293 --> 00:00:50,349 to try to love God first. 19 00:00:50,349 --> 00:00:52,841 Some people, you come along with the Gospel, 20 00:00:52,841 --> 00:00:54,832 and it's like, "Well, I'm trying to clean up my life." 21 00:00:54,832 --> 00:00:56,879 "I'm trying to make myself presentable to God." 22 00:00:56,879 --> 00:00:58,739 I'm trying to do this or I'm trying to do that. 23 00:00:58,739 --> 00:01:01,772 No! That cannot come first. 24 00:01:01,772 --> 00:01:04,266 We must not seek the blessings 25 00:01:04,266 --> 00:01:06,350 that Christ can give to us 26 00:01:06,350 --> 00:01:10,560 apart from seeking Him and His salvation. 27 00:01:10,560 --> 00:01:13,312 Look, even if it's salvation that you want, 28 00:01:13,312 --> 00:01:16,237 you don't start by seeking salvation apart from Christ. 29 00:01:16,237 --> 00:01:17,582 You'll never end up there. 30 00:01:17,582 --> 00:01:20,184 That's what people are doing in religion all the time. 31 00:01:20,184 --> 00:01:21,562 Why do people get religious? 32 00:01:21,562 --> 00:01:23,215 Because they want to try to escape 33 00:01:23,215 --> 00:01:25,057 what their conscience is telling them 34 00:01:25,057 --> 00:01:26,323 is coming when they die. 35 00:01:26,323 --> 00:01:29,147 But you don't want to try to go down any road like that 36 00:01:29,147 --> 00:01:31,156 except you first start with Christ. 37 00:01:31,156 --> 00:01:33,317 Don't seek the blessings Christ can give 38 00:01:33,317 --> 00:01:34,907 apart from Him. 39 00:01:34,907 --> 00:01:37,130 We must not initially - anything - 40 00:01:37,130 --> 00:01:38,925 seek the ability to love others; 41 00:01:38,925 --> 00:01:40,675 we shouldn't seek holiness first; 42 00:01:40,675 --> 00:01:42,388 good fruit first; 43 00:01:42,388 --> 00:01:44,367 some deeper experience first. 44 00:01:44,367 --> 00:01:47,243 Don't seek revival first. 45 00:01:47,243 --> 00:01:49,189 We need Christ to come. 46 00:01:49,189 --> 00:01:51,129 We need Him. It's Him. 47 00:01:51,129 --> 00:01:53,603 See, when He comes, He brings all that He is. 48 00:01:53,603 --> 00:01:55,228 He brings all that He imparts. 49 00:01:55,228 --> 00:01:57,034 He brings all His love. 50 00:01:57,034 --> 00:01:58,523 But you've got to have Him. 51 00:01:58,523 --> 00:02:00,699 If you try to get all of the other stuff - 52 00:02:00,699 --> 00:02:02,517 anything else - without Him, 53 00:02:02,517 --> 00:02:04,405 you totally missed it. 54 00:02:04,405 --> 00:02:06,632 All experiences of His love for you 55 00:02:06,632 --> 00:02:10,007 will come at once, once you have Him. 56 00:02:10,007 --> 00:02:11,568 The experiences. 57 00:02:11,568 --> 00:02:12,909 The realities of it. 58 00:02:12,909 --> 00:02:16,305 Yes, I recognize the experience itself, 59 00:02:16,305 --> 00:02:18,965 it ebbs and it flows. 60 00:02:18,965 --> 00:02:21,141 All ability to love Him, 61 00:02:21,141 --> 00:02:23,345 to love others, to grow spiritually - 62 00:02:23,345 --> 00:02:26,142 they flow from Him. 63 00:02:26,142 --> 00:02:28,842 He said, "without Me, you can do nothing." 64 00:02:28,842 --> 00:02:31,150 It's Him. Him. 65 00:02:31,150 --> 00:02:33,176 The roots have to go down. 66 00:02:33,176 --> 00:02:34,994 He needs to come in. 67 00:02:34,994 --> 00:02:38,000 The roots go down into His love. 68 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:39,777 But see, that love, 69 00:02:39,777 --> 00:02:41,870 it's a package with Him. 70 00:02:41,870 --> 00:02:47,406 You can't go after the one without the other. 71 00:02:47,406 --> 00:02:51,375 "Whoever abides in Me, and I in him..." 72 00:02:51,375 --> 00:02:52,871 See, I have to be there. 73 00:02:52,871 --> 00:02:54,984 I have to be in Him. 74 00:02:54,984 --> 00:02:58,122 That's the one that's going to bear much fruit. 75 00:02:58,122 --> 00:03:01,544 "For without Me, you can do nothing." 76 00:03:01,544 --> 00:03:03,853 That's what He says. This is no small matter. 77 00:03:03,853 --> 00:03:05,664 Listen, I'll tell you this, 78 00:03:05,664 --> 00:03:08,190 if you look at the very heart and soul 79 00:03:08,190 --> 00:03:10,125 of everything that the Apostle Paul 80 00:03:10,125 --> 00:03:12,755 is writing to the churches, it always comes back to this. 81 00:03:12,755 --> 00:03:14,876 He is seeking to make Christ 82 00:03:14,876 --> 00:03:17,912 preeminent in the life of these churches. 83 00:03:17,912 --> 00:03:18,735 All the time. 84 00:03:18,735 --> 00:03:21,904 He's answering that reality. 85 00:03:21,904 --> 00:03:23,332 This is no small matter 86 00:03:23,332 --> 00:03:26,759 because literally every single problem 87 00:03:26,759 --> 00:03:28,431 in believers and unbelievers 88 00:03:28,431 --> 00:03:29,965 can be traced back to this: 89 00:03:29,965 --> 00:03:32,810 looking for and seeking 90 00:03:32,810 --> 00:03:35,647 something other than Christ. 91 00:03:35,647 --> 00:03:38,529 Now look, this is obvious with unbelievers. 92 00:03:38,529 --> 00:03:41,757 They're unbelievers precisely because they don't believe 93 00:03:41,757 --> 00:03:44,010 that Christ is everything. 94 00:03:44,010 --> 00:03:45,233 All in all. 95 00:03:45,233 --> 00:03:47,843 That He's their only hope. 96 00:03:47,843 --> 00:03:49,189 And if they do seek Him, 97 00:03:49,189 --> 00:03:50,914 it's not really that they're seeking Him, 98 00:03:50,914 --> 00:03:54,041 they're seeking money or happiness 99 00:03:54,041 --> 00:03:57,679 or something that they perceive that He can give. 100 00:03:57,679 --> 00:04:02,314 But listen, believers can go just as wrong. 101 00:04:02,314 --> 00:04:06,859 Just as wrong if they seek holiness first, 102 00:04:06,859 --> 00:04:11,263 or if they seek some kind of morality first, 103 00:04:11,263 --> 00:04:17,300 or some kind of perceived arriving 104 00:04:17,300 --> 00:04:19,688 at the keeping of the law 105 00:04:19,688 --> 00:04:22,271 or the commandments. 106 00:04:22,271 --> 00:04:23,563 They seek to love first. 107 00:04:23,563 --> 00:04:26,003 Or they seek any experience of the Christian life first 108 00:04:26,003 --> 00:04:28,170 except this experience: the experience 109 00:04:28,170 --> 00:04:30,098 of Christ coming into their hearts. 110 00:04:30,098 --> 00:04:31,500 And then He comes. 111 00:04:31,500 --> 00:04:34,062 And when He comes in - 112 00:04:34,062 --> 00:04:37,006 see, this is the connection Paul's making - 113 00:04:37,006 --> 00:04:39,943 when He comes in, 114 00:04:39,943 --> 00:04:42,837 if you have Him settle down, 115 00:04:42,837 --> 00:04:45,303 He comes in bringing 116 00:04:45,303 --> 00:04:48,757 this aroma of love into your soul. 117 00:04:48,757 --> 00:04:52,869 And it's Christ residing and abiding, settling down. 118 00:04:52,869 --> 00:04:54,331 It's Him. 119 00:04:54,331 --> 00:04:56,665 And when we have Him, He's present. 120 00:04:56,665 --> 00:04:58,713 He's powerfully present dwelling there. 121 00:04:58,713 --> 00:05:00,718 Then things happen. 122 00:05:00,718 --> 00:05:03,272 This clip was taken from the full sermon: 123 00:05:03,272 --> 00:05:06,344 Rooted & Grounded in the Love of Christ.