You’ve Been Lied to About Love | Crossroads Students

You were great back there. You weren't so bad yourself. It still isn't over. Aren't you the sweetest space toy I ever met? I love you. Hey, what's up? I'm Jason. It's Cherry Limeade, Alani. Thank you for asking. I'm Jason. If we haven't met, hey, I don't know if you know this, but all year long this year, Sunday nights is for high schoolers, and so look, there's a little red dot back there. You see that dot? That is every other location all on Sunday night, so that's Mason and Dayton in Columbus. That's Lexington and Florence. That's the east side. That's the west side, and that's right here in Oakley. How are you feeling tonight, Oakley? Listen, hundreds and hundreds of high schoolers are coming together, and we're starting a series this week, so if you're here for the first time, can I tell you, perfect time to jump in. I couldn't be more excited. We're doing something else tonight, by the way. You might have a little bit more music later on. Your host will be back up, and then you have an opportunity to go to this thing called C-Groups. It's mandatory for everybody. It's something that everybody does. There's a coach there who's an adult leader who loves you. We're going to get to that in a little bit.

They love you, and they are there to help you process what we're talking about, and today we're talking about what is love? What is it? Please tell me what is it? Anybody feel like they know what love is, like everybody's got it on lock, you know? What is it? Anybody feel like they thought they knew what love is, and then you got your heart broken and you're like, I have no clue what love is. Anybody feel that? What is love? It's confusing. The word love. Because I love pizza, I do. Don't judge me. I love pizza, but I also love my wife. If I even said those words, what would she do? Like, how dare you put me in the same category with pizza? Right? Like, it's crazy. No, I'm just kidding. My wife's not like that. She's awesome. I love my dog, and I love my kids. Some days I love my dog more than my kids. Most of the days I hate my dog. You know what I'm saying? Like, what is love? What is love? What is it? Do you know?

I remember one of the first times I thought I experienced love, fourth grade. I went to a church that had an outdoor playground, and I grew up in the era, I was born in the 1900s. Let me tell you right now, I'm an old man. Born in the 1900s, coaches, I know you're in here, born in the 1900s, and we didn't have this soft, cushiony playground that you guys have today. We had gravel. Gravel. And so I would go out to the playground, and back then it was not safe. We had this little hidden room underneath the playground, and there was this girl. And every Sunday, she's blonde, blue eyes. Every Sunday we'd find each other, and we'd sneak to the room, and we would collect zebra rocks. I was fourth grade, what did you expect I was doing? I'm not playing seven minutes in heaven as a fourth grader front row here in Oakley. My point is, no, no, no, there was these little, like one in a million of these rocks had like little black stripes on it, and so me and this girl, we would like dig through the rocks together, and sometimes, seriously, I felt love in that. I would like, it was like recess almost, and I'd go back inside, and my face would hurt because I was smiling the whole time. We would dig into the rocks. And we would do a little collection, and we would like take the rocks, and we'd hide them up in this thing. Every week we'd go, and they were there, and it was awesome. And then I remember one Sunday, I couldn't find her, and so I thought, maybe she's just late, and so I went, and I looked for zebra rocks, and I kept a couple in my hand, and I held them tight. She never showed up, and so I put them in the little collection, and the next week, she wasn't there. And so I kept looking for rocks, and eventually, I had an entire collection of zebra rocks

that I never got to show my first love, which is great because she could have been terrible, you know, you never know. Finding zebra rocks was not a great quality in a woman, you know what I'm saying? But like in that moment, do you remember that first time, that first crush, that first moment, that first interaction? You're like, what was that? Do you remember that? What is love? What even is that? Is that some sort of scientific brain chemical? Is it some sort of a deeper meaning? Is it some sort of feeling? Is it good? Is it bad? What is it? We're gonna try and talk about it for the next five weeks and I hope we give you an answer. The good news though is that if we don't answer your question in the first four weeks, on week five we're doing a Q&A panel where we're gonna answer only questions from audience. And so eventually your host will give you a QR code so you're gonna wanna show up for that week too. It's week five. We're in week one right now so it's about a month from now. Got it? Okay, great. All right, let me pray to get us started. Dear Heavenly Father, I don't wanna even pretend I fully understand what love is.

And yet I'm here to explain it. And so God, the only thing that I can think to do is explain to these students the things that you've taught me so help me to do that well and clearly and accurately according to your scripture and help us to have a fun time doing it in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Real quick survey of all the rooms that we're in right now. A question, who here would confidently raise their hand and say, I know what love is? Okay, a couple people, that's fine. Great, awesome, I'm happy. I'm happy for you, that's great. Awesome. Who here would say that they have for sure been in love before? Raise your hand. Okay, okay, a little drama, come on. You can talk about it in C groups. You can talk about it in C groups. Okay, okay, okay. All right, let's get a little serious. Actually, let me do one more silly one. Who here has a friend that habitually falls in love just all the time, right? Like, no, no, no, no, I'm talking like she saw a guy on the bus and decided that was her husband, who? Don't point at him, just raise your hand, just raise your hand.

Okay, great. All right, can I give you a serious one? Who here has ever experienced the absence of love in a way that hurt, that crush that you had that didn't love you back, that parent that wasn't there for you, that family situation that like messed you up? Anybody experience the absence of love in their life? Okay, what is it? What is love? We're gonna try and answer it in the next thing. I'll tell you right now, no matter where you're at and maybe you've never been in love before, that's okay, that's totally fine. Maybe you think you've been in love before, be like, I don't really know what love is and I appreciate your honesty and your wisdom. I remember, I have 11 brothers and sisters and every year for Christmas, just like Jesus, we got three presents, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Not really, I mean, we just got toys, but like that's what Jesus got and so my parents were like, that's what you get, you're only getting three. 11 brothers and sisters. Now, first of all, can I just say, I love my siblings. Some of you complain about one younger sibling. Anybody have a younger sibling? Anybody guilty of complaining about that one younger sibling?

I have six younger sisters and four younger brothers and an older brother who's an idiot. I'm sorry, Steven, if you're watching it, but sometimes you're an idiot, okay? So here's my point is I had, okay, so it's Christmas morning. We open presents one at a time, so it's like six hours of opening presents is awful. So we're opening presents, we're opening presents and I get three. How many do I get? Three, I open one. Aw, thank you, Mom, thank you, Dad, that's great. I open two. Thank you, Mom, thank you, Dad. I'm waiting for number three and it never came. I waited for three hours expecting to get another present and it never came. They forgot about my third present. Do they love me less because they didn't give me another present? Can I tell you, I was heartbroken. Like I know in here, like it's a silly story now, but like I cried. Like it was painful. I felt so unloved, so unwanted. And I knew my parents loved me, but like they just didn't show it to me in the way that I expected. And sometimes that's the worst kind of pain

is the absence of love. And so if some of our greatest moments in life can be love and some of our worst moments of life can be the absence of love, we've gotta figure out this love thing or at least understand it better. Where did it come from? Why is it here? There are some people that believe that love is a chemical biological thing that evolved inside of us to help keep the human race alive. I just can't believe that. Like it's too real, it's too painful, it's too emotional. I'm not saying you shouldn't believe in evolution or shouldn't believe. That's a different talk for a different time. I'm just saying right now, I don't think love is a chance accident. I think that you and I were created to love and you and I were created to be loved. And on that foundation is our entire society. You don't believe me? Look at any book, every single book that I've seen recently is like some sort of ridiculous love story. right? Every movie that you've watched, we watched some in the intro, all of them are like clips of like love moments in movies. Grey's Anatomy is literally built on love affairs, 40 seasons of love affairs. Our culture is obsessed with love, and rightly so. I don't think it's a bad thing that we're obsessed with love.

I just think we don't know the definition, and we don't know where it comes from, and we don't know what to do with it, and we don't know what it's for, and so I think it's led us astray. And so what if we knew the guy who created love? What if love wasn't some sort of happenstance accident of evolution, but love was a specific way that you and I were created with the ability to love and be loved? And if we viewed love that way, how would it change everything about our life? Well, I believe it is. I got a Bible in front of me, and we don't believe that this is just good ideas or words. I believe that this is truth, which means it's more true than my thoughts, feelings, or emotions. Those are all helpful. Those are all thoughts, feelings, emotions, all good, but this is truth. And so truth doesn't come from a man. It comes from God. I believe that there's a creator of the universe who specifically created us to love and be loved, and if that's true, then we need to learn about love from Him, not from TV, and not from books, and not from that friend on the bus, and not from that, you know, senior in high school who thinks they're really wise, and they got great advice. Not them. We need to learn from the source. Like, if He created it, wouldn't He be the best person to ask, like, what is love? What's crazy about it, if you do that honestly, and you read the book, and I'll just show you a couple of verses, what you're gonna see is that is God describes Himself as love. Like, many people have heard, God is loving God. God loves everybody, and that's true. I think that that's true, but it's not something that He does. It's who He is. And so when He created us, He decided to create us like Him. Not equal to Him, but like Him, and that you and I can love because God is love. You and I can receive love because God is love. And so God, in an act of love, sent His Son here, who's 100% God, 100% man. Again, different talk for a different time. We're gonna get to it eventually. And He talked about love. And so I think that's the perfect place to start today, because He flipped love on its head. This is how He starts talking about love. It's in Matthew 5, 44. This is what He says. There's this saying around Jewish culture right now where it's like, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. And Jesus says this. He flips it on His head. He said, you've heard it

said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, who attack you, that you may be sons and daughters of your Father in heaven. So what's God saying right now? God is saying, if you choose to love everyone, you'll be like God. Not equal to God, but you'll be like God if you choose to love everyone. It's a mandate of people who want to follow Jesus. Later on in the book, we're not gonna get to it up on the screen, but later on in the book, it talks about, hey, people will know that you follow me by the way that you love one another. Crazy to think about, right? You think that giant book is full of rules and regulations. Another time, same book in Matthew, He goes on. It's in Matthew 22, and He says this. They're like, hey, teachers, one of the names they had for Jesus. Hey Jesus, what's the most important commandment? Like there's 602 laws that these people followed. What's the most important one? Jesus is like, I got you. I'm gonna give you two. He says this. You must love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law, okay, this whole book, the first five books of the Bible were called the law. And all the words for the prophets are based on these two commandments. So like, hey, you want to sum this up? You don't have time to read 66 books. It's a great read. I recommend reading it if you don't have time. Love God and love the people around you. Why would God do that? Because God is love, and He created you to love others, and He created you to be able to receive love from others, which is why it's so freaking important to us. And not just Christians. The world is obsessed with love because I believe that mankind, humanity itself, was created to love and to be loved. If you look at how successful someone's life is at the end of their life, what do they brag about? Is it their net worth? How many cars they have? No. They brag about, and they have even regrets about, the ways that they loved people or didn't love people, and who they got to love and who they didn't get to love.

I'll tell you, I do funerals. It is a very sad funeral when nobody shows up, when there's 10 people in there who are required to be there and nobody wanted to be there because that person didn't really have anybody to love. I've been to funerals with thousands and thousands of people and can I tell you, the one thing that has made a difference is their ability to love one another, their ability to follow those two great commands. Do they love God and do they love others? Love is huge and we've got to figure it out. Now, for sure, in this series, we're gonna talk about what does the love of a relationship look like, a romantic relationship? Because it is confusing, right? Because like, somebody was trying to teach me this. There's layers of it. So like, loving someone and being in love with someone, very different things, right? Is that right? Am I wrong about that? I was watching a reality show and I was like, okay, I love somebody. Well, I'm falling in love with them. I'm not in love yet, but I'm falling in love with them. Or yeah, I like them. We're in the dating season. And so we're gonna talk all about that. We're gonna talk about all relationships. We're gonna talk about your parents' love for you

or the absence of parents' love for you. We're gonna talk about what is marriage and what did God create marriage to be as one of the most ultimate acts of love that we have in here. But before we can get to any of that, we need to start with this one big thing because today I don't want you to love anyone else more before you choose to receive the love of God. It is impossible to love others perfectly if you have not first received the love of God. Again, please don't take my word for it. We're in 1 John. 1 John says this. We know how much God loves us and we have put our trust in his love. God is love and all who live in love live in God and God lives in them. And it keeps going and it says, as we live in God, aka loving the people around us, our love grows more perfect. And then if you skip to the bottom of that last verse, it says this. Oh no, I don't have it on my notes, right here. We love each other because he first loved us. What does that say in here? If you haven't heard it before, I need you to hear this loud and clear. There is a God who loved you. You were not an accident.

Let me say it this way, just so you remember. You are not the fastest sperm, right? Like you are not a random chance. You were not like a good luck. You were not here by accident. You were here on purpose. That God loves you and he cares about you. He's madly in love with you. Let me give you the best way that I can know to explain this. Any cat people in here? Any cat people in here? All right, put your hands down. There's plenty of great churches. This one isn't for you. No, I don't get cat people because you can love a cat and it hates you, right? Like it's like the worst, know what I'm saying? Like it's awful. But okay, well, hold on. Any dog people in here? Yeah, okay. Yes, that's what I'm saying, online. Yes, dog people. Let me tell you right now. You know what, do me a favor. Tell the person next to you your favorite dog breed. Go ahead and do that right now. Go ahead and do that right now. Go ahead, go ahead and do it right now.

You keep going. All right, come back, come back. I have, now you're just arguing about the best dog breeds. I have a golden doodle, which I'll tell you, I'll tell you, a golden doodle is the dumbest dog ever created. It's the stupidest dog. I can't stand that dog, dude. Oh my gosh, dude, the dog is terrible. Okay, I have a golden doodle. And can I tell you right now, that dog loves me. On the days that I hate that dog, it loves me. On the days that I love that dog, it loves me. And it like, it like shows its love. Like when my wife gets home, that dog jumps on, licking it all, my dog loves my wife. You know, it loves us. And what if that built inside of you, your capacity to love, I know some of you have rabbits and you love your rabbit, fine. Some of you love your cat. Sure, it's a great cat, fine. Here's my point. We all have the ability to love people, but the only reason we have the ability to love is because God first loved us and created us with the capacity to love. But not only that, he demonstrated his love through Jesus on the cross. Like, if no one's ever told you this before,

there was a man and he's 100% God, 100% man. And he lived a perfect life and he died on a cross. Why? Because God is perfect and you. Me, we are not. We are messed up. We have lived outside of God's design. Some of us in this room, myself included, have abused love to manipulate people. We've done terrible things in the name of love. We've told people to love them and it was a lie. So we've messed this thing up and so we needed a savior. And by the way, the punishment for that action, the abuse of love, is death for eternity. And God saw that and he said, no, no, no, this cannot be so and so therefore, God sent his one and only son who's God and man and lived a perfect life and he died on a cross for you and for me. Love is what sent Jesus from heaven to earth. Love is what caused Jesus to give us these teachings about love. Love is what caused Jesus to allow himself to be arrested and to be beaten within the inch of his life, to carry a cross up a hill and choose to die for you and me. Only an act of love could do that. Would hate do that? No. Would amnesty do that?

No. Would jealousy? No, it was love. And why was Jesus so desperate to show you and me and the world this act of love? Because he was pointing us to God and so every way that you can love here on earth is designed to point you back to a God who is love, who is madly in love with you. And I'm not talking corporate. Like sometimes you hear that, I know you do, and you're like, oh, Jason's just talking about the good people next to me. No, no, no, no, no, no. While you were still messed up, God died for you because he loves you. And he is desperate for a relationship with you. And if you've never heard this before, can I just tell you? There's a coach sitting near you. And in a little bit, you're gonna have an opportunity to talk to that person. And that coach is here specifically to help you understand that love and to receive that love. And so I wouldn't be surprised if most of our New Year's resolutions were, hey, I wanna look like God more. Hey, I wanna love others more. And I'm not saying there should be. Here's one for you though,

if you don't have a New Year's resolution or you have room on your list for one more. What if this was the year that you received more love from God than you ever have before? How would you change? What peace would you have that you don't have right now? What joy would you have that you don't? What confidence would you have? How would it affect your relationships? How would it affect your friendships? What if it was pouring out of you and that you were so loved by God that you were able to love the people around you better than anybody else? What if you were known for being loving? How would that shape your world? You can't do that outside of the context of a God who is love that first loves you. And so let me pray for you. And then a local host is gonna help contextualize this for you. Heavenly Father, thank you for sending your son. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for the act of love that was so violent toward you and yet you chose to do it just to show us how much you love us. Thank you that our life is filled with opportunities to understand more love. And God, I pray that all of those opportunities for love

will point us straight back to you. God, we love you. Or maybe even in this room, some of us are just trying to understand your love for us. No matter where we're at in that journey, God, I'm praying that you would meet us here today. That not a single student that can hear me right now in any one of our sites or online would walk another day without your love, that they would have the fullness of their love today. Thank you in Jesus' name, amen.