Fourteen times three is 42 which is how you write Joseph, so he says so you see the 14th taldof is about the messiah who is the son of David and the son of Joseph, and one day He'll be the Passover lamb who is going to be killed on the 14th of Aviv. It's almost like these people had help writing all this. [Laughter] So the subject of the 14th taldof was the son of David and was slaughtered on the Passover lamb at the 14th of Aviv. So here's my question. You say well Shane, what's the drash here? That's really nice historical insight and that makes the Bible sort of come alive, but when I walk home tonight what does that mean for me? Well it means a lot of things. Let me ask you a couple of questions. Number one, where do you need God to demonstrate His loving kindness to you tonight? Given the assumption that God has shown you loving kindness, what have you done to respond to it? If we're going to be kingdom people we have to respond to God's love. The Bible says it this way, that God commended His love towards us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
God commended His love toward us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Do you realise that the whole story of the cross, the whole thing was God saying I love you first. Do you know how crazy that is? Listen, whoever says I love you first is taking all the risk. If you're in a dating relationship right now you know exactly what I mean. If you're young enough to remember your dating life you know what I mean. Who - yes. [Laughter] Whoever said I love you first is taking all the risk. You know what I'm talking about. Why? I love you. What are the - whoever says I love you first, what are the possibilities? What if they say I know? [Laughter] What if they say that's great, yeah right? What if they cry and run into the bathroom? [Laughter] Like there's all kinds of options. When I was a junior higher I wanted to ask this girl - in those days - I don't know what you call it now but in those days we called it going together. So I wanted to ask this girl to go with me. Her name was [Lesley Sherburger. 00.32.30] [Laughter] You might laugh but she was a babe. [Laughter]
So I made two critical errors. My first error was I told my friends I was going to ask her. Bad decision. Second critical error was I decided to do it before school which gives you a huge time limit, so as the bell was coming up to ring my guys started razzing me and that sort of thing, so I finally had to take the long walk across the school yard. You're walking across the school yard and your heart's going boom-boom, boom-boom. Your eyes get a little more focussed. Everything gets blurry around it. See my brother asked a girl to go with him once and she ran into the bathroom and that didn't go so well, so this was in front of the whole school and so I asked her to go with me. Now you understand that in that situation I was taking all the risk because her response was her decision, but my heart was already out there. That's true. One of the messages of the cross is this, is that love is risky. Love is risky. [What did she say?] [Laughter] Oh, she said yes. [Oh good.] [Laughter] Yeah. [So you ran in the bathroom.] Yeah, I ran in the bathroom, I was scared of her. [Laughter] Yeah, then I realised it was summer and she was likely going to see me with my shirt off and that wasn't going to work out too well [laughter] so - so listen, this is a principle of the cross. Jesus didn't just die on the cross so we could go to heaven one day. Jesus died on the cross so that those of us who'd been hurt, we can love again and the reason we can love again is because we can risk again.
Look, I'm a counsellor by trade. I've had heaps of counselling stuff and in general when you're dealing with a basically good hearted person who's basically mentally healthy alright, so in a marriage for instance; if you're dealing with two basically good hearted people who are mentally healthy, when they come and see you and they say we don't love each other any more, that's typically not true. What typically is true is that it's not that they don't love any more, they're just too scared to risk any more. So you have two people who aren't willing to risk with each other any more and as soon as you can't risk you can't love because love is risky by nature. So really part of the cross is setting us free to love again because it sets us free to risk again. Now my question is this. God has commended His love towards you. He's waiting on your response. Have you responded? If not, what are you waiting for? What are you waiting for? You say how do I respond? Well you show love to others. You tell Him you love Him back, He says great, go love My people. Go love My people.