We've been talking this month around the idea of transactional love and unconditional love. Again, God's love is unconditional - it is not based on what you do. I know that is hard for some of us to believe because when we do something bad, we feel that distance between us and him. But that's because sin separates.

Isaiah 59:2
But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear.

This is why it feels like your prayers hit the ceiling. What you are feeling is the separation your sin and iniquity have caused.

Honestly, you should be happy whenever you feel bad after you've done something bad. That's called the Holy Spirit convicting you. You need to feel the conviction from the Holy Spirit. Remember, God disciplines those he calls his kids. If you're not being disciplined, you might not be his kid.

What you feel in those moments is the difference between being in God's pleasure and not. Think about with your kids. When your kid does something that is good, it makes you happy. They experience your pleasure because they did something that makes you happy, and that might come in the form of a reward (ice cream, etc.).

But what about when they do something bad? It doesn't mean you stop loving them, but they are no longer in your pleasure. You are not happy with what they did or how they acted, but it doesn't change your love for them because your love for them is based on who they are, not what they do. This is the difference between transactional and unconditional love.

I know so many of us still have a hard time with being transactional. I think most of us have a hard time receiving that love from God unconditionally. I know you know all the bad things you do, so it is difficult for you to believe that God will continue to love you even when you do things that you don't see as things that earn God's love. Let me belay a fear here: you can't earn his love!

And some of us have a real hard time when it comes to loving ourselves. We look at what we do and we are disgusted with ourselves. Remember conviction is good, feeling that disgust at your sin, you want that! But where we have to stop is when we begin to belittle ourselves, refusing to give us the same grace we can often easily give others. You are not perfect, just like no one else is, too. You are going to fail, just like everyone else is, too. But are you willing to love yourself unconditionally like God does?

Can you love people in spite of what they do? Can you love yourself in spite of what you do? Can you love God in spite of what you do? Can he love you in spite of what you do?

Listen, some of this is muscle memory. You can genuinely believe in your heart that God's love for you is unconditional, and you can make those changes and adjustments where you see other people and even yourself as somebody to be loved, not somebody to just get something from, but you've lived like this for so long, so don't be surprised whenever you find yourself thinking transactionally, even though your heart wants to be unconditional.

I think this is the crux of the entire conversation. Last week we talked specifically how to have unconditional love in a transactional world. There are some things that you're gonna have to change in order to love unconditionally. And there's gonna be some things that have to happen that retrain your muscles to operate in a new way.

When I play golf, I often call myself the Second Swing King because I can completely trash that first shot, but when I drop that second ball and just hit it, it's a great shot. Then comes the frustration because I see the great shot and I think, "I'm capable of that, why can't I do it every time?” I'll tell you why. muscle memory.

The reason Tiger in his prime could be so consistent, well, let me show you:
Early Morning: Wake up around 5:30 AM, followed by a 4-mile run.
Gym: An hour of weightlifting.
Driving Range: Two to three hours hitting golf balls.
On Course: Play 18 holes.
Short Game: Dedicated time working on putting and chipping.
Afternoon Cardio/Cross-Training: Another 4-mile run, plus basketball or tennis if time allowed.
I’m exhausted just reading that.

My short game is my worst, like most golfers. Tiger would hit 200-300 chip shots every day for practice. His muscles just know what to do because of repetition.

You have lived your whole life in a transactional world abiding by a transactional system. Don't be surprised if you still do things that are transactional. The goal here is to help you relearn some things, adjust your muscle memory, embrace a new way of thinking so you can love like Jesus.

With that in mind, I want to share 3 things essential for you to learn in order to do that.

You have to learn to:

1. Determine value appropriately
This is one of the biggest issues when it comes to shifting from transactional love to unconditional love. In a transactional world, you determine value based on the benefit it provides. When you valuate a company in terms of its worth, you consider it liabilities and assets, and then you make educated guesses based on its financial history to determine whether or not it is a valuable company. You might say your company is worth a million dollars, but if you don't have the assets, profits, and potential revenue streams to back it up, it's not.

So one of the biggest shifts we have to make in our mind is how we determine value. How do you determine the value of people around you? Yourself included?

Luke 10:30-35
30 “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

Three people met this poor man on the side of the road, yet only one of them determined appropriate value. Why? Why did the first two value this man so poorly?
- Could be that because they were a priest and a Levite, they would've been considered ceremony unclean, not being able to do their jobs in Temple.
- Could be because one prevailing thought was that if bad things happened to you it's because you were doing bad things. Perhaps they thought he was getting what he deserved.
- It could be because they simply didn't care about anybody else.

But one thing is interesting: The very person who valued the injured man the most was the very one Jewish people devalued the most. Samaritans were Jews who interbred with Gentiles. To the Jewish nation, these people were abhorrent. What is wild is that the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was most often traveled simply to avoid having to go through Samaria. They didn't even want to touch the ground that the Samaritans dwelt in. So when Jesus tells this parable, there is this underlying theme, "Why in the world would a Samaritan help because how in the world could a Samaritan to benefit me?” The Samaritan had nothing to gain. In fact, he risked ridicule and rejection. The priest and Levite couldn’t gain from the injured man either. To them, he was a liability.

If you only love people because of what they can do for you, not only is that the definition of transactional love, you should know that your life is going to be a long string of pain simply because when all you do is use people, all people do is use you. This is what life looks like when you are led by your flesh not God’s Spirit.

You were not created to assign value based on doing. When God poured his love out in you, when he put his Spirit in you, he made you to love like he does, not based on what people do, but based on who they are. And we do this to ourselves, too! This is why godly people in your life matter so much. They can give you accurate valuation when you are compromised.

We know how worldly value is assigned. But how is godly value assigned?
God starts with our inherent worth as his creation. Ephesians 1:4-5a
4 Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ

Second, he chose to assign value simply because he wanted to. Ephesians 1:5b
This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

Last, he decided nothing would stop his love for us. Romans 8:38
Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus

God does not love you based on what he can get from you, so when he values you, it is with you as a being in mind, not you as a doer. If you are trying to stop being transactional you’re going to have to determine what’s more important: who they are or what you you can get from them, who they are or whether or not they deserve it.

This idea really leads to an essential next part of the process. You have to learn to:

2. Understand strengths and weaknesses
1 Samuel 17:32-40
32 David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.” 33 Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.” 34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. 36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. 37 The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”

I really want to get to the next part of this passage to illustrate the point here, but I included this extra portion leading up to it to give you a clear image of what I was talking about in the first point of determining value. Saul clearly did not put David and Goliath in the same category.

Here me now:
There is going to be no shortage of people who take one look at your life and evaluate you based on their metrics, their understanding of you, and their evaluation of your strengths and weaknesses. Just because somebody looked you up one side and down the other and decided to give you some arbitrary value does not mean you have to accept it.

I think for some of us, one of the biggest lessons we need to learn in going from transactional to unconditional is understanding that just because people treated us like we were worthless doesn’t mean we are or that we have to believe it.

38 Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. 39 David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. “I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off. 40 Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.

You need to understand strengths and weaknesses. You need to understand your own, and you need to work to understand other peoples’ as well. You don't have to know every person’s out there, but what about with your spouse, your kids, your family members, your friends, maybe even coworkers. There are things a person is good at and things they are not good at, but you have to be careful that you aren’t expecting strength in them from a weakness in them. Do you know why you never see elephants hiding in trees? Because they are so good at it.

Are you expecting strength in that person from an area of their weakness?
Are you expecting perfection from an area of failure?
Let me punch a little: Are you expecting perfection in them in an area that is weakness in you?

So the goal here is not to demand a person be strong in a weak area and then devalue them based on that, because that is transactional love. Rather you should understand that you cannot expect strength from their weakness. They are weak there, so obviously they are going to miss your expectation. That’s where transactional love lives.

The unconditional approach would be to understand their weakness, be empathetic, and then have compassion. Aren’t empathy and compassion the same thing? Empathy is the ability to understand and feel another person's emotions. Compassion takes empathy and adds a pro-active, motivating response to help.

Transactional love is angry when they fail to meet expectations. Unconditional love understands the weakness and strives to help them get stronger.

Practically: Who is someone that needs your help with a weakness more than they need your anger at a missed expectation? Why haven't you helped them? Don’t you love them? Glass house: sometimes I take my own inability to love myself unconditionally out upon my spouse, who is not only an easy target, but who is supposed to be one with me. There are plenty of times it's not her missing an expectation, but me not loving myself, including her, unconditionally.

3. Choose the best option
Sometimes you choose based on data. Sometimes you choose based on your heart. But you always have to choose the option that is godly. That’s the hard part, huh?

1 Corinthians 10:23
All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful; all things are lawful for me, but not all things edify.

Lawful is from two Greek words that mean “out of my being.”
Helpful is from two Greek words that mean to “carry together.” The idea is two uniting for a benefit. “Symphony” comes from this word.
Edify is from two Greek words that mean “house builder.”

I don't know if you are connecting all the dots, but what Paul is literally saying is, “My focus should not be what I deserve, or what I think is good for me. It should be what builds us up.”

Do you want to know what the best option is? It's the option that builds. It builds godliness - holiness - faithfulness - trust - understanding. It deepens our relationship, it strengthen our bond.

Let me throw it back to Joseph one more time.
He had an option before him that was lawful. He deserved justice. And you might even look at his situation and think, "Look how God positioned him in the kingdom. God must have wanted him to get revenge, otherwise he wouldn't have given him that authority." It's amazing how we can distort God's blessing into something God despises because we're choosing an option that might feel good but isn't godly.

If you want to choose a fleshly option, then be transactional. Get your pound of flesh. Exact your revenge. Treat them poorly. But know that it won't make the pain go away, it won't rewrite history, and it won't even salve your soul.

But if you want to choose a godly option, then be unconditional. Forgive unconditionally. Trust unconditionally. Believe unconditionally. Love unconditionally, even if they don't deserve it.

Listen fam, you always have a choice. Deuteronomy 30:19
19 “Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!

I know it's real easy for me to stand here today and tell you to choose life, the godly option, to love people, even when they are acting towards you out of their weaknesses, and to not let the things they do assign value to who they are. It's really easy, but the practice of it can be really difficult. Excruciating.

I have empathy for the situation you are in, the pain of your past, the brokenness of loss. I will weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn.

But you have a choice today. This choice is going to determine whether or not you allow what has happened to keep happening. Your choices are going to make or break you.

When you leave here today, you're probably gonna have opportunity to argue with your spouse or to lose it on one of your kids. You might have your past thrown in your face before your head hits the pillow tonight.
But at the end of the day, you have to determine whether you want to be right or restored. Which is it gonna be?

Some of you have a choice you need to make right now, and that choice is to confess Jesus Christ as Lord of your life. If you've never made Jesus Lord, or you know today that you need to give your life completely to him, pray this prayer with me: “Jesus, I confess you as Lord. I repent of my sin. Forgive me. Save me, Lord. In Jesus name, I pray, amen."

Some of you have somebody to forgive. Some of you need to have compassion on a weakness and strive to help. Some of you need to repent for choosing the fleshly option and start choosing the godly option.
Whatever it is, let's take a moment and ask the Holy Spirit to help.

Let’s pray