“Everything you do must be done with love—everything—even little things…Yeah, you can think of a thousand ways to show love in everything you do. You can give somebody your parking spot out of love. You could say a kind word to everybody you meet out of love. You can refuse to be snarky on social media, out of love,” Rick said.
“Love is more important than anything else,” Rick said. Quoting 1 Corinthians 14 from The Message, Rick added, “It tells us seek a life of love as if your life depended on it. Because it does…Love is the thing God wants more than anything else from you.”
“I try to teach pastors all around the world that sermons without love, Bible studies without love, devotions without love, are just noise,” Rick shared. “God says [that] if I speak without love, it is nothing. It doesn’t count.”
“My prayer is that a year from today you’re going to be a lot more skilled in loving everybody—even people who don’t like you. That would make God smile,” Rick said.
Rick went on to share how he has learned to become more loving toward his critics and enemies in the past four decades.
“I’ve loved some people who are pretty unlovable,” Rick said. “But you know if I had to do it all over again, the thing I’d change is this: I’d be more loving than I was. I’d be more loving than I was. This is the greatest thing you can do with your life.”
The pastor concluded his message by explaining how love provides tremendous endurance to keep going when things are painful. Rick then shared that a rare, incurable brain disorder, which he was born with, oftentimes gives him excruciating pain when he speaks publicly.
“I really thought it was crazy that God chose me to be the pastor of a large church—who experiences pain every time he speaks,” Rick said. Rick recounted telling God that he could handle preaching one service. But as the church grew in attendance, that one service quickly became two, eventually reaching six to 12 weekend services, depending on the holidays.
“I’ll just be honest with you,” Rick said. “It was like going through a torture chamber repeatedly over and over and over.”
Rick told the congregation that he “wanted to give up, but I never did, and I pushed through and endured that pain for 43 years.” He shared that most people didn’t even know about his pain. “Why,” he said, “Because I was always trying to do that I was doing out of love for God and for you.”
