My Bible automatically opens
to the book of John when I open it. Isn't that funny? Oh. First Peter. Chapter one. I don't want to move too fast.
And I felt like I moved too fast last week. But remember, this
is not a grammatical construction of the sentences. It's a exposing
of the context. It's an exposing of the point
and the purpose and the power of the word of God. And we're
here together because it's what we are, in one sense, obligated
to do. And I'm gonna talk about that.
I'm gonna debunk that idea today. as a reframing, not that it's
wrong, you are obligated, but I want to reframe that obligation.
And then we're also here out of a motivation, and that motivation
is going to determine the outcome of what we see. So the questions I posed a couple
of weeks ago is, you know, who am I and what do I want? And
in answering those things, as we've seen in the first few verses
of 1 Peter, these people understood who they were in the gospel. They found the answer to those
questions in Christ. Because they'd lost everything.
They'd lost everything. But in a sense, they'd lost nothing
and gained everything. I want you to sit with that for
just a minute. Because isn't it loss? This just sort of hit
me a few days ago. Isn't it loss that actually destroys
us? Loss of idea, loss of identity,
loss of relationship, loss of love, loss of money, loss of
health. It's losing something, it's having something taken,
even if it was an idea. This is the way I thought it
was going to be and it's not. You've lost it, you've lost the dream,
you've lost the vision. This is what I signed up for. You
lost your focus. And the New Testament is all
about several things, and the first thing is about revealing
God the Son and the work that He did for His people. Thus,
revealing God Himself in His infinite glory, in His ultimate
glory, in His highest glory, in His exalting glory. And then it is to show us who
we are. And then it is to show us where our joy rests. And then
it is to speak to every iteration of every thought and every idea
and every affection that comes in our minds so that we may exhibit
Christ likeness, compassion, kindness, patience, tenderness. affection and love in every situation
in life. From the most intimate relationship
with ourselves to our spouse, significant other, children,
neighbor, church family, job, career, go on and so on and so
forth. We are to love as Christ loved.
There is no other message in the Bible. but that one, and
everything else. If the Bible tells you to clip
your toenails on Thursday at 6 p.m., there's a reason that
it applies to the love of God in your life as an identity and
to the persons around you whom you may love. You're scratching
them. You need to cut the fingernail. So cut the fingernail. There
is no such thing as an arbitrary set of rules within the context
of the New Testament that are just there because And our motivation in life is
just as Westerners. And I was thinking, I thought
about that this morning, like four o'clock this morning, I
woke up and I just had that on my mind. I said, if they had come
to the other coast, we'd be the Easterners. Don't go there. Stay with me. I was talking to myself, to myself,
about myself. But as Westerners, we have a,
First world pain is still pain. First world problem, you don't
know what that means, is like, you know, I get up in the morning and say,
oh man, my phone didn't charge. Dag nabbit. I mean, you know.
Shucks. Somebody left the pizza out.
We won't be eating leftovers. Oh well, give it to the dogs.
See, it's still a problem. It's just in comparison to other
people's problems of like, what's a phone, what's pizza? What's
a morning? What's good about it? We still have problems. And we
still have crises. Now some of us are geared different.
Some of us are geared not to be poets and artists and writers
and romantics and look at flowers and stuff, but we still shoot,
fight, and get rugged. Now don't look at me like that.
The point is, some of us are sort of stoic, just in personality.
Some of us are choleric. If you don't know what that is,
you know, look at some different personality styles. I mean, there's no wanting
for writings and books and things about personal development and
psychology and personality. I mean, there's a lot of it. And everybody's seeking the same
thing. They're trying to find a way
to get motivated to get what they want and to be who they are. And so when we see Peter writing,
when we see John writing, when we see Paul writing this New
Testament, this new instruction, it really is just about knowing
how we're to live in this life and what it all means. You've
heard me say this before, but I've really been on it this week
for personally, is that we have a tendency to do some things
at the extreme as Christians in this culture. We've borrowed
it. for mysticism, it's not a Christian
concept. And that is to make the ethereal,
the mystical heaven, the future, the afterlife being the point
of everything. To the point that we do not either
put any stock in validating the necessity and the value of this
present life and world as if it didn't come from God. Almost
like panentheistic, if you will. Okay, God spun all this into
work and then we're just living around trying to figure it all
out. No, that flies in the face of what sovereign love and sovereign
grace is. Okay, so this day and everything that it comprises,
everything that you're experiencing, everything that you're thinking,
everything that you're feeling, is a gift of God to you. Everything. Every relationship,
every good, bad, and bump and ugly. that comes from it, whether
it be a speed bump, a P-bump, or a mountain that you hit. It
is from the Lord as a gift. So we don't need to lose sight
because the New Testament is not about living for heaven,
it's about living as a citizen of glory in this earth. And that's why the cults are
so impressive upon people's hearts when they've had enough of the
earth. Okay, let's put our spacesuits on and let's die, the comet's
coming. Let's drink this Kool-Aid and be done with this place."
I mean, those are two literal examples of mass suicides. In
the name of God, in the name of Jesus. And those are just two that made
the news. It happens all the time. And if it's not a cult,
it's a gang. If it's not a gang, it's an ideology.
If it's not an ideology, it's a political party. It's not a
political party, it's some other stance. It's some other way of
which we would find ourselves happy in this world to make it
feel like that we have a purpose in this world. Because what we've
done in Western culture and American Christianity is we've Puritanized
it to a fault without actually living like Puritans, but we
want to get out of here. And that's okay. It's not a problem. It's a good thing. But we missed
the point. And I should go to Paul right
now and where he says, he says, you know, I don't know what's
better for me. Because I want to be with Christ. I don't want
to be in jail anymore. I've lived with nothing my entire
ministry. I've been hated. I was somebody,
y'all. I was the doctor of doctors of
doctors. I was the head of this thing. People looked at me and
said, hey, Mr. Paul, how are you? So good to
see you today. Oh, that man right there, he's
awesome. People praised me for who I was. I lived a life so
impeccable that you could find no fault with me. And now I'm
treated like a common criminal with no friends, with no family,
with no money, with no help. hated and despised just like
my Lord and Jesus Christ. So for me, getting off this rock
is really a great opportunity. It's something that, you know,
when the doorbell rings, I'm running. Ding dong, let's go. But for
your sake, oh beloved, you know, to die is gain because I have
Christ. But I have Christ now, Paul says.
I have Christ this moment. And if I have Christ this moment,
that these chains do not bind the Word of God and it does not
bind the Word of God in me or through me or to me. It does
not bind the Word of God from you. I am going to stay in this
body for your sake. And then I know what some of
you think. I'm so tired of being obligated to others. Aren't you
and I in the same boat? And therein lies the problem.
We've obligated ourself in a way of trying to see that
when we do all these wonderful things for other people, that's
who we are. That's our purpose. You couldn't be further from
the truth. And when we do feel like general,
when we do feel like authentic expressions of affection become
obligation, we've messed up our thinking. Several places in this text this
morning, it's going to be all over the place because my brain
is all over the place. But it's going to make sense
in the end. We know. We know who we are. We know what
God has done. We know who Christ is and we
know that which we've been called to. We already know that by reading
first Peter. And beloved, let me let me reiterate
that as well. These letters were not intended
to be picked apart over years. They were intended to be read
at a sitting and then picked apart for the rest of our lives. To be reminded and to understand
and to be applied. Not picked apart academically,
but picked apart exegetically. That means we take the text and
we pull out of the text and we explain itself out of the text
and we apply it based on the text. And if that text makes
sense, we can test it with the other text. And if the other
text is congruent, then we go, hey, we're on the right path
here. But beloved, we as a generation, every day, every day that we're
alive, we are to be interpreting and applying scripture according
to our lives. according to our experiences,
according to the evidences, and according to the Bible. And while we do not put much
stock into our common sense or to our thoughts and feelings,
we do not ignore them. We test them. The Bible says
to take every thought captive. So take your thoughts that you're
having right now captive and filter them through what you
know and then whatever's left you can do with what you please. But here we see this gospel.
We see this gospel identity, we see this gospel power, we
see this gospel purpose that these elect saints by the foreknowledge
of God have been put into this place because of the wisdom of
God for their joy. So in the midst of losing everything,
now see we can't apply that context holistically to us. But we may have lost some things
that feel like we've lost everything. I want you to hear that. We may have lost some things
that feel like we've lost everything. And sometimes that feels like
we've lost ourselves. Because a guy like me never had
time nor cared about who I was because I had it all together. And then when I didn't, I worked
that out in my head and just walked accordingly until I couldn't. So what's better? Working it
out every day. Living today. Today, right now,
is the best day of your life. If you're wanting a better day
tomorrow, you're looking in the wrong place. If you're longing
for the better days of yesterday, good luck. because luck is what
you're going to need to dig up what is gone. How about be where
you are today? That's Peter's message to these
people. Be where you are. You're in the desert? Be there.
You're in a hole? Be there. You're on the top of
a mountain? So be it. A mentor of mine always had wise
things to say, and one day he came in and he said, James, you
know what? He said, I got to tell you something.
I'm like, oh gosh, I better write this down. It was before you could
text on the phone like notes, you had to write it down and
remember it. He said, from the very beginning
of time, all the way to this very moment
has brought you where you are. Here you are. And he smiles. I'm like, get out of here. This
is the same guy that told me I had to eat dirt in order to
love God. I get it, I've yet to eat dirt,
but I'll explain that to you one day. Here we are, and this is all
we've got today. Today is the best day of your
life. What motivates you to say that? What would motivate these
people? What would motivate Paul to say
that? What would motivate Paul to say,
I'm content? Doesn't the best day of your life mean that you
couldn't get any better? There's nothing else you want. There may be other things you
need, but it's okay if you don't have them. That's content. That's
the best day of your life. You're lacking nothing. Doesn't James
say that the person of God, if they just pray for wisdom, that
they would lack nothing? And what's the context of that?
In trials, in trials, in suffering. But yet, what do we do? I wish
I had this. I wish I could do this. I wish.
And it's not even selfish, but it is selfish. We can't get away
from being self-centered, folks. It's just going to be the way
it is. It's OK. Take care of yourself. Feel good
when you do things for other people because it makes you feel
good. That's fine. You can love them, too. There's no such thing
as pure, absolute, selfless love except through Jesus Christ.
To be honest about it. So here these people, for the
most part, had made up their mind, we've lost everything. We're going to die in this dispersion. We're not going to be able to
see a future like we have had in the past. What lies ahead
of us? Verse 10, concerning this salvation. If you don't have the context
there, then you got 14 sermons behind me. You can go listen,
or you can just read that, nine verses real quick. Concerning
this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace
that was to be yours, searched and inquired very carefully,
inquiring what person and at what time the spirit of Christ
in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ
and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that
they were serving not themselves, but you in the things that have
now been announced to you through those who preach the good news
to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Things into which
angels long to look. And because of this, verse 13,
put your minds in gear to go somewhere. There's James's
paraphrase. Put your mind in gear to go somewhere
to do something. Put your mind in the state in
which you're about to be propelled into action. And you're always preparing and
be sober minded. Arrest your thoughts. Don't fall
into the sitting into your feelings. Arrest your thoughts. by setting
your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at
the revelation of Jesus Christ. And the revelation of Jesus Christ
in verse 13, we already know that we will see that one whom
we love that we have not seen, but we love Him anyway. And so
what I want to do is I want to sort of unpack this reality that
the motivation that these people are told to have is the love
of God for them. That's the motivation. Because
this salvation is the love of God, the grace that was manifest,
the grace of God, the love of God, the mercy of God, the hope
of God, the gospel of God. It's all grace. We've done a disservice to the
idea of the grace of God by turning the word into a package deal
of some tangible thing that this is God's grace over here and
this is God. No, God is love. And I'll go ahead and give you
something I was going to say toward the end, but I think a lot of people who can't
love like Christ don't grasp the gospel of grace. They don't
grasp it. They just don't get it. They
create a new law everywhere it goes. So here we find the motivation
of these Jews in this dispersion is the love of God for them.
And we talked a little bit last week about how we are to love
like Christ loves. and why we love Him. But now
we motivate ourselves to live in the present. How do we motivate
ourselves to arrest our thoughts? How do we motivate ourselves
to apply what we're about to be seeing? I spent a lot of time
reading a good portion of chapter 1 and even touched into chapter
2. Put away. Be subject. Be holy. Do not. but do, be respectful,
have unity of mind, have sympathy, et cetera, et cetera, and so
forth. And all of these things are going to really fall into
a very comfortable condition with us, because then we'll start
saying, now I know, all right, now I know what to do. Now I
know how to be happy. Now I know how to, listen, you
can follow the rules all you want, but it doesn't mean it's
love. And eventually, when we live
that way, these people could have followed these teachings.
How often did the Israelites in captivity and in the Exodus
follow the teachings? For a little while, and then
they didn't. But God loved them, then told them, now do this for
your joy, because I love you. Sometimes we get all tied up
in the idea that, well, I want to live for me. Live for you,
great, fine. But why do you want to live for you? And what do
you want to do in living for you? Because it'd be easier to
go back. I listened to my first two sermons
in James from the Reading James midweek in June of 2021. And the things that came out
of my mouth, if it weren't me on the screen, I wouldn't even
recognize it. How do I know this stuff that
didn't live it? And it's like God was letting
me speak into the air the very prophecy that would be fulfilled
in my life two years later. The very trials. And I'm laying
in the bed listening to this three nights ago. and I'm laughing
out loud at the humor. We are not gonna get away from
these types of things. We are going to say, yes, I believe
that, I hold that, I need, thank you, pastor, for reminding me
of what I already knew, and then a year from now, you're gonna
look back and go, what, I didn't know nothing. I really believe
that wisdom is, acquired unconsciously in that we're not
aware that we're wise. We're constantly thinking we're
unwise. Because how many times did I say, you know what I learned
last year? You know what I'm learning right now? You know what I've
decided? You know what I've discovered? You know how many times I've
said that? Only to find out I didn't know squat from Squiddle. I don't
even know what those two things are, see? I couldn't tell them
apart if I saw them. That was stupid. The salvation. I lived for myself,
but the prophets wanted to live for themselves too. But look
what they did. They prophesied about the grace that was to be
yours. Present day brothers and sisters
in the dispersion, yours. They were looking into things
that were going to work for you. See, that's what's wrong with
the world today. And that's why Christianity has some amazing
answers to some of the world's problems. But the problem is
with Christianity as it is today in the culture is it's not Christianity. I mean, Christian nationalism
is not Christianity. Christian evangelicalism is not
Christianity. Reformed tradition Christianity
is not Christianity. I mean, you just take a stab,
throw a dart at the wall and let it hit it and we can look
and say, wow, what is Christianity? Christianity is knowing, understanding,
applying, working, interpreting, living out the gospel of grace
in the person of Jesus Christ every single day. Today, today,
there's not going to be likes and upvotes. There's not going
to be accolades, stickers and stars and trophies and caps and
gowns. There's not going to be, what do they call those things?
They're not hoods. You can't put them on your head. I tried.
You can't put your doctoral hood on your head, which is stupid. It's a hood. It's a hood. You're
not going to walk around with any of that stuff. We're not
going to take our certificates, our licenses, and our diplomas.
We're not going to take our children and all the good things that
we've done. We're not going to take all the stuff that we've put. We're
not going to have our CV. We're not going to have a resume. We're going to have us naked
and unashamed. And that's it. And Jesus. And the symbolism of nakedness
is nothing. We have nothing but Christ right. We'll be clothed in his robes. It sounds so meaningless. And in the face of other people,
they say, man, that's impressive. Is that impressive? I talk to a lot of people all
the time, engaging with people in life, people who identify
as atheist, agnostic, mystics, Buddhist, You name it. And I've always
been in those conversations. And what's crazy is when I get
into a public setting, I get into a professional setting,
and I'm talking about these things, people come to me and go, I just
never really had much to do with religion. I said, great, me either.
That's not a necessarily true statement, but I get the point
from what they're saying I'm not involved in. And then when I just explain
the scripture, I just share my story, in relation to God's good
report, they're never hostile. They're amazed. But they're also not impressed. They're really impressed about
things that I like to do, things that I've learned, things that
I've accomplished. And so I have to be careful not
to go, yeah, let's just go over there. Let me show you another
trick that I learned to do like my dog. Because that's all of
our accomplishments. They're really like tricks. Like
obedience training. Like production training. In 2003, I was teaching to a
very small group. of youth on a Wednesday night,
about 40 of them. And there were some adults in
the room, and I said something about architecture, and I love
architecture. I love to look at buildings. I used to take
pictures of buildings. And I said another thing, look
at this amazing, look at this amazing roof line. Oh my gosh, can I
go watch paint dry? Yes, let's do it. But I talked about all this accolade
stuff and how we build. And I said, imagine the buildings
and the things that we love, the things from antiquity, the
things that are still around. And yet, they're gone. They mean nothing. None of them will remain in a
twinkling of an eye. And one of the guys up front,
who is a pretty good friend of mine now, but that day he was
sort of like, I don't like this cat, was an architect. And he later told me, man, you
ruined my entire identity, basically. You messed up my entire world.
You messed up my life. I was just thinking, I'm going
to leave an imprint on the world. And God's going to go and erase
it. It's his imprint. Now see, be
honest that that unsettles us, OK? These people were not walking
around going, it's cool, God's got it. They were troubled with their
circumstances, but the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent
glories is the remedy for that trouble. Motivated to love. Motivated to love because of
the divine picture of love. It was revealed, verse 12, to
them that they were serving not themselves but you. in the things
that have now been proclaimed to you through those who preach
the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things
into which angels long to look. Beloved, there are seasons of
my life, and even now, just in the last few weeks, where I thought,
man, I just need to stop trying so hard to share all of these
things with people. I need to stop writing and doing
online things. I just need to do, like, whatever,
just sit and And then it's like God goes,
all right, you little turd, I'll show you. And I get a text message, or
I get an email, or I get a, not kidding, they came, four of them
in the same week, from all across the world. Pastor, don't ever
stop writing. And some of you have even said
that to me, recently. Articles from last year, Five
years ago, I really, I see this. We don't know. We don't know
why we put out what we put out. We don't know why we engage the
way we engage. We don't have a plan. God has
a plan. A video I did a week after one
of the hardest, darkest days of my life. Trying to encourage
myself and others to stay the course has been the launching
pad of a dying sister who is engaged in severe darkness, who
now is embracing the light of Christ and saying, thank God
every day that I found these. And I wanted to delete them all.
You know what's cool? Had I deleted them all, God would
have found somebody else's. But don't lose sight of it. This
life is about His glory. In every part, not just later,
now. The job you do is about His glory.
You don't have to have an I love Jesus sticker on your chest every
time you zoom. Or evoke Romans 13 every time
you're arguing something with somebody. Just be authentically
Christ's. God showed His love for us that
while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. This is the
motivation for our love in this world. This is the motivation,
let me just change that, for living, not just loving. In this, the love of God was
made manifest, 1 John 4, 9, that God sent His only Son into the
world so that we might live through Him. And so we're to love as we exist,
we're to love in action. Over in verse 22, having purified
your souls by obedience to the truth for sincere brotherly affection,
love one another earnestly from a pure heart since you have been
born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through
the living and abiding word of God. It is why we are here this
morning, beloved. We are here this morning so that
we may grow in our understanding of the love of God for us, that
we may act in accordance to this calling so that we may live in
the world around us and that we may love everyone we come
in contact with intentionally. Not out of obligation, but out of compulsion. out of motivating love. I'm compelled to do something.
I have to do something. It's different than, oh, I ought
to do something. Now, you may parse the words
there, but we identify the terms in that context. Stop looking
at it like a chore that has to be done and look at our interaction
in this world as something that we do as a response to the love
that's been given to us. It's responding out of love. A new commandment that I give
to you that you love one another. John 13, 34. Just as I have loved
you, you are also to love one another. By this all people will
know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.
John 13, 35. Now let's break that down for a minute. That
means you'll love the church. That means you'll love your neighbor.
That means you'll love your enemy. That means you'll love your spouse.
That means you'll love your children. That means you'll love. That
means you'll love the most vile person. Someone asked me a question this
week about why they're being told, spiritually speaking, to
stay in a severely physical abusive relationship. So after I got
through writing a text message that filled the phone, I decided
just to transfer that into a article and I posted it and sent it to
him. No, I did a video on it. And I still called this person
to love the abuser, but to leave them. And I say that out of context
here because some people hear me say, you just got to love
somebody. It doesn't mean that you continue to put yourself
in danger. And God's word does not say you
have to. And if people want to piecemeal
that with pretext, go ahead, write your own book. But it's
wrong. It's antichrist to tell someone they must remain in danger,
especially if you have kids. Let love be genuine, abhor what
is evil, hold fast to what is good. We can say this is wrong,
we can say this person is terrible, but we can still actively love
them. What's the minimum? Praying for them. Instead of thinking about each
other so much, about how much we can't stand each other, it's
because we've reframed them in a way that we're only looking
at the negative. You know what? They can do it to us, too. There's some great Christ-like
wisdom that my grandmother, Tippin, used to always say, what goes
around comes around. What's good for the goose is good for the
gander. Most people don't even know what a gander is. It's a
male goose. You can't use those illustrations
with the canine persuasion because it gets profane. But it can be done. The golden
rule, right? Have you ever tried to quit something
God has absolutely called you to do? You can't. You're compelled. I don't get up every day and
go, you know what, I just got to do this job. No, I just want
to do it. I want to do it, even when I
don't want to do it. I want to do it. I have to do
it. You can't decide you're not going to breathe anymore. And
you can hold your breath. until you pass out and your body
will breathe. It will act authentically in the context of its makeup,
of its workings, of its brain. If everything's still working,
then you will live. Your body will live for itself.
You need to understand that because of God's love for us, when we
focus on these things, when we grow in our understanding of
what Peter is teaching us, we will act according to our nature,
which is born again by the love of God, for the love of God,
for the glory of God. And this motivates our love. We love because he has first
loved us, 1 John 4. And this is love, 2 John 1 6,
that we walk according to his commandments. And this is the
commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so
that you should walk in it. What is it? Love one another. If you keep my commandments,
you will abide in my love, just as you've kept my father's commandments
and abide in his love. See, I love it when I don't love
it. That's sarcasm. A lot of times people say, well,
see, people that aren't loving are lost. That's not true. The people who are lost and you
correct them in their unloving change. I mean, don't change. Unless you make that love obligatory. Unless you make that love tied
to their public image. Unless it's benevolence and altruism
and other things. There's nothing wrong with those things. God
uses them. But it's not Christ. So the love of God inspires us
to love and to rest and to live. But it also compels us to love
each other in the same way. This is the driving force to
fulfill God's commandments joyfully. John would say in his first epistle
that the commandments of God are not a burden to the believer. That's why marriage is such a
perfect picture of the gospel. But it's so backwards today. For 500 years, it's been so backwards
for maybe a thousand, maybe for 2000. I mean, non-Christian marriages
are lasting exponentially longer and more fulfilling than Christian
marriages today. There's a reason. And it's not what you probably
are thinking. Husbands love your wife as Christ
loved the church and gave himself up for her. You know what's not
a part of that instruction? The husband. It's not about what we want,
what we need, what we desire, what we deserve. I mean, our 28th anniversary is
coming up. Y'all's too. That's a long time, but it seems
like it's just been a few days sometimes. But if we focus on the ugh, goodness,
oh, that's tough, it feels like a century. You focus on the willful affection
and the framing of why we love and that we choose to love each
other. It just. You feel like newlyweds. Love. Your wife, as you love
yourself. There's a practical, friends,
when we get to chapter two, every bit of it's practical. I don't know how many, but I
mean, there's at least a dozen practical commandments given
to the church through this letter. How are you going to do them? Out of an obligation to do what's
required, or out of a motivation That's an expression of your
love for God because of his love for you. Thus would be an expression
of your love for someone else. There's a misunderstanding of
love and grace. In Galatians five, Paul says
that the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your
neighbor as you love yourself. But if you show partiality, James
says, you're committing sin and convicted by the law as a transgressor. Well, I'm not partial. Yes, you
are. Yes, I am. James, you're partial. You can't get away from it. Some
of us are partial because of economics. Some of us are partial
because of politics. Some of us are partial because
of academics. Some of us are partial because
of gender or sex or addiction. Can't tell you
the number of times people have looked at me like I'm an idiot
because I have a Southern accent. I need to go hang out in California.
I need to go to Boston for a couple of weeks. I'll come back, I'll
have that thing, it'll be gone. Imagine a twangy Boston accent. We do share partiality. And then
when those things become our way of feeling alive and feeling
purposeful and having meaning, If someone doesn't feel those
things, then we hate them. How do we know we hate them?
The greatest example of hate is to be indifferent. I'm going
to say that again. I'm going to say it very slowly.
The greatest example of hate is to be indifferent towards
someone, is to just not care. And that's a willful choice. Because our emotions are ours
to conquer in Christ. Not the other way around. And
I hate saying that because I don't have time to unpack the application
there, so it makes you feel guilty. And then you're obligated again
to change. And then you're motivated to do something out of a fear
of not being loved by the Father or being good enough for someone
else, maybe even me. I don't know. Then we're back
to square one. What do we do? Burn it all down.
Let's go home and shoot some pool. We've got to pray. That's what
we do. And above all these things, Paul
says to the Church of Colossae, put on love. I love how he puts
this, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Everything together in perfect
harmony. I love musical metaphor because
an orchestra is vast in its talents, and vast in its sounds, and vast
in its time on the page and in the air. I mean, you may have
an instrument that just plays like four measures out of 400,
but it's important to the piece. And you may only love in a certain
way, or you may not be able to play certain things right now.
You may only have a little harmony that you found. If you played
it by yourself, it'd be like, oh, that sounds dumb. But oh,
when it's missing, the conductor hears it. When it's missing from the body,
the body feels it. Even though they don't know the
lick, they don't know the tone, they don't know what's missing,
they know something is. Paul uses that same metaphor
of musical instruments over in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. He
says, if we don't have love, and even if we speak in amazing
tongues of men and angels, I'm just a gong or a clangy cymbal. It's like one time in a rehearsal,
a dress rehearsal, as a matter of fact, and we're playing the
planets. Good stuff. And somebody knocks over a cymbal
in the middle of a quiet part of Uranus. You can't say Uranus
anymore. And it ruined it. It's like,
what is that noise? Well, that noise 16 measures
later is necessary, but when it falls on the ground in the
wrong spot, it's out of place and it jars everybody and we
jump and we don't know what's going on. And the piccolos start
throwing things. They've lost their minds because
they're always on edge anyway. I mean, you know that noise. No, love bears all things. Love
believes all things, love hopes all things, love endures all
things. In first Corinthians 13, it goes on to say now faith,
love, hope, abide these three, but the greatest of these is
love. See, beloved love. is acting out of our nature because
of our focus on whose we are and how God loves us. We are
able to love because we have been loved. Not because we feel
like loving, not because we want to love, but because we are loved. We want to do what pleases Him. Not so that He'll love us. We
do what pleases God because He does love us. Because He loved
us actively, willfully, decisively. He loved us. He gave His Son
for us. That is what love is. Giving
someone for someone else. And who do we have to give? We
have our life. Beloved, if you can do nothing
else, pray for the ones you love. That is love. Pray for the ones
you love. And sometimes people get to a
place they don't want you to pray for them. They don't want to
hear the Bible. You don't have to talk to them to pray for them.
You don't have to invest in that. You don't have to pursue that
breaking that emotional boundary. The God of heaven can do it.
And if you can't love, pray for yourself. Pray. Knowing that you've been ransomed
out of the darkness of your mind, knowing that you've been given
a an inheritance that is greater
value than all the cosmos. And recognizing that God's love
cannot be earned. It is actively and eternally
at work for us, providing and proving himself every day. And when we love, we loved and
we love beloved. Let me say this in closing. We
love in failed ways. We love in failed ways. But Christians
have a higher standard. We don't throw our hands up and
go, I just can't do this. We have a higher standard, not because
we're supposed to do it, because we want to do it when we focus
on the love of God for us. We want to help. We want to do
what makes others joyful. And when they expect that from
us, we have an obligation to go, I love you because I choose
to love you, not because I have to. I say that to Robin a lot
and to the kids. I don't know if they get it.
The kids, that is. But it's okay. It's the way we frame it. So, beloved, before we can put
away malice and deceit, Before we can long like infants for
pure spiritual milk, to grow up into salvation, to taste and
see that the Lord is good, we have to know the love of God
and be reminded of it and rest in it. Let's pray. We thank you,
Father, for the day, for the greatest day of our life, this
day, the only one we have. And so, Lord, as we continue
to worship, to take the table, to sing, May we do so because
of your love. May we respond to the love that
you've given us. And Father, help us to see that
although other things in life are important and vital, they
are not ultimate. So help us to keep our focus
and our gaze on what is truly ultimate. The life and death and resurrection
of Jesus Christ for us, your love for us manifested to us. that we may live and be motivated
therein. In Christ's name we pray, amen.