Remember when we read the Bible
that context is king. And that's really when we're
interpreting anything. From conversation, to body language,
to assertion, to politics, any writing, there's a context there.
And if we don't know the context, we don't know the meaning. We
don't know the meaning. We see someone out in town and
it's really easy, you know, having had a large family. And when
you have your family, you feel like you're, you know, at home,
you're thinking these kids just don't and then you get out in
public, you know, these are the best kids ever. You know, because you see
the fits of rage and the I mean, Robin and I saw a young boy probably
four years old slap his mother several times at a restaurant.
And I'm thinking and there's not a murder scene in here. Yeah.
And the father said something to the child, and the child slapped
the father. And the father's like, let's just leave him alone.
I mean, I'm gone. The next week, if it had been
us, we'd be like, what child? We never had a child. At the same time, I've seen people
be unruly and rude, children, adults, and then later find out
that what they were going through in their life that very moment
It didn't excuse their behavior, but it sure did explain it. There's
a context. And sometimes our judgments are
in error because we don't understand what people are going through.
And I believe the centerpiece of empathy allows us to consider
the probability or the possibility that when we see something that
is off, there might be a reason. There might be a reason, not
an excuse. I don't believe in excuses. I believe in understanding,
being known, the good and the bad. And I don't know how long it's
going to take us as a church family to get to where it becomes
innate versus just the discipline of practicing such ideas in our
minds. And I pray that it can be, but
when it comes to the Bible, we can start there. We can start
there knowing there's a context. knowing that this letter, though
it's written to the Jews of the Dispersia by the Apostle Peter,
it is written for us. Mike said that last week as he
preached over at Jesse's. Might not have been to us, but
it's definitely for us. It's definitely for us. And so
the context here, as a way of reminder, everything we read,
we need to remember, there are thousands and thousands of people
who once were embedded in the religious prosperity of a culture
that kept them in bondage. At the particular time, first
century Judaism, under the Pharisees, under Roman rule. So to have
a religious oversight without political influence in a position
in that context is impossible. Well, they should have just,
no, you don't stand up to Rome. I mean, the only way to stand
up to Rome is put your head on the block. That's it. So we don't know what
it's like. There wasn't the First Amendment
and the Fourth Amendment. And even now that there is one, those
are violated every day. Laws are just things on paper.
They can't make anyone do anything. And so these people, these thousands
of people have lost everything. I mean, the closest that I can
come to in realizing what it must be like is to think of these
incredible natural disasters. But State Farm is there. But
you're never alone, right? You've got the community next
to you who's coming in to lend a helping hand. Yeah, you lost
it all. You might even have lost family. And I think, well, maybe
like COVID. Imagine if COVID, and especially
2021 for us, when the majority of the people that I know began
to die. Imagine had there been disaster and then invasion on
top of that and Then we none of us had anything anywhere not
even food to eat We didn't even know if we were going to be able
to brush our teeth that day Now you might think well that's not
really the worst it's the worst of it I Mean a guy like me not
being able to brush his teeth is better than death is worse
than death I Mean I'm being funny, but there's that there's some
reality in that there's some things that there's a context
that And these people were suffering. I mean, you think about it, husbands
and wives and children, elderly parents and grandparents that
they cared for with no possessions, nothing. And they were gone.
They were nomadic for the first time in hundreds of years, leaving
everything behind, walking around in the wilderness, wondering.
Oh my goodness, is this like the Exodus? We heard the stories. Remember how Gramps used to tell
us about the Exodus and Moses and we learn it in Tabernacle
every week. We heard the stories. Is this
what it is? Has God brought us out here to
die? Have we been abandoned? Well, the only difference in
the Exodus and the dispersion was that not everybody was put
in the dispersion. Not everybody decided to stand
with Christ. Some people are like, yep, that's
on you. Remember in John's gospel where Jesus heals the man born
blind? And everybody knew that he was blind. His parents, of
course, knew that he was blind. But the context of their life
was so embedded in the reality of what it meant to be part of
temple worship. And they knew that if they even
breathed the wrong way, or said the wrong thing, or wore the
wrong outfit, or sneezed in the wrong time during a worship service,
that it might cost them their very livelihood. And so when
Jesus healed their son and told him to go show himself to the
chief priest, and the chief priest, furious, they call this man's parents
in and said, Is this your son? Yep. Well, as amount of testimony,
under law, was he born blind or is he a shyster? They weren't
going to stand with their son. They said, he's a grown man. He can speak for himself. It's
not our dog and it don't hunt here. And imagine that, thousands and
thousands of people who not only have lost everything, Sometimes
they lost each other Imagine a spouse a wife saying I'm not
going and my kids aren't going I'm staying here You just go
and Half the family leaves or husband saying yeah, I'm not
gonna be a part of that I've got I've got a career here and I've
got things going on We're not gonna follow this Jesus freak
out out out into the wilderness. We're not gonna be like this.
I and parents. I mean, doesn't Jesus say that?
He says very clearly in the Gospels, I did not come to bring peace
but a sword, that I will set husband, wife, he actually says
father, son, mother, daughter, different actually, alternating
things, you see what I'm saying. Doesn't matter what, he basically
said I came to separate things, that I, in and of myself, as
the living Word of God, as the Son of God, as the Lamb of God,
Because of the way the Father has sent me into this world,
I am going to cause friction. I am going to cause pain. So this idea that following Christ
is just this bed of roses, buddy, lay down in a bed of roses and
see what you get. There's a context. These believers were dispersed
and they were facing trials that you and I could not fathom. Yes,
our trials are equally as traumatizing and as hard and as difficult,
but it's not the same context. It's not that it's even worse.
Like I say, if a child thinks there's a boogeyman under the
bed and somebody literally busts in your front door with a machete,
the fear is equal. The rationale may not be. It
doesn't diminish the fear of someone else, even though it
may be unjustified. So today, as we looked at this
introduction over seven, eight weeks, and last week we looked at the blessedness of God, today
I want to focus on something that I almost overlooked. And
in my reading on Monday and Tuesday, just reading through this again
and again and again, I thought, wait a minute. There's an emphasis
here that Peter puts here. Listen to what he says, blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According
to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living
hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. To an
inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept
in heaven for you, who by God's power being guarded through faith
for a salvation. ready to be revealed in the last
time. In this you rejoice. So in that
little nugget there, verses three through five, we see something
that should resonate with us. If we just pause for a moment
and we think of the context and we say, okay, these people have
lost kin, they have lost family, they've lost relationships. And
I don't know, not because we've been dispersed into other parts
of the world or that we've gone through disaster or persecution
to the point that this has happened to us, but we have lost relationships
in our lives. So it is very, very relevant
to us and our suffering. The context is different. It's
the boogeyman under the bed for us, but it's still there. It's
still hard. It's still very destructive. It's traumatic. Sometimes we dismiss people's
pain and we dismiss people's trauma because the thing that's
supposedly causing the trauma seems so insignificant to us
because we just don't, just don't bother us. Our men's group yesterday,
some of us were sharing about, you know, before we really fell
in love with our animals, it didn't really bother us. You
know, oh, sad, it died. And all of a sudden we get that
one that dies. It's like, why am I crying? What's this crap
coming out of my face? What's going on here? Have I
lost my mind? There's a context. But it's been
easy, it was always easy for me to dismiss the idea that somebody
could love something that couldn't talk to them or wash the dishes,
you know, and I'm being funny, until it happened to me. So your pain and your suffering
is real, no matter how silly it may be to someone else. No
matter how illogical or irrational, And what you're going through
is important to your Heavenly Father. And I think that's why
Peter emphasizes this relationship, this familial picture that we
see, that they had lost everything. They had lost many and every
one. They had lost everything they'd
ever worked for. They forfeited their future.
They forfeited their retirement. They forfeited their inheritance.
They forfeited their fathers, their mothers, their children.
They're spouses sometimes. And so now with that context,
listen to these words one more time. Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Just stop. That's where we're
gonna be today. Our Lord, Jesus, the Messiah,
the Christ, the one that came from God, our Lord, according
to His great love and mercy has caused us to be born again. You ever felt that way? You ever
felt wish you could just start over, have a new life, a different
life, go back, do it all over again, wish you were part of
another family, another circumstance, another relationship? Ruminating on that kind of stuff
is one of the largest errors of our cognitive function. If
we could deprogram our brains from contemplating the what-if
and the hypothetical, it would be fantastic. Because we do it
out of longing and regret when we think it would be better,
and we do it out of fear and anxiety if we think it would
be worse. So we're never going to win. And the reality of it
is, in God and His sovereignty as our Father, all things, all
good things come from Him. And all things come, he's the
father of light, he's not the father of darkness, not the father
of lies, not the father of failure, he's the father of truth, he's
the father of love, he is love. And the love of God cannot be
taken from us, he himself cannot take his love from us, for justice
is satisfied at the cross of Christ, forever and ever and
ever, and it has been. When Jesus said it was finished,
the record was abolished. And before there was time, it
was as good as done because the promises and the decrees of God
are yes and amen. Amen means it is so, it is true,
or so be it, whichever way you want to translate it. It is true. And all things work together
for good for those who love God and are called according to his
purpose. So in this, ask yourself now with these Christians, with
these Christians who were ethnically Jewish, historically Jewish,
and culturally Jewish, had lost everything. One of the greatest
things ringing in the ear of their soul is to hear that God
is their father who has an inheritance for them that cannot be taken,
that cannot be destroyed, and that cannot be diseased. And that no matter what they
do, no matter how hard it is for them, no matter how weak
their faith, no matter how invisible their hope. Remember, they can't
see them, but they believe. Keep the whole thing in your
mind. No matter how invisible their hope, they are being guarded
and kept in heaven by God their Father. So think about it. Oh, there's
so much. There's so much that I just want
to unpack here, but God's word is sufficient. The first thing
I want to look at today is I want to talk about the love of God. Now, you've heard about the love
of God probably many times. You've probably heard about the
love of God your whole life. But I'm here to tell you now,
beloved, that we don't grasp it. We don't grasp it. I have a fairly
decent palate, tastes. I love to taste rich food. And
I've gotten really good at picking out four or five different tastes
in the midst of a recipe. There are thousands. Now, of
course, there are only five, but, you know, specific tastes. Any of the chefs in the room
going, you're lying. OK. But think if you were eating
something that you're familiar with, that someone else cooked,
and there's something in there you just can't put your finger
on. What is that taste? But it's so amazing. It heightens
your senses. It's good to the tongue. It feels
good when you swallow it. I mean, do you eat like that?
I eat very mindfully. Very mindfully, unless I eat
like a prisoner, and then I just inhale it. That's usually like
a huddle house meal. That's an inhalation. That's
asphyxiation on food. But good food, I mean, slow down
and think about it. You can put your finger on certain
things, but you can't get all of it. You just like experience
it. The love of God is deeper than that. The love of God is
richer than that. And the worst thing that we've
ever done in Christendom, especially in academia, a place where I
would love to live all the time, is we have decided that we have
put the mantle out, and we have put pins in every aspect of the
love of God. Ah, we got this one. And we've
sort of dissected it in such a way. You know, a dissection,
you put pins. Okay, I know that's sort of gross. I can use it as
a map. We've mapped the love of God
then, and we put pins in every location. For those of you who
don't want to think about dissection. And then we've published those
findings and we've put them out, disseminated them into the world,
and now they're flowing through social media as if it is God's
gospel and self-revelation through the systematizing of some man
or woman and her hobby horse at 3 a.m. in their study. And they go, well, I never thought
about that. This is certainly how the love of God is, and it's
not. The love of God is deeper than
anything you could ever reach. We sing a song, oh, the deep,
deep love of Jesus. As children, we sang songs at
Vacation Bible School, you know, deep and wide. Remember that? Deep and wide, there's a fountain
flowing deep and wide. And if the motions, they've changed
through generations, you might get your eye poked out. You gotta
watch out. There's a fountain flowing deep
and wide. Of course, that's specifically talking about the blood, which
is why I don't know why some of you cringed when I said dissection.
I mean, we're standing here worshiping a God who destroyed his son and
crucified him horrifically. The word excruciate means out
of the cross, from crucifixion. And that's sort of joking. But the love of God is deep and
wide. The depths are unreachable. So the fool runs the race to
discover the depths and to reach the bottom. The lover dives in
and keeps sinking. The worshiper worships in spirit. and truth. And I'm going to be
in John 4 at the end. I didn't know I was going to
do that until after our men's group yesterday. I have to use
it. So the love of God. This blessed, praising God for
who He is and what He's done. The scripture talks about the
love of God. but there's something that I
want you to see in reference to the love of God for himself. In 2009, I preached a conference,
and I said these words, and I still stand behind them, is that God
loves himself more than he loves anyone or anything else. And that in and of itself is
really put in a pen somewhere it doesn't need to be put. But if you think about the most
worthy thing that is and that has always been, it's God. And
so if God has revealed himself as love, then shouldn't we see
him as love? And if God loves perfectly in
all ways, should he not be the one that he loves more? If He is worthy of all honor,
to be blessed above all things, and that is where our ultimate
joy comes from, does it not stand to reason that He's worthy of
His own love? But when we say that, we think
to ourselves, mm, that sounds sort of narcissistic. Get a little
mythological in here. Yeah, it would be, but the scripture
reveals it to us in this way. that the Father loves the Son.
The Father loves the Son without measure. And the Son, as we see
through the Gospels, loves the Father more than all things,
more than Himself. In John 17, you can go there
if you want, Starting well, I'm not gonna
start it. I'm just gonna read the text I want to see because
I don't want to take an hour doing that. This is where Jesus
is praying In verse 22 The glory that you
have given me I've given to them that they may be one even as
we are one I So if Jesus loves the Father, above all things,
he loves himself also. In them and you and me, so if
he loves us as he loves himself, he loves us deeply and completely
also. That they may become perfectly
one, so that the world may know that you sent me. And the world may know that you
love them in the same way that you loved
me. Father, I desire that they also,
whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my
glory that you have given me because you loved me before the
foundation of the world. Oh, righteous Father, even the
world does not know you. But I know you, and these know
that you have sent me, and I have made known to them your name,
and I will continue to make it known that the love with which
you have loved me may be in them, and I in them." So, settle your
souls. There's no narcissism in God,
because He loves you equally. Because there's no scale with
God in love. It's who He is. It's who He is. And I had like seven or eight
points expounding upon the love of God and everything that He
does in Scripture. And I thought, you know what?
Three years ago that conversation sort of turned the table. Let's
just accept it for what it is right now in this context. And call Him blessed. And praise
Him for it. And not just that, look at yourself
through this lens. But that's really the point that
Peter writes this letter for, so that they would look at themselves
through the lens of the love of God. The New Testament isn't
written so we can get right with God. What does that even mean,
get right with God? I saw that on a sign the other
day in Long County. Somebody paid to put it up on
the side of the road, get right with God while there's still
time. What, you owe him a dollar? I mean, what's up? I mean, did you not return the
drill you borrowed? I don't get it. What can you
and I do to get right with God? Nothing. That's the beauty of
the Good Report. It's been done. It's already
finished. Jesus Christ loved you in His life and in His death
and in His resurrection. So here's the big kicker and
here's the thing that's going to drive people who live under
a legalistic sovereignty or a legalistic grace. to the brinks of insanity
is that God is love and everything He says and does in any aspect,
in any sense, in everything throughout all of history is love. And if we don't like that, we
don't know Him. And it's okay because your doubt
is not an indicator of His promise. That's what we talked about yesterday,
by the way. Our doubting, our unbelief, our bad theology is
part of the journey of God in our faith. It is going to be
there. We must see that it coexists. God loves you, beloved. And you
can know that. And you don't have to have it
right. You don't have to like it all. You don't have to believe
it correctly. And that doesn't beg the question,
well, what about, I don't live in hypotheticals. I live in the
sovereignty of the truth of who God is. And I don't have to unpack
every opportunity for every breath mark and every language written
on papyrus to defend the truth that God
is love. And if he's not love, I got about
15 years of stand-up comedy that will serve us well today. Some of which that my wife told
me I'd have to step out of the ministry if I begin to tell.
This part of me is like, I want to try. But he is love. So we better hold to it and stick
to the task, right? We need to listen. We need to
think of God not as this sovereign ruler, but as a loving father
deeply involved in the lives of his children. God was with
them just like he was with the Jews in Exodus, just like he's
with you right now in the spirit. God is with you. You are not
abandoned. I was thinking, I hate titling
sermons, but you have to put something when you're streaming
instead of just message one. I mean, you know, nobody's going
to read that. And then you're going back and
you're like, well, what message was it? I don't know. But I've titled this sermon today,
You Are Not Abandoned. You are not alone and abandoned.
No matter what you're going through, no matter what you think, no
matter what you feel, no matter what you know about yourself,
you are not abandoned. Christ was abandoned, but he
wasn't abandoned. You think about Jesus in the
garden. loving the Father in everything He does, in every
word that He says, and the Father loving Him, and God loving us
in the same way. It's not a scale. It is. How
does God love us? He gave His Son for us. How does
God love us? He promises His presence. How
does God love us? He gave us His Spirit. How does
God love us? He holds us and guards us until
the day of resurrection. How does God love us? And the
list goes on and on and on. You are not alone. You need to
see that God is actively involved in your life right now in every
brittle, frail thought. I tried to imagine this week
what it would be like if it didn't have a narrative in my head.
And there are times when I don't, but it's very short-lived. Meditation,
focused. But it's, even when I'm asleep, there's
something thinking in there. What it must be like. if that
little voice was never negative. If that little voice never lied
about me. Does your little voice lie about
you? Yes, it does. How do you know? Because you
hear it. It's speaking. That little inside voice that
tells you that you're not good enough, that you're not worthy,
that you're a pathetic husband, that you're a pathetic wife,
that you're a terrible parent, that you're a horrible employee. Shoulda, coulda, woulda done
it worse. Shoulda, coulda, woulda done it better. I'll never be,
I'll never do, I'll never make, I'll never whatever. It's a reflection. I started another book yesterday
and this is the introduction to it. We look in the mirror
and we see something and that reflection speaks to us and that
question is what is it saying? Is it lying or is it speaking
what God has said? Now see this is a very, Trey
and I were talking about this the week before last. This is
very close to the edge of some of this babbled bull job nonsense
that we see in Christendom, right? That gets the seats full and
the coffers fuller. But we're not erasing this from
God's sovereignty or his gospel. Beloved, I think we live far.
I even heard one of the lines in the songs this morning that
we're a worm, right? And we joke about that. In the
context of righteousness, yes, but in the eyes of our Father,
no. But why do we emphasize the latter?
Why do we emphasize being the worm, being the terror? Because
that's what we do, that's what the human condition does. I mean,
Adam and Eve, before they fell into sin, listened to the voice
in their heads When the serpent, when the enemy, when the adversary
said, eh, there's more to this than meets the eye, you want
to see it. There's so much more. Look in
the mirror, Adam. Look in the mirror, Eve. You're
better than this. There's more to what you can
know. God is withholding some information. I mean, that's
why tabloids make billions of dollars. That's why news is 24
hours a day, 168 hours a week. Even the weather has its own
round the clock. The wind is blowing, the stars
are in the sky, and the sun is out. I mean, okay, great. I mean,
we want to know. We want information. We want
to know what's going on. We want to know what people are
thinking about what people are thinking about what people are
thinking about what somebody did. It's just something about it.
And so even in their innocence, they could not stand that inner
voice to think that they could be more than what they were created
to be. And they ate, and their eyes were open, and they were
naked, and they were ashamed, and they hid from God, and they
tried to reconcile that relationship and to get right with God through
their own understanding, and it did not work. But God's love
for them was greater than that. The eternal love between the
Father and the Son is a model for the reason the world exists,
that God's love would be manifest and revealed through his love
for his people in every way, that it's an impossibility for
us to find a way to stand before him righteously, but he had already
satisfied the means. He had already established the
means and satisfied righteousness. It's done. And so now there's
no condemnation for us. And this is a model for us in
life. It's a model for us in suffering, as we'll see here
this morning. It's a model for unbroken fellowship. It's a model
for perfect unity. This divine relationship between
God is not marred by imperfections. like we see in our relationships,
like we see in this world. Miscommunication, selfishness,
jealousy, betrayal. I mean, what is betrayal except
not meeting a need? We're all guilty. But the love of God is marked
by mutual glorification, mutual satisfaction. mutual joy,
mutual pleasure, self-giving love, and perfect unity. It's
not I, Jesus said, but the Father. I'm just seeing the works that
the Father does, and I'm just continuing to do them. This is transformative, beloved.
So when we get over into chapter 3 of 1 Peter, We couple that with Ephesians
5 in the cross-reference section. It's going to jar your spiritual
teeth. Because we don't know what love
is. And we need to learn it. And
by God's mercy, we're going to learn it. So there's a couple
of things I want us to see in application with this. We need to be in pursuit of mutual...
What's the word I want to say here? As human beings in every
relationship we have, because of the love of God, we need to
pursue mutual benefit. We need to pursue mutual uplifting. As long as it is called today,
what is it? Encourage one another. To what? Love and good deeds.
Not to brush your teeth, though that's an important thing, but
to love and good deeds. to love and good deeds. It's
to emulate a love that transcends our natural inclinations towards
self-preservation. You wanna know if you're following
in the spirit and living in the spirit, if everything you do
in the context of your relationship is about self-preservation, it's
not spiritual. I'll take a stab as a non-mental
health professional, I'd even say it's almost psychotic. And
that's what we do, isn't it? We do the very thing that's counterintuitive
to the very thing that we want. And it becomes self-fulfilling
prophecy. And then we listen to the lies
more and more, and then we start to see the lies unfold. I was
right! You're not right, you're just
building things. I mean, you make mud pies, they're
never going to win the Betty Crocker Award. It's never going
to win the Best Tasting Pie. It's trash. So let's look at
this. The reflective nature of the
divine love in human relationships. By His great mercy He has given
us new birth. He has caused us to be born again.
And I'm going to talk about the new birth next week in detail.
But in this context, think about it for a second. Here is our
Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, of the Lord Jesus Christ. We
see the love of God. We see how He is operating in
this way, that we know that the foreknowledge, the love of God,
and the sanctification of the Spirit, and the obedience to
Christ, and the sprinkling with His blood, we understand grace,
the love of God, and peace that has been brought to us, that
we are able to stand in the presence of God, not cowering, not covering
our heads, not bowing down on our face, But how do we approach
the throne of God according to the scripture? Bold. With confidence. I mean, when you go to your house
in the evening or whatever, you take a shower, bath, or whatever,
and you prepare for bed, and you walk into your bedroom, you
don't check the sheets. Maybe some of you do. You don't
check the sheets for pestilence. You don't make sure there's no
recording devices in there. like you would at an Airbnb.
You know, looking to make sure everything's kosher, getting
in. What was that noise? No, you just jump in. You're
just bold. You're confident. You know where you are. You're
comfortable. You go to bed. That's how we
need to approach the father. We know who he is. He knows who
we are. It's very familial. It's like going to your parents'
house. No matter how old I get, I go to my parents'. I just go
in. I'm not like dinging the doorbell. and you want something
to drink, you don't say, could I bother you for a beverage?
You just go make your drink. People come to our house after
a couple of months, you know, that's how we want it. Just stay
out of the bookcase, you can't have that. But it's human relationships,
I mean, We need to be comfortable, we need to be confident. We've
been born into the family of God by the Spirit. We're a new
person now, according to the look, according to the promise. We might not necessarily be a
new person emotionally or mentally or spiritually speaking in the
context of our maturity. That may never happen. And as
it does happen, it's going to ebb and flow and that scale is
not on the table. So we're not supposed to be comparing
ourselves. That's one of the biggest lies that I heard in
my younger adult years is with pastors that would say, well,
you know, I'm not where I want to be, but I'm not where I used
to be. That's not impressive. And these
people that said it never contemplated what they were saying. I get
it. I'm not perfect, but I have grown
some. That's what they should say.
But somebody like me, who digs into that and scratches it like
a dog in the dirt, and I'm thinking, that don't work for me. Because
what if I'm like maniacal all of a sudden? I'm not where I
want to be, but I'm not where I used to be. Well, I used to
be pretty nice and kind, and now I'm hateful. And I certainly
don't want to be there. You see, there's a context in
every person's mind, and it enables us to hear things according to
the way we hear it. There's a narration. There's
something happening. Beloved, the Word of God is so
simple, but yet so rich, that if we were just to read it in
this light, we will have a context that doesn't shift. When the
Bible says that God is not moved, that Christ is the same yesterday,
today, and forever, and he does not move in some sense, as we've
seen, he's cast no shadow. If we're going to navigate life
as Christians, the word of God is the only true standard. And
I say that very carefully because not the standard that I give
to you. I am not your resident expert
of biblical things. I'm not even the premier servant.
I just happen to be called to this and God knows I've wanted
to not be called to this and that is one of the biggest proofs
that you are called to this because you can't quit what God has called
you to Jonah. No matter how hard and no matter
how horrible. And it's fulfilling when we see
the right context. We need to consider that we've
been born again. We've been born by the Spirit.
We are part, not just of the family of God in an adoptive
sense, we've been recreated and born by the Spirit. God is our
genuine Father. Put that in there. See John chapter
five? Well, our father Abraham, and
Jesus says, hey, hold your flow there for a second, buddy. If
Abraham were your father, you would know who I am, because
before Abraham was, I am. And they picked up stones to
kill him, because he called himself the God of Abraham right then.
That's what that means. For an apologetic, if anybody
says, well, Jesus never said he was God, well, that would
be saying something less than what he did say. I mean, even
the judges in Israel were called gods. The highest of all, I mean,
that's whoever's sitting at the throne at the moment. But to
say that I am, that means he says he is the
God of Abraham, the God of Jacob, the God of
Isaac. He is Elohim. So I wanna encourage you. I want
to encourage you because you have this identity because though
you've been abandoned by the world or by your own mind or
by the circumstances, you feel lost. But you're not lost because
God is with us and God is with us in the way that He has promised
to be with us. You are His child. You've been
born into His kingdom. You've been born into His love
because of His love for you. So therefore, that changes the
way that we relate to other people, doesn't it? It should, it does
for me. It doesn't mean that I like it,
and it certainly doesn't mean that I do it, but it does always
ring true to me. So I need to encourage myself
to think about reflecting this new identity. As it was always taught to me
as a child, is to remember whose you are, not just who I am. Because quite honestly, I don't
know who I am half the time. And I've been discovering that over
the last few years. And yeah, sometimes you learn who you are,
you don't like it. You don't like who you are. But it doesn't change whose I
am. And that makes the world of difference
in who I am. This rebirth. reshapes our identity
and how we interact with the world around us, how we interact
in our homes, in our jobs, and in our communities, in our church.
It's a direct result of experiencing God's immense love. A love so profound that it necessitates
a response extending beyond just an acknowledgement. It causes
us to have to realize that we must embody this love in every
relationship that we have. I want you to know that. Think
about the context here. Think about what these people
have lost, now what they've been given. In a gospel sense, the scripture
would say that what we've been given is better than what we've
lost. How's that? I mean, look at Job. That's the
example, right? But it's not always as cut and dry and practical
as Job. Sometimes it is just purely where we are in our hearts
and minds is greater because we know now the sovereignty of
God in it. We can see the love of God. We can rest. What is
the greatest need of every human being? You want me to answer for you? To
be known. And to be loved for who they
are. That's it. Anyone who says that
love is not a need needs to come talk to me. Because that denies
what the scripture teaches about the image of God in us. To be known. What difference
does it make, you might say? Well, this personal realization
of God's love calls us to mirror this love. in our interactions,
in every relationship. Why? I've said it before, because
it demonstrates the grace we've received. It fosters an environment
of safety, an environment of acceptance, an environment of
healing, an environment of hearing. I mean, when did Jesus interrupt
anybody? We've got a couple of examples. But He never interrupted the
sinners. He never interrupted the broken. He never interrupted
the proud or the angry in any sense. He just interrupted the
self-righteous. And we're not Him, so we don't
even have that prescription. We're not supposed to interrupt
anybody. Love then begins, I believe,
at the most intimate level. It begins with the Lord. In chapter
4, like I told you, we're going to get there soon. Peter says, "...since therefore
Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same
way of thinking. For whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased
from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh,
no longer for human passions, but for the will of God." Now
that begs a lot, and we'll probably spend two or three weeks on that.
What is the will of God? For the time that is past suffices
for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality,
passion, drunk, orgy, parties, lawless idolatry. With respect
to this, they're surprised when you don't join them, when you
don't participate in these things. And that same Peter says, a flood
of debauchery. And then they malign you. But they'll give an account to
him who's ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is why the
good report was preached, even to those who are dead, that though
judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit
the way God does. The end of all things is at hand,
therefore be self-controlled, sober-minded for the sake of
your prayers. Be sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.
Above all, verse 8, this is what I was looking for, keep loving
one another earnestly. Above all, But yeah, we love
to put the emphasis on like cleaning up our lives and focusing on
certain things and being disciplined and walking in the spirit. This
is great, but the ultimate reality of being spiritual is above all
things, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers
a multitude of sins. That's what Peter says right
there. And I mean, I don't know how
many times I've pulled out the reprise of 1 Corinthians 13 and beat
that drum. It should constantly, I mean, I don't like that text,
it's not like profound, like, yeah, that's awesome, I much
prefer something out of Thessalonians, you know, but 1 Corinthians 13
is really the text. It's really something we need
to be filtering everything through as a Christian. It just doesn't
hit the soul, you know, ah, yeah, I don't wanna be a nothing, clanging
cymbal, love, oh, come on. But it's a humility, right? That's
what love's all about, a humility. So it begins at the most intimate
level. What is earnest love? It's a
deep and genuine love that's capable of forgiveness and grace.
It's capable of walking with someone else who has hurt us,
who has changed their mind and made changes, and we can continue
to walk with them. We can continue to love them.
And Peter didn't write, I mean, it didn't come out of his mind,
he didn't create that idea over in verse 8 of chapter 4. I mean,
the Proverbs wrote it, 10-12, love covers all offenses. 1 Corinthians
13, as we've talked about. So earnest love in practical
ways can be forgiving someone who hurts you, forgiving a family
member, helping a friend without trying to get something in return.
Showing appreciation for those who have done things for us in
our lives, our parents, our mentors, our spouses, even our kids. We need to embody love that forgives
repeatedly. Because if we're not doing that,
nothing else we do in the way of love matters. It's just a what? Clanging cymbal
or a noisy gong. Or is it the other way around? And I hate that because I don't
want to make light of when we do love and we're trying. That's
okay. But let's try with the knowledge and the context of
knowing that it's never going to be perfected. So what is the most
important? The most important is not leaving
people on the hook of unforgiveness because unforgiveness harbors
bitterness inside of us and friends, we can't see it. So we react
and respond in certain ways with certain people in our lives that
we haven't forgiven because we're like, well, I forgive them. But
if we haven't forgiven them, it will impact the way we love
them. And if we have forgiven them, even though we might not
think we want to actively love them anymore, when we do forgive
them, we will love them because it will be drawn to that. We'll
be compelled to that. And that's vulnerable. That's
terrible because we get hurt, right? Yeah, God's love for us
hurt Him. And then at the end of it, we
spit in His face, He saves us anyway. And then at the end,
what are we going to do? Mutual glorification. Not, hey,
look at me, I'm Jesus, which He well deserves and can say,
bow down to me. No, look at me, now be like me,
now look like me, now share the glory with me. Walk with me,
stand with me, walk with the Lord in the cool of the day. Get your eschatology right. It
means in time studies. We're not going to be worms,
groveling at the feet of Christ, though that would be fine with
me. Holy, holy, holy, the angels can deal with that. We get to
stand up there with him. One flesh. Perfect. So love starts at the
most intimate level. I mean, if we can't love ourselves
and our spouse and our children and our church, we got no business
trying to love the world. Because we're not loving the
world at all. Usually what we do when we become altruistic
or benevolent, try to love the world, we're trying to compensate
for the fact that we can't love those closest to us. including
ourselves. And if we can't love ourselves,
then we need to be reminded about the love of God for us. So then we expand that love to
the church and the community. As each has received a gift,
I'm over in chapter 4 again, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as
good stewards of God's grace varied Whoever speaks is one
who speaks oracles. Whoever serves is one who serves
by the strength that God gives, in order that in everything God
may be glorified through Christ, to Him being glory and dominion
forever and ever. So we do it all for Him, right?
And in that doing, we love Him. In that loving for others, we
love Him. There's many gifts sitting here.
There's many gifts listening to this sermon. There's many
gifts in the homes that we live in. There's many gifts in this
community. The question is, are we going
to come together and share those gifts? And people ask me, what do you
need? And I gotta list the things that I need. I mean, things that
I need desperately. And I never really think about
them until like a day later. But the greatest need, and I've
said this and it sounds so spiritual, but it's so hard for me to confess
this to you, the greatest need I have in my life and the life
of my family is your prayer. If you would commit to praying
for one another, all this other stuff's gonna come together. Because the time and the labor
that we spend in trying to fix life. Let me say that again. The time and the labor that we
spend in trying to fix life, the emotional and mental energy,
the spiritual bankruptcy that comes from our trying to fix
these lives could be well spent serving each other if we would
just pray. If we would just be in fellowship
for an hour and a half a week. to see each other's face, to
receive the benefits of this teaching as we're able, and to
pray for one another, we would be amazed as we look in the mirror
at the end of a season of prayer and see what comes back. We'll be unrecognizable to our
inner voice. Then when we get this church
and community stuff, then, oh my goodness, Then we can begin
to think about the world at large. Then we can think about missions
and evangelism. But that is tertiary. That is
third. And it's not all at the same
time. It's a level of building and a level of going. Beloved,
it is okay. Jesus circled himself with 12
and escaped daily and hid from them. pray and to recharge Jesus
was an introvert and Jesus had mental anxiety
and emotional anguish and fear so anyone that tells you that
anxiety is is something that only like sinners get and things
of that nature people who don't have enough faith that's nonsense Oh Father, take this cup from
me. As blood poured from his forehead. Then we can go out. I want us to think about something
now. Remember I said I was gonna go to John four. The woman at the well in John
chapter four. I want you to see what the love
of God does for us in such a way that we need to leave this place
today as we go into our fellowship and take the table. We need to
see this. This encounter with Jesus, I
read this narrative this morning at the beginning of the service. This illustrates the depths of
God's love. Despite her past, Despite where she was, despite
what type of person she was known to be, Jesus spoke to her. Not in an attempt to change her,
get her to figure things out, or to make her look better, or
to save her in the sense of the public eye, or clean her up. He didn't approach any of that
stuff. He offers her living water, because
she's thirsty. more than just the water that
she needed to cook with and bathe with and drink and serve her
family. If she had one, I don't even know that she had one. But she went out to this well
because of the shame, because of what was known about her in
public, because of what was said about her in public. She came
to this well at the heat of the day because she couldn't come with
the other people. Because she couldn't face the
internal narrative that she was a piece of trash. And so Jesus offers her living water. First, knowing
her more than she knew herself, he says to her, can I have something
to drink? Which was a taboo. How are you
gonna get, why would you ask me that, Jewish man? Well, if
you knew who I really was, if you really knew me, you'd ask
me for water and I'd give you living water. I'd give you water
that you could never escape. Let me put it in the way that
I'm writing some poetry right now. I will drown you and you'll enjoy it. The positive side of drowning,
and I've written that, It's good. Not the poem, but the idea. To
be immersed, to be drowned in the love of God is good. Not
fighting for breath, not fighting to get back up to fix myself,
just to inhale and to embrace and to be embodied in the love
of God is good. Water that will well up to eternal
life. this gift of recognition, this gift of glory, this gift
of love, Jesus sees her for who she really is and loves her. And what does she do? The very
thing she feared, the very identity that she hoped no one would know,
He says, Woman, you are right when you say you have no husband,
for you have had five husbands, and the very one that you are
with this moment is not your husband. You have failed in trying to
quench your thirst in the sea of relationships and romance
and love. You have sought love in so many
ways, but the only way that you're going to stop thirsting is to
drown. The only way you're going to
stop gasping for breath is to suffocate in a love that you
can't escape. Now I find that glorious, and
I find that very beautiful. And it changes her so much that
the thing that she wanted to avoid, the shame, the anxiety,
the frustration, the empathy that she shared with others who
often were ridiculed or embarrassed. She leaves her water bucket and
she runs right back to Sychar and she says, I have met a man
that told me everything that I have ever done in my life.
Come see, could it be Messiah? Let's go. She runs to the people
who hate her and talk about her, who don't even know the whole
truth. And she confesses to them, I know somebody who knows more
about me than any of you ever will, and he loves me. And he
set me free. And no matter what you think
about me, it doesn't matter anymore because it's none of my business
because one that knows the whole of me loves me and offered me
water that would never dry up. Oh, I don't have to go to the
well with any of you people ever again because I'm eating and
drinking from the bread of life and the living water. And the
very thing that happens at the end of that discourse when she's
going into this place is that the disciples come back and they
speak not a word because they're freaked out that he is talking
with this woman. And then they say, hey, would you like a sandwich?
And he says, no, I have food that you know not of. Golly. And it's so much deeper
than I ever thought it would be. In this very moment, I see
it in such a clear picture. Not only is it the fact that
I am food, I am the living water, I am the bread of life, but my
sustenance, my filling, Jesus says, is to see the filling of
my love in the life of someone who needs it. Oh, God. My daughter there, my sister,
rather, my father's daughter ran to Zikar. Now imagine what
message that sent to the Jews. The Samaritan woman, the father
of God, the daughter of God, the brother of Jesus the Christ.
That set them on fire. She shared her life with these
people. She could see and love herself for the first time because
she could see the love of God for her. And that it didn't matter
what people knew about her because they couldn't love her like this. And so then she exposes herself
to them and she shares life with them, her newfound love in Christ.
She opened herself up to all scrutiny. Yet there was none that mattered
because she was secure in the love God had for her. What about
you? What about you? Beloved, that's
a very delicate place to stay. It's a very delicate place to
stay. But by God's power, you are being
guarded. And this promise, this inheritance is held for you in
heaven. My hope is that we can live it more abundantly today
than we've ever lived. And to see the love of God for
us in a way that we've never seen. Let's pray. Thank you for loving us, Father. Thank you for just settling our
spirit, bringing confidence to our mind. And the song of the hymn, Father,
that always comes to mind is that the things of this world
will grow strangely dim in the light of your wonderful grace,
or your glorious grace. And it surely is, because the
things that we labor over, supernaturally just sort of, they don't go away,
but they lose their teeth. And I thank you for that. Lord,
help us to see the power of your word today, and the power of
your love through it. Help us to pray for one another.
Lord, charge us, charge our households with being in the Word, to hear
the reading of the Word every day. It's such a simple thing. It's so easy. We have so much
time. We don't have to sit down and
study for hours, but Father, we can find the time to spend
half an hour a day, 10 minutes a day, two minutes hearing the
Word, knowing that through the hearing, you will heal us and
you will grow us. You will supply everything we
need. You will cause us to pray. You will help us to forgive. You will heal wounds. You will
bring closeness for ourselves and for others. And Lord, Your
Spirit will guide us. And we will know. We will know
You deeper and deeper and deeper. We pray these things in the name
of Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's take the table.