SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Refinery Church Sermon Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: We're so glad you've joined us today.
SPEAKER_01: Our prayer is that this message will help you grow in your pursuit to love and follow Jesus for life.
SPEAKER_01: If you'd like to learn more about the refinery, find ways to get connected, share a prayer request, or explore resources to help you grow deeper in your walk with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Visit us online at refineryohio.com.
SPEAKER_01: Now let's dive into today's message.
SPEAKER_02: So the other day, I was out trail running.
SPEAKER_02: And from behind me, I hear this lady yell, 91! I was not encouraged.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't first service.
SPEAKER_02: So first service, I didn't drop that joke because it the Spirit didn't drop it into my life, but he dropped it in my life for you.
SPEAKER_02: So I'm glad you responded well, because if not, I was like, I thought that was pretty funny.
SPEAKER_02: I thought that was pretty funny.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, it's been a great morning to be together.
SPEAKER_02: We love baptism.
SPEAKER_02: Um I love hearing the testimonies.
SPEAKER_02: One of the testimonies, first service.
SPEAKER_02: Uh there's a guy and he's here for AA meeting, and he heard some music playing in the worship center.
SPEAKER_02: Uh the team was, I think, rehearsing for Easter or something, because it's normally a Thursday night rehearsal.
SPEAKER_02: And so he kind of just peeked in and listened, and he's actually a part of our ministry team now on Sunday mornings uh in the rotation to play.
SPEAKER_02: And he's like, I maybe should check out church.
SPEAKER_02: And the Lord brought him back in that way.
SPEAKER_02: There's another one that family member said, Hey, you you should come to church.
SPEAKER_02: You should come to church, you should come to church, kept inviting to church.
SPEAKER_02: There's stories.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and I I just, man, I'm so grateful for how God reaches out to us in all the different ways.
SPEAKER_02: We had one other baptism that was supposed to take place this morning, but they had a family emergency, and so I was just texting with her, and so I said, Yep, we'll get you in the water uh soon.
SPEAKER_02: Just let us know anything we can do for you.
SPEAKER_02: And she said, if you'd pray for us, so so we'll we'll pray for her here in just a moment.
SPEAKER_02: Um and so, but it is, it's just so good to be together to celebrate those things.
SPEAKER_02: But let's pray for that one family right now.
SPEAKER_02: You don't know her specifically, but I told her we would pray, and so you'll pray with me.
SPEAKER_02: Father, we uh ask that you be with Jasmine and her family right now as they're just dealing with some stuff, navigating some things, and so thankful that they're getting the care they need, working through the stuff uh that's come up.
SPEAKER_02: And um, Lord, I I'm thankful that you're closer than we are, even.
SPEAKER_02: Uh Lord, if uh we become aware of other ways that we might tangibly meet needs and care for them and their family, uh help us to do that.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for all the baptism, all the stories, uh, all the stories of lives today.
SPEAKER_02: Might we honor you?
SPEAKER_02: It's in the name of Jesus we pray.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, one last thing before we jump into the message.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, this Friday night we have block party, and so this is honestly just an excuse to be together.
SPEAKER_02: Uh we'll be in the backfield of the church.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we have a bunch of inflatables for kids.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, there's free ice cream for anybody.
SPEAKER_02: Lil E's, I think, is what little ladies, little ladies.
SPEAKER_02: Lil E's is the only place from plain city.
SPEAKER_02: Anybody else remember that one?
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, that was a tough one to lose.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but little ladies are great, we'll have some food trucks, just a chance to come, to hang out, to connect with people, uh, play pickleball, whatever it might be.
SPEAKER_02: And so it's an easy invite to to church.
SPEAKER_02: Just say, hey, want to check it out.
SPEAKER_02: And if you've got a friend that they're like, I don't like church, I think they just take from you or whatever, but then come take ice cream for free and then leave, and you kind of stick it to the man, right?
SPEAKER_02: Um, so however it works, but we look forward to being together, and so we'd love to have you there.
SPEAKER_02: 6 30 to 8 30 or 6 to 8.
SPEAKER_02: It's one of those times.
SPEAKER_02: Just come at 5 30, you'll be fine, just in case.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but we're looking forward to being together.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, um, so people don't always have the same opinion on stuff.
SPEAKER_02: Have you noticed this?
SPEAKER_02: This kind of this kind of new is this new to anybody?
SPEAKER_02: You know there's different worldviews?
SPEAKER_02: And it no, okay, this is new information, right?
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna help you out.
SPEAKER_02: People have different thoughts, different ideas, um, understandings of reality, of how the world works, of how it should work.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and it can be highly contentious.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes like it's silly stuff, sports stuff, whatever, but sometimes like it's a really big deal.
SPEAKER_02: Cultural issues, social issues, political issues, economic theory.
SPEAKER_02: And people have these strong opinions on how it should work.
SPEAKER_02: And we don't always agree with one another.
SPEAKER_02: It can become a problem in your family, or holidays can be a little off, it can be a difficulty in school.
SPEAKER_02: How do I communicate?
SPEAKER_02: Communicate well, it can be hard in the marketplace or in your professional life because somebody says something, uh, do I say something back?
SPEAKER_02: Do I not?
SPEAKER_02: Like I gotta be careful.
SPEAKER_02: It's one of those things that, I mean, just neighbors, you know, can I put up this sign?
SPEAKER_02: Should I not put up this sign?
SPEAKER_02: What should I do?
SPEAKER_02: But it's important, like, we try and actually understand the perspective of other people.
SPEAKER_02: If somebody says something that you're like, man, I just can't imagine somebody would think that or believe that or hold to that ideal or that understanding, like it's super important then to say, hey, would you mind sharing how you got there?
SPEAKER_02: And so, and if they start to get defensive, because that's kind of how our culture trains us now, just say, Oh no, no, I'm not attacking, I'm just I'm legitimately curious, how did you land on that opinion?
SPEAKER_02: Like, tell me your story.
SPEAKER_02: A person's perspective, right, it's inevitably shaped by what they've learned, by their experiences, both good and bad, depending on the home they grew up in, depending on the work that they've done before, depending on economic challenges maybe they faced.
SPEAKER_02: I was listening to a podcast just this past week, and there was a guy, and he was raised uh overseas up until he was about 12.
SPEAKER_02: Both countries, his parents were missionaries, they had to leave both countries because civil wars broke out in those countries, and it's radically shaped the way he views the world.
SPEAKER_02: It's just a different perspective than you or I might have.
SPEAKER_02: But people have this range of opinions, perspectives, viewpoints, and I know I'm belaboring the point, I'm doing it on purpose.
SPEAKER_02: We need to be aware of this.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, each week, on every every Sunday morning that I speak, like I'm aware, hundreds of people I speak to from a such a diverse background.
SPEAKER_02: Your educational experiences, your workplace experiences, I mean, just ages in the room.
SPEAKER_02: Some have barely traveled around this sun a decade, others have, you've been around it a few extra times.
SPEAKER_02: Bless your heart.
SPEAKER_02: You know who you are.
SPEAKER_02: And so there's just a range of people.
SPEAKER_02: Your educational background, whether it was a good week, whether it was a bad week, some of y'all don't say y'all, and I don't understand that.
SPEAKER_02: But it's just one of those things.
SPEAKER_02: There's all these kind of things operating, and I know what happens because it's happened from time to time.
SPEAKER_02: I'll say something, and somebody's like, I disagree.
SPEAKER_02: I think he's wrong.
SPEAKER_02: And I always tell people, listen, if that happens, I would love for you to tell me because one of three things has happened.
SPEAKER_02: Either first, like I've just miscommunicated, or I communicated poorly.
SPEAKER_02: Or I made a side statement that didn't mean much to me, and it was just to get from one place to the next, but for you, it really kind of hung you up, and so it's like, oh man, I didn't think about it from that vantage point or that angle.
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate you making me aware.
SPEAKER_02: The second thing that could happen is you just misheard.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's just like, well, when you said this, you know, you must admit X, Y, and Z, it's like, oh no, I would have never actually even thought of that.
SPEAKER_02: And like, why would you think that?
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, oh, based on my life, I'm like, oh, I see how you got there, but that's that's not what I said.
SPEAKER_02: Or you got distracted by a text or a passage in the Bible and you heard half of the statement.
SPEAKER_02: The third thing that could happen, right?
SPEAKER_02: One, I maybe miscommunicate, two, maybe you misheard.
SPEAKER_02: The third, we just disagree fundamentally.
SPEAKER_02: But the reason I would love for you to tell me that is because it gives us a chance to grow.
SPEAKER_02: In the first case, like I can just become a better communicator, like, oh, okay, I've got to think through how I say those things.
SPEAKER_02: All right, yeah, I hadn't thought about that before.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't realize that that, you know, that expression work could work in that way.
SPEAKER_02: The second thing, right?
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it just gives you a chance to learn as to be a listener.
SPEAKER_02: Like, active listening is important.
SPEAKER_02: Like, we're both engaged in this process.
SPEAKER_02: But the third piece, even if we just fundamentally disagree with one another, how cool that we get to hear each other's perspective and try and figure out, hey, how'd you land there?
SPEAKER_02: What's your thought on that?
SPEAKER_02: Are you familiar with the uh blind men and the elephant parable?
SPEAKER_02: Anybody familiar with the blind men and the elephant?
SPEAKER_02: All right, a handful of us.
SPEAKER_02: So there's this story, and it goes, five men are blindfolded or they're blind, and they're placed before an elephant.
SPEAKER_02: And they said, Describe what's before you, and one is placed at the trunk of the elephant and describes the elephant like you'd describe an elephant's trunk.
SPEAKER_02: The other one's placed at the leg of the elephant and says, No, that doesn't make any sense.
SPEAKER_02: This is like a tree.
SPEAKER_02: This thing is powerful, and this is like a tree.
SPEAKER_02: The third one is placed at the body of the elephant and says, Well, that doesn't make any sense either.
SPEAKER_02: This thing's like a wall.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_02: That's not what this is.
SPEAKER_02: This is a wall.
SPEAKER_02: Somebody else is placed at the tail of an elephant, which I should have looked up what the tail of an elephant looks like, because I'm not 100% sure.
SPEAKER_02: So they described it like that, yeah.
SPEAKER_02: And they begin to debate with one another what's before them, thinking, you're you've got to be kidding me.
SPEAKER_02: You have no idea what you're doing.
SPEAKER_02: This is a tree.
SPEAKER_02: This is a wall.
SPEAKER_02: It's like a giant snake.
SPEAKER_02: That's not what this is, it's a tail.
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, because I don't know what to say.
SPEAKER_02: So in each case, they become more and more heat.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because they can't understand the vantage point of the other person.
SPEAKER_02: Now the question is, who's right?
SPEAKER_02: All of them.
SPEAKER_02: If all you know is the side of the elephant, it feels like a wall.
SPEAKER_02: If all you know is the leg of an elephant, it feels like a tree.
SPEAKER_02: If all you know it's a simple little story, and there's some wisdom in it.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes arguments or disagreements break out because we've just not fully understood the perspective of another person.
SPEAKER_02: That can happen.
SPEAKER_02: But sometimes our disagreements are because we're of something more.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's because we see different parts of the same thing, but this is in there's a hidden assumption in the story that all men are touching the same elephant, but what if they're not?
SPEAKER_02: At times, disagreements rooted in a need for greater understanding, but that's not always the case.
SPEAKER_02: What if we're not describing the same thing from different angles, but we have fundamentally different takes on what is real?
SPEAKER_02: What if we literally disagree, and it doesn't matter how much you see it from my vantage point or I see it from your vantage point, we just fundamentally see the issue differently.
SPEAKER_02: And so suddenly the question isn't, man, can I appreciate your perspective?
SPEAKER_02: The question becomes, like, what's true?
SPEAKER_02: How do I discern what is true?
SPEAKER_02: How do we determine what's true?
SPEAKER_02: I'd like to invite you to this morning to turn with me to the book of 1 John.
SPEAKER_02: We've been walking through 1 John, understanding more and more how we might be full followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: If you're not familiar with the Bible, it's Old and New Testament, 39 books in the old, 27 in the new.
SPEAKER_02: It's a library, an ancient library.
SPEAKER_02: In John, he's written the Gospel of John, first, second, third, John, and then the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_02: A couple quick notes, though, before we jump into it, we'll be in chapter 4, beginning in verse 1.
SPEAKER_02: When John talks about spirits here, don't think Disney fairies, don't think Ebenezer Scrooge and the spirits that are gonna visit him.
SPEAKER_02: Think something much more practical.
SPEAKER_02: What are people saying is true?
SPEAKER_02: People are claiming to speak for God or speak for truth.
SPEAKER_02: What is it that they're saying is true?
SPEAKER_02: So don't, he's gonna say, don't simply accept everything presented as true.
SPEAKER_02: Test what you hear.
SPEAKER_02: And this is the way it reads.
SPEAKER_02: It says, Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.
SPEAKER_02: Because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
SPEAKER_02: So it's not enough to just have good intentions.
SPEAKER_02: You can be well-meaning and still be wrong.
SPEAKER_02: I can be very well-intentioned, and man, I sought to convey something in as best of manner possible, and it was just wrong.
SPEAKER_02: It missed the mark.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 3.
SPEAKER_02: Or sorry, verse 2 first still.
SPEAKER_02: This is how you can recognize the spirit of God.
SPEAKER_02: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.
SPEAKER_02: But every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.
SPEAKER_02: This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which, again, we talked about last week.
SPEAKER_02: Some people hear that and they get wigged out, like, oh, I gotta figure out which political feeder leader or business leader or whoever is the Antichrist.
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_02: It's anybody who is anti-the things of God.
SPEAKER_02: Advocating for a way of treating people, of living in life, of engaging in the world in a way that is anti-the things of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And he's gonna go on to say this, which you have already heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
SPEAKER_02: You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them.
SPEAKER_02: Because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
SPEAKER_02: And remember what John means by the world here.
SPEAKER_02: The world in this sense is not for God so loved the world, that's just God loves all of humanity, right?
SPEAKER_02: It's written in Greek, Koinea Greek, common Greek of the day.
SPEAKER_02: And so words can mean different things.
SPEAKER_02: We've understood this before.
SPEAKER_02: But he's saying the world as it's framed in chapter two, broken systems, broken ways of viewing the world that lead to broken people.
SPEAKER_02: John's saying, make no place for that in your life.
SPEAKER_02: Because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
SPEAKER_02: Like, we don't rally up on Sundays, like, man, just hunkered down, been a tough week, just hang in there, we gotta go to heaven someday.
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_02: Like it's this sense of like, man, the Spirit of God is at work in our lives.
SPEAKER_02: We're not hiding, we're not fearful, we rally up, make sure we got the game planned, let's go live this thing out.
SPEAKER_02: Boldly.
SPEAKER_02: In our schools, in our workplaces, in our communities, when life is on the mountaintop and when we're walking in the valley.
SPEAKER_02: They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.
SPEAKER_02: We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us, but whoever is not from God does not listen to us.
SPEAKER_02: This is how we recognize the spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.
SPEAKER_02: We don't know exactly all the conversation unfolding in the first century that John's writing to.
SPEAKER_02: There was a heresy around that time called Gnosticism.
SPEAKER_02: People believe they had a special insight, a special knowledge of God, and they also believe that Jesus didn't actually become fully human, he was kind of partly human, so he didn't actually die, and there's some things that John is probably dealing with here.
SPEAKER_02: But the concept holds that there's a multitude of ideas and concepts, and people want to know so what do I actually listen to?
SPEAKER_02: And it's not a problem only in the ancient world, it's been a problem throughout all of human history.
SPEAKER_02: There's different theories, there's different ideas, there's different beliefs, and there's different philosophies and claims about what is true and how we should live.
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes people say, Well, your truth is your truth, I'll let my truth be my truth, but and that works as long as you don't apply any logic whatsoever.
SPEAKER_02: But as soon as you apply logic, and the truth I hold to is diametrically opposed to the truth you hold to, we either have to say that truth means nothing, or that, man, we have a tension here that we could wrestle through.
SPEAKER_02: And John, the whole text actually would invite us to wrestle through the tension.
SPEAKER_02: How are people to know what is true?
SPEAKER_02: John wants his to help his readers then, and so his letter can be a help to us today.
SPEAKER_02: He would invite us to ask this do the claims, do the beliefs, do the positions, does the thinking being advocated, does it actually hold up?
SPEAKER_02: Can it bear a little bit of scrutiny?
SPEAKER_02: Does this for John, in fact, what he would want to say is, does this align with what God has revealed in Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: Um, at times, like as a pastor over 20 years now, I've heard people say, well, the Bible doesn't actually say anything about that, so you just have to, this is what I believe or hold true.
SPEAKER_02: Well, the Bible doesn't actually have anything to say about, and they'll say some kind of huge cultural or social issue as if it's just like God forgot to mention that one.
SPEAKER_02: And so we get to figure it out.
SPEAKER_02: For John, Jesus is the measuring point for discerning truth.
SPEAKER_02: So if we want to understand truth, we look to the life of Jesus, we look to the teachings of Jesus, and Jesus points us to the whole of Scripture.
SPEAKER_02: And here's what I would contend: the principles of Scripture speak to the big issues of our day.
SPEAKER_02: Did you guys know that there's currently a conversation taking place around the issue of human sexuality, and there's some disagreement in our world?
SPEAKER_02: Did you, were you aware of this?
SPEAKER_02: Anybody?
SPEAKER_02: Few of you.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible speaks to this issue.
SPEAKER_02: Did you know there's some conversation taking place today around like the issue of marriage and how to understand it and what it's meant to be and how it looks?
SPEAKER_02: And the Bible speaks to this very issue.
SPEAKER_02: Did you know the Bible speaks to things like life?
SPEAKER_02: How to steward and manage the environment?
SPEAKER_02: The Bible speaks to economics.
SPEAKER_02: It's not one of those things where God's like, listen, just confess Jesus as Lord, put a few bucks in the plate, pray, read the Bible every now and again, and we'll sort it all out in heaven.
SPEAKER_02: And big stuff you're gonna have to figure out on your own.
SPEAKER_02: No, God says, look at Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Look at the life and the teachings of Jesus, and then run everything through that filter, through that lens, so that you might discern what is true.
SPEAKER_02: If we look at the life and teachings of Jesus, then we can look at how to live well in our world today in all spaces.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, if you would say, man, I I disagree with you here, Lana, there's some stuff that the Bible has nothing to say whatsoever, and they are major issues in our world today, I would be happy to have coffee with you.
SPEAKER_02: You can bring up any issue you want.
SPEAKER_02: I won't point you a chapter and a verse necessarily, but we'll talk about does this does the text speak to this at all?
SPEAKER_02: And I've yet to find something that's a significant issue that this text won't weigh in on.
SPEAKER_02: So the work of the church is to make immature disciples of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: The way we get this is the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus said, Go into the world, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, right?
SPEAKER_02: We've continued this practice for thousands of years, this idea of dying to self, being raised a new life in Christ, and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you.
SPEAKER_02: In other words, we're to be formed or we're to be shaped by a Christ-centered way of living.
SPEAKER_02: The way of Jesus, the cross, is to shape us.
SPEAKER_02: Because we're all being shaped, we're all being formed by someone or something, and so we want to be intentional about this work.
SPEAKER_02: So a disciple then is someone who spends time with Jesus to learn from Jesus how to be like Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And when we do that, John is saying we can know what is true and what is good in our world.
SPEAKER_02: It's not a guess.
SPEAKER_02: It's not one of those things where my kids will say, Hey, hey, Dad, what do I do about X, Y, or Z?
SPEAKER_02: No, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02: Just try and figure it out best you can.
SPEAKER_02: That's bad parenting.
SPEAKER_02: Like, let's wrestle through this.
SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
SPEAKER_02: How'd you land there?
SPEAKER_02: What can we believe?
SPEAKER_02: What can we hold to?
SPEAKER_02: And we have a good father who doesn't just leave us out on our own to try and figure things out.
SPEAKER_02: God says, hey, look, look to Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Read a little bit further with me.
SPEAKER_02: 1 John 4, 7 through 11.
SPEAKER_02: So we've got this tension, we've got this difficulty, we recognize there's all these viewpoints, and so we're to advocate for truth.
SPEAKER_02: So then what?
SPEAKER_02: Verse 7, down through 11.
SPEAKER_02: Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.
SPEAKER_02: Well, I thought we were just talking about truth.
SPEAKER_02: We are, 100%.
SPEAKER_02: We're to seek after truth.
SPEAKER_02: How?
SPEAKER_02: Love.
SPEAKER_02: We should be truthful, we should be honest with each other, we should seek truth to know what is truth.
SPEAKER_02: But how?
SPEAKER_02: Love.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes people have made the decision, well, I listen, I don't care how people feel.
SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm just gonna proclaim the truth, I'm gonna speak the truth, doesn't matter what they think.
SPEAKER_02: That's not what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_02: Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.
SPEAKER_02: Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
SPEAKER_02: Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love.
SPEAKER_02: But I know all the truth claims, but do you love?
SPEAKER_02: Because if you don't love, the Bible says you don't know God.
SPEAKER_02: If I don't love, the Bible says I don't know God.
SPEAKER_02: But I know all the truths, but I can't live out the truths without love.
SPEAKER_02: This is how God showed his love among us.
SPEAKER_02: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
SPEAKER_02: This is love.
SPEAKER_02: What's love?
SPEAKER_02: People debate what love is today.
SPEAKER_02: This is love.
SPEAKER_02: Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
SPEAKER_02: Dear friends.
SPEAKER_02: Since God so loved us, do you recognize the tension?
SPEAKER_02: Like in what John's right?
SPEAKER_02: Like, friends, listen, listen, listen.
SPEAKER_02: Like I'm for you.
SPEAKER_02: I'm with you, like I care about.
SPEAKER_02: Dear friends.
SPEAKER_02: Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
SPEAKER_02: As we wrestle through what it means to follow God, what ideas, what philosophies, what beliefs, what understandings are true, and those that are not.
SPEAKER_02: The inevitable tension that will arise, the inevitable difficulty that can come about, make sure you anchor yourself in love.
SPEAKER_02: The overriding concern for the practical application of how to actually live out what John is saying is love.
SPEAKER_02: But it's not love without any sense of meaning.
SPEAKER_02: The followers of Jesus believe love is revealed in the life and the teachings of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, what is love after all, right?
SPEAKER_02: There's so many songs, there's so many stories, there's so many poems.
SPEAKER_02: Well, love, I mean, you can't really define it.
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's just whatever you experience, or no, that's no.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe if you're in middle school, you can slide with that.
SPEAKER_02: Middle schoolers have all been dismissed, right?
SPEAKER_02: Love comes from God.
SPEAKER_02: We're invited to love because God loved us first.
SPEAKER_02: God sets the parameters then and the understanding for what love is and what love is not.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you've you've known somebody, right, before, where it's like, hey, that's not okay.
SPEAKER_02: It's like, no, it's okay, he loves me.
SPEAKER_02: No, that's not what love is.
SPEAKER_02: It's not only okay to draw boundaries, in fact, it's life-giving.
SPEAKER_02: Notice how love is revealed by God.
SPEAKER_02: Love is not set in what God wanted or desired in some selfish way.
SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, the heart wants what the heart wants.
SPEAKER_02: No, love is revealed in how God sacrifices on behalf of people.
SPEAKER_02: We're then called to love people in the same way God loves us.
SPEAKER_02: We're not to love rooted in base desires.
SPEAKER_02: We're to love rather through service and to sacrifice for others.
SPEAKER_02: That's how God loves people, after all.
SPEAKER_02: Look with me again.
SPEAKER_02: John 1, 4, 16, the second half through 17.
SPEAKER_02: God is love.
SPEAKER_02: Whoever lives in love, lives in God, and God in them.
SPEAKER_02: This is how love is made complete among us, so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment.
SPEAKER_02: Once all this thing is done and everything's worked out, this is how we can stand with confidence.
SPEAKER_02: In this world, we are like Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: I've heard people say, it's like, well, I'm not Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: I'm supposed to be like him.
SPEAKER_02: Return to that concept from earlier.
SPEAKER_02: So, how do we navigate the inevitable tensions that arise because people have vastly different thoughts, different beliefs, different viewpoints, different philosophies on life?
SPEAKER_02: Well, John would say there's two things that are critically important.
SPEAKER_02: They're to kind of form cornerstones for our lives.
SPEAKER_02: We're to embrace truth and love.
SPEAKER_02: We're to be full of truth and we're to be loving.
SPEAKER_02: In all things.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but these things really matter.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, I gotta just tell somebody, but it's like, yeah, are you being loving about it?
SPEAKER_02: Being loving is being truthful.
SPEAKER_02: It's not a loving thing to be dishonest.
SPEAKER_02: It's not a loving thing to bury stuff down.
SPEAKER_02: You would never never tell somebody you care about.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, just bury that truth deep in your life.
SPEAKER_02: Suppress those emotions.
SPEAKER_02: So, how do we go about discerning truth?
SPEAKER_02: In a world full of different opinions, full of different ideas, full of different theologies, ways of understanding God, and what God would have.
SPEAKER_02: John would say it's Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Look at the life, look at the teachings of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And will I submit to what he says and what he does?
SPEAKER_02: How are we supposed to understand then how we love such a wide range of people from such a wide range of experiences?
SPEAKER_02: And man, everybody has their different thoughts.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you can't fully enter into somebody's story, and they can't fully.
SPEAKER_02: How are we supposed to do Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: Jesus full of grace and full of truth.
SPEAKER_02: What is grace?
SPEAKER_02: It's God's love expressed to his people.
SPEAKER_02: Don't leave out truth.
SPEAKER_02: Speak a hard word because you love people.
SPEAKER_02: Invite others to speak a hard word because you want to be loved.
SPEAKER_02: John makes clear the call on our lives.
SPEAKER_02: In this world, we are like Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Remember 1 John 2, don't love the broken systems of this world.
SPEAKER_02: So John is now helping us to understand what to do instead.
SPEAKER_02: In this world, full of broken systems, broken attempts to define truth or that which is good, depending on whatever the whims of culture are, depending upon what I feel in the moment.
SPEAKER_02: John says, in this world, we are to be like Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Because Jesus stepped into a world full of competing philosophies, theologies, ideas, and understandings in worlds where they shouted at each other.
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus walked a different way, and we're invited to walk a different way in our world, full of competing ideas, philosophies, theologies, and where everybody's shouting at each other.
SPEAKER_02: You are called to be like Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: John isn't saying we've reached some state of perfection.
SPEAKER_02: He's saying the love of God we've received has increasingly become visible in us.
SPEAKER_02: Think about the movement John's given us.
SPEAKER_02: God loves us.
SPEAKER_02: We make our home in that love, and as we make our home there, we increasingly learn to love like Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: We've spent time with Jesus to learn from Jesus how to be like Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: We don't just spend time with Jesus to learn from Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: We spend time to learn so that we can be like.
SPEAKER_02: And it's important because we don't get to define love however we want it to.
SPEAKER_02: Just as Jesus is the measuring point for discerning truth, Jesus is the measuring point for understanding love.
SPEAKER_02: So what does love look like?
SPEAKER_02: Look back again, verse 10.
SPEAKER_02: This is love.
SPEAKER_02: No ambiguity, no confusion.
SPEAKER_02: This is love.
SPEAKER_02: He loved us, and he sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
SPEAKER_02: God's love moves towards people.
SPEAKER_02: God's love gives, God's love serves, God's love sacrifices for the good of the other.
SPEAKER_02: And that's the love that John says should increasingly characterize our lives if we claim to love God.
SPEAKER_02: Full of truth.
SPEAKER_02: Tensions and broken spaces and difficulties, and I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_02: I was talking to somebody after the first service.
SPEAKER_02: They said, hey, um, if when I have Bible questions, this, that, and the other, like, how do how do I process this?
SPEAKER_02: And so we talked about that.
SPEAKER_02: Like uh living in group is incredibly important to have some other people that you're just kind of like, hey, how do you deal with this?
SPEAKER_02: What does this look like?
SPEAKER_02: I've got commentaries and everything else.
SPEAKER_02: We have a great resource that Georgia Sylphie here in the church has created that we're gonna roll out.
SPEAKER_02: Um just a chat conversation to explore the text alongside you.
SPEAKER_02: But I said, no matter what I read or wrestle through, like I always struggle with it at times, right?
SPEAKER_02: Every book I read, there's stuff I really like, there's stuff I'm like, I think this is wrong, and there's stuff I want to push back against or ask more of.
SPEAKER_02: Even the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: But the Bible is the one thing I submit to.
SPEAKER_02: God invites us, will we submit to him?
SPEAKER_02: Will we submit to the truth of the text?
SPEAKER_02: Will we submit to his version of love, or will we try and piecemeal our own thing together?
SPEAKER_02: Will we try and love like we can, or will we try and love like God invites us to?
SPEAKER_02: It's a radically different notion than how love is so often spoken about in our culture today.
SPEAKER_02: Well, love is it's each person or each story, or you don't, you know, it's like that's not love.
SPEAKER_02: That's some kind of hybrid confusion thing that we're trying to think through.
SPEAKER_02: God says, this is love.
SPEAKER_02: Followers of Jesus are increasingly growing in love because we're making our home in the God who is love.
SPEAKER_02: And home has a great impact on who we're becoming and how we're choosing to live.
SPEAKER_02: My invitation for us this morning is to lean into the love of God so that we might love like Him.
SPEAKER_02: What we do with all these competing narratives, let's wrestle with them.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, how'd you land there?
SPEAKER_02: How'd you think through that?
SPEAKER_02: If you're like, well, I'd never be friends with somebody who that's a hard issue of yours that you need to submit to God on.
SPEAKER_02: If somebody's thoughts on economics or politics or cultural issue would have you remove them from the table altogether and not extend conversation, that is antithetical to the love of God.
SPEAKER_02: But also antithetical to the love of God is to say, hey, whatever you think is true is good for you, and it's good for you, even if it makes no sense, right?
SPEAKER_02: Lean into the truth.
SPEAKER_02: I'd rather a hard truth than an easy lie.
SPEAKER_02: Lean into the love of God.
SPEAKER_02: Because then we can love like Him.
SPEAKER_02: Would you stand with me?
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna pray.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna have a couple of friends join me up here at the platform.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, one way we love to show expression of love.
SPEAKER_02: We'll always pray for anybody.
SPEAKER_02: You're able to submit those prayer requests after praise every Monday when we gather.
SPEAKER_02: But two, if if today, like man, you got a job thing coming up this week, you got a surgery dealing with, there's a family thing.
SPEAKER_02: We'd love to it'd be a privilege to just pray for you.
SPEAKER_02: My friends Kevin Miranda would be happy to pray for you as well.
SPEAKER_02: Or if you're like, hey, I don't want to talk about it, I've just got some stuff.
SPEAKER_02: But I could use, I could, it'd be good to hear somebody pray for me.
SPEAKER_02: We'd love to do that for you before you go.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_02: Father, we thank you for this day.
SPEAKER_02: Your love, your grace, your kindness, for who you are.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, I thank you for truth.
SPEAKER_02: That we don't have to just guess as what's the best way, but man, we can hold everything we hear, everything we see, everything we're processing ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: We can ask, what's this look like through the lens of the life of Jesus, through the teachings of Jesus, through the truth revealed in the scriptures?
SPEAKER_02: And I pray that we'd be a people who stand on truth.
SPEAKER_02: That we'd be bold enough to say, this is what I hold to.
SPEAKER_02: And if somebody disagrees or we find a point of contention, that we would also be bold enough to love regardless.
SPEAKER_02: Here's how I'm working this out.
SPEAKER_02: What's your perspective?
SPEAKER_02: What's your idea?
SPEAKER_02: And that we could disagree fundamentally with one another and still love each other because that's like you.
SPEAKER_02: I pray for folks in this room that maybe they're here to celebrate a baptism, maybe they're here because their spouse loves to come to church, that's not really their thing.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe they're here because they're not sure, honestly, where else to be right now.
SPEAKER_02: They've just got some stuff.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, I pray that they'd take a step toward you.
SPEAKER_02: Regardless that they'd know they're loved.
SPEAKER_02: I pray for those that have been falling after you for decades, that we would continue to take steps to love and follow you for life, that we would embrace your truth, that we would know your truth, that we'd know what is truth, and that we'd live lives of love.
SPEAKER_02: More and more filled up, characterized by this love that you show for people, and we would then show it in turn, and people would spend time with us and say, that's what Jesus is like.
SPEAKER_02: Just a little bit, that's what he's like.
SPEAKER_02: I want to know more.
SPEAKER_02: I pray your blessings and your favor over this congregation as they go.
SPEAKER_02: May we be wise, may we look for the truth, and may we live lives of love.
SPEAKER_02: It's in the name of Jesus, we always pray.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Love to see a Friday at block party, invite a friend.
SPEAKER_02: If you could use prayer, it would be an honor to pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening to today's podcast.
SPEAKER_00: If you're ready to take a next step in your faith, please reach out to us through our website, refineryohio.com, or you can email us at office at refineryohio.com.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you have a blessed day.