SPEAKER_00: You are listening to the Gateway Franklin Church podcast.
SPEAKER_00: To learn more about Gateway Franklin Church, including our service times here in Franklin, Tennessee, visit us online at GatewayFranklin.com.
SPEAKER_00: And now, here is this week's message.
SPEAKER_01: I'll show you some logos when you recognize it.
SPEAKER_01: Tell me what it is.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you said that one a lot less enthusiastically.
SPEAKER_01: All the men on Chanel was like, uh so there's no telling, and right, we could have gone over because we're such a I mean, 70% of our economy is based on on consumption, right?
SPEAKER_01: Consumers.
SPEAKER_01: So obviously, then that makes brands and brand identity pretty big business.
SPEAKER_01: And in fact, um it said that 30 up to 50% of the value of certain companies are in their brand identity, how they are recognized.
SPEAKER_01: And it represents 20% of their, could represent um a significant part of their worth in a sale.
SPEAKER_01: Um other studies shows that 80-some percent of people will pay uh up to a third more for something if it's if it's a certain brand.
SPEAKER_01: Um and so I don't want to seem shallow to you, but I'm very brand identity conscious.
SPEAKER_01: I always have been.
SPEAKER_01: Now I don't I stopped wearing, like until they're paying me, I stopped wearing like a lot of symbols of a company, right?
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, if I'm gonna if I'm gonna wear your brand and you're not paying me for it, then I'm gonna I want your brand logo hidden, you know.
SPEAKER_01: But but there are certain brands that I value because of the longevity of the pieces and the quality.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's not from a status standpoint, I don't believe I don't want you to think of me in that way.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but also about brands for me is I'm not gonna do a deep dive forensically in how you spend your money as a company, but if you lead with something that's against my values, I write you off.
SPEAKER_01: I will.
SPEAKER_01: There are certain things that have had my closet for years, and then over the course of the last six, eight, ten years, these companies have come out with a different set of values and they've stated it.
SPEAKER_01: So, in my opinion, they've staked their value on those things, and when they do that, then I I make my particular choices.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm a pretty loyal, uh, pretty loyal guy.
SPEAKER_01: We did a we did a memorial service in here yesterday for a man that worked for Kubota on 31.
SPEAKER_01: It's a mile from my house when that company let him go and they had to move.
SPEAKER_01: I've stopped spending money at the Kubota store uh down by my house.
SPEAKER_01: Um they thought that was funnier than you did, but uh that's kind of how loyal I am.
SPEAKER_01: Um I'm sure some of you have brands showing today.
SPEAKER_01: So if I if I were to ask you what is the brand identity of Christianity, what is the logo of Christianity, you might say a cross.
SPEAKER_01: Crosses uh are sure for sure a mark of Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: They're prominent in Christian architecture, jewelry, who's wearing a cross today?
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, cross on.
SPEAKER_01: Um, even tattoos.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone have a cross tattoo?
SPEAKER_01: We have sure, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Well, um, it's interesting though that how Jesus gave the cross a brand makeover, right?
SPEAKER_01: You you are wearing a symbol of execution uh around your neck.
SPEAKER_01: You've spent money for that.
SPEAKER_01: You spent money to be tattooed.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, okay, this is how people die.
SPEAKER_01: Here you go.
SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus gave the cross a pretty big makeover.
SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, it was such a brutal form of execution that Rome quits it not long after they crucified Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, seriously, that's how brutal crucifixion was.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and yet we have this as our symbol because of what Jesus did.
SPEAKER_01: But would you believe that that symbol of a cross coming to represent kind of Christianity doesn't really appear in broad scale to the fourth century?
SPEAKER_01: To the fourth century.
SPEAKER_01: So here was an earlier one.
SPEAKER_01: You recognize this symbol?
SPEAKER_01: The it's um some will just say fish or ichthus.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody have that on their car?
SPEAKER_01: Anybody have an icthus on their car?
SPEAKER_01: You have it on car used to, right?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right?
SPEAKER_01: So you'd be careful, careful, um, because this is a pretty significant symbol.
SPEAKER_01: This one shows up in the second century.
SPEAKER_01: So when you break out it like an acrostic on the Greek letters, it will say uh Jesus Christ, God, son, savior.
SPEAKER_01: That's how the letters break out.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ, God, son, savior.
SPEAKER_01: That's that's a pretty comprehensive, right?
SPEAKER_01: So make sure your driving then corresponds with Jesus Christ, God, Son, and Savior.
SPEAKER_01: Is what I got to say.
SPEAKER_01: So this pops up in uh heavy Roman persecution time and when when you did not want to be known as a Christian in the sense that that it could mark you, in the sense that it could mark you for imprisonment and those kind of things.
SPEAKER_01: So you've heard some of you have heard me do this before, but if I would come up to Mark on a on a sh on a street and I have some sense that Mark may be a believer, I would draw an ark with my toe.
SPEAKER_01: And if he was, then he would from his size reverse it.
SPEAKER_01: He would draw it, makes this symbol, and then we know one another that we are Christians.
SPEAKER_01: So the ichthus predates the cross in terms of the recognition of that brand.
SPEAKER_01: I met a businessman recently in Franklin that his mission um is to uh these aren't exactly his words, could so hold on, but to replace the cross as a symbol of Christianity with the empty tomb.
SPEAKER_01: And so the empty tomb, um, in his perspective, then he's has a jewelry line that he's he's marketing now.
SPEAKER_01: Um I told him I don't wear jewelry, so um I'm out I'm out of his his uh test market.
SPEAKER_01: But he's his kind of conviction comes from Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.
SPEAKER_01: So, because in in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says, listen, if you don't believe in the resurrection of the dead, and you don't believe that Jesus resurrected, right, then the rest of this stuff doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01: Now you've heard me talk about Christianity being being viewed as a behavioral modification system, and it's not.
SPEAKER_01: It's a transformational system that happens because the tomb is empty.
SPEAKER_01: So all of those, all of those represent kind of a brand identity, if you will, of Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: But would it surprise you that Jesus himself had a consciousness of brand identity?
SPEAKER_01: So I think this is 130% conjecture, but I would think that Joseph, what he made, his dad, had a logo on it.
SPEAKER_01: Some kind of mark that was carved into furniture, or some kind of mark it was burned into furniture.
SPEAKER_01: Because you want you want to differentiate the quality of his craftsmanship.
SPEAKER_01: You want to identify the um uh the type of materials that is used, right?
SPEAKER_01: And I would see this.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm not saying that precipitates these next verses of scripture.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just I just want to say that that brand the idea of brand and identity isn't anything new to the 21st century.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So um we're continuing this series um on Jesus' discourse out of the Last Supper.
SPEAKER_01: This is the third week.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the passage we're gonna focus in on today.
SPEAKER_01: John chapter 13, 34 through 35.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the that that pericopey is a little longer than that, but this is what I want to focus in on.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, A new command I give you, love one another.
SPEAKER_01: As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
SPEAKER_01: By this everyone will know, do you get the brand identity there?
SPEAKER_01: By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you what?
SPEAKER_01: Love one another.
SPEAKER_01: So the context here, Judas now has has left the building, and Jesus now just has these eleven around him, and this begins the farewell discourse that Jesus teaches as in John 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17.
SPEAKER_01: So he begins it with it.
SPEAKER_01: This is his first statements around this farewell discourse.
SPEAKER_01: It's very Jewish.
SPEAKER_01: Moses, before he passes the torch to Joshua, gives this kind of final discourse, and then he hands the reins over to Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: Elijah gives this end of life, end of term discourse, and then he hands it over to Elisha.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what's interesting here is Jesus' final discourse, he's not handing any of this over to a person.
SPEAKER_01: He's handing it over to a group of people.
SPEAKER_01: That will extend to a group of people and a group of people, to a group of people, to actually us sitting here today.
SPEAKER_01: Really, you can track back to this beginning discourse, which he is saying that your mark and your identity is going to be how you love one another.
SPEAKER_01: And I just find that very odd.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't that you're going to wear a certain type of dress, or that you're going to carry a certain physical mark, or that you're going to adhere to a set of standard beliefs.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what Jesus is saying will be the mark and the identifying piece of you.
SPEAKER_01: It's going to be how you love, how you love one another.
SPEAKER_01: Now, he begins, if you back up a verse, he begins by saying, My children, I will be only, I will with, I will be with you only a little longer.
SPEAKER_01: You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now where I'm going, you cannot come.
SPEAKER_01: Now, he's not saying going to heaven, you can't come to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: He's going to the cross and you can't come.
SPEAKER_01: But I like I like he begins again, round the 11, and he and he looks at him and he says, My little children.
SPEAKER_01: So my daughter calls.
SPEAKER_01: Most of the time, when my daughter calls, my answer, how I pick up the phone, is I say, Hey little girl, hey little girl.
SPEAKER_01: She's 28, married, two kids, owns a business, they have their own home.
SPEAKER_01: I go, hey little girl.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So her married name is Bender, and on my phone it says Annie Weir.
SPEAKER_01: And I've apologized to Brady over and over.
SPEAKER_01: I've just said it's not changing.
SPEAKER_01: So, right, saying you're a little girl, she's my little girl.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: So there is this sense of camaraderie deeper than that, right?
SPEAKER_01: There's this sense of fatherhood that Jesus takes with these leaven and begins this final discourse by saying, My little children.
SPEAKER_01: But there's another side of this, and I take it as the side, is like when your son or daughter reaches the age of 12 and you start calling them your little children.
SPEAKER_01: This one is a reminder to them, they don't know everything.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: That there is still stuff for you to learn.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not as dumb as you think I am.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Now I I can see Jesus here saying, my little children, as this as this endearing drawing them in, but it's also has this context of saying, guys, there's a lot more to life.
SPEAKER_01: And I need you to listen up.
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm gonna teach you something pretty significant here on how you're to live this out.
SPEAKER_01: That there is literally something pretty large at stake.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm and I want you to get this from the jump.
SPEAKER_01: That if you're gonna carry my mark, you gotta love one another.
SPEAKER_01: It's pretty pretty significant.
SPEAKER_01: That that's how he kind of dives into this passage.
SPEAKER_01: Um uh I I I I I feel like I I teach this a lot that that the the love that that he's referring to, the the word love that he uses is agape, right?
SPEAKER_01: Which is an action word.
SPEAKER_01: It is a whole self, unconditional giving over of myself to you.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So it's not he's not saying, hey guys, I want you to be a little nicer to one another.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to be a little bit more polite to one another.
SPEAKER_01: I mean he's saying, I want I want you to I want you to love one another with this deep sense of giving, convicting kind of love.
SPEAKER_01: And we don't, I really don't believe that our Western culture understands that depth of that love.
SPEAKER_01: We used love for so many different, or we got one word, it's all we get, right?
SPEAKER_01: We get one word and we use it all in different ways, that it's difficult to let that sink in deeper.
SPEAKER_01: That what we've received from God through Christ is this whole self, unconditional, you don't do anything for me, I do everything for you.
SPEAKER_01: I think we continue to look for reasons to be loved, that we live in a manner by which to garner back love.
SPEAKER_01: And he leads with love.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't connect it to our behavior or our past or our music.
SPEAKER_01: He leads with that.
SPEAKER_01: And it's it's it's such an impressionable transformative love that that becomes his mark.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, if you if you're gonna, I need you to represent me, and I need you to understand the best transformative way for you to represent me.
SPEAKER_01: And it's not gonna be adherence to this or this mark of that, it's going to be how deeply you love one another.
SPEAKER_01: The way I've loved you, this is the way you are to love.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it just had to be just dead quiet in the room.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus had already redefined the mark of a disciple by just choosing these guys.
SPEAKER_01: Discipleship was a long process for a rabbi.
SPEAKER_01: It required high certification on whoever they would choose.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus chooses people that couldn't spell certification.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, in the sense that, and I mean, so many of the Jewish boys would have had this experience.
SPEAKER_01: At some point in time in Torah school, the certain levels of it, at some point in time a rabbi looked at him and said, God, you're a good kid, but you're not going to be a you're not going to be a rabbi.
SPEAKER_01: You're a good kid, but you're you're not, you can't be my disciple.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you got the books out of order, you're not real, you know, can't tell the difference between a mid-rash and a rash.
SPEAKER_01: That's some really Jewish humor.
SPEAKER_01: You'd have to dig deeper for that one.
SPEAKER_01: And so none of the all these guys would have had that that that conversation with a rabbi in school.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus chooses them.
SPEAKER_01: He's already he's already flipped the mark.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Jewishness had a mark, it was a private mark, but it was circumcision.
SPEAKER_01: You read the New Testament, it's like, yeah, circumcision is in the heart.
SPEAKER_01: The mark you're going to carry isn't going to be anything other than how you extend yourselves to one another.
SPEAKER_01: It is, to me, it's just still an odd, odd thing to choose as your opening line of a discourse.
SPEAKER_01: So when Jesus uses the word a new command I give you, this was not a new command.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't use the word new in the sense that it's novel.
SPEAKER_01: He uses the word new in the sense of fresh.
SPEAKER_01: He is gonna, he wants to refresh this command in a new way.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: There were 614 Old Testament commandments.
SPEAKER_01: 614.
SPEAKER_01: So you can understand why.
SPEAKER_01: There's a story recorded in the Gospels where a Jewish scholar comes to Jesus and says, Hey, what's the most important commandment?
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So it makes sense.
SPEAKER_01: There's 614.
SPEAKER_01: Gosh, I'm lost trying to keep up with 614 commandments as a good Jewish man.
SPEAKER_01: Can you just tell me the most important one?
SPEAKER_01: And maybe if you can tell me the most, I'm not saying you didn't have ulterior motives, but I'm just saying this is something you could perceive out of this.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus harkens back to what's called uh the the the Shema or Shema, depending on um which way I want to get it wrong.
SPEAKER_01: But Deuteronomy 6, 4 and 9, this was a foundational confession of the Jewish faith.
SPEAKER_01: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
SPEAKER_01: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.
SPEAKER_01: These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts, and press them on your children.
SPEAKER_01: Talk about them when you sit at home, when you walk along the road.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone think this one's important?
SPEAKER_01: When you lie down and when you get up.
SPEAKER_01: Tie them as symbols on your hands, bind them on their foreheads, write them on the door frames of your houses and your gates.
SPEAKER_01: Like this is utmost important.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus would lead with that.
SPEAKER_01: The second one he throws in is actually a little is a little bit more obscure.
SPEAKER_01: Now it doesn't seem obscure because if you have learned this story, the story of Jesus' answer is love your Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes even called that golden rule.
SPEAKER_01: But out of the 614 commandments, that one is buried in Leviticus.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody read Leviticus this week?
SPEAKER_01: It's buried in Leviticus and it states like this do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_01: I am the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So in this man's attempt to find the one, Jesus' response is, I'm gonna give you one you know, I'm gonna pull out one that you probably read over, and I'm not gonna set these two up as the most important.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna do something a lot stronger than that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna say that all of the law and prophets, which means all the law and what anybody had ever taught about the law.
SPEAKER_01: Hang on these two of the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.
SPEAKER_01: Love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Hang, meaning if you keep these two, you keep all 614.
SPEAKER_01: So he's not giving anybody a shortcut.
SPEAKER_01: What he's saying is they all can coalesce and come underneath the umbrella of these two particular things.
SPEAKER_01: So when so when Jesus is telling them, is you're they'll know you're my disciples by how you love one another.
SPEAKER_01: And he marks it as a new command.
SPEAKER_01: He is bringing freshness to this.
SPEAKER_01: Look around, guys.
SPEAKER_01: Look to your left, look to your right.
SPEAKER_01: You see these men?
SPEAKER_01: These are the people I'm telling you to love.
SPEAKER_01: Actively.
SPEAKER_01: And if you will actively love these eleven, people will see you and that you'll know that you're my disciple.
SPEAKER_01: Pretty significant.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the beginning of his farewell address.
SPEAKER_01: It's not don't forget what I taught you.
SPEAKER_01: He he begins with don't forget how I loved you.
SPEAKER_01: I would have started with don't forget what I taught you.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: It's the list you leave the babysitter of your first child.
SPEAKER_01: You start with the things that will kill them.
SPEAKER_01: And you work your way down.
SPEAKER_01: He starts with, guys, how I love you.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I need you to remember.
SPEAKER_01: And I need you to love one another like that.
SPEAKER_01: So let's break down these symbols of Christianity and what they mean.
SPEAKER_01: Let's put the cross back up.
SPEAKER_01: The cross is this quintessential Christian symbol.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: It's because it is the best illustration of God's love for you and me.
SPEAKER_01: There is no better expression of the love of God than the cross of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Later in John's discourse, Jesus will tell them, he said, Um, rarely would a man die for someone else, even a good person.
SPEAKER_01: Rarely would that happen.
SPEAKER_01: He said, but I will, my context, I will lay my life down for my friends.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says this really striking thing, he says, You're my friends.
SPEAKER_01: You're my friends.
SPEAKER_01: Rarely would a man die for a good man.
SPEAKER_01: I'll die for my friends.
SPEAKER_01: You are my friends.
SPEAKER_01: The reason why it is the quintessential mark of love is because there is no transaction involved with this.
SPEAKER_01: There is no you go first or what are you going to do next?
SPEAKER_01: The cross is given without pretext, and the cross is done without any movement on our part.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't change.
SPEAKER_01: My acceptance of the love of God has no bearing on the intensity of the love of God.
SPEAKER_01: My rejection of the love of God does not one iota diminish the love of God.
SPEAKER_01: Because the love of God went first.
SPEAKER_01: God goes first.
SPEAKER_01: Alright, what about the the the other symbol, next symbol?
SPEAKER_01: So the empty, the empty tomb, right?
SPEAKER_01: So Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, if if Jesus doesn't rise from the dead, then none of this matters.
SPEAKER_01: Because it just it just it's just another system of life.
SPEAKER_01: It's just another rule-based manner.
SPEAKER_01: You might be a better person because of it.
SPEAKER_01: You know, but there's not going to be life in any life to it if he didn't have any life after this.
SPEAKER_01: On Easter, what I'm working on is thinking through Jesus' first breath.
SPEAKER_01: See, we don't get to see that.
SPEAKER_01: We don't see any of the gospels until Mary shows up, and then we get the story.
SPEAKER_01: But what was that first breath like after he laid breathless for a couple days?
SPEAKER_01: Anybody ever get the wind knocked out of them?
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_01: It's like you're okay, you can't, no one can convince you of that.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's that it's that significant of this, I I can't, I can't catch my breath, and Jesus lays there two days, and with that with that first breath, his lungs feel restricted by some of that.
SPEAKER_01: With that first breath, we all get life.
SPEAKER_01: So you can see why the tomb would be significant that we get life.
SPEAKER_01: The ichthus, it's a strong, it's a super strong theological statement.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ, God, Son, Savior.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's there's a lot, a lot there.
SPEAKER_01: And this is what represents our tribe.
SPEAKER_01: This is what allows us to go all over the world and run into a Christian and feel like you've known them all your life.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's funny when I traveled, whenever I heard someone speak English, I went to them.
SPEAKER_01: You know, so like maybe they can help me because I'm completely lost and they speak my language.
SPEAKER_01: But also when I got around those other believers in those countries, boy, they're talking about being settled, it just kind of settles you that, oh, we we know the same God and we know him in the same way.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So those are pretty significant.
SPEAKER_01: But here's I want to add one.
SPEAKER_01: Um, then the basin and the towel.
SPEAKER_01: We did this what three weeks ago, two weeks ago, when Jesus washes the feet, and I unpacked that and I talked about washing the feet being, I talked about it on an identity side, but I talked about on the cleansing side.
SPEAKER_01: In this case, what Jesus is is pointing out is that this is um this is our mark.
SPEAKER_01: And I haven't seen anybody with a tattoo of a pitcher, a basin, and a towel.
SPEAKER_01: I haven't seen any necklace with a basin, but I've seen no ring, I've seen no t-shirt, I don't, I don't see this anywhere.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, and yet, this is the mark.
SPEAKER_01: This is the mark that he gives that we should carry: a basin and a towel.
SPEAKER_01: So here's how Paul articulates it out of the message.
SPEAKER_01: Well, he does it right in the message.
SPEAKER_01: The message is a translation or a version of Ephesians 5, 1 and 2.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Watch what God does, and then you do it.
SPEAKER_01: Like children who learn proper behavior from their parents.
SPEAKER_01: Mostly what God does is love you.
SPEAKER_01: Keep company with him and learn a life of love.
SPEAKER_01: Observe how Christ loved us.
SPEAKER_01: His love was not cautious but extravagant.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't love in order to get something from us, but to give everything of himself to us.
SPEAKER_01: And this is why I like this this version of it, the last three words.
SPEAKER_01: Love like that.
SPEAKER_01: You've experienced, you've experienced that love.
SPEAKER_01: That's the kind of love that I'm calling you to exhibit one to another.
SPEAKER_01: A little bit of a breakdown of world's love is a self-serving love.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think if we're just gut level honest, what we love just enough to get back what we need.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna love you just enough, I'm gonna be cordial just enough, I'm gonna be nice just enough.
SPEAKER_01: Um because I need I need some I'm gonna evaluate you based on what you can do for me.
SPEAKER_01: Does any does this does this feel true?
SPEAKER_01: You want to be good at your job?
SPEAKER_01: Don't do this.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care what job you got.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna give you just enough to get what I want.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to engage you if you have something of value to me.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't, next.
SPEAKER_01: Next.
SPEAKER_01: That's in essence, that's the world's love.
SPEAKER_01: God's love is extravagant, holding nothing back, regardless of how it's received.
SPEAKER_01: The world make this makes the world's love transactional, and God's love is transformational.
SPEAKER_01: So it's interesting, it's an interesting cap to wear to say, how can I love you in a way that will transform you?
SPEAKER_01: That's a significant thing to wrestle with.
SPEAKER_01: Now, one more twist.
SPEAKER_01: I think if I would have polled you, more than likely a high percentage of you would have said the mark of a disciple would be how we love other people.
SPEAKER_01: What's the mission of the church, right?
SPEAKER_01: We said the mission of the church is love other people.
SPEAKER_01: There's so much talk about well, I get I gotta get outside of the walls of the church.
SPEAKER_01: What are we doing out there?
SPEAKER_01: And that it's not to take anything away from that.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus will get there, but he begins with what happens here.
SPEAKER_01: Love one another.
SPEAKER_01: He could have said anything.
SPEAKER_01: The mark of my disciples, how you love people who don't love me.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't say that here in the discourse.
SPEAKER_01: Now, John has this to say in his letter in 1 John, gives an explanation for it.
SPEAKER_01: I like that John goes ahead and explains John.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 4, verse 20 says, Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or a sister is a liar.
SPEAKER_01: For whoever does not love their brother and sister whom they have seen can't love God, whom they have not seen.
SPEAKER_01: And he has given us this command.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
SPEAKER_01: Did anybody grow up in a church that called each other brother and sister?
SPEAKER_01: I did.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they didn't call me that.
SPEAKER_01: I was 10.
SPEAKER_01: But I mean, you know, Sister Muni played the piano.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, these are the these are the these are these are the memories that I have.
SPEAKER_01: Um he said, if you can't love one another within the context of both sharing the cross together, how are you about to love someone in a transformational way uh if you can't love one another that way?
SPEAKER_01: Now I don't have brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how this family thing works.
SPEAKER_01: I really don't.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the only person I fought with was my mom.
SPEAKER_01: My dad would not engage in any fights.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and when he spoke something, it sounded like a lion and I just stopped.
SPEAKER_01: But but my mom, I can't blame anybody else.
SPEAKER_01: Dad would question it.
SPEAKER_01: Mom did it.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean I just I lost out on all that, all that fun.
SPEAKER_01: Like she's looking at me, mom.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: He's playing with my toy.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I forget all that.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what I here's what I've been, you know, watch in families is the more mature and the older your kids get, the less arguing, fighting, more defending happens.
SPEAKER_01: Less blaming, more loving.
SPEAKER_01: And so you say you love God, and yet the person bearing my image next to you, you don't love.
SPEAKER_01: Again, again, he's not saying be nicer to one another, be more polite, be more engaging.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying I want you to actively put yourself out for somebody.
SPEAKER_01: And when you do that for one another, that's gonna tell people who you are.
SPEAKER_01: I believe a loving family, well, so we we can we can say it, we can say it in your a context of your family or a church family, it works both ways.
SPEAKER_01: So let's start with your family, and you got kids, and you got a loving family.
SPEAKER_01: Where do the kids come play?
SPEAKER_01: Where do your friends' kids come play?
SPEAKER_01: They come play your house.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you might have a pool too.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that doesn't that that helps, right?
SPEAKER_01: You might give the best snacks in the neighborhood.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I get I get that, but people are drawn to that kind of experience.
SPEAKER_01: They want to be a part of like if there's high tension in your house, where are the kids going to play?
SPEAKER_01: Your house.
SPEAKER_01: Because the tension's palatable.
SPEAKER_01: So you look at Acts chapter 2, and Acts chapter 2 is 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Holy Spirit is given.
SPEAKER_01: Peter steps out and preaches the first sermon.
SPEAKER_01: He preaches a sermon about who it was that they killed.
SPEAKER_01: These are probably a lot of the same people are in this crowd that would have been in that crowd 50 days earlier.
SPEAKER_01: And 3,000 people, the scripture says were cut to the heart.
SPEAKER_01: They repent and are baptized.
SPEAKER_01: This is in Acts chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: At the end of Acts chapter 2, the last words of Acts chapter 2, says that, and the Lord added daily the numbers of those being saved.
SPEAKER_01: Four or five verses prior to that, John starts coloring out how this new group of people were acting towards one another.
SPEAKER_01: That they were spending time with one another, that they coalesced around the scripture, how they were sharing meals together, how even that there was someone who uh had a piece of property and and sold it and laid the money at the apostles' feet.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, if there's somebody in need, take care of them.
SPEAKER_01: I contend, I contend that how that group was gathering was what was attracting.
SPEAKER_01: And then once attracted, then the gospel gets presented and they understand where all this is coming from.
SPEAKER_01: Because when you read the end of Acts chapter 4, so I don't know how long the gap is.
SPEAKER_01: Um literarily it's two chapters, I don't know how long the gap is, but it says that the number had risen to 5,000, which means in two chapters they experienced two-thirds growth.
SPEAKER_01: How the this idea of we love one another at such a level, we serve one another at such a level that we've created, we've created an environment that's attracting.
SPEAKER_01: Like this is not how people act towards one another, right?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe a small group of people, right?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe the people that share everything that you think and believe.
SPEAKER_01: But other people who don't look like me, talk like me, act like me, but share the same God as me, and you're loving them alike, it's attractual.
SPEAKER_01: We we call it around here belong to believe.
SPEAKER_01: Belong to believe.
SPEAKER_01: You can be attracted to the environment of fellow believers without believing like they believe, and you can belong here.
SPEAKER_01: That might be staggering for some of you to hear, but it's because once you start discovering why that love exists and the extent of that love exists, and you start receiving that kind of love without giving anything ahead of time, then that love of God starts to make enough sense to you that you start believing who this man is.
SPEAKER_01: And when you believe you believe in him before you believe what he said.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, isn't it how we all work?
SPEAKER_01: We believe in someone based on how they treat us.
SPEAKER_01: We don't then ask them how do you feel on these neck top 30 cultural topics.
SPEAKER_01: We're drawn to them because they have been, they've extended themselves to us.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: So let's look at that basin logo again, wrapping up.
SPEAKER_01: So the picture, if you if if the picture represents Christ, then the picture is filled with the love of Christ, okay?
SPEAKER_01: The love of God.
SPEAKER_01: And then that gets poured into an empty basin.
SPEAKER_01: Uh raise your hand, all empty basin people raise your hand.
SPEAKER_01: Which is all of us.
SPEAKER_01: So just a heads up, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So some of you don't want to participate, but that's all right.
SPEAKER_01: So if we have Christ being full with the love of God, pours that love out into the empty basin.
SPEAKER_01: That means that he pours out his love into our empty basin, then making us full of the love of God.
SPEAKER_01: We're shaped differently than the picture, but we contain the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have to look like Jesus to love like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Because he's given me the capacity to love.
SPEAKER_01: And then the towel becomes our tool, it becomes the method.
SPEAKER_01: My dad taught me you never want to take a towel, a dry towel, to your car.
SPEAKER_01: You get dust on your car, and you got maybe your kids want to write on the don't do that, son.
SPEAKER_01: At best, all you're doing is moving the dirt around.
SPEAKER_01: At worst, what you're doing is you're grinding all that dirt and dust into the clear coat of your car.
SPEAKER_01: But when I am doing that saturated in the love of God, and I engage your life, then I'm I am participating in your cleansing.
SPEAKER_01: It's a significant, it's a significant logo.
SPEAKER_01: Um there are two primary kind of messages that I wanted to put forward this morning.
SPEAKER_01: One is to receive the love of God and He will transform you.
SPEAKER_01: It is not easy receiving love.
SPEAKER_01: Like I I don't have time to do this social experiment.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you know, the first one is you can know when you get into someone's personal space, because they just do that right there.
SPEAKER_01: All right, they start leaning back when you get in the personal space.
SPEAKER_01: But try looking someone in the eye and maintaining eye contact with them for a little while and say, I love you, and see how uncomfortable it is.
SPEAKER_01: We we we don't know what to do with that.
SPEAKER_01: Philip, you you you said to me, um, yeah, I get the one another, love one another.
SPEAKER_01: But what if you don't love yourself, right?
SPEAKER_01: That's that that was your phrase to me.
SPEAKER_01: Well, what if you if I'm supposed to love one another the way Christ loved me, what do I do if I don't love myself?
SPEAKER_01: This is an issue.
SPEAKER_01: But if you've received Christ as your Savior, then He has filled you with His love, and He has asked nothing from you in that transaction except to receive it.
SPEAKER_01: It's uncomfortable sometimes to sit in the love of God.
SPEAKER_01: But I pray that you have and or that you will experience those moments when his love just comes like waves heading to the shore.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe the first one knocks you down a little bit, but it just it just they just keep it just keeps coming.
SPEAKER_01: It just keeps coming.
SPEAKER_01: But I want you to receive the love of God in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And all those other voices that tell you why that shouldn't be, all of those voices are lies.
SPEAKER_01: Well, they may be true in the sense that what what you're hearing about yourself might be true, but the impact of that in God's eyes, that's where the lie comes in.
SPEAKER_01: You can acknowledge that that stuff was true about who you were, but it doesn't change how he loves you.
SPEAKER_01: Second piece is that what would you need to change in terms of loving one another?
SPEAKER_01: Being marked by that love.
SPEAKER_01: How does that change how you come into this building on a Sunday morning?
SPEAKER_01: How does it change showing up to a small group?
SPEAKER_01: How does it change serving kids or serving in the worship team?
SPEAKER_01: How does it change you when how we engage someone is the mark of Christ?
SPEAKER_01: That I can, your your interaction with someone can actually leave a mark.
SPEAKER_01: And how we do that with one another in here is palatable to anybody coming in that have haven't experienced that before.
SPEAKER_01: See, we're not coalescing around just um some information, right?
SPEAKER_01: You didn't show up today for a lecture.
SPEAKER_01: I could go as far as to say, if it truthfully, he probably didn't show up today saying, I hope I learned something new.
SPEAKER_01: Although that's the way I judge a lot of my messages.
SPEAKER_01: I judge a lot of my messages in the right phase of if I'm not learning anything new, it's hard for me to get excited about preaching.
SPEAKER_01: Honestly.
SPEAKER_01: I like I need to show me something new.
SPEAKER_01: I gotta give him something new.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing new in today's message, folks.
SPEAKER_01: Not a thing new.
SPEAKER_01: But maybe in your reception of it, it will change.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the last logo I'll show you.
SPEAKER_01: You recognize this one?
SPEAKER_01: This is our logo.
SPEAKER_01: I can tell you we paid five grand for that logo 21 years ago when the graphic artist met me at a coffee shop to show me the things that um she kind of felt like I said and she put it together.
SPEAKER_01: Now look, I don't think she recognized what she did.
SPEAKER_01: I think what she recognized was putting two uniquely shaped G's back to back.
SPEAKER_01: What do you see?
SPEAKER_01: Can you see something else in there?
SPEAKER_01: Pictus coming down.
SPEAKER_01: I saw it, and I could tell when I saw it, she didn't see what I saw.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ, God, Son, and Savior.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is just one little tribe among all the tribes, but this is our tribe.
SPEAKER_01: And what do we want to be known for?
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of things I want to be known for as Gateway.
SPEAKER_01: I want to, this building bridges thing that we're coming up Thursday now, I'll share just at the end of it.
SPEAKER_01: I want us to be known by you can count on us, and we're gonna show up when the chips are down, and we're gonna do whatever is necessary to move the gospel forward in people's lives.
SPEAKER_01: But in light, in light of what I keep hearing you, if you're new to Gateway, what I keep hearing over and over and over again is how uh how loving and receiving and how warm the body is.
SPEAKER_01: That's good, because the cold body's dead, right?
SPEAKER_01: And then I also get asked, how does that continue?
SPEAKER_01: How do you keep that up?
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's that's actually hard and easy.
SPEAKER_01: The easy piece is the more each of us participate, the more it gets done.
SPEAKER_01: So, quite frankly, then the more of us just means the love of Christ gets exhibited in more different ways to more different people.
SPEAKER_01: I talked to someone on the way in.
SPEAKER_01: There's two things that happen as churches age.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: We'll be 19 in a couple weeks.
SPEAKER_01: Two particular things happen when churches age.
SPEAKER_01: One is they start losing the passion for evangelism of other people finding Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That is one of the first casualties in terms of how old a church gets.
SPEAKER_01: The second is how they love one another.
SPEAKER_01: Now, a church can get very center-focused.
SPEAKER_01: That's what happens over time.
SPEAKER_01: It gets very it gets focused on itself.
SPEAKER_01: That's different than loving one another.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what that means to me.
SPEAKER_01: On the way out today, instead of just hooking up with your tribe on the way out, you know, your people, that you had paid attention to someone that you can tell just by how they're acting that they don't know what to do next.
SPEAKER_01: That's a general energy, that's a general sign that they're new today.
SPEAKER_01: I got one on the way out.
SPEAKER_01: We haven't got a chance to meet, I don't believe.
SPEAKER_01: No, we haven't.
SPEAKER_01: This is our first time.
SPEAKER_01: It's nice to meet you today.
SPEAKER_01: Engage in a short conversation.
SPEAKER_01: There might be someone that you see you can just tell something's going on inside of them and offering a prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, we haven't met.
SPEAKER_01: Can I pray with you, Dee?
SPEAKER_01: I know we haven't met, but can we pray today?
SPEAKER_01: Is that okay if we pray before you leave?
SPEAKER_01: That's how the gospel goes around the world.
SPEAKER_01: That's why Jesus says it first.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, little children, hey kids, listen up.
SPEAKER_01: I need you to wear my logo.
SPEAKER_01: I want people to see that logo and know what who you are and what you stand for.
SPEAKER_01: And um, and I want them to see it, and I want them to think that's a loving, active, loving, serving person.
SPEAKER_01: This morning, as we conclude, over here we'll have people that will join with you in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to come for prayer today for any particular thing that I've talked about, but maybe you need it.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you need someone else to pray with you to either receive the love of God or have that method in you.
SPEAKER_01: You might want to just spend some time alone with the Father, not in your chair, and you can do that over here.
SPEAKER_01: We have communion on my left and right that you can participate in as well.
SPEAKER_01: Um, Father, we we're grateful that you love us.
SPEAKER_01: All of us.
SPEAKER_01: It takes a while to get adjusted to that.
SPEAKER_01: It may take our whole lives to get adjusted to the fact that you know us better than anybody knows us and you love us better than anybody loves us.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, you heard me ask you today that someone would be assured or introduced to the fact that you love them unconditionally.
SPEAKER_01: And as a body, Lord, I don't want us to be just a collection of individuals that somehow agree on a particular mission or doctrine, but that we truly love one another with a basin and a towel, believing not only does it meet the needs that we carry into the building, but it will be attractional for someone else that needs to know what it what it feels like to be loved.
SPEAKER_01: And in this last moment of time that we have together today, Lord, I just ask that you meet people where they are.
SPEAKER_01: In your name we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: If you'll stand, I invite you to move as we finish in worship.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you were encouraged and challenged by today's message.
SPEAKER_00: Again, to learn more about Gateway Franklin Church, find us online at gatewayfranklin.com.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us today.