SPEAKER_00: Good morning, church.
SPEAKER_00: It's such a blessing to be here with you.
SPEAKER_00: And uh today is Baptism Sunday, so it's extra special.
SPEAKER_00: We had three baptisms at the earlier service, three more later for us.
SPEAKER_00: And so what a what a wonderful day.
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm Tim.
SPEAKER_00: If if you're newer here and you've never met me in IU, uh and one of the pastors here, it's my privilege to get to bring the word this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And want to invite you to participate with us by opening your Bible to the Gospel of John, chapter 14, which will be a continuation of our sermon series there.
SPEAKER_00: Before we dig into the text, I just want to express uh my appreciation on behalf of Brandy and myself for the love and support and prayers and checking in and the meals that you've given us over the last two weeks on uh behalf of Calvin, our little little newly adopted son, who's here this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And we're so thankful for his life and for your love and getting to walk with us through this experience.
SPEAKER_00: Last Sunday he was here for the first time on Father's Day Sunday, really making it a red letter day for me.
SPEAKER_00: What a blessing it is.
SPEAKER_00: When Brandy and I, alongside Jordan and Holly Boyd, um, a little over two years ago, were going through state-required adoption classes up in Springboro, one of the things they really impressed upon us was that even as exciting as adoption can be, and of course all the parents in that class were there, just like saving the world one life at a time and everyone's there, they wanted to pop the bubble a little bit and say, as exciting and as wonderful as adoption can be, it always signals tragedy of some sort.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's redemption, but there's redemption because there's profound brokenness.
SPEAKER_00: There's gain, but it's because there has been so much loss.
SPEAKER_00: Because without the corruption and brokenness and sorrow of sin in the world, little boys and little girls would never need someone to come alongside and be mom and dad, this side of heaven, or to be welcomed into a new family.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if you this morning have considered recently that adoption is part of your story too.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you've been adopted into the family of God in a way that dwarfs adoption human to human in all of its dimensions.
SPEAKER_00: Apart from being adopted into God's family, you and I would remain destitute and desperate and alienated from the life and love and family of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you're an adoptee.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that awesome?
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 8 and verse 15 says it this way for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you've received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba, Father.
SPEAKER_00: Like orphans adopted into the family of a rich and benevolent king, we'll spend the rest of our lives, the rest of eternity, just coming to grips with all the blessings that are ours because we've been brought into the family of none other than God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: But it prompts me to ask the question of you this morning and of myself: are we living like sons and daughters of the king?
SPEAKER_00: Or are we living like orphans?
SPEAKER_00: Who their legal status is they're children of the king, but they're living in the slums next door to the castle with very little access or sense of the presence of their father within?
SPEAKER_00: Do we ever find ourselves feeling alone and anxious, and as if we're just in this by ourselves and there's really no one looking out for us?
SPEAKER_00: Despairing, maybe even feeling distant from God.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the feelings of orphans.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what a child feels when they're in the lap of their daddy who's loving them and who's been loving them for a long time, and there's this bond and connection.
SPEAKER_00: So often you and I live like orphans, even though we've been made sons and daughters.
SPEAKER_00: The text this morning relates directly to this.
SPEAKER_00: And you may ask, why am I belaboring this point?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because this is actually the first sermon I've preached since bringing Calvin home from the hospital.
SPEAKER_00: And right in the middle of our text, in John 14, 18, Jesus says these words I will not leave you orphans, but I will come to you.
SPEAKER_00: Needless to say, this passage means a lot more to me this today than it did a month ago.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna title our message When Jesus Feels Far Away.
SPEAKER_00: And the way this passage is gonna be unpacked this morning is we're gonna look at three promises that Jesus gives us.
SPEAKER_00: Three promises, and then we're gonna find two conditions for those promises to come to pass, and then one pursuit.
SPEAKER_00: That is our response to these two three promises and two conditions.
SPEAKER_00: So, first I want to give you the context before we get into the promises and conditions and that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00: The context of John chapter 14 is rather remarkable because Jesus and his eleven apostles are still in the upper room.
SPEAKER_00: They're still uh reclining at the table, they haven't yet gone out.
SPEAKER_00: John chapter 14, Jesus is still uh performing, still preaching.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of John 14, we find that then they finally leave.
SPEAKER_00: So they're reclining, it's an intimate fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: Judas has already gone out to betray Jesus to the Pharisees and the scribes and the temple authorities.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the kicker.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is only a few hours away from being taken from his apostles.
SPEAKER_00: You think about how closely they have walked with Jesus up until this point.
SPEAKER_00: Over the last couple of years in Jesus' ministry, you've had them sleeping next to each other, warming themselves by the same fire, eating the same food, laughing at the same jokes, feeling the same rejection by some of the Jews in that area, feeling the same dangers when marks are placed on their heads.
SPEAKER_00: And for the first time in their experience with Jesus, Jesus is going to go away.
SPEAKER_00: And he's never gonna come again in the same way.
SPEAKER_00: You see, even after Jesus, when Jesus goes to the cross, they're gonna, they're gonna feel forsaken, obviously.
SPEAKER_00: But even after Jesus is raised again, he never abides with them for very long.
SPEAKER_00: He'll come and he'll visit and he'll make numerous manifestations and appearances to them throughout the rest of his 50 days on earth after the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: But he'll never be with them in the same way he had been up until this point.
SPEAKER_00: Things are about to change.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus knows that after his arrest and death they will feel abandoned.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knows that after even his resurrection and ascension to the Father, which they will behold with their own physical eyes, that they're gonna feel utterly inadequate to carry on the mission he has given them.
SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knows that you and I are gonna feel the same exact way.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's gonna give them a promise, he's gonna give us promises.
SPEAKER_00: When we look at the text, we see these three promises, two conditions, one pursuit.
SPEAKER_00: First, let's look at the three promises.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna promise the presence and the revelation and the fellowship of God.
SPEAKER_00: Promise number one is the indwelling presence of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: What an antidote to them feeling abandoned, forsaken, lost, orphans.
SPEAKER_00: As Jesus goes away, he's gonna send someone to be with him, namely the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look in verses 15 through 18.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read this together.
SPEAKER_00: John 14, verses 15 through 18.
SPEAKER_00: If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
SPEAKER_00: And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.
SPEAKER_00: You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
SPEAKER_00: I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus promises the indwelling presence of God through the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He assures us that if we love him and keep his commandments, he will ask the Father to give us the helper.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're familiar with the term.
SPEAKER_00: This term helper in Greek is periklite or perikletos.
SPEAKER_00: And it's used four times in John's Gospel of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We know what a paramedic is, right?
SPEAKER_00: If you if you injure yourself, you call 911 and the paramedic comes.
SPEAKER_00: There's someone paramens alongside or besides.
SPEAKER_00: The paramedic is a medical person that comes alongside you to help you and give you aid.
SPEAKER_00: Well, a parakletos is someone who walks alongside you to give you aid.
SPEAKER_00: Here he speaks about the Holy Spirit as the helper, it can be translated.
SPEAKER_00: Four times in the Gospel of John, it's used of the Holy Spirit's ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Once it's used about Jesus himself in 1 John, where he's called our advocate, who is ever before the Father pleading our cause.
SPEAKER_00: What wonderful reassurances that even when Jesus is away, his Holy Spirit is with us and even in us.
SPEAKER_00: There's a second promise, the promise of the illuminating revelation of God.
SPEAKER_00: The illuminating revelation of God.
SPEAKER_00: That is, you may know Jesus today, but tomorrow you can know him better.
SPEAKER_00: We find this in verses 19 through 21.
SPEAKER_00: 19, 19 through 21, Jesus says, Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me.
SPEAKER_00: Because I live, you also will live.
SPEAKER_00: In that day, you will know that I am in the Father, in my Father, in you in me, and I in you.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.
SPEAKER_00: So here in verses 19 through 21, Jesus promises the illuminating revelation of God.
SPEAKER_00: The crux of this promise is in verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read it again.
SPEAKER_00: He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and here's the promise, and will manifest myself to him.
SPEAKER_00: What would it be like for Jesus to reveal himself?
SPEAKER_00: It makes my mind think back to the story of Joseph, where Joseph was raised after his difficult time in prison and being lied about, and then God raised him up to second in command of Pharaoh himself, and his brothers in the time of famine come to Egypt, and they appear before their brother, but they don't know it's their brother Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: They think it's an executive leader in Egypt who has the power of life and death over them.
SPEAKER_00: And the there's such a tender passage there when Joseph, after he sort of talked to him like an official, then he asks the Egyptians to leave the room, close the doors, and it says, and he made himself known to them.
SPEAKER_00: He probably stepped off his throne, came down there, looked them in the face, and says, Do you recognize me?
SPEAKER_00: I'm Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he did some other things that only Jews would do to show them that he was their brother.
SPEAKER_00: And they had that intimate revelation that was before their eyes all along, but they just didn't see it until it was revealed to them.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm calling this the illuminating revelation of God.
SPEAKER_00: Because what I'm not suggesting is that there's revelation to be had that's not in Scripture, that maybe God can tell you things and you're gonna have this extra biblical revelation that maybe can even add to Scripture and do what Scripture can't do.
SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about that.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about an illuminating revelation where there's things that are there as plain as day before our eyes, but presently we can't see them.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we see them, but they don't appear glorious to us.
SPEAKER_00: The revelation Jesus is talking about is an illuminating revelation where he opens our eyes to see him in all his glory.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think this is talking about a basic knowledge that the new covenant promises every believer is gonna have about God.
SPEAKER_00: They're all gonna know me from the least and to the greatest, uh, the prophet uh Jeremiah said.
SPEAKER_00: I believe this is talking about something that happens in the lives of believers.
SPEAKER_00: That there are levels and degrees to which we have Jesus Christ revealed to us.
SPEAKER_00: And if I'm here today, I want to be here tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: I want to know more of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I want to feast on him more, I want to trust him more, like a friend that over time, through trials and difficulties, you just grow in this love and appreciation and admiration more and more over time, tried and tested.
SPEAKER_00: I want to have that walk with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says it's available to us.
SPEAKER_00: The 17th century Baptist theologian John Gill commented on verse 23, 21 when he says this.
SPEAKER_00: By manifest myself to him, Jesus speaks of a spiritual manner, as when he makes himself known to his people in ordinances, such as the Lord's Supper and baptism, and favors them with communion with him, and they see his beauty, they see his fullness, they see his grace and righteousness, his power and his glory.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that's the same word Jesus used in our text.
SPEAKER_00: He says, The world, when I go to be with the Father, the world's not going to see me anymore.
SPEAKER_00: But you're going to see me better than you ever have.
SPEAKER_00: Because the spirit that I'm sending to be, not only with you, but in you, is going to progressively open up your eyes to see more of the glory and the beauty and the fullness and the grace and the righteousness and the power of who I am.
SPEAKER_00: I think this bears itself out in our own walks with the Lord, does it not?
SPEAKER_00: That there are seasons where our love for Jesus is strong and when we taste and see that the Lord is good, when we look at him and he's altogether lovely.
SPEAKER_00: In those kind of seasons, you open your Bible and promises are jumping off to you, and you're being convicted of sins, and you can't wait to share with your wife or your coworker what the Lord told you through his word that morning, and you're walking in sweet communion, and when trials come upon you, you hear bad news, your heart isn't wrecked because you know you can trust in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Those are wonderful times of life.
SPEAKER_00: There's also seasons of coldness.
SPEAKER_00: When our love for Jesus grows cold and we're distracted by so many lesser things on earth, and we look at Jesus, and our hearts are stale.
SPEAKER_00: In such a condition, we may lose a sense of the light of his countenance upon us.
SPEAKER_00: We think about his love for us and it doesn't move us.
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, we may even doubt his love.
SPEAKER_00: And we we we relate to him like he's an austere judge with a big fly swatter waiting to swat us as soon as we mess up.
SPEAKER_00: We forget our status as sons and daughters, and the king feels so far away.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't this promise of an illuminating revelation of Christ Himself to your soul, doesn't that stir you to say, I want that?
SPEAKER_00: I want Jesus to be more beautiful to me tomorrow than he was yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: I want to see what's there.
SPEAKER_00: The cloud, the haze, even as the Apostle Paul talked about, we see now through a glass dimly.
SPEAKER_00: I want that tint on the window to get lighter and lighter as I gaze into glory, the closer I get to meeting Christ face to face.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus promises here, it's available to believers who have the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Promise number three: the intimate fellowship of God.
SPEAKER_00: The intimate fellowship of God.
SPEAKER_00: We read in verses 22 through 24, Jesus says, Judas, not Iscariot, said to him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered him, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever does not love me does not keep my words, and the word that you hear is not mine, but the father's who sent me.
SPEAKER_00: Here Jesus gives us a third promise, the promise of the intimate fellowship of God.
SPEAKER_00: When asked by the apostle Jude, as we may call him, or Judas, not Iscariot, he's also called elsewhere Thaddeus, he's also called Lebius, he's the apostle of many names.
SPEAKER_00: I saw Ted McQuinn this morning, and I said, I'm gonna give you a shout-out.
SPEAKER_00: Because Ted, we don't know whether to call him Tyler or Ted or Theophilus or Theo or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know what to call him, I just call him something different every time.
SPEAKER_00: So here the apostle Jude was the same exact way.
SPEAKER_00: Here he's called Judas, not Iscariot.
SPEAKER_00: Judas Iscariot in chapter 13 had already gone out to betray Jesus and sell him into sell him to his death.
SPEAKER_00: Notice verse 23 again.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the crux of this promise.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
SPEAKER_00: I love this fact here, because this this Greek word monet for home is used twice in the entire New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Once here in verse 23 and once in verse 2 of this same chapter.
SPEAKER_00: Same idea.
SPEAKER_00: And what's neat about verse 2 of this chapter is Jesus is promising that as he goes away to be with the Father, he's going to prepare a place for us because he said, My father's house has many money, many rooms.
SPEAKER_00: So in verse 2 of chapter 14, he's clearly talking about the world to come, the kingdom come that we are now, we are going to be in when he comes and retrieves us and takes us back to be with him forever.
SPEAKER_00: But verse 23 is a promise for here and now.
SPEAKER_00: He says, If you love me and keep my commandments, my father will love you, we will join forces, and we're going to come in our monet with you.
SPEAKER_00: If you put verse 2 and verse 23 together, we get a foretaste of heaven on earth when we are walking in the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: A foretaste of the abode of Father and Son through the Spirit in us and with us.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine how enjoyable heaven's going to be?
SPEAKER_00: How amazing it's going to be that we are going to be able to have access to our Father.
SPEAKER_00: None of this living in the slums.
SPEAKER_00: None of this barriers that are between us.
SPEAKER_00: No more sin.
SPEAKER_00: No more, no more apathy towards our Father, no more barriers, no more distractions.
SPEAKER_00: Our entire existence will be to live and to work and to worship in the presence of the Lord for his glory as we are feeding off of the fuel of our love for him in the manifestation of his glory for us.
SPEAKER_00: But doesn't this promise of that foretaste of heaven here, when the Father dwells with us in a powerful, special way through his spirit, maybe that you and I may not be experiencing this morning, doesn't that stir you up a little bit to seek the Lord so that you can know this foretaste of heaven today?
SPEAKER_00: That's what the promise is for.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm going away, but you're actually going to be better off without me.
SPEAKER_00: Because when the Spirit comes, he's going to help you see more of me.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to empower you more.
SPEAKER_00: He has been with you, but now he's going to be in you.
SPEAKER_00: And he's going to create this.
SPEAKER_00: He's good through him, we are going to dwell with you, even though the Father and Son cannot be contained.
SPEAKER_00: They will dwell in us like a temple.
SPEAKER_00: Now, not all believers are going to enjoy God's presence alike.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's one thing that came through the passages of in meditating on this.
SPEAKER_00: As great and as precious as these promises are, they're not automatically enjoyed.
SPEAKER_00: If you think about the presence and the revelation and the communion of God, these are not things so often we we do live like those orphans.
SPEAKER_00: And so you may ask the question, well, what is it what needs to happen in order for me to enjoy these promises that they would be fulfilled in me?
SPEAKER_00: It's my observation from the text that these promises are contingent promises, are conditional promises, that are sort of on top of the promises of the new covenant, that all of God's people will know him, all of them will be indwelt by the Spirit, all of them will be sanctified, all of them will be glorified, all of them will go to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: This seems to be a next step above that where Jesus is saying, if you want to feel my presence, if you want to see me the way I am, if you want to know I'm here, that I'm alive, and thus you are living and you're living the abundant life, then you've got to be walking in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I really believe that Jesus is talking about the abundant life here.
SPEAKER_00: Not merely about being saved, check the box, we're good.
SPEAKER_00: But about a plane of existence that Jesus hinted at in John chapter 10 when he said, the thief comes in to steal and to uh as a marauder to kill, but I have come that you may have life more abundantly.
SPEAKER_00: The abundant life where we're not merely just going through life waiting for heaven and waiting, Lord, when are you going to just take me out?
SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of tired of this life.
SPEAKER_00: But we can actually go through life through the Holy Spirit, living an abundant life, richly and dwelt by his spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Like the Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter 1 prayed, that the eyes of their understanding would be enlightened, that they could know what is the riches of God's inheritance in the saints.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 3, he says, he prays that they would know the depth and the breadth and the height and the width of God's love, so that they'd be filled with all the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_00: That's not standard stuff.
SPEAKER_00: That's walking in the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That's something that's available to us, but often we're not taken advantage of.
SPEAKER_00: Not all believers will enjoy these promises fulfilled in their lives by equal measure because there are two conditions Jesus gives for the fulfillment of these promises.
SPEAKER_00: He mentions them over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: And these two conditions are we must love and obey Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to convince you that.
SPEAKER_00: Love is on a spectrum, as is obedience.
SPEAKER_00: There's no obedience, and there's full obedience, and there's everywhere in between.
SPEAKER_00: There's motives of zero love and there's complete love and then there's mixed motives in between.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe that where we lie, where we fall in this, our walk with Christ in a given moment is going to determine our experience of the fullness of these promises in our life.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just show you the argument here in chapter 14.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 15, he says, If you love me, you'll keep my commandments.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone loves me, he'll keep my words.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 24.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.
SPEAKER_00: You see a pattern here?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not making these unconditional promises that are going to be shared in equal measure by all believers simply by being believers, but rather he's talking about experiencing the fullness of the presence, the revelation, and the fellowship of God through the Spirit when you're walking in greater love and obedience to Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why is this so important, I think, for us to grasp?
SPEAKER_00: Too often we think that our faith in Jesus Christ, the first condition is love for Jesus, we're going to look at love for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We often think about our faith in very cognitive terms, in very intellectual terms, or just in propositional terms, such as Jesus is the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I believe that.
SPEAKER_00: He came in the flesh, yes, I believe.
SPEAKER_00: He lived a perfect life, went to the cross, died on the cross for my sins.
SPEAKER_00: Three days later, he rose from the dead for me.
SPEAKER_00: He went to the Father, he promised to return.
SPEAKER_00: I believe all this stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And yet it remains kind of like stuck in our heads, and it doesn't trickle down to our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Almost like our walk with Jesus Christ is like filling out a voting ballot where we go to the local gymnasium and we get a slip of paper and we go to our little cubicle and we see the different candidates here.
SPEAKER_00: We have we have Jesus and we have Muhammad and we have Buddha and we have self and we have religion and we have humanism and secularism, all these different ways of living our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We put the bubble beside Jesus and then we hand, we drop it in the slot, and we think, my job's done.
SPEAKER_00: But following Jesus is not making merely a choice, it's a matter of loving Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The truths of the doctrines in the Christian faith can often be mechanically subscribed to.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean you love the truth, doesn't mean you're walking in love with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And to the degree that we are walking in love with Jesus, and in subsequent obedience to Christ from that love, we're going to experience more of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I believe is absolutely apparent in the text.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what exactly do we mean by love?
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to love Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Is it just a sentimentality?
SPEAKER_00: Is it just a feeling?
SPEAKER_00: I love how John Piper defines the love of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He says this about it that's I think very helpful.
SPEAKER_00: He says love for Jesus is pleasurable.
SPEAKER_00: It's desiring him because he's infinitely desirable.
SPEAKER_00: It's admiring him because he's infinitely admirable.
SPEAKER_00: It's treasuring him because he's infinitely valuable.
SPEAKER_00: It's enjoying him because he's infinitely enjoyable.
SPEAKER_00: It's being satisfied with all that he is because he's infinitely satisfying.
SPEAKER_00: Love is the reflex of the awakened and newborn, of awakened and newborn human soul to all that is true and good and beautiful embodied in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You see, so often we use the term love almost synonymously with faith and being a Christian, like do you love Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Yep, love Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like in a dating relationship, right?
SPEAKER_00: When you first started dating, if you're married, or maybe you're still dating.
SPEAKER_00: Or you've dated in the past and it hadn't worked out so well for you.
SPEAKER_00: You can remember those days when you were just in love, right?
SPEAKER_00: When the endorphins were kind of raging and you would talk for hours on in and it was easy.
SPEAKER_00: And now maybe you're married and you're a husband and your wife complains that you just don't want to talk.
SPEAKER_00: Um, or maybe she used to show you all kinds of attention.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's like five or six kids in between you, and and uh literally in between you, and you can't hardly get a word in edgewise, and it seems like you're so busy, your lives are just like running kids over here and there, and more like a chauffeur service, and you haven't connected, and and the love that you once had that was so close and so pure and so immediate has been had water poured on it, and maybe has died the death of attrition.
SPEAKER_00: And you can't hardly you can say, Yes, I love my spouse, but the feelings aren't there, or I should say the experience of that closeness isn't there like it used to be.
SPEAKER_00: We all know that experience.
SPEAKER_00: I love how John Piper describes love, that it's it's pleasurable.
SPEAKER_00: We're not merely talking about cognitive beliefs that we say yes to, but we find joy in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Can you find the can you think of the last time you were stunned or amazed or gripped by Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: That you were excited about Jesus, excited to tell someone else about something you experienced about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Don't get me wrong, church and theology and all the stuff we're doing today, and serving and mission kids and mission group relationships and interactions we have during weekdays and all these things that we call we do as sacred mission church.
SPEAKER_00: They're wonderful things.
SPEAKER_00: But we can do all those things and not be loving Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's called the trappings of religion.
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, the longer we are Christians and the deeper we intertwine our lives with the Christian faith and with Christian community, we're in greater risk all the time of actually forgetting Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is sort of the thing we rally around, but when's the last time we communed with Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: When's the last time we read his word?
SPEAKER_00: We were reading it as if Jesus was talking to us.
SPEAKER_00: You see how easy it is to just get caught up in the faith and we actually leave Jesus behind?
SPEAKER_00: What might it look like for us to take delight in Jesus, to love Jesus, to want to be moved to worship Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: I'll just share one personal story.
SPEAKER_00: A few weeks ago in mission group, we were we were going through John 13, talking it, talking it out, and Judas was about to go away, and we it came up that that Peter had denied Jesus, and we went to Luke's gospel in chapter 22, where it records where Jesus is denied by Peter.
SPEAKER_00: And we're just reading along in the fact that Jesus predicts that Peter is going to deny Jesus three times.
SPEAKER_00: Here they are, the upper room, and Jesus says, Hey, all of you guys are gonna be scattered later today.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna run to the four winds.
SPEAKER_00: They're like, hmm?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus looks at Peter, the most bold and audacious and outspoken uh uh apostle Jesus had.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Peter, you are gonna deny me not once, not twice, you're gonna deny me three times tonight before the rooster crows.
SPEAKER_00: That just kind of struck me.
SPEAKER_00: We're reading this and I'm like, what kind of knowledge would it take to have that kind of detailed knowledge of the future?
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus doesn't just know Peter's gonna be discouraged, maybe Peter's gonna run, but he's gonna deny Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how unlikely is that?
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Peter protests and said, Lord, may it never be.
SPEAKER_00: I will never leave you, I will never, I will never deny you.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I'd rather die for you.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, Nope, tonight, three times before the rooster crows.
SPEAKER_00: And we find later in chapter 22, it blows me away.
SPEAKER_00: Here Jesus is in front of uh Caiaphas and Annas in the courtyard of the high priest, and there's all these Pharisees and Sadducees there, and they're they're calling out names, and they're they're uh have false witnesses that are saying Jesus is doing things in the power of the devil and all these things.
SPEAKER_00: They're even coming up to Jesus and striking him in the face, they're even pulling his beard, and all the while, within eyeshot, you have Peter over there warming himself by a fire, just watching, seeing his Lord, getting abused.
SPEAKER_00: And this young uh servant girl comes up and says, Wait, I think I recognize you.
SPEAKER_00: You're you're one of Jesus' disciples, right?
SPEAKER_00: And Peter's like, Me?
SPEAKER_00: No, no, I'm just kind of cold.
SPEAKER_00: Just here, just walking around tonight, thought I'd stop by.
SPEAKER_00: A little while later, she looks at him again, she hears him talking, she's like, You're from Galilee, you've got a southern accent.
SPEAKER_00: I can tell that you are with Jesus, you're one of his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: I knew it.
SPEAKER_00: He says, No, no, no, no, I'm not one of his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: You understand that?
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know that guy, right?
SPEAKER_00: Some other men walk up and they stand there and she talks to them.
SPEAKER_00: She says, Hey, I think this guy's one of Jesus' apostles.
SPEAKER_00: You can hear him how he's talking, I recognize him, and Peter has to really up the ante.
SPEAKER_00: He starts cursing and swearing that he doesn't even know who they're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: And it says, as he's dining for the third time, the rooster crowed.
SPEAKER_00: And then Luke records, Jesus looks across the courtyard and locks eyes with Peter.
SPEAKER_00: When I read that, it blew me away.
SPEAKER_00: I've read it before.
SPEAKER_00: But to think about a man, my Savior in the flesh, God in the flesh, knows the future so well that down to the second he sees and knows what's going to happen, that even his most unlikely apostle to ever deny him, denies him three times, at the same time that cotton pick and rooster crowed, and Jesus looks across the courtyard, looks at Peter, and Peter sees Jesus looking at him.
SPEAKER_00: Amidst all the voices of scandal and accusation, Jesus looks at Peter, has that kind of presence of mind.
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of Jesus you're praying to when you're worried about tomorrow in the interview you have.
SPEAKER_00: When you're worried about how you're going to pay the bills and you're praying to him, you're praying to a Jesus who knows the future down to this second and who's going to sustain you to endure it.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus said in Luke 22, verse 31, Satan has desired, has asked permission to sift you like wheat.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to grind you, Peter, but I've prayed for you so that when you're converted, you'll strengthen the brethren.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm moved to think that at the end of John chapter 21, at the very end, the close of John's gospel, we find Jesus meeting Peter on the shore of Galilee and restoring Peter, who was shamed and abjected.
SPEAKER_00: He'd gone back to his old way of life as a fisherman.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes to Peter and says, Peter, do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: Then he asks him again, Peter, do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: Then he asks him a third time, Peter, do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: Peter had said no three times before.
SPEAKER_00: And here he gives Peter an opportunity to say yes.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Feed my sheep, feed my sheep, feed my lambs.
SPEAKER_00: He restored him to the ministry.
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of Jesus we serve.
SPEAKER_00: And I read that and I was blown away by the love and tenderness and knowledge and power of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't just the man, the one who came to sacrifice himself for my sins.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who is the king of the universe, the king of the past, present, and future, down to the millisecond.
SPEAKER_00: That kind of delight is called love.
SPEAKER_00: I want Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It made me want to pray to him.
SPEAKER_00: It made me want to turn my anxieties over to him.
SPEAKER_00: It made me want to take my insecurities, my guilt, my shame, bring it to him and say, I'm no better than Peter.
SPEAKER_00: I am Peter.
SPEAKER_00: I am Judas.
SPEAKER_00: And you love me and you receive me to yourself, restore me.
SPEAKER_00: That kind of love for Jesus, I do believe, when we're walking in that kind of love, it produces obedience.
SPEAKER_00: And the Father and the Son really like that.
SPEAKER_00: And they said they will come and make their abode with us.
SPEAKER_00: Condition number two, obedience to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's not one condition, love and obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Love is not obedience, obedience is not love, but you do have a relationship between the two.
SPEAKER_00: Obedience stems from love.
SPEAKER_00: You can have obedience without love, but you cannot have love without obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says it best in verse 21: Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: Do you ever wonder why we struggle with sin?
SPEAKER_00: Whether overt, obvious, shameful, maybe even public sins, or just the private sins of not trusting God and being envious of other people and being defensive instead of confessing and isolating ourselves instead of running towards community and all those sorts of soft sins we like to think about.
SPEAKER_00: Then why do we do those things?
SPEAKER_00: I think Scripture is very clear that we do those things because in those moments of truth we love something more than Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: When it comes down to me being faithful with my wife, how I use my eyes and my time on the internet, how I'm faithful to the Lord, or whether I'm going to compromise and give myself over in that moment to sexual lust.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone here faces that temptation every day, right?
SPEAKER_00: In a day of smartphones and endless connection.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of going to Jesus and trying to find our satisfaction in him.
SPEAKER_00: You see, our obedience stems from a love for Jesus that finds Jesus to be delightful.
SPEAKER_00: Think about it this way.
SPEAKER_00: I was trying to think about how to make this extremely practical and applicable to us today.
SPEAKER_00: The role that love plays in just the lives we live, here's a couple ways.
SPEAKER_00: Unless we're walking in love and in the spirit of Jesus Christ, what we're doing right now in public worship, for many of us may be boring right now.
SPEAKER_00: We come to church, it's sort of an arduous thing, you gotta get the kids in the car, you gotta kick them in the car, you gotta change some diapers, have to, the spouse is kind of angry because we didn't help out as much as we should have the night before, etc.
SPEAKER_00: etc.
SPEAKER_00: Here we go again, going to church, packing our schedules out.
SPEAKER_00: As soon as church is over, we gotta run to the ballgame, we gotta go here, we're gonna go eat dinner with my parents.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's what we do, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we can do this whole charade without loving Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Or we can show up and we can be all about it, because not because we love Jesus, because we just enjoy being around other people.
SPEAKER_00: We're real we're extroverts, we can't wait to talk to people, we can't wait to hear some music and a sermon and have our um, you know, we enjoy the Bible, we find it intellectually fascinating.
SPEAKER_00: And where's Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Where's he at?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe loving Jesus and our relationship with him, and we open scripture that in the morning, it's an arduous task, and we're like, man, this is for the birds.
SPEAKER_00: This is for maybe preachers and some a few weirdos, but this is not for me.
SPEAKER_00: I read this and I'm reading to Jeremiah, and I'm thinking, man, doom and desolation, I don't need that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna turn on Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Phil.
SPEAKER_00: At least I'm gonna get some positive affirmations there.
SPEAKER_00: That may be you.
SPEAKER_00: Because the connection with Jesus isn't there.
SPEAKER_00: These aren't the living words of the living Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They're the the dead words of a dead Christ to you.
SPEAKER_00: Here's on the other hand, you can actually, there's there's some of us maybe that open the Bible every morning, six o'clock in the morning, we can't wait to get it and to read it and to listen to sermons because we love how knowledge is power.
SPEAKER_00: And power is influence, and influence is respectability.
SPEAKER_00: And if we can just keep spending time in God's word and hearing sermons and journaling, we can increase our knowledge, our influence, and people are going to respect us and we'll be a big-time Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Where's Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: You see, whatever you fall on the side of the spectrum of just like, it's not for me or you're all into it.
SPEAKER_00: Where is Jesus in that?
SPEAKER_00: It's so easy to claim love for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's so easy to fake love for Jesus when he's not the one we're delighting in.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to, in this passage, as Jesus does, call us back again to loving and obeying Christ.
SPEAKER_00: God often sees through the sham of our mixed motives, and he doesn't receive those things as good works and true obedience, and he doesn't honor them with the pleasure of his intimate revelation, which leaves us with one pursuit.
SPEAKER_00: In light of these three promises, two conditions, we are left with one pursuit that we must pursue the fullness of the presence, revelation, and fellowship of Christ through the Holy Spirit, the abundant life walking in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul is the one who gave us the phrase, walk in the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He says, if you walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: The flesh and the spirit are warring against each other.
SPEAKER_00: When you're walking in the spirit, when you're walking in this love relationship with Jesus Christ, sin looks stupid.
SPEAKER_00: It looks hideous.
SPEAKER_00: You see it the way it is.
SPEAKER_00: You look at Christ, and he seems glorious and he's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: He's the kind of person you want to become like.
SPEAKER_00: You want him to dwell in you and with you.
SPEAKER_00: That's walking in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So many of us, I believe, are in the spiritual doldrums.
SPEAKER_00: You ever heard of the doldrums?
SPEAKER_00: Kind of a weird word.
SPEAKER_00: It's a really old word that comes back from when sailors would sail around the uh the equator.
SPEAKER_00: The equator was really known for these really either chaotic or really calm winds, very unpredictable.
SPEAKER_00: And when a ship was going past the uh equator, they could sometimes get in those really calm winds, they call the doldrums, when their ship was literally just sitting there.
SPEAKER_00: The water was just placid and they weren't going anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, it's the equator, it's a little warm, and they're cooking in the sun, they're not going anywhere, and if the wind doesn't kick up in in uh uh in time, they're gonna die of starvation or thirst, and they're not gonna make it to the destination.
SPEAKER_00: So soldiers, so sailors hated the doldrums.
SPEAKER_00: I feel like so often we as Christians are living like orphans in the doldrums, and there's nothing we can do.
SPEAKER_00: We're just sitting there waiting.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're praying to the gods, right?
SPEAKER_00: Whoever you are, whoever you are, the the the the gods of the sea, would you please get us out of this predicament?
SPEAKER_00: But that's not our story.
SPEAKER_00: As children of the Father who's already made us, he's already signed the papers, he's already invited us into his home, he's already opened the door.
SPEAKER_00: It is for us to pursue this active relationship with him, to walk towards him.
SPEAKER_00: In God's mercy, we don't have to simply wait passively for a spiritual breakthrough for the wind to kick up.
SPEAKER_00: It is sweet when it happens.
SPEAKER_00: When you're sitting in a sermon and your heart's as hard as that wood and it's stale, and your spouse is upset at you because you've been snipping and snippy at the kids and everything else, and you're just obvious you're not walking in the spirit, and then the Lord just breaks your heart open.
SPEAKER_00: I experienced a conversion experience after a long year in college, where I went into college loving um apologetics and loving the idea of revival and holding prayer meetings on campus with people, and we just knew God was going to send revival to us.
SPEAKER_00: And I went from a junior college to um uh to the university, and that uh the first year in the university, I could not wait to take philosophy 101 and world religions because I had been reading stuff.
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't wait to just engage in these debates.
SPEAKER_00: It was awesome.
SPEAKER_00: I loved evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: And that first semester I lost my faith.
SPEAKER_00: My teacher, Lavonna Laverne, she was a Native American lady, she made it her, I don't know why she had the idea.
SPEAKER_00: She she wasted her time that semester single-handedly trying to undermine my faith, and she did a really good job of it.
SPEAKER_00: She was the president of the women's studies on campus.
SPEAKER_00: She was a great person.
SPEAKER_00: And anytime I would have a rebuttal or a question, whatever, she would try to make me feel so stupid.
SPEAKER_00: And would you believe about it?
SPEAKER_00: Because I didn't know if he existed.
SPEAKER_00: Four months.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of stuff can happen in four months.
SPEAKER_00: About a year goes by, and I'm just terrible.
SPEAKER_00: I can't hardly pray.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going through the motions.
SPEAKER_00: I'm in church every Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: And but then a year goes by, and I went to this church meeting, and a pastor was preaching from John chapter 21 that I've already mentioned to you.
SPEAKER_00: Where Peter had already, he'd blown it.
SPEAKER_00: Peter was, he was back fishing, he was done with Jesus because he's not worthy of Jesus anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm listening to that sermon, and when Jesus reaches out and hands Peter some bread with those nail-pierced hands, and he says, Peter, do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: And when Peter says, You know I love you, and then he receives him back to himself and recommissions him into the ministry, he was talking to me.
SPEAKER_00: He was talking to me.
SPEAKER_00: And I began once again to pursue God and walking in the Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: Because he'd already made me his own.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't gonna leave me in the doldrums for too long.
SPEAKER_00: I want to give you two ways that before we close, that we can pursue God.
SPEAKER_00: First, we must pursue God by asking for abundant life in the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We gotta ask for it.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 27 is a wonderful Psalm.
SPEAKER_00: I invite you to read it on your own time later today.
SPEAKER_00: Make it your prayer.
SPEAKER_00: This is an unbelievable prayer of pursuit of God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna read two verses from it.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 27, 4.
SPEAKER_00: One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all days of my life.
SPEAKER_00: So that I can check a box?
SPEAKER_00: So I can feel good about myself.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: To gaze upon the beauty, to delight in the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 8, you've said, Lord, seek my face.
SPEAKER_00: My heart says to you, your face, Lord, do I seek.
SPEAKER_00: We must pursue him by asking for this abundant life, asking that he would reveal the beauty of Christ to us.
SPEAKER_00: If we're not asking, we're not going to be finding.
SPEAKER_00: If we're not knocking, and the door is not going to be open to us.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, we must pursue God by actions that stir our love.
SPEAKER_00: So while it's true that our heart often determines our actions, in God's mercy, you Can flip it around too.
SPEAKER_00: Our actions can shape our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And so if your heart's in the doldrums, not only do you have to, you're not supposed to just wait for your actions to wait for your feelings to return, but rather you can do things that stir love in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: This is the uh one of the arguments of a book called Desiring the Kingdom by James Smith.
SPEAKER_00: He's a professor at Calvin College.
SPEAKER_00: And he argues this.
SPEAKER_00: He says that the things of daily life called liturgies.
SPEAKER_00: He says, liturgies make us certain kinds of people.
SPEAKER_00: And what defines us is what we love.
SPEAKER_00: Liturgies do this because they are the sorts of, because we are the sorts of beings whose orientation to the world is shaped from the body up more than from the head down.
SPEAKER_00: Liturgies aim our love to different ends precisely by training our hearts through our bodies.
SPEAKER_00: You don't hear this very often.
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, maybe he's overstating his his case a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: It's a provocative book.
SPEAKER_00: Some people hate it because they would be more rational.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: What you feel and what you love and what you treasure is all from the head down.
SPEAKER_00: But he makes the point that we're embodied creatures and that what we do impacts what we love.
SPEAKER_00: So I think it's both directions.
SPEAKER_00: What you're telling your mind and what you're doing with your body is shaping your heart and affections.
SPEAKER_00: We often think about positive liturgies such as means of grace, like scripture reading and prayer and private and public worship and baptism and fellowship and preaching and teaching, service, good works, confession, spiritual disciplines, reading Christian books.
SPEAKER_00: We don't often think about the ways we're being shaped negatively by just the things that we do in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We've put way too many things in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We're just strung out.
SPEAKER_00: Our kids are playing six sports.
SPEAKER_00: We're working overtime, even though we don't have to.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have time to work on our marriage.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have time to work on our walk with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We're just barely getting through.
SPEAKER_00: We're staying up late, binge watching Netflix, because we're so drained and we feel so awful.
SPEAKER_00: We need something to boost us up.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to bed late, watching stuff that's not actually helping our souls.
SPEAKER_00: And then the next morning we don't feel like getting up and reading God's word.
SPEAKER_00: And we're in this rat race of destruction.
SPEAKER_00: And you think, well, I'm still going to church.
SPEAKER_00: I'm still doing the things.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're doing some of the positive things, but the way you're living your life, the embodied liturgies, they're shaping you into taking steps toward the Father or taking steps away from the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Everything we do, there's no neutral thing in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We're either doing it in faith, in gratitude, and repentance and all those sorts of things, or we're taking steps away from the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Is it any wonder why we struggle and we don't experience these three promises in our lives?
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to close in just a minute with one final passage in Revelation chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle John has this vision of Jesus Christ in Revelation chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: The risen Christ literally appears to John, shows up behind him, he like hears something, and John like turns around.
SPEAKER_00: And there behind him is this colossal figure whose face is shining like the sun.
SPEAKER_00: His hands and his feet are like brass.
SPEAKER_00: And his his when he starts talking to John, it's like the sound of mighty waters.
SPEAKER_00: Like he can understand words, but it's like Niagara Falls.
SPEAKER_00: It's so powerful.
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's the glorified Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And John sees him in a vision.
SPEAKER_00: And John falls on his face, and an angel helps him up and says, Hey, listen, I've got a message for you.
SPEAKER_00: And here's part of what Jesus says to him.
SPEAKER_00: The church at Ephesus was a church that was stellar.
SPEAKER_00: It's the strongest church of the seven churches of Asia.
SPEAKER_00: And yet Jesus had something against them.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4 I have this against you, church at Ephesus, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.
SPEAKER_00: Remember therefore from where you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first.
SPEAKER_00: I think James Smith would like that.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I gotta wait on the works until my heart feels like it.
SPEAKER_00: No he says, if you're missing your first love, start doing the things you used to do.
SPEAKER_00: And repent and do the works you did at first.
SPEAKER_00: If not, I will come to you, I will remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent.
SPEAKER_00: How these are horrifying words for a church to hear.
SPEAKER_00: The church at Ephesus had was orthodox.
SPEAKER_00: They had dotted all their I's, crossed all their T's.
SPEAKER_00: They could argue the faith, they were representing the faith, they were even suffering for the faith.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus says, When I look at your church meeting, you've left your first love.
SPEAKER_00: And if you persist in this, I'm gonna personally come not to make my abode with you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna take the candlestick of my presence and my pleasure and my joy and the operation of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna take it from you, I'm gonna put it somewhere where people are gonna love me.
SPEAKER_00: May we receive this gentle rebuke from Jesus this morning as a call for us to get honest with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Say, Lord, I my love is not where it should be.
SPEAKER_00: I've been checking boxes, I've been doing the things, but I need you, Father, to help me seek your face.
SPEAKER_00: I want to do the things I did at first when I be when I prioritize the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: I want to do the things at first when I when I used to realize that life was more than accumulating things.
SPEAKER_00: I want to do the things at first when I realize life is more than financial uh uh stability, it's more than a happy marriage, it's more than raising children that make me proud.
SPEAKER_00: Life is Christ.
SPEAKER_00: To live is Christ, and then to die is more of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: May this be our prayer as we hear the words from Christ in our text.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.