Speaker 1: Welcome to the First Love Church podcast.
Speaker 1: This is a collection of Sunday teachings inspired by the revised common lectionary and recorded weekly in Ocala, florida.
Speaker 1: We're so grateful that you're here with us this morning.
Speaker 1: For those of you who have gathered in person, we say thank you.
Speaker 1: For those of you who are online, we greet you and also say thank you, appreciate your connection and participation.
Speaker 1: We're grateful for that.
Speaker 1: I hope that your Thanksgiving was one to actually be grateful for and if it wasn't, good news, there's more things coming and this is hopefully the practice for us that we can find gratitude in all kinds of places.
Speaker 1: We had a chance as a church to go and do outreach the day before Thanksgiving and I'll let Dennis tell you and other people that went.
Speaker 1: Thank you to everyone who came, even in the rain, and handed out groceries.
Speaker 1: We're grateful for that.
Speaker 1: But there was a little person that came right up to me at the outreach and he goes.
Speaker 1: I didn't know this was gonna happen.
Speaker 1: And that's always great when you get approached by a child like that, like what is gonna happen, what's broken, how can this be fixed, but he goes.
Speaker 1: I didn't know this was gonna be happening and he said I just met my new best friend and he goes I'm gonna need his telephone number.
Speaker 1: And so he was talking about Silas and I said, well, silas doesn't have a phone, but you can have my phone number.
Speaker 1: He goes well, does he have permission to use your phone?
Speaker 1: And I said, yes, he does.
Speaker 1: And then we gave him the phone number and he goes.
Speaker 1: I said I'll put your number in notes.
Speaker 1: And he goes no, you could lose that.
Speaker 1: Open up contacts right now.
Speaker 1: And so I was like, okay, let's do it.
Speaker 1: And he goes take a picture of me.
Speaker 1: And I took a picture of him and he's eight years old.
Speaker 1: He was doing the thing, but all day long he kept saying to me for the rest of the time we were there he said I didn't know this was gonna happen.
Speaker 1: I met my new best friend and I thought to myself what a beautiful place to have that kind of.
Speaker 1: I had no idea I would meet my new best friend.
Speaker 1: He knew somebody for three minutes and said this is the guy.
Speaker 1: He is gonna be my new best friend.
Speaker 1: And I was thinking sometimes how life makes a cynical, how life tells us they're not gonna be that.
Speaker 1: And what if we could enter into every situation when we met someone and go oh, they're possibly potentially my new best friend and there was such joy in hoping that he's called four times.
Speaker 1: I just want you to know he does have the phone number and there is talking.
Speaker 1: That's going on and every time I answer the phone he goes can I talk to my best friend?
Speaker 1: And I love that because now it's four conversations in and it's his best friend still.
Speaker 1: They've maintained still since Wednesday.
Speaker 1: So that's a good, that's a very good thing.
Speaker 1: But I just want to encourage us to allow this coming season, the season of Advent and Thomas mentioned that.
Speaker 1: I do love it and I do why?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because Advent gives us a practice in how to embody our deepest longings.
Speaker 1: Advent gives us a season to really get to know ourselves and be able to find Christ and to be able to find wholeness in the dark and we learn how to see things differently and we learn how to respond to them differently.
Speaker 1: But there's hope for us in this practice.
Speaker 2: You know, we were told by the place that gives us the food that they were gonna be able to, we were gonna be able to give away turkeys.
Speaker 2: So when we got about an hour or a couple of hours before, we found out that it wasn't gonna be any turkeys, and Heather was like, well, you know, a friend of ours, acquaintance was like, called us and said that they had a bunch of meat in their freezer and they wanted to give it away.
Speaker 2: And so I said would you know, heather, do you think you have time to go over there and raid their freezer?
Speaker 2: So she went over there and I go well, how much did she get?
Speaker 2: And she goes I don't know.
Speaker 2: I emptied it.
Speaker 2: Where are they told me to empty it.
Speaker 2: I emptied it.
Speaker 2: I said, yeah, but did you get enough?
Speaker 2: Because we have, I started to get like nervous, you know, like, and so I counted out and they were, like you know, three or four pounds of I don't know what they were, or a hamburger or whatever ground beef, and there was there's 50 buildings over there and there was 49 packs of those things, and one of the people wasn't living in the building, and so I guess God knew that, you know, and so we tend to sometimes get a little nervous and think that we're going to make this happen or we need to care about this or whatever.
Speaker 2: But I tell you what, if you just make yourself available those that came out, we had to switch from carrying around turkeys to carrying around ground beef.
Speaker 2: It was a quick switch, but the people were nonetheless very happy.
Speaker 2: Of course, they didn't know we were going to get, you know, turkeys, so maybe they had been disappointed if they had, you know, been promised, but they weren't promised anything, and so that we were able to have non-perishable bags, vegetable bags and then the meat.
Speaker 2: And so we were those people the day before Thanksgiving were so grateful because several of them said that they didn't really have enough to cook, and so they were going to be able to do that.
Speaker 2: And so I want to thank you for your fateful giving, because you partner with the church regularly with your ties and offerings.
Speaker 2: Whether you do that here by giving in the offering boxes or online, you go to the giving section, and when you give on a regular basis, it helps us do things like that.
Speaker 2: Another thing we like to do is we like to pay the power bill every month, or the city of Ocala likes that, and so that's another thing we can do, because you fateful give.
Speaker 2: And then something that myself, my wife and my family has grown accustomed to do is we like to eat on a regular basis, and so your fateful giving allows Heather and I to take the salary that we do so that we can take care of our household and our family, and that doesn't come magically.
Speaker 2: It comes from the hard work and the generous gifts of people that decide this is a place that I want to, so seed into and I want to support, and we don't take it lightly.
Speaker 2: It is an awe-inspiring thing to know that you're trusted with that, and so we try to do the best that we can to handle those resources with wisdom and grace, and we haven't always done the best job at it, but God is merciful, and as we get older, we've learned how to stretch a dollar, and I don't know if you know this, but do you know how much ministry you can do with a dollar, a dollar's worth?
Speaker 2: So you just need to learn how to use that dollar wisely, and so I thank you for trusting us with those dollars, and we will continue to use them as long as God inspires you to give it to us, to try to help this community and help this church.
Speaker 1: We're grateful for everyone who came and give so that we can do the outreach, and we have a few things that are coming up, not only in the Advent services.
Speaker 1: Advent is a series of four weeks and there will be some practices that we do and we encourage you to do on your own, because when we gather together for church, this isn't necessarily just the church that happens here.
Speaker 1: I mean you are active participants.
Speaker 1: You don't come and just watch like the church show and then go home and live your life.
Speaker 1: The idea is that we would follow the sacred text, that we would enter the eternal current, that we would allow love to transform us and then we would go out into the world transformed by love and that we would live our lives differently.
Speaker 1: And this part of the Christian calendar.
Speaker 1: We have just exited the longest season, which is ordinary time, and right now we're in Christ the King Sunday.
Speaker 1: That's a really important service before we go into Advent, because we're reminded even before we go to this place where a soon and coming King is, this tension, the coming that he's already had and the coming that he's having again, this now, and the not yet, these places in our lives where we find ourselves waiting.
Speaker 1: But looking at the kingship that is offered to us through Christ is different than maybe any other king that you have had or seen or experienced, and so this gives us a chance to put some things into perspective, to maybe challenge some hierarchy and some views we have about that and to be able to say what does Jesus show us?
Speaker 1: How to live fully, human embodied, thriving in our humanity, and then offer that peace to the whole world.
Speaker 2: One of the things you see in the Old Testament is, you see, this kind of just a reflection of mankind in the fact that God wanted to be the king for the children of Israel.
Speaker 2: But they wanted a king like other nations.
Speaker 2: And people tend to want a king when God would be and when anyone else but God is king, there's going to be trouble.
Speaker 2: Can somebody say amen?
Speaker 2: And there's just no way that a human being could handle being a king correctly.
Speaker 2: Maybe in a fairy tale you'll hear of a place where there was a king that was just, but that's only going to be in a fairy tale, because power crops and absolute power absolutely crops.
Speaker 2: And it's one of those things where I almost hesitate that we use the word king, because it has with it a connotation of things that we've seen before and assumptions that you would make about God's leadership, and quite frankly, he's nothing like any king you have ever seen.
Speaker 2: And so don't make that mistake that when that word is used that in any way, it would be a reflection, and so I think that has to kind of bust sometimes our even image of what we think of a king when we use those words.
Speaker 1: There's many scholars who say that it would also be acceptable to use the word kin dumb, k-i-n dumb, this understanding that it's a family that God has called us into and one of the things that we like to look at this and remember.
Speaker 1: It is not an earthly kingdom, so it is not a situation where you can say, oh, this is like that kind of government or this kind of reign, but it is the reign of love and it is this call that we have every time we pray together and say your kingdom come, your will be done.
Speaker 1: What we're asking for is the realm of love to be established among us, first in us, and then established among us.
Speaker 2: You know if you've prayed that prayer before or you've heard others pray, pray that.
Speaker 2: I wonder what our heart condition is or was, and I wonder what you're actually envisioning happening.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of times when people think of your kingdom coming, they're thinking about enemies being slaughtered under the feet of this new rule, and I hate to break your heart, but that's not the king that we serve.
Speaker 2: In fact, I'm happy to break your heart on that one, and so understand that sometimes, when we vision this king coming, we're looking at it in human, earthly terms, and so I think that definition and truth needs to come to us on who he, who God is and how God would reveal to us Amen.
Speaker 1: And there is good news in the telling that Christ is king, because when we are looking around at our world, or we're looking around at ourselves and going, where is the hope?
Speaker 1: The hope is that one day everything unsad will be not true, that there will be a great reversal, that there will be a truth that is given.
Speaker 1: That is Christ, that is love.
Speaker 1: And so as we go to the text today in Ephesians, we go and understand that this is written.
Speaker 1: This is 15 through 23, and in the original text it's all one sentence.
Speaker 1: So it's a run on if you are talking about English grammar, but I say that to say every part of this is included in the first thought, in this idea, and so there's a little bit that we can look at this morning.
Speaker 1: I hope that you'll be inspired by this.
Speaker 1: It gives us some really specific help and tools to be able to live our lives as ones who have settled ourselves in belonging and in our belovedness.
Speaker 1: We are loved by God.
Speaker 1: We are not earning this.
Speaker 1: This is God's already affection and attention, and now God is showing us how to live reconciled reconciled to ourselves and reconciled to the world, and this is the hope for us.
Speaker 2: You know what, and I would like for you to maybe kind of meditate on that thing that Thomas said when he began the service today, that idea of you being able to say that I'm lovely, that I'm loved, and that I could just sense the resistance from people leaving it to myself when he said how long have you been doing that?
Speaker 2: And I go I don't know what time is it.
Speaker 2: Should I start now?
Speaker 2: That is definitely something that's very uncomfortable for us, but it doesn't mean that it's wrong, and it's just we get so accustomed to judging ourselves so harshly or seeing ourselves as unlovely because we are witness of our mistakes and our shortcomings.
Speaker 2: But God is looking at you through that lens of His love and he sees you as pure and beautiful and lovely, and that's the way that you are now, not this hope of what you would become one day, and so I really want you to maybe consider that this, what we're getting ready to read, is an idea of how do I live in that new way of seeing myself as loved and lovely and lovable.
Speaker 1: In Ephesians, chapter one, verse 15,.
Speaker 1: Because of this, since I first heard about your strong faith or trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and your tender love toward all His devoted ones, my heart is always full and overflowing with thanks to God for you, as I constantly remember you in my prayers.
Speaker 1: And then we hear the apostle here was talking to this church at Ephesus, and even to the believers beyond the church at Ephesus this idea that I've heard of your trust and I have seen your love, how you're tender with each other and devoted to each other, and so be mindful among us that this is a template for us, that our trust allows us to live in love, to live in a way that is maybe different than the way that we've had in the past.
Speaker 1: And then he's saying and this gratitude just allows me to constantly remember you in my prayers, but this hope that faith or trust is evidenced by love.
Speaker 1: I pray that the Father of glory, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, would impart to you the riches of the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of revelation to know Him through your deepening intimacy with Him.
Speaker 1: Now, this part is really important because we're reminded that this is not just a mental exercise, that this is an engagement with the Holy Spirit, that this is an engagement with our own spirit and our own soul.
Speaker 1: This is us saying.
Speaker 1: This is the hope that as you grow in faith, as you grow in understanding that you are going to grow as the spirit gives you revelation and knowledge.
Speaker 1: What does it look like to know God?
Speaker 1: One of the things that I found the most hopeful about this verse is that growth takes time and many of us are uncomfortable trusting the slow work of God.
Speaker 1: We are all on board for the miracles, the fast, fast ones, but the slow work of God we're not very into that, that.
Speaker 1: We'd like to sign up for something else.
Speaker 1: But I wanna tell you the slow work of transformation is holy work, it is sacred work, it is surrendering ourselves, and it is this hope that we would know God differently than we knew God before, that throughout our entire life, our minds and our understanding would expand, that our love would expand, that our service would expand, and this happens through a deepening intimacy with Him.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 2: I think it's an important side note too to see that this place and many other places in Paul's writings, there's prayers that he prays that you can adopt for yourself and your family.
Speaker 2: Maybe you don't know exactly how to pray for your children or your family, or your friends, people that you love, spouses and whatnot, or maybe you think you're a great prayer.
Speaker 2: I consider my wife a college level prayer.
Speaker 2: Maybe even who knows you could be masters or bachelors, who knows Doctor, doctor prayer?
Speaker 2: Yes, but I say that to say this with all humility.
Speaker 2: She prays these prayers daily for you and for her children.
Speaker 2: And these prayers why reinvent the wheel?
Speaker 2: And you could take these and mark them down and pray them over yourselves, over the people that you love, and watch them, because people oftentimes ask us what should we pray?
Speaker 2: Or they say, well, if you could pray, that'd be great.
Speaker 2: Well, let's find the cliff notes here where we get this stuff, and it's in places just like this amen.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: In verse 18, I pray that the light of God would illuminate the eyes of your imagination, flooding you with light until you experience the full revelation of the hope of his calling.
Speaker 1: That is the wealth of God's glorious inheritance that he finds in us, the holy ones.
Speaker 1: I pray the light of God would illuminate the eyes of your imagination.
Speaker 1: That is a beautiful invitation to allow the spirit to reignite, to re-enchant, to give us an entrance into the mystery that is God, in the following that is God and in really understanding ourselves.
Speaker 1: We are the inheritance.
Speaker 1: We are the holy ones because Jesus has reconciled us to God.
Speaker 1: But this idea, it's the experience, the full revelation of the hope of our calling.
Speaker 1: There is understanding and great hope when we repeat things that we have heard and learned, but then when they become alive to us, when we actually begin to do them ourselves.
Speaker 1: I pray that you will continually experience the immeasurable greatness of God's power, made available to you through faith.
Speaker 1: Then your lives will be an advertisement of this immense power as it works through you.
Speaker 1: This is the mighty power that was released when God raised Christ from the dead and exalted him to the place of highest honor and supreme authority in the heavenly realm.
Speaker 1: This part's really important because he mentions power a lot.
Speaker 1: He's like there's a whole lot of power in God and you can have power in God.
Speaker 1: There's a whole lot of power.
Speaker 1: And then he says I wanna tell you what kind of power we're talking about the power of surrender.
Speaker 1: The power of surrendering to love's plan.
Speaker 1: Jesus experienced God's power when God raised Jesus from the dead, when God said this is the resurrection that I've placed in you.
Speaker 1: This is the work of spirit, but this is the power that dead things can come to life.
Speaker 1: This is the power that hateful things can be turned into love.
Speaker 1: This is the power that those who are at war can be at peace.
Speaker 1: This is the power of God and this is the power that Paul is saying.
Speaker 1: I want you to have this.
Speaker 1: I want you to know what it's like to have the power that's been affixed to love and allow love to transform everything.
Speaker 2: You know we've sang songs.
Speaker 2: There's power, power, wonder.
Speaker 2: Come on, sing with it in the praise.
Speaker 2: You know the church has talked about power, but I think oftentimes it's power like we want to just move mountains, and those are the scriptures that we tie in with this.
Speaker 2: But to really look at maybe what is that power for?
Speaker 2: Some people just want to grow out legs or see things move.
Speaker 2: But where I've really needed the power most and have seen the greatest move of power is in what I need that great power for is the removal of my ego, and what I need is to really do the deep work, the heart work, to even have the awareness that I need that there are so many people that are a bull in the China shop and you have no idea the damage that you're causing to your spouse, to your children, in your life, to people around you.
Speaker 2: It is painful and we're just unaware.
Speaker 2: How about asking for that kind of power to make me aware?
Speaker 2: I ask for those words and they're famous slash words for me because I didn't realize how deep the rabbit hole was gonna go.
Speaker 2: When I said make me aware of these things that I don't see, help me have awareness of where I'm hurting people.
Speaker 2: It almost became a thing where I didn't want to move because it seemed like I was a porcupine and every move just was jabbing the people that I say, that I love and I tell you, when you begin to see the mountain of work that needs to be done, you wanna run the other direction.
Speaker 2: But that's when we can be reminded there is wonder, working power, and it's not to play games, like some Christians just spend their whole life doing.
Speaker 2: It is so that you can become something so transformed that people can look and say God is alive, god is real, because I know what he's done to my friend, to my father, to my sister.
Speaker 2: I know God is alive and he's working.
Speaker 2: And that's the kind of power that you need, but it is available to you, amen, and it's for this kind of work, the work of transforming the life of a human being.
Speaker 1: We pause here for a moment to thank you for joining us today.
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Speaker 1: I love what you're inviting us into this understanding that it is awareness, that it is a practice, that awareness of the presence of God with us, or even how we move through the world or through other people.
Speaker 1: You mentioned a porcupine and while you can go on National Draft and figure out all kinds of things at home, I would remind you that porcupines need to get with other porcupines so there can be more porcupines.
Speaker 1: I didn't set it up, that's how God did it, but anyway, they're very prickly with each other, except, well, with other people, not just people with dogs and other things but when a porcupine wants to get close to another porcupine, they stand up and they show their belly.
Speaker 1: That is so vulnerable and they put their little paws out almost in surrender, and they come to each other in this position, completely vulnerable, no quills.
Speaker 1: And I wonder if, when we come to the world, are we like the porcupine, where we just charge in with quills, ready to be and, again, national Geographic for you.
Speaker 1: They don't shoot those quills really far.
Speaker 1: It's when people get close to you that you get quilled, or when the dog gets close to you, and so it is very often the people that we love or the people we're in close proximity with that we do hurt.
Speaker 1: And I wonder if what God is calling us to is to stand up and be vulnerable and to offer our hands in this position, not in closed fists, not holding our own, but open in surrender and saying this is what it looks like for me to be able to be at peace and to recognize who I am.
Speaker 1: There is no porcupine in the liturgy, but it's a beautiful picture for us.
Speaker 1: In this understanding that sometimes we have to change our posture, we have to change our position and how we are approaching the world, I pray that you will continually experience the immeasurable greatness of God's power made available to you through faith.
Speaker 1: Then your lives will be an advertisement of this immense power as it works through you.
Speaker 1: Your transformation is the advertisement You're giving yourself over to this power, you're allowing yourself to be changed.
Speaker 1: That's what the hope is, the power that was released when God raised Christ from the dead and exalted him to the place of highest honor and supreme authority in the heavenly realm.
Speaker 1: And now he is exalted as the first or the preeminence above every ruler, authority, government and realm of power in existence.
Speaker 1: He is gloriously enthroned over every name that is praised, not only in this age, but in the age that is coming Again.
Speaker 1: He's giving these people a reminder of this hope.
Speaker 1: This is what we're talking about, above every other thing.
Speaker 1: And then we see how Jesus behaved with all this power.
Speaker 1: He gave it away.
Speaker 1: Jesus got every power that was given to him, every authority, and he became like a servant and began to wash people's feet.
Speaker 1: Jesus did not take the power for himself so that he could get Garner, acclaim or more measure, but he took this power and began to serve.
Speaker 1: And I want to remind you, beloved Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever.
Speaker 1: God has always looked like Jesus.
Speaker 1: Maybe we didn't know that, but now we do.
Speaker 1: And so now we look at this and say this is how God behaves.
Speaker 1: God behaves in this canosis, in this giving away of power.
Speaker 2: You know, when we look at this hierarchy that seems to be established, then we just understand the pecking order or we think, OK, this is.
Speaker 2: You know, he's the trump card, as it were, and really I think we're missing what's preeminent over all of these systems that we're talking about, these ways of living, these things that you can surrender.
Speaker 2: Underneath that, the way is his way of love, and this is the preeminent thing.
Speaker 2: You know, I've had situations where, you know, as a man, my pride is there.
Speaker 2: I wish it were completely gone, but I've had times where, even relatively recently, somebody was really confronting me.
Speaker 2: And about my driving, you know, I cut over to get on an exit.
Speaker 2: The guy was doing that thing where he wouldn't let me over and I go well, this minivan's already got a lot of dents in it, I'm turning here and so I turned and so he pulled alongside of me and he said I was kind of an idiot.
Speaker 2: And I said well, you're not.
Speaker 2: I forget what I said.
Speaker 2: It was something like you're not helpful, You're rude, You're a jerk.
Speaker 2: You knew I needed over.
Speaker 2: I had my blinker on for a half a mile and you would not let me over.
Speaker 2: And I said that you were being a jerk and he goes like something like same to you, but more of it.
Speaker 2: And I thought to myself I haven't said that since I was eight.
Speaker 2: And so I said to the guy you know what are we children?
Speaker 2: I'm not mad at you, I don't want to fight you and I decided to just be kind and I said.
Speaker 2: I said I'm sorry, I upset you, Because I just realized at that moment how childish this whole thing was and even though I wasn't being the aggressor, he was coming at me and I could feel it escalating me and I just and here all this has happened while we're at the light there at 200, coming off of 75, just right there and I'm having this conversation, and then all of a sudden, by me surrendering and I said I'm sorry that I upset you, I had places to go and I just considered myself Will you forgive me?
Speaker 2: And the guy started laughing because I'm sorry, I was being a jerk and, like me, now I have a best friend.
Speaker 2: I call him four times over.
Speaker 2: No, just kidding, that's a different story.
Speaker 2: But I want you to see that love, there's a way.
Speaker 2: And we kind of want the system Where's the card?
Speaker 2: The highest thing rule, and I want to smash my enemy, but there's a way that usurps this whole thing, and he's not placed up there so that he can smash.
Speaker 2: He's placed there so that we can learn a new way.
Speaker 2: The whole system is broke.
Speaker 2: Do you understand that?
Speaker 2: So us trying to weave Christ into it is never going to work, and that's why Christianity seems to be a struggle, because we're not surrendering to it.
Speaker 2: It is literally in those situations you stop doing what it is that you want to do.
Speaker 2: I looked at that guy and I judged that he was old in years and I could have taken him.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm wrong, but there's a system that I could have operated in, and I know it very well.
Speaker 2: You do too.
Speaker 2: But if we don't abandon that system, we'll never walk in what it is that he came to give us.
Speaker 2: Do you hear me, church?
Speaker 1: He alone is the leader and the source of everything needed in the church.
Speaker 1: God has put everything beneath the authority of Jesus Christ and has given him the highest rank above all others, and now we, his church, are his body on the earth and that which fills him.
Speaker 1: Who is being filled by it.
Speaker 1: This is a beautiful invitation for us that we are Christ's body here on the earth.
Speaker 1: How you will practice this Christology when you grocery shop or when you are buying Christmas presents in the next little bit is this understanding of we are love's body on the earth that this invitation is I love.
Speaker 1: What you ask us to remember is the system is broken and not gonna be resurrected.
Speaker 1: Jesus has come and has told us there is another whole way to live and it's understanding.
Speaker 1: Power is for service.
Speaker 1: Power is not to be hoarded, power is not to be gained for us, but there is a power that is ours and it is for service to the world.
Speaker 1: That we would understand that when we see things that, or people or situations that are at war, we can be a people of peace.
Speaker 1: We can be a people who offer peace when there is anxiety.
Speaker 1: We can be a people who offer joy when there is despair and there is hope for us in understanding.
Speaker 1: Following the ways of Jesus mean changing the entire template of how we view the world.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't think, for whatever reason, culturally it's as big of a shock of offense as it was for that time for Jesus to wash the feet of the disciples.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't think that you understand that.
Speaker 2: We really do understand that that was the job of a servant.
Speaker 1: Or a slave, yeah.
Speaker 2: And for him to do it is putting himself in this place that they didn't want him to be, because a king acts like a king and a king has servants does not serve, you know.
Speaker 2: And so there's this offer that he's making.
Speaker 2: It's turning the system completely on its heel, completely upside down, and he's doing these things and he's saying this is what power does.
Speaker 2: It doesn't lord over people, it serves people.
Speaker 2: So what power do I have?
Speaker 2: And with whatever power I have, I'm gonna choose to wash feet.
Speaker 2: Now, that's the offer that he's made.
Speaker 2: How many Sunday mornings have you heard that preached in church that that's really the purpose for us, that he's king and we like that.
Speaker 2: He's king.
Speaker 2: He's gonna defeat my enemies.
Speaker 2: We'll sing songs about it, but we don't sing songs about washing the feet of and serving those people around us, you know, and so that's probably why we sing a lot of those songs, but we don't see a lot of the transformation of kingdom, you know.
Speaker 2: And so God is really, I think, asking you and me today, because that's not a practice that we would do or not do in our culture.
Speaker 2: You know, you're not gonna decide to wash somebody's feet or not wash somebody's feet, because we're pretty much gonna handle our own foot wash and enter a shower.
Speaker 2: We're not in a dusty culture in living in the desert with sandals and without running water.
Speaker 2: So the basin and that service needs, but what service does need to be given and what service do you feel is beneath you?
Speaker 2: That's where the rubber meets the road and I mean we could really start thinking about where we have decided and we put our foot in sand.
Speaker 2: I'm not doing that for my spouse anymore.
Speaker 2: I'm not doing that for my kids anymore.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do that for my parents anymore.
Speaker 2: I'm not doing that for my boss anymore.
Speaker 2: I'm doing that for the church anymore.
Speaker 2: I'm just that you know, and we have just decided against this and not even realizing we're resisting God, who?
Speaker 2: It's not about that person winning and you losing.
Speaker 2: It's about you being transformed in your heart into something new, something more, much more beautiful and pleasant to be around.
Speaker 2: Somebody's spouse say amen.
Speaker 1: Lord.
Speaker 1: Have mercy, christ.
Speaker 1: Have mercy, lord.
Speaker 1: Have mercy on all of us when you bring us to remember the story of Jesus washing feet, and again, I appreciate that you are challenging just that.
Speaker 1: Sometimes in those accounts we've kind of churched it up so much that we forget the meaning of it.
Speaker 1: You couldn't come to the table if you had dirty feet.
Speaker 1: You couldn't come to God.
Speaker 1: And there's many reasons why people feel like they have been told erroneously that they cannot be a part of what God is doing.
Speaker 1: So we need to look around at our world and go where has someone not been included?
Speaker 1: And how do I offer a service to tell them, whatever is happening, we can come to God together.
Speaker 1: I can wash your feet, we can come.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 1: I also appreciate Peter who, in this scene you'll remember it said oh, you're not gonna wash my feet because I understand power and rule.
Speaker 1: I've already called you the Messiah, I know who you are.
Speaker 1: You're my rabbi.
Speaker 1: You're not doing it.
Speaker 1: And Jesus says to him unless you let me wash your feet, you can't be a part of me.
Speaker 1: And then Peter goes well, then wash all of me, I'm gonna get the whole thing in the bucket, get it on my head, and Jesus is like back up, stay with the feet washing and I think sometimes we do that as people.
Speaker 1: We're just like overboard on something and just like follow what the words are.
Speaker 1: The invitation is to foot washing.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be full, total bathing and it's this understanding of what is keeping someone from fully participating in God's realm of love.
Speaker 1: What is keeping someone.
Speaker 1: It may be a way they believe about themselves, it may be what somebody else told them, but it's this understanding that we are not gonna carry around basins of water.
Speaker 1: But is there something we can do just in our own life that says we can be people who will remove anything?
Speaker 1: that is possible in this realm that keeps someone from coming to their belovedness, coming to the feast that love has set for them?
Speaker 2: That's so good.
Speaker 1: And now we, his church, are His body on the earth and that which fills Him by who is being filled by it, this understanding, this continual giving out, emptying of self and then being filled with God's spirit, this hope for us in this practice of love that says that this is the hope for the world beloved, that we would be so saturated in our loveliness, in our belonging, that we would offer it to the whole world.
Speaker 1: Dennis makes a joke of this every year and I appreciate it as a family.
Speaker 1: But no one is as generous as they are.
Speaker 1: On Thanksgiving day, when that food is already, you know you're gonna have to put it in a tub where somebody comes in and you're like, oh, take it, take it, eat it, eat it.
Speaker 1: And you're like I've already eaten.
Speaker 1: You're just like we'll just have one little bit.
Speaker 1: On other days, when we don't feel like the feast is there, we're a little bit more stingy.
Speaker 1: But on Thanksgiving day we're like, oh, somebody calls and you're like you wanna come over and eat Because there's a lot there.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's not before Thanksgiving meal.
Speaker 1: No, it's after you're full.
Speaker 2: It's after the meal, so you have to preface it that that you're never more generous till Thanksgiving day after you've eaten, okay, because usually before you're eating you're like, oh what if there's extra guests?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure there's gonna be enough.
Speaker 2: You're all in panic mode then and that's kind of like the existence of people you know most of the time, but then after you know you spend two days preparing.
Speaker 2: 20 minutes later everybody gets up from the table, the trip to fan is kicking in and they're dozing off and watching football, and now you gotta clean up all that stuff and you're like I hope some more people come over and eat this.
Speaker 2: And now you start calling people you wanna, you want, you want some more of this.
Speaker 2: You sure you don't want some more?
Speaker 2: Take it home.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and that's when we become generous, when we ourselves are full, and so I think that that is really an important key here, that you allow him to fill you, and when you do, you become generous.
Speaker 2: And I think it's a marker of when we're not full.
Speaker 2: You know, when we're not generous, there's probably an empty tank somewhere.
Speaker 1: Or a perception of empty, because for many of us, we have exactly what we need and we need God to heal our eyes so we can see what we have is enough, and there is for us, in our culture, a longing for more or better, or we hope that this next thing will bring us the thing that we have.
Speaker 1: And this is the hope of Advent.
Speaker 1: In allowing God to heal our eyes, in allowing us to learn to see in the dark, to see in these places of resurrection, to see in these places of promise or of long transformation, there is an incredible hope for us in the seed that is in the ground that becomes this beautiful plant or this gift that nourishes many.
Speaker 2: You know, I was watching this little video the other day and they were talking about how the birds chirp like an hour before daylight, and it actually the frequency of the chirping does something to the plants to open them up so that they can reproduce, that they can pollinate and whatnot.
Speaker 2: And then they realize that the frequencies of that chirping is similar to classical music.
Speaker 2: So when they play classical music to plants they grow.
Speaker 2: And I've been growing these little acorns from the trees, the oak trees that I got in the mountains in Wales, and so I'm gonna pipe out some classical music.
Speaker 2: I gotta find out what song they like.
Speaker 2: And but I was just thinking, you know, that atmosphere is, for whatever that's worth, scientifically proven, that they'll plants that had that music played that would normally grow one fruit on the vine.
Speaker 2: We're growing five fruits on the vine and they're growing twice as tall.
Speaker 2: So play that little tree, some Bach or something I don't know.
Speaker 2: But I want you to really think about that atmosphere.
Speaker 2: And when there is a right atmosphere, when there's a right frequency, then there's tremendous blessing for us in our life.
Speaker 2: So when we're walking outside of that, or is there any wonder why we're experiencing some of the things that we are, and so I'm just challenging you to be aware of that and allow God to bring you into a new atmosphere, and he's inviting.
Speaker 2: You know, if we're constantly raging and angry all the time and picking out the negative in every situation, then you understand that you're just, you're operating in that.
Speaker 2: That, you know, and no flowers are opening up to that.
Speaker 2: They actually did a test too, and they just thought maybe it was music.
Speaker 2: So they played all types of music and metal.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately for me, it was killing those plants.
Speaker 2: I don't want to hear you.
Speaker 2: I told you so over there, carol.
Speaker 2: Just keep it down, you know.
Speaker 2: But anyways, there is an energy that we have that you know, just even man, I just felt it within myself and I felt it in so many of your faces.
Speaker 2: I don't want to call you out, but I saw it when Thomas said that I'm lovely, or however you word it, lovable.
Speaker 2: Some people are like mm-mm.
Speaker 2: Buddy, and I'm just telling you that there's something that God wants to change in us and either, you know, decide, enough's enough.
Speaker 2: I'm tired of getting the fruit of what I've been getting when God is promising me this new way, but it does mean that I'm gonna have to surrender some things Doesn't mean I have to get rid of all my metal albums, carol.
Speaker 1: We just recently had a trip and we went walking.
Speaker 1: And we went walking in Wales and one of the things that we would do is just walk, walk, walk.
Speaker 1: And I was astounded at how much food was available everywhere.
Speaker 1: Like we would walk and there would be lettuces just growing on the ground, and there would be raspberries, and there were nuts, and there were even these little snails and this one particular place that we were walking.
Speaker 1: I was like I've already seen six snails and I was like that's half a dozen, we could have like escargot, Like there's so much food, like it was a feast, everywhere we were walking and then by the time we started counting seven, eight, nine, 10, 12, and I was like 12 is enough for you and me.
Speaker 2: I said no, no, it was just everywhere, and we were.
Speaker 1: Then we started laughing.
Speaker 1: I said, well, a little bit more, we can invite the leopards over for dinner.
Speaker 1: So we started looking around and we're like, well, what are we gonna serve them more on these snails?
Speaker 1: So we found another dozen and then I said, well, we'd invite Phil and Sarah to walk with us, and then by that time we'd find 36, you know.
Speaker 1: And then there'd be room for more.
Speaker 1: And I think this is what it looks like when God heals our eyes.
Speaker 1: We see what we have is enough.
Speaker 1: And then we invite someone to come and look with us, come and find more so we can invite more to this place of abundance and love.
Speaker 1: And this feast God set up a feast for us, not just in nature, but in the whole world.
Speaker 2: If I can describe to you too, it was on the coast, and if you've never been to the coast of England and Ireland, Scotland and whatnot, there it's all pretty much the same and it's glory, it's jagged cliffs that come out of the ocean and go up five, 10 stories sometimes and they're just sheer, you know, and then plopped stuck on, and it's just solid, Like you'll see a little peninsula, you know, and a solid like stone, whatever it is probably slate or something I don't know, cause it falls apart like that.
Speaker 2: But whatever it is, there it is, and then stuck on top, like on top of an ice cream cone, is the greenest plush grass you've ever seen.
Speaker 2: I'm like what is going on?
Speaker 2: There's this stone.
Speaker 2: How is this growing on stone?
Speaker 2: And it's like this life that God gives.
Speaker 2: It refuses to stop.
Speaker 2: Oh, you want me to grow on stone with no earth, Sure, and I'll be beautiful, and you know.
Speaker 2: And what's more, I'll have your food.
Speaker 2: Just walk around and crawl around, slimy as it may be, and I mean.
Speaker 2: And then, of course, you look up the waving hills and then there's sheep all along there, cause who else would hang out on those steep hills?
Speaker 2: And they don't mind it at all and they're up there and so there's food and there's life and all this stuff going in the middle of this.
Speaker 2: But you know what?
Speaker 2: You have to pick up your eyes and look around.
Speaker 2: You know, and so many of us we're looking down and we're seeing nothing and we're angry and we're mad and we're convinced that he has not done anything for us.
Speaker 2: And when I tell you if you would let him open up your eyes and I think part of it is asking him for that awareness and this kick that Heather's been on the past month about this whole, being thankful, grateful, asking you for the whole month, every day, add another thing to your list of gratitude.
Speaker 2: How many are still doing that?
Speaker 2: Oh, look at there, Heather.
Speaker 1: But we just it's okay, Doesn't matter where you are Start next month and try again.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's just gonna be Just one thing on the first and then the second, because what happens is that is beginning to open up those spiritual eyes and then you do begin to see wait a minute, you know, nobody here is really poor.
Speaker 1: We all have so much because we are loved.
Speaker 2: We're not watching our children die in our arms because of malnutrition and that's happening in places all over the world.
Speaker 2: We're not trying to protect our children from bombs that are going off from other countries.
Speaker 2: They're deciding that they're gonna wipe us out.
Speaker 2: We are blessed, but, man, my cars turn over 100,000 miles on it.
Speaker 2: We worked up about the silliest things when you really think about it.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm meddling now, but how awesome is it that we are?
Speaker 1: a people who could travel 100,000 miles.
Speaker 1: There are people who are only their feet to walk on and do not walk like that.
Speaker 1: So there's a hope for us in this gratitude.
Speaker 1: I want to read a quick poem for us.
Speaker 1: I love poetry and sometimes they're very long, they're entire books.
Speaker 1: I'm not reading you one of those this morning.
Speaker 1: This is called how I Live and why.
Speaker 1: Because I know that spirit matters itself lavishly into the universe.
Speaker 1: I am committed to packing a lot of living into a little life.
Speaker 1: Some call it ecstasy, I call it love, and love's favorite word is thanks.
Speaker 1: Love's favorite word is thanks.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 1: In our language actually comes from the word to think of you.
Speaker 1: So to say thank you means I receive this and I will think of you.
Speaker 1: And isn't that the hope of what Jesus said when he said come to the table.
Speaker 1: And in our receiving we would consider, remember and think of this beautiful gift that God has given us A table of love, a feast to remember.
Speaker 1: A feast to remember that we are forgiven, that we are reconciled through Christ, that we are loved, that we are treasured, that the world is good and there are beautiful stories that still need to be told.
Speaker 1: This is what love is inviting us to A feast for the whole world, for all of us to come and sit at this great banquet that God has prepared for us, where we would know that we can come home to our true selves and to our father's house, where love is.
Speaker 1: We hope you've enjoyed this week's sermon.
Speaker 1: If you would like more information about us, visit us online at firstlovechurchorg.