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: Thank you for being present with us.
Speaker 1: For those of you who are online, we say thank you for being present with us in that way as well, this morning.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you're here with us.
Speaker 1: For those of you who are here in person, and for those of you that are here in person, you're going to be really glad that you did for lots of reasons today, not because necessarily of us, but because Jesus is here, love is here and there's a chance to encounter love in a way that maybe you hadn't set it up before.
Speaker 1: Also, my dear friend Shelly is here this morning.
Speaker 1: She's sitting on the front row.
Speaker 1: What makes her very special is many things she's full of the light of Christ and full of the Spirit of God, but she is part of our online church, and so you just met a sister that you do not know.
Speaker 1: She watches all the time and she made a special trip from Arizona to be with us in person.
Speaker 1: So that is just such a big gift to us to have the Christ in us, greeting the Christ in you, the Christ in Shelly and seeing the beautiful work that God is doing, and so I remind you that the people online, that fellowship with us, are as much a vital part of who we are and the light that is spreading because Jesus is showing up in such beautiful ways, and so I'm so grateful for us to be present this morning, for you to be able to meet a sister that maybe you didn't know you had, and so I thank you for being with us this morning After church.
Speaker 1: Make sure that you get to know Shelly.
Speaker 1: It will do you good to know that the sister who is praying for you and who has an in with the Lord.
Speaker 1: So if you have a special request, you get with Shelly.
Speaker 1: She's got his ear.
Speaker 2: All right, and you know, I think that really kind of lends.
Speaker 2: Why is the reverb on my voice?
Speaker 1: It's coming to you live from a cave.
Speaker 2: There's, I think.
Speaker 2: I think an awareness sometimes that we don't have of just how big our congregation is, that there's more of us than we even realize.
Speaker 2: And there's others that you don't know.
Speaker 2: And I consider people that I'm in contact with.
Speaker 2: Some people actually kind of have me be their pastor even though they've never attended our church.
Speaker 2: So they're really poor church attenders, but they're part of our congregation anyway and God loves them just as much as you regular attenders Did.
Speaker 2: You know that you don't get extra points.
Speaker 2: You do get more love.
Speaker 1: You do get more love because you can be in the presence of love.
Speaker 2: That's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2: But I settle that to say that there, that Marge was here today.
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you, we played a band together and and and it was wonderful that she shared her gift with us today, thank you.
Speaker 2: And as well as the band, dave was back this week Wouldn't it great to have Dave back and everybody.
Speaker 2: So it was a fun, fun worship service for me.
Speaker 2: But the band that Marge and I are in, the drummer Roy, he texts this morning about 7.30 that his daughter, 44 years old, her name's Jennifer she passed out and her neighbor was resuscitating, keeping her alive until the ambulance came and then she had, you know, brain swelling, just I mean, just she had a full blown heart attack at a very young age, like that, and right now she's in ICU, she's unconscious, and they're doing what they can to keep her alive right now and doing whatever.
Speaker 2: There's a blood clot in her heart and so what they're doing is trying to work to dissolve that or whatever.
Speaker 2: And he Thank you.
Speaker 2: Just it was so tender, wasn't it the text that he sent to us.
Speaker 2: Just pray with us.
Speaker 2: You know just the desperation that comes from a father and mother on their daughter, and I said, not only was my heart connected with them this morning in prayer, but that I would bring it before our congregation this morning, and so that's what I'm doing, whether we be here or whoever across the world really that listens to online.
Speaker 2: Would you, with the access that you have to God's ear, would you agree with us for Jennifer's life, for healing, for God's mercy, and we were talking about?
Speaker 2: You know these things, they can go either way, and so we want them to go this way, and so let's ask God for the way we want it to go, and let's ask God for mercy and healing, and he's done it before and you know he can do it again.
Speaker 2: Amen.
Speaker 2: So would you agree with me, father?
Speaker 2: We just lift up Roy and Chris's daughter, jennifer, to you, and that mom and dad and that family that's grieving now, and we ask you for the comfort of the Holy Spirit to be with them right now.
Speaker 2: In Jesus' name, we ask you for your healing to go forth and just surround that girl right now, and I ask you that you would give doctors and nurses wisdom as they care for her, that they would do her only good and no harm, and I thank you, father, for just grace to be manifested.
Speaker 2: So we ask you for mercy, we ask you for healing, we ask you for life, and so we just declare, each one of us, from our hearts, life over Jennifer, and the fullness of that life and the fullness of your healing, and we thank you for the resurrection power of God to be in her heart and in her body, and we ask you for all of these things In humbly.
Speaker 2: We ask it In Jesus' name and we thank you for it In advance, father.
Speaker 2: We thank you that you are a miracle working God, and so we remind ourselves of that and we stir that within us, our faith in your ability to do good, and so we thank you for it In Jesus' name.
Speaker 2: And all the church said, and even those online you said what you're here.
Speaker 2: You can't say it for them.
Speaker 1: We just encourage them.
Speaker 1: We're like a chorus, like a joyful chorus of amen amen amen.
Speaker 1: I think very often you and I listen for an amen and there's a certain encouragement with an amen, and I think it depends on where you grow up, maybe, or what congregation that you're in.
Speaker 1: I know for many churches, when the word of the Lord is read or when the scripture is read, people then respond with an amen because that is the word.
Speaker 1: But if you grow up Dennis and I grew up in the Chicago area and we were a part of a congregation that was largely African American and their amen meant they felt the spirit move.
Speaker 1: Any time you felt connection, it was an amen.
Speaker 1: It didn't have to be a specific thing, but it was.
Speaker 1: I feel the spirit too, I feel a connection too, I feel an amen coming on, and amen means so be it.
Speaker 1: May it be that maybe that be true, and so I encourage you this morning that you have our amen.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is that you are looking for, I trust that the spirit of God in you, the spirit of God in us, would resound with a loud.
Speaker 1: May it be so.
Speaker 1: Whatever Jesus is praying for us, may that be so.
Speaker 1: Whatever Jesus is praying for the world, amen, amen, amen.
Speaker 1: May that be so.
Speaker 1: There is hope for us this morning, in our gathering, in our remembering, in our giving space to the Holy Spirit in our practices.
Speaker 1: Thomas reminded us this morning that this season of the year for us is epiphany, and we live in Florida, so we kind of have an odd space, because winter doesn't look that much different than summer, except for the flowers.
Speaker 1: We still have green outside.
Speaker 1: If you live somewhere cold, the trees are barren, or if you live in a desert, the trees are barren.
Speaker 1: In fact, this week, a practice in ancient Judaism is the happy new year to the trees.
Speaker 1: There's a tree new year a day.
Speaker 1: You celebrate because nothing looks like it's happening, and so you celebrate with the trees that there is stuff happening underground that we cannot see, there are things happening that we are aware of until the spring, and so I was thinking about how beautiful it was to practice in the time when I don't see anything, that life is coming, that newness is coming, that resurrection is coming, and so we invite you this morning to set your heart, to attune your heart to the presence of spirit here, and may you hear our amen say whatever life God is creating in you, amen, may that be.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 1: Whatever life God is creating in our world.
Speaker 1: May that be so.
Speaker 2: You know, when I think back in my time at International Love Ministry, kind of why we call the church first love, you know is an homage to the church that we met and really found the love of God, and in that church you hear amen, I hear yes, lord.
Speaker 1: Yes, that was it too.
Speaker 1: Or help me, jesus, that was another way.
Speaker 2: And for me, you know the beauty of being able to celebrate because I came from the Catholic tradition and you didn't say anything, no matter what, you were quiet.
Speaker 2: You know at all costs.
Speaker 2: And I remember accidentally flipping the kneeler down and getting thumped on top of my head by my dad.
Speaker 2: It felt like I got hit in the head with a ball, peen hammer, but never make noise.
Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden, to go into the church and after the pastor would read a good verse, then just this resounding yes, lord, you know, and so I still hear that you know in my heart, when something good comes from these scriptures to connect with my spirit yes, lord, and I just and I think that that comes because we fellowshiped outside of our comfort zone, outside of maybe what we thought was our people, to find out all.
Speaker 1: We have no idea who our people are.
Speaker 2: Amen, oh, that's better preaching here.
Speaker 2: Amen, church, come on.
Speaker 2: I thought I'd get one, yes, lord, but no, they didn't.
Speaker 2: Well, that's not their language.
Speaker 1: It's okay, there is those kind of connections with us and we are again just grateful for the presence that is here this morning and I invite you to attune yourself to that particular presence when we I was thinking about this, the text and even the verses that we read this morning from the Psalms His faithful love endures forever.
Speaker 1: We can't get past that.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the writer of the Psalms.
Speaker 1: We can thank for all these things and they produce in us a thankfulness, but the basis for them is the faithful love of God, god's love, the beginning of us.
Speaker 1: God's love, the end of us.
Speaker 1: God's love, the middle of us.
Speaker 1: God's love is so all encompassing and together we're reminded that we all begin in love and love is going to be the end of us as well.
Speaker 1: When we return to God, we return to love and there is hope for us in the practice of returning to love, returning to the good, paying attention to how our eyes can be illumined, to listen to the trees, to listen to hope, to listen to the practice.
Speaker 1: Dennis and I were looking at a picture.
Speaker 2: I thought you were saying the journey, the destination.
Speaker 1: Oh, I wasn't yeah, but you can do that.
Speaker 2: Love is you already?
Speaker 1: yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1: Now you want to know right, Love is the journey, but love is also the guide, and love is the end.
Speaker 1: Love is the destination.
Speaker 1: It's all about love.
Speaker 1: That's all it's going to be.
Speaker 1: We were looking at a picture online.
Speaker 2: So good thing we named our church first love.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 1: We were looking at a picture online of an olive tree that is over 2,000 years old and it's still growing and it's still producing fruit, and they were talking about where this tree is located and all of the things that have happened in mankind since that tree began bearing fruit the fall of the Roman Empire you know all of these things that were happening, and this tree just stands there.
Speaker 1: I mean, people clash, worlds change, empires fall, and the tree is standing there bearing fruit.
Speaker 1: This is what I do to glorify God.
Speaker 1: I make olives, and so I encourage you today.
Speaker 1: What do you do to glorify God in all of your uniqueness, in all of who you are individually?
Speaker 1: Every tree has purpose, every tree has beauty, every tree has a story to tell.
Speaker 1: Every tree is necessary, and so when we allow nature to testify to us that our plant, our goodness, the fruit that is born in us, that's for the whole world.
Speaker 1: And empires may fall Some of them need to.
Speaker 2: Systems may change they all need to but love and the bearing and the rootedness in love matters essentially, they say about an olive tree that it's the only tree that you would plant for the next generation, because oftentimes an olive tree won't bear fruit for 70 years, you know.
Speaker 2: So you're planting that for something else, and I think we tend to.
Speaker 2: You know we better get it in 30 minutes or less, or that pizza's free, you know, and we want our production quickly.
Speaker 2: You know we want it all cooked in the microwave.
Speaker 2: And what if God's shown us that there's maybe in that patience, there is something beautiful that's being established, that isn't just some junk food with a bunch of carbs in it, but maybe it's something that is holy and healthy and life-giving for generations.
Speaker 2: Amen.
Speaker 1: We look at the imagery of a tree this morning and I think that it's an awareness, perhaps in the way that you read scripture.
Speaker 1: The scripture starts with a tree, a few trees, a garden in effect.
Speaker 1: But there's two trees in particular a tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Speaker 1: And even the first time that we're given a conversation, the words of a conversation, between God and a man, it's well, they're hiding in under a fig tree and we see all, in fact, in the scriptures people are mentioned, god is mentioned, and trees.
Speaker 1: That's how it works.
Speaker 1: That's the order of how many things be preserved.
Speaker 1: So pay attention to the trees that are written in scripture.
Speaker 1: In fact, one of the times in scripture it says you'll be like a tree planted by the rivers of living water, whose leaves do not wither and whatever God is doing in you, that will prosper.
Speaker 1: And then there's beautiful imagery that God will make his people like oaks, that flourish, that the temple of the Lord would be like the cedars of Lebanon, and there's incredible imagery, and in fact we even see in the story that we love, in the story that forms us, where Jesus has a particular time with a tree, and the tree did nothing wrong, but we as people took that tree and used it to harm love, and so we look at that and then God redeems it.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about all the things that God is redeeming and Jesus redeems, even creation at that moment, even the things that we meant for harm, that there's a promise that creation will be redeemed and we as believers get to procreate, we get to be a part of this new world and this new creation.
Speaker 1: In your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Speaker 1: There is a new heaven coming, but it's also attached to a new earth, and the new earth happens when we allow this spirit of God to bring us into newness.
Speaker 1: In the book, the very end of the book, there is a vision, a prophecy.
Speaker 1: In the book of Revelation, and in the very end, there's a tree that gives life to all the nations and is medicine for the healing of all people.
Speaker 1: I look around, beloved, and many people are sick in many ways.
Speaker 1: We are sick as nations, we are sick as people groups, and we need the tree of life that God is giving to heal our hearts, to heal us as people.
Speaker 1: And so, as I see all this imagery, I look and remind you.
Speaker 1: Lent is coming.
Speaker 1: What a beautiful process for us, what a beautiful time for us, as much as epiphany.
Speaker 1: And maybe this epiphany will lead us into this Lent, while we will listen to the preaching of the trees, we will listen as the trees sway and move and do what they do, no matter what comes, and there's hope for us in remembering and in allowing nature to testify to us of the goodness of God.
Speaker 2: In September, heather and I were in Wales, over in the United Kingdom, and we were getting our keys to spend the night and the people there were asking us what we were planning on doing.
Speaker 2: So we're kind of just drifting wherever kind of the Lord leads us.
Speaker 2: And the guy said well, you know, not far from here is an ancient forest.
Speaker 2: Would you like to go see an ancient forest, the oldest forest in the entire United Kingdom?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, yeah, I'm into that.
Speaker 2: And so they told us where to get there.
Speaker 2: In fact, the guy pulled up my phone and did a GPS thing and he goes to park right here, and so he put a little pin.
Speaker 2: And so the next day we drove there and it was real high like mountain, and Heather said, well, you go on, and she wouldn't sit in the car and pray or whatever.
Speaker 2: And so I started hiking up there and I don't know what I was gonna see in an ancient forest.
Speaker 2: But, boy, I was excited to get up that hill.
Speaker 2: And so I was cranking up the hill and about 30 minutes I'm up real high, but I didn't find whatever I thought I was gonna stumble into and I was kind of disappointed and I said, god, what's the deal?
Speaker 2: You know, I'm up in this ancient forest and I'm just, I feel nothing.
Speaker 2: And I hiked up there.
Speaker 2: I bought special hiking boots, shoes, tennis shoes that were waterproof, so I could hike.
Speaker 2: And I felt like the Lord said I want you to take your shoes off.
Speaker 2: And I'm like that doesn't sound like a good idea.
Speaker 2: I'm a tender foot.
Speaker 2: I can't even walk across sand without getting stubbing my toe.
Speaker 2: And so I took off my shoes and all of a sudden I started walking real slow and I felt like the Lord said just go over here by this tree.
Speaker 2: And I was well, lord, that's off the path.
Speaker 2: You already know how my feet are.
Speaker 2: You know now I'm stepping on pine cones, ow, woo.
Speaker 2: And all of this caused me to start moving my feet much slower.
Speaker 2: And I stopped and I felt like the Lord just had me sit down.
Speaker 2: And I sat down by this old tree and I'm like what is going on?
Speaker 2: And I really felt like the Lord said I want to speak to you through this tree.
Speaker 2: And I thought, well, now I've just officially gone crazy.
Speaker 2: You know, the church used to make.
Speaker 2: We already knew that.
Speaker 2: But see, I did it.
Speaker 2: And so that's what shocked me.
Speaker 2: And I'm up there and I'm like people make fun of tree huggers and now I'm becoming one.
Speaker 2: What's going on, lord?
Speaker 2: And I'm sitting there and I look at this tree and I realized all at once that this tree was covered with several different kind of mosses, completely covered.
Speaker 2: And then, when it got up about this high, I noticed these big, thick vines that had completely encompassed this giant tree, wrapped it around, and then all these different vines were hanging off and all these different things.
Speaker 2: And I'm looking at this tree and I realized that I couldn't even see the tree because of all of the life that that tree was supporting.
Speaker 2: The tree itself was.
Speaker 2: I was unable to see that.
Speaker 2: It was even there, but it was no less a giant, strong, amazing tree.
Speaker 2: But it allowed itself to be covered by the life that it was supporting.
Speaker 2: And I sat there and God said that's what it is to be a father, that's what it is to be the father of a church that you'd stop wanting to be seen and you'd allow that life that you support to flourish.
Speaker 2: And every kind of moss and vine up in that ancient forest was growing so beautifully.
Speaker 2: And I thought about those amazing of the children that God put in Heather and I's life.
Speaker 2: And how can this tree be strong, be no less a tree, but allow that life to just overtake and grow, and much more the gifts of each one of you that are part of this church?
Speaker 2: And how can we fan the flames of the fire of God in your life and the life of God just to be stirred?
Speaker 2: And so I realized I was spoken to and I absorbed it, and I walked down that entire mountain with my shoes off and I took every step very carefully, very intentionally, because I think that when you have that place of vulnerability of your shoes off, you will look carefully about your steps, because your steps are important, they're so crucial to the directions that you're going and the path that you're on, and when you run up the mountain you get nothing, but you can walk down and count those steps and just hear from heaven, and so all of you book a trip so that you can go to the ancient forest.
Speaker 2: No, what's my point to this?
Speaker 1: One of the things that I'm most inspired by.
Speaker 1: That story is somebody who didn't know us, who looked at us and said I know this really great place, you might want to avail yourself to it.
Speaker 1: And then proceeded to tell us exactly where he had found this ancient forest.
Speaker 1: And I was thinking that's what love looks like for all of us, if we would say I found love and open your phone for me so I can show you exactly where to go, where you also can have this experience.
Speaker 1: And that's what we do in our lives.
Speaker 1: We are the guides, the witnesses who will say if you show me where your map is, I'll show you where love is, I'll show you where the source of all love is, where God is, where hope is and there's such a responsibility.
Speaker 1: But what a beautiful expression of God who shows up in ways to say this is where the good stuff is.
Speaker 1: Taste and see that love is good, that God is good, that mercy is good.
Speaker 2: Today we go to the yeah, now, on the same note, that guy told us where to go for the best fish and chips in all of the United Kingdom.
Speaker 1: This may have been a prophet.
Speaker 1: He was absolutely correct, and so often prophets show up in strange ways that we didn't know.
Speaker 1: He's like you're gonna go to the ancient forest and then you'll have the best fish and chips and you'll go to the shed.
Speaker 1: And here's where it is, and we'd met Jesus there at the shed and it was glorious.
Speaker 1: So he had many good things to say but risked himself.
Speaker 1: We may have had a plan and we may have shut him down, but he was like you, look like people who need this kind of experience.
Speaker 1: So I humbly kneel.
Speaker 1: I kneel humbly in awe before the father of our Lord, jesus the Messiah.
Speaker 1: The text gives us here, starting in verse 14, but let me tell you what happens in verses one through 14.
Speaker 1: You can go read it at home.
Speaker 1: Paul is reminding himself that God's love included the Gentiles, and he's reminding himself this was the plan all along, that it wasn't gonna be just for us, it was gonna be for everyone.
Speaker 1: And then he begins to say and it's kind of strange that I am the person telling you this, because that's not what I thought before, that's not how I saw the world before, and he's talking about his own epiphany I have had an understanding, a change, that how I thought God was coming, how I thought Christ was coming, how I thought the plan was coming, was that it would be for us, and for us only.
Speaker 1: And Paul had this epiphany, had this time where his eyes were opened to the love of Christ.
Speaker 1: And so that's what he is saying in those first, the first 13 verses.
Speaker 1: In verse 14 he said and because of that experience I kneel humbly in awe.
Speaker 1: I wanna take just for a second to talk about awe and amazement.
Speaker 1: It's something that should be part of who we are as believers, and I think that if you don't have enough awe and amazement in your life, you should go outside.
Speaker 1: You just should just go outside, outside of your go into nature, find a forest, find an ocean, your own backyard I mean, we get to live in Florida, so find something but allow awe to stand and prop up the heart and support the life that is in you.
Speaker 2: Or just go to the internet and type in the Hubble space, you know photographs if you want some awe, right?
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: You just got one.
Speaker 2: I just got one free, oh.
Speaker 1: Have you seen this?
Speaker 1: Kylie told me about this.
Speaker 1: You can see even more than just the Hubble spacecraft.
Speaker 1: There's the Juno project and you can, oh, love it.
Speaker 1: God so loved the cosmos.
Speaker 1: The love of God is so big that the love of God made the cosmos.
Speaker 1: And if you haven't been awed by the stars recently, let's do something together.
Speaker 1: Let's, together as a church, say for Lent this is what we are gonna do.
Speaker 1: We're gonna look what we really hunger for, and it's really the awe and amazement of God, who is love, who is among us, who is teaching us, who is revealing God's self to us.
Speaker 1: And Paul is right here and he's saying when I think about this plan and when I think about this epiphany, I have to kneel down in awe.
Speaker 1: How big, how beautiful, how wonderful the plan is.
Speaker 1: The perfect father of every father and child in heaven and on the earth.
Speaker 1: Again, he reminds us that this is a family, that the whole world is a family and we belong because God is our father.
Speaker 1: And I pray so.
Speaker 1: This is the apostles' prayer and this can be our prayer for us as well, our prayer for the world, our prayer for hope.
Speaker 1: Put it back on 16, please.
Speaker 1: I pray that he would unveil within you the unlimited riches of his glory and favor, until supernatural strength floods your inner being with the divine might and explosive power.
Speaker 1: This is really big language that Paul is saying.
Speaker 1: He's saying I want you to know it has to be unveiled Like it's there, beloved God has already seated it.
Speaker 1: Love is already there.
Speaker 1: It's there, but it may need to be unveiled.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this verse this week because we've been aware that this is what we're talking about, and I encountered a person and I thought they are thickly veiled.
Speaker 2: That is a lot of things on top of that seat of love that is in their life.
Speaker 1: And so what do I do?
Speaker 1: Listen, beloved, we can trust the seat.
Speaker 1: We really can.
Speaker 1: It's incorruptible.
Speaker 1: This is good seed, the love of Christ in us.
Speaker 1: I pray that he would unveil within you the unlimited riches of his glory and favor until supernatural strength floods your inner most being with his divine might and explosive power.
Speaker 1: We pause here for a moment to thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 1: If you're finding this episode meaningful, would you take a moment to share it with a friend?
Speaker 1: This podcast is made possible thanks to the generosity of people just like you.
Speaker 1: If you would like to support the ongoing work of First Love Church and the continued work of our podcast, visit us online at firstlovechurchorg, reminding you to like, follow and subscribe.
Speaker 2: I would like to say that there's something going on at my house that needs your attention and prayer, and maybe you could help me understand that myself and my sons can't find anything.
Speaker 1: It's thickly veiled, beloved, all of it.
Speaker 2: It's not in the refrigerator where Heather said it was.
Speaker 2: It's not in the pantry where Heather said it was.
Speaker 2: And we've all looked and all of us, the sons and myself, will look, and then Heather will go in and then she will come out with it and she says it was there the whole time.
Speaker 2: But church, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think she had it in her pocket.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 2: She has a gift.
Speaker 2: Does anyone else's mom have this gift?
Speaker 2: Anyone else's wife have this?
Speaker 2: You know what I'm talking about and I want it to be a testimony and a reminder to you of how much more are the things that you're convinced aren't there?
Speaker 2: Just hidden, hidden in plain sight too, cause, apparently, like my wallet, the day before yesterday we had to leave and it was not in my credenza.
Speaker 2: I had looked there three times.
Speaker 2: Heather said I'm gonna go look in your credenza, don't go look in my credenza.
Speaker 2: I have looked three times.
Speaker 2: It is not there.
Speaker 2: Woman, you are wasting your time.
Speaker 2: She goes oh, you mean this wallet?
Speaker 2: No, the thing that was thickly veiled had been uncovered, and I believe it's to remind us that God is our mother.
Speaker 2: Oh, church, to reveal those things that seem to be, and we're convinced they are not provided for us.
Speaker 2: They are not in our pantry, they are not in the refrigerator, they are not where you said they were.
Speaker 2: Oh, I know his provision is so much greater.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1: If you can't find something, ask a woman to help you.
Speaker 1: I'm serious, beloved.
Speaker 2: This is just true, that's better preaching than you're a minute.
Speaker 2: This is just true.
Speaker 1: You had to come to church, maybe to hear that I don't know.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 1: Katherine and I were listening to something that the other day said.
Speaker 1: There she paused and she goes.
Speaker 1: That's just the wrong way to do the whole thing and I thought, well, that's quite a statement, and I love people who make quite a statement, you know.
Speaker 1: They said that this they were actually looking for a person and the person was missing.
Speaker 1: And they said the mom was waiting by the phone to hear.
Speaker 1: But they sent the brothers and the dad.
Speaker 1: And Katherine said to me I need you to stop.
Speaker 1: That's the wrong way to do it.
Speaker 1: She said leave the boys at home waiting by the phone and send the mom, she will find that person.
Speaker 1: And I was thinking this is the hope.
Speaker 1: This is why we need each other.
Speaker 1: We need the women in our lives to find, maybe, the things that are veiled and to uncover them and say love was right here all along.
Speaker 1: Beloved Peace was right here all along.
Speaker 1: Hope has been right here all along.
Speaker 1: The kingdom is here and it's within us.
Speaker 1: That's what Jesus said.
Speaker 1: And so in epiphany we allow our eyes to be healed and maybe you don't need not to just not look, but maybe you need someone to teach you how to see and there's a difference there by constantly using your faith.
Speaker 2: Thank you for helping me find love.
Speaker 1: And thank you for helping me find love.
Speaker 2: Oh, I help you at the yard and work the life of Christ.
Speaker 1: the life of Christ will be released deep inside of you and the resting place of his love will become the very source and the very root of your life.
Speaker 1: Beloved, what good news.
Speaker 1: The resting place of God's love will become the source and the root of your life.
Speaker 1: This is where everything comes from, beloved, from love, and what a beautiful encouragement to us that this is the source of life.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for a source somewhere else, you're gonna be disappointed.
Speaker 1: Source is already rooted in us.
Speaker 1: It's the seed of God, that divine spark in each one of us, and it will become the root to the source of your life.
Speaker 2: And what a promise, and that's the thing that we long for.
Speaker 2: Desire and watch God bring that to pass in your life as you continue to follow after him.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what he is offering.
Speaker 2: God is offering to us, you know.
Speaker 2: So I just really encourage you to engage your expectation in that love Taking place for our fears, Taking place for our anxieties, Our stubborn plans to accomplish what we're gonna accomplish in our own strength, and just allowing that great exchange to come, that love seeded.
Speaker 1: When love is rooted in us and it becomes the source of our life.
Speaker 1: This next verse says then you will be empowered to discover what every holy one experiences the great magnitude of the astonishing love of Christ in all its dimensions.
Speaker 1: Beloved, what you know of love now, there's more what you know of love up until now.
Speaker 1: There's deeper wells, there is more beauty to be uncovered in the love and in the dimension of God.
Speaker 1: How deeply intimate and far reaching is his love, how enduring and inclusive it is.
Speaker 1: Endless love beyond measurement, that transcends our understanding.
Speaker 1: This extravagant love poured into you until you are filled to overflowing with the fullness of God.
Speaker 1: What an incredible promise to be reminded of that there is more to love, there is more to the dimensions of love and to what this love unveiled in us will actually produce for the world.
Speaker 1: Beloved, the unveiling of love, of this kind of love.
Speaker 1: This is hope for the entire world.
Speaker 2: You know, this speaks of something that Heather and I have been talking about a lot lately within, I think, within our own discussions, and I'm sure it's seeped out in the church, but that God is a God of infinite mercy, you know, and when you think of this kind of love coming, I mean how much care you freely offer to those that you love.
Speaker 2: You know, on Christmas Eve day we went outside to find one of our goats giving birth to a little baby goat, and the mother was in tremendous distress and it turns out she had another baby that had died and so, in all this stress with her, she was unwilling to feed Kevin that's the goat's name, silas named it, talked to him about it, but for now, the past whatever six weeks, or whatever five, six times a day, kevin is bottle-fed while we go outside and get him and he runs between your legs and trips you on the way like a cat, you know, and then he hangs around with you like a dog and he's walking in and out of the house and he jumped up on my stomach and after he was bottle-fed so he could fall asleep, and Kevin is.
Speaker 2: It is such a delight to, you know, move to that place of discomfort, of inconveniencing ourselves, to have to go make a bottle for a goat and just see Kevin's excitement and his delight, and that, you know, and God really began to stern me.
Speaker 2: Just, you know, it's in these small things that it's found, you know, and it's on our you know fatefulness.
Speaker 2: You know, and you know, the God of the universe chooses for our family to go out of its way so that Kevin can have a bottle six times a day.
Speaker 2: Isn't that extravagant?
Speaker 1: The God of the universe puts birdseed on Carol's shopping list.
Speaker 1: I mean, those are the kind when we all do our part.
Speaker 2: And it speaks to this infinite grace.
Speaker 2: Is there enough time in your schedule?
Speaker 2: Well, when love is there, we're all gonna feed Kevin, do you know?
Speaker 2: And I wanna remind you of?
Speaker 2: There's not a place where God's gonna run short.
Speaker 2: There's infinite grace, caring even about the small things.
Speaker 2: And when you really wrap your mind around that motivation of love, you know, and that's what he has for us, it brings transformation.
Speaker 2: A lot of people think that it presents a greasy grace or a slippery salvation.
Speaker 2: If you will, you know, oh, you just do whatever you want.
Speaker 2: You know what?
Speaker 2: How can you, when you're loved so preciously and deeply, you know?
Speaker 2: And this abundance of grace, I would like for each one of us to walk in that and live in that, not as scarcity, as if God were withholding something from us, but that even these little things matter and this family would go out of its way for a little goat.
Speaker 2: How much more will the God of the universe provide infinite grace for what it is that you have need of, and will he not only provide it for you but those people all around you that you're convinced don't deserve it?
Speaker 2: Thank you for that one amen.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: Lord, yes, lord.
Speaker 1: Never doubt God's mighty power to work in you and accomplish all that, all this, all of everything.
Speaker 1: It is the power of God in us that unveils love in all of its dimensions.
Speaker 1: It is the power of Christ in us that allows us to love in this reckless and beautiful way.
Speaker 1: He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imaginations.
Speaker 1: Beloved, let God name God's self to you, this beautiful, big, wild, infinite mercy, who invites you into life, into real life, and invites you to have so much love that it spills over into other people, it spills over into the creation around us.
Speaker 1: But this is for many of us, I think, that we dream too small.
Speaker 1: We don't allow this, and so our prayer for you is the Holy Spirit would re-enchant your imagination, that you could imagine how big and how wide and how reckless and how deep the love of Christ is, and that that power would energize you.
Speaker 2: You know, heather told me a story one time.
Speaker 2: She was staying with friends in Israel and the man who's since gone on to be with the Lord, chuck Coppe.
Speaker 2: He's come here and spoke at the church a few times and been in our home a few times and just the love of God and the example of Christ and of a father and just of that kind of selfless love is was a hallmark of who he was and it has been another person in my life.
Speaker 2: That's a benchmark of what God can do in your life and hope of transformation for myself and Heather told a story.
Speaker 2: That is a little girl.
Speaker 2: She went in, went in for breakfast and saw that somebody had poured her a bowl of wheat thins and one of those ones frosted on the outside, weeding on the inside, whatever that.
Speaker 2: You know that thing.
Speaker 2: And so so she just started eating and then Chuck turned around because he had just made himself a bowl of cereal and went to the counter to grab his coffee.
Speaker 1: And I said at the chair I ate his wheat mix.
Speaker 2: And just, and his response was and that was the last of the cereal you know?
Speaker 2: And his response was no, I want you to have that.
Speaker 2: And he would go to the store and get more.
Speaker 2: You know, because there is more you know and oftentimes we look at that lack of that was my cereal, you know.
Speaker 2: And what a witness said, I mean what one of a handful of acts I got to see the man live in his life have impacted me so much that it causes a love to grow in me, that I want to be that kind of person of infinite love that we can allow these signposts in our life and people, that God wants to do that in you, not that we'd be scaricing our look of love, but that we would allow the abundance of that to provide for all those people that are around us.
Speaker 1: What a glorious hope that our love could expand.
Speaker 1: That our love could expand and that is the work of God in the world.
Speaker 1: That love would expand in ways that we couldn't even imagine.
Speaker 1: And again, the testimony of the person writing this is I was a Pharisee, I knew how this was gonna work and then I met Jesus and my love expanded, my eyesight expanded, my hope expanded.
Speaker 1: And this is how he concludes this chapter.
Speaker 1: Now we offer up to God all the glorious praise that rises from every church in every generation through Jesus Christ, and all that will yet be manifest through time and eternity.
Speaker 1: There's more Beloved.
Speaker 1: That's not all there is, and this is not a Ginsu knife commercial.
Speaker 1: But as far as you can go, but wait, there's more In the love of God there's more.
Speaker 1: There's more people to love, there's more hope to be had, there's more mercy to encounter, there's more goodness to revel in, there's more that our hearts would understand all of the dimensions of God's love, that we would be the hands and the feet of Christ among us.
Speaker 1: And we're reminded.
Speaker 1: This is through the power of the Holy Spirit, this is God's own spirit in us, unveiling all of the things that we have marred or we have left on top of this love.
Speaker 1: We were at a museum and we were invited to watch a work in progress and it was a restoration, and that is painstaking work, beloved.
Speaker 1: I mean, creating art is painstaking, but restoring art is painstaking, knowing what the artist intended.
Speaker 1: And so there was somebody who asked questions and they go how do you even know where to begin?
Speaker 1: And they said we begin with the original, we begin with what we know to be good and we just remove everything that time and error has put on top of it.
Speaker 1: Oh come on, what if time or error has put on top of the love that we know in our heart?
Speaker 1: And the Spirit is here to restore us, the great Spirit of God, to restore love to its original, all-powerful truth that is seen in us as people.
Speaker 2: Imagine the unveiling in your life and that Christ is seen.
Speaker 2: Amen, yeah, amen that God's love, amen, yeah, that God's love is manifest, and to a world that's desperate for that.
Speaker 2: You know, we can memorize doctrine and walk people down the Romans road, but I promise you that the great transformation and joy will impact people more when we can love them in traffic, we can show some kind of grace in the line at the supermarket, that we can be at work and be willing to do the job no one else wants to do.
Speaker 2: That we can really impact people in our homes, our spouses, our children, our parents.
Speaker 2: Then Christ's unveiling really brings about the second coming of Christ, amen.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I think of when I hear these words, and I'm so reminded it, is this promise that when you're rooted in love, when you're rooted in love, that's our goal.
Speaker 1: Beloved, to abide in Christ, to stay in love.
Speaker 1: Staying in love takes effort.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever tried it before.
Speaker 1: I would encourage you to do it.
Speaker 1: But it takes a lot of effort to stay in love, and so stay rooted in it and say the practice is staying in love.
Speaker 1: I heard someone say that they fell in love and it's kind of I don't know.
Speaker 1: I've never fallen into love before.
Speaker 1: I chose love.
Speaker 2: Hey, wait what.
Speaker 1: I didn't fall into love.
Speaker 1: I went in with my eyes wide open.
Speaker 1: There was no falling, it was choosing and the idea, though for all of us and we continue to.
Speaker 1: It's my joy.
Speaker 1: It is my joy to choose love every day, to choose love and to allow love to be revealed in us, to allow love to be revealed in the world.
Speaker 1: These words, if you go back this week and listen to them, the energizing power of God, the hope and the source of love.
Speaker 1: And so if you find yourself, or you found yourself wherever you are, in your brokenheartedness, remember that's not all there is.
Speaker 1: Dennis came down from the mountain in the ancient forest and he had.
Speaker 1: It looked like mess, it looked like yard rubbish, leaves and sticks and lots of seeds.
Speaker 1: He was picking up seeds and so they were like we'll Google this leaf and see what that tree is.
Speaker 1: And we began to look up what he had actually seen and one of the ways that we were just overwhelmed with.
Speaker 1: In someone describing this particular tree, it said that it was the most generous of plants because it allowed itself to just be the source of support for every other life around it.
Speaker 1: The most generous of plants who would allow itself to be the source of support for life around it?
Speaker 1: And I was thinking what hope?
Speaker 1: What if someone said of us they are the most generous of lives because they allow themselves to be the source of support to all the life around it.
Speaker 1: There is such a glory in that generosity and in that beauty of that.
Speaker 1: Testimony of this is what it means to give your life away.
Speaker 2: You know, and we can preach about this all day, but I took a half a suitcase filled with acorns back.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know if it's illegal, but they had a choice to go through my suitcase or not and they let me through customs.
Speaker 2: That's all.
Speaker 2: So let's move on from that part To the fact that now I've been taking these acorns and I've just been putting them in the dirt, you know, and watching God's miracle take place, I've got over a half dozen now, seedlings of these live oaks from the ancient forest.
Speaker 2: There were gnarly branches going out, all giant big trees, and I'm gonna get them grown up enough to where they can handle it on their own and I'm gonna plant them all over my property and then, like in 150 years, you can all come over and you can.
Speaker 2: People are gonna come around my property and go.
Speaker 2: What is the deal with this place in Ocala that has these strange, amazing oak trees all over the place and they're only here anywhere.
Speaker 2: And no one will ever know the story of the pastor that went to and was impacted by what he experienced and took those seeds and put them in the ground and let God do what only God can do.
Speaker 2: Amen.
Speaker 2: And it'll affect generations to come, amen.
Speaker 2: And so I'm telling you I know that, but of course not lost on you If you will allow that love to take root, that little acorn, carry it around, smuggle it if you have to, but get it in close to the right environment.
Speaker 2: And there's life inside that seed.
Speaker 2: It's doing all the work.
Speaker 2: I don't have to stress and strain.
Speaker 2: I just dropped it in the dirt, put a little water on it, what I remember and it's growing up something.
Speaker 2: I know God's doing that inside of you and I, and sometimes it seems so slow.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I walk by those little pots and they're just a dirt pile.
Speaker 2: But I know that when that does what that's supposed to do, I can have what it says.
Speaker 2: I can have Amen.
Speaker 1: From the Book of Philemon.
Speaker 1: I am praying that you will put into action the generosity that comes from your faith as you understand and experience all of the good things we have in Christ Beloved.
Speaker 1: Abundance is our inheritance, an abundance of love, an abundance of hope, an abundance of peace, and for generations the prayer has been, and may it be, our prayer as well.
Speaker 1: May I put into action generosity.
Speaker 1: May I not just receive and not give.
Speaker 1: May I receive so much that it is my joy to give it away.
Speaker 1: May I receive so much love of Christ, so much light, and may I give it away Everywhere that I go, everything that I am.
Speaker 1: May this practice be something that I am a part of.
Speaker 1: All of the good things we have had, we have in Christ Beloved.
Speaker 1: We have not even scratched the surface of all the good things that Christ has for us.
Speaker 1: This incredible diamond, this amazing treasure, this pearl of a great price, all of the words and metaphors that we could use to try to imagine how incredible this love is.
Speaker 1: This love is worth selling our fields and giving it all away so that we can have this love, so that we can hold this treasure and bless the whole world.
Speaker 2: Last night we made pizza and the kids did.
Speaker 2: Well, they're adults now, we're my children.
Speaker 2: At one point, the ones that were home had sous-chef and got everything prepared.
Speaker 2: So we made a bunch of pizzas like seven pizzas.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of pizzas for six of us there or whatever.
Speaker 2: So we just kept making them and turning them out, and the first few it was like we were wolfing it down and then kind of slowed down.
Speaker 2: And by the seventh pizza the rest of the kids came home and we were all like, oh, you need to eat some of this Now.
Speaker 2: If they'd come home during the first one, we'd be like when there's scarcity, that's your first pizza and you're real hungry.
Speaker 2: But by the time seven giant pizzas are made and you've had your fill, you're willing to share.
Speaker 2: And I got to tell you that our generosity really depends on how full we are, how much we have exposed ourselves to that kind of love and allowed that kind of love to flow through us.
Speaker 2: Because if there isn't that abundance, I'm not picking on you or myself, but if I'm not willing to just be generous and let it all out of my hands, then obviously I'm still hungry, I still have not feasted, I'm not tasted and seen Amen, amen.
Speaker 2: And so let that just be an indication for me, not a judgment, not a criticism.
Speaker 2: But I just need to get in that love, I need to get reintroduced to that abundance.
Speaker 2: That would allow me because I think that that is one of the most important things you could do not memorize the entire Bible.
Speaker 2: How about live the Bible?
Speaker 2: You know now, you probably have enough now that if you just worked on that for the rest of your time you'd be good.
Speaker 2: I'm not telling you not read it I'm not really what pastors do but I'm asking you to consider if we made that less of the goal than sharing that love and allowing that generosity to be like I poured that syrup for myself, but it is my pleasure to let that child that got up to the kitchen table to have breakfast, because I just know the source.
Speaker 2: I know that I'm not going to be left behind.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to be left out.
Speaker 2: Amen, help us Lord.
Speaker 1: This is a point where we ask you to pay attention to the ground under your feet.
Speaker 1: Pay attention to where you are right now, in the present.
Speaker 1: You are in love's house and you are wanted and welcomed here, every part of you.
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.