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: But this is also a time for seeing things like we've never seen them before.
Speaker 1: That there is this other way to live it doesn't mean that there wasn't January, but that there's more.
Speaker 1: I quote to you CS Lewis, who reminds us that there is a deeper magic still, that there is something that is happening even beyond our sight, and our attunement to the Holy Spirit, our attunement to the deeper magic, our attunement to the mystery, allows us to be a people of great hope.
Speaker 1: It allows us to be a people of love.
Speaker 2: I just want to interject here that recently I was reading this thing about Einstein and his dad gave him a compass when he was like seven and he said, just looking at that compass and realizing that, no matter where he would walk, that thing would point towards this magnetic north, and knowing that there was something that was unseen that was driving this compass is really what he based the curiosity for learning and the hunger he had that there's something that you can't see, something that's hidden.
Speaker 2: That is why things are working and doing the things that they're doing, and his curiosity towards learning that and being open to the fact that there are things that you can't see that are going on right now.
Speaker 2: And I think, for us a little hint, spoiler alert we know who the mystery maker is, we know who the one who's moving those, but we don't always see our God, do we?
Speaker 2: We're not always certain that God is there, or certainly aware of it, and so I think, stirring that awareness that God Almighty is at work and is moving things that can't be seen, and then for our desire to help us see those things that are unseen Cuz that's what faith is really, isn't it that we choose to believe in the fact that there's a magnetic north, that there's something that's moving that compass, even though we can't see it.
Speaker 2: We choose, as followers, to believe that there is a force that is greater and that's moving.
Speaker 2: Amen, amen, I don't know, heather, I think that's better preaching than amen.
Speaker 1: I wanna remind us all this morning that God's kingdom is a place of unlimited love and unending compassion.
Speaker 1: It's a place where everyone is welcomed and there are no outcasts.
Speaker 1: It's a place where healing is offered to all, where peacemaking is valued and the lowly and the least are treated like the greatest.
Speaker 1: Jesus said the kingdom of God is not a future event.
Speaker 1: It's already in our midst, and when we come together, we remember that love is already here, that the realm of love, that we're invited to return to the realm of love that is our source.
Speaker 1: This is the hope for us.
Speaker 1: Every time we gather together, every time we remember, every time we receive communion, we are remembering the realm of God's good kingdom is already here, it's already in the middle of us, and so one of the things that we do in this church and in most churches, that prayers are given to people to help them make connection between their heart, their longings, and God, who is so close to us.
Speaker 1: In the Hebrew tradition it is God is so close, is as close as the next breath, as your inhale.
Speaker 1: That's how close God is never leaving, always right here, present, and we learn to practice the presence, we learn to be aware of the presence of love, and we learn how we ourselves can return to love, and prayers are one of the ways we do that.
Speaker 1: Very often, though, prayers have been given to us as just words to say, and I want to remind you that in our inhale, in God that is there, we can practice the presence of God in our silence, by using our holy imagination, by engaging the divine in recognizing this incredible hope that it is not in our many words that we get God to come to us, but often in our quietness that we allow our soul to commune with the divine.
Speaker 2: You know a lot of us look at prayer and maybe it's been handed to us as a tradition that prayer operates a lot like a vending machine.
Speaker 2: You know that.
Speaker 2: You find the scriptures.
Speaker 2: You know John, 316, you know.
Speaker 2: So I pushed John and 316, and then shoot out would be my promise.
Speaker 2: You know, and we've been, and we pray that way, if we don't really even think that way, because we're like Lord, you said in your words, so you owe me this one, you know, and we really come in from that approach.
Speaker 2: When I heard of another idea, first it sounded like heresy to me is so different.
Speaker 2: But what if prayer wasn't the idea that I was to move God's hand, but what if prayer was opportunity for God to shape me?
Speaker 2: Well, then I'd have to do a little less talking and a lot more listening, right?
Speaker 2: So I wonder if we've even seen our prayer life as a place of listening, because my prayer, no, it's me talking.
Speaker 2: Well, you've talked all the time and we've left no turn for the shaping and the listening.
Speaker 2: You know and I just want to add this that there's times where Heather will say can you help me with this?
Speaker 2: And I had a track of what I was going to use my time with and I decide, because I love her, I'm going to set that aside and by saying what is it?
Speaker 2: How can I help you?
Speaker 2: I might have signed up for something that might take some time.
Speaker 2: And this morning she said, as I was walking into the bathroom for my first bathroom break in the morning, she said would you water the plants?
Speaker 2: Well, I had to water something else at the time and so I'm watering these plants and doing the watering dance.
Speaker 2: But putting someone else's needs in front of your own sometimes is cost you something, you know, and I want to bring that back to that place of prayer.
Speaker 2: Don't picture me dancing around having to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 2: It's the wrong part of the story you're focusing on.
Speaker 2: But what if prayer is that gift that we can give to God of our attention, because you can spend it anywhere, on your own track and the things that you're doing?
Speaker 2: But if I can stop, what if that's what he desires?
Speaker 2: Just that intimacy of your awareness of him, and that you'd be willing to give that to God Almighty, isn't that beautiful thought?
Speaker 2: But it costs us something.
Speaker 2: And what do you give the God who has everything you know?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that beautiful place in your own heart where you can just spend with him.
Speaker 2: So I ask you to consider that in all of our prayers and all of our asking Amen.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that we're going to do together is practice.
Speaker 1: We're coming up to a season of Lent, where there are many prayers that the church has given to us, and Lent is a time of often a time of fasting to really remind us of our true hunger.
Speaker 1: What do we really want for ourselves, for our family, for the world?
Speaker 1: And so, in this exploration of our soul's hunger, there are practices that we give.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I would like for us to do today is this practice of prayer together, and it requires you to take a few deep breaths, let your body come to rest for a moment, just in quiet, and I remind you of this that we are in the presence of a loving God, not an angry father.
Speaker 1: We are in the presence of divine love.
Speaker 1: Imagine with me the story that we are coming to as a tiny point of light, a story that comes through the ears, or you have seen it with your eyes, lived out in someone's life.
Speaker 1: The story enters who you actually are.
Speaker 1: It's a story of peace.
Speaker 1: It's a story where the hero is love.
Speaker 1: It's a story of justice and equity and safety and joy.
Speaker 1: Imagine that story as a tiny point of light that comes to rest in the center of your being.
Speaker 1: And then imagine that little point of light becoming a pool of light, a spring, a fountain of light, and then, for the next few seconds, picture that light growing within you.
Speaker 1: Now imagine yourself becoming full of light, and imagine that light that fills you, illuminating through you.
Speaker 1: Imagine that the light that comes out of you touches those around you, those in your family, your neighbors, our city.
Speaker 1: Imagine that this light fills and embraces them also.
Speaker 1: We know that there are many stories at work in our world, stories that are wounding people, stories that may have wounded us.
Speaker 1: We realize that we can be tempted to respond to those stories that wound in a way that continues to wound.
Speaker 1: But for a few moments let's, together in this place, hold in our hearts a prayer, a plea for help, a plea for peace, that our lives would not be sucked into stories that wound, but that we would be illuminated to a life in a story that heals Together.
Speaker 1: May we live in the story of peace whose hero is love, and may that story live in us.
Speaker 1: May the story of God's peace bring healing to our souls and to the world.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: I appreciate the Lord allowing there to be rain softly, it's not a deluge, we're not frightened for our cars.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful, reminding us peace is in the presence of love, and I remind you at least in the next few weeks, if you don't already practice the presence, before you go to prayer, of seeing the face of a father of Jesus, of spirit, who utterly adores you, who delights in you, who invites a deeper conversation, and this is, for us, a practice of wisdom, a practice of love.
Speaker 1: It is one of the things that transforms us, it is one of the things that transforms the world, and it is what we have as a great hope.
Speaker 1: And sometimes we come together to hear a better story.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the story that we hear in the world around us is a story that needs a hero, is a story that needs something greater, a greater truth, a wisdom, and in the wisdom tradition, that is what Jesus was brought up, in this faith, in fact, there are some wisdoms that, in fact, of wisdom, it is said get everything, but get wisdom above everything else.
Speaker 1: And Dennis and I were talking this week, and I think that wisdom really can't be found unless you have found it on this canotic path of self-emptying, where selfishness is laid down and a wisdom or a pearl, something holy, is then picked up instead.
Speaker 1: Jesus told this story of a man who came to a field and found a pearl of great price.
Speaker 1: He dug it up and found it and then he put it right back in and he covered it up and he went and sold everything to buy the field and he was like, oh, you cannot imagine what is being what is underneath.
Speaker 1: And I was thinking about his friends with my holy imagination.
Speaker 1: They could have looked at that field and go you should not do that, do not risk your life and your love and your livelihood.
Speaker 1: But he knew that there was something greater, something deeper, and so we invite you this season invites you into being able to see what is really happening, what love is really calling us to.
Speaker 2: Even when you talk about that, it makes me.
Speaker 2: When you talk about practicing grace, there is a skill that comes really in handling it as you practice it, and something else that I'm practicing in becoming aware of the need to practice it maybe more than anything is practicing dying.
Speaker 2: That we practice dying a million times before we actually die, and it happens all the time.
Speaker 2: It happens every time you're asked to do something that you don't want to do, to serve in a place or decide to do something that is sacrificial and maybe no one is ever going to see it.
Speaker 2: But you're practicing something I want to get real good at dying, so that one day when I die, I will die well, and it's something that is a beautiful practice and it's not glamorous, and so I can tell by your faces.
Speaker 2: I'm not selling you on it, so I'll keep trying up here the best I can.
Speaker 2: But I believe it's to our benefit that we learn to be those kind of people that handle grace and handle it in a way of selflessness.
Speaker 2: You know, greedy and selfish people are hard to be around, and so we practice the opposite of that.
Speaker 2: You know just in what if?
Speaker 2: When somebody suggests a restaurant that you don't really like to eat at you, go eat at there anyway.
Speaker 2: Imagine your Christ-like sacrifice to actually eat at a restaurant that's not your favorite.
Speaker 2: Oh, we're such givers, but it's got to start somewhere.
Speaker 2: Amen that place of us.
Speaker 2: Just stop the choosing of me every time and understanding that there's something that will happen when I lay down that prize that I want to pick up, the real prize that he has for me.
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of the apostle who said when I was a child, I thought and I talked and I behaved like a child, but when I allowed maturity to be formed in me, I put away childish things.
Speaker 1: Beloved, selfishness is a childish thing.
Speaker 1: There is and it is.
Speaker 1: It is something that happens in children, because what they see is finite.
Speaker 1: They see scarcity.
Speaker 1: If I don't have it, there won't be enough Beloved.
Speaker 1: We come from a place of abundance.
Speaker 1: We come from a place of goodness.
Speaker 1: Our very source is God, who is love infinitely, and so when we remember this, when we choose wisdom's path, years ago, when my children were very tiny, I came across a book that I would highly recommend to you.
Speaker 1: It's called Jesus in Blue Jeans.
Speaker 1: There's another one called Jesus CEO, and I was really inspired by the wisdom that this author was presenting, and one of the things that she was talking about was from the prophet Isaiah, who said this is what the Lord has said, this is what I have against you, jerusalem, that you have not troubled yourself on my behalf.
Speaker 1: And she went on to say that love troubles itself on behalf of someone else, and I had never heard that before, like in a scripture text, in a writing text.
Speaker 1: So I wrote the author.
Speaker 1: This was back before the internet, when you could actually get to people, and I was very interested.
Speaker 1: I was like, please can you cite a source?
Speaker 1: Can you give me a time, because I want to go back.
Speaker 1: I always want to know where did you hear this?
Speaker 1: Perhaps it's the cynic in me, but or the I want to know.
Speaker 1: Show me where you read that.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it is the following of the Judaism when is it written?
Speaker 1: And so I go back and I'm asking.
Speaker 1: And so she sends back a very nice letter, the in it she said it was in the New Jerusalem Bible.
Speaker 1: Well, have you seen the New Jerusalem Bible?
Speaker 1: It's enormous.
Speaker 1: So I went out and bought one and I thought it's in here somewhere.
Speaker 1: I have to find it.
Speaker 1: So I read the New Jerusalem Bible from end to end, beginning to end, and I fell in love with a couple of things in it.
Speaker 1: And I am gonna be one of those people who are just generous and I'll give it to you this morning.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be glad that you're here this morning because I'm gonna read to you, but I wanted to read to you from the wisdom of Solomon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to my life.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Dennis's life.
Speaker 1: Welcome to.
Speaker 1: This is how love troubles itself.
Speaker 1: I will read to you this morning, but I'm good at reading and so that'll be fine for you.
Speaker 2: Now the way she tricks you is she says I wanna read you one thing, oh, I didn't say that this morning attentionally.
Speaker 1: I did not say that this holds Jerusalem Bible.
Speaker 2: So, before you agree, I just just a prototype.
Speaker 1: Well, and let's talk about this for a second, because it is not so much the Bible or the text that has something to you.
Speaker 1: It is the witness of what that thing does.
Speaker 1: It is reading with the spirit.
Speaker 1: It is not in any way me saying to you read the Bible.
Speaker 1: In fact, if it troubles you, don't let us live the Bible in front of you.
Speaker 1: Let us live the witness of the Christ in front of you.
Speaker 1: You have the spirit of God and you need this.
Speaker 1: However, this was inspiring to me and so I remind you.
Speaker 1: So I did go back and I did read it, and this is the hope for us, with love and looking for wisdom.
Speaker 1: This is in the wisdom of Solomon.
Speaker 1: I will tell you what wisdom is and how she came to be.
Speaker 1: In the sacred text, wisdom is always in the feminine, always listening to even the pronouns they use of her or she and her.
Speaker 1: But listen to wisdom.
Speaker 1: I tell you what wisdom is and how she came to be, and I hide no secrets from you, but I will trace her course from the beginning of creation and I will make the knowledge of her clear and I will not pass truth, nor will I travel in the company of sickly envy, for envy has nothing to do with wisdom.
Speaker 1: The multitude of the wise is the salvation of the world, and a sensible king is the stability of any people.
Speaker 1: Therefore, be instructed by wisdom and you will have life, allowing wisdom to form us, allowing wisdom to be the treasure that we have.
Speaker 1: And so I read to you a variation or a composite of some of this.
Speaker 1: I can't read to you the whole Jerusalem Bible, because we have not set aside that time.
Speaker 2: Oh, but you want to.
Speaker 1: But I do, I do, I do, I do.
Speaker 1: Wisdom is a kindly spirit, the witness of our innermost beings, a true observer of our thoughts.
Speaker 1: She communicates the secret purposes of God, the path of holiness, the joy of a pure heart, beauty and goodness.
Speaker 1: Follow wisdom wherever she goes, for she is the mother of truth.
Speaker 1: She is more radiant than the sun, excelling every constellation of the stars, a reflection of eternal life, a spotless mirror of the workings of God.
Speaker 1: Those who walk in her ways have no need of lamps, for the light of Christ shines within them.
Speaker 1: She is the power of God, breathed into the world, a pure and eminent radiation of the one.
Speaker 1: She is singular in her essence, and yet she penetrates all the diversity of creation, accomplishing all things in simplicity.
Speaker 1: Remaining within herself, she pours forth into the world.
Speaker 1: She is more radiant than the sun, excelling in every constellation.
Speaker 1: She is the reflection of eternal life.
Speaker 1: The spirit of wisdom is an unmistakable presence.
Speaker 1: She is the consciousness of God.
Speaker 1: With every passing generation, she fills the souls of those who pursue her, making them into prophets and friends of God.
Speaker 1: If we are diligent in our search for wisdom, she will pursue us from the ends of the earth, graciously appearing along on our path, meeting us in every thought.
Speaker 1: And when we gaze upon wisdom with our inner eyes, when we fix our attention on her alone, we become fully ourselves, and then we clothe our souls in love, binding everything together in perfect harmony.
Speaker 1: The spirit of wisdom makes us lovers of goodness, ones who are curious, patient, humble, singular, manifold, subtle, creative, agile, clear, connected, prudent, just and loving, beloved.
Speaker 1: I hope that you will hear that not just as inspiring, but as this beautiful invitation into another realm, that there is for us a natural learning, but there is for us an invitation by the Holy Spirit to come into wisdom, learn another way of living.
Speaker 1: And so our text this morning from Romans, chapter eight.
Speaker 1: Again, you were not wrong, dennis, when you said to me I wanna read the whole thing because the text is just seven verses.
Speaker 1: But I read this and reread this and I can find no point of exit.
Speaker 1: I can't say I'm gonna cut off that first verse and then just let them happen.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna read to you and then we're gonna talk about some of the things, not all of them.
Speaker 1: I will allow the spirit to bring you all of the hope.
Speaker 1: So now the case is closed.
Speaker 1: Now, beloved, it'll be up to you to go home and read the prior seven chapters what the case is.
Speaker 1: But the apostle here has presented a case.
Speaker 1: He has said these are the things that you should worry about, and now he said the case is closed.
Speaker 1: There remains no accusing voice of condemnation against those who are joined in life union with Jesus the anointed one.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna read that one again for you because I wasn't gonna comment on it.
Speaker 1: But there remains no accusing voice of condemnation against those who are joined in life union with Jesus the anointed one.
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 1: For the law of the spirit of life flowing through the anointing of Jesus has liberated us from the law of sin and death, for God achieved what the law was unable to accomplish, because the law was limited by the weakness of human nature.
Speaker 1: And yet God sent us His Son in human form to identify with human weakness.
Speaker 1: Clothed with humanity, god's Son gave His body to be the sin offering so that God could once and for all condemn the guilt and the power of sin.
Speaker 1: Now every righteous requirement of the law can be fulfilled through the anointed one living His life in us, and we are free to live not according to our flesh but to the dynamic power of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: Those who are motivated by the flesh only pursue what benefits themselves, but those who live by the impulse of the Holy Spirit are motivated to pursue spiritual realities For the mindset of the flesh's death, but the mindset controlled by the spirit finds life and peace.
Speaker 1: In fact, the mindset focused on the flesh fights God's plan and refuses to submit to His direction because it cannot, for no matter how hard they try.
Speaker 1: God finds no pleasure with those controlled by the flesh, but when the spirit of Christ empowers your life, you are not dominated by the flesh but by the spirit, and if you are not joined to the spirit of the anointed one, you are not of Him.
Speaker 1: Now Christ lives His life in you and even though your body might be dead because of the effects of sin, his life-giving spirit imparts life to you because you are fully accepted by God.
Speaker 1: Yes, god raised Jesus to life, and since God's spirit of resurrection lives in you, he will also raise your dying body to life by the same spirit that breathes life into you.
Speaker 1: So then, beloved ones, the flesh has no claims on us at all.
Speaker 1: We have no further obligation to live in obedience to it, for when you live controlled by the flesh, you are about to die, but the life of the spirit puts to death the corrupt ways of the flesh, and then we taste His abundant life.
Speaker 1: The mature children of God are those who are moved by the impulses of the Holy Spirit, and you did not receive a spirit of religious duty leading you back into fear of never being good enough, but you have received the spirit of full acceptance in folding you into the family of God, and you will never feel orphaned, for as he rises up within us, our spirits join Him in saying words of tender affection, beloved Father, for the Holy Spirit makes God's fatherhood real to us, as he witnesses into our innermost being.
Speaker 1: You are God's beloved child, and since we are His true children, we qualify to share all His treasures, for in deeds we are heirs of God Himself, and since we are joined to Christ, we also inherit all that he is and all that he has, and we will experience being co-glorified with Him, provided that we accept His sufferings as our own.
Speaker 1: I am convinced that any suffering we endure is less than nothing compared to the magnitude of glory that is about to be unveiled within us.
Speaker 1: The entire universe is standing on tiptoe, yearning to see the unveiling of God's glorious sons and daughters, for, against its will, the universe itself had to endure the empty futility resulting from the consequences of human sin.
Speaker 1: But now, with eager expectation, all creation longs for freedom from its slavery to decay and to experience with us the wonderful freedom coming to God's children.
Speaker 1: To this day, we are aware of the universal agony and the groaning of creation, as if it were in the contractions of labor for childbirth.
Speaker 1: And it's not just creation.
Speaker 1: We, who have already experienced the first fruits of the Spirit, also inwardly grown as we passionately long to experience our full status as God's sons and daughters, including our physical bodies being transformed.
Speaker 1: For this is the hope of our salvation.
Speaker 1: But hope means we must trust and wait for what is still unseen, for why would we need to hope for something that we already have and since, and because our hope is set on what is yet to be seen, we patiently keep on waiting for its fulfillment.
Speaker 1: And in a similar way, the Holy Spirit takes hold of us in our human frailty to empower us in our weakness, for example.
Speaker 1: At times we don't even know how to pray or know the best things to ask for.
Speaker 1: But the Holy Spirit rises within us to super intercede on our behalf.
Speaker 1: I just loved that translation.
Speaker 1: I knew for years the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, but it turns out super interceding.
Speaker 1: I got it like that.
Speaker 1: We got super intercession on our behalf, pleading with God with emotional sighs too deep for words.
Speaker 1: And God, the searcher of hearts, knows fully our longing and he also understands the desires of the Spirit, because the Holy Spirit passionately pleads before God for us, the Holy Ones, in perfect harmony with God's plan and our destiny.
Speaker 1: So we are convinced that every detail of our lives is continually woven together to fit into God's perfect plan of bringing good into our lives, for we are his lovers who have been called to fulfill his design purpose, for he knew all about us before we were born and he destined us from the beginning to share the likeness of his son.
Speaker 1: This means the son is the oldest among the vast family of brothers and sisters who will become just like him.
Speaker 1: Having determined our destiny ahead of time, he called us to himself and transferred his perfect righteousness to everyone he called and those who possess his perfect righteousness he co-glorified with his son.
Speaker 1: So what does this all mean?
Speaker 1: That's good, because he had this case that, in my understanding, he was still presenting, even though the first lines of this were so the case is closed.
Speaker 1: I feel like this whole other thing was like this exclamation mark.
Speaker 1: So what does this all mean?
Speaker 1: And this is the lectionary this morning.
Speaker 1: The other part was bonus.
Speaker 1: If God has determined to stand with us, tell me then, who then could ever stand against us?
Speaker 1: For God has proved his love by giving us his greatest treasure, the gift of his son, and God freely offered him up as the sacrifice for us all.
Speaker 1: He certainly won't withhold from us anything else he has to give.
Speaker 1: Who then would dare to accuse those whom God has chosen in love to be his God himself?
Speaker 1: Is the judge who has issued his final verdict over them, not guilty?
Speaker 1: In the past few weeks, we've been talking about and exploring what is it like for us to live in the spirit of innocence, for us to practice innocence, for us to stand in the place where God does and say not guilty, for us to stand when we are even in God's presence and remember that we are not coming bowing and scraping because we are not worthy?
Speaker 1: Here is the invitation that love has chosen us, that love has gifted us, and when we return to love, it is love's delight to have this conversation with us.
Speaker 2: And we see in this passage how God, through Christ, has done away with sin.
Speaker 2: But as followers of Christ, we still seem to struggle with it.
Speaker 2: Play with it, just believe that we are under its grip.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about something this morning, maybe because my brother is in town, but I remember going to get the bus in junior high.
Speaker 2: So I walked out of the house and I had my sweet, sweet aria speed wagon jersey on and it was gray and had red sleeves and had aria speed wagon on it.
Speaker 2: It was awesome If you didn't have one.
Speaker 2: I know that you looked longingly at people like me that had one, and so I was, and back then with my curly hair, I would push it down to try to feather it, so I could have feathered down the middle hair, because I couldn't do that and that's what everybody had in the 70s.
Speaker 2: I was so excited to go to school with my aria shirt and my first feathered hair.
Speaker 2: I just got to the to walking down the street and it had rained and this car flies by and douses me with just completely drenched me, and so I turned around and just anger at this car and I gave him the you are number one salute with my just having to be the middle finger that I chose for this, and I started kind of running back after that car like I was going to do something.
Speaker 2: Well, that car locked up the let me just look at this rear of your mirror and locked up the brakes.
Speaker 2: It just backs up and this grown man gets out of the car in front of this junior high student with my size, small r-yo speed wagon t-shirt on and he puts these dukes up.
Speaker 2: He said well, you want to fight, let's go.
Speaker 2: And I thought I have really put myself into a predicament.
Speaker 2: I'm going to have to fight a grown man in the street.
Speaker 2: And now, all of a sudden, I wasn't as mad that I was wet A second shower was a blessing and I went and I literally did not know what I was going to do.
Speaker 2: Next I looked out of the corner of my and my brother flung open the front door and we happened to be back in front of my house and he's walking out to get in his car to go to work.
Speaker 2: And I said hey, danny.
Speaker 2: I said I'm not going to fight you, sir, but my brother will.
Speaker 2: And he got a look at my brother and he got back in his car and took off, and I share that story with you because I never was so grateful to have a big brother.
Speaker 2: There was times when he aggravated me, but that day, I assure you, I was so grateful because I saw the benefit and I was desperate in need of a savior.
Speaker 2: And I see throughout these scriptures that it reminds us that we have a big brother who's rescued us from a predicament that we cannot get ourselves out of and that we got ourselves into.
Speaker 2: I assure you of that as well and for us to learn how to depend and lean on our big brother and to know that our big brother has done away with sin.
Speaker 2: So why are we still trying to deal with it in our own strength?
Speaker 2: You're trying to fight the guy out in the street.
Speaker 2: It's been handled for us and I got to tell you if we will learn to walk in that path of.
Speaker 2: Help me understand that Lord, help me know that, help me tangibly experience that it is a different life as a Christian.
Speaker 2: I spent so much of the first part of my walk with sin consciousness and as I paid attention to it, I saw it everywhere and in everyone else and was quick to point it out in them, as myself.
Speaker 2: But if we could have a Christ consciousness to remember what has been done for us and what has been given to us, I believe we can have a different experience.
Speaker 2: Is anybody with me?
Speaker 2: Is this thing even on?
Speaker 2: Come on church.
Speaker 1: Who, then, is left to condemn us?
Speaker 1: Certainly not Jesus, the anointed one, for he gave his life for us and, even more than that, he conquered death.
Speaker 1: It is now risen, exalted and enthroned by God at his right hand, so how could he possibly condemn us, since he is continually praying for our triumph?
Speaker 1: This is the part of the prayer where Paul begins to give us something of a lifeline.
Speaker 1: I remind you that Paul was not writing the Bible.
Speaker 1: He did not know that we would still be reading this.
Speaker 1: He was writing this as a letter to a group of believers, encouraging them.
Speaker 1: But what a gift that we can hear these words and receive from them, as a witness of something that he had learned.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that we can hope for and join in is that this is a beautiful prayer if you have children or grandchildren, or for you yourself, but this is a beautiful family prayer.
Speaker 1: Who could ever separate us from the endless love of God's anointed one?
Speaker 1: Absolutely no one.
Speaker 1: And so, if I was praying this as I do for my children, who could ever separate my children from the endless love of God's anointed one?
Speaker 1: Absolutely no one, for nothing in the universe has the power to diminish his love toward us or toward your children.
Speaker 1: That's good news.
Speaker 1: Beloved, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren, the whole world.
Speaker 1: Nothing in the universe has the power to diminish God's love toward your children, toward you, toward the world.
Speaker 1: Troubles, pressures and problems are unable to come between us or our children and heaven's love.
Speaker 1: What about persecution, deprivation, dangers and death threat?
Speaker 1: No, for they are all impotent to hinder omnipotent love.
Speaker 1: All of the things that would try to separate us from love cannot do that.
Speaker 1: Beloved, this is God's love lavished on us, and what a hopeful thought that there is nothing that would separate us from this incredible love.
Speaker 2: You know, while we're on that verse and what you just witnessed, heather, do something that we learned in Bible school and just didn't know that that existed the possibility of taking these different prayers.
Speaker 2: You find the Pauline prayers are all over the New Testament, you know, and taking those and using them as a template, a way for you to pray Because you know maybe not everybody's the most amazing prayer in the world, or maybe you don't fully know how to do that, or maybe you need a little practice or training or whatever.
Speaker 2: And so if you can just see what Heather did in Romans 8, there was just.
Speaker 2: Every time it says us, you can say me, or you can say you know that child of yours or that parent of yours or that whatever person in your life that you tend to wonder is God's arm long enough to reach them?
Speaker 2: Because I might be alone in here, but sometimes people we have certain people that we know of that seem to be quite cantankerous and we just wonder sometimes is God gonna be able to reach them?
Speaker 2: They've said some pretty awful things just in my presence alone, and God's with them all the time.
Speaker 2: So you know, we tend to get real fearful about how sin is being dealt with in their lives, and so to pray these things.
Speaker 2: What a blessing over that person that you have been maybe assigned to be a watchman over someone, to pray and intercede for it, and, more than likely, that prayer is probably gonna just come your worried heart because God's not as worried about their sin as you are, because he knows he's handled it, and we doubt that often, amen.
Speaker 2: And so, whether you feel like you're interceding on behalf of that wayward son or that wayward daughter or that wayward parent or that wayward cousin or nephew or worker or whatever, allow this type of thing to be something that you can pray yourself and be I just.
Speaker 2: I'm confident that it'll be a way to bring peace to your heart and confidence to you in reminding you that God cares for those people.
Speaker 2: Oh, he has come for those to seek and to save those who are lost, amen.
Speaker 2: Oh, how do you think you got involved in this whole business?
Speaker 2: He was able to.
Speaker 2: God, in God's rich mercy, has managed to tap you and pull your heart strings.
Speaker 2: Oh, god's begun in your life, god's faithful to complete it and, I know, in those other people that we love and care about.
Speaker 2: Amen.
Speaker 1: You use the imagery of strength and the arm of the Lord, and a lot of that is from the prophet Isaiah.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I love is the beginning of a prophecy regarding Jesus, and it says who has believed our report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed.
Speaker 1: So there's all this strength In fact there's many times in the prophets in the questioning is will you come and save us?
Speaker 1: And at one point God says I'm gonna roll up my sleeves on your behalf.
Speaker 1: I love that because I don't know what has to be done, but it's a lot when you're gonna get into something and you start rolling up your sleeves.
Speaker 1: I love that imagery of a God who's rolling up his sleeves, but not in vengeance, not in anger, but rolling up his sleeves.
Speaker 1: And then in this rolling up of sleeves, he's giving us Jesus, he's giving us life, he's giving us and inviting us into love.
Speaker 1: And I wanna say that, as much as we wanna pray this for our families and it's good for us to recalibrate ourselves into love as the center this is good for us to pray for the whole world beloved, and this has been my prayer for two brothers that I didn't know I had, but really need Jesus.
Speaker 1: In my estimation, in my judgment.
Speaker 1: I pray this over Netanyahu and over Putin on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: I am like let these sons remember that they are loved, that they are ones with you.
Speaker 1: Let these sons return to the love that you created them.
Speaker 1: What about persecution, deprivation, dangers and death threats?
Speaker 1: No, for they are all impotent to hinder omnipotent love.
Speaker 1: Even though it is written, all day long, we face death and threats.
Speaker 1: For your sake, oh God, we are considered to be nothing more than sheep to be slaughtered.
Speaker 1: So they're turning back an ancient text that they're reminded we are nothing and he says even though, even though we're in the midst of all these things, they also lived in opposition, being oppressed and having war all around them, and still they're saying get in the middle of all these things.
Speaker 1: We triumph over them because God has made us to be more than conquerors and has demonstrated love is our glorious victory over everything.
Speaker 1: Love is victory.
Speaker 1: Staying in love is victory.
Speaker 1: I wanna tell you how the whole thing is gonna end, beloved.
Speaker 1: It's gonna end in love, because love is the source of everything, and this is how we join God's kingdom.
Speaker 1: This is how we join the realm.
Speaker 1: We allow our consciousness to be expanded and to see what Jesus has done and to listen to this witness and say beloved, the answer is love.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna change, it's always been love.
Speaker 1: And whether we surrender to the love now, gracefully, or we oppose the love, this love that is full of power, resurrection power, spirit of life in us, resurrection power.
Speaker 1: It's our choice to die to things, but it's God's spirit that brings life to us.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to interject here because just take a moment, if I can Heather shared a few weeks ago about experience that we had when we were on vacation.
Speaker 2: But there's now in Gatlinburg there's this really cool theme park that's up on a mountain and you gotta take one of those ski lifts to get up there to it and then there's restaurants and rides and activities and stuff up in this theme park and one of the activities was this walk among the trees and it's like it takes 20 or 30 minutes to take these little rope bridges out to trees and of course it's a mountain, so some places it's steep where you might be kind of close to ground over there, but out here you might be 50 feet in a tree and they make these little treehouse things and we're walking and it was so amazing and beautiful to be walking up in these trees.
Speaker 2: And we got to one point and there was shade all around but one, like beam of sunlight, went through all these trees and we realized there was a big, giant black bear laying in the sun right beneath us on the ground and we just stayed for the longest time and just looked at that bear.
Speaker 2: Now I want you to understand that bear was not in captivity, that bear was in the wild.
Speaker 2: That bear was wild in the mountains and we were in the mountains but yet because of our vantage point, we were not afraid.
Speaker 2: If we had been on the ground it would have been terrifying, but by being way up in that tree.
Speaker 2: Now some say bears can climb trees, but I promise you, as quick as that bear figured out how to climb that tree and go around that rope thing, I would have beat Heather to the car.
Speaker 2: I want to say Don't focus on the wrong part of my story.
Speaker 2: Heather and I were just so amazed we talked about that for days, that vantage point, not being afraid because of where we sat in that moment we were on that mountain in there, but we because of where we were and I want you to take that when we look at this verse because this war was all around them, then it's all around us now and your vantage point can either be that's it, it's over, I'm done with, I'm done for, or we can remember that by God placing us in that vantage point of love, that we literally can see the same experience, that giant black bear.
Speaker 2: But in no way were we harmed because we were elevated, we were ascended among the trees, and what does God promise you and I?
Speaker 2: That he will bring us into that place of ascension in Him.
Speaker 2: And I'm telling you, the plan of God is not for you to escape this world, but to be in it, but not be of it, to be able to be right there in the middle of that, and you have a different attitude and a different spirit and a different level of peace that no one else can understand Now, and you know, as I'm sharing this, how many of those scriptures are coming to mind to you right Now.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, that is what God promised me and we're always looking for the escape and that's what they were with Jesus.
Speaker 2: Jesus come down and take over the government, new rule and he's gonna.
Speaker 2: No, I'm gonna show you what we're doing.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna get out in the towel in the basin, but that's not what I want.
Speaker 2: I want a leader to get a sword out and strike the enemy and when that happens, jesus reached down and he healed that wound.
Speaker 2: That's not what we're gonna do here.
Speaker 2: We're not gonna strike down our enemies, we're gonna show a place of love that will bring a transformation and an advantage point that they cannot see.
Speaker 2: But if we can't see it, if the church is, how's the scriptures say?
Speaker 2: If we ourselves are scarcely saved, how can we make the impact on the world that God has called us to amen?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I might just preach huh, who knows?
Speaker 1: That's so good.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about for a moment the account that you reminded us of.
Speaker 1: Jesus is in the garden with his friends.
Speaker 1: They've come to arrest him and Peter, in defense of Jesus, lops off a guy's ear.
Speaker 1: And I wonder how many of us, when people, I think out of generous hearts or hopeful hearts, they have been defended Jesus and with the words they use, they wounded us.
Speaker 1: So here's a guy defending Jesus and here we are with the ear off.
Speaker 2: Come on, come on.
Speaker 1: And I wonder how many times people in defense of Jesus have harmed us.
Speaker 1: But here's what I see Jesus doing, so tenderly, putting that ear back on and healing.
Speaker 1: And even then, tenderly, he says to Peter put it away, the weapons that we use to harm.
Speaker 1: Put them away and come into love Verse 38,.
Speaker 1: So now I live with the confidence that there is nothing in the universe that can weaken God's love.
Speaker 1: There is no power above us or beneath us.
Speaker 1: There is no power that could ever be found in the universe that would distance us from God's passionate love, which is lavish upon us through our Lord Jesus.
Speaker 1: And I wonder how many times people have said that they have never seen God's love.
Speaker 1: And I wonder how many times people have said that they have never seen God's love, and I wonder how many times people have said lavish upon us through our Lord Jesus, the anointed one Beloved.
Speaker 1: This is one of the wonderful things that you can pray for your families.
Speaker 1: There is no power above them, above us or beneath us.
Speaker 1: No power could ever be found in the universe that will separate, that will distance our families from God's passionate love.
Speaker 1: God's love consuming all of us, returning all of us to this.
Speaker 1: You, you, you, you, you.