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: In the past few weeks, we have been reading from John's Gospel, where he gives us what is known by people who have studied the word the bread of life discourse.
Speaker 1: Where Jesus says to us I am the bread of life.
Speaker 1: I don't know what cuisine you like, what ethnicity cuisine you feel most attracted to, but I just want to tell you, no matter what cuisine you don't like, you could still like their bread.
Speaker 1: It's true.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can say I don't appreciate this, but their bread, everyone can eat the bread.
Speaker 1: And I think that that is where Jesus says to us I am the bread of life, I am the living word, I am what you need to nourish yourself.
Speaker 1: And so, as we gather this morning, I remind you of this really sacred trust that is given to us, that love is what sustains us and what we do together as a Christian church is we've come to dedicate our life to learn about love and to practice the love that Jesus shows us how to do.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was Jesus who said of his followers you're going to be known by your love, and I think that that's really important that we spend some time thinking about that this morning.
Speaker 1: The invitation is to us to what the Apostle Paul said, that a really true mark of maturity is love.
Speaker 1: And if love is the goal and if love is the standard, then we need to be mindful about it, because in our culture we throw the word love around very carelessly.
Speaker 1: I think that we use love instead of better words.
Speaker 1: We say things like I love pizza and I love my dog and I love this color and I love, and so the word sometimes loses something, and so it may be better for us to say I prefer this, I enjoy the taste of, but love is essential, and when we think about this, the invitation is is for us what is the obligation of love?
Speaker 1: If I am to love my neighbor, if I am to love my enemy, if I am to love myself, then what are the obligations of love?
Speaker 2: you got.
Speaker 2: Uh, you jumped two points.
Speaker 2: I want to go back one point on the bread, because I love bread and, as a person who's always struggling with my weight, the bread has seemed to be like the enemy.
Speaker 2: It's like the devil.
Speaker 2: You've got to stay away from the bread.
Speaker 2: But I don't know if you're like me and you've tried real hard, but you can't stay away from the bread forever.
Speaker 2: It calls to you.
Speaker 2: You can smell it baking from down the street and I think about this because if I do well and stay away from bread for a few weeks, it's inevitable that I get so hungry, I get angry.
Speaker 2: You know that expression that's new now Hangry.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: It's for people who, specifically, have been away from bread too long.
Speaker 2: They have become unmanaged, their life has become unmanageable and if they don't know it, the people around them do.
Speaker 2: We can't be around you until you have some bread and I just really.
Speaker 2: Are you starting to maybe track with me where I'm going with this?
Speaker 2: There are some people that's lives have become unmanageable because you have forgotten about the bread of life.
Speaker 2: Isn't that a good thought?
Speaker 2: But it's true, right, when we kind of drift away and get into our own thing.
Speaker 2: We just we get these attitudes.
Speaker 2: And so today we want to talk about that love and what you know, having that kind of interaction with love, with the bread of life, what that does in us, through us, with the people around us.
Speaker 2: Amen.
Speaker 1: Amen From 1 Corinthians 13,.
Speaker 1: I want to encourage you with something this morning.
Speaker 1: Very often this particular scripture has been read at weddings you've been attending and we kind of put it in the category of this is romantic love.
Speaker 1: But I remind you, this was written to the ancient church in Corinth.
Speaker 1: This was written to a group, a community, to a bunch of people who said we are going to try to be family, and they were doing it badly.
Speaker 1: And so Paul said I want to remind you, let this be what love is.
Speaker 1: And so, before we give this over to romance although I think it's important to have in our romantic relationships as well but this is essential to our day-to-day living.
Speaker 1: And if you would hear the words of the apostle here from 1 Corinthians, if I were to speak with the eloquence in earth's many languages and in the heavenly tongues of angels and yet I did not express myself with love, my words would be reduced to the hollow sound of nothing more than a clanging cymbal.
Speaker 1: Please don't miss the point here where he's saying that words expressed with love, not just any words, not just some words, but for all of us, that every word that we have would be expressed with love.
Speaker 1: And sometimes that has to become a practice for us, because we're used to expressing ourselves with frustration, or we're used to expressing ourselves with frustration, or we're used to expressing ourselves with prejudice or with opinion.
Speaker 1: And the apostle is saying come back to the fact that you need to express yourself with love.
Speaker 1: Your words sound like a clanging cymbal.
Speaker 1: A clanging cymbal can get our attention, but a clanging cymbal outside of the orchestra just sounds like noise, and so the invitation is to come into the truth.
Speaker 1: That is, love allows us to sound in a way that brings us to the truth and brings us back to ourselves.
Speaker 2: You know and this is a practice too, because no one would expect one to be perfect at this type of communication right away but I will tell you this that if your heart is willing to be transformed, god will work with you in this area, and what you can do is just like when you say something, maybe you meant it a certain way, or maybe you didn't even think about what you were saying a certain way, or maybe you didn't even think about what you were saying.
Speaker 2: But when the the hearer responds like you just slammed a symbol in their face, then you can.
Speaker 2: You can deduce maybe they did not hear what I intended them to hear, or maybe what I said was not right and needs some adjusting.
Speaker 2: Amen, so allow that way that when people continually say to you you're harsh, you're harsh and you walk around going man, I can't believe the sensitive people in my life, all these people at work, at home.
Speaker 2: It's weird.
Speaker 2: No matter where I go, sensitive people everywhere or are you extremely rude and aggressive Could be the common denominator here, you know.
Speaker 2: So I would like for us to kind of allow God to.
Speaker 2: I love that in this life we can be trained as we go.
Speaker 2: We don't have to master these things right away, but is your heart willing to, to exchange aggressive language for for kindness and and just selfish uh communication for love, uh, are we willing to go there and if you are, be careful what you wish for?
Speaker 1: and if I were to have the gift of prophecy, with profound understanding of God's hidden secrets, and if I possessed unending supernatural knowledge, and if I had the greatest of faith that I could move mountains but have never learned to love, then I am nothing.
Speaker 1: I love how he stacks up all of the things here that people would want.
Speaker 1: I want supernatural knowledge or I want to know that I have a hidden secret.
Speaker 1: And Paul is really reminding us that love is the goal.
Speaker 1: Beloved Love is the goal in the way that we speak, in the way that we love, in the way that we interact with people.
Speaker 1: And he says if I've never learned to love, then I am nothing.
Speaker 1: And so the invitation is to learn how to love, like we watched Jesus love.
Speaker 1: This is why we run the filter of how did Jesus behave when he was fully human, when he accepted all of his emotions as worthy but then allowed himself to be governed only by love?
Speaker 1: But then allowed himself to be governed only by love.
Speaker 1: If I were to be so generous as to give away everything I owned to feed the poor and to offer my body to be burned as a martyr without the pure motive of love, I would gain nothing of value.
Speaker 1: And here we see again.
Speaker 1: He's talking about people who are generous, and this is a good thing, and even, in some aspects, the idea of martyrdom, the idea of giving your life for someone else.
Speaker 1: This is a beautiful gesture, but without the motive of love, it says that it is no value.
Speaker 1: Love is large and incredibly patient.
Speaker 1: Love is gentle and consistently kind to all.
Speaker 2: You know, I want to speak for a moment about this idea of love and martyrdom, because many times people will ask you throughout your life, you know, would you give your life for the person that you love?
Speaker 2: You know, and of course sure I would.
Speaker 2: The people that I love.
Speaker 2: Of course I'd give my life, sure I would.
Speaker 2: The people that I love, of course I'd give them my life.
Speaker 2: And the thing is, we're really never asked by God to die for somebody, but it's the opposite, and it's really the harder thing is to live for somebody.
Speaker 2: So, in that idea when we think, oh yeah, I'd make that one final decision and allow my head to be chopped off, but what about daily letting my selfishness be chopped off?
Speaker 2: What about that daily decision that I'm going to put the needs of another person above my own?
Speaker 2: That that is how I want to demonstrate that I said that I love you, is how I want to demonstrate that I said that I love you and that that corresponding action is going to be I would rather stay in bed, but I'm going to get up and help.
Speaker 2: I would rather uh, not uh, go to that place, but we're going to go that place and this other place.
Speaker 2: You know that there's this um laying down of your life.
Speaker 2: That's so beautiful and it's a, and it's a giving of your life.
Speaker 2: That's so beautiful and it's a giving of your life versus just having it snatched away and it's a more proactive way.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, maybe if we can get out of that whole idea of well, this once I would do, you know, because I think that's it.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, when Heather and I got married, I said I love you at the altar and if anything changes I'll let you know.
Speaker 2: You know that's not going to go well in my marriage.
Speaker 2: You know, I need to daily communicate that I love you and if my words don't match up with my actions, something is wrong.
Speaker 2: I say I love you, but yet I continually serve me.
Speaker 1: Uh-oh, now he's starting to meddle now, and what is that?
Speaker 1: Right, though?
Speaker 1: For us, even in community, to look at the world at large, what we're being invited to is resurrection, is the death of ego and the resurrection of the true and beautiful souls that we are.
Speaker 1: We are made in the image of God, and so, as you're talking about this idea of laying down your life, it is in no way to be abused or to be taken advantage of, but it is this idea of surrendering our egos and surrendering our false selves and being enlivened by the Spirit of Christ that allows us to love with real zeal.
Speaker 1: Love is large and incredibly patient, incredibly patient.
Speaker 1: Patient is enough, but love is incredibly patient.
Speaker 1: Love is gentle and consistently kind to all.
Speaker 1: Gentle and consistently kind to all.
Speaker 1: Please be mindful of the fact kindness is a way that we exemplify or actually show love.
Speaker 1: Kindness, in fact, it is in another of Paul's letters that he says be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as Jesus, the Christ, forgave you.
Speaker 1: So this idea of kindness being something that love is marked by.
Speaker 1: Sometimes, again, we've grown up with people who've said that love is one way, love is another, and so we go back to the text that tells us love is kind.
Speaker 1: Firstly, we need to be reminded that we are to be kind to ourselves, and sometimes we are the people who need the most kindness from ourselves, that we often stand in judgment in places, and what we're being invited to is to follow the way of spirit into compassionate witness.
Speaker 1: What about being a non-anxious presence for someone, just being at peace within yourself while the people around you work out their troubles?
Speaker 1: But this is the invitation to be consistently kind to all, not just those who are kind to us, not just those who are kind and think like us, but kind to all.
Speaker 1: This is what love looks like.
Speaker 2: You know, and love is patient in that way that you know, with this kindness and you allow patience, you'll begin to see change.
Speaker 2: And patience would infer that there's going to be time between your first act of kindness and seeing some things changing.
Speaker 2: And just, I had something happen just a couple of days ago where Heather, kind of, was stacking the dishes, inferring that she was going to do them, and I thought, well, I'll do the dishes with you.
Speaker 2: And all of a sudden I realized I just got duped somehow, because the dishes were all done and I was drying them and she was never to be found, like she scuttled off, and I was like, hey, I wanted to do these with you.
Speaker 2: You know, my act of love was going to be an act of at least watching.
Speaker 2: You do something too, you know.
Speaker 2: And so, and I'm thinking I want to say something, and then, just as quickly, you know, the Lord's like you better be patient, you better, you better not say.
Speaker 2: And so I didn't say anything.
Speaker 2: But I was a little inside like, well, you know what's the deal, you kind of feel like I'm being taken advantage of here, what's what's going on?
Speaker 2: And so I went into the room, right just kitchen, right to my bedroom and I go around the corner and my credenza is stacked, my laundry I don't know how it got there, church but all my underwears, my shirts, my dress shirt, my pants even were all laying there and I'm like, oh god, thank you that I did not say anything about the couple dishes.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 2: But I think that for us, often times we're so quick to be the referee for our treatment that we forget to know that God is going to take care of you and you're not going to get the short end of any stick.
Speaker 2: I don't know what that means, but I said it since I was a kid and I'm going to keep on saying it.
Speaker 2: But I guess you don't want it the short end of the stick.
Speaker 2: I know you don't want the crappy end of the stick.
Speaker 2: I do know that for sure.
Speaker 2: But we're always worried about us and what we would get.
Speaker 2: And I'm telling you, if we can be patient, watch God turn this thing around, come on church.
Speaker 2: Somebody say amen.
Speaker 1: And for us, the invitation is to remember that love is not just for us, but love is what changes the world.
Speaker 1: Love is the ultimate goal, love is the hope, and so if we can be people who practice love, who practice incredible patience, who understand that love is large and that love is constantly expanding, or it should be, and refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else.
Speaker 1: Love does not brag about one's achievements nor inflate its own importance.
Speaker 1: Love does not traffic in shame or disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor.
Speaker 1: Love is not easily irritated or quick to take an offense.
Speaker 1: Be mindful very often, when you feel offended, it is your ego that feels offended.
Speaker 1: It is not your soul that knows that it is beloved and in the presence of divine love.
Speaker 1: It is some kind of pretense or some kind of part that we play.
Speaker 1: It is a false self, and so be mindful of those type of things.
Speaker 1: Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong.
Speaker 1: Celebrating honesty, celebrating truthfulness, celebrating goodness.
Speaker 1: Love enjoys them, savors them.
Speaker 1: Love is a safe place of shelter.
Speaker 1: Savors them, love is a safe place of shelter.
Speaker 1: Be mindful of the fact that one of the ways that people most experience love from you is through your safety, and to be safe for someone means we need to be able to know that you are going to regulate yourself, that you are going to take care of you, that I won't also have to take care of you and so I won't also have to take care of you.
Speaker 1: And so this emotional maturity that Paul is calling us all to is saying that we need to recognize for ourselves, we need to be trained.
Speaker 1: Maybe no one showed you the techniques and how to regulate your own breathing or to bring your thoughts back into some kind of order, as opposed to thoughts that swirl or stories that you tell yourself about what someone else thinks.
Speaker 1: We were laughing the other day because we were watching a little video and a woman said I know what everyone thinks and it's a special power.
Speaker 1: She just came right out and she said I know what everyone thinks and so she had us hooked.
Speaker 1: It was clickbait.
Speaker 1: I'm like how do you know?
Speaker 1: And she said I tell myself a story about what they're thinking, and then I believe it.
Speaker 1: And this is what we all do.
Speaker 1: We tell ourselves stories about what someone is doing and then we believe that instead of offering and saying can you explain to me what this is or how you're feeling about this, and this is so beloved, important for us.
Speaker 1: This is what brings unity when we stay in love's vein.
Speaker 1: Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops the believing the best for others.
Speaker 2: Love never takes failure as defeat and it never gives up you don't want to talk about that, that part and that element of being a safe place for somebody, because I don't think that anyone probably ever like, right off the bat, consider yourself not being a safe place, you know.
Speaker 2: So I'd ask you to maybe ask some questions.
Speaker 2: Like you know, um, are you the kind of person that when information is shared with you you're a vault, you know, or are you kind of free with your info?
Speaker 2: If you're free with your info, then anyone else around you would deduce they might be free with my info and I don't want my info out there to the world.
Speaker 2: And so safety becomes like how you handle intimate information and things like that.
Speaker 2: And also, too, a safe place is if I tell you, dad, that I wrecked the car, are you going to go ballistic?
Speaker 2: Why do you think sometimes our children hide things from us?
Speaker 2: Are they just little sneaky ones, or are they literally afraid because you're not a safe place to be around?
Speaker 2: You know, I met and had someone in counseling that had terrible abuse happen to her as a small girl and she had to decide as this little girl, that her dad had all kinds of guns and stuff and she knew that if she went home and told her dad what this neighbor man did to her, that she'd be visiting her dad in prison for the rest of his life, because he always went around saying anyone ever hurt my kids, I'll shoot, I'll kill any, you know.
Speaker 2: And he got all these guns and he's cleaning his guns and stuff.
Speaker 2: And now that little girl, she had to protect her father.
Speaker 2: Now that story may seem far off, but why I tell it is because I need to look inside and I think each one of us need to look at how we communicate and the things that we think oh, just that's what you know could be creating a scenario where everyone around you really is not safe.
Speaker 2: And how terrible is it that that child had to bear that up into adulthood, because not only of the abuse that happened to her, but what she knew her father would do because of that unsafe.
Speaker 2: As a father, don't you want to just be there?
Speaker 2: And it's not about me, but we make things about us so much in relationships that it's not safe anymore, you know, and that applies to us in a lot of different areas.
Speaker 2: So if we can open up our heart, as much as we want to hear the good news of the gospel.
Speaker 2: This is good news.
Speaker 2: God, help us see these things that are painful.
Speaker 1: And love is good news for us because it also tells us how we belong in community, every one of us belonging to the family of God, and so, in order to be safe for the other members of the family, we sometimes need to keep our opinions to ourselves.
Speaker 1: And here's the truth of it All of us are in a place of learning, all humanity is learning, and Jesus has given us the most excellent of teachers, the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: And the Holy Spirit is so faithful in us, and so, very often, we need to trust that love and the Holy Spirit are fully able to accomplish what needs to be taught or what needs to be imparted.
Speaker 1: And I will tell you, as something that I'm sure you've experienced we learn a lot, not necessarily by people's words, but by their behaviors, by what we're shown, and so love is a safe place of shelter.
Speaker 1: It never stops believing the best for others, never takes failure as defeat, and it never gives up.
Speaker 1: Love never stops loving.
Speaker 1: It extends way beyond the gift of prophecy, which eventually fades away.
Speaker 1: It is more enduring than tongues which will one day fall silent.
Speaker 1: Love remains long after words of knowledge are forgotten.
Speaker 1: Our present knowledge and our prophecies are partial, but when love's perfection arrives, the partial will fade away.
Speaker 1: And when I was a child, I spoke about childish matters, for I saw things like a child and reasoned them like a child.
Speaker 1: But the day came when I matured and I set aside my childish ways.
Speaker 1: This invitation is to transformation.
Speaker 1: That is what love's invitation is for us over and over again that we would allow ourselves to be transformed.
Speaker 1: And in our transformation it requires us to change the way that we think, to change the way that we reason, to change the way that we believe things.
Speaker 1: That matters.
Speaker 1: Very often what we do is age and not mature.
Speaker 1: And the invitation of the Christian life is maturity, not just aging, although aging is a blessing.
Speaker 1: There is a little bit of things with aging that I wasn't prepared for.
Speaker 1: But you know, we're learning, we're just learning.
Speaker 1: It's not all glorious gray hair and beautiful wrinkles.
Speaker 1: There's some things other that come with aging and you're like, oh, I didn't know that was happening, but it is.
Speaker 1: And you accept reality.
Speaker 1: We don't argue with reality and we say where can I allow my thoughts to be matured?
Speaker 1: Where can I allow the way that I think and the way that I reason?
Speaker 1: And that's why we need each other, because if we stay in our own little thoughts, in our own little corners.
Speaker 1: We don't have the gift of community that says you got to grow up, brother, sister.
Speaker 1: We have to do things differently because love has made a table for us.
Speaker 2: You know I love what you're saying because I think to myself about.
Speaker 2: You know how that transformation is.
Speaker 2: Naturally we're going to resist it, but you know the blame and excuses.
Speaker 2: You know well, you know I would transform, but you know that stuff you do it really makes it impossible for me, and so what we want to do is find some reason, some exterior reason why and and I got to tell you that there's there's not an obstacle that God can't bring you through.
Speaker 2: So if we would just stop acting like children about this, you know, my kids sometimes will tell me reasons why they can't do the chores around the house, and they seem to really believe in these reasons.
Speaker 2: They seem so.
Speaker 2: I mean, they're in the middle of a game and you know, if I could sit down with game makers, as a 56 year old father I would say why have you removed the pause button?
Speaker 2: When I was a kid we had video games, but when our mothers paused it, when our mothers called us, we paused it and we came back and it burnt a hole in the screen.
Speaker 2: Mario was burnt, but we came back.
Speaker 2: Now my kids say I got to keep playing.
Speaker 2: I can't stop Because there's people in another country counting on me.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about that for a minute, because not just with children.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's when somebody says to you you're being loud and you're scaring me, or the energy that you have is big and I don't need that kind of energy right now.
Speaker 1: Let's lower our voice and we're like but I can't pause.
Speaker 1: I'm already enraged.
Speaker 1: I can't stop now.
Speaker 1: I've already started the verbal vomit.
Speaker 1: You can, beloved.
Speaker 1: Pausing is everyone's choice and we can put a pin in things, and we can, because we also have the Holy Spirit in us that gives us the ability to be able to stop what we're doing when we recognize harm in someone else.
Speaker 1: But it is a choice.
Speaker 1: It absolutely is a choice to say I choose to care for the person that is in front of me more than I care for whatever it is that I have worked up in my feelings.
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?
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Speaker 2: And that is the excuse that we can roll on.
Speaker 2: You know, that's what I've always said.
Speaker 2: You know, my kids got their excuses, I've got my excuses.
Speaker 2: Or I can decide that I want to grow and there's going to be, obviously, all kinds of obstacles that are going to be between you and your goals, but they're no longer the things that stop you, they're the things, the exercises, that strengthen you to victory.
Speaker 2: So either we're going to continue to make excuses why we can't change, or we're going to surrender under the knife, as it were, to the great physician to carve out of me the things that are unhealthy, the things that are not edifying to my family and to and I want those things gone, as much as the selfish part of me, my ego, might want to.
Speaker 2: I want that transformation that you promise in scripture more, and so we surrender to that.
Speaker 2: And so either you will continually allow those excuses to keep you safe and comfortable in your misery and in your undone condition, or we can venture out into that place of transformation, that very scary new place where healing is.
Speaker 1: And the invitation is for us to look at ourselves and our behaviors and ask ourselves who told me this?
Speaker 1: Who told me it was okay to behave like this?
Speaker 1: Who told me it was okay to speak like this?
Speaker 1: Who told me it was okay for me to engage the world like this?
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the very first question that God asks humanity in the Genesis story.
Speaker 1: Who told you this?
Speaker 1: And the invitation is for us to allow love to mature us.
Speaker 1: It's one of the reasons why being a part of a church family or being a part of a community of people matters, because what happens in a church family is you didn't get to pick the whole team.
Speaker 1: You maybe picked a few of your friends and you brought them with you, and that's good, but you didn't get to pick the whole team, the whole family.
Speaker 1: God gets to put them together and God has this beautiful way of putting us with people that don't behave like us, don't act like us, don't love like us, and we have all these us and me and my, and then, when we do that, we recognize that's childish.
Speaker 1: If you are the subject of all of your thoughts, that's childish, because one of the first things that we would tell you that small people learn is mine, and I want to know what is going to happen to mine.
Speaker 1: See, everybody knew that.
Speaker 1: You've seen that.
Speaker 1: You've seen small children, even if you can't remember being one.
Speaker 1: And mine was a very important word.
Speaker 1: And when we watch the news, do you know what I hear?
Speaker 1: Mine, everything is about mine.
Speaker 1: I'm like, as community, as the whole world, we need to evolve past mine and go.
Speaker 1: This is our father's world.
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened to you in your house, but when I was growing up, there were some things that we just didn't do because it was our mother's house and we knew it.
Speaker 1: You know, we just didn't behave, we just didn't go tearing up, we just didn't go turning things over.
Speaker 1: And I'm looking around at people tearing up the earth and I'm like this is our father's world.
Speaker 1: We perhaps shouldn't be tearing up all the trees, perhaps we shouldn't be leaving our garbage on the floor, and so this idea of allowing ourselves to evolve into the fact that it is ours, not mine, and it is this invitation to true family living, to belonging, but it's an invitation to allowing our thoughts to be transformed, but the only way you are gonna allowing our thoughts to be transformed.
Speaker 1: But the only way you are going to allow your thoughts to be transformed is if you realize they're childish.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: Is if you realize this doesn't serve me anymore, this is hurting the people around me and this is hurting me.
Speaker 1: This is not good for the world.
Speaker 1: And so to be able to say I choose to allow a bigger thought, and this is what Jesus offered us when he said I offer you a life of repentance changing the way you think about something, changing the way that you engage with the world, and even engage with your own inner world, to allow love to be the way that we engage our thoughts.
Speaker 1: When the day came that I matured, I set aside childish ways.
Speaker 1: No one is going to pull childish ways away from you.
Speaker 1: You have to surrender them.
Speaker 1: You set aside that way of living and learn the way of the Christ.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you realize this, but as God is bringing me to healing in certain areas of my life, god is bringing me to healing in certain areas of my life I realize that the struggles I have are because, like a six-year-old, eight-year-old dentist, experienced something and made a decision about that, and then that was locked away in a vault.
Speaker 2: And now, even though I'm 56 years old, I still respond to those ways and those things based on what the six-year-old or eight-year-old did.
Speaker 2: And that's and it's a very common that people do that.
Speaker 2: And I mean, in so many areas and in areas of you know, mostly you know self-esteem and and and how you relate to other people, it's really based on trying to build your self-image and your ego.
Speaker 2: And when you look at that and realize that a lot of the things that I did, then I could be mad and resentful about that little kid.
Speaker 2: But that little six-year-old, eight-year-old kid was doing the best he could.
Speaker 2: And so I really want to look back on that little eight-year-old kid six-year-old kid with mercy and grace.
Speaker 2: You know, young Dennis, you were trying the best you can and I wonder if you could say that about yourself.
Speaker 2: But you know what I got it from here.
Speaker 2: I'm the, I'm the 56 year old guy who's going to make a different assessment about life now and if you can allow yourself to realize, wow, I'm doing that in a lot of areas and, instead of just being resentful and hateful, faithful towards that.
Speaker 2: You know there were times where I should have, you know, got defended.
Speaker 2: I remember one time I was walking down the college walkway at McMurray College and I saw a substitute teacher.
Speaker 2: That was my substitute teacher the year before and I'm a sixth grade person.
Speaker 2: So so you know, whatever, nine, ten years old, and this guy, he walked up to me and he picked me up by my neck and he shook me and then he pulled my hair and and and he was uh, he was physically abusing a 10 yearyear-old kid.
Speaker 2: But I remember thinking what did I do to Mr, what's his name, to make him hate me?
Speaker 2: What kind of a person am I that I was excited to see the guy and he did what he did to me.
Speaker 2: So I must be a really terrible person.
Speaker 2: So I made the decision as a little kid, you know, I'm not worth much, you know.
Speaker 2: And now, as an adult, I look back and go oh, that's just plain old child abuse, you know, and so little Dennis didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 2: But now, as an adult, I carry in that idea I'm worthless, I'm no, people must not like me, you know, and that affects all my relationships until I get to that place where I can put away those childish things.
Speaker 2: And so let this, uh, uh, reminds you of some of these things and then, for the love of god, have some love for you and for the younger you.
Speaker 2: That didn't know any better when you made mistakes, when you made the decisions and the assessments that you made.
Speaker 2: But but I'm here to tell you you do not have to stay in that place, that that, that those decisions have trapped many of us, that there is a place, and it might be painful, but as we mature and grow, god brings us out of those things, doesn't he?
Speaker 1: For now we see but a faint reflection of riddles and mysteries, as though reflected in a mirror.
Speaker 1: But one day we will see.
Speaker 1: Face to face.
Speaker 1: My understanding is incomplete now.
Speaker 1: Hang out there for a minute with me because for most of us we feel like our understanding is pretty complete.
Speaker 1: I know what happened and I pretty much understand this, and we go flying into relationships and into situations because we're sure we see clearly.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been in a situation where you're driving a car and all of a sudden, you don't see so well, I don't know if it's a rain or whatever.
Speaker 1: You just slow way down.
Speaker 1: In fact, you think I might even need to stop and I wonder how very often we just need to be reminded we don't see everything, we don't know everyone's whole story, we don't know exactly as it is, and so we should slow down in our responses, in our ideas that we see clearly, even how we believe, that we see about God and our relationship with God, that God is saying there'll be a day when we all understand, but right now you only see through riddles and mysteries and metaphors, and so go slowly, go humbly, go gently, and this invitation is my understanding is incomplete now, but one day I will understand everything, just as everything about me has been fully understood.
Speaker 1: Until then, there are three things that remain faith, hope and love.
Speaker 1: Things that remain faith, hope and love.
Speaker 1: Yet love surpasses them all.
Speaker 1: So, above all else, let love be the beautiful prize for which you run.
Speaker 1: This year, we've all celebrated the olympics and we've seen what people have done to go after the prize and the dedication in their life, the training in their life, all the things that they gave up with so that they could run and get the medal.
Speaker 1: And Paul is reminding us let love be the thing that you go after.
Speaker 1: Let love be the prize for you, and go after it because it's worthy.
Speaker 1: Make yourself a person who says I am going to learn how to love myself and love my neighbor and love my community and love my enemies.
Speaker 2: This is what Jesus has offered us how to love and how to love well you know, and, and I think that oftentimes we're yes but, or okay but, and you know, and we're trying to add things to uh, this, uh, and, and I'm, I'm just so grateful that when god offers this life of love, it's not you have to have a master's degree to figure it out, or you got to have been a certain you know, iq or or people group or whatever, but that the message is is simple, but sometimes I think for people it's too simple, uh, and we just want something else, and it is the offer that you would live life, a life of love, and that is different than the world, it's different than the way that they love.
Speaker 2: You know the ideas that we're presenting here.
Speaker 2: You can kind of see how they go against how we naturally want to act, and so you do understand that that's what God is asking Live differently.
Speaker 2: And I'm telling you, when you live in God, you've been invited up higher.
Speaker 2: There is a higher plane that we don't have to stay grumbling and complaining and miserable and unhappy, grumbling and complaining and miserable and unhappy.
Speaker 2: That if you will just love and you will just decide that's what we're doing, okay, I'm on board, god is, and, and because it's, it's a work.
Speaker 2: It's going to take the rest of our lives to figure out how to do that.
Speaker 2: But in doing that, watch the transformation that comes.
Speaker 2: The old things that fall aside and the uh, the, the new, fresh, different ways of thinking come, uh, flooding through our minds.
Speaker 2: You know, I've I've noticed that there are times where I can hear people grumbling and complaining about something and it's almost like I'm not fully hearing it and part of me wants to turn and tune in.
Speaker 2: What are you guys talking about?
Speaker 2: But then there's something inside of me that goes no, that's going to be some gossip or some backbiting and it's going to stir something in me and it's going to bring me just look at it like it'll bring you down to that level, that demonic realm you know that miry place scripture talks about.
Speaker 2: Or we can come up higher.
Speaker 2: Now I can be in the same room.
Speaker 2: I don't have to leave my connection with those people.
Speaker 2: I just don't have to allow myself to do that.
Speaker 2: And I'm telling you it is a different life that we get in Christ Jesus.
Speaker 2: The offer is so beautiful why we miss it and why we hunt for something else.
Speaker 2: That's gonna fit inside this god-shaped hole and we're gonna try to find something else that's gonna make us happy when he's offering something so beautiful for our community, for our marriages, for our friendships and relationships that so exceeds anything that this world has to offer.
Speaker 1: Until then, there are three things that remain Faith, hope and love.
Speaker 1: And love surpasses them all.
Speaker 1: Beloved, you know this.
Speaker 1: I know this.
Speaker 1: Love actually does.
Speaker 1: Love has effort behind it, love has evidence behind it.
Speaker 1: Love is not just something we say in a platitude, but it is for us an energy, it is for us a as evidenced by our love for neighbor, as evidenced by we call ourselves followers of Jesus, and one of the things that God all throughout ancient scripture, ancient text, has told us is that God cares about the poor and that our responsibility in following God should be that we care about the poor.
Speaker 1: And as has been a part of who we are as a church, ever since the very first November that we were together is we have done food outreaches.
Speaker 1: We said this is what our love is going to look like.
Speaker 1: We're going to make sure that, as much as it is possible with us, for whatever people we have resources for, we are going to take care of those who are hungry, and this is what it looks like to follow Jesus.
Speaker 1: In fact, this Wednesday, if you want to come out and help, pastor Dennis and a group of people are going to go out and hand out groceries.
Speaker 1: It is the middle of the day and so that might not be the time for you to be out in the sun and in the heat, but I want to remind you that what they do, we do that.
Speaker 1: All of us are a part of it.
Speaker 1: We do that through our generosity, we do that through our prayers, through our blessings.
Speaker 1: We do that through the community.
Speaker 1: We do that, and and we've done it in such a way that that we know the names and the people and the stories of the people that we're helping for and and helping, and they become our neighbors.
Speaker 1: They become people whose stories we carry and whose love we are being influenced by.
Speaker 1: But love does incredible things.
Speaker 1: I remind you of this from the Gospel of Matthew.
Speaker 1: Jesus said watch out, don't do your good deeds publicly to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven.
Speaker 1: When you give to someone in need, don't do it as the hypocrites do, blowing trumpets in the synagogues and street to call attention to their acts of charity.
Speaker 1: I tell you the truth they've received all the reward they will ever get.
Speaker 1: But when you give to someone in need, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.
Speaker 1: Give your gifts in private and your father, who sees everything, will reward you this idea that we are giving.
Speaker 1: I had a policy with my children and this is just how our particular family ran.
Speaker 1: But we don't typically buy a toy for someone who is small.
Speaker 1: The first time we see it, we have to go home and we have to think about it and we also have to look and see if there's that's definitely something we want.
Speaker 1: But at one particular time I had said to my David, who was very little, we can go and we can get this toy.
Speaker 1: And he was very excited and we and we had rules like you had to touch the cart at all times while your mom is shopping and you had to stay there and you had to wait.
Speaker 1: And we got to the, to the aisle where he is going to pick out his toy, because I told him that this would be the day that we'd get it.
Speaker 1: And there was a kid there that you have seen when you were shopping, and the kid is ballistic, had a complete meltdown.
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened.
Speaker 1: Maybe that child needed a nap, maybe they needed some snacks, maybe this wasn't the time, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It was a meltdown and it wasn't mine and I was grateful, but I but I had little David and he talked a lot.
Speaker 1: So he went over to the kid who was literally screaming on the floor and he goes dude, ask your mom nicely and she'll get it for you.
Speaker 1: Now he and I already had an arrangement.
Speaker 1: He had full confidence that he did not have to behave like that to get what he wanted.
Speaker 1: But often we don't have or we don't know about the arrangement that we have with our heavenly father.
Speaker 1: God said I will give you everything you need.
Speaker 1: There's nothing that you will need that you will lack.
Speaker 1: God will give it to you, and so you don't have to throw a big fit, you don't have to clutch things to yourself.
Speaker 1: You don't have to do those things because you already have the agreement.
Speaker 1: Your father will take care of your day-to-day needs, and there is a gift in knowing that.
Speaker 1: And this is how love behaves.
Speaker 1: Dude, ask your mother nicely, like, do it in such a way that and I believe this is a call for all of us when we see someone misbehaving like that, not in any way a punishment for them.
Speaker 1: Perhaps a snack may have been, maybe he could have shared a juice box, I don't know, but the idea that what we don't know is how to love.
Speaker 1: In fact, john from the apostle said this those who know God know and understand love.
Speaker 1: And sometimes if someone is not acting in love it's because they don't know God.
Speaker 1: And so our invitation is to show them God, to witness these things about God that love does.
Speaker 1: But love is generous all the time.
Speaker 1: It is an action word, it is not a noun.
Speaker 1: It is something that requires from us service, self-sacrifice.
Speaker 1: It allows us to be people who understand the promise of resurrection, new life, new world, this idea that our holy imagination can be ignited so we can be people.
Speaker 1: What would it look like if we were people who knew how to live without war, how to live without people around us who are hungry and doing with less?
Speaker 1: And the invitation is your kingdom come, your will be done on earth the same way it is in heaven.
Speaker 2: We want to remind you that this August 28th, that's this Wednesday, we'll have an outreach at 11 o'clock at Harvey's, and so if you want to meet us over there at 11, we'll have the perishables and non-perishables.
Speaker 2: We have frozen meat we're able to give away, and some fresh bread and some canned foods and things, and so it is a procedure to deliver it so we could use your assistance.
Speaker 2: But if you can't make it, I'd ask that you'd reserve that time to pray for us wherever you are, because it usually takes about 20 or 30 minutes, but in that time we pray for so many people, for so many things, and one of the things I'm impressed with the most about going month after month to Harvey's is just how many times people will say to us, when we give them a hug, they hadn't had a hug since we were there last month.
Speaker 2: And so I think one of the things that we all can take for granted, besides having all the food that we have need of, is that don't take for granted the embrace of those people that are around you, that love you, and that's one of the things that we want to offer as community.
Speaker 2: We want to offer you, uh, that hug and we want to go out and we want to offer it to those folks that are so grateful for it.
Speaker 2: So if you can help us with that, that is this wednesday, the 28th, at 11 am at harvey's.
Speaker 2: If you don't know where that is, I can get you directions, but we'd love to have you come out.
Speaker 2: But even if you're not there, would you pray for us?
Speaker 1: Again from 1 Timothy, chapter 6, teach those that are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable.
Speaker 1: Their trust should be in God, who richly, gives us all we need for our enjoyment.
Speaker 1: Tell them to use their money to do good.
Speaker 1: They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others, and by doing this they will be storing up their treasure as a good foundation for a future, so they might experience true life.
Speaker 1: This is true life beloved, loving each other in ways that practice our generosity, in ways that say I will pay attention and look out for you.
Speaker 1: I will use whatever privilege I have to make sure that we as a collective, as a body, as beloved, as family, can come to the house of the Lord and say this is what we will learn together how to love each other better, how to hear the voice of grace.
Speaker 1: One of the practices that the church has given us is holy communion, and I'm so grateful for the fact that we get to perform these rituals, and in not just a ritual, in the fact that there is something supernatural and there is for us an entrance into a holy mystery, that we remind ourselves that the bread and the wine that Jesus offered to us is still being offered to us.
Speaker 1: The love and companionship of Christ is still being offered to us.
Speaker 1: The mercy and forgiveness that Christ gave us is still being offered to us.
Speaker 1: The mercy and forgiveness that Christ gave us is still being offered to us and together, as we hear these words, we remind ourselves.
Speaker 1: In fact, even in the performing of this, it is an embodied experience.
Speaker 1: We hear our neighbors, we hear what is happening, we see with our eyes.
Speaker 1: We hear what is happening, we see with our eyes, but we also taste and we bring our whole bodies to this place of saying what I need, I receive from you.
Speaker 1: Love provides for me and even when the stories that we tell ourselves are different, we come to the table of the Lord and we are reminded that we have a good Father who has heaped up for us abundance, has heaped up for us good and beautiful things, and invites us all of us to come to the table of the Lord.
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.