SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the First Love Church podcast.
SPEAKER_02: This is a collection of Sunday teachings inspired by the revised Common Lectionary and recorded weekly in Ocala, Florida.
SPEAKER_01: So we're very grateful that all of you are here today.
SPEAKER_01: And one of my friends from Oklahoma who I went to Bible school with called me.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to do an impression of him because I love doing it, because it's funny.
SPEAKER_01: But he goes and calls me, like cold calls me out of the blue.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I haven't heard from him a bit.
SPEAKER_01: And he goes, I'm agitated for Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Alright, go ahead and tell me your story.
SPEAKER_01: This is this will be fun.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, I took myself and three of my uh friends to the movie theater, paid for their tickets, and they left my car full of popcorn.
SPEAKER_01: And then I didn't realize the agitation was for Jesus until I went to the church the following day and scooped all the popcorn out, went inside, came back, and realized all the popcorn was from the birds who live around the church.
SPEAKER_01: Because then he watched the popcorn being taken to nests around the church where he lives.
SPEAKER_01: So that's been sticking with this week.
SPEAKER_01: Am I being agitated for Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: Am I being inconvenienced for something that's for the benefit of others?
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: Because all of a sudden, this mess that's uh you're having to deal with now and clean up is for the benefit of something that is not for you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm really thinking about how often I've been agitated on behalf of somebody else receiving the blessing, because I think so often we're thinking of the blessings that God has for us, right?
SPEAKER_01: But when we need to be thinking about, man, how is this going to inconvenience me for the food that's for an animal that's not going to benefit me?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: There's a mess.
SPEAKER_01: I'll continue circulating this until we all grasp it, right?
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of different things.
SPEAKER_01: I'll allow you guys to kind of do that.
SPEAKER_01: I'll stop here.
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
SPEAKER_01: Would you like to invite my mom and dad up here while I go turn on the lights?
SPEAKER_01: Goodbye, everybody.
SPEAKER_02: Grateful for your presence again this morning.
SPEAKER_02: Um, for those online, welcome for those that are here.
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna be so glad you did not miss the babies that are here today.
SPEAKER_02: And so sometimes you show up to church and you see angels.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you show up to church and you see somebody that you love.
SPEAKER_02: And then sometimes you're there the first service that Mary Delta and Helen got to be in church.
SPEAKER_02: So that's exciting.
SPEAKER_02: And it's Sabrina's birthday today, too.
SPEAKER_02: So always love when people come to church on their birthdays and we get to celebrate and say, We're so glad you were born.
SPEAKER_02: We're so glad that we get to celebrate birthdays with people that we love.
SPEAKER_02: I'm so grateful for that scripture that we all read together and kind of orient ourselves around it.
SPEAKER_02: I hope the part stood out to you when it said that the Spirit is given to us as proof, the Spirit of God, and we're in the season of Pentecost, the fifth Sunday of Pentecost, where we're learning how to live connected to the Holy Spirit, connected to ourselves, connected to the source of all life and all love.
SPEAKER_02: This is what God has offered us in this story, in this practice of seeing things differently, of learning how to live fully human and fully divine.
SPEAKER_02: And so I join with your soul this morning in looking at the text through the power of the Holy Spirit, expanding our imaginations.
SPEAKER_02: I read to you from John's gospel, these are the words of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And if you have like an onion-skinned Bible, one of those big ones that a red letter edition, this would be in red.
SPEAKER_02: You search the scriptures because you think they give you eternal life, but the scriptures point to me.
SPEAKER_02: This is important, beloved, because as much as we consider the wisdom in the sacred text, as much as we consider the wisdom that comes from what we consider the Bible or the word of God, all of the scriptures point to Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus is the living word, and even the written word bows to the living word.
SPEAKER_02: The living word of Christ is preeminent, and Christ is the head of the church.
SPEAKER_02: And so we look at this and recognize that if the spirit in us testifies and reminds us that Jesus is the one we are following, that Jesus is the one that we are patterning our life after.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, in that verse that we read together with Thomas, it said, Let your life be proof that you live, that you believe in the power of this love.
SPEAKER_02: And it says you search the scriptures because you think they give you eternal life, but the scriptures point to me.
SPEAKER_02: Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life.
SPEAKER_02: I want to go right back to this one.
SPEAKER_02: If you refuse to come to me to receive this life, I wonder where you are refusing.
SPEAKER_02: I wonder where I'm refusing a life, a way of living, a way of thinking that Jesus is offering.
SPEAKER_02: I think about that because Jesus was not in any way saying you shouldn't search the scriptures.
SPEAKER_02: He was not saying that they were wrong.
SPEAKER_02: He was saying, but if you look at them and you don't see me, you're missing the point.
SPEAKER_02: I am the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_02: It is not just a book of rules or a book of wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: It is recognizing that the wisdom that is there points us to the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And so it is with that knowledge and with that spirit that we engage the text this morning in 1 Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to say it's a little more subtle than maybe you just standing up and saying, I refuse you, God, because none of us would actually do that.
SPEAKER_00: But I was just thinking about, you know, uh, I asked God to help me with uh my uh physical weight.
SPEAKER_00: I've just been putting on a few extra pounds that I don't need.
SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, uh I was just in the kitchen.
SPEAKER_00: We me and Heather were watching some shows, and I went in the kitchen and somebody had brought home muffins.
SPEAKER_00: And oh, did those muffins look good?
SPEAKER_00: But I I I just I wanted to eat that muffin so bad.
SPEAKER_00: But then I thought about it was kind of contrary to to what I want, you know.
SPEAKER_00: So I had to, I had to make a choice.
SPEAKER_00: I had to choose to resist that distraction that was gonna distract me from my goal, right?
SPEAKER_00: And then a couple hours later, I laid down in bed and I wasn't uh quite tired yet.
SPEAKER_00: And so I picked up my phone to see if I had any mails, and then I went over and all of a sudden I got I started looking and I started to scroll for a second into another second, and then I thought, you know, I could sit in here and I know how this goes an hour later, two, three hours later sometimes, and I'm just looking for the next endorphin hit, you know, and just have watched really mindlessly nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And so I decided I could put this down.
SPEAKER_00: And and I think that it's really in those kind of choices that we either accept Christ or resist the spirit because the spirit was gently telling me, and I'm not gonna be punished if I have a muffin, but it's just a distraction between me and the health that I want, so that I can go do the things that I feel like God's called me to do.
SPEAKER_00: Or I can lay in bed and not, God's not gonna damn me for watching some things, but I fill myself with that instead of taking that time to really just meditate and focus on the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So I wonder if when you ask that question, when do we refuse?
SPEAKER_00: When do we refuse?
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's those gentle reminders to not make, you know, and and I'm not saying that your your muffins are scroll time is is sin.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not here to come down on you, but I wonder where it is that the spirit is, you know, maybe poking and prodding in your life in order to bring you victory and bring you success and relief and help.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: But we need to look maybe more at those subtle decisions versus maybe that overall kind of uh, you know, I well, I never really stood up and rejected God, so how could this apply to me?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it applies to us in very subtle ways.
SPEAKER_02: Because Jesus offers us life, and life means how we live, abundant life.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus said, I came so that you would have life and you would have it to the full.
SPEAKER_02: Beloved, Jesus wants you to enjoy your life.
SPEAKER_02: He wants you to have good things that nature itself testifies to this diversity and abundance, to flowers, to gardenias that are so heavy with perfume, you walk past them in the open air and it fills your nostrils.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is the kind of life that God is asking us to do.
SPEAKER_02: This is the practice of the sacred, where we learn to find the beauty, the holy, the God in all things.
SPEAKER_02: And so in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, if I could speak all the languages of the earth and of angels, but if I didn't love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
SPEAKER_02: If I had the gift of prophecy and if I understood all of God's secret plans and I possessed all knowledge, that person would have TED talks, be selling ver uh books and conferences, online things.
SPEAKER_02: That's what would be happening if that person had that, and follow the rest of the scripture.
SPEAKER_02: If I had faith that could move mountains, but I didn't love others, I would be nothing.
SPEAKER_02: The writer here is reminding us of the preeminence of love.
SPEAKER_02: Love is the means and love is the end, beloved.
SPEAKER_02: God is love, and our intention is to return to love.
SPEAKER_02: That is the good that we are invited into.
SPEAKER_02: And so the writer here reminds us if you think that finding out secret things, if you think that finding out something that your neighbor doesn't know is going to be worth anything if you don't love your neighbor.
SPEAKER_02: The scripture tells us that love is the most important thing.
SPEAKER_00: You know, love is really the license for you to minister to people.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we feel like we want to get all this information and so we can go ahead and tell our family and people how to run their lives.
SPEAKER_00: Let's not do that.
SPEAKER_02: Let's not do that.
SPEAKER_00: And the truth is, love really gives you the license to speak into somebody's lives, but but oftentimes with that love, we're quiet and we're waiting until we're asked, and then we can gently speak into someone's life.
SPEAKER_00: But I wonder if you know any religious people that have come off as wanting to be followers of God, but they just there was something about them that just felt like it rubbed you the wrong way.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, and it felt like their maybe their religion just, I don't know, it felt phony or maybe just felt insincere or just something about it, you know, and and I and I think that we can see here what has happened that that to them perhaps is that they got all this knowledge, but then as they spout it out, it's like clanging cymbal.
SPEAKER_00: It's not pleasant to hear, you know, and then you might uh say to yourself, well, that always happens to somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: Or could it possibly be areas of my own life that I'm that clanging symbol around my children, clanging symbols around those people, my family members or whatever, because I'm I'm not allowing love to be my first choice.
SPEAKER_00: I'm allowing myself to be irritated by the popcorn that's in my car because I serve those people.
SPEAKER_00: That's a good illustration, Tom.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when when we allow ourselves to get focused on those things, the offense, how dare they leave popcorn in my car when I when it when come to find out a little effort of my of myself is to help feed the birds.
SPEAKER_00: That is a good that's a good thing for us to take away.
SPEAKER_00: You know, where are we just clanging cymbals instead of finding that place to serve?
SPEAKER_00: And in love, it's so beautiful.
SPEAKER_02: If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it.
SPEAKER_02: But if I didn't love others, I would have gained nothing.
SPEAKER_02: Love is patient and kind.
SPEAKER_02: The writer here understands that there are many words and uses of the word love.
SPEAKER_02: And so the writer reminds us that love is not a mental ascent, love is not something that you simply feel.
SPEAKER_02: Love is a condition and a state of being.
SPEAKER_02: When we become connected to the source, when we return to our own bodies, to our own self, and remember we are made from love.
SPEAKER_02: Love is patient and kind.
SPEAKER_02: It is one of the reasons why Dallas Willard reminds us that the very beginning of all spiritual pursuits should be the ruthless elimination of hurry.
SPEAKER_02: We need to root out hurry from our life and recognize it is the slow loving, the slow process, the slow growing that God is interested in.
SPEAKER_02: Love is not jealous or boastful or proud.
SPEAKER_02: And I remind you, if you see these things, bragging, boasting, uh, that is the Antichrist.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is love, God is love, and those things come from another place.
SPEAKER_02: It is not God, and those things are not something that we should ever participate in.
SPEAKER_00: You know, first John, we just read earlier, and it says that God is love, and and it's not that God loves, but that God actually is love.
SPEAKER_00: And that's that amazing thing that when you love someone and you have that feeling of love, uh, that powerful love that causes you to get up in the morning and take care of those babies, and or stay up all night and take care of those babies.
SPEAKER_00: That love is is a manifestation of God.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you guys to think about um that really to the level that I'm surrendered to love is the level I'm surrendered to God.
SPEAKER_00: And God would serve your family.
SPEAKER_00: And and I gotta tell you that that is not the message that anyone ever told me that a man was supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00: A man was supposed to lead, be the head of the household, you know, but love serves.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus demonstrated he washed feet, he hung on the cross between two thieves, he laid down his life.
SPEAKER_00: And so I really want to challenge you to the place of really understanding what submission is, is that we that love gives and serves.
SPEAKER_00: And I gotta tell you, there's so many places with seven, eight people, whatever, live in our house, plus people there all the time.
SPEAKER_00: There's always things, there's always a place to serve.
SPEAKER_00: There's always stuff to do.
SPEAKER_00: And and I've noticed the things out of place in my house for years.
SPEAKER_00: And so for years, what I've done is I've endeavored to think that I'm the person that's supposed to point out to the other people what they're supposed to do with these out of place things.
SPEAKER_00: And and figure my role would be to help all of you get that work done that you should be getting done.
SPEAKER_00: And it has been come to my attention by the Lord Almighty that my astute awareness and keen, cunning understanding of all the needs of this household are for me to shut my mouth and do them.
SPEAKER_00: And I gotta tell you, it's the easiest thing I've ever done.
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm sitting here doing the thing and thinking of how many people should have done the thing.
SPEAKER_00: And so God's exposing my heart.
SPEAKER_00: My heart isn't to serve, my heart's to judge.
SPEAKER_00: And my heart's filled with judgment over these people and why did they get away with doing all this stuff?
SPEAKER_00: And then God reminds me of all the things that I've gotten away with.
SPEAKER_00: And I go, wow, you love me, and so you just you serve me.
SPEAKER_00: And you want me to get this, don't you, Lord?
SPEAKER_00: You want me to get that I'm to lay down my life and to the place that I will just love and just serve is to the place that I've learned to surrender to God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm really a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Just to the point of my willingness, not how many scriptures I've memorized or how much Bible I can beat over your head, how much I can beat that clanging cymbal, is never the evidence and never was.
SPEAKER_00: But it's how much I can surrender to the good.
SPEAKER_02: Love is patient and kind.
SPEAKER_02: Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.
SPEAKER_02: Beloved, love is not rude.
SPEAKER_02: Let the Holy Spirit remind you of that.
SPEAKER_02: Love is not rude.
SPEAKER_02: God is not rude.
SPEAKER_02: The invitation for us to return to ourselves is that rudeness is not a part of us.
SPEAKER_02: It does not demand its own way.
SPEAKER_02: Love does not demand its own way.
SPEAKER_02: It is not irritable.
SPEAKER_02: Love is not irritable.
SPEAKER_02: Love is never irritable.
SPEAKER_02: I think it's important that when we feel irritation in our lives, we examine it.
SPEAKER_02: Why am I irritated?
SPEAKER_02: I'm irritated because I had a plan, and I thought if everybody did exactly as I told them to do, we could get we were going on time.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm irritated because I laid this out for you last night and you didn't do exactly what I said, and that's why we were in the condition that we're in today.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm irritated because I'm rushing and I have a plan.
SPEAKER_02: Instead of going, I invite the Holy Spirit to serve through my hands today.
SPEAKER_02: I invite peace to live in me.
SPEAKER_02: Love is not rude, it does not demand its own way.
SPEAKER_02: It is not irritable.
SPEAKER_02: It keeps no record of being wronged.
SPEAKER_02: That's a really hard one to do because our brain keeps records of things.
SPEAKER_02: Part of it is in our evolutionary human DNA, where if you get stung by a bee, you remember what that thing looks like so you don't do it again.
SPEAKER_02: And so some things happen in our lives and we feel hurt or we feel offended by things, and our brain says, Well, that's you should start expecting that from this person.
SPEAKER_02: And our brain offers these things.
SPEAKER_02: And that, beloved, is why we are offered forgiveness.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus said, Forgive, you choose to forgive.
SPEAKER_02: Now it doesn't mean that you stay in an abusive relationship.
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean you put your hand in a wasp hive.
SPEAKER_02: It means that you see those things, but you recognize where is wisdom and love calling me.
SPEAKER_02: But to stay constantly rehearsing the offenses that you have, beloved, you're missing out on life.
SPEAKER_02: To stay constantly declaring that someone has done something wrong and living in that past thing, there is an invitation to life and to love.
SPEAKER_02: And it's living in this present moment where the spirit is and where wisdom leads us.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's so good.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I want you to think about that scripture that says the word of God is like a mirror.
SPEAKER_00: And then when you look upon that mirror, you see what manner of person that you are.
SPEAKER_00: You see yourself, you see the good, the bad, the ugly, the hairs that are out of place, but but you see the truth.
SPEAKER_00: You really, through the word of God, you see the truth.
SPEAKER_00: But if you walk away from that mirror, you forget.
SPEAKER_00: You have no idea what's hanging out of your nose or whatever, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so um this scripture, I've read it at I'm looking out there's several people's weddings I've done.
SPEAKER_00: I've read this at your wedding.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but but it's not just a wedding tale, it's not just some thing to an anecdote or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: This is like this is who you are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But but I need to remind myself of that daily.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not irritable.
SPEAKER_00: I need to remind myself of that because I get irritated.
SPEAKER_00: Now I know I'm the only person in this place, and I do it for exact reasons that Heather said.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that for a couple hours last night, I sat and I worked on those piano parts to get them right?
SPEAKER_00: And then I come in here, and Heather will just sting a different melody.
SPEAKER_02: Just like that, she'll do it.
SPEAKER_02: She does it.
SPEAKER_00: The melody goes here, so my chord goes here, and now I gotta leave that chord out and just jump to this chord.
SPEAKER_00: And I worked out that part.
SPEAKER_00: You're you're irritating me right now because I want it done my way.
SPEAKER_00: I want to bless God with this song my way.
SPEAKER_00: I've worked hard to serve God, and now I want my song to sound good my way.
SPEAKER_00: What does that sound like?
SPEAKER_00: Now, I know I'm the only one that's the worship leader here, so doing the chords, so I guess I'm the only one doing this kind of goofy stuff, but God help us all.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if we allow our areas to become ear for maybe even for a good reason.
SPEAKER_00: Like I was trying to.
SPEAKER_00: Get the chords right for God and for everybody.
SPEAKER_00: But but what what what is that that we're wired into wanting it done our way, and that's the right way, the way I said.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's good teaching.
SPEAKER_00: Help us, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: We pause here for a moment to thank you for joining us today.
SPEAKER_02: If you're finding this episode meaningful, would you take a moment to share it with a friend?
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SPEAKER_02: If you would like to support the ongoing work of First Love Church and the continued work of our podcast, visit us online at firstlovechurch.org, reminding you to like, follow, and subscribe.
SPEAKER_02: What if we could all give up being right?
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for the one amen for the person who that's a very scary thought because for us we have equated right with safety.
SPEAKER_02: And I want us to be encouraged by the Holy Spirit that what we need to be most associated with is love, not right.
SPEAKER_02: And so the reminder of the Spirit is this: that we are learning about love from 1 Corinthians 13, and we learn about ourselves, but mostly we learn about God.
SPEAKER_02: God is not rude, God is not irritable, God does not keep a record of your wrongs.
SPEAKER_02: The scripture tells us that.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, when we ask our sins to be forgiven, they are separated from us as far as the East is from the West.
SPEAKER_02: That there is an invitation for us to live, not in shame, not in perpetual really rehearsing what we could have done differently, but living in the present moment, loved, valued, full of belonging, because Christ with us.
SPEAKER_02: It does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices when the truth wins out.
SPEAKER_02: Injustice is not love, beloved.
SPEAKER_02: Justice is love.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, the scripture tells us that God is intentioned, is asking us to live in a place where we are a part of social justice.
SPEAKER_02: He said, I want the justice to roll down like mighty rivers, that love requires us to stand up on behalf of those who are marginalized and those who are being taken advantage of.
SPEAKER_02: And love requires us to use our hands and our feet, and love requires us to do something about the hunger that someone else is experiencing.
SPEAKER_02: Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, endures through every circumstance.
SPEAKER_02: Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless, but love will last forever.
SPEAKER_02: Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture.
SPEAKER_02: But when the time of perfection comes, those partial things will become useless.
SPEAKER_02: When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child.
SPEAKER_02: But when I grew up, I put away childish things.
SPEAKER_02: When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child.
SPEAKER_02: And the invitation is for us to allow the spirit to mature and to widen our thinking.
SPEAKER_02: To choose to put away thoughts of if I know this and it's right, then everybody else needs to know this and be right.
SPEAKER_02: I like to know what the rules are.
SPEAKER_02: Before I play a game, I would like to read the handbook and see what is gonna be expected of me.
SPEAKER_02: I want to read the manual, I want to see what how the game is played.
SPEAKER_02: Before I join something, I would like to see the rules.
SPEAKER_02: What is it gonna cost me to be a part of this?
SPEAKER_02: I want to know the rules.
SPEAKER_02: And I married somebody who doesn't care.
SPEAKER_02: He just doesn't care.
SPEAKER_02: It's been a source of uh healing for me, where I've had to look at that and go, wow, okay, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_02: We're not gonna follow the rules.
SPEAKER_02: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_02: Because the rules have a place.
SPEAKER_02: And you know what the rules that I'm interested in are the rules that I'm very good at.
SPEAKER_02: That's the rules I want to do, the rules that I can do easily.
SPEAKER_02: If you tell me that we have to read for 12 hours a day, that's fine.
SPEAKER_02: Excellent.
SPEAKER_02: I'll be reading 12 hours a day.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because I like to read and it's easy for me.
SPEAKER_02: If you tell me that we have to pray for 12 hours a day, that's fine too.
SPEAKER_02: I can sit in silence and pray and contemplate and contemplate.
SPEAKER_02: I can pray the prayers of the ancients, I can pray the psalms, I can do that.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because it's easy for me.
SPEAKER_02: So I want the rules to be what are easy for me.
SPEAKER_02: I know that none of you have experienced this.
SPEAKER_02: I want to tell you that the Church of Jesus Christ started in Israel at a time when circumcision was a really big thing.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, people had given the end of their penis to belong.
SPEAKER_02: And so when it turned out that Jesus said that wasn't important, it aggravated some.
SPEAKER_02: And they were like, I have literally given a part of myself so that I can belong.
SPEAKER_02: And now you're saying anyone can get in?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: No, you're gonna have to do the same thing.
SPEAKER_02: Now, that may seem silly to us, but we do that as people.
SPEAKER_02: We say, you know what I had to do to come to Christ?
SPEAKER_02: You know what I had to do to be a part of a church?
SPEAKER_02: I had to do this.
SPEAKER_02: And so then we exact the same thing on someone else.
SPEAKER_02: And you know what?
SPEAKER_02: Love doesn't do that.
SPEAKER_02: I was is part of the cult that I grew up in, and the people that handed me Christ handed me a bunch of other things.
SPEAKER_02: And they said, Here's Jesus, but here's a bunch of other rules that you have to comply with.
SPEAKER_02: And beloved, Jesus doesn't ask us to do that.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus said, Follow me.
SPEAKER_02: Follow me.
SPEAKER_02: This is what it looks like.
SPEAKER_02: Follow love, become love.
SPEAKER_02: Love is going to be how you are known.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, the scripture said this, Jesus said, You will be known as my followers by your love.
SPEAKER_02: Not if you can quote a certain thing, if you can do a certain thing.
SPEAKER_02: How can you love your neighbor and how can you love your enemy?
SPEAKER_02: When I was a child, I reasoned as a child.
SPEAKER_02: I followed the rules.
SPEAKER_02: But when I became a mature person, I can put those things away and follow the spirit within me because the rules trained me in things.
SPEAKER_02: That hands are for helping, not for hurting.
SPEAKER_02: There is a goodness that is innate in us when we understand that we are made in the image of love.
SPEAKER_00: You know, back a few verses, it was saying that there's a time when the prophecy and those things will be done away with and that which is perfect comes.
SPEAKER_00: And uh whether you were raised up in a particular denomination, you have an answer uh given to you by what the that which is perfect is.
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh a lot of people believe uh and say, well, you know, uh now that uh uh God gave us um the uh scriptures, then um then uh since you have the holy scripture, it's perfect, and so you don't need other people prophesying.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you grew up in a Baptist church or a denomination like that, that's what you heard, and so you believe that that which is perfect uh was uh what has come, the Bible, and so you just didn't believe that.
SPEAKER_00: And then the Pentecostal people will say, you know, that what it's talking about is when you know Jesus returns, then you know there's still gonna be prophecy until Jesus returns, and and uh there's a lot of different teaching on that, and and I'd ask you to consider maybe something else, uh, maybe the whole entire context of the chapter might help us understand because uh scripture in context really helps.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in the context of of God saying uh what what uh perfect comes, and who is perfect but God, and God is love, and this entire chapter is about love.
SPEAKER_00: Could the writer be talking about love being that thing that has come that that we read in first John that that we can actually avoid error as we love, we can avoid sinning, we can avoid making mistakes, we can really uh have the fullness of God if we would surrender to God's way of doing things.
SPEAKER_00: But it is it is that cut and dry.
SPEAKER_00: We need to surrender to God's way of doing things, God's way of loving.
SPEAKER_00: And it is just there there is no reason why a Christian should back war under any, yeah, but under, yeah, but yeah, but uh, well, you're divided.
SPEAKER_00: You have a love for a nation, you have a love for, you do not honor what God said to do above everything.
SPEAKER_00: And and I'm talking about in my own home when it comes to uh how I surrender to love.
SPEAKER_00: I want to have my own voice heard, I want to have my will honored and accepted, and so I've bullied and lured that, or will I surrender to love?
SPEAKER_00: There is so much of the of the brokenness that's in your life and mine, that's in the church, that's in the world today, that the answer is that we would truly love.
SPEAKER_00: And when we've seen the church thrive and and through generations it has done amazing things, it's been it's been done through people that will lead, through nonviolence, and through love and obeying God above everything.
SPEAKER_00: And God is love.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't think I'd get you too excited about that because it's a life of true, complete surrender.
SPEAKER_00: But listen, we're not tricking you.
SPEAKER_00: That's where this thing's headed.
SPEAKER_00: It's heading to all of us laying our lives down totally and completely.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: And loving our laying our lives down looks very much like giving up the illusion that we are separate from each other, that I can have mine and that you can do without.
SPEAKER_02: The illusion that we have that somehow it doesn't affect all of us.
SPEAKER_02: It does.
SPEAKER_02: We are one.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus, in fact, prayed that we would be one, that we would have this understanding that we're one.
SPEAKER_02: And being one with people is gonna cost you.
SPEAKER_02: I know that you wouldn't be terribly excited about that, but it is.
SPEAKER_02: It is gonna cost you pride, it is gonna cost you your own ambition, it's gonna cost you something, and the spirit will reveal what it is that you need to serve and pay.
SPEAKER_02: But this understanding that we are one, that all of us are one.
SPEAKER_02: Somebody gave me um a gift certificate to a grocery store, and it was beautiful, and I loved it so much, and I was so excited to go and to just for my family, and particularly my daughter is not here, so I said, for my sons, I'm just gonna buy the things that they love because I had a gift certificate.
SPEAKER_02: This is not on my budget, this is just a joy, and so I was gonna go and get the things that they loved.
SPEAKER_02: So we did, beloved.
SPEAKER_02: Dennis had a cart, I had a cart, and we have boys and we have their friends, and we were gonna get the stuff that they loved.
SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't gonna cost me because I had a gift certificate.
SPEAKER_02: So I was just like really generous because somebody else had gifted it to me, and it was my joy to give it to my sons.
SPEAKER_02: And when I was there buying, I was thinking of my children and what they loved and how I could do it.
SPEAKER_02: And we get to the grocery line, and somebody saw us with the two carts, and they were like, not interested in you coming in our line.
SPEAKER_02: But this one other particular young man said, Come here, I'm not afraid of two carts.
SPEAKER_02: And so he was just loading up our carts and he was like, How did you get every good thing in this store?
SPEAKER_02: And I said, I was thinking about my sons.
SPEAKER_02: And he goes, Your sons are really fortunate.
SPEAKER_02: You picked out the best things.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, I know they love them, we're talking about it.
SPEAKER_02: And then there was another young man with him, and he's bagging, and he has it, and they were both discussing how I had chosen the good things.
SPEAKER_02: Now, beloved, I hadn't, I was just paying attention to what 20-something year old people like to eat.
SPEAKER_02: And he was filling the cart with them when we got to the end, and I paid for it with the gift cards, and he said, gift cards, and he goes, Somebody must really love you.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Yes, I do feel very loved.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, I was so excited to spend this on my sons.
SPEAKER_02: And then I looked at these two boys standing in front of me.
SPEAKER_02: Are they not my sons?
SPEAKER_02: And so on to my bill, I added two more gift cards.
SPEAKER_02: And I paid for that with my budgeted money.
SPEAKER_02: And then at the end of the transaction, I gave the gift cards to my sons that weren't my sons.
SPEAKER_02: I said, here, and he goes, We can't take these.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Why?
SPEAKER_02: And he goes, Because why would you do that?
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Because I was buying groceries for my sons.
SPEAKER_02: And the man looked at me, he was in his twenties, and we had already talked about our names, so he goes, Miss Heather, he already heard my name.
SPEAKER_02: And he goes, I don't have any food in my house right now, and I don't get paid for four days.
SPEAKER_02: He said, I don't have any food in my house right now.
SPEAKER_02: My sons were not hungry at home.
SPEAKER_02: These were treats, beloved things.
SPEAKER_02: But I will tell you what understanding love will do.
SPEAKER_02: It will take away the separation between mine and yours.
SPEAKER_02: They're all our sons.
SPEAKER_02: And let me tell you what God did that day.
SPEAKER_02: Made me show up.
SPEAKER_02: I got as Thomas said, here's my popcorn story.
SPEAKER_02: You think that you're buying it for your sons, but you may be buying it for someone else's sons.
SPEAKER_02: The invitation is into more love.
SPEAKER_02: The invitation is to blur the lines between us and them.
SPEAKER_02: The invitation is to live in the spirit.
SPEAKER_02: The other man didn't say he didn't have any food, but he just said, would it be possible for me to hug you?
SPEAKER_02: And I said yes.
SPEAKER_02: And so there we are in the grocery store, hugging and giving God thanks for food that is put in front of us.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm there observing this thing, and uh, I'm helping Bag too, you know.
SPEAKER_00: But I noticed that part of the story got left out, but whatever, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but um, but uh, you know, as Heather was talking about uh, you know, her sons, that that man said something along the lines of, you know, it must be amazing to have someone love you like that and think of you.
SPEAKER_00: And and we can tell, for whatever reason, that he wasn't a cherished son.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he said that.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and um for whatever reason somebody failed him cherishing him, or he didn't feel it, and whatever that was, but we had that opportunity there, and when Heather handed him that thing, nobody you know doubles over and begins to weep at their job if what happened wasn't profound, wasn't life-changing to them, and and it wasn't even just that he needed those resources, is that he was called a beloved son, he was loved like a son.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have to be your sons or your daughters for you to love them like they are, and it it it is all something that we're able to do, it's a price we're we're able to pay because that resource has been placed on the inside of us, the ability to love somebody, to find some reason, but but it's you know it's keeping that scripture before us and keeping that mind and and Heather and I are are really trying to like brace ourselves before we get it.
SPEAKER_00: We're in the parking lot of a place like that, and we're looking at each other and we're going, how can we be love and light today?
SPEAKER_00: Lord, how can help us see the need we want to be used?
SPEAKER_00: There has to be an awareness, church, because I'm telling you right now that that along with ruthlessly eliminating hurry, we have to resist distraction because you are mighty, you are beautiful, you're filled with God's love.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes you're so distracted by a flat tire or a you know or a bill that can't get paid, or a uh, you know, someone's poor driving in front of you that it has caused you to be so distracted that the power that is inside of you is rendered useless.
SPEAKER_00: That's a crime.
SPEAKER_00: And not on your part, but on behalf of what you could do today if you would surrender, because those stories are only because Heather is so much greater than the rest of us.
SPEAKER_02: That's not true.
SPEAKER_02: Let us not say that.
SPEAKER_02: That is not true, not even in jest, we do not say that.
SPEAKER_00: It's because she's making a choice to surrender, and I'm watching it in real time, and I'm I'm I'm inspired by it, and I'm I'm wanting to do it as well, and I'm wanting to encourage you because I'm telling you, God is bringing us to this place of transformation in this world.
SPEAKER_00: It's a tipping point.
SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a place where you and I just continue to pour it out into a thirsty world.
SPEAKER_00: Continue.
SPEAKER_02: One of the places that we get to practice love for each other and joining ourselves back with the source of all love is at the communion table.
SPEAKER_02: This last verse says three things will last forever: faith, hope, and love.
SPEAKER_02: Somebody recently was talking to me about legacy.
SPEAKER_02: They're really inspired by it and they want to make sure they leave a legacy.
SPEAKER_02: The only legacy that will ever last is love.
SPEAKER_02: God invites us to live in love, to live inspired by love, but for us to live in love means that we recognize that there is no us in them.
SPEAKER_02: That each person is made in the image of God.
SPEAKER_02: Each person full of dignity, full of that divine spark.
SPEAKER_02: We hope you've enjoyed this week's sermon.
SPEAKER_02: If you would like more information about us, visit us online at firstlovechurch.org.