SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the First Love Church podcast.
SPEAKER_01: This is a collection of Sunday teachings inspired by the Revised Common Lectionary and recorded weekly in Ocala, Florida.
SPEAKER_01: Today we're gonna start in Romans chapter 12.
SPEAKER_01: But we're gonna start with the first one.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's after this one.
SPEAKER_01: Here we go.
SPEAKER_01: So, dear brothers and sisters, please listen to the family language.
SPEAKER_01: You're not just an audience member, you're a beloved brother and sister.
SPEAKER_01: I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you.
SPEAKER_01: Let them be a living holy sacrifice, the kind he will find acceptable.
SPEAKER_01: This is truly the way to worship him.
SPEAKER_01: Now, in this particular time, it was very important for the c in the culture for people to have a conversation about what it's like to worship God.
SPEAKER_01: Who is worshiping God right?
SPEAKER_01: Where is are we supposed to worship?
SPEAKER_01: Is it on this hill?
SPEAKER_01: Is it in that hill?
SPEAKER_01: Is it in that temple or this temple?
SPEAKER_01: The big question was how do you worship God?
SPEAKER_01: And here the apostle reminds us, you worship God embodied.
SPEAKER_01: Wherever you are, you are worshiping.
SPEAKER_01: You have a chance.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever situation you find yourself in, you have the opportunity to offer worship as an embodied presence, as a soul living and housing the eternal spark, the gift that God has.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, This is the way you worship.
SPEAKER_01: You give your entire life.
SPEAKER_01: Don't copy the behaviors and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way that you think.
SPEAKER_01: Here is the whole invitation.
SPEAKER_01: This is really why we even practice baptisms and this understanding that we are being transformed, that we are invited into a place of absolute rebirth.
SPEAKER_01: Christ in us, the hope of glory.
SPEAKER_01: This is the promise that God is making all things new.
SPEAKER_01: And in the all things that God is making, it is you, beloved, it is me.
SPEAKER_01: And the way that we do that is not copying culture, but that we would allow our minds to be transformed by the Holy Spirit and change the way that we think.
SPEAKER_01: I want somebody else to be responsible for this thing that I don't like.
SPEAKER_00: And we do.
SPEAKER_00: We want God to wave a magic wand over us or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: But what we're we're reminding you uh is the hard work of changing your own mind.
SPEAKER_00: I was uh working with uh a couple of my sons a few weeks ago recently, and uh and I was we were just having a good conversation because uh I was like, you know, help me understand why immediately when I uh offer to do a job, you immediately don't want to do it.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're good people and you do what everyone else wants to do.
SPEAKER_00: I see anyone in congregation ask, you're happy to help, and your mother asks, yeah, what is it about me?
SPEAKER_00: What's your problem with your father?
SPEAKER_00: And they say, well, you you you show no mercy.
SPEAKER_00: You laugh, but they're not laughing.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, and and uh I'm like, well, you know, I don't understand what she means.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, you know, if if if I say I'll help you with a job, then you don't care how bad it gets or what happens, you're gonna get that job done at whatever expense.
SPEAKER_00: And and and so I'm hesitant to want to work with you.
SPEAKER_00: And when someone explains that to you, it makes a lot of sense.
SPEAKER_00: But I also want to ru r uh bottle as the man who has these uh ways of thinking.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, well, you gotta understand, I told somebody that I would do the job, and so the way I think is if you tell somebody you're gonna do a job, by God, you better do that job.
SPEAKER_00: And see, and some of you are saying, absolutely, but be quiet because it's about to get bad for you, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: Because I realized, and it just became so real to me there, that what was happening was I had decided we're gonna get this job done, and and I had decided, and this is the way I think, if you tell somebody you're gonna do a job, then and I think that's a good principle, but also understand sometimes when you start doing a job, you find out there's things behind that wall you didn't know were there.
SPEAKER_00: It takes longer than you realized it was gonna take.
SPEAKER_00: There are things that, in fact, someone gets hurt on the job.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it they had plans or all these things, but I was unwilling to flex from my way of thinking.
SPEAKER_00: What I believed, I believed at all costs, if you say you're gonna do something, by God, you better do it.
SPEAKER_00: And so nobody wanted to work with me by fair right.
SPEAKER_00: Who would you want to work with the Nazi guy who won't let anyone have a break or until the work is done?
SPEAKER_00: And so I looked at that and man, everything over there going, I like the principle of if you're gonna do it, get it done.
SPEAKER_00: I like that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to give that up.
SPEAKER_00: But I was faced, do I am I gonna hang on to my way of thinking that obviously is a huge stumbling block in the relationship I have with my children and other people, or would I be willing to give that up in order to have something new that I've never had before?
SPEAKER_00: And and what I decided was that that that loving relationship is worth more than getting a job done.
SPEAKER_00: And I never used to think that way.
SPEAKER_00: I thought the job was the goal.
SPEAKER_00: But I don't think on this whole thing, God's gonna meet you and go, Well, you didn't do enough jobs.
SPEAKER_00: I think he's gonna ask you, how was your relationship with your children?
SPEAKER_00: How was your relationship with those people?
SPEAKER_00: And so in in giving that up, just for the past few weeks, and not that now I'm not doing any jobs, not keeping my word.
SPEAKER_00: It's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: I never keep my word now.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's not like that.
SPEAKER_00: But it's but it's going with full intention, I want to do that, but all of a sudden, I just the other day, I got we got into this thing, and you know, I'm 58 now, uh and and and it was really, really showing the August heat.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, maybe I can finish this another day.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you, to give my own self that break was the most beautiful thing because I had lived under that same iron fist that my kids hated.
SPEAKER_00: I was living under that iron fist.
SPEAKER_00: And why am I sharing this story, Shuri, so that you can just see what kind of a jerk your pastor is?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's exactly why.
SPEAKER_00: Or I wonder if you're doing some of those same things and it's tormenting yourself and the people that you say that you love.
SPEAKER_00: And and I and and please don't misunderstand me.
SPEAKER_00: I understand that we've got stuff that's got to get done, but when we are willing to adjust some things that we think are absolutes in our mind, because there are a lot of things that you have, for whatever reason, as a child, you've adapted a line of thinking, someone has told you something.
SPEAKER_00: Somewhere along the line, each one of us have got some things concreted in our brain, and that concrete thing is a huge stumbling block to your future and your transformation.
SPEAKER_00: And so what we're talking about today is are you willing to change the way that you think?
SPEAKER_00: And we're like, yeah, yeah, that sounds spiritual, that sounds good.
SPEAKER_00: But what if it means I have to address one of these things that are dear to me and a principle that I actually like?
SPEAKER_00: But am I willing to let that go so that I can have what God said I could have and what you really want?
SPEAKER_00: You want peace, you want loving relationships, you want to be able to have uh to take a breath.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Change the way that you think.
SPEAKER_01: This is the invitation of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He said, repent.
SPEAKER_01: And repent means change the way that you think.
SPEAKER_01: It says here that you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good, pleasing, and perfect.
SPEAKER_01: God's will for us is that we don't allow productivity to be the judge of us.
SPEAKER_01: What have you produced?
SPEAKER_01: Are you good enough because you've worked enough?
SPEAKER_01: In fact, that's the entire practice of Sabbath.
SPEAKER_01: That at the very beginning of the week you have rest.
SPEAKER_01: You don't earn the Sabbath, you don't get to the Sabbath at the end of your week.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, you start in rest, you start in provision, you start in love, and you start by remembering that you are beloved.
SPEAKER_01: And if you work out of belovedness versus what I can earn, grace is not opposed to effort, grace is opposed to earning.
SPEAKER_01: And so the there is an effort that it takes for us to accomplish jobs, but we must not hold principle above people.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus showed us this.
SPEAKER_01: The laws were don't touch a leper.
SPEAKER_01: That's a good idea for transmission of sickness.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus went and touched the lepers and said, I'm gonna bring healing.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus shows us over and over again that the rules are never above the people, that we need to change the way that we think, even about ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: But this way we can find God's law.
SPEAKER_01: Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning.
SPEAKER_01: So, a warning for you this morning, a warning for myself.
SPEAKER_01: Don't think you are better than you really are.
SPEAKER_01: Be honest in your evaluation of yourself, measuring yourselves by the faith that God has given us.
SPEAKER_01: You know what is true.
SPEAKER_01: We judge ourselves by our intention and everyone else on their actions.
SPEAKER_01: We are sure that we know what they were thinking and what they were intended by what they didn't.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I want to tell you that sometimes our intention and our actions don't match up.
SPEAKER_01: And there's mercy for that, there's forgiveness for that, there's a practice that may have to be made.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus is offering us a new way of living.
SPEAKER_01: And what he's saying is this you are not better than anyone else.
SPEAKER_01: You are not less than anyone else.
SPEAKER_01: We are all loved and beloved.
SPEAKER_01: You are special, beloved, but so is every other person.
SPEAKER_01: You are holy because God has intended for all of us to be holy.
SPEAKER_01: And this invitation is to not exactly what Thomas was talking about, not compare.
SPEAKER_01: She's better than me, she's less than me.
SPEAKER_01: None of that.
SPEAKER_01: There is an invitation into a present moment and recognizing every person's belovedness, including our own.
SPEAKER_01: Just as our bodies have many parts, and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ's body.
SPEAKER_01: We are many parts of one body and we all belong to each other.
SPEAKER_01: This is so hopeful.
SPEAKER_01: This is so hopeful when you have a thought, well, what good is it that I come, or what does it matter that I give, or what does it matter that I serve?
SPEAKER_01: It's because we're all part of the body.
SPEAKER_01: I'm so grateful that my spleen this morning did not say, I'm not interested anymore in being a part of this.
SPEAKER_01: This invitation is thank you for all the body parts, even the ones that are hidden, even the ones that we don't see all the time, who make a difference in our life.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul is giving us this invitation to consider the fact that we all belong and that there's reason for us to work together.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I want to talk about the practicality of that idea of belovedness.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I get an opportunity a lot of times here at the church, people will come up and they'll say, hey, you know, I need 20 bucks.
SPEAKER_00: Is there some work I could do around here?
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to, you know, I saw some leaves or some branches or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: And then I'll I'll go outside with them and and uh and they'll, you know, pick up some sticks and I'll be honest with you, I'll think to myself, was that worth 20 bucks?
SPEAKER_00: They asked for 20 bucks and they said they wanted to do some work.
SPEAKER_00: So so I'm uh I'm judging whether I think they deserve the 20 bucks.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that happens to me uh sometimes in family.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you you're taking care of everybody, buying everybody meals, and so you think to yourself, well, I wonder if they should pay me back sometime.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if they should do this little thing.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden we start.
SPEAKER_00: Now I know I'm the only person that thinks like that, but there's a scripture for us, and it tells us, you know, in that vineyard, you agreed to work for a certain fee, and now you're upset because another person's maybe getting away.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that guy who came to the door just gets the 20 bucks without picking up any sticks.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe those people that live in your home, they can live there without ever picking up their own underwear.
SPEAKER_00: What if we switch that thing to help me find the belovedness in these people that are around me, not looking at the at the production, what what they can do or what I think is fair.
SPEAKER_00: Because there that's a condition of my heart.
SPEAKER_00: That shows an ailment, a sickness within my own self, that the first place I go to is accusation.
SPEAKER_00: I find that uh in my own life I didn't realize how much of my thought life is wrapped in accusation.
SPEAKER_00: And as I've begun to really wrestle that in my own thinking, I hear a lot of you guys talking to each other, and I go, should I mention to them?
SPEAKER_00: Are they gonna want to go down this little slippery slope into uh into the mercy of God that that we we have such accusation for uh you must you, you know, oh clearly you hate this.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you didn't say that.
SPEAKER_00: They, you know, I but my accusation is so quick.
SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, they're just being lazy.
SPEAKER_00: Or are they tired?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they worked all day and maybe they just need a break, and and and and and it's my opportunity to serve them.
SPEAKER_00: But we have such accusation and such judgment, and and I don't think I'm the only person.
SPEAKER_00: And this is something that only the Spirit of God can change our minds about if we can begin to see that sickness within our own self that we don't see the belovedness.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I want to stop Heather and say, Don't you see how you're being taken advantage of?
SPEAKER_00: And then I stop myself and realize, don't you see that you're not seeing the belovedness of the people that she's willing to lay her life down for?
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense to anybody?
SPEAKER_00: Does it make anybody mad?
SPEAKER_01: John the Baptist, Jesus said of John that there was never a better man that ever lived.
SPEAKER_01: The earth was John was the was the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus was baptized into John's baptism.
SPEAKER_01: One of the things John said is give it to somebody.
SPEAKER_01: If they ask it to you from you, give it to them.
SPEAKER_01: This whole making someone earn it is not the beloved way.
SPEAKER_01: And so we listen to the Holy Spirit within us, we use wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: If your baby asks you for candy first thing in the morning, may not be the time for that.
SPEAKER_01: You have to use wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: But to ask someone to earn what God has already put in this world, all of the abundance.
SPEAKER_01: The idea that I'd have to make someone earn something or work for it comes from a thought of scarcity.
SPEAKER_01: There is abundance, beloved.
SPEAKER_01: This is our Father's world.
SPEAKER_01: In his grace, God has given us different different gifts for doing certain things well.
SPEAKER_01: So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you.
SPEAKER_01: If your gift is serving others, serve them well.
SPEAKER_01: If you are a teacher, teach well.
SPEAKER_01: If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging.
SPEAKER_01: If it is giving, give generously.
SPEAKER_01: If God has given you leadership ability, take responsibility seriously.
SPEAKER_01: And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.
SPEAKER_01: Don't just pretend to love others, really love them.
SPEAKER_01: Hate what is wrong and hold tightly to what is good.
SPEAKER_01: Love each other with genuine affection.
SPEAKER_01: Take delight in honoring each other.
SPEAKER_01: Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically.
SPEAKER_01: Rejoice in our confident hope.
SPEAKER_01: Be patient in trouble and keep on praying.
SPEAKER_01: And when God's people are in need, be ready to help them.
SPEAKER_01: Always be eager to practice hospitality.
SPEAKER_01: Bless those who persecute you.
SPEAKER_01: Don't curse them.
SPEAKER_01: Pray that God will bless them.
SPEAKER_01: Be happy with those who are happy and weep with those who weep.
SPEAKER_01: Live in harmony with each other.
SPEAKER_01: And don't be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people.
SPEAKER_01: And don't think you know it all.
SPEAKER_01: This is the message of Jesus that love is the end result.
SPEAKER_01: This is the hope.
SPEAKER_01: We return to God who is love.
SPEAKER_01: And this understanding and practice of returning to the good is that we would be people who know how to love well.
SPEAKER_01: When a man came to Jesus and said to him, Teacher, Rabbi, tell us the most important commandment.
SPEAKER_01: And there were over 600 of them.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said, Love.
SPEAKER_01: This is the most important commandment.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus gathers his friends together and he's going to have dinner with them.
SPEAKER_01: He knows the next day he will die and he will be crucified.
SPEAKER_01: He knows that his friend Peter will betray him.
SPEAKER_01: He knows his friend Judas will commit suicide.
SPEAKER_01: He knows that this is the last time that he'll be gathered with them in this place.
SPEAKER_01: And he talks about love.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I'm going to give you a new commandment.
SPEAKER_01: On top of the 600 and other ones that they had.
SPEAKER_01: And the commandment is this love each other the way that I have loved you.
SPEAKER_01: So you may have a different version of love than I have.
SPEAKER_01: And all of us are here today to get Jesus' version of love and say, He gets to change the way that we think by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: We're saying, change the way you think, like it's just a choice.
SPEAKER_01: And it is beloved.
SPEAKER_01: But we sometimes need the power of the Holy Spirit to make that choice to change our mind.
SPEAKER_00: I would like to say, though, it is ultimately just that choice that you make.
SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes we're going, we're waiting going, Holy Spirit, do something so amazing you know, it's going to have to take some kind of mountain-moving thing.
SPEAKER_00: The the miracle is in you just surrendering and just saying, I'm going to stop thinking this way.
SPEAKER_00: It's something I'm comfortable with.
SPEAKER_00: It's humiliating to admit that you were wrong and all of these things.
SPEAKER_00: But you have you decide.
SPEAKER_00: Don't wait around for some bomb to go off, some amazing that you decide I can shift my line of thinking.
SPEAKER_01: We pause here for a moment to thank you for joining us today.
SPEAKER_01: If you're finding this episode meaningful, would you take a moment to share it with a friend?
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SPEAKER_01: 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_00: We were at an outreach uh just this week, David and I.
SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, you know, I know David so well.
SPEAKER_00: If Dave ever ticks you off or does something wrong, I'm just telling you, he didn't do it on purpose.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't being, it's just I know him.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden this lady starts tying into him that he stole her juice, her cases of drink.
SPEAKER_00: And I had asked Dave to put because the people that have the place donated some uh drinks to the church.
SPEAKER_00: So I asked Dave to take the cases, and he did.
SPEAKER_00: This lady who doesn't even work there just starts screaming.
SPEAKER_00: And I get a little offended, man, when you start messing, you know, with my kid, especially such a good man that he is, you know, and and all of a sudden, you know, I'm trying to figure it out because like she's losing it, and I'm I'm like, well, what flavor was it?
SPEAKER_00: Was it some because I'm standing there and my perspective, she's yelling, but behind me there's a palette of the same drink.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's juice it was juice.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a different flavor.
SPEAKER_00: There's only two.
SPEAKER_00: That's what so she had a palette to choose from.
SPEAKER_00: But the two that she had set aside, I guess, or someone took, I don't think we did even took it, but she thought we did, and so we were getting the brunt of it.
SPEAKER_00: But it was that, it would, and I'm and I got so angry because I'm like, she's shouting at us, and there's all this provision right here that she's missing.
SPEAKER_00: And then I'm I'm telling you what, just like a miracle, God said to me, because I'm in, I'll tell you what, I was this close to tying into some folks.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: Uh and and probably saying a bunch of stuff that I would have to come here to church on Sunday morning before you got here and repent of, so I could come up here and preach.
SPEAKER_00: And so, and I looked at that and it just dawned on me, oh, she's just working it out.
SPEAKER_00: She's just, she's afraid that she's not gonna get anything.
SPEAKER_00: And look at there.
SPEAKER_00: Behind her is a whole pallet.
SPEAKER_00: But she's convinced that that she's been robbed.
SPEAKER_00: Her name wasn't on any of that stuff, nobody did anything wrong.
SPEAKER_00: But in her mind, it's all there's all this, you know, what she was so and and and I and you know, there's a part of you that wants to tell them how wrong they are.
SPEAKER_00: And and we want to get our rightness out, we want to get our pound of flesh.
SPEAKER_00: I was right, you were wrong, let me prove it.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the facts, ma'am.
SPEAKER_00: But I don't want to be judged by those facts, you know, and I want space when I'm working it out.
SPEAKER_00: Because keep in mind, I was only about a second from being in way more sin than she ever thought about being in.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: And it's like those opportunities for us to recognize oh, help me have compassion for someone who's going through the same struggle I'm going through, trying to figure out, you know, she felt robbed, she felt all these things, and she had a palate that we could turn her around.
SPEAKER_00: Here, here's all the drinks you could possibly want, you know, and and learn to, but her scarce mindset, scarcity, she showed up at that thing and she thought, if I don't get mine, I'm gonna suffer.
SPEAKER_00: When God's saying there's more than enough.
SPEAKER_00: So, how much of our mindset is in scarcity, and we are the ones that have to go, God's gonna take care of me.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it last Tuesday I was trying, you know, that, or my experience is better, you know, and we we listen, we let all these voices and all these thoughts and all these beliefs concrete in our mind, instead of allowing God to change the way that we think.
SPEAKER_00: And then so just as a result, I literally, and I didn't say it out loud because I would have been mean to the lady, but I said to myself, oh, I don't have to participate in her crazy.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm opting out.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just smiled and thought, well, you know, she's gonna figure out how to get some juice off that palate.
SPEAKER_00: Because this is not, this is clearly not my problem.
SPEAKER_00: And man, what a relief to roll that over and let my mind be changed and recognizing that it's happening to others around and it needs to happen to you and I, amen?
SPEAKER_01: Never pave back evil with more evil.
SPEAKER_01: Never, not just on Tuesdays, never pay back evil with more evil.
SPEAKER_01: There was a law that said if someone harms you and they take your eye, all you can do is take the other eye.
SPEAKER_01: You can't lop their head off.
SPEAKER_01: It was called an eye for an eye or tooth for a tooth.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus came and said, Absolutely not, that's not God's way.
SPEAKER_01: If someone hits you on the cheek, turn the other cheek.
SPEAKER_01: There is no eye for an eye in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: It is an invitation into forgiveness.
SPEAKER_01: Do things in such a way that everyone can see that you are honorable.
SPEAKER_01: This scripture here reminds us it is not honorable to gouge someone's eye out because they have taken yours.
SPEAKER_01: Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.
SPEAKER_01: I remind you that Jesus is a peacemaker.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, Jesus said, Blessed are the peacemakers.
SPEAKER_01: War and violence and hatred and division and bigotry and misogyny and all of those things have nothing to do with Jesus the Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus tells us that we are to be peacemakers.
SPEAKER_01: The apostle Paul reminds us here in the scripture: you do everything you can to live in peace with everyone.
SPEAKER_01: Dear friends, never take revenge.
SPEAKER_01: And this would be fine to overlook, except for the fact that you only want revenge when you've been harmed.
SPEAKER_01: Or what you think you've been harmed.
SPEAKER_01: What the illusion is that you have been slighted.
SPEAKER_00: What if we were to somehow change the way that we think?
SPEAKER_01: Dear friends, never take revenge.
SPEAKER_01: Leave that to the righteous anger of God.
SPEAKER_01: For the scripture says, I will take revenge and I will pay them back, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Whose justice do you want?
SPEAKER_01: Yours or God's?
SPEAKER_01: I want God's.
SPEAKER_01: Because God has all kinds of ways to bring people back to Himself, all kinds of ways to illuminate the illusion that they're in and bring them back to the consciousness.
SPEAKER_01: Indeed, if your enemies are hungry, feed them.
SPEAKER_01: This is the way of Jesus, beloved.
SPEAKER_01: If your enemy is hungry, it doesn't say make them hurt worse.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't say do more to them, it doesn't say annihilate them.
SPEAKER_01: It says, if your enemies are hungry, feed them.
SPEAKER_01: If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.
SPEAKER_01: In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their head.
SPEAKER_01: Don't let evil conquer you.
unknown: Oh, come on.
SPEAKER_01: But conquer evil by doing good.
SPEAKER_01: Beloved, we are called to good works.
SPEAKER_01: We are called to be people who love people who extravagantly open our hands and our hearts and our homes to the hospitality of the Holy Spirit, who, according to the scriptures, is God's plan to make all things new.
SPEAKER_01: God says the kingdom is coming right now.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus offered it.
SPEAKER_01: It's so close to you, it's even in your mouth.
SPEAKER_01: Let the kingdom come in all of its goodness, in all of its righteousness, and don't let evil get into you, beloved.
SPEAKER_01: Conquer evil by doing good.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we're uh still at hotel, and uh um people say, you guys are still in the hotel.
SPEAKER_00: And uh when we get when the tree went through the house, the guy said, you know, that it'd be a miracle if this thing gets fixed in six months, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And it's been just a little over a month, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And so um people are like they this over and over.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just almost like it's like they're reading a script.
SPEAKER_00: They go, I feel so sad for you.
SPEAKER_00: That must be terrible.
SPEAKER_00: And and I'm thinking, am I missing something?
SPEAKER_00: Should I be more angry?
SPEAKER_00: Should I sit because what Heather and I have been practicing is being thankful that we have a roof over our there's a hotel.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to pop a tent out in the yard and wait for the house to get fixed.
SPEAKER_00: We got and and and it's the most terrible living in a hotel.
SPEAKER_00: Well, when we get home at night, that there's clean towels and the beds are made.
SPEAKER_00: There's something to be thankful for.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I will tell you that we'll go by the house and clean every day and do and do laundry and do some work and stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And and every once in a while, Heather and I will just climb in our bed for a second and we'll go, oh, because there's nothing like your own bed, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we've got that thing where we got the, I mean, our bed's the, you don't want to go anywhere else in the world, comfortable bed we've found ourselves in.
SPEAKER_00: And so we'll lay there and go, oh, and then we'll both go, boy, it's gonna be so great, and we're gonna be so happy when we get to go back in.
SPEAKER_00: And we're just trying to make sure that our we don't allow our minds to go the one way, and we find the good that that we even have a bed that that we're gonna be able to go back to one day that is so comfortable, that God has given us that in the first place.
SPEAKER_00: And and so there's a way that you can control your mind, or you you don't have to constantly think of the negative and think of, but we it is a training, it is a practice.
SPEAKER_00: We have to then choose to rehearse what is the good.
SPEAKER_01: Given what is, what is mind to do is the most important thing that we can remember.
SPEAKER_01: What is mind to do in this?
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about this entire thing.
SPEAKER_01: The apostle reminds us to change the way that we think.
SPEAKER_01: In the very beginning of the text that we have in the Hebrew Bible, it tells us that man and women are put in a garden.
SPEAKER_01: And at the very beginning of the story of mankind, God says to them, Who told you that?
SPEAKER_01: This is a very good question to ask yourself at all times.
SPEAKER_01: Who told me that I needed to go first?
SPEAKER_01: Who told me that if I don't scramble, I will not get what I need?
SPEAKER_01: Who told me that I have to make sure that I'm not being taken advantage of?
SPEAKER_01: Who told me?
SPEAKER_01: Ask yourself the question, where did this thought come from?
SPEAKER_01: And then surrender it to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Allow yourself to think the thoughts that love would think.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the beautiful part of practicing during Pentecost.
SPEAKER_01: It is giving consent to the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: When you find yourself in a situation and you're like, oh, I wonder who told me that, and you think back or you can't even come to it.
SPEAKER_01: This practice is I give consent for the Holy Spirit to change my mind.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: As easy as that, I give consent to think another way.
SPEAKER_01: And there is another practice that we do, it is the embodied practice of holy communion.
SPEAKER_01: When we come forward to the communion table, we are entering a mystery.
SPEAKER_01: We are entering into this embodied practice of receiving everything that we have need of.
SPEAKER_01: We don't take communion, we receive communion.
SPEAKER_01: There is an invitation into receiving all of the good that God has for us so that in response we can do good, in response to receiving the communion of Jesus Christ, that we would go out blessed, broken, and given to the world, that we would allow our fists to be unclenched, that we would open and use our hands for helping and not for hurting, that we would open our lives and that we would let people see the light of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You know, that there's a there's a mystery that's to be revealed.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what the Spirit does.
SPEAKER_00: But only to those people that are open to that and willing to hear something different.
SPEAKER_00: And I and I want to go back to that thing I shared in the very beginning of this service.
SPEAKER_00: You know, at very face value, to say that a man finishes the job that he starts, that he commits to do is very good and very noble.
SPEAKER_00: And it sounds great.
SPEAKER_00: But if you find what I found in my life, that in keeping that commitment, everyone around me had to pay a price that they didn't offer.
SPEAKER_00: And that that what what what my decision and my thinking, how that falls on the people that are around me.
SPEAKER_00: Because remember, the words of a father fall very hard on their children.
SPEAKER_00: I remember years and years and years ago, we had just watched Lord of the Rings and Thomas came in from outside and his feet were dirty because he was playing outside, and I said, You have hobbit feet.
SPEAKER_00: I meant hobbit feet because the hobbits are barefooted and they're dirty.
SPEAKER_00: But if you remember watching Lord of the Rings, Hobbit had some weird-looking feet.
SPEAKER_00: And I watched him deflate because his dad said that he had freak feet.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I meant, but that's what I said, and I was embarrassed, and I almost said nothing, but I tried to endeavor and apologize to him then because I remember things that my dad said that still are with me at 58 years old.
SPEAKER_00: They fall from a weight.
SPEAKER_00: And I could stand and argue and say that, man, it's good, a man, and it is good that a man keeps his word, but not that he expands, you know, we have to be willing to open up to the spirit to help us understand the mystery of this, because maybe there are some things that you've coveted, you've concreted, and they and you, and to you they're they're they're non-negotiables, and they're good in in theory.
SPEAKER_00: But what kind of damage are they doing to the people around you?
SPEAKER_00: And we wonder why God doesn't seem to be real, he doesn't seem to be working in my life.
SPEAKER_00: God is working to the lit to the extent that you will allow because of the way that you think.
SPEAKER_00: The change is really that simple because I switched that thing.
SPEAKER_00: And it was, I mean, I was struggling, I was like, oh, good, and I'm like, I can set myself free.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to always do things so rigidly.
SPEAKER_00: What a relief! A gift I gave to myself.
SPEAKER_00: What a gift you'll give to yourself if you will find those places.
SPEAKER_00: Because why am I why am I harping on this?
SPEAKER_00: Not so that I can just tell you some dumb story about my own life, but that you can realize, oh yeah, you're doing that all the time in some areas or in other.
SPEAKER_00: And how that's hurting the people that you say that you love, how that's hindering you from what God wants to do in your life.
SPEAKER_00: So when we go to this table and the mystery of God giving you daily bread, the thing that you have need of, God help me turn loose of the beliefs and the thoughts and the patterns I have that are causing pain for myself and those that I love.
SPEAKER_01: We hope you've enjoyed this week's sermon.
SPEAKER_01: If you would like more information about us, visit us online at firstlovechurch.org.