First Love Church
These podcasts are messages that were preached at First Love Church in Ocala, Florida. We hope that you are encouraged and inspired by what you hear. We are a non denominational, egalitarian church that practices a generous orthodoxy. Find out more about our local congregation online at firstlovechurch.org.
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First Love Church
Holy Baristas and DMV Angels: Loving When It's Hard - Thomas Drake
What truly identifies you as a follower of Jesus? Is it your theological knowledge, church attendance, or something else entirely? In this thought-provoking message from First Love Church, Thomas unpacks Jesus' final and most important commandment from John 13: "Love each other just as I have loved you."
This message offers fresh perspective on what makes Jesus' call to love "new"—not the concept itself, but the revolutionary standard of loving as He loved. In a religious culture that had expanded from ten commandments to 613 detailed regulations, Jesus simplified everything to just one command while simultaneously raising the bar immeasurably.
Thomas reminds us that our love for others serves as the primary identifying marker of authentic discipleship. Just as experienced baristas can recognize customers' habits, the world recognizes genuine followers of Jesus by their distinctive pattern of radical love, even toward those who seem undeserving. When we choose to love instead of grumble, when we bring light into darkness, we fulfill our calling as Christ's ambassadors.
How might your workplace, family, and community change if you took this commandment seriously today? Listen now to discover how loving like Jesus can transform not just those around you, but your own heart as well.
This podcast is made possible, thanks to the generosity of our donors. If you would like to support the ongoing work of First Love Church you can donate at https://www.firstlovechurch.org/giving
In the service of LOVE,
Pastors Dennis and Heather Drake
Welcome to the First Love Church Podcast. This is a collection of Sunday teachings inspired by the Revised Common Lectionary and recorded weekly in Ocala Florida.
Speaker 2:Good morning everybody in person. Thank you guys for being here. Good morning people online. Thank you guys for watching. We're grateful that everyone is here. We're grateful that everyone is here.
Speaker 2:I'm going to start the service with a little heads up. Okay, dense scripture okay. So that means there's only a couple of scriptures that I'm gonna be reading out of John, but it's gonna seem like maybe I'm trying to get you guys out of here quicker. It's not the case. I had a conversation with mom being like hey, if the service ends sooner, that's but preach and teach and communicate and do whatever you feel like you need to do. And that was really comforting to have that conversation with mom, that it doesn't have to be 45 minutes, so it's not going to be a specific amount of time. But I just wanted to kind of share with that like wow, that was quick. That wasn't like, again, super intended, the parents are gone. I'm going to get you out of here quicker. It's more of like hey, this is what we have for Scripture today.
Speaker 2:Does that make sense? Because when you're going through and you're teaching the way that my parents are teaching, the goal is that if you guys come to First Love Church over the course of three years, you actually hear every teaching in the Bible. That's actually kind of what's happening. We're hearing the word of God from beginning to end, as long as you're a part of the community, and it just so happens on certain Sundays that you get an opportunity to hear five or six scriptures. That might seem small, but when you really get a chance to dig into what the scripture is communicating, it really is nutrient-dense. Does that make sense? It's like flax seed or like chia seeds. It's high-protein, or like chia seeds, those high protein. Does that make sense? Cool?
Speaker 2:All right, we're going to go past that, and then I'm going to start by praying, because every time I've prayed it's gone pretty well. So I'd like to give you know, all credit to God on that one. Does that make sense? Cool? So, heavenly Father, in Jesus' name, I thank you for today. I thank you for your words to speak, not Thomas' words. Pray it now that you'd be able to bring peace to the hearts of every person here. Pray it now, whatever situations are going on, that you'd be able to have this message stir love and light into their lives. So we thank you for all these things in Jesus' name. We pray, amen, alrighty. So prologue, pray, and then we're going to start by reading this collectively Okay.
Speaker 2:This is one of my favorite things to do when I do get an opportunity to preach, teach and communicate Is that we get an opportunity to read everything collectively, okay. And then, after we're done reading, we can unpack it together. Does that make sense? It's going to get a chance to watch a movie and then discuss it afterwards. Same principle you get a chance to really unpack what's there. Does that make sense? Coolio, you guys ready? So we're going to read all of John, 13, 31 through 35.
Speaker 2:As soon as Judas left the room, jesus said the time has come for the Son of man to enter into his glory, and God will be glorified because of him. And since God receives glory because of the Son, he will give his own glory to the Son, and he will do so at once. Dear children, I will be with you only a little longer. As I told the Jewish leaders, you will search for me, but you can't come where I am going. So now I'm giving you a new commandment Love each other. Just as I've loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you and all of God's friends and family said Amen, awesome, all right, so what we're going to do is we're going to start from the top, verse 31.
Speaker 2:As soon as Judas left the room, jesus said so a little context. This is in the upper room. This is post-communion. This is as soon as Judas steps away, jesus is communicating like hey, listen, the time has now come for the Son of man. I was looking this up and one of the things that I thought was very fascinating when I was looking it up and studying this week is that the Son of man is how Jesus does refer to himself. He's communally saying hey, I'm a part of you guys, I am God, but I'm also here with you. So the time has come for me to enter into his glory. Right, he's now entering in the glory of God. He's now kind of bringing those things together.
Speaker 2:He's creating the bridge, right, and you have this culture where everything is performance-based. How many of you guys work at a job and it's performance-based? How many of you guys work in an environment and it's performance-based? How many of you guys maybe have had relationships where it's performance-based? And sometimes that's tiring, sometimes that's really exhausting when you have to be at 100% all the time, and then all of a sudden, like when you get a moment to just breathe or you get a moment to just be with yourself, doesn't that feel relaxing? Doesn't that feel like coming back home and then you just get a shower and then you're just all like all the gunk from the day is gone, all that is just. So what he's communicating here is saying hey, listen, it's time for us to bring this glory together and I'm going to be able to help bridge the gap here. So that's kind of the setting of what's taking place here.
Speaker 2:And so the goal of that bridge is so that God will receive glory and that we can enter in that glory with him. There wouldn't be any separation. So that's kind of the context of what's happening. So as we go into 32. And since God receives the glory because of the Son, he will give his own glory to the Son, and he will do so at once. I'm really grateful for this scripture, because sometimes I feel like God is operating at a very different speed than I am, right, where I feel like man.
Speaker 2:God, I've been praying this for a little bit, where is it at? Hey God, I've been praying this for a little bit. Where is it at? Hey God, I've been praying for this for a little while. What's happening? Hey God, I've been praying for this for a long time. Where is it going Right? And so this is confirmation that, hey, we're part of God's family.
Speaker 2:The bridge has been made, god is working right, but we don't often get to see God do the things that he's doing. We don't get to watch the mechanic fix our car. We don't get to watch the doctor do the operation on us. We only get to be able to see the after work and see the care and the love and the tender mercies and the grace that he's given us. So what do we do when we're in the in-between, right? What do we do when we're in that limbo?
Speaker 2:How many of you guys actually kind of like not the fun game that you play at parties, but like do you guys enjoy limbo? Do you guys enjoy that space in between? I don't. I hate that. That's my least favorite thing in the world. Like that in-between, I prefer getting from A to B. Like, the faster we can get from A to B, the better.
Speaker 2:If I can know exactly which stops we're getting, I like road trips for that reason. I can see how many stops we're going to have. I've got an ETA to the destination. I can actually input I'm hungry. I can add this here. That makes sense. I can have that. That kind of makes sense in my brain.
Speaker 2:But that's not the kind of relationship we have with God. We have a very different relationship with him where if we add a lot of trust and we go, you know what God, this is bigger than me. I'm going to really trust you here and I'm going to be able to take a nap in the car, right. That's also kind of neat too, getting a chance to fall asleep in the car, knowing that you have a safe driver who's there, and then all of a sudden you're teleported to your destination, right. So what you can do is you can be stressed in the passenger seat or you guys can enjoy the drive. Does that make sense? We're going to go to verse 33. Dear children, I will be with you only a little bit longer. As I told the Jewish leaders, you will search for me, but you can't come meet me where I'm going.
Speaker 2:This kind of ties into what I was communicating earlier is that there is a different relationship that God has with us and sometimes it's just like, hey, buddy, just enjoy the ride. Sometimes we have to let God be God and we get a chance to just be the children of God, right? There's only so much that we can participate as kids, right? Have you ever baked a cake with a kid? Like they're not adding too much culinary expertise to it? I don't know if you've ever seen a video of that guy who bakes cakes with cow and like the cow is just decimating everything as it's happening. Like sometimes that's how I feel, like if I start overstepping and doing stuff, like I'm the cow in the kitchen, just like really messing with stuff. But the nice thing is like God genuinely does factor in all the nonsense that I can do and God ultimately gets us to the destination that we need to be. Amen.
Speaker 2:Even with our missteps, even with the stuff that kind of fumbles over, we still get there. Does that make sense? So I will be with you only a little longer. As I told the Jewish leaders, you will search for me, but you can't come where I'm going. So I read this and one of the parts that stood out to me and one of the discussions that I had from one of my friends at Oklahoma is that this would be very jarring to hear.
Speaker 2:As disciples right. So they had been told hey, follow me. We see throughout scripture, hey, follow me. All the disciples accepted the call to follow him and now Jesus is saying to them hey, where I'm going, you can't go. That would be really jarring. Like hey, you've got this thing and for the past three years you've been doing this thing with Christ, right, and now all of a sudden there's something new. That's really scary. That can be really scary for us, because there are certain instances in my life where I'm like've heard the call of God, this is what I'm supposed to do, right. And then something can be really scary with I've heard a second call of God. What does that mean? It's still God, right, it's still God giving us another opportunity to follow him and pursue him. It just might look different and that can be tricky when you've really like gone. This is the one thing that I'm going to do for God. But the wonderful thing about the relationship with God, with Jesus, with the Spirit, is that it is ever-changing. Things will be different. Different is scary, but God is present in the different Agreed.
Speaker 2:There's different stages of our lives where I'm doing this at this job and then all of a sudden this job changes. Now, all of a sudden I'm doing something different, different than I imagined, different career path. I'm doing things differently relationally. I'm doing things different with my kids. I'm doing things different, ultimately, than I had in the beginning and sometimes that's really great. I'm very grateful and very glad that my relationship with my friends and my family has evolved, that things haven't stayed monodimensional, because as humans, in our relationship with God, we're not meant to do the exact same thing all the time, as much as I would love that.
Speaker 2:I love routine a lot. I like routine so much that I don't mind getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning every morning because I know that I'm going to get up at 4 o'clock. Does that make sense? There's comfort for me as a person knowing that as soon as I get up at 4, I'm like cool, my day starts now. But the invitation with God is that, hey, you know what. We're going to do something a little different and it will be uncomfortable, because God doesn't invite us into the uncomfort. Don't be surprised when, when he asks you to give a hug to a person who doesn't deserve it, when he asks you to say something nice to a person who really doesn't deserve it. Make sense Going to verse 34.
Speaker 2:So now I'm giving you a new commandment Love each other just as I have loved. A new commandment love each other just as I have loved you, you should love each other. So I really do appreciate that. It says commandment, not commandments. I'm sure many of you know that in the time the Pharisees and the Sadducees and religious leaders in Jewish cultures had commandments that were beyond the 10 commandments. Right, you have the major 10, and then you have the 603 that they added in addition. So in total there were 613 commandments and you mess up one and then there's separation right, disqualified.
Speaker 2:I really don't like disqualifications. I don't like disqualifications in games, in events, in sports. Disqualifications doesn't feel great. I don't know if you guys have ever seen a disqualification happen in the Olympics and you see dread happen in the person who's been practicing and training for a long time only to see something happen and they're disqualified for it. I've seen a disqualification happen in the Winter Olympics because of the ribbons that a girl had in her hair one time during one of the winter sports, and I saw that girl genuinely experience dread, but I resonated with that because I've also felt disqualification in my life through either relationships, through work, through conversations, where somebody says something and all of a sudden everything that I've done has been disqualified, or I've done things in life where I feel like I said something or did something wrong and now I'm disqualified from the grace of God or I'm disqualified from the blessings of God.
Speaker 2:Well, I would really love to communicate to you guys today that there isn't a disqualifier from God. There isn't anything that you can do that disqualifies you from God's blessings, from hearing the Spirit of God. There isn't anything that deafens you. Right, the Spirit of God is communicating and the love of God is communicating to you at all times and there isn't something that you do that all of a sudden just turns all the way down like turns the ringer off you.
Speaker 2:You ever put your phone on silence or do not disturb. My family knows that I do that all the time and they keep thinking that like I'm ignoring them on purpose. Nathaniel's shaking his head great confirmation. It's just do not disturb, I'm not ignoring my brother, it's just I have that on and so I'm here to confirm to you that you don't have a do not disturb with God and he doesn't have one on you. There is constant communication that we're always welcomed to. If you don't take anything else from what I'm communicating today, please take that. Please take that when you say something to God, it is heard, amen.
Speaker 1:We pause here for a moment to thank you for joining us today. If you're finding this episode meaningful, would you take a moment to share it with a friend? This podcast is made possible thanks to the generosity of people just like you. If you would like to support the ongoing work of First Love Church and the continued work of our podcast ongoing work of First Love Church and the continued work of our podcast visit us online at firstlovechurchorg, reminding you to like, follow and subscribe.
Speaker 2:Love each other is pretty straightforward Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Okay, again, contextually, jesus just washed the feet of every person who is there. This is a person who has gotten, has really taken himself, or they have placed him up on a pedestal of preacher, teacher, rabbi, and now that person of leadership has gone to wash her feet. Again, a very jarring conversation. When you're disciples of God, thinking that you're going to be like Christ, and now his invitation to you is go, do exactly what I did to everyone else, it's now your job and your responsibility to wash the feet of your disciples. And again, that can be very challenging, especially when you have an idea of something and God redirects you to another, but then also redirects you to. Arguably one of the most challenging scriptures or the most challenging tasks in my experience is that, just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Now I can love everybody in First Love Church. I can do that. I think all of you guys are wonderful, fantastic people. The harder demographic I have of loving people is the 7.15 to 7.30 am demographic of customers that come through Starbucks that wave of 120 people. Those are the challenging group of people that I would have to have an opportunity to love them in the same way that I love all of you guys. That's harsh. But let me share you guys something.
Speaker 2:Okay, one day I come into church. Okay, one day I'm just kinda hanging out. Okay, all of a sudden I see one of my regulars at Starbucks come through church. I'm like, oh weird, I know her drink, but I don't know her name. I know exactly what drink it is. But then I got a chance to say hey. And she looked at me and she said hey. And you know, I didn't believe in the Clark Kent Superman glasses deal until like as soon as the hat and the apron are off. People just don't recognize me as soon as they, especially if they see me out of place. But I had that moment and I was just like hey, it's nice to see you outside of Starbucks and then have that kind of communication and rapport. And then that was an example of me. Maybe I really should tune into this a little bit, because each person that I could be handing a drink to could all of a sudden show up at church, right Like the person.
Speaker 2:Okay, one of my friends up in Oklahoma was sharing a story in the similar vein. He's in food service as well. He's not at Starbucks anymore, but he works in another food service. And there was this customer who was just really difficult Okay, like immeasurably difficult and he felt in his heart he just wanted to say something so bad, but he stuffed it down. And then, like two days later, he goes to get his license renewed at the DMV and, lo and behold, who was there taking care of the stuff? And he thought to himself, if I went off, I would have lived the rest of my life at the DMV, that would have been my permanent place, I would have been condemned to that chair, the number would have continued to tick onward and I would have been passed over and over if that were me.
Speaker 2:So there are these moments that we get to make decisions as followers in Christ, as adults. Right, we can choose to pursue the Jesus way of doing things, which is love everybody, because we don't know where they're at, or we can start doing things our way and then be trapped at the DMV forever. It's up to us. We're now making the mature decision to be like hey, god, we're ready for this right Because there is an invitation. We get to be children of God, but we also get the chance to go like, hey, god, we're ready for this, right, because there is an invitation. We get to be children of God, but we also get the chance to go like, hey, this is something I'm ready for. God he's like, okay, cool, let's do this. Right, you get to walk hand in hand with God. Amen, last scripture. You guys ready. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples and all God's children said Amen. Our love will prove that we're the disciples.
Speaker 2:Caroline works at Starbucks and I work at Starbucks, and so we'll have conversations while we're there. And one of the things that we've both discussed and noticed is that we can identify people who order drinks from Dunkin' Donuts when they come through and order things through Starbucks. And it sounds weird, until you get the identifying factors right, is that a person who frequents Dunkin' Donuts that comes into Starbucks will get sugar and flavor and then a separate sugar. It just always will be three separate stacks of sugar and then maybe two types of milks. But like the only way we started noticing that is just because we've been around the environment so long, right, the only way we've been able to start recognizing these patterns is because we've been here so long and so we start hearing these flavors, hearing these drinks, hearing these things, and then we can recognize, like they frequent Dunkin' Donuts and they're coming here, so we're making something that kind of fits their taste buds, right. So why do I bring that up? Is that all of your actions and all of the love and care that you do produce is noticed, right? All of the different kind of like, caring, high fives, all the different hugs, all the different words of affirmation, how you speak, how you share, how you laugh, that is noticed by people. That is something that is seen by people. There is an opportunity for each one of us to make a choice. Are we going to be ambassadors of love or are we going to be ambassadors of something separate, right?
Speaker 2:One of my favorite bandmates when I was playing in Bible College in Oklahoma. Every single time he came up to start leading worship he started with two jokes. Two jokes either went great or went horribly, didn't matter. He started with that as his opener. Then he proceeded to laugh at his own jokes to create a different environment and then we would just jump into worship. I initially thought it was just some kind of weird thing that he ended up doing, but I realized that his goal was to bring laughter and bring joy as the forefront before worship started. So if you start with something joyful and you have that be the foundation stone of what you're going to build upon, then it makes adding more joy easier. Does that make sense? Because we ultimately have a choice.
Speaker 2:Are we going to start today with grumbling? Because I made a decision post-Lent right, during Lent, I decided I was going to give up grumbling. I didn't do a great job, so I'm still working on that post-Lent right. Because grumbling in a community workspace environment where you see somebody like did you see what they ordered? Did you see how they were talking to so-and-so, did you see? And grumbling becomes very easy when grumbling is now the foundation right? So I'm making an active choice that I'm not going to participate in grumbling. I'm going to change the conversation and be like one of the things I had to say this past week was like hey, what do you think they're going through? And then everybody got real quiet and nobody wanted to participate in that one.
Speaker 2:But that was the invitation that I brought and you will experience resistance when you're trying to build something new. If you've ever been in construction, if you tried to build anything, trust me, you will experience opposition from everybody. Everybody will tell you this is the way that you have to do this. Everybody will tell you this is the way that this has to be built. This has to be built up to this standard. You will reach opposition in construction. So, when God's inviting us to build something different and be ambassadors for God, we're going to experience opposition, but God's going to be present.
Speaker 2:Amen, that we're not going to be left on our own in this situation. Yes, jesus was leaving and they couldn't follow, but God in the Spirit was present. There's always someone with us, amen. Regardless of where we can see it fully and clearly, whether we feel it or not, we know that God is with us. That's the number one thing that I've consistently heard and seen.
Speaker 2:That is a struggle is this feeling of loneliness in Christianity, this feeling of loneliness of I'm by myself in this situation, when we do have a creator who is present with us, but it's up to us to be able to say, hey, I'm inviting you in here. Hey, I'm going to participate with you in this, and then, for the aspects that we need physical conversations. You do have a community of believers here who would happily be present with you at any point. We have First Love Church as a community of people who can give you help, support, love, care when you tithe and when you give offerings. These are opportunities for us to be able to go to serve, to be able to offer that connection, because sometimes you need more than just like a single high five on Sunday or a single hug on Sunday. Sometimes you need a conversation with my mom or my dad and they're willing to have those conversations with you and check in with you and have that community with you and share those moments with you, share joy, share sadness, share everything in between, because that's what being a part of a community of believers is. And then that makes this commandment, this idea of being an ambassador of love, easier. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:There's an overarching thing that I feel like, as I was kind of constructing some of this, and the way that the scripture ends. It ends with a call right. It ends with saying this is how we know and this is how people will know you are the disciple of being loved. And for me that felt like, maybe for a little bit. I had only been kind of viewing with one eye open, kind of one eye closed, right. I don't know if you've ever held one eye closed for a long time.
Speaker 2:But then you lose something called depth perception and things become a little wonky, right, things get like I thought I grabbed that pen, I didn't. Like you're getting a chance to really go like, hey, wait a second, what am I missing? Right, really go like, hey, wait a second, what am I missing? Right? And then we get an opportunity to step into this life and go. God is going to open up and share us and give us a different perspective.
Speaker 2:Because, you know what, when God gave me that opportunity to go, I need to stop grumbling. I need to stop looking at every person who comes into Starbucks as an opposition. Right, I've only had drinks thrown at me one time, right, it's not happened from the other 10 years of me being here. But there's always that fear that someone is going to throw a drink at you. Right, there's always that, like someone is it was cold drink, no, don't worry. Like it was, I wasn't hit with like a hot drink. That would be something different, probably. But there's that fear, right of you've experienced difficulty and now you're on defense. You've experienced challenges and now it's going to diminish my light. God's offering an opportunity for all of us to share light and love with everybody. God's offering us an opportunity to where we get a chance to shine brightly in an environment where people have maybe diminished you.
Speaker 2:If you've experienced a rejection and then it makes you timid and wanting to share that kind of love and care that you have for people, then what do you do? Do you then stop doing what God offers us here? Do you then stop doing what God offers us here? Do you then silence yourself? I think the invitation is different. I think that the invitation that God is offering us here is continue to be ambassadors of love when people don't respond. Continue to love and care for people, even if they don't react the way that they want you. To Continue to love and continue to be Christ-like in Christ-like environments. Amen. I thank you guys for listening to me. I hope that what I shared again wasn't from me, but it was ultimately what God wanted to share to every person here that you all heard, and then we all get a chance to do what this slide is sharing is getting a chance to share his love with people. Maybe it gives you the courage to be able to share love differently.
Speaker 3:Amen, so would you guys, pray with me this morning.
Speaker 2:Heavenly Father, in Jesus' name, I thank you for today. I thank you for just offering peace and love and care to every person here. I pray right now that every person's heart and every person's mind would just be ready to receive opportunities to love differently, would be able to receive forgiveness differently, be able to receive opportunities to share Christ-like behaviors differently, that we would be ambassadors of God. That we would be able to bring joy into an environment that's joyless. That we'd be able to share laughter in an environment where there's no laughter. That we'd be able to share light in an environment where there's no light. That we'd be able to continue to be Christ-like even when it's challenging. So, god, we thank you for all of these things. In Jesus' name, we pray amen.
Speaker 3:All right, this is a blessing that meets you in love. By Jan Richardson. It is love that every blessing begins. It is true that every blessing begins with love, that, whatever else it may say, love is always precisely its point. But it should be noted that every blessing begins with love, that, whatever else it may say, love is always precisely its point. But it should be noted that this blessing has come today especially to tell you it is crazy about you that it has been in love with you forever, that it has never not wanted to see your face, to go through this world without your company.
Speaker 3:This blessing thought it was high time it told you so. Just to make sure you know, if it has been shy in saying this, it has not been for any lack of wanting to. It's just that this blessing knows the risk of offering itself in a way that will so alter you, not because it thinks you could stand some improving, but because this is simply where loving leads. This blessing knows how love undoes us, unhinges us, unhides us. It knows how loving can sometimes feel like dying. But today this blessing has come to tell you the secret that sends it to your door, that it gives itself only to those willing to come alive. That it vows itself, only to those ready to be born anew.
Speaker 1:We hope you've enjoyed this week's sermon. If you would like more information about us, visit us online at firstlovechurchorg.
