SPEAKER_01: This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_01: Helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_01: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit GrandProquay.org.
SPEAKER_00: Father, it's our understanding that you have come and that you're going to come again.
SPEAKER_00: We find joy in the second coming.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't stir up fear in us.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be the valid uh the validation of everything we've ever heard and what we've come to believe.
SPEAKER_00: And it's going to be the experience of what we longed for.
SPEAKER_00: But in the meantime, we've got to be about the Father's business.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to love what you love.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to just spend our lives saying to you, thank you for loving me.
SPEAKER_00: We want to love what you love the way you love it, because we understand when you came the first time that you altered everything in this world.
SPEAKER_00: You changed not only what we love, but the way we love it.
SPEAKER_00: So help us love the right things today.
SPEAKER_00: Focus our heart and our spirit, our gifts and our abilities, our talent, our time and our treasure all in and around the things that you came to cause us to love.
SPEAKER_00: And help us love them today in a way we've never loved them before.
SPEAKER_00: Help us love them in a way that other people are jealous because they don't love these things.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, lead us into the truth today because that's the only thing that sets us free.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we were created for freedom.
SPEAKER_00: So we ask you to give back to us what was forfeited in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: Give back to us that freedom today.
SPEAKER_00: We pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You could have a seat if you've got a Bible.
SPEAKER_00: I invite you to take it and open it up to 1 John chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're our guest today and you're visiting, let me just explain to you what you're seeing.
SPEAKER_00: This is the season of Advent.
SPEAKER_00: Advent is the four Sundays that lead up to Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: Advent is from a Latin word Adventus, which means arrival or coming.
SPEAKER_00: And each each Sunday has a theme: it's hope, peace, joy, and then today is love.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk to you about what love makes us love.
SPEAKER_00: Because when Jesus came, he came not just to express the Father, the fact that the Father loved us, for God so loved the world that he gave us one and only Son, but He came to change the way we love what we love and the way we love it.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to just jump in, start reading 1 John chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: There's three things in the text I want us to love today, to think about for a few minutes.
SPEAKER_00: 1 John chapter 3, verse 11 says this for this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should uh we should love one another.
SPEAKER_00: We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.
SPEAKER_00: And why did he murder him?
SPEAKER_00: Because his own deeds were evil and his brothers were righteous.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.
SPEAKER_00: We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brothers.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever does not uh whoever does not love abides in death.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
SPEAKER_00: By this we know love.
SPEAKER_00: They laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 17 says, But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, and yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?
SPEAKER_00: Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth.
SPEAKER_00: By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him.
SPEAKER_00: For whenever our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.
SPEAKER_00: Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God, and whatever we ask, we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
SPEAKER_00: And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he commanded us.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever keeps the commandment abides in God and God in him.
SPEAKER_00: And by this we know that he abides in us by the Spirit whom he has given us.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what do I mean when I say what love makes us love?
SPEAKER_00: There's three things in the text I want to point to.
SPEAKER_00: That the fact that Christ came is an expression of the Father's love.
SPEAKER_00: And again, not just to remind you God loves you, God loves you, God loves you, God loves you, but to alter the way you love the things you love.
SPEAKER_00: And the first thing that the Bible calls us to love in the text today is to love the message.
SPEAKER_00: It's verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: What I mean to love the message.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever noticed it's hard to talk about things you do not love?
SPEAKER_00: Like I was in a conversation recently, and three people were talking about something that I have zero affection for.
SPEAKER_00: And after about 15 minutes of them just talking passionately about it, one of the guys looks at me and says, So, well, Neil, what do you think?
SPEAKER_00: And I just said, I don't have any affection for that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't love that, so I don't got no words around that.
SPEAKER_00: And it was awkward.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I just could care less.
SPEAKER_00: And so I could talk, but I would be faking it because I got no affection for that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't talk about that.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't just rise up in me like you guys talk about it, like you just invented the sun and you're gonna warm the world.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sitting here kind of thinking, I got nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, now you say, Why do I tell you that?
SPEAKER_00: Because some of you, when it comes to your faith, you feel about your faith or about the faith, the message of Christianity, the way that I felt about the topic they were talking about.
SPEAKER_00: I got nothing.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a bad topic.
SPEAKER_00: I just I just don't love it.
SPEAKER_00: And so because I don't love it, I don't talk about it.
SPEAKER_00: Words don't naturally rise in me.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible says when I say love the message, he says verse 11, for this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
SPEAKER_00: This is the message.
SPEAKER_00: It's not hard, it's not complicated.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the best thing it's not new.
SPEAKER_00: This has been the message from the beginning, okay?
SPEAKER_00: This is where it all starts, this is where it all ends.
SPEAKER_00: This is the thing that never ever changes.
SPEAKER_00: And it is one of the hardest things that you will ever do is to actually love people because we love people and we look at people and we love them on the basis of what they deserve, not what they were created for.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know if they deserve this kind of affection.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if they deserve me to forgive them and love them.
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to say this has always been the message, and it's also, it sounds innocuous, like, okay, love one another.
SPEAKER_00: Really?
SPEAKER_00: You that's what you got.
SPEAKER_00: But see, here, you got to put it in deeper terms.
SPEAKER_00: Loving other people is evidence of your faith.
SPEAKER_00: This is what verse 14 says when he says this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, excuse me.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, he says, we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers.
SPEAKER_00: Hear that again.
SPEAKER_00: We know that we have passed out of death into life.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you say we have passed out of death, I want you to understand the natural state of humanity is spiritual death.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, Jesus didn't come to make bad people good.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't come to make mean people nice, he came to make dead people alive people.
SPEAKER_00: And the way he does that, he regenerates their cold, dead heart, but he puts this thing called life in them that we'll get to in just a minute.
SPEAKER_00: But I just want you to understand when the Bible says the natural state of humanity is spiritual death, an inability to do anything about your state and standing before God.
SPEAKER_00: However, when a person comes to faith, they pass from death, which is what you think it's just death, it's inability, it's absence of life.
SPEAKER_00: They pass from death into life.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you need to grasp what it's saying here.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of my favorite words in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: I've told you this before.
SPEAKER_00: I'll never tire of telling you this.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, probably the last time I preach to you, whatever that is, I'm gonna talk about this because there's two words in the Bible for life.
SPEAKER_00: There's bios, which is biological existence, and then secondly, there is Zoe, which refers to a supernatural way of doing life.
SPEAKER_00: It's the life of eternity.
SPEAKER_00: But here's what I want you to grasp what is being said here.
SPEAKER_00: Zoe, when he says you pass from death unto life, Zoe, this eternal life, this life of eternity, it is not about living forever.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about quantity.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the way it was always spun to me.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't become a Christian until after I graduated high school because the people that talked to me about Christianity, and there were some, they would say to me, like, oh, don't you want to live forever?
SPEAKER_00: And I had deep thoughts as a pot-smoking 16-year-old.
SPEAKER_00: And one of them was, no, no, I don't want to do this forever.
SPEAKER_00: If heaven is this life I'm living right now, forever, no, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: I'll take plan B.
SPEAKER_00: And you church people had no response to that.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I'm not trying to be edgy, I'm just like, follow me home, bro.
SPEAKER_00: Would you want to live this?
SPEAKER_00: No, I don't want to live this forever.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to live this tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: And so well-meaning, ignorant religious people would say, Hey, brother, don't you want to live forever?
SPEAKER_00: No, thank you very much, but I'll take a big fat zero.
SPEAKER_00: Living forever didn't interest me because it was just the way they spun it was it was this this life goes on uh for forever.
SPEAKER_00: What's the big word?
SPEAKER_00: Impertuity or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: I was just like, you really don't, that's not really good news to me, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So no, no, I don't want to do that.
SPEAKER_00: You see, there's a difference in living forever, which is what the church has always talked about.
SPEAKER_00: What the Bible talks about is forever living in you.
SPEAKER_00: Big difference in the two.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're here today and you're and you're like, I don't believe this kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just here because it's that time of year.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I checked the Jesus box.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I just want to say Christianity is not just your life going on forever, it is forever living inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: It's this word Zoe that I referred to earlier.
SPEAKER_00: I brought you a definition for it.
SPEAKER_00: I never get tired of reminding you of this.
SPEAKER_00: It's this it's like the Zoe life is absolute full sub life, both essential and ethical, life, real and genuine, a life active and vigorous, devoted to God, blessed in the portion, even in this world, of those who put their trust in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But after the resurrection, see, it doesn't just stop there.
SPEAKER_00: This is why 1 Corinthians 15 says, if only in this life we have hope in God, we're to be pitied above all men.
SPEAKER_00: But after the resurrection, it just gets better to be consummated by new and better experiences, including a more perfect body which will last forever.
SPEAKER_00: A more perfect body means a body that's incapable of getting cancer.
SPEAKER_00: A body that's incapable of breaking down and needing a knee replacement or a hip replacement or a shoulder replacement.
SPEAKER_00: So when I say love the message, what I say is to love the message, you have to understand the message.
SPEAKER_00: Because the message of Christianity is not this, oh, you get to just go on living this life you've always lived.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: It's not living forever, it's forever living inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: And this section ends in verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: He says, No murderer, because he talks about Cain and how Cain killed his brother, because his came, Cain's uh life was his deeds were evil, his brothers were righteous.
SPEAKER_00: He was jealous of him.
SPEAKER_00: And then he drops this bomb on us in verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.
SPEAKER_00: And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
SPEAKER_00: Hear that last part.
SPEAKER_00: And no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
SPEAKER_00: Again, it's not living forever, it's forever living inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is the quality of life that lives inside of you if you're a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Again, it's not quantity, but it's quality.
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't start when you get to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: That's another thing.
SPEAKER_00: People would say, hey, basically they use different words to say it's really hard in this life, Neil, but when you die, it's going to get really good.
SPEAKER_00: No one ever said to me, it could get really good today.
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom of God could come down and your life would forever, never be the same.
SPEAKER_00: I would have become a Christian in the second grade if I understood that.
SPEAKER_00: But all I got was religious determination and behavior modification with a cross on top.
SPEAKER_00: And I wanted no part of that.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you in this room right now may be thinking, that's what I've been told my whole life.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just gonna say, hey, listen, when you become to faith and you live out, you get to this, God puts his spirit inside of you, and his spirit brings this zoly life to bear.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about going to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: You begin to bring heaven to earth.
SPEAKER_00: And it is a totally different way to live.
SPEAKER_00: So when I say love the message, don't check out and roll your eyes and go, great, love the message.
SPEAKER_00: When you, if you understood the message, you wouldn't share your faith.
SPEAKER_00: Your faith would share you.
SPEAKER_00: You would find yourself getting in conversations.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, like I had lunch with my Jewish friend uh uh on Friday.
SPEAKER_00: Uh my Jewish, he's a very devout Jew, uh, a little disillusioned that I'm like, imagine that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and we're talking in a restaurant down in the hipster part of town where he works, like down like 59 and Buffalo Speedway, places I've never heard of.
SPEAKER_00: And we go on there.
SPEAKER_00: And so we get into a conversation, and in the booth right behind us, was a mom and her two kids, and they got up and moved because we were just talking out loud.
SPEAKER_00: And I just said questions like, Hey, it sounds like you have a religious tradition, but not a relationship.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think she liked hearing that.
SPEAKER_00: She wanted to protect her kids from that, and I wanted, I I didn't, but I wanted to walk over and say, You can't hide from this, okay?
SPEAKER_00: You should tell your kids the truth.
SPEAKER_00: But I didn't.
SPEAKER_00: But see, I love the message.
SPEAKER_00: And when people don't understand the message, I find words just kind of coming up out of me for them, not in condemnation, but instead in invitation.
SPEAKER_00: So, so what love makes us love?
SPEAKER_00: Love makes us, first of all, love the message.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, it makes us love the opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: That's verses 16 to 22.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what it says, by this we know love that he laid down his life for us.
SPEAKER_00: We ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
SPEAKER_00: But if anyone has the world's good and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him.
SPEAKER_00: How does God's love abide in him?
SPEAKER_00: Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth.
SPEAKER_00: See, when you love the opportunity, three things happen.
SPEAKER_00: You think differently, you see differently, and you love differently.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say it again.
SPEAKER_00: You think differently, you see differently.
SPEAKER_00: Most people in American Christianity, they don't see, they look.
SPEAKER_00: We'll get to that in just a minute.
SPEAKER_00: But when you think differently, you see differently, and you love differently.
SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself, have I loved people the same way my entire life?
SPEAKER_00: Or since you came to faith, has anything changed in the way you love people?
SPEAKER_00: Because my growing concern is most of us love in word and talk, but not in deed in truth.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I love you, bro, praying for you.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's not gonna get my truck fixed, but thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you say, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: When you love the opportunity, three things happen.
SPEAKER_00: You think differently.
SPEAKER_00: We'll just take that one, verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean you you think differently?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the opportunity that I'm referring to is not that God laid down his life, not you thanking God for laying down his life for you, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is full of people who have shrunk their responsibility down to this simple thing.
SPEAKER_00: I come to a certain building on Sunday, I sing songs where I tell God, thank you, I'm sorry, and please forget, please forgive me.
SPEAKER_00: All the things I said last Sunday, thank you, thank you, please forgive me, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00: And and this is all it comes down to.
SPEAKER_00: But I just want to say the opportunity is not thanking God, okay, for laying down his life.
SPEAKER_00: The opportunity that scripture talks about and points to is you and I laying down our lives for others.
SPEAKER_00: This is why Jesus lays down his life for you and me.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when he when the Bible says of him, he lays down his life, that means he actually dies to himself.
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh, and we'll get to that in a minute.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus lays down his life not to be appreciated, but to be imitated.
SPEAKER_00: He basically says, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: In the garden, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.
SPEAKER_00: There's honesty, but nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when it comes to Jesus laying down his life, that means he dies on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: You and I lay down our life.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you don't have to die for someone.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, to God that it were that easy.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say it again.
SPEAKER_00: When the Bible says to you and I, hey, you got to lay down your life, that doesn't mean, oh, you just you just sacrifice yourself for your wife.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, oh, again, oh to God that it were that easy.
SPEAKER_00: No, laying down your life, okay, is saying no to yourself in order to say yes to someone who you would like to lay their life down.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Stop looking at your spouse.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that it was so easy.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna, I'm gonna martyr myself for you, honey.
SPEAKER_00: This is great.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: See, you you say no to your life in order to say yes to someone uh who you'd like to just take their own life sometime.
SPEAKER_00: It's laying aside your life to prioritize someone else's.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Jesus does in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: So when Jesus says yes to the Father in the garden, he did that.
SPEAKER_00: Look at me.
SPEAKER_00: So you could say no to yourself today.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus says, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.
SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.
SPEAKER_00: I'm saying yes to your will, God.
SPEAKER_00: So you and I, as a Christian, you now have the capacity to lay your life aside in preference of somebody else's life.
SPEAKER_00: So ask yourself this question today: whose life do you prefer over yours?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: See, this is the way the Bible thinks about it.
SPEAKER_00: So when I say you love the opportunity, it means you think differently.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, you see differently.
SPEAKER_00: It's verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: Here's how you know you lay down your life.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, well, I don't know if I laid down my life.
SPEAKER_00: I would just say this: not until you lay down your life do you start to see things differently because you start to see people.
SPEAKER_00: You notice things you didn't notice before.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not talking, I'm talking about seeing, not just looking.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, don't waste your life walking through life just looking, but train your eyes to actually see.
SPEAKER_00: Because the word here in the Bible to see means to perceive with the eyes, to discern and ascertain, to find out by seeing.
SPEAKER_00: You kind of look at the world and it's like you're wearing 3D glasses.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody remember a 3D movie?
SPEAKER_00: Say amen.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: When you begin to see, when you lay your life down, when you say, I'm not gonna obsess with myself, I'm gonna set this over here, and I just want to see the world the way you see it.
SPEAKER_00: It's 2 Corinthians 5.
SPEAKER_00: He says, We we hey, we regard no one according to the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: We once regard Christ this way, but we do so no longer.
SPEAKER_00: As long as you regard people according to the flesh, you'll always give yourself an excuse.
SPEAKER_00: You'll always say things like, Well, if they did Dave Ramsey, they'd have money, they'd have an emergency fund.
SPEAKER_00: You're just giving yourself an excuse for being selfish.
SPEAKER_00: Merry Christmas! Thanks for coming today.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, someone said to me, Hey, when you preach during Advent, it's not typical Christmas sermons.
SPEAKER_00: And I just let it hang in the air.
SPEAKER_00: I said, like what?
SPEAKER_00: Sentiment?
SPEAKER_00: Like a Thomas Kincaid painting with ambient glowing light.
SPEAKER_00: Is that what we think about Christmas?
SPEAKER_00: Because that's not the way the Bible thinks about it at all.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Jesus is a great line in Johnny Cash's song, A Boy Named Sue.
SPEAKER_00: He talks about getting in a fight with his dad later in life, and he says, We were kicking in a galgeon in the mud and the blood and the beer.
SPEAKER_00: This is that's the native environment for the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And when you and I begin to see people, you think differently, you see differently.
SPEAKER_00: Here's ask yourself this question.
SPEAKER_00: When's the last time you had an experience that you couldn't explain?
SPEAKER_00: And the reason you don't have experiences is because you don't see the world around you the way it was created to be seen.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: See?
SPEAKER_00: No, looking is directing your eyes in a particular in a particular direction.
SPEAKER_00: Seeing means to notice, become aware of something by using your eyes.
SPEAKER_00: I'm on a phone conversation with a young pastor in Missouri on Friday, and we're just talking.
SPEAKER_00: I can't see him with my eyes.
SPEAKER_00: He's a long way away.
SPEAKER_00: And we're talking, but rising up in my spirit is this question.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes in conversations, I ask awkward questions.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be awkward, but it just comes out, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And so we're talking and he's droning on about his church, and he's got to deal with a situation and blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: And he's paused for a breath and I said, Hey, can I ask something off topic?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, How are you doing financially?
SPEAKER_00: And he came back with some answer, just like a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love him.
SPEAKER_00: If I was God, we'd hunt those rascals.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, not to kill them, just to like bag them in nets and hang them from trees.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, look, I got three.
SPEAKER_00: I bagged out, I met my limit.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then he said this.
SPEAKER_00: He said, You know, like the book of James says, I'm glorying in my low estate.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, That would be a great response if I asked you, tell me what you took away from the book of James, you preached through.
SPEAKER_00: I'm asking you, how are you?
SPEAKER_00: They've got four kids, the oldest is seven, the youngest is four months.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I was glorying, not in my low estate, but in my empty nest.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I said, I'm gonna ask you again, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want a Bible answer, I want the honest answer.
SPEAKER_00: How are you guys doing financially?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, we um we live paycheck to paycheck.
SPEAKER_00: That makes Jesus angry.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, this guy in my church lets me live in his house.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I live in a beautiful home surrounded by millionaires, I only pay a thousand dollars a month.
SPEAKER_00: All that means is when you're done, you don't have any equity.
SPEAKER_00: You're getting poorer every month.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden the conversation went from this issue in my church to hey, hey, how are you guys doing financially?
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Well, I oh I, you know, I'm just glorying in my oh, stop it.
SPEAKER_00: I I heard you the third time.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to know how you're seeing things, ask yourself this real simple question.
SPEAKER_00: When's the last time you had a really interesting conversation?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, not like you know, verbal badminton.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, how are you?
SPEAKER_00: Good, good, good.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, what are you doing for Christmas?
SPEAKER_00: Are you traveling?
SPEAKER_00: Are you staying home?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, look out there.
SPEAKER_00: It's like pickleball, we're getting crazy.
SPEAKER_00: What a really interesting conversation where you walked away and you were a little disheveled.
SPEAKER_00: You were just kind of like, ooh, I might need a marble red to recover from that.
SPEAKER_00: I had to think about some things I by nature don't think about and had to talk about some things that I didn't have a script for.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: See, when you love the opportunity, you see, you think differently, you see differently, and then here's the best part you love differently.
SPEAKER_00: It's verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: What does he say?
SPEAKER_00: It's right there in the Bible, okay?
SPEAKER_00: It's not me, it's the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: He said, But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother and sees, actually sees, doesn't just look at, but sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him.
SPEAKER_00: How does God's love abide in him?
SPEAKER_00: And then little children, here's the love part.
SPEAKER_00: Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and truth.
SPEAKER_00: My concern is about 98% of the Christians in America love in word and talk, but not in deed and truth.
SPEAKER_00: And see, this is why you don't want to be friends with me, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you right now, and I tell the second service, you should tell your wife on the way home do not give that man my phone number ever, okay?
SPEAKER_00: We want him to be our Pastor, we do not want to be friends.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why.
SPEAKER_00: Because every once in a while, when I see stuff, I'm I stopped looking a long time ago and I started seeing and I started living a more interesting life.
SPEAKER_00: Like Friday morning, or excuse me, Thursday morning, my wife and I and our youngest are going to go tour grad school.
SPEAKER_00: She's curious about.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're getting ready.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, let me check my email.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be out all day today.
SPEAKER_00: Check my email, bam.
SPEAKER_00: Got an email from a lady in our city that said, Hey, do you know anybody that's getting rid of a washer and dryer because our dryer quit working last night and our washer hasn't worked in a while?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm washing our clothes in the bathtub.
SPEAKER_00: And I got angry because I hate injustice.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I want to hid something.
SPEAKER_00: I refuse to live in a world where a woman has to, a mom has to wash her clothes in the bathtub.
SPEAKER_00: And so she said, You know anybody that's upgrading their washer and dryer and getting rid of a getting rid of a washer and dryer?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I do.
SPEAKER_00: Their names are the Home Depot.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is why you don't want to be friends with me.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you're friends with me and I've been to your house and I think you might have a little left over in a bank account, I'm gonna call you and say this.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, can I lay something at your gate?
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, What do you mean, lay something at your gate?
SPEAKER_00: It's Luke 16, the story of the rich man of Lazarus that says that this guy was like the good the rich man lived dressed in purple and fine linen every day, and at his gate was laid uh this beggar longing to eat the crumb that fell from the rich man's table.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, by the way, in the world's economy, we are the rich man.
SPEAKER_00: So don't opt out like, oh, I'm not a millionaire.
SPEAKER_00: Stop.
SPEAKER_00: Just stop.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just said, hey, let me reach out to you.
SPEAKER_00: I made some phone calls.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, can I lay something at your gate?
SPEAKER_00: We got some people that need a washer and a dryer, and not a hand-me-down, but a new one.
SPEAKER_00: Can I lay this at your gate and you tell me how much you want to give to this?
SPEAKER_00: That's why you don't want to be friends with me.
SPEAKER_00: That's why you don't want me to come to your house, look around, and kind of go, man, all right, I think this person could help me the next time I see something.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, it's gonna be delivered tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Merry Christmas! Oh, yeah, you clap now.
SPEAKER_00: Invite me over for dinner, I'll be checking you out.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, one guy one time in tears, he said, I can give$20.
SPEAKER_00: That's all I can give.
SPEAKER_00: I said, That's okay.
SPEAKER_00: I know somebody that can give the rest of the$2,000 that we need to meet this need.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you know what some of you are thinking right now?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let me see if I can get Pastor Neils.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna call him this afternoon.
SPEAKER_00: Here's your problem, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what a spirit of poverty, you want, you want to figure out how to get things given to you.
SPEAKER_00: But when you see, when you understand, you want to be the person that's given.
SPEAKER_00: You break that spirit of poverty off of you.
SPEAKER_00: My mom used to wash our clothes in the bathtub.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I got so angry.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh my gosh, you gotta hang them up and it takes a week for them to dry.
SPEAKER_00: See, when you love the opportunity, three things happen.
SPEAKER_00: You think differently, you see differently, you love differently, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I love what Nate Saint said.
SPEAKER_00: Most people don't know who Nate Saint is.
SPEAKER_00: But if I said the word, if you know who Nate and Saint is, say amen.
SPEAKER_00: If you know who Jim Elliott is, say amen.
SPEAKER_00: Jim Elliott was the famous missionary, said he is no fool to give up what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.
SPEAKER_00: He and some other missionaries were martyred by the Aki Indians.
SPEAKER_00: So an unreached people group, they reached out to say, hey, we want you to hear the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And if it costs us our lives, we're okay with that.
SPEAKER_00: Nate Saint, shortly before they were martyred, wrote in his journal these words I would rather die right now than live a life of oblivious ease than so sick a world.
SPEAKER_00: I would rather die right now than live a life of oblivious ease than so sick a world.
SPEAKER_00: You see, when you start to see the world around you and you love, not when word or you just talk, but in deed and in truth, it messes you up and say, here's the byproduct.
SPEAKER_00: Don't miss this.
SPEAKER_00: It's verses 19 to 22.
SPEAKER_00: The byproduct is this deep and abiding assurance of your salvation because the way you live contributes to your sense of certainty about your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself today: does the way I live make me feel certain about my salvation, or does the way I live make me doubt my salvation?
SPEAKER_00: Because this deep abiding assurance comes.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the Bible says, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So when I'll just read it.
SPEAKER_00: It says, hey, by this, verse 19, by this we shall know that we are of the truth.
SPEAKER_00: How are you gonna know that you're of the truth?
SPEAKER_00: Because you're actually loving, okay, in deed and in truth.
SPEAKER_00: You're not just talking, you're not just, well, I mean, don't they know we offer Dave Ramsey class here on midweeks?
SPEAKER_00: Gosh, are you are you serious?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not mad at you, I'm just saying you don't see, you look at the world, you don't see the world.
SPEAKER_00: By this we shall know that we are the truth and reassure our heart before him, for whenever our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our heart and he knows everything.
SPEAKER_00: Hello.
SPEAKER_00: He knows everything.
SPEAKER_00: Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and whatever we ask, we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
SPEAKER_00: What are you saying?
SPEAKER_00: I'm saying this that your heart will condemn you sometimes, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And and you have to push back against that.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean your heart will condemn you?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we'll be in the worship and you'll start feeling good and you'll raise your hands and your heart will say, What are you doing raising your hands?
SPEAKER_00: If these people knew how much wine you drank last night, they wouldn't want to hear you sing.
SPEAKER_00: Put your hands down.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are like, wait a minute, you were in my house.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Your heart will be like, hey, hey, what do you what are you doing acting like you're carrying a TV?
SPEAKER_00: Stop, okay?
SPEAKER_00: No one needs you.
SPEAKER_00: I know what you did in college.
SPEAKER_00: Are you serious?
SPEAKER_00: No, no, put the TV down.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's your heart.
SPEAKER_00: You know your heart's gonna condemn you, right?
SPEAKER_00: But here's what you got to push back with God is greater than your heart, and He knows everything.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta say to your heart when He condemns you, hey, you only know the things I've taken the time to feel.
SPEAKER_00: God knows everything, and God is greater than my heart.
SPEAKER_00: This is where this assurance comes from.
SPEAKER_00: Third thing that uh that we should love is we should love the simplicity of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It's verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: He says, This, and this is his commandment.
SPEAKER_00: We believe in the name of the Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.
SPEAKER_00: Hear it again, and this is his commandment.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a it's not an offer or an option, it's a commandment.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: What is the commandment?
SPEAKER_00: That we believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Whoever keeps his commands abides in God and God in him, and by this we know he abides in us and by his spirit, whom he has given us.
SPEAKER_00: To believe is not mental assent to a body of facts or random pieces of information.
SPEAKER_00: No, to believe means it refers to a conviction that produces an acknowledgement, an agreement, and surrender.
SPEAKER_00: To believe, okay, it's a sense of conviction that produces acknowledgement.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean, acknowledgement?
SPEAKER_00: Acknowledgement is that, hey, I got this shared knowledge about God myself and the world.
SPEAKER_00: It's acknowledging, I'm acknowledging, yes.
SPEAKER_00: Agreement, agreement.
SPEAKER_00: See, when I first came to faith, what I first understood was I was a sinner and I deserved to go to hell.
SPEAKER_00: But when I understood the gospel wasn't just living this life forever, uh, okay, that it was forever living inside of me, it was like, man, this is why sin doesn't interest me anymore.
SPEAKER_00: This this life, this Zoe life that's inside of me, pulsing to get out.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I was created for, okay?
SPEAKER_00: This is what, but I I remember this 1983, okay?
SPEAKER_00: If you were not alive in 1983, say amen.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you little punky kids, I want to talk to you for a second.
SPEAKER_00: I I I worked in a camp where I was converted the summer before.
SPEAKER_00: I went back to the camp and I'd been a Christian a year, and it was okay.
SPEAKER_00: There were some ups and some downs, my first year of Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: And I looked around, I thought these people have it all together, and especially when we would worship, because I went to the first Baptist church of small town, East Texas, and we sang hymns, and that was it.
SPEAKER_00: And they would sing these choruses, and one of them we would sing, and this guy on staff would just cry.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, bro, what are you crying for?
SPEAKER_00: Come on, man.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but this the song was simple, and we would begin or end our worship set with it almost every night when we'd worship.
SPEAKER_00: And it just said this.
SPEAKER_00: I remember wrote it in the back of my Bible because I wanted to remember it.
SPEAKER_00: It said, Yes, Lord, yes, to your will and to your way.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Lord, yes, I will trust you and obey.
SPEAKER_00: When your spirit speaks to me, with my whole heart, I'll agree.
SPEAKER_00: And my answer will be, yes, Lord, yes.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember looking around for the first time in my life.
SPEAKER_00: I've been a Christian about 13 months.
SPEAKER_00: I was surrounded by people who smiled when they said yes to God.
SPEAKER_00: And it messed me up.
SPEAKER_00: Because I will, up to that point, I was saying yes, like, yeah, okay, sure.
SPEAKER_00: If you insist, I know that's in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And these people were holding the hands out and just singing, yes, Lord, yes, to your will and to your way.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Lord, yes, I will trust you and obey.
SPEAKER_00: When your spirit speaks to me, I remember thinking, wait, he talks?
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: Well, hello, hello.
SPEAKER_00: With my whole heart, I'll agree.
SPEAKER_00: One guy worked on Sabbath with his name with Dietrich, he would get down on his knees.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, You must be charismatic.
SPEAKER_00: We don't do that at the First Baptist Church of Hootenholler.
SPEAKER_00: You have to go see the deacons, you try that again, young man.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing: my concept of agreement was much deeper after that summer.
SPEAKER_00: So, again, to believe, it refers to a conviction that produces acknowledgement, agreement, and surrender.
SPEAKER_00: Surrender, see, in the therapeutic gospel, Jesus comes to fill the void in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: However, in the biblical gospel, he comes to establish lordship over your life.
SPEAKER_00: And here's my concern for some of you.
SPEAKER_00: You're so critical of things you should submit to that eventually you create a world there's nothing to submit to.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say it again.
SPEAKER_00: You're so critical.
SPEAKER_00: And pick your basis, intellectually, emotionally, just situationally.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like that.
SPEAKER_00: You're so critical of things that you should be submitting to that you create a world where there's nothing to submit to.
SPEAKER_00: And look at me, and I'm done.
SPEAKER_00: In a world where there's nothing to submit to, there is no lordship.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: And so there is no Lord except the person you see in the mirror.
SPEAKER_00: And you have to ask yourself, do you really want to live in this world?
SPEAKER_00: This section of scripture ends with it reminded us of verse 24, hey, keeping the commandments is not trying to live up to this external set of rules and regulations.
SPEAKER_00: It's surrendering to this eternal reality.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read verse 24 and I'll be done.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God and God in him.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: That's the only way you can keep them.
SPEAKER_00: And by this we know that he abides in us by the Spirit whom he has given us.
SPEAKER_00: See, when you become a Christian, the Holy Spirit, God by Spirit comes to live inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not just life, forgiveness forever, and this life forever.
SPEAKER_00: It is a totally different quality of life.
SPEAKER_00: And this life is governed by these realities.
SPEAKER_00: You say, what realities?
SPEAKER_00: Where you think differently, you see differently, and you love differently.
SPEAKER_00: And as a result of those three things, look at me.
SPEAKER_00: You have this deep and abiding assurance of your salvation and an enjoyment of your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody's asking this question, I'm done.
SPEAKER_00: Do you enjoy?
SPEAKER_00: I say by salvation, that's a big church word.
SPEAKER_00: I mean your relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: Do you enjoy your relationship with God?
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a guest, just relax.
SPEAKER_00: We like to teach the Bible, then we give you some space to think about it.
SPEAKER_00: Some questions come up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: This is for your contemplation and consideration.
SPEAKER_00: But again, today is just about hey, Jesus didn't come just to say, hey, God loves you.
SPEAKER_00: He came to change you love the way you love what you love.
SPEAKER_00: He came to change what you love and the way you love it.
SPEAKER_00: And today the Bible asks us to love the message of Christianity, to love the opportunity, to love the opportunity, and to love the simplicity of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Let's think about these things for just a moment.
SPEAKER_00: So much easier back then to say yes when I didn't have anything.
SPEAKER_00: But Lord, we start getting stuff, and then you get a no because we love our stuff.
SPEAKER_00: We love to look down on people because we don't see them.
SPEAKER_00: We look down on them and we think about all the decisions they should have made.
SPEAKER_00: God, we want to just get back to the simplicity of just, hey, here's my yes.
SPEAKER_00: My life is a blank check laid down before you.
SPEAKER_00: I signed it, you fill it in.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you say, yes, absolutely yes.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for people that sang that song back in the 80s around me and just made me go, what?
SPEAKER_00: I get it now, and my life is better and richer and fuller because I got around people who they they'd said yes to you, and their life was a perpetual yes.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, we want to love yes more than we love no.
SPEAKER_00: This is our prayer, make it our experience.
SPEAKER_00: We pray in Jesus' name, and everyone says amen.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a guest today, let me say thanks for being here.
SPEAKER_00: You're always welcome.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we uh we don't try to be harsh or negative.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we just don't think Jesus died for us to be sentimental.
SPEAKER_00: This is the time of year for you to really understand the essence of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It's not living forever, it's forever living in you.
SPEAKER_00: And forever in you changes the way you see the world around you, and it changes the way you love and the way you think.
SPEAKER_00: That's all today was about.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, if you're our guest and and we'd love to have a record of your presence here today, just if you would just text welcome to that number on the screen behind me.
SPEAKER_00: That's all we ask of you.
SPEAKER_00: We want to help you take your next step spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I got an email from a lady that watches us online this week, lives here in our city.
SPEAKER_00: She says, I can't come, but I watch you and it really helps me.
SPEAKER_00: It answers a lot of questions.
SPEAKER_00: I may have more questions in the future.
SPEAKER_00: I said that that'd be great.
SPEAKER_00: Send them along, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Uh we just think everyone was created by God uh for a relationship with God, and we want you to understand what that looks like.
SPEAKER_00: Not religion.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't come to make more religious people.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, we don't need more religious people.
SPEAKER_00: That's terrible.
SPEAKER_00: We need people to have a relationship with Jesus and they think differently and they and they see differently and they love differently.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's when it gets good.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we'd like to conclude our service.
SPEAKER_00: Now, by the way, before I dismiss you, I want you to just look around.
SPEAKER_00: Just look around.
SPEAKER_00: Don't look at me, look around.
SPEAKER_00: Look at somebody, and I want you to love on that person before you walk out the doors today.
SPEAKER_00: Stop being so efficient and be available.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Your efficiency is an offense to the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I said that.
SPEAKER_00: Be late to lunch or late to Bible study.
SPEAKER_00: You got plenty of time.
SPEAKER_00: Look, I'm letting you out early.
SPEAKER_00: Hush.
SPEAKER_00: And just hey, don't hear a sermon about loving people and seeing people, not seeing the people around you.
SPEAKER_00: That's all I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00: Now stand up before I yell at you.
SPEAKER_00: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_00: He saw you.
SPEAKER_00: He saw what you were really like, and you had everybody in your life conned, and he saw right through it.
SPEAKER_00: And he loved you anyway.
SPEAKER_00: He laid down his life.
SPEAKER_00: So you now have the capacity to lay your life aside and to say yes to other people and no to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Depart now and live out this reality.
SPEAKER_00: In a culture full of people who do not understand it.
SPEAKER_00: And yet they were created for it.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Bless you.