SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we've come to bask in that fact, not just to say it or sing about it, but to marinate in it, to think biblically about what it means for us.
SPEAKER_01: We say hallelujah for the cross, but also we say hallelujah for everything the cross made made possible and available and real to us.
SPEAKER_01: And so Holy Spirit, brood over us today.
SPEAKER_01: We've come today to the table to remind and reorient ourselves around all that you say and all that you are and what it means for us in our living and in our dying, in our getting up, our rising up and our lying down, our going out and our coming in.
SPEAKER_01: Everything we do, whether we're riding motorcycles in North Dakota or we're going to a job we hate tomorrow, you're a God that says, I'm over all of this, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I got this.
SPEAKER_01: And so because of that, Lord, we just sit down the inside today.
SPEAKER_01: Speak to us now from your word and prepare us for the table in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You can have a seat.
SPEAKER_01: If you've got a Bible, I want to invite you to take it and open up to Romans chapter 8.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to give you just a brief meditation on the love of God.
SPEAKER_01: A brief meditation on the love of God.
SPEAKER_01: And it's a hard thing to do because we live in a probably the love of God is the most common thing in the church that gets talked about the most and understood the least.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to talk about it in a way that helps us to understand it.
SPEAKER_01: Because in just a moment, as you can see, our set our sanctuary is set up to where we're going to observe communion today.
SPEAKER_01: And so let me just say this while you're fine in Romans chapter 8.
SPEAKER_01: We practice open communion here at Grand Parkway, which means if you're a Christian, you have a relationship with Christ, you're welcome to come and receive communion with us today.
SPEAKER_01: We'll give you some instructions as to how we do that.
SPEAKER_01: We don't hurry for us, it's the whole service.
SPEAKER_01: And so uh in just a minute, I'll I'll read and have just a few words to say, and then I'll say, hey, let's think about this.
SPEAKER_01: Let's kind of meditate on this and prepare ourselves to remember the body and the blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, the Bible says, as often as you do this, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
SPEAKER_01: And so we're going to make a proclamation by our coming here in just a moment.
SPEAKER_01: But for now, let's let these words from Romans chapter 8 shape how we think about what we're about to do.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shouldn't perish, but have everlasting life.
SPEAKER_01: And we we hear that the the love of God kind of in that context so much, it's almost like the pre-flight instructions on a plane.
SPEAKER_01: White lights lead to red lights, red lights indicate an exit, and you're, yeah, yeah, yeah, just fly the plane and shut up.
SPEAKER_01: And so every once in a while the Bible has to kind of stab our conscience to awaken us to what it means to be loved by God.
SPEAKER_01: Paul does this in Romans chapter 8, verse 31, when he says, What then shall we say to these things?
SPEAKER_01: If God is for us, who can be against us?
SPEAKER_01: He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how we not also with him graciously give us all things?
SPEAKER_01: Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?
SPEAKER_01: It is God who justifies.
SPEAKER_01: Who is to condemn?
SPEAKER_01: Christ Jesus is the one who died, more than that who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, and who and is indeed is interceding for us.
SPEAKER_01: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
SPEAKER_01: Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword, as it is written, For your sake we are being killed all the day long.
SPEAKER_01: We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
SPEAKER_01: Knowing all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
SPEAKER_01: For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Now Paul asks a couple of questions when he kind of says, Hey, what's gonna separate us from the love of Christ?
SPEAKER_01: And in verse 35, he says, What shall separate us from the love of Christ?
SPEAKER_01: Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
SPEAKER_01: Um we don't relate to those a lot.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, as we sit here this morning in our building, we have some people from our church that are out uh doing flood relief right now.
SPEAKER_01: We have people that are out taking care of widows who's had some damage to their home.
SPEAKER_01: We have people who are ripping carpet out of homes that were flooded and hauling it outside and getting the recovery process going.
SPEAKER_01: But we don't relate really much to things like tribulation and distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, or danger or sword like they did in biblical times.
SPEAKER_01: He says famine or nakedness.
SPEAKER_01: That was like famine, in other words, they were starving to death and they didn't have any clothes to wear.
SPEAKER_01: Our nakedness that we struggle with is not that we don't have clothes to wear, but we knowingly take our clothes off and we engage in sinful behavior sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: Did you feel what just happened?
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are like, I'm glad the lights are down.
SPEAKER_01: I bring that up because I'm your pastor, not because I like to say awkward things, but because some of you in this room, sometimes when you engage in those kinds of behaviors, you walk away.
SPEAKER_01: When you put your clothes back on, you walk away and you think, Man, there's no way God could love me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm here to tell you today that he never stopped loving you.
SPEAKER_01: So when the Bible says, What shall separate us from the love of Christ?
SPEAKER_01: That's not one of the things that can do it.
SPEAKER_01: He goes on in verse 37 and says, Knowing all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us, for I am sure that neither death nor life.
SPEAKER_01: Now stop right there and think about that.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says death nor life.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you have experienced death in your family recently.
SPEAKER_01: And some people get mad and they think, I just can't believe in a God that will let my grandmother die or let my dad die like this.
SPEAKER_01: Not that they died, sometimes it's the manner in which they died that you take offense to.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's death that separates you, and sometimes it's just life that separates you from the love of God.
SPEAKER_01: You just think, how in the world?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, being out of school is a great thing.
SPEAKER_01: About a month from now, you're gonna just be looking at your kids, kind of going, When can August get here?
SPEAKER_01: Life has a capacity to separate us from the love of God.
SPEAKER_01: In our mind, it doesn't happen realistically.
SPEAKER_01: God doesn't stop loving us just because we think, man, my kids are on my last nerve.
SPEAKER_01: My kids have been out of school three days, and that thought's gone through our home.
SPEAKER_01: He says, No, I'm I I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come.
SPEAKER_01: There's another juxtaposition we need to think about, nor things present.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you, it's what you got going on right now that's really taxing, that's really affecting the way you relate to God.
SPEAKER_01: Some of it, it's things to come.
SPEAKER_01: It's things to come, it's your fear of the future.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says, Hey, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And so, what I want to say to you in this brief meditation on the love of God is that you and I have to learn to live as people who are loved by God regardless of our behavior.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not making light of your behavior.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not winking at sin.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying that sometimes we convince ourselves that there's no way God could love us.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm saying that God's never stopped loving you.
SPEAKER_01: There's nobody or no thing.
SPEAKER_01: One thing you'll recognize about this passage is it starts off talking who shall separate us.
SPEAKER_01: And then as it progresses, it gets into what shall separate us.
SPEAKER_01: So what God is saying is no person or thing has the capacity to separate me from the way I feel about you.
SPEAKER_01: Which is why the Bible gives us some clear direction in 1 Corinthians chapter 11.
SPEAKER_01: Paul he writes words like this: he says, For what I've I pass on to you what I received from the Lord on the night Jesus was betrayed.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what Jesus did took place in the context of betrayal.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you in this room have tasted betrayal.
SPEAKER_01: People betrayed you.
SPEAKER_01: People have done things they shouldn't have done, they've said things they shouldn't have said.
SPEAKER_01: And Christ relates to that.
SPEAKER_01: But the Bible says that he took bread and he broke it and said, This is my body which is given for you.
SPEAKER_01: Take and eat, and then he took the cup.
SPEAKER_01: After that, he said, This cup is a new covenant, my blood.
SPEAKER_01: Drink, take and drink this.
SPEAKER_01: And as often as you do this, you know, do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, Hey, as often as you do it, you proclaim the Lord's death.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what I'm getting at this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, in just a minute, I'm gonna pray a prayer, and then Clyde and Lynn's are gonna come back, and they'll just kind of sing a song or reflection over us, and we'll do what the Bible says, because the Bible says to examine yourself, and it says to judge yourself, not in a negative way, like you stink, you need to do better, but just think rightly about yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Tell yourself the truth as you prepare to come to this.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because the Bible says if you don't, you'll you'll come to this in an unworthy manner.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, you'll sleepwalk through it.
SPEAKER_01: You'll sit in your seat and kind of go, Oh man, there's no preaching today.
SPEAKER_01: I came to hear a sermon.
SPEAKER_01: I brought friends and we're doing this.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because we like to have communion early in the summer because it things can get off the reservation and we can just kind of drift in the summer and kind of act like, hey, you know, it's summer.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, relax.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to say to you, regardless of anything you've done or you will do this summer, nothing or nobody has the capacity to separate you from the love of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so, in just a minute, I'm gonna pray a prayer and then we'll just kind of spend some time thinking and preparing to come to the table, fully aware of the body and the blood of Jesus, that I'm by nature, as your pastor, am so sinful I couldn't get to heaven on my own good works.
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't, because if I could get to heaven by being a good person, Jesus died in vain.
SPEAKER_01: So I will receive communion together with some other believers this morning, because apart from the death of Jesus, I have no hope of forgiveness or eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: So I am by nature that sinful.
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, I'm so loved by God that he was glad to die for me.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, No one takes my life from me.
SPEAKER_01: I willingly lay down my life for my friends.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm saying to you today, if you're if you if you're a Christian, you have a relationship with Christ, you're not only loved by God, but God no longer considers you as enemy, but his friend.
SPEAKER_01: And so, in all of your examination and you're kind of telling yourself the truth today, you you you have to get your head around that.
SPEAKER_01: And so, in just a minute, after we have a time of examination and just kind of preparing ourselves, we'll just continue to worship.
SPEAKER_01: And you'll just kind of get up as you feel led, and you'll come to one of these stations.
SPEAKER_01: There's three in the front, there's two in the back.
SPEAKER_01: And let me say this if you come, what you're coming, what you're proclaiming is is Jesus' death.
SPEAKER_01: You're saying it was necessary for Jesus to die for me, but it was also enough that Jesus died for me.
SPEAKER_01: And so let's just take a moment, let me voice a prayer, and let's just spend a moment and kind of getting our head and our heart, our heart calibrated to what's about to happen.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: God, it is a humbling thing when we think about the love of God and all the who's and what's that try to separate us from that.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes we try to separate ourselves by our sinful behavior.
SPEAKER_01: And so things like nakedness and the present and the future or the past, it kind of gets in the way and kind of clouds the way we think about ourselves and you.
SPEAKER_01: But over all of that, in a voice louder than all the voices of self-hatred in our head, you come just kind of announcing, I love you.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing's gonna separate you from the love of God that is yours in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Because in Christ Jesus, in his death, burial, and resurrection, we see and savor.
SPEAKER_01: We taste and we see that we are a loved and forgiven people.
SPEAKER_01: And so we come to the table to proclaim your death, to say, Yes, I'm a person that Jesus had to die.
SPEAKER_01: Why did Jesus have to die?
SPEAKER_01: Because of me, because I can't keep the rules, I can't keep the law.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Holy Spirit, lead us into the fullness of the understanding what it means to be loved by God.
SPEAKER_01: In keeping with Scripture now, Lord, we want to just be still and kind of get ourselves calibrated.
SPEAKER_01: We want to examine ourselves, not to find new reasons to hate ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: We want to examine ourselves and to speak the truth to ourselves so that anything that anybody says to us about us that's true doesn't take us off guard.
SPEAKER_01: We've been calibrated by the truth of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so we say, speak, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Your servants are listening.
SPEAKER_01: So just take a moment before we're dismissed here, and just kind of get your arms around what the Lord has said to you.
SPEAKER_01: You are a loved people.
SPEAKER_01: He is unchanging.
SPEAKER_01: And his pleasure towards you, and his love for you is unconditional.
SPEAKER_01: Unconscious and unconditional.
SPEAKER_01: The Apostle Paul explained his behavior by saying things like, the love of God compels us.
SPEAKER_01: Because we're convinced that Christ died for all and therefore all died.
SPEAKER_01: And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves.
SPEAKER_01: To be loved by God is to be emancipated, set free from just this infatuation with yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Which for some of us works itself out in real practical ways.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to check your Facebook status eight times a day.
SPEAKER_01: And wonder how people are thinking or feeling and what they feel about something you post.
SPEAKER_01: I'm loved by God.
SPEAKER_01: That's enough.
SPEAKER_01: There's a verse in the Bible that says of this Jesus and his disciples that they were gathered together one time, and then it says they ended it, and it says they sang a hymn and departed into the night.
SPEAKER_01: I'd like us to do that here this morning.
SPEAKER_01: We'll sing a hymn or a chorus or whatever, stirring and Clyde, and then I'll speak a blessing over you, and you'll be dismissed.
SPEAKER_01: Before you flee out of here, I want you to look around.
SPEAKER_01: The lights will come up slowly.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to look around and just encourage the people around you.
SPEAKER_01: Chat with some folks.
SPEAKER_01: Don't run to your truck like your hair's on fire.
SPEAKER_01: This is a very communal.
SPEAKER_01: Communion is a communal and a community event.
SPEAKER_01: So just take some time to kind of go, hey, we go to church together.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know your name.
SPEAKER_01: Or see people that you know and go, hey man, just catch up.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: Let's let's make this confession together.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so little.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, Jesus loves me.