SPEAKER_00: This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church, please visit grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: Open your Bibles if you would to John chapter 15.
SPEAKER_00: And now we're going to begin a three-part series this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Every January we try to revisit our core values as a church.
SPEAKER_00: And this morning, uh we'll begin just talking about we have basically three core values.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like getting in your car and hit if you have GPS and you say, This is where I'm going, this is where I am, you punch in the address, and then it kind of maps out the route.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things, core values for our church, are the things that kind of keep us on track.
SPEAKER_00: It's why we do what we do.
SPEAKER_00: They're very simple.
SPEAKER_00: They're intimacy with God, community with others, and ministry that matters.
SPEAKER_00: And so this morning, I want to talk to you about intimacy with God, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And what that means and what it looks like.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk to you from the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: John chapter 15.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Bible, there's one on your row there.
SPEAKER_00: I'm on page 901.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Jesus says in John chapter 15.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser.
SPEAKER_00: Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit, he takes away.
SPEAKER_00: And every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, that it may be more that it may bear more fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Already you are clean, because the word that I have spoken to you abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine.
SPEAKER_00: Neither can you, unless you abide in me, I am the vine, and you are the branches.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered and thrown into the fire and burned.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7, Jesus says, If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
SPEAKER_00: By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.
SPEAKER_00: As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.
SPEAKER_00: Abide in my love.
SPEAKER_00: If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love.
SPEAKER_00: These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to have when we say intimacy with God?
SPEAKER_00: Last night I got him from Little Rock.
SPEAKER_00: I was speaking there this weekend, ever since Thursday, and my our oldest daughter, who's 14, said, Dad, what are you preaching on this morning?
SPEAKER_00: I said, intimacy.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, What?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, one of our core values is intimacy with God.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, you might want to clear up what you mean by that when you say the word intimacy.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, actually, John 15 does that.
SPEAKER_00: And so basically, there's four things that Jesus talks about.
SPEAKER_00: If you notice when you read the Bible, look and listen for things that are repeated.
SPEAKER_00: And about seven times in seven verses, Jesus says, abide, abide, abide, abide.
SPEAKER_00: And then later on, because like the first eight verses, he makes one point.
SPEAKER_00: The first eight verses of John 15, Jesus is talking about one thing.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And then like in verse 9, 10, and 11, he talks about the three other things.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to just kind of unpack and just kind of peel back the layers of John 15 and paint a picture in your mind of what it means to be when we say intimacy with God, the Bible teaches that we are created by God for a relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: Intimacy with God is basically it's the fruit of a priority relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: And the first word I want to give you to think about and maybe to write down is just the word proximity.
SPEAKER_00: Proximity.
SPEAKER_00: Seven times Jesus says, abide, stay close, remain, keep close.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, it's been that way from the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: If you think back to the Garden of Eden, remember when Adam and Eve sinned and God came, the first question he asked them was, What?
SPEAKER_00: Where are you?
SPEAKER_00: You are not where you were created to be.
SPEAKER_00: That's with me.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that they heard the sound of the Lord of God coming in the cool of the evening.
SPEAKER_00: Coming, and he was coming to spend time with them.
SPEAKER_00: And he looks around and they're not, and he says, Where are you?
SPEAKER_00: Now don't just hear the question, but understand the basis for which he's asking it.
SPEAKER_00: When God says the thing, God, sovereign king, knows everything.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says the hair on your heads are numbered and your days are numbered out.
SPEAKER_00: He knows everything.
SPEAKER_00: So why does God ask, Where are you?
SPEAKER_00: He's not asking for information.
SPEAKER_00: He's asking in the context of relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Where are you in relation to me?
SPEAKER_00: And so one of the things I want to encourage you, I'll give you the application right off the start this morning.
SPEAKER_00: This next week, every day, I want you just to kind of stop during the day and check yourself and ask yourself, where am I in relation to God?
SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of things happen.
SPEAKER_00: If you and I could just stay close to Jesus, if you could just live in close proximity to him.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, abide, abide, abide.
SPEAKER_00: Not really a word that we're familiar with.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have a lot of definition or texture or frame of reference, but you just think proximity.
SPEAKER_00: I want to stay close to him.
SPEAKER_00: Like in high school, I played tennis when I was in high school, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Not a very manly sport, uh, but I played football and basketball.
SPEAKER_00: I played tennis.
SPEAKER_00: I've had to put a beat down on a few people in this church in tennis, Wade Burgess.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, uh, and then they stop inviting you.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like, oh, well, we've got enough players now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, yeah, enough B team.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, uh, but I played doubles in tennis, and the thing in doubles is you want to move synchronize with your partner.
SPEAKER_00: If your partner gets drawn out wide, you just want to kind of slide over.
SPEAKER_00: You never cross your legs.
SPEAKER_00: You just kind of slide over to kind of compensate for where they went.
SPEAKER_00: To drive the point home one day, our coach took a rope and tied it around my waist, tied it around my partner's waist, and we had to play a match like that.
SPEAKER_00: You ever tie two teenagers together and then just see what happens?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I it was like whiplash because you're not used to moving when somebody else moves.
SPEAKER_00: Proximity means that you kind of move when that other person moves.
SPEAKER_00: When you sense God's doing something, when you're in a conversation, like this week I was in Little Rock, and they put me up downtown in the windem on the river on Market Street, and it's kind of artsy and very cool, and went to Bill Clinton's favorite place to eat, and I was like, no wonder that guy almost had a heart attack.
SPEAKER_00: Man, I mean they have a steak there.
SPEAKER_00: It's help by the pound.
SPEAKER_00: It's$16 a pound, and it's two to three pounds.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I I can't I can't do that.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll try.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, uh, you know, I just I don't want to miss an opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want y'all to feel bad about this.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but but but being down there and just talking to the maids of my hotel and the waiters and waitresses and the lady at the front desk, I was like, what do you do for a living?
SPEAKER_00: You're always so happy.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a neurosurgeon, I'm here for a conference.
SPEAKER_00: You are not.
SPEAKER_00: How do you know?
SPEAKER_00: You don't look that smart.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00: Where's the motel six?
SPEAKER_00: I'm checking out.
SPEAKER_00: But just ask people, because people aren't conditioned to.
SPEAKER_00: I said, How are you doing today?
SPEAKER_00: They go good.
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing in relation to God?
SPEAKER_00: Without fail, everybody's like, and I said, No, I didn't I didn't ask that to make you feel bad.
SPEAKER_00: He said, We just don't think about our lives in relation to God.
SPEAKER_00: Proximity when Jesus says abide, abide, remain, stay here, stay put, where are you?
SPEAKER_00: He says, tie yourself to me.
SPEAKER_00: When I move, you move.
SPEAKER_00: I'd be out killed my poor partner.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he would run, I'd be standing there, wow, wow.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: I'd jerk on the rope.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says it this way in Galatians chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: It says, keep in step with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It says, walk in the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Connect yourself to God and think about God.
SPEAKER_00: Don't think about God, think about, don't think about God in relation to you.
SPEAKER_00: Think about you in relation to God.
SPEAKER_00: So you say that.
SPEAKER_00: You seem to always know what to say to me when you come down to get coffee in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: Do you drink a lot of coffee?
SPEAKER_00: No, it's like talking to strangers.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm here.
SPEAKER_00: Talk to strangers.
SPEAKER_00: I haven't figured out what you do, but it's something you enjoy.
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, indeed.
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing in relation to God?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I've been thinking about since you asked me yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody in my life's ever asked me that.
SPEAKER_00: So this week, instead of just saying, How are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: Bill Hover just say, Hey, Bill, how you doing in relation to God?
SPEAKER_00: Because that's what you were created for.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Bill was created for.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Angelina, the girl at the front desk of the hotel I stayed at, was created for.
SPEAKER_00: It's what I was created for.
SPEAKER_00: It's what Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, intimacy with God is not some vague, you know, throwing dust in the air and hoping the sky fairy looks down on you with favor.
SPEAKER_00: It's being connected and just kind of living with this consciousness.
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what happens.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: Three things happen when you live in proximity, intimacy with God.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7, he says, if you abide in me.
SPEAKER_00: See, now he gives the condition.
SPEAKER_00: This is what happens.
SPEAKER_00: If you do that, he says, abide, abide, abide, abide, abide.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: Now, by the way, if you do what I'm telling you to do, this is what happens.
SPEAKER_00: He said, If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish.
SPEAKER_00: First thing that happens is prayer changes for you.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer changes for you.
SPEAKER_00: Now look at that.
SPEAKER_00: Put that verse back up there if you would, Becky.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to look at that.
SPEAKER_00: Because depending on how old you are in the faith, you hear ask whatever you wish.
SPEAKER_00: Now look at that.
SPEAKER_00: You can't take that out of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, ask what if you abide in me, because he says, do this, do this, do this, do this.
SPEAKER_00: And every once in a while, it's okay for you to think, now, if I do this, what's gonna happen?
SPEAKER_00: He says, if you do this, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it'll be done for you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, depending on where you are in your spiritual journey, when you first start off, the first the first two words of that four word phrase strike you.
SPEAKER_00: Ask whatever.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, God, I want a puppy and a bike and three more wishes.
SPEAKER_00: But the older you get, those last two words, you wish, you don't wish for the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I wish the word wish wasn't in the Bible, to be frank with you.
SPEAKER_00: Sounds kind of iffy and kind of game.
SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of like, God, couldn't you say something else?
SPEAKER_00: No, he says wish.
SPEAKER_00: And it's basically it's the desire of your heart, it's the thing you long for and the thing you want.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to see what maturity in your prayer life looks like, the more you abide.
SPEAKER_00: It's like when the Bible says in Psalm 37, 4, delight yourself the Lord, he'll give you the desires of your heart.
SPEAKER_00: The more you delight in the Lord, the desires of your heart they change.
SPEAKER_00: It's like when you pray for your kids.
SPEAKER_00: None of you pray, oh God, make my son a millionaire.
SPEAKER_00: You know what a moron he would turn into overnight, don't you?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what you pray for your kids.
SPEAKER_00: God, keep my kids safe.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're praying from a mature perspective.
SPEAKER_00: My kids pray, they pray for my kids pray that I take them to Bucky's and get icy's.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you think God cares if you get an icy?
SPEAKER_00: Hey, if you're eight, you want God to care that you get an icy.
SPEAKER_00: And so my kids just say out loud, oh God, and make daddy take us to Bucky's to get an icy.
SPEAKER_00: What are you gonna say to that?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: So later on in the afternoon, I'm like, hey girls, you want to go to Bucky's to get an Icy?
SPEAKER_00: And my wife's like, Really?
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, God answers prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Why stand in the way of that?
SPEAKER_00: Second thing that changes, the more you abide, the more you get rooted and grounded in who God is, and you do what he says, prayer changes.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, you understand the purpose of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Hey, ask whatever you wish, and it'll be done for you.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 8, by this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit.
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean, the purpose of salvation?
SPEAKER_00: The purpose of salvation is not the comfort of the people, it's the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, very plain, simple, easy to understand.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be smart to understand the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: You have to just be willing to lean your intellect towards it and think about what is Jesus saying?
SPEAKER_00: He says very plainly, by this, my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit.
SPEAKER_00: The purpose of salvation is the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's kind of nebulous and fuzzy.
SPEAKER_00: That's like, hey, go outside and catch a cloud, okay?
SPEAKER_00: What do I do?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what the Bible talks about when he says, My Father is glorified.
SPEAKER_00: The glory of God is simply this it's the full representation of everything God is.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Jonathan Edwards, the guy I quoted last week, he would tell you, it's the effulgence of God's nature.
SPEAKER_00: I got no idea what that means, and I've read it ten times.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just like, boy, I'm a I'm an idiot.
SPEAKER_00: I'm done here.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's the fullness.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, I was talking to you about the hotel that I stayed at.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why, but I would come down and the lady at the front desk and the other at the front desk, and they, it was kind of a nice hotel.
SPEAKER_00: They had uh the concierge and drivers, and they would all kind of just walk over, kind of like, What are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: Well, what are y'all doing?
SPEAKER_00: Y'all getting paid to stand around and ask me what I'm doing?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: You come down here and stuff starts happening.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to see what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm not tipping you because you're not doing anything for me.
SPEAKER_00: What can I do for you?
SPEAKER_00: Would you tip me?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: No, just do something for me.
SPEAKER_00: Get me some coffee.
SPEAKER_00: This is cold here.
SPEAKER_00: And they would just stand around and just be like, oh, whoa, whoa.
SPEAKER_00: And so they would stand there.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, What, what, what?
SPEAKER_00: Can I ask you guys a question?
SPEAKER_00: They said, Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Why do y'all like I'm not like a clown on fire or anything?
SPEAKER_00: And one of them said this, he goes, They told us you were a preacher.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, What's so hard to believe about that?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you came down here today, went in the business center, and you'd been like just got up, your hair was going everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yeah, my wife isn't here, I don't care what y'all think about me.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, I've always thought preachers were perfect and had it all together.
SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, I'm at the fork in the road because see, what he's really saying is, tell me about the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Give me a full representation of what God's like because he's not just saying I think preachers are perfect, have it all together.
SPEAKER_00: What he's really saying is, I've I've been told I gotta be perfect, have it all together.
SPEAKER_00: Listen deeper than the words that are coming out of people's mouths.
SPEAKER_00: And so I said, Let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not perfect, I don't have it all together.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, I call my wife right now and she could list my three biggest inconsistent, like right now, on the edge of my bathtub at home.
SPEAKER_00: There's about six different articles of clothing that I just laid there that my wife told me to pick up every day.
SPEAKER_00: Before you leave for a little rock, can you please pick your clothes up?
SPEAKER_00: They're still there.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, You you put your clothes on the bathtub, too?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: I try to do better.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, you don't, you just don't see.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Here, don't just keep it to me.
SPEAKER_00: See, my life is supposed to remind you of all that God is.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus says, This is to my father's glory, this is he's basically what he's saying is, this is how you fully represent God.
SPEAKER_00: These guys were like, Man, I said, You guys go to church anywhere, man, are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_00: Church is a bunch of hypocrite.
SPEAKER_00: See, you switch.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about God.
SPEAKER_00: Now you're talking about people because church is not the building you park in front of, it's the people that sit inside.
SPEAKER_00: Well, man, I'd like to go to church and had a real passion where someone just straight up and just told it like it is.
SPEAKER_00: I said, there's there's there's those those kind of churches here.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't, I said, just remember this, guys.
SPEAKER_00: I gotta go back to my room and get ready, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But remember this, it's not about a man, it's about God.
SPEAKER_00: The fullness of who God is is not perfect perfection, it's love, it's forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: You ain't gotta be perfect.
SPEAKER_00: I don't take, I said, can I say something profound?
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: Can I say something really smart?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I said, you know how preachers, we like to talk real smart.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, This is really smart.
SPEAKER_00: I don't take a shower, so I can take a bath.
SPEAKER_00: One of the guys went, I got no idea what you just said.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, You act like you gotta clean yourself up in order to come to God.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta dress.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Well, you know, you gotta wear certain clothes.
SPEAKER_00: I said, No, you don't.
SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't care what you wear.
SPEAKER_00: And to prove it, the next time I preach, I'll probably wear blue jeans.
SPEAKER_00: He said, You you wear blue jeans?
SPEAKER_00: I said, uh, sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: I wear them to office all the time.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, preacher, wear pants?
SPEAKER_00: What do you want me to wear?
SPEAKER_00: A skirt or a war kilt?
SPEAKER_00: What do you got going on here?
SPEAKER_00: And here's my point: the world's full of people who don't have a right idea of who God is.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus says in John 15.
SPEAKER_00: It is to my Father's glory, it is the fullness, it is the full representation of all that God is, that you bring forth much fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because in this outward evidence of this inward reality, people see who God is.
SPEAKER_00: Third thing Jesus says changes when you and I abide.
SPEAKER_00: He says that prayer changes, the purpose of salvation changes, and then he says, proof.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the last part of verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: By this is my father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to spend much time on this, but let me just say this.
SPEAKER_00: Have your kids ever tried to prove to you that they're your kids?
SPEAKER_00: Let me say it again.
SPEAKER_00: Have your kids ever tried to prove to you that they are your kids?
SPEAKER_00: You're like, that's the dumbest thing in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, when you hear you say when you hear Jesus say, and in so doing, you prove yourselves to be my disciples, you think, I gotta prove to God that I really am his kid.
SPEAKER_00: See, here's the reason you know that those kids are your kids.
SPEAKER_00: You were there when this whole thing started.
SPEAKER_00: Are you trekking with me?
SPEAKER_00: Do I need to tell you what I'm talking about?
SPEAKER_00: You're like, please don't.
SPEAKER_00: Please don't.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says it like this in Philippians 1, about verse 6, it says, He who began a good work in you will continue it to the day of Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to prove to God you're his if you really are his.
SPEAKER_00: He started the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he says in John chapter 2, about verse 2, about verse 24, he says, and Jesus says, I don't need man's testimony about man.
SPEAKER_00: I I don't need you to tell me about you.
SPEAKER_00: See, the proving we're reminding ourselves is basically what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_00: The longer I abide, the more I live in close proximity, connected to Jesus, and I move when he moves, and I'm listening, I'm tracking with him.
SPEAKER_00: It's like the football player today you'll see on TV.
SPEAKER_00: Every once in a while, and the crowd gets real real loud, he'll cover his ears.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not because he has a headache, it's because he has a radio in his helmet and he's covering the ear holes in his helmet so he can hear the coach.
SPEAKER_00: Living in proximity to Jesus is just every once in a while just covering your ears and just kind of tuning into that signal.
SPEAKER_00: That's what abiding is.
SPEAKER_00: It's not anything more than that, it's not harder than that, and things begin to change because of that.
SPEAKER_00: Second thing Jesus says is it verse 9, after he builds this case about just live connected to me.
SPEAKER_00: Just ask yourself today, where am I in relation to Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Do I even believe this stuff?
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't, that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Keep coming here.
SPEAKER_00: Just keep just keep praying to God and saying, God, if you're really real, reveal it to me.
SPEAKER_00: Open up my heart and make it make sense to me.
SPEAKER_00: You may have been in church a long time ago and you've given up on it in the new year.
SPEAKER_00: You said, you know, I'm gonna come back to church.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, take your time.
SPEAKER_00: Keep coming and keep listening.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why.
SPEAKER_00: Because the more you get in proximity to Jesus and you get around the things of God and the word of God and the people of God, pretty soon you'll run out of excuses.
SPEAKER_00: Because the fruit will be so obvious.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says this He says, not only do what does it mean intimacy with God, it means proximity.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, it means love.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9, as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.
SPEAKER_00: Abide in my love.
SPEAKER_00: Many of you in this room, some of the deepest wounds you've experienced were from people who were supposed to love you but didn't.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the Bible says in Proverbs 19, 22, that what a man desires is unfailing love.
SPEAKER_00: Now, don't miss that Jesus says, As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.
SPEAKER_00: See, there's a relationship you can look at.
SPEAKER_00: If you look in the New Testament, all through the New Testament, God the Father says the same thing to his son Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is my son, whom I love, with whom I'm well pleased.
SPEAKER_00: That was his baptism.
SPEAKER_00: At the Mount of Transfiguration, towards the end of his ministry, he's in the fourth quarter by now.
SPEAKER_00: God speaks again and says, This is my son, whom I love, with whom I'm well pleased.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus was in a relationship with his father that was unchanging.
SPEAKER_00: He was loved by God, he was accepted by God, he his identity was as a child of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so on that basis, what Jesus says is, as my father has loved me, if you want to understand how God feels about you, don't look at your performance.
SPEAKER_00: See, we think of the love of God in turn in terms of its limits.
SPEAKER_00: Not the way Jesus designed it.
SPEAKER_00: You say, Well, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: We think of it in terms of limits, not in terms of dimensions.
SPEAKER_00: You say, Well, why?
SPEAKER_00: That's why when you mess up, any of you messed up in the past month?
SPEAKER_00: When you mess up, one of your first thoughts is, Boy, I don't know how God could love me.
SPEAKER_00: Remember Peter?
SPEAKER_00: Peter denied Jesus three times.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus rolls up on him three times and asks him not three questions, but one question three times.
SPEAKER_00: Remember what it was?
SPEAKER_00: Peter, do you?
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say, Peter, you feel bad about what you did back there.
SPEAKER_00: You sold me out.
SPEAKER_00: What kind of brother are you?
SPEAKER_00: He says, Peter, do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: Oh yes, Lord, you know I love you.
SPEAKER_00: Feed my sheep.
SPEAKER_00: Peter, do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: Uh Jesus, you having a senior moment here?
SPEAKER_00: Because when you screw it up, when you deny, when you have that opportunity, and by the way, I have opportunities.
SPEAKER_00: I sense the Lord kind of saying, say something, and I'm like, He doesn't come like a little brother on the inside and go, um, when I get you home, I'm gonna get you for this.
SPEAKER_00: He just very quietly says, Neil, do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Neil, do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Neil, do you love me?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I told you twice already.
SPEAKER_00: What he's saying to Peter, what he says to me, what he says to you, is just orient yourself around the love of God.
SPEAKER_00: Jude says, keep yourself in the love of God.
SPEAKER_00: A minute ago, when I said we think of the love of God in terms of limits, not dimensions.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it reminded me of what Paul said in Ephesians chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: Don't turn that, it'll come up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean when you say we think of the tur the uh of the love of God in terms of limits?
SPEAKER_00: In other words, I've just I've done it now.
SPEAKER_00: Not dimensions.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the Bible means.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, for this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being.
SPEAKER_00: So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, I mean, if God's going to ground this in anything, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or think, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations, forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: See, when we fall short of feeling like we deserve the love of God, like a young person came to me this week at Little Rock and said, you know, I just need to talk to somebody, and I've been doing this and I've been doing this, and got emotional and started crying, and I don't know, I I just it just you keep telling us that God loves us.
SPEAKER_00: It just it just doesn't make any sense that God would love me after what I've done.
SPEAKER_00: And I just smiled.
SPEAKER_00: It's not funny, Neil.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's not funny, but I just I got tickled at the question that rose up in me.
SPEAKER_00: What question?
SPEAKER_00: You're saying it didn't make sense, and I get that to some degree.
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you something.
SPEAKER_00: When did it make sense for God to love you?
SPEAKER_00: You act like it made sense when you were a virgin or a voting Republican or doing good.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't make sense then.
SPEAKER_00: It's never made sense.
SPEAKER_00: If you think for a minute it made sense for God to love you, you think too much of yourself and not enough of God.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus means when he says, You want to be intimate with me?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what you do.
SPEAKER_00: As the Father has loved me, so I've loved you.
SPEAKER_00: So stick around and let me just keep on loving you.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 10, the third thing it means, it means obedience.
SPEAKER_00: I love how practical the Bible is.
SPEAKER_00: You'll see kind of the sequential nature.
SPEAKER_00: It starts unfolding and falling out.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 10, he says, if you keep my commandments, because if you're like, okay, abide in my love, abide in my love.
SPEAKER_00: How do I abide in his love?
SPEAKER_00: It's not, it, it, it, it's not just this, it's its dimensions, it's not its limits, its dimensions, it's its height and depth.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I gotta stay, I gotta stay.
SPEAKER_00: No, you gotta obey.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 10, Jesus says, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I've kept my father's commandments and abide in his love.
SPEAKER_00: You want to abide in the love of God?
SPEAKER_00: You want to stick and stay?
SPEAKER_00: You want to just be marinated?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, did anybody see the old movie Chocolate?
SPEAKER_00: Anybody remember that?
SPEAKER_00: Anybody that would admit to seeing that?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00: Remember how the movie ends?
SPEAKER_00: Remember the mayor that was against chocolate and thought it was bad and making it.
SPEAKER_00: The movie ends in him just up in the window and chocolate just all over him.
SPEAKER_00: That's the picture of my mind when I think about abiding in the love of God.
SPEAKER_00: It's just going up there and just waddling around in a chocolate factory and just that's what it means to abide in the love of God.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said, Well, how do you do that?
SPEAKER_00: Because he knows that the disciples are like, How do we do that, Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you just told us in the last chapter, you're leaving.
SPEAKER_00: Now you say abide in your love.
SPEAKER_00: How do we do that?
SPEAKER_00: Just obey me, keep my commandments.
SPEAKER_00: Obedience to the clear teaching of Scripture is what keeps you and I in the context of what we were created for.
SPEAKER_00: It's not hard.
SPEAKER_00: So I don't think about if when I obey God, what I'm missing out on by not disobeying God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just mindful of, hey, this is this is the love of God that was shed abroad in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: It casts out fear, it does all these things in my life, it compels me, it does all these things.
SPEAKER_00: So why would I not want to obey him?
SPEAKER_00: See, your understanding of this, don't turn over, just write down Philippians chapter 2, verses 12 to 16.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians chapter 2, Paul says this.
SPEAKER_00: Look at this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Therefore, my beloved, as you've always obeyed.
SPEAKER_00: Just stop for a second.
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't you like that to be true of you?
SPEAKER_00: Paul says to the church at Philippi, as you've always obeyed.
SPEAKER_00: You guys are so consistently, you man, as you've always obeyed.
SPEAKER_00: So now, not only in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Now don't move that slide just yet.
SPEAKER_00: Leave it up there.
SPEAKER_00: Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
SPEAKER_00: When y'all hear work out, you think of putting on spandex and a t-shirt.
SPEAKER_00: And I wish you didn't think about putting on spandex, but you did.
SPEAKER_00: Stop picturing your pastor in spandex, it'll ruin your appetite.
SPEAKER_00: You picture going to the gym and getting your iPod on and getting all sweaty, and I'm gonna work out my house.
SPEAKER_00: You think it's a rowboat.
SPEAKER_00: You're thinking, I'm gonna work out my salvation.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna prove to God that I really am his kid.
SPEAKER_00: You got a winner here.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: There's a comma after that.
SPEAKER_00: He says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: For because it is God who works in you, both the will and the work for his good pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: When he says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, he's saying, Hey, you demonstrate outwardly, work out, give outward evidence.
SPEAKER_00: Sounds a lot like fruit, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Work out your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Give outward evidence to what God is doing on the inside.
SPEAKER_00: When I went to check out yesterday, I walked up, rolled my suitcase out.
SPEAKER_00: I said, I'm leaving now.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be sad in the late front day.
SPEAKER_00: I said, actually, I kind of will be.
SPEAKER_00: Then I was like, I was trying to be funny, and all of a sudden she's serious.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, I'll uh I'll tell my wife.
SPEAKER_00: You said hi, and she said, Thank you for just making me think, you know, about God and where are you?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Let me just say this, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I gotta go.
SPEAKER_00: That minivan out there is taking me to my speaking thing, and I'm going to the airport.
SPEAKER_00: He ain't mad at you.
SPEAKER_00: He knows everything you've ever done.
SPEAKER_00: You act like he's up there kind of going, I'll tell you what, when I catch you, I'm gonna whip you.
SPEAKER_00: If he wanted to whip you, he'd already whipped you.
SPEAKER_00: And she's rubbing the granite countertop.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, You polishing that or you're nervous?
SPEAKER_00: I'm nervous.
SPEAKER_00: I said, He's not mad.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Walked out.
SPEAKER_00: My guy was there, off we go.
SPEAKER_00: See, it's what he's doing in you.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't start with you, wasn't your idea.
SPEAKER_00: Obedience is just you staying connected to God, thinking about God, saying, God, I want to live my life connected and aware of what you're doing, because I want sometimes I got to cover up my ears so I don't get distracted by the noise in this world, so I hear what the coach is saying.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to obey.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, here's how you remain in my love.
SPEAKER_00: As you've always obeyed, not only my in my presence, but now even more, now that I'm not with you, just keep obeying.
SPEAKER_00: Fourthly and finally, look at verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: This is what it means when we say intimacy with God, these things have I spoken to you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, the reason I open my mouth and talk, the reason that the Bible exists is that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.
SPEAKER_00: Now think about that for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, the reason I say the things I say.
SPEAKER_00: It's right there in verse 11 in red.
SPEAKER_00: These things I've spoken to you that my joy may be in you.
SPEAKER_00: Here's all I'm getting at, and I'm done.
SPEAKER_00: I know some of y'all are like, there ain't no way he's gonna be done.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's simple.
SPEAKER_00: You just gotta say what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: Look what he says.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 11 again.
SPEAKER_00: Don't miss it.
SPEAKER_00: It's so simple and so profound.
SPEAKER_00: These things I have spoken to you.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: That my joy may be in you.
SPEAKER_00: What if?
SPEAKER_00: Just could you ponder this before the Texans games comes on today?
SPEAKER_00: Could you ponder this?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
SPEAKER_00: Is it possible that the reason that God inspired this book?
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that no prophecy has its origin in the will of man, but men spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: What if the reason God inspired people to record and write down the word of God was that He wanted deep at the core of all of this, He wanted you and I to know what joy felt like.
SPEAKER_00: What if, and if that's true, how would that change the way you viewed the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: I met so many people, some in this church that said, I grew up going to church, I didn't understand the word that God said.
SPEAKER_00: We just went because that's what we did, and we went and I left, and I I just never understood the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: I just reminded me when we went preached through the book of Nehemiah last year, and how Nehemiah, when they found the law.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, in the Old Testament, they lost basically the Bible for years, and nobody even knew.
SPEAKER_00: No one even said, hey, hey, by the way, where's the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: Where's the book of the law?
SPEAKER_00: They just lost it, and church just kept on going.
SPEAKER_00: One of my fears about church in America is that a lot of churches in America have lost the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And church just keeps going.
SPEAKER_00: That that ought to scare us.
SPEAKER_00: We got so much machinery, but they found the book of the law, and Ezra stood up and started reading it.
SPEAKER_00: Remember this?
SPEAKER_00: And the people just fell on the ground and were like, we stink.
SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh, we're so sorry, God.
SPEAKER_00: Please hammer, don't hurt us, don't hurt us, God.
SPEAKER_00: And God said to Nehemiah and Ezra, hey, go out there and tell the people to get up off the ground.
SPEAKER_00: Tell me if this sounds familiar.
SPEAKER_00: Remember Nehemiah chapter 8?
SPEAKER_00: Hey, go to your home.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, don't be sad.
SPEAKER_00: This is a day holy unto the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The joy of the Lord is your strength.
SPEAKER_00: You can't get there by hating yourself.
SPEAKER_00: The joy of the Lord is your strength.
SPEAKER_00: So go home and have fatness and sweet wine.
SPEAKER_00: That's like God saying, hey, you've been in church long enough.
SPEAKER_00: Go to your house, take your clothes off, put on your sweatpants, you know you lay around in.
SPEAKER_00: That ragged t-shirt with the holes all in it, and your wife's like, could you throw this away?
SPEAKER_00: It looks like a shroud of turn.
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, I've just got it broken.
SPEAKER_00: Don't touch that.
SPEAKER_00: Get your Aerosmith concert shirt.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's three-quarter sleeves here that you have.
SPEAKER_00: Or to one of the people that works at this church who just recently got back from a Guns N' Roses concert in Las Vegas.
SPEAKER_00: Sinner.
SPEAKER_00: And she, it wasn't one of the Us guys, I know what you're thinking.
SPEAKER_00: She even got a guitar pick.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, that's the filthy tool of the devil right there.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what joy.
SPEAKER_00: You go home and you sit on your couch, or if you got like a TV room with surround sound and a big screen, even better.
SPEAKER_00: And you think just for a nanosecond, I should be burning in hell right now.
SPEAKER_00: But instead, God sought me and bought me with his redeeming love.
SPEAKER_00: And I get to wear sweats and eat cheese dip and watch football.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: That makes you love the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Not in a I worship the Bible kind of way, but just, man, I want to read the Bible, not like, oh, well, I better, okay, and stop.
SPEAKER_00: No, but you approach it.
SPEAKER_00: You should sneak up on it tomorrow morning.
SPEAKER_00: Have some coffee and get your mind awake and ready because you are coming to a fire.
SPEAKER_00: You are coming to this blazing reality at the center of everything.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus said, Hey, I told you this so that my joy will be in you.
SPEAKER_00: This will wreck you.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, This, that your joy may be full.
SPEAKER_00: Last week we ended talking about fullness.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
SPEAKER_00: See when that little indicator light goes off, fuel indicator light.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean mention to my husband that oh my there's a light on my dashboard.
SPEAKER_00: We're on to you, ladies.
SPEAKER_00: That means that your soul, don't miss this, and we'll be done.
SPEAKER_00: Your soul is craving what it was created for.
SPEAKER_00: That's the truth of God is revealed in God's word.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the psalmist could say this.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read this.
SPEAKER_00: Part of this will sound familiar.
SPEAKER_00: This is the 119th Psalm.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
SPEAKER_00: I have sworn an oath and confirmed it to keep your righteous rules.
SPEAKER_00: He goes on and says, I'm severely afflicted.
SPEAKER_00: Getting noticeed.
SPEAKER_00: He talks about his circumstance, and then he comes back to the word.
SPEAKER_00: All through this little section of the 119th Psalm.
SPEAKER_00: God, I'm this, but your word is this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm this, but your word.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is what what this is the joy that's produced in you when you kind of bring your life into submission to God's word.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm severely afflicted.
SPEAKER_00: Give me life, O Lord, according to your word.
SPEAKER_00: He goes on and says, Accept my free will offerings of praise, O Lord, and teach me your rules.
SPEAKER_00: I hold my life in my hand continually.
SPEAKER_00: You should think of beak over in India.
SPEAKER_00: I can't go get water in my pastor shirt in the market.
SPEAKER_00: Let me kill me.
SPEAKER_00: Let me change my shirt.
SPEAKER_00: I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget your law.
SPEAKER_00: The wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not stray from your precepts.
SPEAKER_00: Your testimonies are my heritage forever.
SPEAKER_00: Another joy of my heart.
SPEAKER_00: I incline my heart to perform your statutes forever to the end.
SPEAKER_00: You see, what Jesus says is not just words, but it's a promise.
SPEAKER_00: He says, These things I've spoken unto you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
SPEAKER_00: Whenever you think about the Bible, just remember that it is God's intention that you be full, that his joy be in you, and your joy, because of that, to be full.
SPEAKER_00: Stand to your feet.
SPEAKER_00: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_00: Your God is the God of cheese dip and sweatpants.
SPEAKER_00: That ought to make you joyful.
SPEAKER_00: Is joy.
SPEAKER_00: Depart now and be who he made you to be.
SPEAKER_00: Joyful sons and daughters of God.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.