back to index2020-02-23 To Know Him and Make Him Known, Pt 3
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All right, if you could turn your Bibles with me to Matthew 22 verses 36 through 40. 00:00:11.400 |
I think initially when I started this I said I'm going to give me a couple weeks and we're 00:00:20.400 |
So you're going to have to give me a couple more weeks. 00:00:22.880 |
So actually I started this sermon this morning thinking that I'll be done with this and I 00:00:26.400 |
have one more sermon next week but I didn't get through the sermon first service. 00:00:31.800 |
So I'm going to try to wrap it up next week so we can jump into Hebrews the following 00:00:44.720 |
But again, I believe that this is so important. 00:00:51.320 |
"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" 00:00:53.640 |
And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your 00:01:01.760 |
"You shall love your neighbor as yourself and on these two commandments depend the whole 00:01:08.760 |
Heavenly Father, what an awesome and gracious and loving God you are. 00:01:16.440 |
Help us, Lord God, to have a soft heart that is you are the powder and we are the clay. 00:01:23.920 |
We desire to be molded, Lord God, into your image and what you desire us to be. 00:01:29.620 |
I pray that the power of the cross would convict us, remind us, refresh us, renew us that we 00:01:41.040 |
That we may be people who worship you in spirit and in truth. 00:01:44.080 |
May your word goes forth and will not return until it has accomplished the purpose that 00:01:54.500 |
Have you ever said in any point of your Christian life, "I love Christ, but I don't love the 00:02:05.720 |
Or have you ever tried to invite somebody to church and they said to you, "I love the 00:02:11.440 |
The messages that you're sharing with me, it's an awesome message about the love of 00:02:19.920 |
Maybe you've thought that at some point and maybe you're trying to share the gospel. 00:02:22.640 |
Maybe there's somebody in your life right now who's professing to be a believer of Jesus 00:02:26.740 |
Christ, but he says, "I love Christ, but I can't stand the church." 00:02:35.160 |
So now, especially with all the technology, there's more options to stay at home and just 00:02:43.840 |
And he said, "I want the message, I want the love of Christ, I want the scriptures, but 00:02:49.480 |
You know, the message that we've been talking about, the two greatest commandments, to love 00:02:55.600 |
the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love others as yourself, 00:03:00.160 |
are the two central commandments according to Jesus that wraps up every other commandment. 00:03:05.600 |
So what he's saying here is not one of many important things that we need to get right. 00:03:11.600 |
It is the central thing, and if you don't get this, then he says, "You missed the whole 00:03:20.280 |
You know, whenever we talk about agape love, it is easy to talk about. 00:03:26.280 |
I don't know if ever in my years of preaching that I've ever had a hard time preaching about 00:03:34.480 |
Agape love, I can preach this until I retire every single Sunday, because the whole Bible, 00:03:41.160 |
from Genesis to Revelation, is filled with teachings and examples, after examples, after 00:03:49.960 |
And whenever agape love is preached, people are encouraged, people are enlightened. 00:03:59.640 |
And it's not difficult to preach about agape love, because who wouldn't? 00:04:04.960 |
The Son of God who died for us, who are undeserving while we were yet blaspheming, while we were 00:04:12.920 |
And even after we convert, even after we swear, as long as we repent, he accepts us. 00:04:23.840 |
It is easy to preach, but it is the most difficult thing to practice. 00:04:32.640 |
It's something that we admire from a distance. 00:04:35.840 |
We want to talk about, we want to memorize scripture about the agape love. 00:04:39.960 |
But as soon as we get to the therefore, therefore, considering all that he has done, therefore, 00:04:51.800 |
And even that sounds beautiful, great to memorize. 00:04:56.760 |
But as soon as we begin to practice this, we realize how impossible it is to do. 00:05:06.500 |
You have memories of specific people in your life who have hurt you deeply. 00:05:12.040 |
Some of you have some horrendous experiences in church. 00:05:19.560 |
Maybe even by your small believers, maybe even by your pastors. 00:05:24.120 |
Some of you have been slandered deliberately, maybe have been targeted and somebody betrayed 00:05:29.920 |
And you have, if you've been a Christian or if you've been a human being for any length 00:05:32.680 |
of time, maybe even have been physically assaulted. 00:05:39.280 |
So when we talk about God loving us unconditionally, it's a beautiful story that we're all attracted 00:05:46.600 |
to, but as soon as we get to therefore, therefore, you practice the same. 00:06:03.760 |
There's four things that he mentions here that I want to highlight. 00:06:07.520 |
And again, I don't want to skim through it because there's so much to unpack here. 00:06:11.800 |
He says that the second commandment is like it. 00:06:16.540 |
So that's the first part that we're going to unpack. 00:06:18.980 |
What does that mean that the second commandment is like it? 00:06:22.320 |
And then, probably next week, he said the target of these people, of this agape love, 00:06:32.560 |
And then he says to the degree that we are to love them is to love like we are to love 00:06:39.720 |
And then he says, finally, all of this fulfills the law. 00:06:45.620 |
All of the law, whole of the law is summarized in these two commandments. 00:06:51.540 |
So this morning, I want to first, and then we'll see how far we get, but the first one 00:06:54.780 |
that we want to look at, and he says, after we're talking about the high view of loving 00:06:58.500 |
God with all our hearts, all mind, and strength, and he says the second to love others is like 00:07:07.180 |
Now you don't get this in the English, but in the Greek, it's really important that we 00:07:14.180 |
Because this word, misapplied, at one point in church history, could have completely divided 00:07:23.020 |
One of the first theological debates that the church debated over, I mean, almost to 00:07:28.780 |
death, and I'm not exaggerating, there was a guy named Arius who came out and he said 00:07:39.220 |
Again, I know this means nothing to you now, but give me a second. 00:07:44.940 |
And then Athanasius came out and he said, no, he's not homoousius, he is homoousius. 00:07:50.980 |
And the difference between the two words is homoousius means that he is similar to God 00:07:58.620 |
Homoousius means that he is the same in substance. 00:08:03.500 |
So Arius was arguing to convince the whole church, and at one point he was very successful, 00:08:14.620 |
So Jesus is elevated to a God status, but there was a time when Jesus did not exist, 00:08:24.260 |
The doctrine that you and I profess to believe is that Jesus Christ is homoousius, he is 00:08:33.660 |
So this little iota, this little I made the difference between embracing the true God 00:08:41.740 |
And Athanasius at one point in church history, by himself, risking his life, he said this 00:08:50.340 |
Again, part of the reason why I believe that the canon was available commonly to many people 00:08:57.200 |
And he was able to argue scripturally that Jesus Christ is homoousius, not homoiousius. 00:09:04.300 |
Now even if all of that went over your head, it's a very, very important part of church 00:09:11.940 |
But the point that I'm trying to make, that this little iota, this little I, makes a difference 00:09:18.100 |
between is he saying it is the same or it is similar? 00:09:23.340 |
And let me tell you, the word that he is using here is homoious, not homoous. 00:09:37.660 |
The application of that is that you can love people and not love God because it is not 00:09:48.940 |
You can be committed to social justice and not love God. 00:09:54.300 |
You can be a good mother, good father, you can be a good person, a good neighbor, and 00:10:02.060 |
You've probably met many people who are not believers in Christ who are very generous. 00:10:08.100 |
They feed the homeless, they fight for certain social justices. 00:10:13.740 |
The Bible tells us that if we say that we love God and we don't love our neighbor, it's 00:10:21.380 |
But loving our neighbors doesn't equal loving God. 00:10:26.420 |
But the Bible also says that you cannot love God and not love your neighbor. 00:10:35.740 |
You can love your neighbor and not love God, but you cannot love God and not love your 00:10:40.800 |
So for somebody to say that I love Christ, the head, but I can't stand the body. 00:10:48.500 |
That's no different than if a husband or wife is getting married and the husband says, "You 00:10:52.620 |
I want to marry your head, but the rest of your body, I'm not ready." 00:10:56.860 |
I like this part of you, who you are, right here, the head. 00:11:02.780 |
But from here down, I don't want to make a covenant relationship. 00:11:07.880 |
So when I put a ring on you at the wedding ceremony, I'm going to put it on your nose, 00:11:14.380 |
You cannot have a covenant relationship with your wife with just the head. 00:11:19.200 |
Because the Bible describes Christ the head and the church is the body of Christ. 00:11:24.100 |
So this word is significant because you can love people without loving God, but you cannot 00:11:33.820 |
In fact, the Bible tells us that the central identifying mark of a Christian is this love. 00:11:43.500 |
John chapter 13, 34 to 35, Jesus says, "A new commandment I give to you that you love 00:11:51.020 |
If you read any part of the Old Testament, you already know that this commandment to 00:11:58.340 |
He mentions it in many places in the Old Testament. 00:12:01.100 |
He told the nation of Israel to love your neighbor. 00:12:04.060 |
But Jesus says, "This is a new commandment that I give to you that you love one another." 00:12:08.060 |
And he qualifies it, "Even as I have loved you." 00:12:13.060 |
He wasn't just talking about this generic love to love people because most people that 00:12:18.220 |
I know, Christian or non-Christian, practice some level of love with somebody. 00:12:26.860 |
Between husband and wife, most parents I know love their children. 00:12:33.260 |
Most people that I know have somebody that they love. 00:12:36.700 |
He's not talking about the practice of just any kind of love. 00:12:39.860 |
He's talking about this agape love, "Even as I have loved you, that you also love one 00:12:51.020 |
"By this, all men will know you are my disciples if you have love for one another." 00:13:00.180 |
Because when we typically think of a good Christian, we think of right theology. 00:13:16.700 |
Maybe you don't do certain things and you do certain things. 00:13:19.140 |
And so we look at all these external things and all of these things are qualities that 00:13:24.980 |
But above all of that, above all of that, Jesus himself said, "But the central identifying 00:13:38.620 |
Again he says in 1 John 3, 14, "We know that we have passed out of death into life because 00:13:46.860 |
He doesn't say, "We know that we are saved because I confessed the right doctrine." 00:13:54.620 |
If you confessed Christ, the wrong Christ, the wrong doctrine of the gospel, you can't 00:14:04.920 |
Out of all the things that could be highlighted, he says, "The central thing that causes me 00:14:10.020 |
to know that I have passed from death to life is this agape love. 00:14:19.020 |
So the love that he is referring to is not just this any kind of love because anybody 00:14:23.560 |
who practices love, "Oh, I love my kids so I must be a Christian. 00:14:27.280 |
And I'm pretty generous to my neighbors so I'm a good Christian. 00:14:30.600 |
I support compassion so I give to orphaned kids so I must be a Christian." 00:14:38.720 |
He said very specifically, "As I have loved you." 00:14:45.120 |
Loving people that you would not normally love if it wasn't for Christ. 00:14:56.360 |
Jesus spells it out in Luke chapter 6, 32 to 35. 00:15:00.500 |
If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? 00:15:06.960 |
Because this is the love that you and I know. 00:15:12.320 |
Even now, think about the friends that you have. 00:15:16.360 |
Think about the social group that you belong to. 00:15:22.840 |
You don't need to tell me because I already know. 00:15:33.820 |
If we were non-Christians, and we don't care what you think, because if you're hard to 00:15:44.720 |
I don't have anything restraining me from shunning that person, maybe even slandering 00:15:49.960 |
In fact, the Bible tells us eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, to restrain us from taking 00:15:54.180 |
vengeance because he understands our natural inclination is if somebody tries to hurt me, 00:16:00.040 |
that I don't just turn the other cheek, I take vengeance. 00:16:10.400 |
Our church is watching, especially if you're a pastor preaching every Sunday. 00:16:22.360 |
So what we do is we surround people that make us feel comfortable, and then the people who 00:16:27.760 |
don't make us feel comfortable, people that we don't like, people that offend us, we keep 00:16:36.660 |
So we practice love with lovable people, and then we keep other people as acquaintances 00:16:44.960 |
This agape love that he's talking about is not a natural thing that a common man practices. 00:16:54.040 |
If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? 00:16:56.860 |
For even the sinners love those who love them. 00:17:05.840 |
If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? 00:17:18.880 |
Okay, next time your birthday comes around, I'm going to remember you. 00:17:21.680 |
Oh, you were kind to me, so next time, okay, I'm going to be kind to you. 00:17:39.980 |
If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you?" 00:17:46.240 |
What kind of a foolish business advice is this? 00:17:50.800 |
If you only lend to those people who are going to pay you back, I mean, it sounds great on 00:17:58.000 |
paper, but who would teach somebody, "That guy has poor credit. 00:18:04.720 |
You've given him money before and it took him 15 years to pay you back." 00:18:10.180 |
Or maybe some of them didn't even pay you back. 00:18:13.700 |
He said, "If you only lend money to people who has a track record of giving you back 00:18:20.400 |
and appreciative of what you've done," he said, "What credit is that to you?" 00:18:25.360 |
It sounds great on paper, but in practice, it's like, "Are you serious? 00:18:30.280 |
Who would lend to somebody that you know is not going to pay you back? 00:18:36.480 |
And if you did practice that, no one's going to pat you on the back and say, 'Man, your 00:18:51.560 |
But he says, beyond that, he says, "Love your enemies." 00:18:56.980 |
If it's difficult to be around people who make you uncomfortable, enemies are people 00:19:03.920 |
who are out to hurt you, who've made plans to slander you. 00:19:10.880 |
So if we don't like being around people that makes us uncomfortable and we keep them acquaintances 00:19:15.400 |
and we love people that we love, but he goes beyond that. 00:19:20.760 |
He says, "No, love those who are deliberately trying to hurt you, and do good and lend, 00:19:27.320 |
expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the 00:19:31.120 |
most high God, for himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men." 00:19:35.920 |
Man, you know as well as I do how difficult it is to be gracious to somebody who is ungrateful. 00:20:01.440 |
That's why he's an elder at our church right now. 00:20:05.440 |
I remember when I was a youth pastor, my full-time pay was like $1,300 a month. 00:20:12.280 |
These kids don't have money, so I would take them out to eat, and I would buy them drinks, 00:20:19.520 |
And then the one time that I couldn't take them out to eat, they're like, "Oh my God, 00:20:26.440 |
I remember this one particular kid, I won't name his name, because he's not here anyway, 00:20:33.240 |
I mean, for years I'd meet up with him, buy him food, lunch, and all this stuff, and he 00:20:41.640 |
He talked about that one lunch for the next five years. 00:20:46.800 |
I remember in the back of my mind, it's like, "Remember the three years I invested in your 00:20:53.740 |
How hard is it to love somebody who is ungrateful? 00:20:58.560 |
How hard is it to love people who are selfish? 00:21:02.920 |
See the reason why the identifying mark of a genuine believer is that this agape love 00:21:10.600 |
that affected us is now coming out of us, because this is not something that you and 00:21:19.800 |
The evidence that you and I have become new creation is that something alien came in, 00:21:25.760 |
and now it is obvious, obvious that we are Jesus' disciples because Jesus did the same. 00:21:33.760 |
And that's what he says, the primary identifying mark of a genuine Christian is the practice 00:21:44.120 |
That's why he's saying you can love people like everybody else loves people and not love 00:21:50.120 |
God, but if you've been loved by God and you love God, you cannot possibly reject his body. 00:22:01.160 |
I know how difficult this is, and I know probably some of you are already thinking in your mind 00:22:06.800 |
this one particular person or this group of people who have wronged you. 00:22:12.600 |
And it's great hearing sermons, it's great talking about it, it's great hearing about 00:22:17.640 |
the love of Christ, but when you actually try to practice, are you serious? 00:22:24.160 |
See this agape love, it goes against every sense of fairness. 00:22:32.600 |
It goes against every sense of fairness and justice because we're not taught that. 00:22:38.000 |
You're not taught that if somebody hits you, turn the other cheek. 00:22:42.400 |
Those of you who have kids, do you teach that? 00:22:44.200 |
If a bully comes and bullies you at school, also give him your dinner. 00:22:49.520 |
If a bully comes and punches you, take him out to ... Who teaches that to their kids? 00:22:55.200 |
You teach them how to box, MMA, put him on an arm bar, make sure that he never does this 00:23:01.100 |
It goes against everything that we know of fairness and justice. 00:23:05.960 |
And so it humbles us because it is completely alien. 00:23:13.560 |
There's nothing that we can measure with and say, "Oh, that's what that means," outside 00:23:24.960 |
You know, right now the coronavirus is spreading all over the world, and I heard that Korea 00:23:30.120 |
I was talking to a friend and said, "This mega church, they're sending out emails telling 00:23:35.360 |
people not to come to church because they're afraid. 00:23:40.860 |
Our IMB missionaries, our denomination sent millions of dollars pulling missionaries out 00:23:46.260 |
of China and spread them all over Asia to keep them safe for a period. 00:23:51.940 |
Whenever we think that something is going to harm us, our natural instinct to survive 00:23:58.280 |
So if you're buying a house and you find out your neighbor is a crack addict or it's a 00:24:03.340 |
crack house, immediately you're not going to buy that house, right? 00:24:12.780 |
See, people who are ungrateful, people who are our enemies, people who are deliberately 00:24:17.460 |
out to get us, these are people who will fight against our natural instinct to be safe. 00:24:27.580 |
And yet, the practice of agape love forces us to be in situation where it is unsafe for 00:24:38.020 |
So it goes against our natural survival instinct. 00:24:44.120 |
You know, some of you guys, and I told you that I'm not a big fan of Disneyland. 00:24:55.020 |
Even the thought of going to Disneyland, right? 00:24:57.940 |
Again, this isn't, nothing innately wrong with Disneyland, but just for me personally 00:25:03.100 |
and my wife, I think, we, like the thought of being around all those people walking around, 00:25:11.860 |
because I don't get enough joy from riding those rides to put up with all these other 00:25:19.860 |
The rides are good enough or it makes you happy enough to go. 00:25:23.460 |
Our natural instinct is, when you take vacation, you want to go there because it makes you 00:25:28.100 |
If it doesn't make you happy, you're not going to go. 00:25:29.540 |
And that's the way we make decisions about everything. 00:25:47.020 |
But this agape love, at the core of it, causes us to be unhappy, to be surrounded by people 00:25:57.820 |
that are difficult to love, and to make a deliberate choice to be in that situation 00:26:03.260 |
and to reach out and to practice this love that Jesus practiced with us. 00:26:10.120 |
That's why this is an alien love, because we don't practice this. 00:26:15.860 |
Not only do we not practice this, we don't value this. 00:26:21.820 |
If you lend to people who aren't going to lend to you, if you are gracious and spend 00:26:25.020 |
a lot of it to people who are not going to be grateful to you, if you put yourself in 00:26:29.180 |
a situation where your enemy can attack you and you're vulnerable, you're dumb. 00:26:38.060 |
The only people, when you truly understand this agape love, are the people where the 00:26:45.840 |
That's why the Bible tells us that the gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing. 00:26:53.100 |
You know, sometimes that we've been Christians for so long, we don't understand how it sounds 00:27:05.340 |
If you think of it from a non-Christian's perspective, it's like, we were blaspheming 00:27:09.980 |
his name, we deserve hell, but he sent his only begotten son and died for me, gave me 00:27:18.620 |
eternal life, made me his adopted child, co-heirs with Christ, and then as a result, if you 00:27:25.140 |
believe that to practice with other people, that's foolish. 00:27:31.140 |
You want me to accept this and change my life and my destiny based upon this message? 00:27:34.940 |
He says it's foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who believe, it is 00:27:43.500 |
And that is the central power that changed us. 00:27:48.040 |
And that's the central power that exists in genuine believers that causes us to build 00:27:53.220 |
this community with people that sometimes naturally would make us feel uncomfortable. 00:27:58.900 |
And that's why he says the central mark of a Christian is that. 00:28:04.480 |
You know, the best example of this, the change of this agape power, from this agape power, 00:28:41.820 |
Because he wrote 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, he wrote the Gospel of John, and there's more teaching, 00:28:49.260 |
more commands about this agape, unconditional love, from apostle John than any other apostle. 00:28:56.320 |
But you know what apostle John was known for? 00:29:01.300 |
You know what he was known for before he wrote these Gospels? 00:29:09.380 |
Before I get there, John and James' nickname, John and his brother James' nickname was sons 00:29:20.020 |
You don't get that nickname for being gentle. 00:29:26.580 |
Thunder is not when you think of peaceful, quiet vacations, like thunder. 00:29:32.180 |
Sons of Thunder automatically means these guys probably hot tempered. 00:29:43.500 |
And we see an example in Luke chapter 9, 51 through 56. 00:29:46.700 |
When the days were approaching for his ascension, he was determined to go to Jerusalem, and 00:29:53.940 |
So Jesus is preparing to go to Jerusalem, to go to the cross, and then he sent his disciples 00:29:58.580 |
to go ahead and prepare that he was going to go through Samaria, and then he was going 00:30:04.980 |
When they went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make arrangements, and the Jews 00:30:11.060 |
They have a long history, hundreds of years of animosity toward one another. 00:30:15.580 |
Because the Jews considered the Samaritans to be compromised. 00:30:19.580 |
So some of the Jews, when the Babylonians and Assyrians took them into captivity, some 00:30:24.100 |
of the Jews stayed and they intermarried with the Assyrians. 00:30:30.800 |
So even though they wanted to be seen as Jews, the Jews saw them as Gentiles. 00:30:37.240 |
So when somebody is coming from Galilee, let's say Galilee and Jerusalem is kind of like 00:30:43.860 |
And in order to get to SoCal, you need to go through Bakersfield. 00:30:53.680 |
So typically, because they didn't want to go through Bakersfield, they would go all 00:31:00.260 |
They would go all the way around, and it may take an extra half a day or a day's journey, 00:31:11.620 |
And in Samaria, he said, "These guys are going to Jerusalem. 00:31:16.700 |
And so it triggers James and John in verse 54. 00:31:21.340 |
When his disciples James and John saw this, they said, "Lord, do you want us to command 00:31:25.140 |
fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" 00:31:32.660 |
Sometimes we read the Bible like we're reading some kind of fairy tale. 00:31:37.180 |
And so we read it and say, "Jack and the Beanstalk went and it grew and went to heaven." 00:31:42.060 |
And we read that like we're reading a fairy tale, not realizing sometimes this is real. 00:31:53.340 |
Sometimes you could just read that as, "Oh, they wanted to kill everybody." 00:32:03.260 |
Lord, you want me to kill all of them right now?" 00:32:09.540 |
The way he says it, it sounds like he did it before. 00:32:25.940 |
Does he have the power to bring fire from heaven? 00:32:30.720 |
Maybe that's why they call them sons of thunder, maybe because they did it before. 00:32:49.500 |
But he turned and rebuked them and he said, "You do not know what kind of spirit you are 00:33:03.940 |
For the Son of Man did not come to destroy man's lives, but to save them. 00:33:09.420 |
And then it just says, "And then they went on their way. 00:33:22.300 |
Even after that, as they were coming, Jesus was saying, "I'm going to go be crucified and 00:33:26.620 |
And James and John could not get this out of their head. 00:33:29.380 |
"Well, who's going to sit on your left and who's going to sit on the right?" 00:33:37.260 |
"Would you, in your glorified, let my son sit on the left and to the right?" 00:33:44.660 |
So James and John, their mindset was like anybody else. 00:34:07.780 |
"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God. 00:34:12.580 |
And everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 00:34:17.020 |
The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love." 00:34:22.860 |
Do you think that as Apostle John was writing this, that he was thinking about that incident? 00:34:39.900 |
It wasn't because he was discipled, he was sanctified, and somehow he became this love. 00:34:50.060 |
Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God, because that's the evidence that he is 00:34:54.980 |
with God, because this love wasn't taught by your mom. 00:35:01.340 |
It wasn't taught because you went to a good school. 00:35:03.880 |
It wasn't taught because you had a good discipler. 00:35:07.160 |
This can only be taught by God, because only God himself practices love." 00:35:18.060 |
Who does not love does not know God, for God is love." 00:35:23.660 |
Do you think when he was writing this that he remembered what Jesus said? 00:35:34.180 |
First John 4, 19, "We love because he first loved us." 00:35:41.560 |
This is not one of many things that the church needs to get right. 00:35:46.860 |
We need discipleship, we need evangelism, missions, right theology. 00:35:54.300 |
All of these things are crucial to the church, but at the center of all of that is agape 00:36:08.060 |
He was the one responsible for the first martyr of the church, but that wasn't enough. 00:36:14.420 |
He instigated his friends to go after all the Christians. 00:36:20.900 |
He couldn't stand the fact that their Messiah and the kingdom of God that only belonged 00:36:26.860 |
to the Jews was beginning to open to the Gentiles. 00:36:31.140 |
And by his own description, when he talked about righteousness before he met Christ, 00:36:43.620 |
And he was willing to even go to jail and even be martyred for this cause because it 00:36:49.820 |
was against Roman law for him to kill people without a trial. 00:37:01.900 |
And yet, Apostle Paul was called to be the apostle of who? 00:37:13.660 |
Because he wasn't trying to magnify Paul's education. 00:37:15.820 |
He wasn't trying to magnify Paul's Roman citizenship or his great learning. 00:37:21.020 |
He said, "No, he was chosen because he was the worst of sinners." 00:37:31.580 |
See, when we truly understand the love of God, it automatically humbles us because that's 00:37:43.900 |
A proud Christian is a man who does not know God because it is a contradictory of term. 00:37:51.140 |
If your education causes you to be proud, your education has led you away from Christ. 00:37:57.940 |
If your fruitfulness has caused you to be proud, those fruits are ultimately not from 00:38:03.860 |
God because at the core of who we worship is this agape love that is alien, that we 00:38:14.780 |
And it is that alien love that affects us, that causes us to be different. 00:38:21.340 |
Again, as I said, this is not one of many important things in the church. 00:38:32.620 |
And that's why the scripture says, "Of love, faith, and hope." 00:38:47.900 |
Sometimes in the church, we can get busy discipling, wanting to be holy, getting the doctrines 00:38:53.660 |
right, sharing the gospel, and there's so many things that can wrap our time and keep 00:38:58.980 |
And all of these things are very, very, very important because obedience to God is important. 00:39:06.860 |
But the Bible also says you can do all of that and have not love and it means nothing. 00:39:20.100 |
You can have had a holy spiritual encounter with God that causes you to speak tongues 00:39:24.900 |
of men and of angels and have not love, it's nothing. 00:39:28.940 |
You can have everything that you own and you sell and you give it to the poor. 00:39:33.540 |
If you do not practice agape love, it means nothing. 00:39:38.420 |
You can even give your body to be burned as a martyr for the purpose of the gospel and 00:39:50.640 |
Why would somebody be willing to give their life and then at the end of it, God says it 00:40:00.480 |
Think about the terrorists who are willing to give their life for what we believe to 00:40:07.760 |
There's people who are complete atheists who set themselves on fire in protest of government 00:40:12.820 |
because they want something and they want to go out in glory. 00:40:17.880 |
Paul is saying this to the Corinthians church in 1 Corinthians 13 because he was talking 00:40:21.720 |
to a group of people who were competing with each other for righteousness. 00:40:38.520 |
So Apostle Paul is telling this church who's divided because they're not practicing this 00:40:48.060 |
You can say the right things, do the right things. 00:40:50.060 |
And he says yet if you do not have this love, you missed the whole point of our salvation. 00:40:58.940 |
Because the central mark of a church is not the number, is not the quality of the preaching, 00:41:07.180 |
is not how well we duplicate ourselves, how well it's organized, is not the doctrinal 00:41:15.340 |
Again, all of these things are things that God calls us to do. 00:41:19.680 |
But the central mark of a Christian is this agape love, this alien love. 00:41:27.380 |
That's why he says a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have 00:41:32.660 |
And if you do this, then the world will know that you are my disciples. 00:41:41.740 |
I pray as a church, I really feel like we're kind of at a point in our church where I told 00:41:50.380 |
our leaders and I think the India team that we went to, I feel like we're kind of in stage 00:42:00.620 |
It's ideological, like oh, we're going to change the world for Jesus Christ. 00:42:05.180 |
I've been a ministry long enough to know that's not in my power. 00:42:18.500 |
Round three is kind of like, okay, let's do it, let's get second wind. 00:42:24.060 |
And we're going to go back into this fight and we're going to do this. 00:42:27.820 |
And you realize just like round one, you get punched in the face and it's like wow, this 00:42:33.380 |
And so round four, it feels like to me that it's more of a commitment to finish the race. 00:42:41.580 |
I started this, so we're going to finish this. 00:42:48.900 |
But at the center of this fight is not world evangelization. 00:42:57.620 |
Is not get everybody to study the Bible and memorize Genesis to Revelation. 00:43:07.780 |
All of these things that we want to do, we plan to do. 00:43:11.900 |
Social justice is important, is very important. 00:43:15.140 |
I'm going to be talking about that next week. 00:43:18.740 |
But above all of that, if we have a church that is cold toward Christ, and that is being 00:43:27.700 |
manifested in the coldness in the way that we practice love with one another, then we 00:43:38.100 |
So my prayer and my encouragement as we go to the next stage of our church, to think 00:43:56.860 |
But think about that person that you've been stiff-arming. 00:44:00.980 |
Think about that group of people that made you feel uncomfortable and that you've been 00:44:06.740 |
Think about the acquaintances in your life because these people make you feel uncomfortable. 00:44:12.740 |
Because that's where the application needs to be. 00:44:23.380 |
It might be with your neighbor, your co-worker, your mom, your dad, your brother, your sister. 00:44:29.660 |
It might be with the person sitting next to you. 00:45:01.620 |
We are changed by the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 00:45:08.020 |
Yet our flesh struggles to bear fruit in this way. 00:45:14.220 |
Help us, Lord God, to magnify you that the world may truly know that Christ is our Lord. 00:45:22.060 |
Help us as a church, Lord God, above everything else that we would be known to be people who 00:45:25.580 |
love one another with the love that Christ has given us.