Latest / Andy Stanley Sermons / Andy Stanley - The Matter with You Part 1 No Say in the Matter

Transcript

Andy Stanley - The Matter with You Part 1 No Say in the Matter · Andy Stanley Sermons

0:00
Speaker 1: So today I want to talk to just a slice
0:03
Speaker 1: of the audience. I hope that's okay. This may not
0:05
Speaker 1: apply to you. It may apply to someone you know.
0:08
Speaker 1: Or you may discover by the end of our time
0:10
Speaker 1: together it applies to you even though you didn't think
0:13
Speaker 1: it did. I want to talk to those of you
0:14
Speaker 1: who aren't convinced that God really loves you. You agree
0:20
Speaker 1: intellectually with the whole idea of God's universal love, that
0:23
Speaker 1: God loves everybody most Americans believe. Oh yeah, God loves everybody.
0:26
Speaker 1: And most Americans would say, oh yeah, and God If
0:28
Speaker 1: there is God, God is love. But I want to
0:32
Speaker 1: talk to those of you who kind of have your
0:33
Speaker 1: doubts about God loving you as an individual. And, of course,
0:39
Speaker 1: you would wonder if God loves you as an individual
0:41
Speaker 1: because after all, right, and then suddenly all the thoughts
0:45
Speaker 1: come flooding in, the memories come flooding in, the habits
0:48
Speaker 1: come flooding in, the current habits that loom kind of large.
0:52
Speaker 1: Your secret, if you're a religious person, you would call
0:54
Speaker 1: them your secret sins take center stage in your thinking.
0:59
Speaker 1: maybe there's an abiding sense of guilt, kind of a
1:02
Speaker 1: shadow of shame. And this may be the case, and
1:05
Speaker 1: I've talked to so many people where this is the case.
1:08
Speaker 1: It's an abiding sense of guilt and shame about nothing
1:10
Speaker 1: in particular. It's just that when you think about God,
1:12
Speaker 1: or maybe when you come to church or go to mass,
1:15
Speaker 1: there's just this sense of, it's just kind of negative.
1:19
Speaker 1: It's as if you just feel like God is, for
1:23
Speaker 1: some reason, just displeased with you. And you could point
1:26
Speaker 1: to things that would displease God, but it's kind of
1:28
Speaker 1: bigger than that and broader than that. And if you
1:30
Speaker 1: were raised in a religious environment that dealt in guilt
1:33
Speaker 1: and dealt in shame, of course, you would carry that
1:36
Speaker 1: with you. In fact, some of you may have been
1:38
Speaker 1: raised in religious environments where guilt and shame was the goal.
1:42
Speaker 1: that was the religious experience. The worse you felt, the
1:45
Speaker 1: more religious you felt. It's like, wow, the preacher really
1:49
Speaker 1: put me in my place today or I've never felt
1:51
Speaker 1: so bad in my life. That must have been God.
1:56
Speaker 1: That's the religious experience. If that's what you grew up
1:59
Speaker 1: in or even as an adult, that's what you were
2:01
Speaker 1: exposed to, then of course, when it comes to God,
2:04
Speaker 1: there would be a sense of, I don't know where
2:05
Speaker 1: I stand with God. Maybe it's related to your parents.
2:11
Speaker 1: I don't wanna, you know, do your family history for you.
2:14
Speaker 1: But if you grew up with a mom or a
2:15
Speaker 1: dad and you just could never please them, it was
2:18
Speaker 1: never enough. You were never good enough. The grades were
2:19
Speaker 1: never high enough. You were never obedient enough. Your older brother,
2:23
Speaker 1: he was the golden child or your older sister or
2:25
Speaker 1: your younger sister, but you just never could measure up.
2:28
Speaker 1: It's normal to transfer those kinds of thoughts and emotions
2:32
Speaker 1: to God. So maybe that was the case. But here's
2:34
Speaker 1: the thing. Whatever the case is, it's been that way
2:37
Speaker 1: for so long with you that you've just kind of
2:41
Speaker 1: learned to to live with it. That's for you, it's
2:44
Speaker 1: just normal. But what it translates to, and now I'm
2:50
Speaker 1: kind of reading your mind a little bit, so bear
2:52
Speaker 1: with me if this isn't true of you, just, you know,
2:55
Speaker 1: it's true for some people. What it translates to is
2:58
Speaker 1: a sense of wondering that you, when you think about it,
3:01
Speaker 1: because you don't think about it all the time, you
3:03
Speaker 1: wonder where you actually stand with God. If God knows
3:07
Speaker 1: you exist, if God knows your name, because preachers are
3:09
Speaker 1: always saying, you know, God knows you as an individual,
3:11
Speaker 1: and you think if that's the case, I don't know
3:13
Speaker 1: where I stand with God. And what happens is this
3:15
Speaker 1: impacts your confidence in God. This impacts your assurance when
3:20
Speaker 1: it comes to, does God hear my prayers? Can God
3:23
Speaker 1: be trusted? And again, most days you don't even think
3:26
Speaker 1: about it, but on other days, maybe Sundays in particular,
3:28
Speaker 1: or when you go to mass, it looms large. Now,
3:32
Speaker 1: the reason I wanted to talk about it, even though
3:33
Speaker 1: maybe it's just a slice of the audience, is that
3:36
Speaker 1: this is a bigger deal than perhaps you think it is.
3:39
Speaker 1: And here's why, and don't leave early, or you can
3:42
Speaker 1: be offended, but stick around. This may be offensive. You
3:47
Speaker 1: can't fully follow Jesus. You know, that's what we talk about,
3:50
Speaker 1: follow Jesus. Jesus' initial invitation in the Gospels is follow me.
3:54
Speaker 1: You can't be a fully devoted follower of Jesus until
3:57
Speaker 1: you settle this. And here's why. Because God's love for
3:59
Speaker 1: you God's love for you, we talk about this all
4:09
Speaker 1: the time, is supposed to inform and define how you
4:13
Speaker 1: love the people around you. That how we love, how
4:17
Speaker 1: we treat others is central. How we love and how
4:19
Speaker 1: we treat others is central to following Jesus. Christianity is
4:22
Speaker 1: a one another way of life. And here's the thing.
4:27
Speaker 1: You can't give what you haven't received. Or to put
4:32
Speaker 1: it a different way, you can't give, in this case,
4:35
Speaker 1: what you haven't yet received. accepted. And yet that is
4:40
Speaker 1: the essence of following Jesus. So with that in mind,
4:43
Speaker 1: I'm going to read a verse. I've read this verse
4:45
Speaker 1: so many times. I hope it's committed to memory that
4:48
Speaker 1: you've memorized it accidentally because I keep coming back to it.
4:51
Speaker 1: Jesus has gathered with his apostles during the final Passover,
4:54
Speaker 1: and he says to them in order that he would
4:57
Speaker 1: say that to the next generation of Christians and eventually
4:59
Speaker 1: to us. He says, here's what I want you to do.
5:01
Speaker 1: Here's the one command. I'm only giving you one command,
5:04
Speaker 1: not 10, not 613. This is one command You're to
5:08
Speaker 1: love one another, and here it is, as I have
5:10
Speaker 1: loved you, that you are to love one another as
5:13
Speaker 1: I have loved you, that you are to take the
5:14
Speaker 1: love you've experienced for me. This is Jesus talking to
5:17
Speaker 1: the men he'd spent three and a half years with.
5:19
Speaker 1: You're to take the love you have experienced for me,
5:21
Speaker 1: and you know I love you guys, and you know
5:23
Speaker 1: how I love you, and you've seen me love my enemies.
5:26
Speaker 1: In fact, tomorrow, you're gonna see a demonstration of love
5:30
Speaker 1: that's gonna take your breath away because it takes my
5:32
Speaker 1: breath away, so you know the depth of my love
5:34
Speaker 1: for you. And as I've loved you, you must love
5:38
Speaker 1: one another. And here's the thing. If we haven't, or
5:43
Speaker 1: if you haven't come to grips with, if you haven't
5:46
Speaker 1: accepted and surrendered to God's love for you, here's the problem.
5:50
Speaker 1: You can't do this. You can't as I have, because
5:56
Speaker 1: you have not yet come to grips with as he
5:59
Speaker 1: has for you. This explains something that's true of some
6:03
Speaker 1: of you, not all of This explains why you're quick
6:06
Speaker 1: to agree that you're not perfect. I mean, well, I'm
6:08
Speaker 1: not perfect. I'm not perfect. You're quick to agree that
6:11
Speaker 1: you're not perfect. And yet at the same time, you
6:13
Speaker 1: are quick to judge other people for not being perfect,
6:16
Speaker 1: which is just weird. And we all have a tendency
6:20
Speaker 1: to do it. It's like, I'm not perfect. You know,
6:22
Speaker 1: he oughta, she oughta, he oughta. Why did they? Why
6:24
Speaker 1: does he? Why did I? I'm not perfect. It's like,
6:25
Speaker 1: what's up with you? Here's what's up with you. The
6:27
Speaker 1: reason there's that, and that's not ambivalence, but the reason
6:30
Speaker 1: there's a built-in contradiction is It's not until you come
6:35
Speaker 1: to grips with God's love for you that you can
6:38
Speaker 1: extend that same kind of love and grace and mercy
6:40
Speaker 1: to other people the way that God has extended it
6:42
Speaker 1: to you. If you haven't received it, if you haven't
6:45
Speaker 1: embraced it, it doesn't dwell in you to dish out
6:49
Speaker 1: to other people. And you always, even though you're not perfect,
6:52
Speaker 1: you will always have a thread of unhealthy, toxic judgmentalism
6:59
Speaker 1: in you. So here's the point. You need to settle this. today.
7:06
Speaker 1: And I'm going to try to help. So to begin with,
7:08
Speaker 1: I guess we all kind of go on this journey together.
7:11
Speaker 1: To begin with, if at some point over the next
7:13
Speaker 1: few minutes, in fact, for some of you, this has
7:14
Speaker 1: already happened, all right? At some point over the next
7:17
Speaker 1: few minutes, you find yourself thinking, yeah, Andy, whatever, whatever,
7:20
Speaker 1: you don't know me. You don't know what I've done.
7:23
Speaker 1: You don't know what I'm up to. You don't know
7:25
Speaker 1: what I'm planning this afternoon. You don't know what I'm
7:27
Speaker 1: planning this week. You don't know anything about me. You
7:30
Speaker 1: don't know how I was raised. Okay, so yeah, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah.
7:32
Speaker 1: But you don't know me. This is so important. If
7:36
Speaker 1: this comes to mind or any version of this comes
7:38
Speaker 1: to mind or has already come to mind, this is important.
7:41
Speaker 1: You have just put your finger directly on the issue
7:44
Speaker 1: that needs to be addressed. For reasons that are completely understandable,
7:49
Speaker 1: and what I mean by that is if I heard
7:51
Speaker 1: your story, if I heard your story, if you were
7:52
Speaker 1: to tell me your story, I would go, yeah, no wonder.
7:55
Speaker 1: So I'm just, you know, I get this. For reasons
7:59
Speaker 1: that are completely understandable, you've been led to believe that
8:04
Speaker 1: God's love and acceptance of you is contingent upon something
8:08
Speaker 1: to do with you. It's not. That's some other religion.
8:15
Speaker 1: That's some version of Christianity that is a distortion of
8:19
Speaker 1: what Jesus came to communicate. Remember the angels at Christmas?
8:21
Speaker 1: We only talk about these verses at Christmas, which is unfortunate.
8:24
Speaker 1: The announcement of the birth of Jesus. Think about this.
8:27
Speaker 1: The announcement, the big broad for the world announcement of
8:31
Speaker 1: the birth of Jesus was this. Good news of great
8:35
Speaker 1: joy for all people. And what made it good news
8:40
Speaker 1: of great joy for all people, what made it good news,
8:42
Speaker 1: what makes it hard to believe news, what makes it
8:45
Speaker 1: easy to dismiss good news is that God's love for
8:50
Speaker 1: and God's acceptance of you is not contingent upon, does
8:57
Speaker 1: not depend upon, is not diminished by, is not thwarted by,
9:05
Speaker 1: is not thwartable by You. Ready? God's love for you
9:13
Speaker 1: is beyond your control. You don't have a say in
9:21
Speaker 1: the matter. He decided take your best shot, crucify his son,
9:32
Speaker 1: and he will simply forgive you from the cross. Now,
9:37
Speaker 1: You shouldn't take my word for it. What do I know, right?
9:39
Speaker 1: Just the preacher, right? Let me tell you whose words
9:42
Speaker 1: you should take this from. The Apostle Paul. Let me
9:48
Speaker 1: tell you why. The Apostle Paul labeled himself, you know
9:52
Speaker 1: this if you read the New Testament, he called himself
9:54
Speaker 1: the chief of sinners. In other words, he's like, you
9:56
Speaker 1: think you're a sinner? You ain't got nothing on me.
9:58
Speaker 1: When you hear my story, you're going to be like, okay,
10:00
Speaker 1: I bow out. You win the sinner competition, okay? He says,
10:04
Speaker 1: I am the chief of sinners. And because of the apostle,
10:08
Speaker 1: because of when he lived, because of who he knew,
10:11
Speaker 1: because of who he met, because of what he did
10:14
Speaker 1: for a living, he is the Best person to go
10:17
Speaker 1: to who has a perspective on this like no one
10:20
Speaker 1: who has ever lived and no one who will ever live.
10:24
Speaker 1: His doubt in terms of God's love for him, his
10:28
Speaker 1: guilt over what he had done, his shame clouds were massive.
10:33
Speaker 1: His guilt and shame clouds were like thunderheads. If you
10:37
Speaker 1: know his story, he arrested, tortured, and oversaw the execution
10:41
Speaker 1: of Christians for being Christians. He was Nero before Nero. Nero.
10:47
Speaker 1: So Paul is an expert on this topic. And here's
10:50
Speaker 1: what makes him an expert as well. Before he met Jesus,
10:53
Speaker 1: he was a Pharisee. Before he met Jesus, he wasn't
10:55
Speaker 1: just any Pharisee. Before he met Jesus, he worked his
10:59
Speaker 1: entire life to earn and deserve a right standing with God,
11:03
Speaker 1: to earn and deserve the love of God. Here's what
11:07
Speaker 1: he says about himself. He's bragging, but he's bragging in
11:11
Speaker 1: order to make the point he wants all of us
11:12
Speaker 1: to understand. He says this, he says, if someone else,
11:16
Speaker 1: that's you and me, if anybody else, if someone else
11:19
Speaker 1: thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh,
11:23
Speaker 1: meaning if there's somebody out there that thinks they are
11:26
Speaker 1: so good and they're so holy and they're so perfect
11:29
Speaker 1: and they're so pure and their performance and their obedience
11:32
Speaker 1: is so outstanding and if they think they're like the
11:35
Speaker 1: greatest rule keepers ever, he says, huh, you're kidding, you're
11:40
Speaker 1: kidding yourself. I have more. He says, I would put
11:43
Speaker 1: my obedience to God and my rule keeping in terms
11:46
Speaker 1: of obeying Torah and obeying God. I would put my
11:50
Speaker 1: obedience to God up against yours any day and I
11:52
Speaker 1: would win the obedience contest. Then he says some things
11:57
Speaker 1: that don't mean anything to us. But for his Judean audience,
12:00
Speaker 1: his first century audience, this was like, whoa. He says, look,
12:05
Speaker 1: I started even before I knew what I was doing.
12:07
Speaker 1: I was circumcised on the eighth day as Torah commanded.
12:11
Speaker 1: I'm of the people of Israel. Not only that, I'm
12:13
Speaker 1: of the tribe of Benjamin, which is the exalted tribe.
12:16
Speaker 1: And I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews, which really means in
12:18
Speaker 1: our vernacular, I can out Jew any of the Jews.
12:21
Speaker 1: I'm like the Jew of all Jews. I mean, good
12:23
Speaker 1: luck competing with me. You'll never win. In regard to
12:26
Speaker 1: the law, again, this doesn't mean much to us. He says,
12:29
Speaker 1: when it comes to Torah, keeping the law, keeping the rules,
12:31
Speaker 1: let me tell you, I was a Pharisee. The Pharisees
12:34
Speaker 1: were the ones that were the most meticulous rule keepers
12:37
Speaker 1: and the most meticulous law keepers. They abided by all
12:41
Speaker 1: the minutia of the law. It drove people crazy. It
12:43
Speaker 1: made people feel like, well, if that's what we have
12:46
Speaker 1: to do to please God, I'll never please God. And
12:48
Speaker 1: Paul's like, I pulled it off. Perfect pedigree, a strict
12:52
Speaker 1: law of God keeper, a rule keeper. His words, he says,
12:56
Speaker 1: as for righteousness or right standing with God, as for
12:59
Speaker 1: righteousness based on the law, what God told us to do,
13:02
Speaker 1: A plus, faultless. And then he met his resurrected King.
13:14
Speaker 1: Then he had a conversation with resurrected Jesus and he
13:18
Speaker 1: realized he had it all wrong. That his flawless rule keeping,
13:25
Speaker 1: that his flawless law keeping didn't earn him anything. And
13:31
Speaker 1: here's why he's so amazing. On one hand, his flawless
13:34
Speaker 1: rule keeping didn't earn God's love And his merciless persecution
13:40
Speaker 1: and execution of Christians didn't erase God's love. He says this.
13:50
Speaker 1: He says, whatever, whatever were gains to me. In other words,
13:55
Speaker 1: all the things I thought I had done to earn
13:57
Speaker 1: God's love or right standing with God, that God would
13:59
Speaker 1: stand up and applaud me one day when I came
14:01
Speaker 1: to heaven. All the things, whatever were gains to me,
14:04
Speaker 1: I now consider them loss for the sake of of Christ,
14:09
Speaker 1: to which somebody reading this would be like, okay, what
14:12
Speaker 1: do you mean you consider them at loss? He said,
14:13
Speaker 1: let me just be graphic. I consider them garbage. Wait, wait, wait, what?
14:20
Speaker 1: He goes, yeah, I did all that stuff thinking I
14:22
Speaker 1: was earning God's pleasure, that I was earning God's love,
14:26
Speaker 1: that I was earning, that there was some kind of
14:28
Speaker 1: massive cosmic scorekeeper and I was rated above other people.
14:32
Speaker 1: I was such a good person. I look back on
14:35
Speaker 1: that season of my life now and I'm like, that
14:37
Speaker 1: was garbage. That every act of obedience to win God's approval, garbage.
14:44
Speaker 1: And then he goes on to say over and over
14:46
Speaker 1: in his letters, because the approval of God And the
14:49
Speaker 1: acceptance of God and acceptance by God isn't gained by
14:54
Speaker 1: a righteousness, these are his words, a righteousness of my
14:58
Speaker 1: own that comes from law keeping. That's not what God's
15:05
Speaker 1: love is contingent upon. A right standing with God doesn't
15:11
Speaker 1: come from the law. It comes, you ready for this?
15:17
Speaker 1: Because then we would ask, okay, well, his audience is like, wait, wait, wait.
15:20
Speaker 1: And some of you are thinking, wait, okay, if being
15:23
Speaker 1: obedient and being a law keeper and a rule follower
15:26
Speaker 1: and doing everything God tells me to do or Jesus
15:27
Speaker 1: commands us to do, if that doesn't gain me brownie points,
15:30
Speaker 1: if that doesn't gain God's love, if that doesn't keep
15:33
Speaker 1: me in right standing with God, then how do we
15:34
Speaker 1: do it? And Paul's like, I'm glad you asked because
15:38
Speaker 1: this is what changed me. This is why I spent
15:41
Speaker 1: the rest of my life risking my life planting churches
15:44
Speaker 1: around the Mediterranean Rim, that God had done something for
15:48
Speaker 1: the world, and it was nothing like the pagan gods.
15:50
Speaker 1: It was nothing like we were raised to believe. You
15:52
Speaker 1: couldn't sacrifice your way into his good graces. You couldn't
15:56
Speaker 1: slaughter enough animals to win God's good favor. You couldn't
15:59
Speaker 1: go to the temple long enough. This is what changed everything.
16:04
Speaker 1: So then how do we Find out where we stand
16:09
Speaker 1: with God and how to, and he says, I'm gonna
16:10
Speaker 1: tell you. He says, it's so simple that it comes
16:14
Speaker 1: through faith in Christ. The righteousness, the right standing with
16:18
Speaker 1: God that comes from, pause, this is important. This is
16:25
Speaker 1: a little offensive. This may hurt your feelings. In fact,
16:28
Speaker 1: the better you are, the more of your feelings this
16:30
Speaker 1: is gonna hurt. Because Paul did everything right according to Torah.
16:35
Speaker 1: And when he discovered that his whole, the way he
16:38
Speaker 1: was measuring life and evaluating his life was all wrong.
16:41
Speaker 1: I'm sure more than hurt his feelings. Okay, look up here.
16:44
Speaker 1: If you think you have a say in the matter
16:47
Speaker 1: regarding God's love for you, that somehow you determine God's
16:52
Speaker 1: love for you, you overestimate yourself. And you vastly underestimate
17:02
Speaker 1: the love and the grace and the mercy of And
17:08
Speaker 1: when that goes from here to here, you will change.
17:14
Speaker 1: It's almost as if you won't have a choice because
17:17
Speaker 1: it changes you. A right standing with God, here it is,
17:22
Speaker 1: comes from God. How? On the basis of or in
17:28
Speaker 1: response to. And this is the reorientation. This is the change.
17:32
Speaker 1: This is the mind-boggling thing. This is the thing that
17:35
Speaker 1: you're going to have to let go of some things.
17:38
Speaker 1: This is the thing that it doesn't even feel like
17:40
Speaker 1: it's right to do emotionally, maybe because of the way
17:42
Speaker 1: you were raised or perhaps because of what you heard
17:44
Speaker 1: from people like me who do what I do in
17:46
Speaker 1: places like this. This is the reorientation that removes, ready
17:50
Speaker 1: for this? This is what hurts our feelings. It removes
17:54
Speaker 1: us from the equation because God's love isn't earned. It
17:58
Speaker 1: is unearnable. It's a gift. And it's a gift that
18:05
Speaker 1: has already been given to you. But this is why
18:12
Speaker 1: we're talking about it. It's a gift that isn't experienced.
18:16
Speaker 1: It's a gift that doesn't impact our behavior. It's a
18:20
Speaker 1: gift that doesn't impact our tendency to be judgmental. It's
18:24
Speaker 1: a gift that isn't experienced until it's recognized and received,
18:28
Speaker 1: here's the key, by faith. Now, this is so important.
18:33
Speaker 1: If you're playing with your phone at home, please just
18:35
Speaker 1: give me your undivided attention. This is so important. Why faith?
18:39
Speaker 1: Throughout the ministry of Jesus, the teaching of Jesus, it's
18:42
Speaker 1: by faith. It's believe, believe in, believe in, believe in,
18:45
Speaker 1: which means trust in, trust in, trust in. The reason
18:48
Speaker 1: it's by faith, this is so important, is because it's true.
18:52
Speaker 1: Now here's the thing. In some branches of Christianity, I
18:55
Speaker 1: don't know what kind of church you were raised in
18:57
Speaker 1: or what kind of faith system, you got the feeling
18:59
Speaker 1: that the way you make something true is by believing it.
19:03
Speaker 1: If you believe it, it'll become true. You kind of
19:05
Speaker 1: believe it into existence. That's magic. That is not Christianity.
19:09
Speaker 1: That's some other religion. That's some distortion of Christianity. Read
19:13
Speaker 1: the gospels. The reason we are called to believe. is
19:17
Speaker 1: because it's already true. It's already happened. You aren't making
19:22
Speaker 1: something happen. You aren't creating something new. You're not changing anything.
19:26
Speaker 1: Isn't it true if you just get out of the
19:28
Speaker 1: religious context for a second and think about something you
19:31
Speaker 1: believe is true, or you didn't believe it was true,
19:33
Speaker 1: and then you did believe it was true? You began
19:36
Speaker 1: believing it was true because you were convinced it's real.
19:39
Speaker 1: You didn't make it true by believing You embraced it
19:42
Speaker 1: by believing. And this is Paul's message. And this is
19:45
Speaker 1: Jesus' message. And this is the invitation to the whole world.
19:48
Speaker 1: That it's true. it has happened it is done it
19:53
Speaker 1: is a reality and your role and my role is
19:59
Speaker 1: simple because it's true we simply believe it and receive
20:06
Speaker 1: it and then here's the life change and rest in it.
20:14
Speaker 1: Ready for this? This is amazing. And if you refuse,
20:22
Speaker 1: God loves you anyway. Here's Paul's version of God loves
20:28
Speaker 1: you anyway. Mine is short. His is long, okay? Mine
20:32
Speaker 1: is simple. His is complicated because he's the apostle Paul, okay? Okay.
20:36
Speaker 1: But listen to these words. Now, let me tell you
20:38
Speaker 1: who he's writing to. This is so important. If you're
20:39
Speaker 1: from a different faith tradition or used to be a
20:41
Speaker 1: Christian and you walked away, you know, if you walked
20:44
Speaker 1: away from Christianity, I just want to believe you had
20:46
Speaker 1: good reason to. You wouldn't do that otherwise, right? You
20:49
Speaker 1: met somebody, experienced something. Somebody mistreated your mom. I get that.
20:53
Speaker 1: But just listen to this second. Paul, the words I'm
20:56
Speaker 1: about to read come from a first century document. We
20:59
Speaker 1: call it the Book of Romans. It's not really a book.
21:01
Speaker 1: It's a letter to Christians, Jewish and Gentile Christians in Rome. Now,
21:05
Speaker 1: here's the kicker. He'd never been to Rome. He doesn't
21:08
Speaker 1: know who's going to read this. He doesn't know who
21:11
Speaker 1: this is for. He has a few names. But this
21:14
Speaker 1: is a letter that's going to be delivered and read
21:17
Speaker 1: to anyone who can gather and listen to it. And
21:20
Speaker 1: it was so important. Again, it was copied and eventually
21:22
Speaker 1: survived the first century and ended up in our New Testament.
21:24
Speaker 1: But listen, he is saying the following words to people
21:28
Speaker 1: he hasn't met, which means... What he's about to say
21:32
Speaker 1: is not conditioned on anything they've done or haven't done.
21:37
Speaker 1: He's writing this to you. And before we put it up,
21:42
Speaker 1: here's how he begins. For I am convinced. Once upon
21:48
Speaker 1: a time, I was not convinced, but I am convinced.
21:51
Speaker 1: What convinced you, Paul? I'm telling you what convinced me.
21:54
Speaker 1: I was the best. I was the worst. I was
21:56
Speaker 1: the worst. One didn't win me favor and one didn't
21:59
Speaker 1: knock me out of favor because I am not a
22:02
Speaker 1: factor in the love of God. Tell us, Paul, for
22:10
Speaker 1: I'm convinced that neither death nor life, even death, even death,
22:19
Speaker 1: neither angels nor demons, let's go from one extreme to
22:21
Speaker 1: the other, Neither the present, what you're doing now, what's
22:25
Speaker 1: going on right now, or what you do or what
22:27
Speaker 1: happens in the future. What? Wait, Paul, we got to
22:31
Speaker 1: hit the brakes right here. The future? Whoa, whoa, whoa.
22:33
Speaker 1: In other words, what you're about to say isn't impacted
22:37
Speaker 1: by anything that happens in the future. Paul's like, I'm
22:39
Speaker 1: convinced it's not. Because you're not a factor in determining
22:44
Speaker 1: God's love for you. nor the future, nor any powers,
22:50
Speaker 1: including your power, my power, my performance, neither, he goes on,
22:54
Speaker 1: neither height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,
22:59
Speaker 1: did I miss anything? This is kind of the catch up.
23:02
Speaker 1: Anything in all creation will be able to separate us. Paul,
23:08
Speaker 1: who are you talking to? Everybody. From the love That
23:19
Speaker 1: is recognized in. Demonstrated by. Matthew. I want you to
23:29
Speaker 1: follow me. Jesus. He's a tax collector. I know. Matthew.
23:36
Speaker 1: I want you to. Jesus. Nobody likes him. He's a traitor. Okay.
23:43
Speaker 1: If he follows us. It's going to destroy our reputation. Matthew. Matthew.
23:52
Speaker 1: Just read the gospels. Us. We'll be able to separate
23:58
Speaker 1: us from the love of God that is in demonstrated
24:02
Speaker 1: by King Jesus, our Lord. Here's the point. Like me,
24:08
Speaker 1: as a kid, you may have accepted Jesus as your savior.
24:11
Speaker 1: I mean, who wouldn't? I mean, I was six years old.
24:15
Speaker 1: And it was like, do you want to go to
24:16
Speaker 1: heaven or hell? Heaven. Heaven. Prayed this prayer. How many times?
24:27
Speaker 1: Every year at the end of camp, I prayed it
24:29
Speaker 1: again because, I mean, I want to end, you know.
24:33
Speaker 1: Some of you understand that. Yep. All the Baptists, yep, yep.
24:39
Speaker 1: Evangelist comes along, makes you doubt your salvation. If you've
24:41
Speaker 1: done this, if you've done this, if you've done this,
24:43
Speaker 1: you can't really be a Christian. Even the Satan himself,
24:46
Speaker 1: even the devil believes. It's like, oh, my gosh. Paul says, no.
24:54
Speaker 1: You may have accepted Jesus as your Savior. I hope
24:56
Speaker 1: you have. Place your faith in Christ's death on the
24:58
Speaker 1: cross for your sins. But have you ever said yes
25:04
Speaker 1: to God's permanent, fixed, immutable, endurable, unrelenting, unchanging, it doesn't
25:17
Speaker 1: matter what you do, love, for you? That is life-changing.
25:24
Speaker 1: And here's why, don't miss this, it's so important. It's
25:27
Speaker 1: life-changing because ultimately it is his unconditional, undeserved love for you,
25:33
Speaker 1: not his demands. If his demands could change your life,
25:38
Speaker 1: your life would be permanently changed if you grew up
25:41
Speaker 1: in church. But that's not enough, is it? Because you tried.
25:45
Speaker 1: It is not, it's his immutable, unchangeable love for you,
25:49
Speaker 1: not his demands, that melts our resistance. and bends our
25:57
Speaker 1: wills to his. This is what empowers you to put
26:02
Speaker 1: away your unnecessary, toxic, judgmental heart when you accept and
26:10
Speaker 1: understand what God has done for you. This is what
26:15
Speaker 1: empowers you to love as he loved, which is the
26:18
Speaker 1: essence of what it means to follow Jesus. Again, You
26:22
Speaker 1: can't fully follow. You can't be a fully devoted follower
26:25
Speaker 1: of Jesus until you come to terms with the Father's
26:28
Speaker 1: love for you. Until you come to terms with the
26:32
Speaker 1: fact that his love for you does not depend on you.
26:38
Speaker 1: That you have no choice in the matter. So to
26:45
Speaker 1: drive this home, I want to read some lyrics to
26:49
Speaker 1: a song. It's an older song. We used to sing
26:51
Speaker 1: it at our churches. It's been a while. And the
26:55
Speaker 1: lyrics to this song, I chose this song because I
26:57
Speaker 1: don't know of any other song that brings the energy
26:59
Speaker 1: and the grit of God's unrelenting love for us. The
27:03
Speaker 1: title is actually How He Loves, which this will be
27:05
Speaker 1: a familiar song from some of you. By John Mark McMillan.
27:09
Speaker 1: John Mark McMillan. John wrote this song, the lyrics to
27:12
Speaker 1: this song, right after he found out about his best
27:15
Speaker 1: friend dying in a multi-car crash. And he was angry,
27:21
Speaker 1: had all the normal feelings and emotions and he began
27:24
Speaker 1: to journal and he began to journal and he was
27:27
Speaker 1: super honest with God and his journaling eventually led to
27:30
Speaker 1: the lyrics of this song. He says the lyrics just
27:32
Speaker 1: poured out of him. And I hope as they poured
27:34
Speaker 1: out of him onto paper that they will pour out
27:38
Speaker 1: from this screen into you. Ready? Excuse me. He, God.
27:50
Speaker 1: is jealous for me. These lines. He loves like a
27:55
Speaker 1: hurricane and I am just the tree. That you are
28:01
Speaker 1: a victim in every positive sense of the word of
28:05
Speaker 1: God's love. He loves you without your permission and he
28:09
Speaker 1: loves you without your cooperation. He is the hurricane and
28:14
Speaker 1: you are simply the tree. Bending beneath the weight of
28:20
Speaker 1: his wind, of his wind and mercy, that is yielding,
28:25
Speaker 1: surrendering to his love. Have you done that? Have you yielded?
28:32
Speaker 1: Here it is. When all of a sudden, out of nowhere,
28:34
Speaker 1: maybe today is all of a sudden out of nowhere
28:36
Speaker 1: for you. When all of a sudden I am unaware
28:39
Speaker 1: of these afflictions eclipsed by glory. I love this line.
28:42
Speaker 1: Here's what he's saying. He's like, look, we have all
28:45
Speaker 1: these excuses, all the things I've done, I haven't done,
28:47
Speaker 1: I haven't been perfect, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And
28:49
Speaker 1: suddenly I am overwhelmed. All of my excuses, all of
28:52
Speaker 1: my yeah buts, all of my there's no way, they're eclipsed.
28:57
Speaker 1: by the revelation of the nature of God's love. They're
29:00
Speaker 1: eclipsed by glory. All of those things are irrelevant. They're
29:04
Speaker 1: not a factor. And then he writes, and then I
29:07
Speaker 1: realized in that moment, I realized just how beautiful you
29:10
Speaker 1: are and how great your affections are for me. And
29:14
Speaker 1: I could not receive and understand your love for me
29:17
Speaker 1: because I was operating off the wrong system. I thought
29:20
Speaker 1: somehow there's a little bit of earned, there's a little
29:22
Speaker 1: bit of deserved, there's a little bit. And I realized,
29:27
Speaker 1: I'm not a factor. It is all you for me.
29:33
Speaker 1: So we write, so we are his portion and he
29:36
Speaker 1: is our prize. I love this. Drawn to redemption. not goaded,
29:41
Speaker 1: not threatened, not you better or else. Drawn to redemption
29:45
Speaker 1: by the grace in his eyes. Change from the inside
29:52
Speaker 1: out by recognizing and receiving what has been there all along.
29:58
Speaker 1: And if Grace is an ocean. It is so vast.
30:03
Speaker 1: It is so deep. It is so wide. We all
30:07
Speaker 1: are just sinking. And then this next line. This next
30:12
Speaker 1: line was so bothersome to some people that several artists
30:15
Speaker 1: who recorded the song changed it. It might be my
30:19
Speaker 1: favorite line in the whole song. And let me explain it.
30:22
Speaker 1: In ancient times... There were temples. You go to the
30:26
Speaker 1: forum in Rome today, there's temples still, buildings left over, temples,
30:30
Speaker 1: all kind of gods, Greek gods in Greece and Macedonia
30:34
Speaker 1: and all over the world, wherever you went, there were temples.
30:36
Speaker 1: You go to Jerusalem, there's the temple to Yahweh. The
30:39
Speaker 1: temple was considered the place where heaven met earth. That
30:45
Speaker 1: if the closest you could get to the God, to Jupiter,
30:47
Speaker 1: to whichever God, to Zeus, if you're Greek, ancient Greece,
30:52
Speaker 1: You went to the temple. In Jerusalem, the closest you
30:55
Speaker 1: could get to Yahweh, you brought your sacrifice, was the temple.
31:00
Speaker 1: But not until Jesus arrived did heaven actually meet earth.
31:05
Speaker 1: Not until the king arrived. So listen to these lyrics.
31:11
Speaker 1: So heaven meets earth like a sloppy, wet kiss. Didn't
31:18
Speaker 1: see it coming. Wasn't planned for. It wasn't all buttoned up.
31:24
Speaker 1: It was a surprise and it was messy and it
31:26
Speaker 1: was glorious. And my heart turns violently like, what? The
31:33
Speaker 1: side of my chest. And I don't have time to
31:39
Speaker 1: maintain these regrets when I think about the way he
31:46
Speaker 1: loves us. When we had our first child, Andrew, we
31:56
Speaker 1: live in a condominium. And what I'm about to share,
32:00
Speaker 1: I wrote down. That's why I remember it in detail,
32:02
Speaker 1: though I don't think I could ever forget it. And
32:04
Speaker 1: I'm holding him, and two thoughts ran through my mind.
32:08
Speaker 1: You know how this is, unplanned thoughts. One was, I'm
32:12
Speaker 1: holding little Andrew all bundled up, little face, you know.
32:17
Speaker 1: I thought. Is it possible that my dad felt this
32:23
Speaker 1: way about me? Is it possible that my dad still
32:28
Speaker 1: feels this? Because I never had a child before. Is
32:31
Speaker 1: it possible that he feels this way about me? I
32:35
Speaker 1: couldn't imagine. I mean, in my head, I'm like, I'm
32:37
Speaker 1: sure he does. I'm sure he did. I know, but
32:42
Speaker 1: because it was, I just couldn't fathom that anyone could
32:46
Speaker 1: love me The way I loved this six pound, eight
32:50
Speaker 1: ounce bundle that had never done anything for me, couldn't
32:55
Speaker 1: do anything for me, didn't even know who I was.
33:00
Speaker 1: Second thought, is it possible that God loves me like this?
33:10
Speaker 1: No way. And then I thought, do I have a
33:17
Speaker 1: greater capacity for love than God? No. My capacity for
33:25
Speaker 1: love comes from God. Your capacity for love is from God.
33:33
Speaker 1: If you're a parent, if you're a father, and you
33:37
Speaker 1: held your son or your daughter for the first time,
33:40
Speaker 1: a new category of love was born. And you do
33:48
Speaker 1: not have a greater capacity for love than God, your
33:51
Speaker 1: heavenly father. And I wrote in my journal that if
33:58
Speaker 1: that reality ever went from my head to my heart,
34:02
Speaker 1: it would change me. And it did. And I want
34:07
Speaker 1: that for you. And men, I want that particularly for you.
34:18
Speaker 1: So we're going to sing this song, and I ask
34:20
Speaker 1: that you not leave early or leave. And this is
34:25
Speaker 1: an invitation. This is an invitation to embrace what's been
34:30
Speaker 1: true all along. And I ask, and this is personal, okay,
34:36
Speaker 1: and if somebody were saying this to me, I don't
34:38
Speaker 1: know that I would like it, but I'll say it anyway.
34:40
Speaker 1: I don't want you to fight back your tears because
34:44
Speaker 1: your tears may be evidence that that God is moving
34:48
Speaker 1: what intellectually you probably would agree with from here to here.
34:55
Speaker 1: And when that happens, we change because everything else is
35:01
Speaker 1: eclipsed by his grace and his mercy. And his love
35:09
Speaker 1: is almost irresistible because of the grace in his eyes.