Latest / Breakthrough Church Podcast / Loved By God
Transcript
- Breakthrough Church: Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Breakthrough Church Podcast. Good to be with you. and excited to share just an encouragement. I hope ⁓ that as I share some of these things, it will stir you and provoke you in the best of ways to be hungry for the Lord and the pure, simple gospel. And ⁓ just want to share ⁓ a f a few things from First Thessalonians. ⁓ You may not know this, or maybe you do if you've listened at any any time to this podcast, but on Wednesdays I spend ⁓ it's my, you know, time it's my day to to kind of set aside to do, set aside some things that are pressing that need to get done and and spend time with the Lord. And so I was doing that yesterday and man, I was just From the get go of just praying and spending time with the Lord, I Felt like, how do I say it? It was like I just wanted to be with the Lord. I wanted to be in his presence. And there was no other agenda. And and I almost didn't do this. I almost was like, well, I gotta do some sermon stuff. I have things I gotta do. And then I thought, no, I I need to go into today with my heart purely after God, just wanting to be in his presence, wanting to spend time with the Holy Spirit. And ⁓ and so I was just confessing that to the Lord and telling him that. And I've really, really started to get emotional and was feeling God. Be present with me. And and then I I just felt like the Lord, yeah, the Lord brought me to First Thessalonians, which was so random. And I haven't read that book in forever. And but it was on my mind, on my heart. I felt that the Lord was saying, go to First Thessalonians and and read it. And I said, Okay. So I began to read it. it says, We give thanks to God always for all of you. Constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father, your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul planted the church in Thessalica. In the book of Acts, you can go and s and read about it. I think it's Acts 17. Back check me on that. ⁓ but he plants a church and apparently through this whole book, first and second Thessalonians, ⁓ he is so affectionate towards them. He loves these people. ⁓ He admires them for how they received the word when he was there and preaching and how their faith has gone forth into all other nations, and people see the Thessal the Thessalonians as an example of a a good, godly church rooted rooted in the gospel. And so Paul's writing this letter to them. So he starts off by, you know, I we give thanks to God for you, and he does his thing. And so this is what he says in verse four for we know, brothers and sisters, loved by God, that he has chosen you. Because our gospel came to you, not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. Okay, I just want to stop because yesterday and I was reading this, the phrase loved by God. I thought, wow, I feel like God has something for me there. And I I meditated on it, loved by God, brothers loved by God. For we know brothers loved God. By God. And if you've ever done this or you feel something highlighted in the Bible, you stop. There's no rush. You stop and you meditate on it. And I felt like God had something for me. And I was meditating on it. And then I kept reading and I moved on. I was, I was in silence and spending time with the Lord doing other things. But he brought this back. He said, No, I have something for you here. And I began to meditate on it. And I just I then I started to reflect on the last few weeks. And I had just felt not. Not like far from the Lord, but h he was hard to get to. Like it was hard to get to the Lord. Anytime I wanted to go pray, it there was a mixture of all other things in my heart that was like made it hard to go and be with him. And and I have always labeled that as illegalism, where ⁓ I'm just going through the motions and I'm doing all the right things and my heart's not in it, and et cetera, et cetera. I'm trying to earn righteousness from God and And I I've always labeled how I was feeling about ⁓ with with legalism. And and I it had been happening for a few weeks now. And so I I in the prayer time, I was just confessing legalism. I said, Lord, I'm sorry, I know I'm loved by God. I'm loved by you, but I I feel like I have this legalism that I'm just I'm earning your right trying to earn what's freely given from you. And then I stopped. And I said, No, Lord, the Holy Spirit stopped me. I was like, Lord, I don't think it's legalism. What is it? Holy Spirit. Legalism is not resonating. I'm not struggling with that. Holy Spirit, what is this thing I'm feeling and have felt every time I've approached you in prayer? And immediately fear came into my heart. And out loud I said it at the same time. I said, It's fear. I said, What I've been feeling has been fear. I don't know if you relate to this or not. I struggle to label emotions sometimes. I feel them strongly. But I can't label them all the time. And in the moment of labeling that feeling as fear, I felt it flee. I felt that love, the unconditional love of God hit my heart the moment I labeled it as fear. It was so freeing to me to know that, ⁓ I'm not just over here trying to earn salvation, earn righteousness. And sure, maybe I was a little bit, but that wasn't the main issue. The main issue over the last several weeks has been fear. So I began to think, okay, Lord, what am I afraid of? And the Lord began to rehash some things with me: fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of if everybody knew really me, and if I really presented the true, authentic Josh, would people receive me and welcome me in, or would they reject me and run away from me? That's a legitimate fear that I have in my heart. And I let that bleed into my relationship with God and it let it bleed into my relationship with Abby. And so I began to reflect and think about all the times I would try to pray and approach the Lord, fear was in my heart. And I would approach him and say, God, are you going to reject me right now? If I come to you in prayer, how do I know you're going to be there? How do I know you're going to show up? And so what would I do? I'd either wouldn't pray or I would half heartedly pray Or I would pretend like I really know how to pray and get all religious, which is why it felt like legalism sometimes, because I'm doing the right things, going through the motions, but I'm just not I'm just not from the heart, not full of faith, but I was full of fear. And and it was all based in this fear of rejection. Well, you see this all the way at the beginning of Genesis. Genesis 1, 2, and 3. What happened after Adam and Eve sinned? What did they do? They hid. Why? Because they were afraid. A ⁓ One of the primary effects of sin is fear. Fear of what? Punishment. 1 John 4 tells us that fear has to do with punishment, but perfect love casts out fear. So in this one phrase in 1 Thessalonians, loved by God, the Lord was telling me, Josh, you are loved by me. I love you. And there was so much wrapped up in that. Here's what he was doing. He was casting out fear by telling me that he loves me through 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, verse 4. And as I read, Loved by God, he exposed the fear of rejection and then cast it out of me by showing me the perfect love that he showed me on the cross when he sent his son to be the savior of the world. And then I thought of Hebrews chapter 2, which says this. I'll try to try to quote It says that Jesus, through death, conquered the one who has the power of death, that is Satan, so that he could deliver those who, through the fear of death, were subject to lifelong slavery. Which reminds me of Romans 8, that says, We have not been given a spirit of fear to fall back into slavery, or I'm sorry, spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but a spirit of adoption by whom we cry, Abba, Father. What does all that mean? It means that. When we are afraid of rejection or afraid of being punished, it's the same as being a slave, which feels like death. And being a slave to fear moves you to have what I like to call a looking over your shoulder face, where you're like constantly looking over your shoulder. Like, am I going to be smitten any moment now? Am I going to be messed up? Am I going to be rejected? Am I going to be judged? Am I going to be condemned at any moment? I could be punished. Because I'm not perfect. I've done this, I've done that, I've done this, I've done that. And that's what Adam and Eve were struggling with. That's why they hid it in hid in the garden away from the presence of the Lord. Because they sinned, they knew they sinned, and they were afraid that their sin was going to cause God to come in and punish them. But what does God do? He comes near, clothes them in garments of flesh. And yes, he does kick them out of the garden, but not because he's angry, but because he doesn't want them to stay in the sinful state forever. He wants them to be free. He wants them to be healed. And the only way is so that they is that they don't get locked into their sinful state forever by eating the tree of life. And so he he he he casts them out of the garden to to save them from eternal death, which is a picture of Jesus. And so in the phrase loved by God, the Lord exposed fear of rejection, which is the main problem. You know what the Lord loves loves to do? Expose the root of the problem. Not just A problem that you have, he wants to expose the root of the problem. And then he wants love to fill that place that fear used to hold. And that love came in. So he exposed the fear of rejection that I had. And then filled me with his love, this understanding that it doesn't matter what I've done, I'm loved. And then he revealed to me some areas of my life where I get triggered, and fear of rejection is. ⁓ kind of fanned into flame in my life. There's a f there's a few areas where where that's triggered. ⁓ For you, it could be any of your relationships or self-condemnation. Like you've done something and you feel so bad about it you can't get over the fact that you did that and so on and so forth. Anyways, all of that to say, what I experienced yesterday in him exposing fear, filling me with his love, and and just drawing near to me is what happened What Hebrews 2 says Jesus did. Through death, he conquered the power of death, so that those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery might be delivered. And this is what happens in First Thessalonians at the end. He says, We wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. We have no fear. There's no fear of death anymore. Every fear we have is connected to the fear of death. And Jesus himself conquered death, the power of death. He took it on, the greatest fear. We all have is is is not just physical death, but what's on the other side of physical death. And and there are fears that you have that I have that feel like death. For me, being rejected by someone feels like what death feels like. For you, it might be abandonment. ⁓ it might be pain. Like the idea of pain, feeling physical pain, feels like death. And it could be lack. ⁓ like not having enough money feels like death to you. ⁓ or not having enough material possessions or enough friends or whatever it might be. We all have these fears that if they came true, it would literally feel like we're dying. And Jesus has come to set us free from that fear. And he does it by perfect love. Perfect love casts out fear. So here's I wanna I wanna keep reading because this is so powerful. ⁓ we know, brothers and sisters, loved by God. That he has chosen you. Okay, so how does Paul know that the Thessalonians were chosen by God? Here it is, ready? Because our gospel, what's the gospel? The kingdom of heaven is at hand, and Jesus Christ is the King, and He has come to conquer death, conquer Satan, and set free captives and slaves unto eternal life by his love displayed on the cross. And he's coming back one day to deliver us finally from eternal. The grips of the world and the and the presence of sin and Satan. That's that's the gospel message. He says, That gospel came to you. This is how I know you're chosen by God. That gospel of Jesus came to you not only in word, meaning not only did we preach it from the word and speak it to you with our words, but also the gospel came to you in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. Okay, this is how the gospel should come to us. So I'm gonna just briefly talk about each one of these and it'll be done. The gospel needs to come to us in word. They didn't have the New Testament at this time, so this doesn't mean preaching from the gospels or whatever. It means we spoke the gospel to you with our words, and he probably used the Old Testament. ⁓ I'm I'm almost positive he he would have done that. Paul knew the Old Testament. Spent the majority of his time in synagogues convincing people from the Old Testament that Jesus is the Christ, the suffering servant. And so I I can guarantee you he was using the Old Testament. He was using the word, and with his words was preaching the gospel. There has to be, it has to come to us through preaching, presentation. Someone actually has to open their mouth and tell us the good news of the gospel of Jesus. But not just that, it has to also come in power. Think of Paul's words in other in 1 Corinthians, where he says that I did not come to you knowing anything except Jesus Christ and him crucified, so that your faith might not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God and in the demonstrations of the Spirit. So when he's saying the gospel came to you in power, saying there were manifestations of power among them that were evidence of the gospel being preached, signs, wonders, healing, deliverance. All of that was happening in Thess in Thessalica. Oftentimes when the gospel comes to us in word, it also comes in power, meaning there's a manifestation of the power of the gospel in our hearts, in our bodies, in our lives, right there, right then, right now. ⁓ this isn't every time, but in some form or fashion, the gospel does come to us in power and in the Holy Spirit. So ⁓ it's interesting. Can the gospel come to you not in the Holy Spirit? It's a very interesting question. I don't probably have the right answer. ⁓ I do know that for the majority of my life, the gospel was a gospel of the word, but not a gospel of the spirit. And what I mean is I knew the content of the gospel, but the substantive presence of the one who is the gospel wasn't ⁓ a priority for me. Meaning the gospel is not just content, the gospel is a person, and that person is Jesus. And Jesus can only be seen, encountered, and received by the Holy Spirit. So when the gospel comes to you, it doesn't just come as a as content, it comes as a person highlighted to you by the Spirit of God. And then finally, with full conviction. So he explains this. He says, You know what kind of men we prove to be among you for your sake, and you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit. So this is partly what it means to receive the gospel in the Holy Spirit. It's with joy. Even in affliction, you receive the gospel with joy. That's how you know it's it comes by the Holy Spirit. ⁓ so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. What does it mean to receive the gospel with full conviction? It means everything in me has just changed. Everything about my life, my trajectory, my priorities, my agendas, my plans, everything has just changed. And you're so transformed by the message of the gospel that your life becomes an example to other believers. That they look at you and think that's what it means to receive and walk in the gospel of Jesus by the power of the Spirit. This is what's happening to the Thessalonians, all believers in Macedonia and Achaia. For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we not need we don't need to say anything. For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God. And to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. This is so powerful that what to receive the gospel in word, power, holy spirit, and full conviction means that there is a complete radical transformation in your life that others look at you and think, that is the one true God. That, what who they're serving is the one true God. And you become an example to everyone everywhere. Of what it means to love God and to serve Him and to receive the gospel by faith. This is amazing. I and I hope this stirs and provokes you. And I don't want to say if you've not had any sort of manifestation of the Holy Spirit or any power encounter because of the gospel, that means that you're insufficient or that you haven't received the gospel. But I will say that there's transformation on the other side of receiving those things. That you should be hungry for the gospel to be moved in power in your life, for the Holy Spirit to manifest in power in your life. We should want these things and be hungry because they're they are the gospel. They're they are what Jesus has purchased for us power, Holy Spirit, full conviction, joy in the Holy Spirit. ⁓ and ultimately it's unto turning from idols to serve the living and true God. So I'll I'll just close with this yesterday as I was being convicted and ⁓ of the fear of rejection that I've had when it came to my relationship with the Lord. I was realizing that in having that fear, I was worshiping an idol. That I wasn't worshiping and serving the one true living God. Because the one true living God is a God of love, right? That's the beginning of 1 Thessalonians, loved by God. God is a God of love. And if I'm afraid of him, then I'm worshiping some other God. And I just want to say that to you. If there's any amount of you That if there's any part of you that doesn't long to run to God when you sin, that doesn't long to run to God when you're lonely, when you're afraid, when you're you name it, fill in the blank, then I will say I would lovingly tell you that the version of God that you have in your mind is not the one true living God, because the one true living God is a God of mercy and love and comfort and joy and peace. That's the one true living God. Jesus described himself, his own heart, as gentle and lowly in heart. He receives you, he welcomes you when you come to him with your stuff, with your fears, your discomforts, your inconveniences, your sin, your pain, your guilt, your shame when you come to him. And you just give those things to him and not try to hide and not try to be cool enough or religious or good enough or righteous on your own, when you just come to him honestly and raw, he receives you and welcomes you in. And you've not been given a spirit of slavery to fall back into a fear, but a spirit of adoption. The spirit's job is to convince you without a shadow of a doubt that you know that you know that you know that you are his son, that you are his daughter, and nothing will ever change that. And the more we spend time with God, the more he's gonna hit on this. And he wants us to know this and walk in identity, our identities as sons and daughters, because it's in that identity, everything else flows. The life of God flows through us to others, but we have to have our identity rooted in the love of the Father, free of fear of rejection, free of fear of death. And so I just want to encourage you with that. I hope you're being stirred and stoked. ⁓ that the fire of love in your heart is growing as I'm speaking the gospel over you. And ⁓ as always would love to worship with you guys on a Saturday night. Come join us Saturdays, 5 p.m. ⁓ the Lord is moving and organically growing breakthrough church in a way that is so precious and only he can do it. So ⁓ there and I'll just leave it at that. I would love to see you guys on on on five on Saturdays at five PM at Loft City. ⁓ and just praying for you guys, praying that you walk in the identity that that Jesus purchased for you on the cross as sons and daughters of the one true living God. Love you guys. See you next time.