Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / December 8, 2019 | Love Came Down - To Dispel Our Illusions About Love

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December 8, 2019 | Love Came Down - To Dispel Our Illusions About Love · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, everybody.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Connor Krause.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I have the privilege of being the student pastor here at TBC, and I'm excited to be with you this morning, continuing our Christmas series called Love Came Down, based on John 3.16, which says that God so loves the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: And as we're looking at this series, Love Came Down, we see that God showed his love to us by sending Jesus, but also that when we read about Jesus, or if you lived 2,000 years ago and you got to talk or have a meal with Jesus, you would have seen God's love manifested through him.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you got to know Jesus, you would have gotten to know God.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a wonderful thing to think about, and it'll really influence what we're talking about this morning as we see what it was like when this baby came to the manger and invaded a world that is often without love.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: See, there's a real problem that we've got today, which is that we believe in this illusion that if we chase after the world and chase after all the things that we think the world has to offer, that we're going to be satisfied and that we'll find fulfillment in those things.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you're like me, you're kind of interested in or think magic tricks can be fun to watch.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And society has proved that that's the case for many, many years.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, you're probably familiar with two of the most famous illusionists, Henry or Harry Houdini and David Copperfield.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I could not find a better picture of David Copperfield.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: All of them are just that creepy.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like he's wanting to talk to me through the photo.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: But we've been so impressed by their illusions and their magic tricks.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're like me, you always want to know how something works and how um you can try and figure it out.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you were around back in 1983, you might remember when David Copperfield appeared on national television to make the Statue of Liberty disappear.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And he, you know, appeared before not only the studio audience who was on this platform in front of him, but before a national audience and gave this speech about liberty.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then he raised up this huge curtain in front of the Statue of Liberty and then talked for a couple moments in his very odd silver jumpsuit that he was wearing.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then a couple minutes later, the curtain dropped and the Statue of Liberty was gone.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: So here's how he did it: they were on a platform and he played very loud music.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And while he was waiting and doing all of his magician stuff, the platform was turning.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you were playing along at home, when the curtain went down, the Statue of Liberty was hiding behind one of the pillars.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you were watching while you were there, they had set up the exact same lighting stage and a different location that had nothing, just was looking out over the bay as it was just a few degrees off on the Statue of Liberty.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: It kind of takes away some of the unique nature of the trick when we find out these things.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: When we learn the secret behind magic, it makes it not as interesting anymore.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: But we continually are fooled by this illusion that the world is going to satisfy me.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're continually chasing after this thing that never really comes.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And just like the magic tricks, if we learn the secret behind it, it makes the whole notion of the trick itself and the illusion seem kind of silly.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the truth, and the not so secret secret is that only God's love will satisfy you.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: See, there are these feelings of anxiety and stress and performance-based love that we continually decide to run after everything that we think the world is going to give us when we do just a little bit better.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: But in a society that is often wrapped up in negativity, in the media news cycle that is so focused on things that aren't going right, and sometimes around the holiday season when we are faced with difficulty in families, it's no surprise that a lot of us like to escape to our favorite Christmas movies.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: They all end very well, right?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: A Christmas Carol, Scrooge is reformed, Bob Cratchit is appreciated in his role, and Tiny Tim lives forever, right?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's a wonderful life.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um George Bailey's life matters, Clarence gets his wings, and I don't know how many of you picked up on this.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember the house that the Baileys live in?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's gigantic.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's like watching HGTV's house hunters, and there's like, I, you know, deliver mail for a living, and our budget is$1.5 million.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, their house is huge, and everybody loves to see them doing these things.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you're somebody who is infatuated with um the Hallmark movies right now, right?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Where um a woman from from a big city has a corporate job, or her husband has a corporate job, and she needs to go back home to her small town to probably like run the Christmas parade or something like that.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then when she goes back home, she's really not excited to do it.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: But then she gets snowed in and she's probably there with her ex-boyfriend from high school who has a blue-collar job and is very respectable.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: He might have a kid if his wife had passed away.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then she realizes that all of her big city values don't match up to the hometown values, and that family is really the most important thing.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end, you know, the parade goes off without a hitch, and she's with the guy, and she probably has a new kid.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we we love these things that get wrapped up in these really nice and neat bows, and I do too.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's because it's a lot easier to live in that life.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: But what we have to realize is that the world and God do not love in the same way.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, they're very, very different.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And which one we choose to pursue and which one we put our time and effort into is going to make a big difference into how satisfied we feel and how joyful we can experience this life, how much joy we can get out of it.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's this wonderful story in Luke 7 where Jesus goes to dinner at a Pharisee's house.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's invited to dinner, moreover, by Simon the Pharisee.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got to understand that Jesus was not the most popular figure to the Pharisees.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Over and beyond all of the things that they were frustrated at him for, about him claiming to be the Son of God, there was also the things that Jesus was saying about them generally, that they were stealing money from the poor, that they were whitewashed tombs, that they were praying on the street corners just for the attention of everybody else, and that in reality that they weren't that great after all.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's kind of interesting that Jesus would then be invited to dinner by Simon a Pharisee.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: But like I said, it's one of three times this happens in Scripture, and each time we learn a wonderful lesson.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And in this one, we get a great glimpse into the difference between God's love and the world's love.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: I have it up here for you, but if you want to follow along, like I said, it's in Luke 7, starts in verse 36.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: It says, Now one of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went into the Pharisees' house and took his place at the table.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Then when a woman of that town, who was a sinner, learned that Jesus was dining at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfumed oil.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now before we go any further, there's some things that I should probably explain about this passage that help us to understand it.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, Jesus, it was not just a dinner between him and Simon.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: It would have been Simon the Pharisee and all of his friends.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And they had invited him to this dinner probably as some kind of trap.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: See, they obviously didn't think of him as the Son of God, and in fact, they didn't even like him being called a prophet.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: He was merely a decent teacher to them, if that.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so all of these miracles that he was performing, these amazing things that he was done, doing, claiming to forgive people of their sins, like they did so often, they wanted to sort of put him into a corner.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're at this dinner, and they're reclining at the table as they would, kind of on the left arm, and their feet are extending out, and a woman comes in.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that wasn't particularly unusual because some of these dinners were more like public spectacles, and people in the community, especially the poor, could come around afterwards and pick up some of the scraps or see who was invited to the party.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: But what's interesting about this particular person is that this woman was well known.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And she was well known because of her sin.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: She was well known because her sin was something that was known in the community because it involved other people, and it was something that she was disrespected for.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: She was somebody who had often ran after the world trying to find love, but continually was denied that love and in fact experienced some of the harshest realities that this world has to offer.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Needing money, seeking attention, seeking probably love of some sort.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: This woman was known by a lot of people.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And as you understand, hopefully, where I'm going with that, you see, this woman learned that Jesus was at the Pharisee's house.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't know what her reactor or what her interaction with Jesus was before this story.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: It could have been that she just heard him teaching, it could have been she had a personal conversation with him, it could have been she just heard the message that this man was saying that people could be forgiven of their sins.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: But whatever it was, she goes to this dinner and she steps into it.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the last thing we need to see here is that she had this alabaster jar of perfumed oil.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: You see, that would be something that she would carry around for her job as well.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it was extremely expensive, and she would probably use it with her clients.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so she steps into this room, and as she stood behind Jesus at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: She wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with a perfumed oil.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's some really important things that happen here.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because we realize that this woman is so obsessed with Jesus.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: She is so overcome with emotion about who is in her presence that she can do nothing but just begin to weep and cry.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're with uh if you're in this scene, if you're at that dinner, you're probably not a Pharisee, you're just like a fly on the wall.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you are at this dinner, it's probably gotten a little bit awkward.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because this woman has come in, nobody has said anything so far, and she is weeping, and now she has begun to use her tears to wash Jesus' feet and use her hair to dry them off.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's another thing.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: See, the taking down of the hair to dry the feet, that's a that's a big deal culturally.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: See, that's something that a woman back then would only do in the comfort of her own home with her husband.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was kind of a scandalous action for her to use her hair in that way.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: It seems kind of silly to us, but at the same time, we understand just a little bit more about her desperation and desire to serve Jesus.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, she takes that jar of oil, that ointment, and puts it on Jesus' head.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Or she puts it on his feet.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: She anointed his feet with it.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas the guests uh normally would have had their head anointed.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so she does all of these things, and Jesus, the entire time, he knows all, and he knows what Simon is thinking.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And Simon, he is so incredulous, he's like, Jesus, he must not even be a prophet.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is evidence that that is true, because if he did, he wouldn't let her be touching him.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: He wouldn't let her wash his feet and cry and let down her hair.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: What is he thinking?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Simon can't process any other kinds of emotions.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And as he's thinking these thoughts, Jesus speaks for the first time.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus answered him, answered his thoughts.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Simon, I have something to say to you.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And Simon replied, Say it, teacher, which is actually an insult in this situation.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because obviously they're not referring to him as the Son of God, but they're not even really giving him the title of prophet, whichever other people were calling him.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: They have downgraded him beyond that point, and they're putting him below them.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus speaks out into this group and says to Simon, Hey, I've got something to say to you.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: A certain creditor had two debtors, one owed him 500 silver coins and the other 50.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts of both.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now which of them will love him more?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Simon answered, I suppose.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you can hear in those words his disdain.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: The one who had the bigger debt cancelled.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to him, You've judged rightly.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then turning to the woman, he said to Simon, Do you see this woman?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's acknowledged her up to this point.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see this woman?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: I entered your house.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: You gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: You gave me no kiss of greeting, but from the time I entered, she has not stopped kissing my feet.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with perfumed oil.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: See, he's calling out Simon.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing that Simon didn't do, probably intentionally, was when Jesus came in, though he had probably done it to every one of the other guests, he didn't choose to recognize Jesus as a guest in his home.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't wash his feet from the dirty road.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't give him a kiss of greeting, and he didn't anoint him with what would have been a fairly cheap fragrant oil.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: He disrespected him.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't bother Jesus so much, but he's drawing a contrast here between the two of them.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, This woman is doing far and more than you were called to do, and she is not.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thus she loved much, but the one who has forgiven little loves little.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus said to her, Your sins are forgiven.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, Who is this?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Who even forgives sins?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: He said to the woman, Your faith has saved you.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Go in peace.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're like me, when you've read this story before, you kind of follow the beats of the passage, and you see that there is somebody who owed 500, and there is somebody who owed 50.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you probably think, this woman, the one whose sin is recognized around town, she's the one who owes 500.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: But let me ask you this the two greatest laws that God has given us, Jesus said, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and your strength.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the second is to love your neighbor as yourself.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Who has broken those two commandments in this story?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's not the woman, it's the Pharisee.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the irony of this story is that the one who is in the deepest debt is the one who thinks that he has nothing to be forgiven of.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: That he is the one who is righteous in this sense.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not really the point that I want to get at.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: The point that I want to see, I want you to see here, and I want us to recognize, is that the expression of this woman was because she understood that she had been forgiven.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: The overwhelming, the unstoppable, unconditional, undeserved love of Christ that was given to her is something that brought her to tears and made her willing to experience public ridicule.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we get one story here of the Pharisees and this woman who's well known.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine her life.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine her life as being recognized and looked down upon for what she does by the religious elite who Jesus has called whitewashed tombs.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: See, this was somebody who understood God's love.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: This was somebody who wasn't trying to put on a facade, who wasn't trying to be fake, who wasn't trying to just impress like the Pharisees were.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: No, she was somebody who was accepting Jesus as the Son of God, as the one who could forgive her sins.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to do that, it involved her coming forward warts and all.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: As we go into this series and we continue talking about love coming down, I want you to understand that when we talk and hear about Jesus, again, we are seeing God's love personified.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: How Jesus treated this woman, how he wasn't ashamed to interact with her, how he was glad to treat her and speak with her in front of people.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a glimpse into the beauty of God's love that he has for us.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And see, this illusion that we have created for ourselves is that if we chase after the world, that is how we can become satisfied.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: If we seek its love, that is how we will be fulfilled.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: But in reality, it is only an empty promise.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's never fulfilled.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: We never reach that point.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: It is exhausting and it fills us with anxiety.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: God's love in this story is perfectly shown through Jesus.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: His love is unconditional, undeserved, and unstoppable.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And as we, I want to talk with you about these three ways that Jesus' love is expressed in this story, but at each one, I also want you to think about how that is different than how the world treats us and how the world asks us to perform.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: See, God is separate from the world.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: They are distinct, they are set apart.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: He is holy, the world is profane.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: We live in a fallen place.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: It is filled with sin.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And just one look at your newsfeed tells you that.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: One look at your own life tells you that, that this world is not our home.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we consider the love that God has for us, and once again realize that we need to choose which one we are going to pursue, we have to recognize and see the thing that God offers is so much better than the opposite.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, I want you to see that Jesus' love, that God's love, it is unconditional and it is not based on your performance.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: See, a lot of us, we try really hard.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we put in a lot of effort into being not only the best self that we can be, but the best self that is going to impress others.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we think that we can earn the love that the world has by trying really hard.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: That if we keep going after it, and if we, whether it's the next promotion, whether it's letting everybody believe that our family is perfectly unified, whether it's our friendships, whether it's our children, and wanting to put on, sometimes like the Pharisees, our own facade of success and of recognition.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: We find, as we keep trying to do that, that one, it is unattainable, and two, that the world's love is conditional.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: You see, it's why social media can be such a difficult thing to wrestle with.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because in it we see we receive instant gratification for the things that we post.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: We can post something completely joyful and worthy of praise.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, we're we're pregnant, we're expecting, and instantly receive hundreds of people who show you recognition.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: But what it's doing to us on the inside is giving us anxiety and stress, and is making it really difficult to keep up the pace.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Will Storr, in his book Selfie, says this we are living in an age of perfectionism, and perfection is the idea that kills.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's social media or pressure to be impossibly perfect, 21st century iterations of ourselves.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Or pressure to have the perfect body, or pressure to be successful in our careers, or any of the myriad ways in which we place overly high expectations on ourselves and other people, we're creating a psychological environment that's toxic.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you like me, and something else might speak to you a little more, the great rock band Sticks and their song Grand Illusion from 1977 gives much the same message.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: But don't be fooled by the radio, the TV, or the magazines.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: They show you photographs of how your life should be, but they're just someone else's fantasy.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think your life is complete confusion because you never win the game, just remember that it's a grand illusion, and deep inside, we're all the same.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you had somebody when you were growing up that made you feel that your performance was how you would receive love.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: In school, in athletics, in your ballet recital, in your job, in your relationships with friends, you got that feeling when you were growing up that their love for you was based upon how well you did.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe as you grew up, you began to project that onto the world around you.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we'd like to think that we've moved past it, but at the same time, it's how we act so often that if I just put in a little bit more effort at work, that I'll finally receive the recognition that I deserve.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: But alas, again, it's empty.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: See, Jesus' love was unconditional for this woman.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: She wasn't really the top performer.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't really have the best credentials coming forward as far as her relationship with God.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: She's been living a life of sin, habitually.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, God's love for her was not deterred by any of those facts.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: His love was unconditional because despite her performance, he was glad to forgive her of her sins.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because she was the one who was showing him the love that he deserves.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Guys, we need to understand that as we are trying to find this love in other places, it is empty.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: The second way that Jesus shows his love to the woman is that it was not based on her status.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: She had pretty much the lowest status in the community.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: She did not have much going for her.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And this is separate than performance because it was not about the effort that she was placing, but it was about her reputation.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we fall into this trap when we begin to think that our social standing, our popularity, or maybe we don't want to call it popularity, maybe we want to call it a leadership position or a role within the community, that those things are going to bring us satisfaction.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: That our status and what other people think of us and how well they think of us is what is going to bring us joy once again.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: We struggle to find acceptance against a world that is so ready to tear people down.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: I had the privilege of going to Heritage Christian School this week to speak at their convocation, and the message that I gave to them was that as Christians today, I think that a lot of us have placed undue pressure on ourselves to perform in a way that not even God has called us to.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not talking about being holy because God has certainly called us to that.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: But we've begun so concerned with how people might perceive us as a Christian and whether we're a good Christian or not, that we've started to slide into these Phariseic tendencies where we begin to focus on what is outward and neglect what is inward.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: We have created a hierarchy of sin that makes it so, yes, I go to church every Sunday and I tithe and I volunteer, but I've neglected the fact that I love very little, and I am selfish and prideful, and I struggle with anger.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we've begun to lift up these sins that other people can see.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: We've begun to tamp down and explain away many of the sins that we must be forgiven for, because they're ones that not as many people see, or only the people in our home.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's because we've bought into this illusion that the world once again is where we can find our satisfaction.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Jim Carrey has this wonderful, if you're a person of culture, you know Jim Carrey from Dumb and Dumber.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: But he has this great quote.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really powerful statement.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: See, the woman did not deserve God's love.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't either.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Romans 3.23 tells us that the wages of sin is death.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or excuse me, Romans 6.23 tells us the wages of sin is death.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason we need that free gift is because of Romans 3.23 that says we've all fallen short.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: All of us have sinned and fallen short.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: See, none of us deserve the love that God has.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this woman, she understood that.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: She knew that she was kind of an unlikely pick to be shown the grace of God by her culture's standards.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: But God doesn't work by our culture's standards, he works by his own.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he gives love to every single person, whether or not they have done the right thing.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: The third and final way that we see Jesus' love manifested in this story is that it is not, God's love is not based on our emotions.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure many of you have experienced the fickle nature of human emotions at times.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you were, you broke up with a significant other at some point, and they said, I'm just not really feeling it anymore.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's not you, it's me.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: You understood what it was like to base your hope in something that was shifting like sand.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe on the other side of it, you've really hoped for the fickleness of human emotion.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: You've seen the red and blue lights flashing in your rearview mirror, and you said, I really hope the police officer is having a great day.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you're like me, and your relationship with God has been influenced by emotion.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or you say, you know, I haven't done any part of my devotions this week, and I'm sure that God is much less happy with me than he was before.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Or there's that sin in my past that makes me think, and these thoughts creep in, maybe God can't use me for his kingdom.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you're somebody who's experienced the pain of being told by another Christian that you've fallen far short and that you can't be used, and that you aren't good enough.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you've seen God's love through each of those things, or supposedly, and you found yourself allowing you to view God's love as something that is determined by how you feel.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: But God's love is unstoppable.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Paul gives us a wonderful passage in Romans 8.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're very well acquainted with it.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: He says, For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers, nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: How amazing it is that our God's love can be described as not being able to be stopped by angels and demons.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: That nothing that we can do, no place we can go, no person that we can interact with or thought that we can have can take us away from his love.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: It is unstoppable.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: And this woman in the story, my goodness, I'm sure she has experienced many times over the love of people that was fueled by emotion and the fickle nature of human beings.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: And as she probably continually sought that out, just hopefully one more time to receive the affirmation that she's always wanted, it reinforced this feeling that she had that it was never gonna come.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's why we see in this story her emotions are so prevalent.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: I wish that I felt about Jesus the way that that woman does.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: I wish that when I thought about his forgiveness for me, that it made me weep.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: See, I here's my hypothesis.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think it proves true.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: To the depth that we understand our sin, that is how much we appreciate the love that God has for us.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if we are like the Pharisees who were blinded in this moment, did not understand the story, and we're just thinking, I have very little to be forgiven for.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, she is the greatest debtor.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Too much who is, what does Jesus say, to much who has been forgiven little, right?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: That he loves little.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: The depth of our understanding of Christ and the own blackness of our soul, as uncomfortable as it is, that is the first step that we must take in walking towards him.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Is recognizing our sin and knowing that his unstoppable, undeserved, unconditional love is there waiting for us.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: You see, how we have pursued this illusion once again is like it's a mirage, its own sort of natural illusion.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Where we get to the top of the hill and we see far off in the distance this oasis, we're parched and we are thirsty and we are waiting to be refreshed, and so we walk and we're tired and we're exhausted, and then we get to this mirage, or so we thought, and then we just realize it's a little bit further, because it never actually comes.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you are somebody who has felt the stress and anxiety of thinking that God's love is based on performance, or maybe the lack of self-esteem that comes from thinking that you're not good enough to receive God's love, or that He won't give it to you because of something you've done, or that you are just tired and weary, or maybe even apathetic, because it just doesn't seem like the world has anything to offer, and you have not walked towards God.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Then I've got a great message for you.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because as we are talking about love coming down in Jesus Christ, we see all of these things being made manifest.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: We see all of these things coming together into one package.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we see in a wonderful way in this story how this woman who by her culture's standards was so undeserving of love was giving it, was given it in abundance through Jesus.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the case for you too.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that we are continually fooled.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: See, like David Copperfield, he has one of the longest uh running Vegas residencies.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's because he keeps creating new illusions and new magic tricks.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: And what Satan wants is for us to continually be fooled, and for us to consistently run after the thing that will never pay off.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Waste all of our energy into believing that we can be satisfied there instead of going to the thing which is true.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: The water and bread of life.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: If Satan's greatest goal is to prevent people from coming to Christ, then I would say his second greatest goal is to make Christians live the most unfulfilled and hopeless lives possible.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're somebody today who has been chasing after the world's love and you know that it is unfulfilling, and there's that hole inside of you that never seems to be filled, know that Jesus can fill that.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: That he is the thing that you have been longing after for so long.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: That he is the thing that you've been chasing after in reality, you just didn't know it.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you're somebody who's known this reality, you know that it's a fake illusion.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: But you continually run back to the same thing in a couple months.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: I pray that you would remind yourself of this story, of the woman who is well known.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: And try, as maybe controversial as it sounds, try to be more like that woman in the story.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because she knew why she needed Jesus' love.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: And because people kept reminding her, she couldn't forget it.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: God wants to have a relationship with you.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: God wants you to chase after him, and when you do, you will find that that is where joy is made complete.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: Let's bow our heads and pray.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you today, Lord, so thankful that love came down in a manger to invade a world without love.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're so thankful that you have given us Jesus Christ so that we may see how you truly love us.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: Please don't allow us to be deluded into these different ideas about how you really love us.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, your love, it is unconditional, undeserved, and unstoppable.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Please help us to rest in that fact, even when the world around us says differently.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Please help us to walk towards you and spend our time and energy there, not allowing ourselves to be weighed down by what everybody else is saying.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: Father, we love you and we thank you, and it's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.