Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / November 15, 2020 | Don't Settle For Christian - What You Feel

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November 15, 2020 | Don't Settle For Christian - What You Feel · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning, how are you?
0:02
SPEAKER_00: I counted.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: We have under 100 here.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: Way to go.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: 85.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh whoops.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm on 92.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's great to have you here.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: And uh for all of you who are watching online, it's great to have you online.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: And uh uh put on your mask, move back from the computer, and we'll we'll get I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: So um, but so this is the last week of Don't Settle for Christian, which is our series from the book of 1 John.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: Six weeks.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: And wow, I really appreciate Connor talking me into doing this.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: This has uh been a great series.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: I have an interesting message for you this morning, um, because it's about you, it's uh and it's about psychology.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: I mean, other people may think you're just average, other people may think you're uh nobody, or you or you're a past tense verb, but God thinks you're something special.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: And he made you in a very certain way, a very specific way.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: And he made you a certain, shall we say, a psyche, an inner self.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: You have uh hard, uh, you know, there's you have software and you have hardware.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: The hardware is your body, but software uh comes with certain names or titles in scripture that emphasize different things that your inside do.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: For instance, there's your mind, which of course emphasizes the thinking part of you, there's your heart, emphasizes the decision-making part of you.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: There's your soul, emphasizes your desires, there's your spirit, there's there's your conscience, there's and so there's a number of things.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk especially this morning about um one of the inside parts of you.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: And this is a little different than the other uh talks because we've talked about where you walk.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: That was chapter one.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Remember, walk in the light, not enough to just see the light.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: Don't settle for that.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: Walk in the light, what you love, who you follow, what you know.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: Last week, uh, Alex, who you know.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh today, actually, again, we're getting into a little bit of psychology.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm not a psychologist, but like you, I have feelings, and and like you, I read about the mind and the heart and soul, will and conscience.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: So um, before I read the text, let me let me admit to you that I'm gonna take you on a little bit of a trip today, and I'm gonna take you on a little bit of a guilt trip today.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna talk a little bit about guilt trip and therefore and how dangerous they can be.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: And so I'll share with you a really sweet letter that a mother wrote to her son at this time of year.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: Dear darling son, I hope you are well.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: Please don't worry about me.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm just fine considering I can't breathe or eat.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: The important thing is that you have a nice holiday hundreds of miles away from your sick mother.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: I've sent along my last$10 in this card, which I hope you'll spend on my beautiful grandchildren, whom I never see.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for the birthday flowers, dear boy.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: I put them in the freezer so they'll stay fresh for my grave.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: I know I'll need them any day.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, son, it's time for me to drag myself off to bed now.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: I lost my cane beating off muggers last week.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: But don't you worry about me.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm also getting used to the cold since they turned my heat off.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: And I'm grateful because the frost on my bed numbs the constant pain.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: Now, don't you even think about sending more money because I know you need it for those expensive family holidays you take every year, though you never come and see me.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: Give my love to my darling grandbabies, love always your poor old mother.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: So uh believe it or not, that's actually a good transition into our text, which is the third chapter, at the end of the third chapter of 1 John.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: If you have a cell phone, if you have a Bible, you may want to turn to it, you may want to circle some things in it today.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: You will certainly see some things there that you haven't seen before.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: We'll read it.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: It actually will say the introduction to it is in verse 18, though the real passage is 19 to 23.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: 18 tells us, reminds us he's talking about love, okay?
4:39
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, he said in the first chapter, you need to walk in the light in order to have fellowship with me.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: The goal of this book is you can have fellowship with each other.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: That's really close and intimate fellowship with God, and so you need to walk in the light.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: And in chapter 2, he said, you really need to get to know God better and know him.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: And in chapter 3 and 4, you need to, you know, you need to really love.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: You need to learn how to love.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: So that's so he says, Dear children, he's talking to his children.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: He said at the beginning of this chapter that God just loves you, children, his children.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: He just adores you, dear children.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: He calls them little children.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: Let us not love with words or speech.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: And of course, he doesn't mean you should never tell your wife or husband you love them.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: He just means that that compared in comparison with the words, actions, so much more important.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: So he says, don't love with words or speech, but with actions.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: And then he says something interesting.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: He says, in truth.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: Well, you go, well, duh.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what does that mean?
5:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, in the way the word truth is defined in this book as part of Christ and as uh reality rather than shadows and so forth, he means in reality, in genuineness, in sincerity, not, you know, with clear motives.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Genuinely love people, okay?
5:51
SPEAKER_00: And then he goes on in 19.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: This is how we know that we belong to, literally, are of the truth.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: So this is how we know that we, that what we're doing when we love, which is the big topic, that we're doing it with clear motives, and how we, and secondly, how we set our hearts at rest in his presence.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: What's that about?
6:10
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean, set our hearts at rest in his presence?
6:13
SPEAKER_00: If our hearts condemn us, so all of a sudden we realize he's talking about times when our hearts or consciences condemn us and tell us we're not worthy, we're not maybe not loving right, we're not doing it right, uh and and that we're not worthy of going into God's presence in prayer and so forth.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: All right?
6:34
SPEAKER_00: So it's a very interesting topic here.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: And then he goes on and says, if our hearts condemn us, we know, literally, he says, we need to persuade ourselves that God is greater than our hearts and knows everything.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: In other words, leave it in his care, okay?
6:50
SPEAKER_00: Don't you obsess about it.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: God's omniscient, he's seen your works of love.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: Relax, okay?
6:57
SPEAKER_00: And then he says in 21 and 22, dear friends, if our, and this is the blessing of having a good conscience, if our hearts do not condemn us, wow, then we have confidence before God, and we receive from him anything we ask because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: Wow, all of a sudden you go, uh, I was tracking with you for a while, but now he suddenly moved to commands.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: What's that and what pleases him?
7:20
SPEAKER_00: Well, he tells us in what is one of the great verses in the New Testament.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: It summarizes our entire lives.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: He said, and this is the command to believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commands.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: Notice that this is a perfect summary of your spiritual life.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: That is, you become a Christian by believing in the name of his son, Jesus Christ.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: And a couple weeks ago, from chapter 5, I showed you that the way to know that you're a believer is to say, have I believed on Jesus Christ, His Sunday dying cross for my sins, and then take Jesus' word for it that you have eternal life.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: But second, this is a summary of the whole Christian life, right?
8:06
SPEAKER_00: To love one another as he commands us.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: How many verses are there in the New Testament that say something like this?
8:12
SPEAKER_00: Owe nothing to anyone, Romans 13, except to love one another, for the one who loves has fulfilled the law.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: Jesus loves God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, love your neighbor as yourself, for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: So, so this is just a wonderful summary at the end of our passage of everything basically you need to put in your pocketbook about life.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
8:36
SPEAKER_00: You need to lead people to Jesus Christ to believe in the name of the Son, and then the rest of life can be summarized under the one word love.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: Love each other.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: All right?
8:48
SPEAKER_00: But before this, he's he's he's he's he's got conscience on his mind, and so my subtitle this morning is Let Your Conscience Have a Guide.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: Now, I I'm I'm very familiar and deliberately, I've chosen this title, very familiar with with the story where we are told by Pinocchio, always let your conscience be your guide.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: He learned that from Geppetto.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you, um that's not the best guide.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: You need to let your conscience have a guide.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: So um, what exactly, let me explain that really quickly.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: I'll go through a lot of slides, but what exactly is your conscience again?
9:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's the courtroom that's in your head.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: It's a courtroom, and everything in the courtroom is part of your conscience.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: The judge, the witnesses, uh, the bailiff, and everything.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: Let me explain.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: Conscience, for instance, is the witness that testifies for or against you in your head.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: For we read in Romans 2, Paul writes, everybody on earth have a conscience that bears witness and their thoughts alternately accusing and defending them.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: That's what happens during the week.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: Your conscience talks to you and says, good job or bad job.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: All right?
9:59
SPEAKER_00: Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1, he says, we've got a good conscience.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: Corinthians had false teachers going in.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: They were saying Paul and Barnabas and so forth, they they're just, or Paul and Silas, they are just uh taking advantage of you, and Paul responds, the testimony of our conscience, the witness, is that we have conducted ourselves in the world especially toward you in holiness and godly sincerity.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: A verse that uh I sort of made my theme verse back when I was dating, because I knew the danger there.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: And and just a great, a great verse for young couples.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: So conduct yourselves in the world specially toward others in holiness and sincerity.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, conscience is the witness that accuses or defends you.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: Conscious is the rooster that crows uh and says, You've blown it, Peter, right?
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's conscience.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: But it's not only let me give you an example of the kind of things that I'm guessing that your conscience witnesses to you during the week.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Here uh taking from my experience, you just said a bad word.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: All right, sometimes a little more explicit than that.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: Is that tax deduction legit?
11:15
SPEAKER_00: You should go over and say hi.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: And you're going, I have a mask on.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: No thanks.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay, shouldn't you be helping in the kitchen?
11:24
SPEAKER_00: This one's for more for men than for women.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: You shouldn't be looking at that.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh, let's move on quickly.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: Are you gonna talk to God today or just skip your devotions for the third day in a row?
11:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, that kind of thing.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: Should you give that guy money?
11:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, because right now they're on a lot of street corners.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: So these are the kind of things that your conscience does, like a witness, and it alternately accuses or defends you.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: It testifies thumbs up or thumbs down.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: But secondly, conscience then is the judge also that actually renders the verdict and says, You blew it, the thumbs down.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: For instance, David's heart condemned him after he'd numbered the people, and it says the same thing after he had killed Uriah.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: So David said to the Lord, I have sinned greatly in what I've done, but now I pray, O Lord, take away the iniquity of your servant, for I've done very foolishly.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: So the conscience had told him, You're guilty, you know, had pronounced that verdict.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but third conscience is also the officer, the bailiff, the executioner, whatever, who enforces the verdict.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: You find that because sometimes in your psychology, in your conscience, what happens is uh when I refuse to confess my sin, my body wasted away and I groaned all the day long.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: Your conscience then punishes you, right?
12:47
SPEAKER_00: It not only is a witness against you and a judge, but it also is the executioner and it tortures you until you make things right.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: So that's what the conscience is.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: You need to understand that.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: So then the natural question is so my conscience is a reliable guide, uh, as uh Pinocchio would have us.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is absolutely not.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not, because your conscience, again, is a courtroom that judges you not according to God's moral law necessarily, it judges you according to your own moral law, according to your own convictions, which can, of course, be warped and twisted by your upbringing or by you know by a number of things.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: So your conscience is only as good.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: That's the problem with your conscience, only as good as your convictions are.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: It's only as good as your own, the moral law in your courtroom.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: That's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4, my conscience is clear, but that doesn't make me innocent.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: It's the Lord who judges me.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: Because we may be ignorant about what's right and wrong, or we may have grown up, we may have blind spots.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: And so your conscience can cry fair when God cries foul, because you've got blind spots.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: You've you've never really realized, you know, and and I told you about uh uh uh, you know, my buddy who just trusted the Lord, it was my first roommate at Dallas Seminary, and he just trusted the Lord.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: And and you know, and he said he celebrated becoming Christian that summer by taking his girlfriend and and their one sleeping bag uh, you know, up to the mountains in California with a six-pack and celebrating.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: So um, but he'd realized since then that maybe that was a blind spot.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Or there's bad programming.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: You can grow up, you know, like um in in in, I just thought of this, in all Charles Dickens, Oliver.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, you can grow up in a certain setting where you grew up with a gang or whatever else, and you sort of then you feel guilt based upon whether or not you've stolen enough or whether you've stolen too little.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Or then, of course, there's the world, the flesh, and the devil, and there is, of course, the seared, the calloused heart, and and uh, and and we read about that in 1 Timothy.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: Paul says that in later days, the times we live in right now, people will abandon the faith and they'll follow the teachings of hypocritical liars whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: And of course, we find that a lot, don't we?
15:16
SPEAKER_00: P.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: G.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: O'Rourke, uh favorite uh comic writer of mine, not a believer, but in Give War a Chance, he says that, and you have to agree with this, you cannot shame or humiliate modern celebrities.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: What used to be called shame and humiliation is now called publicity.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: If you say a modern celebrity is an adulterer, pervert, and drug addict, all it means is the thing that you've read his autobiography.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Or he brags about it.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: Because today we have seared consciences, we have calloused hearts, we have in our higher, the highest levels of our land, we have absolutely no, we've lost our genuine conscience.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, so consciences are only as reliable.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: And on the other hand, your conscience, and let me um, yeah, on the other hand, your conscience cry foul, which is in our text today, when God cries fair.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: Again, bad programming, right?
16:09
SPEAKER_00: Or an oversensitive or strict heart.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in a church and in a setting where where I felt guilty when I snuck away one night and just and went to a school dance.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't go inside the room where they were dancing, but just looking in, and I knew I was sinning, you know.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: I I uh we couldn't we couldn't go into a movie theater, it didn't matter what the movie was.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: You know.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: My my sister would have felt guilty if she'd ever put on makeup or worn anything but a dress on Sunday morning.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: Now, I mean that's just the kind of programming that we had.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Now, decades later, you know, we realized those things weren't really sin, but that was just the way we were raised.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: It's like an Amish kid.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: You try to make an Amish kid get behind the wheel of a car when he's been raised to believe that it's anything is sin except for a horse and buggy, he's going to, his conscience is going to cry foul, even though God may cry fair.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: And maybe this has happened to you.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you visited another church and it's been time to take the offering, the usher's passed the plate, and there you go.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you don't really want to support the church, we don't have much money at that point, and all you have is a 20 and so forth, but the usher's staring at you, and the woman next to you, but you pass the plate by and you hand it to her, and then you're just conscious is just killing you.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: You're going, wow, he was looking, uh, I should have borrowed a dollar from somebody and put it in or something, you know, and and that but the truth is that God doesn't blame you at all for that.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: But you blame yourself.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in fact, I was reading there in one uh uh famous textbook of world history, written by a famous historian called the History of Western Civilization.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: He says that in the he says that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in the 15th century, who started the Spanish Inquisition to kill Jews, uh they killed thousands of Jews and people who wouldn't convert to the Catholic faith, says they killed more people out of conscience than Nero, he starts listening to all of these great criminals, than those people killed out of hatred.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: And so your conscience can lead you awry, okay?
18:23
SPEAKER_00: And the thing is that, you know, um you you you you see that you see that in other places of the New Testament.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, 1 Corinthians 8, remember this big, big debate in Corinth, how about can we eat food offered to idols or not?
18:36
SPEAKER_00: Some believers are accustomed to thinking of idols as being real, Paul says.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: They're not.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: But they think they are, so when they eat food that's been offered to them, they think of it as the worship of real gods, and their weak consciences are violated.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: He calls their consciences weak.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: They're good people, they're strict, they're moral, they're doing what they think is right, but their consciences are unreliable in that case.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: Why is an oversensitive conscience a big deal?
19:01
SPEAKER_00: Why isn't that something we go, oh, that's great, if those people, you know, think that it's sinful to dance or whatever.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, Paul says in Romans 14, whoever has doubts and does something is condemned if he eats because the eating's not from faith, and whatever doesn't proceed from faith is sin.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: If you can't do something with eyes up before God, going, I know I am pleasing you, then that's a sin.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that interesting?
19:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh and again, another illustration like the one I started with, uh, wife says to us, and it's someone from your past who gave birth to you and raised you and sacrificed everything so you could have everything you wanted.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: So um, so sometimes through guilt trips or bad programming, we can have an oversensitive conscience.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: Why is it a big deal?
19:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think I put in the um the Teresa put out over the website.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: If you've ever had, and we've had this problem a lot in our home, if you've ever had smoke alarm that loves to go off at 2 or 3 a.m.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: in the morning, right?
20:04
SPEAKER_00: Anybody else had that?
20:05
SPEAKER_00: And and is that a big deal?
20:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's not a big deal, but it wakes you up and you never get back to sleep and you want to shoot the thing.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: And then I I put the picture.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: It's a big deal to Stanford right now.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Stanford is a good football team, and last week I was scared.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: They were playing my football team, University of Oregon, and they're two of the best teams in the Pac-10.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: But but but they tested him for COVID, and the test was oversensitive or whatever, and so they wouldn't let him play.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: And as a result, we smacked him good by we just we torched him by like four touchdowns.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: And so I was happy about that.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: But but then, of course, the big news coming out of Stanford is you you you you ripped us off.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: You know, three of our best players, including our quarterback, didn't get to play.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: So having too sensitive a conscience, having too sensitive rules can be actually significant because the referee in your head makes wrong calls sometimes, right?
20:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh the this famous picture, probably the the greatest wrong call in in recent history in my life.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: This is the last, uh, one of the last plays before the Super Bowl just a couple years ago.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: This is New Orleans.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: New Orleans had just thrown a long pass.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: If this had been complete, or or if this referee had called pass interference, as it clearly was, you can see, then New Orleans would have had the ball in like an eight-yard line.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: They kicked the field goal that won the game.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Instead, they lose the game because he didn't call interference.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: A referee in your head is like that as well.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: He makes wrong calls sometimes.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: And so that takes us back to our text.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: You say, Well, how is that significant in my relationship in the church and with God?
21:42
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, or John says this this is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence if our hearts condemn us, he says.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: So he's talking about, again, loving people, loving with actions and in truth.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: He's Saying don't settle for just being in the family, love the family.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: He's saying love people sincerely and sacrificially.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: And so the issue is here, sometimes when you think you're doing people for doing something for people, the problem is your heart may condemn you.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: Am I really loving sacrificially?
22:17
SPEAKER_00: Am I doing this selfishly?
22:20
SPEAKER_00: Are my motives mixed?
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Am I even worthy to be serving here in this capacity here in the church?
22:30
SPEAKER_00: Right?
22:32
SPEAKER_00: And so he says, one of the problems is in your loving of people, your heart can just totally mess you up.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, so if your heart condemns us, you need to leave it in God's hand.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: Know that God's greater than our hearts and he knows everything.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: And then he moves to the blessing of having a clear conscience.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: Dear friends, if our hearts don't condemn us, we have confidence before God.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: Now he's talking about prayer.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: He's what at the end of the previous chapter, he said, I really hope that when Christ returns in the air, you're unashamed and confident before him.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: Your conscience is clear at his coming.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: Wants you to be happy when Christ returns.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
23:10
SPEAKER_00: Now he backs it up into the present life and he says, He says, I know that the time when you're going to feel most sensitive toward God and your conscience is in danger of being overly strict or sensitive is when you start praying to God.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: When you go into his throne room, when you go into his presence, and all of a sudden your heart can condemn you.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
23:29
SPEAKER_00: It's such a blessing if it doesn't.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: Because then you have confidence before God.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: And your confidence allows you to pray with confidence, and God loves to give to his happy, confident children what we ask for.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: Because we keep his commands and we do what pleases them, and this is his command.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: So you believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ and you love one another as he's commanded us.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: So he says, you know, you know, the science, your psychology, which God's given you, can get you, can bind you up sometimes, and it can tie you into knots as you are loving people, and it can mess up two things that can mess up your relationships with other people in the church so that you back off and don't, you know, get involved, and it can mess up your prayer life with God.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you, it's great to have a good conscience.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: I always take pains, said Paul, to have a clear conscience before God and man.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: That's just that's what's your goal.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: So listen, because your conscience is only as good as your convictions, three points.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: Bible your convictions.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: My conscience is captive to the word of God.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: So you need to, because your conscience can be wrongly programmed, don't rely on what you feel is right.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: Always be asking, what does God say about this?
24:46
SPEAKER_00: And secondly, because a bold, clear conscience is essential for your spiritual confidence in prayer life, second, commit to Paul's motto to strive always to keep your conscience clear.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: But then the third point, because an oversensitive conscience, a condemning heart, will short circuit your relationships with others in God, leave it in God's hands and go back to confidently, enthusiastically loving the family and talking to Papa.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: Just love one another as he has commanded us.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: So let me share with you some.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm so great.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna finish early.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: No, I that's just what preachers say.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: So um so just let me, can I just chat with you about this a little bit practically?
25:34
SPEAKER_00: So um I really think that in this book, what John wants us to do is uh is not to fill our cup of life halfway up and to live this just vanilla life.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: I think I think he's he's saying God's not happy and the church is not happy, the family of God's not happy unless you fill your cup all the way up and live an unrestrained life of love toward others and conversations with your Heavenly Father.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: God wants you to be an enthusiastic, wholehearted, you know, no bars uh type of a person.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: So when it comes to your family down here, let me ask you, have you been burned in the past at a previous church or when you tried to help someone and now you sit at home and you vegetate afraid of getting burned again?
26:30
SPEAKER_00: John would say, just hand that off to God.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: He knows.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: You go love again, go serve again.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: Are you tied up in knots maybe because you're more of a people pleaser and you seek, you know, uh approval from others?
26:45
SPEAKER_00: Do you need strokes from people and appreciation, and maybe you haven't been getting it, so you feel like quitting?
26:51
SPEAKER_00: Let it go.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: Remind yourself that God sees and God's omniscient and God rewards you.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: Just go love.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: Have you been in a church conflict?
27:01
SPEAKER_00: And the very people that you invested the most effort in threw you under the bus.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: So now you're on the sidelines again.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: You're questioning yourselves and everyone else.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: But you felt a tug to help in the church, you know, with the children or with the teens or hospitality or something.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: Well, stop questioning yourself, he says.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: I know you lack confidence, but it's a danger.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: It'll keep you out of the game.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: You need to get back in the game and you need to start spreading the love again.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: And when it comes to your Papa in heaven, wow, this whole book is about Papa and little children and how much he loves us.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: He says, here's the problem.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: You go to prayer and then your conscience smites you because you know you weren't kind enough or generous enough, or you said some bad words, you did some stuff, you know, and your heart's condemning you, and you're going, wow, how can God even allow me into the palace again to talk with him?
27:56
SPEAKER_00: How can he even wump me around and your confidence is in shatters, and then you lose your fellowship with a papa, and you have absolutely no ability to confidently ask for what God wants you to have and what you want to have.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: And God says, here's what I'd say to you today.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: I absolutely want you to come to me.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: I want you to pour out your heart to me, knowing I'm your papa and I love you.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: And I want you, I want for you to have what your heart desires.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to go on these guilt trips because then you don't come home to me.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: And if you're all tied up in knots, then you'll not be able to pray freely.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: I love the story I was reading this past week of uh Abe Lincoln's son Tad.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: Tad, whose real name was Thomas, but Abe thought that he looked like a tadpole when he came out of the womb, so we named him Tad.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: Now Tad had learning disabilities.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he never learned to read until after his dad had been shot and killed.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: And and and and he his his voice wasn't quite right.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: He always called his dad Papa Dear, but he couldn't pronounce it right.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: Even at his age, then he called it Papa Day.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: But he he he just had the heart of his father completely.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: And he he absolutely knew that his father loved him.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: And he had a special knock for getting into the oval, to getting into his dad's office.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: It was three quick knocks and then two slow ones, and then he'd just come in.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: He wouldn't wait for anything.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes there'd be people there, even when there were state parties, he would just walk around, he'd jump into his dad's lap.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: And uh a major figure back in those days uh wrote, I was once sitting with the president in the library when Tad tore into the room in search of something.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: And having found it, he ran over and threw himself on his father like a small thunderbolt, gave him one wild, fierce hug, and then without a word fled from the room.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: Secretary of War was uh wrote about assist Secretary of War, saying, often I I would be sitting by Tad's father, by the president, reporting to him about how this, how the war was going.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: And and but he would have this boy on his knee.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: He would have Tad on his knee.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: And while he could perfectly understand the report, the striking thing was how they were touching one another and how much they loved each other.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: In fact, a historian of Abe Lincoln writes, Tad was the best companion that President Lincoln ever had.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: That, it seems to me, is a picture of what God longs for that he speaks about in this book.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: He speaks about prayer several times.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: And I think he wants us to be like Tad.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: Tad never feared for a moment that his famous father wouldn't want to see him.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: He never trembled with fear, hesitating to burst into his father's office because his heart condemned him.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: And I think this book is saying as clearly as possible have you believed in the name of Jesus Christ God's son?
31:04
SPEAKER_00: If you haven't, for heaven's sake, what's holding you back?
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Think of the Christmas story, think of the Good Friday story, think of the Easter story, put your faith in that Son of God who came down, loved you, died for you, save, save you, to save you from your sins, give you eternal life and forgiveness of sins.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: And then trust his word that you really are saved.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: But then the rest of your life needs to be a life of unrestrained, impulsive, wild love.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: For me and for my people, for your brothers and sisters.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: And I know that there are things that have happened, and there are things that are inside your gut, inside your soul, and you say, Well, I'm not worthy.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've blown it.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm not the kind of person that can really minister to them, and I've been burned in the past.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: And it's easy for me to just, you know, stay home.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: Don't do that.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: Throw yourself into them.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: Do whatever you can in love.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't think it's enough, don't think you're kind enough, don't think you're generous enough, don't worry about it.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: I know what you've done.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: I've been watching what you've done.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: Trust me, just love.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: Just do it.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: Just get involved and leave the results to me.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: And that's also important when it comes to prayer.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: I want you to just run into the office.
32:21
SPEAKER_00: Run into my presidential office, run into my throne room anytime, realizing that I'm your papa.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: And I absolutely love you.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: I know you haven't lived exactly the way that you'd like, or maybe I'd like this last week.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: I know that you know you haven't maybe been the perfect lover, the perfect person you should be, but I do love you.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: Don't hesitate for a moment.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: Because if you hesitate, if your conscience ties you up a notch, or you're doing guilt trips, then you're not going to be able to just talk to me the way I want you to, to be my child, and I your papa, and let's have this free and unrestrained relationship.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: Believe in the name of my son Jesus Christ, and then love one another.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you so much for the opportunity to uh, you know, to have this kind of relationship with each other and with you.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: And especially during these days of COVID where you know we're told to stay apart, it's it's easier just to stay home and not think about how to love each other and not think of how to be kind.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: Lord, give us creative ideas of how we can help and love each other.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: Enable us to do that.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: And and Lord, most of all, give us the drive, the ambition, the joy of running into your presence every single day and just laughing with you and crying with you and talking with you and asking for whatever we'd like and leaving it in your hands like Jesus did.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: If your will be done, that's fine.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: We just want what you want, Father.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: But Lord, we thank you for this chance.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that you listen to us.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that you're looking down on us right now, and you're thinking of yourself as a papa and us as your little children.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: Amen.