Latest / Citipointe Church Caboolture / The Greatest of These | Ps Jon Eaton

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The Greatest of These | Ps Jon Eaton · Citipointe Church Caboolture

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Hey, welcome to the City Point Church podcast.
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Thanks for joining us. Every day is an opportunity to
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take hold of. So we hope this message inspires
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you and build your faith that it helps you have more of a God
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perspective for your day. Enjoy.
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Bless. You guys have a seat.
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Wonderful. I just love how excited you guys
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get whenever you hear the word of God is going to be preached.
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It does. It brings a smile to my face.
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It's like, let's stand and celebrate the word of God.
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And I just love how enthusiastic you all are.
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Please never, ever lose that. Yeah.
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Because the more you get to know God, the more you fall in love
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with him, the more you realize it's not just about Amazing
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Grace with God. It's like amazing everything.
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I'm pretty sure for the first gazillion years been in glory,
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there's some people, you know, they're the party people.
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They're going to be worshiping, celebrating.
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I'm I'm going to be standing there pretty much dumb struck
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and just go for a very long time.
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Someone's going to take me on the shoulder and go.
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It's OK John, just move on. We are in a season of faith,
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love and hope. The preach for today is called
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the greatest of these. That's what I'm called the
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greatest of these because that verse, when I was a child, that
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verse really confused me. It's First Corinthians 1313,
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which I'm sure for those who've been around for a while would
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have heard multiple times, but I want to go through it now.
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First Corinthians 1313 says, and now abide.
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Faith, hope, love, these three, OK?
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Abide means, you know, submerge yourself in it, live in it,
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abide, faith, hope, love these three, but the greatest of these
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is love agape. Love agape love is a selfless
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love. It is a pouring out kind of
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love. It's one of those loves that you
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really kind of get more of a taste for as you become like a
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parent or a grandparent and you just want to pour yourself out
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for this object that will probably never do anything for
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you. That particular the day you're
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like, I gave you everything today.
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Where's my stuff? Doesn't happen.
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Yeah, Bubba. Hello, darling.
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Like that. Well, that that was for me.
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Thank you, darling. OK, so.
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But this verse used to really confuse me when I was a child
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because I thought faith, surely faith is the greatest of these.
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Surely. Remember the old days when
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people were told that salvation is by faith alone because they
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never read the book of James? And so that was my childhood.
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I'm like, well, you know, faith has to be faith.
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So it can't be love has to be faith.
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But as we read the Word of God, we find out that actually grace
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is a gift. It's just the generous,
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beautiful nature of God. It is that love.
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It's that giving. It's the I want to extend and
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give grace. One of the most beautiful verses
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is an Acts 1511. It's on the screen.
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But this is the apostles and this is Paul.
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And they're all speaking to each other.
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And they said we believe in James.
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We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we
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are saved. It's through his grace that we
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are saved. He doesn't even mention the word
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faith here. It's a beautiful gift.
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It's the nature of God to want to give grace.
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And then of course, we read in Ephesians 28 to 9:00 that this
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happens through faith. But interestingly, grace also
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occurs through repentance. It even says that repentance
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leads to salvation in 2nd Corinthians 710.
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And then as we read, it is also through the washing and the
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rebirth and the renewal of the Holy Spirit.
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And you read that in Titus chapter 3.
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So faith is important, but it's only one of many, many important
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things. And of course there's hope, but
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hope in our modern understanding can sound an awful lot like a
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pipe dream. For those who don't know what a
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pipe dream is, it actually is a term that started from the opium
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dens, right? So what would happen is
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especially 18th and 19th century, early 20th century,
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there was a thing about, you know, opium, right?
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And that would get into these dans and they would be smoking
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away and it would fill the room with opium, which is basically a
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drug. And it fills the room with
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smoke. And people would have these
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wonderful dreams and visions. And they were doing it not just
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because they were addicted to drugs.
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It was one of the painkillers back then.
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So people would smoking opium for pain relief, then they were
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getting wildly addicted to it, and then they'd end up in these
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dens all together doing it. But that's where the term pipe
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dream come from. Because as soon as the smoke
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went away, so did the dream and the vision and the enthusiasm.
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And we tend to see hope that way as well.
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So in today's understanding, things like faith and hope are
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intangible. They're unreal.
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You know, you'll often hear people say, you know, I believe
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in science, not faith, because faith is imaginary.
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But that's not what faith and hope are.
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In the Bible, the original foundation of faith and hope is
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actually tangible. And they both point to love,
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which is why the greatest, the greatest of these is love.
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So .1 for those who are point takers, faith anchors us, which
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is bizarre because an anchor is something that has to be true
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and real. Hey, you know, you can't just
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anchor yourself to something that's imaginary, you know,
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imagine, like if you know, trying to anchor or hold on to
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something that's not real. So how does faith anchor us if
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it's not real? And I guess the best way for me
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to explain this is that faith and belief are different in
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their structure. So for example, I believe that
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when I walked up here on the platform that it would support
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my weight and it would be fine. You know, you can jump up and
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down and it won't collapse under me, but I have faith that the
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words that I'm speaking will change your life and your heart
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through the power of the Holy Spirit, and that hopefully it
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will produce a walk that's even closer to God.
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That's faith. Now, who's to say that my belief
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in the platform is more real than my faith in the
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transformation of your life of the Holy Spirit?
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Like, who's to say which is more real?
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And people like. Oh, yeah.
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But John, you can touch the platform.
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Yes, but my faith touches heaven.
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I don't see heaven, John. OK, but you know, I don't see
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gravity either. I see how it affects everything
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around me. If I drop the mic, bam.
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But I don't see gravity. Anyone here seen the gravity
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lately? Can you bring it up here?
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Do you believe in gravity? Oh, that's weird.
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Hey, something you see or can't see?
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What about wind? Feel like I see wind?
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No, you don't. What you see is how it affects
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things around you. So, you know, one of my favorite
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things is actually to sit on the patio.
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I really do like the trees in the background when it's windy
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because they sway slowly. Have you seen that?
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It's like lovely. Now I don't sit there and freak
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out and go, it's magic. They're moving by themselves
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because I don't see wind, but I know it's there and it's real.
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And just because you can't see something or even touch
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something doesn't mean it's not real.
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Good example is your thoughts. Anyone here touch somebody's
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thought lately? No.
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OK, But we're pretty sure thoughts are real.
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Yeah, so just because you can't see or physically touch
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something also doesn't mean it's not true.
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In Romans 1 chapter 17 and in Galatians 311, Paul quotes an
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ancient prophet by the name of Habakkuk.
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All right, so Habakkuk 2 verse 4, it says the just shall live
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by faith. The Hebrew word there is MNR or
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MNR. All right.
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So lots of different ways to explain that.
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But Paul saw the word MNR as a way live faith.
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All right. But the bizarre thing about the
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word MNR is it's really closely related to the word Amit.
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Amit means truth, not some fanciful weird like magical
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thing called faith. No, it's very, very closely
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related to the word truth. And in fact, faith and truth are
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interchangeable. In Deuteronomy 32 verse 4, this
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is what it says. It says he is the rock talking
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of God. His work is perfect for all his
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ways of judgement. Give this a God of a MENA, a God
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of truth and without iniquity, just and right He is.
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You could only say that because the words a MENA that He is a
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God of faith. If faith and truth are
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interchangeable. So if faith is true, doesn't
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that make it real? So you think me standing on the
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platform is the truth because you can see it.
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But technically, biblically standing in the Kingdom of
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heaven is even more real than the things that are around me
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because it's truth, which is why in Hebrews 11 verse one very
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popular verse now faith is this substance of things hoped for,
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the evidence of things not seen. The thing is that word
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substance, You've got to look it up.
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This is it's OK in Hebrew, it's hopistas all right?
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Hopistas. It is 99% of the time it gets
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translated as the word confidence.
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In fact, this is verse in Hebrews 11, verse one.
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It's the only time that it gets translated as the word
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substance. Now, why did good old King James
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decided for that one verse change it from confidence to
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substance? It's because context.
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Also, hooperstasis means like foundation.
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It means something that's so real.
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You can you can actually put weight on it.
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It holds things up. You'll find hooperstasis.
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It can be translated as a person.
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If that person's holding you up, it's a real thing.
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It's not just an airy fairy pipe dream.
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It's a real thing. Some that's foundational.
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So King James is like, well, you know, we can't just do the word
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confidence here. We're going to have to explain
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that it's something so tangible that faith is the substance, the
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upholding of things hoped for, the evidence, the truth of
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things not seen. So what about hope then?
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All right, .2 hope sustains us so this is the things that are
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hoped for, not a pipe dream, not you know, the smoke goes away
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and well that was nice to hope for that.
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We have really misunderstood the word hope because you know
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people say, oh you man, their hopes were dashed.
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I'm like that actually doesn't make sense when you understand
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what the word hope is the the word for hope in Hebrew is
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Tikva. Now Tikva is a very Jewish and
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historical if you know the national anthem of Israel, it's
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called the Hatikva. Hatikva means the hope, right?
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So even the national anthem is based around this word hope.
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But the literal translation of Tikva is rope chord.
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It's not like a like smoke. It's a tangible thing that you
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hold on to. Rock climbers would hold on to a
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Tikva in in Joshua chapter 2, verses 18 to 21, there's an
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event that occurs where Joshua sends spies into this place
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called Jericho, and they nearly get caught.
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And there's this woman there, her name's Rehab.
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And she hides them. And they're like, sweet, thank
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you for hiding us. How can we repay you?
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So basically the whole deal is they said if you hang out your
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window a Scarlett Tikva people say the scarlet rope, scarlet
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cord, whatever, but the words Tikva A scarlet rope.
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If you throw out your the scarlet rope, then you'll be
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saved. Says this in Joshua 2 verse 21.
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Then she said this is rahed. She said according to your
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words, so be it. And she sent them away and they
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departed and she bound the scarlet Tikvath cord in the
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window, tangible, not just smoke.
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They could see it now. So she put this scarlet coloured
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tikvah hope, a scarlet hope out the window.
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So it was hope that physically led to her salvation.
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Now get this, this is real cool part, right?
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So that Scarlett Tikvah, that Scarlett rope, that Scarlet hope
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wasn't just about a pretty rope that she put in a window
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biblically, that scarlet rope weaved its way all the way
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through her descendants, all the way to Jesus, because she was
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the great, great, great, great. You've got to do it 40 times.
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I'm not going to do it right, but she's the great, great,
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great times 40 grandmother of Jesus.
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So that that rope, it wasn't just a symbol, it ended up being
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the bloodline tangible, tangible.
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In Romans 15 verse 13, it says, now may the God of hope fill you
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with all joy. Never is God the God of like
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imaginary stuff. Then why would it be called the
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God of hope if it wasn't real? Now, may the God of hope fill
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you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in
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hope. Not imaginary stuff, but abound
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in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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I like to say this. I like to say God is the God of
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hope. Ropes.
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Is it? OK?
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How fun of you read this. I want you to.
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I want you to say that for me, it'd be great.
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All right. May I may be the God of a hope
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rope because you've heard of Nope ropes, right?
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You know, snakes, snakes and Nope ropes, right?
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But God is the hope group. So how does this attach?
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Then you think about this. OK, So remember, remember, faith
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is what anchors us. Yeah.
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So anchored toward right? So if you can imagine from a
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rock climbers perspective, you've got your hope rope, but
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you have to attach yourself to it.
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And how do you do that? Well, you get those D clips and
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you click it on so that if you fall, you're caught.
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And when you're caught, you've been saved.
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So faith and hope, tangibly working together so that you and
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me can be saved. Because all of these things
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point to love. Yeah, well done.
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Say .3 it is the greatest is love again, First Corinthians
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1313 as a reminder, this is now abide faith, hope, love, these
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three, but the greatest of these is love because it actually all
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starts with love, not the way that the world explains love at
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all. You know, love is love or
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really, why is it the same people that say love is love?
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The same people say, well, that 60 year old shouldn't have
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married that 30 year old. It's like weird, hey, how they
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still think love is defined by their own opinions.
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So there is no such thing as love as love except for God's
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love, Biblical love. Everything else is very in
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Greek. If you ever look at the
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different types of love, there's technically 8.
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Some people say there's nine, some people 7, but there's 8 of
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them and only one of them is like full of it's agape love
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that that selfless pouring out love.
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Everything else is like feelings or metaphors in many ways.
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For example, Eros is very sexual.
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You know, filio is what you would feel for your family and
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friends. Lots of different types of love,
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but there's only one that's the highest and greatest love, which
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is the one that we talked about when it comes to God, which is
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agape love. All right, because everything
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else is an expression, but there's only one love of and
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biblical love is different, very different.
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In one John 48 and verse 8 and verse 16, it says that God is
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love. God is agape.
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It doesn't say Eros, it doesn't say filia.
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It says God is agape, not that God.
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It doesn't say God is loving. He is, but it sets a precedent
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where it says no, God is love. It's like water is wet.
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You can't divide it. It's like God is love.
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And because God is love, he gets to define what love is.
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You know, I've heard Rachel say this and other people for from
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the platform. It's like God isn't what you
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think he is. God is exactly what he says he
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is, right? Yeah.
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So when God says I'm love, he's saying I also know what that
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means. If you're a builder of the
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house, you get to choose how to build the house.
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You get to choose its shape and how it's put together.
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So God designed love. So he gets to determine what
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love is, how you feel, whether it's sexually, enthusiastically
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it. It's related to love in some
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ways, but it's not the fullness of biblical love.
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It's like, I love coffee. Yeah.
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You know, you're not going to see that in the Bible.
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Should be, you know, what is it? It's like Hebrews, right?
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Yeah. And you're going to say that
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anyway, if you, if you look, get a chance to look through
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Scripture, the first time you see the word love in the Bible
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is like revolutionary. I hope you get this in your
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heart. OK, so it's like chapters and
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chapters. And you'd think you'd see the
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word love, which in Hebrews Ahava, but you'd think you'd see
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it early in the Bible. It's not actually.
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It takes chapters after chapters after chapters.
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But the very first time you see the word love, it's about a
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beloved son. Being offered as a sacrifice on
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a mountain that we now know is in Jerusalem.
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Now some of you like, wait, I've heard that story before.
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That's in the New Testament. No, the very first time we ever
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see the word love is the pre, the foreshadow of what Jesus is
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going to do In Genesis 22, verse 2, it's about Isaac and Abraham.
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It's the first time and it says this is what it says.
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It says this is God speaking to Isaac, to Abraham about Isaac,
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and God says to Abraham, then he said, take now your son, your
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only son, Isaac, whom you love. First time you ever see it.
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You know why? Because God's like the first
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time you ever need to know about the word love is so that you
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identify that this is what I'm going to do for you.
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It's not feelings based. It's this is my sacrifice.
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This is why you go back and you find where's the first time I
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see a word because that's its original definite meaning and
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its original purpose. So love, the very first time you
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see the word love in the Bible is always about what God wants
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to do for you. So he said, take your son, your
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only son whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, offer him
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there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I should
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tell you, just an amazing name. It's really weird that the very
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first explanation of love is the story of the cross.
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Moving on. So the Super old King James
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Version, right, of getting back to First Corinthians 1313.
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This is in the English versions that we have now, then we we've
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already read it twice, but it says and now abide faith, hope,
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love. OK.
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In in the very early King James version, they didn't translate
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it as the word love. Are you aware of that?
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Yeah. Translated as the word charity.
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This is now abide, faith, hope, charity, giving these three.
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But the greatest of these is charity.
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It's like, why? Because you can't separate love,
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proper love, agape love, a pouring out love.
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You can't separate it from giving.
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Giving is actually directly read a love.
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I've got some Hebrew up in there.
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Have you got a picture of the Hebrew things?
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Sweet. OK, sure.
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Great. So this is what the word give is
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in Hebrew 1/2 right? And it's behold how generous
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generosity is the strength of the house.
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That's like if you have a look at the pictogram.
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OK, so alef means God, but also means strength.
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The very next one. Hey, it means to to see, behold
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and abate means house, so you can't actually put it in as a
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sentence. And yes, behold, how generosity
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is the strength of the house. Why?
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Because love is the strength of a house.
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All right, but here's the crazy part.
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Let's get to the next one. This is the word love, ahava.
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It's the same word, right? The only difference being the
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letter hey, at the very end. I mean beginner.
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Why? Because it's so important to
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behold it twice. And you'll notice that as I just
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said moments ago, you can't have biblical love unless you have
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give. You just can't separate the 2
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from the very beginning. It's always been about God and
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His love for us, you know, and it's from this love that begets
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salvation and that God gives faith.
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And you know, something tangibly hold on, which is hope.
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In Ephesians 28 it says for by grace you have been saved
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through faith, and that not of yourselves.
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It is a gift of God because God gives.
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He's a God of love. He can't help himself.
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John 316 For God so loved the world that he gave.
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He can't help himself. He is not just loving.
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Remember his love, which means he gives.
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They love the world they gave. His only begotten Son, that
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whoever believes in him should not perish.
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But I've everlasting life and I love this one.
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John 4/19. This is so accurate.
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It says we love him because he first loved US.
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He first loved us. Anything we've ever done back
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for him, anything we ever give back to him, it is simply
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reciprocal. It is just us going, you know
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something? Thank you.
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Just give this back to you. I mean, you gave everything.
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Remember, Amazing Grace, amazing everything.
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So what can I give back to you? What can I give back to you?
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God. Because the creation of the
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universe and humans began in love.
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Musicians, you can come up now. Sorry, I should advise you to
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come up a little bit earlier. Oh, there we have thrown their
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way. How good is that?
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Well, looking nice team. Brilliant.
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You can also come out from hiding.
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OK, Glory to God, I really love this church.
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It's actually really great to be home as some of you know, I
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travel a lot and you know, occasionally I get to go to
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other churches and just, you know, I happen to be there on a
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weekend or sit and I'll be like, this is good.
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Love the presence of God here. But gosh, I love my church, you
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know? Amen.
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Anyway, so we loved him because he first loved us.
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Revelations 13 says that Christ the Lamb was crucified from the
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foundation of the world. His love for us extends way past
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the eternal parameters. I was having chat to someone
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recently actually because I was explaining how we misunderstand
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the word eternal God. The word eternal God does not
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mean that he lives for a long time.
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The word eternal God means he lives every moment in eternity
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simultaneously right now, which means for every moment for all
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time. He sees his Son being crucified
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brutally to save us. Kind of about you.
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But if I had to live with that nightmare forever, but I would
27:14
probably just give up on you. I'm like, Nope, I'm not sure
27:17
this is worth it. But it says that he sees the
27:21
sacrifice of his son as a sweet smelling aroma because even in
27:29
eternity, he thinks you're worth it from the foundation of the
27:35
world. He's loved you in Matthew 25
27:40
verse 34, and I'll finish with this, it says this is this is
27:45
beautiful. It says then the king will say
27:48
to those on his right hand, come you blessed are my father,
27:54
inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the
27:59
world. You know, he wasn't just talking
28:01
about his sacrifice that occurred from the foundation of
28:04
the world. He was planning your inheritance
28:09
from before you. You could even think that you
28:12
ever existed. We're talking gazillions,
28:15
gazillions, gazillions of years ago.
28:17
He saw you and thought I've got an inheritance for you.
28:21
And he's just been waiting for it.
28:24
I love it. How you doing, Sir?
28:29
But how do we start our journey? Let's go there.
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Because if God first loved us, that's why we love him.
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How do we begin that journey? We remember like this way love
28:45
and giving simultaneous. You, you can't, you can't have
28:51
biblical love, original love, true love without an emptying.
28:58
So what's that got to do with us?
28:59
Then we'll see. God emptied himself from the
29:01
very foundation of the world. What's your part to now give
29:07
yourself back to Him? That's all he's ever wanted.
29:13
That's all He's ever wanted. It's all like I've said this
29:17
before from the platform. I am convinced that God's
29:19
obsessed with us like and that must maniac away with all due
29:25
respect, because he's been thinking about you before you
29:29
even knew he existed. And isn't it right then come on,
29:33
I'm just going to be a bit challenging then isn't it right
29:36
then that we should give ourselves back to him?
29:38
I don't know. It might be your first time
29:44
here. We've been here 1000 times.
29:47
But just like Justine was saying earlier, in fact, I was I was
29:50
thinking about it is finished earlier today before I knew you
29:53
were going to do that message. And I'm just like, isn't that
29:56
beautiful though? The plan of God to finish it all
29:59
this up and why did he go through the cross and
30:01
everything? It's so we can have an
30:03
inheritance with him, right? So surely, surely we, he
30:09
deserves for us to give ourselves back to him.
30:12
So if it was, if this is your first time or we've been here
30:15
1000 times, let's do it daily. That's what Justin was saying.
30:20
It's not just about a A1 moment. It's not just that, oh, it is
30:24
finished, great, cool, let's give our life.
30:25
So just move on now. How about we make a decision to
30:29
give ourselves back to God on a daily, momentarily, hourly,
30:36
minute by minute moment. And that's not, doesn't mean
30:39
you're going to be perfect, but it's so good to realign yourself
30:44
back. That's actually what the word
30:46
repentance means for the word, for those who knew.
30:49
I don't know if you've heard this, but the word teshuva, OK.
30:52
It gets translated as the word repentance, Repent.
30:55
All right. And I've heard lots of people
30:56
say, Oh yeah, teshuva, it means to turn away from sin.
30:59
It's 180° turn, all these other pretty cool things that are
31:03
somewhat true, but teshuva actually means to turn towards
31:08
something. Yeah.
31:10
It's not. It's not just a, oh, I'm going
31:13
to going to stop doing that bad stuff.
31:14
I mean, like, you know, drug addicts when they get out or
31:17
Alcoholics when they get out of that whole mess, right?
31:21
They do that to clean their lives up.
31:23
They do have to clean their lives up, but that's not
31:25
repentance. That's just stopping the bad
31:27
stuff. So repentance has to be
31:30
directional. It has to be facing towards
31:34
something. So when people say do you live a
31:36
repentant life, like every moment, I think thank you God,
31:42
then yes, that's what a repentant life is.
31:46
It's not just feeling bad about things that you've done or yeah,
31:50
I'm pretty perfect today. That's not a repentant life.
31:53
That's just good stuff. Repentant life is, are we facing
31:58
God? Are we coming back to him?
32:00
Are we in a love relationship with God where we give back to
32:07
him? Let's pray.
32:10
If everyone, if you don't mind, just close your eyes, bow your
32:13
head. Just want to give people an
32:14
opportunity. If you're thinking you know
32:16
something could be your first time or yes, I just want again a
32:23
declaration that of God. I just I just give myself back
32:26
to you. If that's you just want to put
32:29
your hand up.