Latest / Abide In Me / September 24 - Speed Of Love 2026

Transcript

September 24 - Speed Of Love 2026 · Abide In Me

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, I am the vine, you are the branches.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you abide in me, and I in you, you will bear much fruit.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to season two of Pillar's Abide in Me podcast.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Christian.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm Trish.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: This fall we're moving at the speed of love.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're borrowing from a Japanese theologian and his essay titled Three Mile an Hour God.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: God walks slowly because he is love.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: If he is not love, he would have gone much faster.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Love has its speed.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: It is an inner speed.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: It is a spiritual speed.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: It is a different kind of speed from the technological speed in which we are accustomed.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: It goes on in the depth of our life, whether we notice it or not, at three miles an hour.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: It is the speed we walk and therefore the speed the love of God walks.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's the speed of love in a hurry-up world, the speed of love in a world hell-bent on efficiency.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: The speed of love in a world where too many people are passed by and run over or absolutely exhausted.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Love has a speed.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Abram and Nahor both married.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milka.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: She was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milka and Isca.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now Sarai was childless because she was not able to conceive.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Terrah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot, son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out for Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: But when they came to Haran, they settled there.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Terrah lived two hundred and five years, and he died in Haran.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land I will show you.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: So Abram went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother's son Lot, and all the possessions they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran, and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Morah.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: At that time the Canaanites were in the land.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your offspring I will give this land.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: So he built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and I on the east.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: And there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: And Abram journeyed on by stages towards the Negeb.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: This is the word of the Lord.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks be to God.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: God shows up to Abram as the kind of God who invites participation, sacrifice even.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: The demands are intense, but notice that God doesn't ask Abram to give up anything that he's not going to replace.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: God shows up for a conversation, for intimate involvement in Abram's life and in the story of the world.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And in that conversation, God invites participation and to make specific promises of good gifts that he intends to offer.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And Abram's response is faith, obedience, and worship.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: By faith, he said, I'll go, not knowing where he was going.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: So Abram went as the Lord had told him.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: What a response.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: I want to have the same kind of response when God invites me to go.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: God is inviting you in, inviting you to participate in his work in the world.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, this is the God who has shown up to you and shown you what he is like.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: God who moves and acts and pursues.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: If that's what God is like, and that God is calling you to go, what's the hesitation?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: This God is brimming with blessing, protection, favor, and companionship in all the sacrifice that is to come.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: This God invites you to join in on his reconciling work in the world.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Not because he needs you, no.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus has already done everything.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: No, God invites you in because he delights to bless the world in relationship to you.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: So where is God inviting your yes?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Where is God inviting you to say, yes, I'll go?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: So Abram went as the Lord had told him.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe God's inviting you to take a step of courage, to make a leap of faith, or to pursue a brave choice that feels against the grain of what is comfortable or natural.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because this active and moving God is inviting you into the thing He is doing.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, here's the good news.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: God has said yes to you in Jesus Christ.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: All is accomplished.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now you get to give a joyful yes back, to join in as God continues to make all things new for the flourishing of all creation.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's not an easy path, but I can't think of any other answer to this kind of good God.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'll go.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: So Pillar went as the Lord had told them.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: For our part as a pillar community, we love to be praying for you.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: So feel free to reach out to us at abine at pillarchurch.com, and if you're willing, receive this blessing.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: May the grace of Christ, which daily renews us, and the love of God, which enables us to love all, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, which unites us in one body, make us eager to obey the will of God until we meet again through Jesus Christ our Lord.