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The official audio library of sermons preached at Kingstree Church in Sabina, Ohio.
God's soul is thrilled with this love, satisfied in this love, and he gives it to us. And you think it is possible that you might say, oh, thank you. Oh, is wonderful. Thank you. So how are you going to help me now?
Christopher:No. If that is our thought process, God have mercy on us and open our eyes.
Caleb:The following message was recorded at King's Tree Church. May the spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.
Christopher:It has been a month now since we were in first John. Number of weeks ago, I gave two messages on the Lord's Supper, preparing us for the vote and just refreshing our understanding of the Lord's Supper, and then two weeks ago pastor Sean gave a message on first Samuel, and then last week when we would have returned to first John, I ended up writing and giving a shorter more devotional sermon on Thanksgiving due to health and voice and all the rest. So here we are now back in one John after a month of being away. So let me begin by giving you a bit of a refresher because you likely don't recall where we were the last time we were here. So we're in chapter four of the epistle, the first epistle of John, and the last time we were here we saw John call his readers to love one another with the love of Christ, to love one another with the love of Christ, and then he said, he implies, as you're loving in this way, God himself is in your midst and is seen in you.
Christopher:As the church loves one another with the love of Christ, she becomes as it were the visible body of Christ in this world. So that by our love, God abides in us and is seen in us. By one another. We can see him in each other and by the world. So that's what we were looking at last time as we were in verses eleven ten through 12.
Christopher:But today we're going to be moving on into verse 13. First John chapter four verse 13, and John is going to continue with this idea of abiding, abiding, and we've been in this book for about a year now, and that's been a theme. Abiding, God abiding in us, and us abiding in God. Christians abiding in him. Now this idea, if you've been listening, and I'm sure you've picked it up one way or another, abiding is a big deal for John.
Christopher:The idea of God in Christ in us and we in him, this is central to how John thinks about the Christian life. This idea of being in, in, in God, he in us. So John doesn't so much ask us, do you believe in God? Though that's there of course. He doesn't so much ask us, do you know about God or even do you obey God?
Christopher:If step back and look at what John's saying, he's really asking us, are you in in God, and is he in you? This intimate language, relational language. Are you in him, in Christ, and is he in you? That's transcending the idea of what do you say, and it's getting to the idea of what is fundamentally true. What's fundamentally true?
Christopher:It points to this idea that our faith is a life pervading reality. To be a Christian, to name Christ as Lord is not like getting a new pair of clothing, a new pair of clothes, a fancy new pair of clothes. Now I'm gonna wear my Christian clothes and I look better. It's not getting a new haircut for your soul, for your spirit. It's not like getting a new job or a new car.
Christopher:All these things make us feel kind of fresh and new when they happen. Our faith is not like that. Our faith is rather like being plunged into an ocean, and in that plunging being transformed into a being that breathes the ocean to live. Go with me there. There's a bit of imagination required, but that's what our faith is.
Christopher:I'm plunged into it, and I breathe it now. I'm in him, and he's in me. That's what John is asking us. Are you Are I Are we in him, and is he in us? That's gonna be the central question, one of the central questions that we'll look at today.
Christopher:So the text for today is verses 13 through 16 of chapter four in one John. Let me read that for us, then we'll pray, and look at this together. Here's what John says, By this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us of his spirit, and we have seen and testified that the father has sent his son to be the savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
Christopher:God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. So let's pray, and we'll look at these things together. Father, we come to you this morning bearing many different things, many joys, many hopes, many anticipations, many burdens and griefs, uncertainties and fears. There's there's a whole kaleidoscope of the human experience being brought before you here in even in this little congregation. And father, we lift that all up to you.
Christopher:And even as light shines through all the broken glass of the kaleidoscope and makes that beautiful image, we need now the light of Christ to shine through all that we are, all that we're facing, all that we're bearing, and to turn this to glory, to turn this to beauty, to satisfy us in yourself, Father. That's what we need. We need Christ. I need Christ to speak now, and your people need Christ to get through this hour, this day, this week, this month, this year. We need Jesus Christ as our life, as our light, as our joy, and our strength, as our hope, and our refuge.
Christopher:And so father, I pray now that your spirit would come upon us and turn these words into a means of giving Christ. And when we take the supper here, Lord, in a few minutes, turn this moment into a means of receiving Christ. Give your people, Jesus Christ, afresh, I pray. And now, Lord, place your hand upon me in all my insufficiencies that I might be a means of giving him to your people afresh. So we look to you, father, and we pray these things, and we commit our time to you now in Jesus name.
Christopher:Amen. So what's John say here? Verse 13, he says, By this we know that we abide in him and he in us. How do we know that? How do we know that we're in God and he's in us?
Christopher:Well, keep reading. It says that he had Because he has given us of his spirit. Because he has given us of his spirit. So throughout this epistle, John points to various ways we can know that we are in God and he is in us. Just a few examples.
Christopher:Chapter two verse six, it says, If you're walking as Christ walked, you abide in him. Okay, there's one example, walking as Christ walked, living as he lived. Chapter three verse six says, If we're practicing sin, then we do not abide in him. Okay, so if our life is marked by a practice of sin, then I'm not in him. Chapter three verse 24 says, Whoever is keeping the commandments abides in God and God in him.
Christopher:Okay, so I'm keeping. If I'm obeying, if I'm living in a pattern of obedience, I can know that I'm in him and he in me. Four twelve says, If we're loving one another, then God abides in us and we in him. So there's many different ways that John is expressing us, though of course all those are the same. Walking as Christ, keeping the commandments, and loving one another, for John is all showing this love, showing Christ imaging love.
Christopher:That's how we know he's in us and we're in him. But in today's passage, he's gonna say the same kind of thing again in a summary way. This is kind of a catchall for what he said, summing it up. We know that we are in him and he is in us because he's given us his Spirit. If the Spirit of God is in us, then we know he's in us, and we know we're in him.
Christopher:So that's this kind of summary picture that John is giving us here. Now, just pausing for a second, for those of us who have grown up in the church, and I know that's not everyone here, but I know it is a good portion, we might just say, Oh yeah, yeah, God's given us a spirit. We have the Holy Spirit in us. We have the Holy Spirit in us. Well, think about what is being said there.
Christopher:The spirit of God, the Holy Spirit's the spirit of God, which means God, God. Who's God? The uncreated creator of all things. Never has a beginning, never has a creator, has no one over him, has no one in authority over. He is the supreme authority of all things.
Christopher:He is the infinitely holy one, the one before whom angels of fire fall on their faces in awe. This God has given us, and who's us? You and me? I mean the fairly unimpressive people that we are, dust born mortal humans who don't understand how to do this or that, who fail daily, who are unimpressive, this patchwork body of believers that is the church, God has given us of his spirit. He's given us his spirit.
Christopher:If you're trusting Christ, he's given you his spirit. That's a shocking thing. Think about a lung transplant. That's a big deal. The vital core of someone's body taken and placed into your body so that you can live, a lung transplant.
Christopher:That's huge. That's huge. If somebody said that they received a lung transplant, that's a big deal. But what if it were possible? And again, you have to stretch your imagination here a little bit.
Christopher:What if it were possible for you to receive someone's lungs so you can breathe even while they remained the other person's lungs as well? They remained in them. It's your lungs and their lungs. Now physically just kind of put that to the side. Think about it conceptually.
Christopher:What would it be? The lungs that are breathing for you are breathing for them. Their breathing is your breathing. The vital core of their life has been placed into you and has become the vital core of your life. And that is a shadow of what God has done in giving us his spirit, his breath.
Christopher:Spirit and breath, it's the same word. He's given his own breath to us. He's placed the vital core of his own life into us, even as it remains in him. He is in us by his spirit, and we are in him by that same spirit. Christian, you've received this spirit.
Christopher:You're breathing as it were spiritually by the breath of God. And John says, you know you're in him because he's given you his spirit. You know that. So we say, Okay, that's an awesome thing. That's a weighty thing.
Christopher:But if God has given me his breath, his spirit, and that spirit is living in me, shouldn't there be some sign of that? Shouldn't there be some effect of that? Shouldn't there be some way I can know that the spirit's in me? Because the spirit is telling us God is in you and you're in him, but how do I know that the spirit is in me, that I've received the spirit? Well, seems to be what John goes on to express in this passage.
Christopher:We know we abide in him and he in us because he's given us of his spirit, and namely as those who have received his spirit. Was that me? Goodness gracious. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in God God abides in him, and he in God.
Christopher:So we have come to confess and to believe the love that God has for us. So as those who have received the spirit, here's two things that are now true. We've seen and are bearing witness to Christ, or confessing Christ, it's the same word. We've seen and are testifying, confessing that Christ, that God has sent his son to be the savior of the world, and we are knowing and believing love. If the spirit's in us, here's two things that are true.
Christopher:We're confessing Christ, we're believing love. That's what I wanna look at this morning from this text the rest of the time together. We're confessing Christ, we're believing love. That's the effect John gives us here to know that the spirit is in us. So look at verse 14.
Christopher:As those who have received the spirit, here's what's true of us, we have seen and testify or confess that the father has sent his son to be the savior of the world. Let's take the second part first. We've seen and confessed what? Let's look at the what, the content. What, as those given the spirit, what are we seeing and confessing?
Christopher:We're seeing and confessing that the father has sent his son to be the savior of the world. Now you might say, okay, that's pretty simple. That's straightforward. That's Christianity 101. Sent his son to be the savior of the world, but think about what's bound up in those two statements.
Christopher:What's the sending? I say, I confess the Father has sent his son. What do I mean? He came in a procession down from heaven with angels all around him as a king coming down to just take over. In the sending, when I confess the Father has sent his Son, what we're confessing is that the Son of God has become flesh, that the creator of the universe has become one of his creatures.
Christopher:He's become a human being. The incarnation, the taking on flesh of the Word, The one who set the stars in place with his hands as it were, now has hands of an infant that need to be taught how to hold a spoon. The hands that put the sun in place needed to be taught by Mary how to pick up a little piece of wood, a little spoon to feed himself. That's the sending we're talking about here. The word of God whose word upholds the universe became a newborn that couldn't speak.
Christopher:The word of God whose word sustains reality needed to learn from his mother and his parents how to form words. This is the sending. God made flesh. That's what we're confessing. But then what kind of flesh does our God become?
Christopher:When the Son of God is sent into flesh, what kind of flesh is he sent into? He's sent into mortal and death doomed flesh. The Son of God doesn't become flesh that is exempt from dying. He becomes flesh that is doomed to die because our flesh is doomed to die. The flesh of those he saves is death doomed flesh, so he takes death doomed flesh.
Christopher:So when I'm confessing God sent the Son, I'm confessing the Son has come in my dying flesh, which means supremely I'm confessing he's the one who died on the cross. Because as I said a few weeks ago, that's where we see the word became flesh. Because up to that point you say, Is it really flesh? Did he really become a human being? And he says, I will show you, I will die as a death doomed human just like you.
Christopher:And that's where to all the universe he says, I became flesh. So if I confess that God has sent the Son, I'm ultimately We're together ultimately confessing the cross. We're confessing the crucified Son. Look at the body of your Lord broken on the tree of your condemnation. Look at the flesh of our God torn on the cross that is our death, and there see the sending of the Son.
Christopher:That is God sending the Son, and that's what we confess. That's what the spirit in us causes us to confess. The Father sent his Son. Sent his Son to be the savior of the world. That's the second part.
Christopher:You see that? Sent his Son to be the savior. And what's bound up in savior? Well, the crucified Christ is not savior unless he's risen. So to confess that the crucified one is savior is to confess the resurrection.
Christopher:To confess the sending is to say he was sent in death on the cross, and to confess that he was sent as savior is to confess that the one who died on the cross is risen, is risen as Lord and King and God over all. The crucifixion is revealed as salvation only by resurrection. And we can point to the cross and say, There is my salvation, only because the one hanging dead on the cross is raised up beyond all death. Beyond all death. So the spirit leads Christians to confess what?
Christopher:Christ crucified and risen. God sent through the cross his son to be the risen savior of the world. That's what the spirit calls us to confess and to confess that this one, this one who dies, this one who rises, he is the savior. That means I'm saying he is the peace for which we're longing. He is the joy for which we're hungering.
Christopher:He is the goodness for which we're aching. He is the truth for which we're seeking. He is the beauty we're desiring in all of our desires. He's the one after whom the whole world is yearning whether they know it or not. He's the one in whom every broken thing is made right.
Christopher:He is. He's the one in whom every loss and they are grievous is restored. He's the one in whom every sorrow is healed and every soul of everyone who would call upon him is saved. The spirit moves us to confess that. That's your confession Christian.
Christopher:It's my confession. The father sent through the cross his son who is risen as the savior of the world. So that's the content that the If we're able to confess that, that's an indication the spirit is in you, because the spirit gives that confession. But then that's the content, but then the effect is the spirit causes us not just to see that, but to see it and confess it. If the spirit is in you, you have seen what I just said.
Christopher:You've seen it, and you are confessing it. In the text here, verse 14, the word for testify, or I'm using the translation confess, that's present tense. So the spirit leads us to have seen Christ crucified and risen, and to be confessing Christ crucified and risen. Now when John says we have seen this, he of course has in mind his own eyewitness testimony. Literally he did see it, But he also has in mind all of you, all of us, all believers.
Christopher:We have seen by faith the son sent through his death and raised up as savior. We've seen that. If you're a Christian, you've seen that by faith. You've also seen that in one another. Why does someone you don't even know give up their time and money and schedule for you?
Christopher:Why are we here together? And why even though many of you don't know each other extremely well, you would still sacrifice for one another? Why is there this bond? This bond that we have in Christ is the bond that displays this love. You've seen the Son sent through the cross through the love of the church, through the love of his people, through the self giving of other Christians.
Christopher:You've seen it. We've seen it by faith. We've seen it in each other. And we've not just seen it, but then we are confessing it. If the spirit is in us Christian, we've seen by faith and in the church Christ crucified and risen as Lord and Savior, and we're confessing it.
Christopher:That's critical. It's not just, Oh, I've seen it. I know it. How many times does a Christian say, Oh, I know that's true. I know that.
Christopher:I know that. I know that. That doesn't matter. There's this confession element. It is a continual confessing of this, and by this John doesn't just mean I'm saying it over and over again.
Christopher:I believe Jesus died and rose. I believe Jesus died and rose. It's not this continual verbal confession. The idea is that our life is a confession of this truth. Your life becomes the witness continually that we believe this.
Christopher:We believe that the Son was sent through the cross and is raised as savior of the world. As those who have received the spirit of God, our lives become Yes, our words, but our lives too become a continual confession of the crucified and risen Jesus. Your life, my life is a confession of some belief, whether it's the belief that money is the most important thing, lives can be a confession of that. Look at a business leader, their life becomes a confession. The most important thing is getting ahead.
Christopher:Your life can become a confession that your family is the most important thing. Like I sacrifice everything and everyone for this little group of people. Now to an extent that's good, but that can become unbalanced as well. Your life can be a confession that your job or your dream or significant other is everything to me. Like our lives confess what we believe.
Christopher:And John is saying our life must confess Christ crucified, risen as savior of the world. My choices with money, my choices with time, my choices publicly, and more importantly, my choices privately need to become a confession, this one is Lord. This is what life is about. This is the truth. This one is the hope of the world.
Christopher:So our lives are a confession of that. The spirit, if he's in us, is molding us incrementally into people, and this is over time, this is not perfectly, into people whose every thought and response and choice and pursuit, action and reaction is a confession. Christ died and rose again as savior of the world. That's what the spirit's working in us. And when I say that, all I can think is Lord have mercy because there's a long way to go, but that's what he's doing.
Christopher:And we don't settle for not being there. I want my life to be a confession of this. We want our life to be a confession of this. That's what the Spirit does in us. Okay, so the first effect John gives us of the Spirit in our lives is that we have seen by faith and in the church, and we are confessing with lips and with life that God sent his son through the cross to save the world.
Christopher:Then look at verse 15. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So this is kind of a subsection of what we just looked at, and John is adding to this and saying, look, if you're in Christ, if the Spirit is in you, you're confessing this, and anyone who confesses this, God is in him, and he is in God. Anyone who confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So that's just incredible to think about.
Christopher:To be confessing with my lips and with my life that the Jesus who dies on the cross is the Son of God, and by Son of God it means the king, the Lord, the revealer of the Father. To confess the one who died on the cross shows us the Father. He's the Son who reveals the Father. To confess that is to have God in us and for us to be in God. That's incredible.
Christopher:How central must this reality be to who God is if to make this confession means I'm in him and he's in me? Just think about that. If I were to say to you, if you confess this to be true, I'm in you and you're in me. Whatever this is, it must be very central to who I am. Because I just said, if you say this, if you believe this, then I'm in you and you're in me.
Christopher:And John says, If we confess the one who died and rose is the Son and Revealer of God, God is in us, which means this confession is at the very heart of who God is. The confession of the crucified and risen Christ as the Son of God who reveals the Father, that is the heartbeat of God's life you could say. Or to use the imagery we used earlier, it's the rhythm of his breathing. The rhythm of the breathing of God so far as we hear it in this world, in this life as human beings, is Christ crucified and risen, is the Son of God, is the revealer of the Father, is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. That is at the center of who God is.
Christopher:So much so that to build our lives upon it is to have God in us, and for us to be in God. It is to breathe with his own breath. Have you ever held someone, perhaps a child, perhaps a spouse, perhaps a parent close to your chest until your breathing aligns with them? You're taking breath at the same time. You're breathing together.
Christopher:That's what the Spirit does with God for us, causes us to breathe together with God. Him in us, we in him. And the sound of that breathing is a life that confesses the crucified and risen Jesus is the son of God. That's what it is to make this This is more than just, oh, believe that. Life This is aligned with him.
Christopher:As we make that confession, we're gathered in to the very life of God, the rhythm of his own breathing. Okay, that's the first thing then. The first effect of the Spirit in our lives is that we have seen by faith and in the church and are confessing with lips and with life the slain and risen Jesus as the Son of God sent to be savior of the world. Now there's another thing that is true of us if the Spirit's in us, and derives from that first thing. This is in verse 16.
Christopher:There's an and here in Greek. You don't see it. It's a so in my ESV, but the idea is, and we have come to know and believe the love that God has for us, or deriving from that, we have come to know and believe the love that God has for us. So these two go together. It's a sequence.
Christopher:John is saying, The Spirit is in us, and because the Spirit is in us, we have seen and are confessing that the Father sent the Son to be the savior of the world. And out of that then, we have come to know and believe the love that God has for us. You see how that's connected? Spirit is in us, so we've seen and are confessing the Son sent as savior, and seeing and confessing this, we know and believe the love that God has for us. So that's the second thing that John seems to be implying.
Christopher:If the spirit is in us, this is true. We know and believe the love that God has for us. And one point to see here is that when you connect his thought in chapter in verse thirteen and sixteen, I confess the sending of the Son as the savior of the world, and because of that confession, I know and believe his love, one of the things you see here is there's a parallel between the sending and the loving. I confess the Father sent the Son to save the world, and I know the love he has for me because the sending of the Son is that love that I believe. See how that works?
Christopher:I confess this sending and I've come to know his love because this sending to save the world is his love for me, for us. The love that is believed here is the love of the son sent. It's the love that embraces on the cross our sorrow, our sickness, our sin, our death, our hell, my hell. It's the love that takes that down into the abyss as it were, and rises up again, turning now curse to blessing, turning death to life, darkness to light, sorrow to joy. That's the love that is displayed in the sending of the sun, and that's the love that John says here we have come to know and to believe.
Christopher:Now notice a change that's happened here. In verse 13 Sorry, it's verse 14. I was saying 13. In verse 14, the sending of the sun is to save the world. In verse 16, it's understood to be love for us.
Christopher:You see what's happened? It went from being for the world to for us, for me. There's a specification that happens here. The spirit takes what was love generally for the world and causes you to know it, me to know it, as love for me, for us. Pointed, specific, saving love.
Christopher:Saving love. The love in general is turned to a love in particular. Now I used this example last week if you were here, but I'll use it again now. It's the difference between a musician who stands up on the stage after the concert and he says, I love you, Ohio. And you think, cool, I'm here.
Christopher:And you could go home and say, Oh, he said he loved us. But I love you Ohio. Okay, now that same musician sitting at the table across from his wife looking into her eyes saying, I love you. I love you. There's a difference there.
Christopher:Same words, same person, there's a difference. General and specific. And sometimes from the cross we can see God saying, I love you world. I love you all this much. And we think, well if I believe then I can get in on that love and kind of that will be love for me too, right?
Christopher:But no, the spirit takes this I love you world, which is there on the cross, and specifies it to a I love you, my chosen one, my specific one, my particular and named sheep in my flock, my beloved one. The Spirit specifies the love. So we've all heard Jesus takes away the sins of the world. He swallows up death. He bears away sorrows.
Christopher:He's the savior. And we could maybe confess that generally, but the spirit says, no, know and believe he has taken your sorrows the particular ones the specific ones. He's taken your sins. The ones you're thinking of he's taken your hell. The one that was set before you.
Christopher:He's taken your death. The death, this is beautiful to me, the death we are still to die that is still in front of us. Jesus died that one for us if we're trusting him. And when we get there, we'll meet him in it. He died that for us.
Christopher:So the spirit, as it were, causes us as individual believers and as a church to look to the cross and not just see Jesus's eyes lifted out saying, I love the world this much, but to see his eyes turning down upon you, upon you, looking at you saying, I love you. That's the love that the Spirit causes us to see. It's no longer just ascending to save the world, it's I've come to know and believe the love he has for us. And then wrapping this up, I've come to what? Know and believe it.
Christopher:Not just say, Oh, that's true. Yes, I factually understand that pastor, but know and believe. The idea there is know in the marrow of your soul. Know not like you know facts, but like you know honey is sweet when you taste it. Believe not like you believe that today is Sunday, but the way you believe in gravity when you walk out under the infinite abyss of the sky and are not afraid because you think gravity's here, I believe in gravity.
Christopher:Know and believe in that way, and the spirit causes us to know and believe this love that way. Now let me ask you as we close, what do you know and believe? What do you know and believe? What is the deepest, most unshakable assumption of your worldview? What are some of those things that you hold so deeply to be true you don't even have to think about them.
Christopher:You don't even have to work at them. They're just there. They're like gravity. They're like the sunlight. You just live with them.
Christopher:And I don't mean what should you say, Oh, forgiveness, Jesus, God loves me. I mean, what is true? What do you feel? What do you feel to be so true that it's just there all the time? Do you feel perhaps shame?
Christopher:Just it's there, shame. I'm not trying to feel that way. Nobody did anything particularly. I just live in shame. I just feel like it's there.
Christopher:It's just the noise, the background noise of my life is shame. Is that the case? Or fear. Do I know and believe fear? I just feel like something's gonna happen.
Christopher:Something's wrong. I'm not safe. It's like I'm exposed. It's like I'm out in the open. I'm just always afraid.
Christopher:I'm just living with fear pressing on me. Is that the case? Or the need to perform. I don't try to do it. I'm not thinking specifically about it, but when I walk into a room I just know I need to perform.
Christopher:I need to put on an act. I need to get these people to think a certain thing about me, even if I'm not trying to do it. It's just there. I know and believe I need to perform. Or is it perhaps I'm not liked, I'm on the outside.
Christopher:I can't point to a specific thing, but I just always am out here. Everybody's in there, I'm out here. Everybody's liked, I'm not liked. Everybody's got someone who loves them, I don't. Is that just the reality that you know and believe and you live from that reality?
Christopher:Or the need to do more. Or God is angry with me. He's just angry. I just know it. I know it.
Christopher:I know he's angry. Sometimes he's nicer, but I know he's angry at me. Or I'm a victim. I'm just a victim. That's how I see life.
Christopher:Or I'm a failure or anything else. Stack them up. What do you know and believe? This text says the Spirit uproots these, Christian. You don't have to know and believe them as the foundation.
Christopher:The Spirit creates again your internal cosmos and lays a new foundation so that there is a new knowing and there is a new fundamental reality under everything. And it is this, I am loved, loved in the sending of the sun. I have come to know and believe the love from the cross. I look at the cross, I see in it the heart of God, and I believe that as the root of everything for me. I build myself upon that love.
Christopher:Christian, that is true of you. The fundamental reality is not shame, fear, performance, being on the outside, needing to do more, God's anger, victimhood, failure, whatever else. It is this love. And if when you hear that you're tempted to say, I know, I know, but still, okay, okay, I know Jesus loves me, but I need help. I'm there often.
Christopher:I've been there. But let me encourage you that we can't say that. The love we're talking about here is the love that thrills and satisfies God himself. God's soul is thrilled with this love, satisfied in this love, and he gives it to us. And you think it is possible that you might say, Oh, thank you.
Christopher:Oh, that is wonderful. Thank you. How are you gonna help me now? No. If that is our thought process, God have mercy on us and open our eyes, this love poured into the wine skin of a seraphim, the burning angel would burst it to pieces.
Christopher:And he is pouring this love into you. He's pouring this love into us. So if we would say, Oh, I understand it. No, you don't. No, I don't.
Christopher:I don't get it yet. And you don't get it yet that you're loved by God. We just don't. You don't and I don't. There is an oasis before us.
Christopher:Take the thirst of your soul there, the love of God. There is a feast before us. Take the hunger of your soul there, the love of God. The pain you feel, the questions you feel, the burdens you feel, the debilitating despair you feel, Its answer is in this love. I can't emphasize that enough.
Christopher:Its answer is in this love, and the Spirit causes us to know and believe that love as fundamental to everything. So Christian, that's my prayer. That's my prayer for us as a church, for me as an individual, as a father, as a husband, that we would know this love, know this love and believe this love. And so bear witness, the spirit is in me, God dwells in me and I in him. And here at this table, you have a chance right now to taste this love by faith, by faith as you take these elements, you are tasting Christ given for you afresh or the one gift of Christ extended now to this moment and received by us.
Christopher:Christian, the body of our God broken in love for us. The life of our God poured to wash us clean. This is the truth underneath everything else. To hell with the shame, with the fear, with the need to perform, with these wounds that we're bearing from our old life, to hell with them. This is the truth, this love.
Christopher:May we build our lives upon it. So come receive, come know and believe that this is what God has done for you, and this is who God is for you in Christ. Let me pray. Father, we do need the spirit if we are to come to know and believe this love because apart from the spirit we will be as we have all been so many times in the past. Those who say, We're loved, I'm loved, okay, but give me something that will help me.
Christopher:Lord, open the deep wells of our soul, the wells that are clogged with the gravel and the soot and the refuse of all that we carry with us. Clear these wells down to the infinite depths and fill them, father, with the love of Christ that we might draw up from them the water to be satisfied again and again and again, that the deepest truth for us would be this love you've shown in the sending of your Son. And father, may we be given the grace now to truly taste that love afresh as we come to the table together. We look to you father, in Jesus name, amen.
Caleb:Thank you for listening to this message from King's Tree Church in Sabina, Ohio. To see more of the beauty of God and the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10AM or visit our website at kingstreechurch.org.