Jordan Santos: That Any other stuff was important. Anyways, but, so we spin the wheel a couple times to decide what it is we talk about. And it's kind of weird of trying to prep for something like that because, you know, I don't I can't really plan on what we're gonna talk about. So, every day, I spin the wheel myself on, something that I'm going to read and then, what something I can learn from it. You know, it's a it's a very interesting practice, but, again, I do this to prove, to the kids that it doesn't matter what we're talking about.
You could open a bible and it could fall anywhere and there could be something to learn. Right? And so, luckily, so far, in this summer, the wheel has, you know, been pretty kind to me. It hasn't landed on anything that I've never seen before, and I have no idea what it's talking about. Right?
But we go, even if it did, I'm confident that we could go through that text and, you know, learn something impactful. And so that's exactly what I'm going to do this no. I'm just kidding. No. Could you imagine if I actually did that?
Just had a come here with no plan and just randomly talk about whatever. It would not last very long. I'm sure. That exercise is, you know, truly it's only works in a classroom type environment where we can all kind of, chime in, so I won't make us do that today. However, I do want to share with you one of the topics from, a recent Wednesday night.
The first spin of the wheel was 62. If and I don't know if you know what the 62nd book in the bible is off the top of your head. I started counting from Genesis, and I got all the way to second Samuel before I realized it would be a lot faster if I counted backwards from the end of it. So, you get to, 1st John chapter 4 chap anyway, 1st John, and then you spin the wheel again. There are 5 chapters in that book and we spun it in and it went on chapter 4.
Right? So 1st John chapter 4, is where we ended up. And maybe you recognize me saying that. That's the god is love chapter, a very famous chapter of the bible, a good one to land on if I'm doing it randomly. Right?
And so, we're gonna read through that passage a little bit together, and I'll share with you how our class discussion went. And then I think there was a question that kind of spawns from that that I would like for us to explore today. 1st John chapter 4 verses 7 through 12. Let's read together. Dear friends, let us love one another for love comes from God.
Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. This is love.
Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. These verses are really interesting because, you know, John says he says something very matter of factly, as if it's obvious, but it's actually very confusing. God is love.
Right? What does what does that mean? I feel like we understand what that means. Like, we like, we we get it, but it's hard to articulate specifically what god is love means. John says the words god and love over and over and over again throughout the rest of the chapter, which is purposeful, because I think he wants us to link them together.
God and love should be synonymous. Right? It's kinda like this. I'm gonna say a word or a phrase, and I want you to see if you can give me, the ending of that phrase. So if I said, would you please pass me the salt and what would you say?
Pepper. Right? Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Why don't we just wait and see? Right?
When I was younger, I thought growing up would be all fun and games. After the kids go to bed, we can finally have some peace and quiet. There you go. Right? Even as I was, you know, typing this into my notes, the the auto complete wanted to fill out the rest of that phrase for me, because those things just, they just go together so often.
Right? And I think that God and love should be that connected where when we think of God, we think of love, it completes that thought for us. And, in verse 12, it says that nobody has ever seen God. Right? Which is true.
The closest, or not in his, like, fullest form, at least. The closest we've ever gotten is, Moses in Exodus chapter 33 when God is giving him the 10 Commandments. Moses has to cover his eyes as God passes by in front of him. It says and God says that nobody can lay his eyes on him and live. And you know that, cliche secret agent, FBI, you know, if I told you I have to kill you.
Right? It's kinda like this, but it's you know, God doesn't kill you. It's just, you know, he is so awesome and powerful that our we could not handle it. We would simply perish. Right?
So if we can never see God, how can we ever grow closer to Him? Right? Long distance relationships are hard. Trying to be have this relationship with God when he feels so far away is not easy to do. Long distance relationships are hard.
Abby is currently working, a 6 out of 7, so she worked 4 in a row. Tonight's her tonight is her 4th in a row, and she'll have one off and then 2 on. So 6 out of 7 days for working. That is long enough distance for me. Right?
But John offers this solution to a long distance relationship. I'll read verses 11 and 12 again. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. Loving one another brings us closer to God.
It says he lives in us, which is as close as you can be. Right? That's pretty close. And it was at this point in class that I wanted to, ask what it practically looked like to love one another. Because, again, that's still kind of abstract.
It could be so many things. And so, I asked, and it's funny because I had invited Evan and Logan Gunter into class with us because, because, you know, on Wednesday night, they don't have a younger kids class. And I I love those 2 boys. They're so great. I don't mind working with them.
And so when I asked this question of how do we show love to other people, as you might expect, Logan had some interesting answers. First thing he said was, just say I love you, which you know what? That makes a lot of sense. That's true. You can't really argue with him there.
But, I wanted to emphasize that we're trying to think about actions. Right? What can you do? And what are the things we can do to show love? And Logan says to give hugs, which again is a great answer.
Very true. Can't argue with that. Right? But I wanted to see if we could get a little more creative, obviously. Right?
And so to kind of get the gears turning, I asked what their parents do for them to show them them love. Evan speaks up finally, and he, says that mom and dad do everything for them and give them everything they need, which good on him for realizing that a lot of younger kids are very quick to ignore and not notice, the reality of that. And then Logan chimes in and says that mom and dad show him love by buying him stuff for Fortnite. Which again, I guess is kind of true. You can't argue with it.
And so hoping that that question kind of inspired them to think a little bit deeper. I asked again, if your parents do these things to show you love, what can you do for them to show you love? And, Evan says, well, maybe I can clean my room before they ask me to, which again, that's a great answer. You know? Very sweet.
And then Logan says, tell them thank you for buying me stuff on Fortnite. That's how you can show love. So, I share that. We're not gonna go through the whole conversation we had, but it's kinda funny, but sometimes we view this love as just a, reactionary type of thing sometimes. Right?
Not a proactive type of thing. We all eventually got on the same pace, and I wanted to share that portion because it was funny. Thankfully, though, the text does lay out, how we should show love to other people. Here in verse 17, this is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment. In this world, we are like Jesus.
Be like Jesus. Right? Which again is something that John says as if it's very obvious and simple, but it's more complex than just the words on the page. Right? How am I supposed to know what Jesus would do in every situation that comes up in my life?
Right? What would Jesus do whenever someone cut him off on the highway and gave him the finger? Right? What what would Jesus do there? Right?
It's not laid out in parables for every situation. But, thankfully, there are a lot of examples, I think, where Jesus shows love to people in a variety of circumstances. 1st one, so sometimes I forget what jokes I actually put in here or not. In Matthew 8, Jesus heals a man with leprosy or leopard. I always thought I thought for the longest time, I thought leprosy was just like you gain spots on your skin because, you know, sometimes it's just described as a skin disease, but, leprosy.
There's a man who he's in front of a crowd and a man with leprosy comes up and begs for Jesus to heal him, and Jesus does so by touching him, which if you well, you know about leprosy. You do not wanna touch someone with less leprosy because then you have leprosy. It's very contagious. Next up, in John chapter 4, Jesus heals the son of a Roman officer. Roman officer comes and begs him to heal, his son, and Jesus does so without even going to visit him.
Right? In John 7, Jesus defends the woman caught in adultery from being stoned. These, religious leaders dragged this woman in front who had just been caught doing something that she shouldn't have, and are willing to stone her, and they begged Jesus to condemn her. But he says he who's without the sin cast the first stone. Right?
And then in Luke 19, Jesus communes with Zacchaeus at his house, someone who is very, hated by society. He, has an intimate relationship with very publicly to where people know of what's going on. Right? Did you show love to a bunch of people when socially, culturally, politically, and physically, it would have been frowned upon to do so, right? And, if in this world we are called be like Jesus, unfortunately, I think that, will involve us being in some uncomfortable or complicated situations.
And for all of us, I think the biggest barrier, that is in the way of us loving all these other people is a lot of time, fear. Right? Fear. What will people think? I don't know if I wanna risk blank.
I'm worried about blank. You know, they seem so dangerous. They seem scary. You know, they're sinners. Do I really wanna be that close to them?
Right? These kind of questions, bounce through your mind in varying degrees, obviously. But, I think the important thing to remember is the devil cheers when you are afraid to do good just as much as he cheers when you do bad. Right? And Evan and John kinda talked about this last week in their sermon.
James chapter 4 verse 17. If anyone then knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it is sin for them. Right? Allowing fear to rule your life, causes you to avoid doing good a lot of times, which is sin. We are sometimes too afraid so afraid to get close to someone that we see as sinful that we avoid doing good for them, which then in turns brings us right to sin's doorstep anyways.
Right? It's this cycle, of very ironic, unfortunate events, but it plays out that way far too often. I think this brings us to our next verse in first John chapter 4. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
The only way to avoid this cycle of sin is love. If there's anything, to learn from 1st John, chapter 4 is God equals love, God is love, but love does not equal fear. Right? God is love. Love is not fear.
The only way to avoid this cycle is being aware of what's going on here. I'll share with you one of my favorite exercises that I do whenever I look at scripture, especially whenever I talk to teenagers about it. This is something that helps fully grasp the importance of whatever it is we're talking about, to try and think about the the exercise of this, to try and think about what's the situation would be, how it would be different if it was the exact opposite. K. So I'll explain what that means.
So we can go back to those examples of Jesus loving people, and ask ourselves what g what if Jesus had been afraid in this moment instead of loving? What if fear had ruled his life? Jesus heals man with leprosy. Right? Why might he be afraid to do that?
Leprosy is very gross and contagious. Right? There's an obvious thing. And Jesus touched him. And so if Jesus had been afraid, the man comes up to Jesus and ask him for healing.
Jesus says, Oh, gross, no way. Right? What would have happened because of that? The man would have eventually died, obviously, and he definitely would have hated Jesus, and God. Plus, there was this whole crowd watching this as it happened.
Right? And so, if Jesus had turned this man away, that probably would have encouraged the crowd to also avoid and chastise, you know, the sick and disabled people even more. When Jesus heals the son of the Roman officer, why might he be afraid? The Jews hated the Romans so much. They were these oppressive rulers that were constantly coming down onto them.
And so Jesus is showing kindness and love to their version of the boogeyman. Right? That would have been frowned upon. If Jesus had been afraid, he would have declined the officer leading, which would eventually lead to the son's death, right? This would have also meant increased friction between the Jews and the Romans because the Romans would have been upset with what had happened, they probably would have been more aggressive in their ruling, and the Jews would have been more distant to Roman rule, eventually leading to more conflict and death.
Right? When Jesus defended the woman caught in adultery, what would have happened if he had been afraid? Why would he have been afraid? Well, obviously, she was caught in sin and so aligning himself with her, could have potentially signaled to the crowd that he was okay with whatever it was she was doing, which was not the message that he was trying to give off. Right?
Or he also might have opened himself up to being stoned at the same time. And so if he had been afraid, if he had let fear rule, his decision making, maybe he condemns her, and she's obviously stoned to death as a result of that. Then moving forward though, other people might've been afraid to admit their sin, to him because they don't want to be stoned as well, which means a lot of people would have been avoiding Jesus instead of following Jesus. Right? And then the last example, when Jesus meets Zacchaeus, why would he have been afraid to do so?
Tax collectors reviewed as evil in society. They were, taking more than their fair share of taxes and giving it to the Roman government. They were seen as double agents. Nobody liked them. And so spending time with 1 might give, people the idea that Jesus is also interested in wealth and profits, which would turn a lot of, Jewish people away from his message.
And if he had been afraid, Jewish people, obviously would have been turned off by that. They would have berate or if he had been afraid and he, berated and insulted Zacchaeus, that would have made Zacchaeus angry, obviously, and led him to maybe take even more money from the people, be more harsh in his decision making, and the people would have felt justified in hating the other tax collectors and further the friction in that area. Right? And so all the examples, they end up worse if Jesus, is afraid rather than leading his life, loving these other people. Right?
Now, unfortunately, I feel like there are a lot of times where we choose fear over love. Think about those times, how much love could have been spread if we weren't afraid, if we weren't worried about what other people think, and how much different life would be if we were constantly making decisions based on that. Right? I want to, end this warning by sharing a story, and, hopefully, it can demonstrate how, choices can make a difference even, you know, sometimes when we don't recognize it. This is The Cheesecake Factory.
When I was I just finished my sophomore year of college, I was doing a internship in Arlington, Texas at a church, and, if you know, let me know Abby's from Arlington. And so it was very lucky that we just started dating that year, and I happened to have a job, where she was going back home to be for the summer. And so Arlington is very close to Fort Worth, and I, just moved down to Arlington in with my host family. And Abby and I decided to go on a date, in Fort Fort Worth, and we go to The Cheesecake Factory. One one of the, like, parents at this new youth group that I was gonna be working with gave us a $100 gift card to Cheesecake Factory, which is really nice.
Love that. We spent about $75 of it. Not ashamed to say that I had a couple pieces of cheesecake. I love cheesecake so much. And then afterwards, in order to kind of walk off, what we had done, the Cheesecake Factory was in downtown Fort Worth, and so we were walking around the less, the rest of downtown.
We were looking at some of these shops that were there, seeing some of the sites that they have down there in downtown. And there was a man who came up to us and asked if we had any money for food, and I did have money for food. I had cash in my wallet. I just been been given a lot of gifts by some very nice people. And I looked him right in the face.
I said, no. Sorry. I don't have any cash. Lied right to him. And I just come here to start working at this church, and I, things were not connecting for me.
Right? It was a very bad decision that I made. And so we walked by him, and Abby's kinda looking at me. It's like, I thought we and I was like, we do. And I felt so guilty immediately.
I turn around. The guy is nowhere to be seen. And as we continue walking around downtown, I feel this guilt, like, piling on and piling on and piling on. We, eventually make it to the the middle of their downtown, which is called Sundance Square. There's this big fountain, and this there's, like, live music that plays there sometimes.
And so we just sit on this bench and we're chatting and we're talking. And then afterwards, after we get up from the bench, we get in the car and we start headed home. We're almost all the way back to, her, her house. And, I start feeling around, and I do not have my phone on me. And so we're using the Find My iPhone app.
We're trying to figure out where it is, and it's in downtown. I had left it, I guess, on the bench whenever we sat down. And so we're heading back, trying to, find it before, it's lost. We get there, it's not, by the bench. And so we realize that someone must have picked it up and taken it.
Right? And so we're looking at the app and it says that, the phone is, at Cheesecake Factory, Factory, which didn't make sense, because I thought I'd had it after that point. Right? And so we go back to Cheesecake Factory. It's a downtown, so there's not, like, parking spots everywhere.
And so she kinda pulls next to it, and she's just gonna wait for me to come back out. And so I get out and I'm running into the Cheesecake Factory, and then there is a different man who does not have a home, who's kinda sitting outside the Cheesecake factory. And I'm about to run by him, and I start I start thinking of that guilt that I had and how earlier I had a chance and I didn't take it. And so, I turned back around, and I still have about $25 left on that Cheesecake Factory gift card. And I look at him, I was like, hey.
There's some money on this card. Go inside. You can get some food. And then I go in. I don't even think about it.
I go, into talk to, like, the hostess, there. And I'm like, hey. I think I left my phone here earlier. We were singing in this booth. Can we look around?
And so they're helping me look for it. And the man eventually comes in, he sits down, and I tell some of the servers like, oh, he has money, so please serve him. Right? Because a lot of times, if someone walks in and they think they don't have money, you know, they have this perception of them. And so I'm like, hey.
I know he has a gift card for this. Please serve him. And so they start working with him. I'm looking around for my phone. We're doing the, you can, like, kind of ping it if it's still on.
So we're pinging it. We're trying to listen for the ping. We don't hear anything. And then I'm there for another 10 minutes or so. And, eventually, one of the other servers said that they heard ping in the bathroom.
And so the, the manager goes back into the bathroom, and my phone was in the toilet. K. It was gross. Right? Which I did not put my phone in the toilet.
I know for a fact I did not point put my phone in the toilet. And so this is what happened. The man that was outside the Cheesecake Factory, he happened to pick up my phone by the bench, and he pocketed it because he's got nothing and I'm sure he would like to have something. Right? So he pockets it.
Whenever I see him outside, I give him the gift card. He goes inside. He's sitting at the table and he starts hearing the pinging and he gets nervous. And so he goes to the bathroom and tries to flush the phone down the toilet, which I don't follow him for that. Right?
But the way it worked out is, if I had not if I had allowed fear to continue to rule me, and if I had not tried to love in that situation, that man wouldn't have been inside. I would have never gotten my thumb back. Right? It would have been long gone. Me telling fear that I don't care what you think, allowed for a sequence of Vince to happen that I couldn't predict it.
Right? And obviously, I did not save the world by giving this man a $25 Cheesecake Factory gift card. Right? I didn't do anything crazy. I don't even know if his faith was impacted, because I didn't say in Jesus' name or, you know, anything like that.
But, he got to eat, which was good, and sometimes it's that simple. Right? I almost allowed fear and judgments to get in the way of that. My challenge for all of us this morning is I want you to ask yourself, who is it that you need to show love to, but you've been letting hurdles get in that way? You've been letting fear kinda be a blockage to what it is that God is willing to do through you.
What love is fear holding you back from? Instead of asking how other people might judge you, instead of asking how God might use you. Right? This morning, if there's been a lot of instances in your life that you feel that guilt about, to where you are letting fear take control of who you are and what you do. This is the place to kinda change that around.
This is the opportunity. You have a lot of people here that care about you and love you and love to pray with you. If that's where you are in your life and you want to receive some support, now is the time to do that. If, you have feeling this distance, this long distance relationship with Jesus and you wanna get closer and closer and closer to him, maybe that's through baptism, maybe that's through, just a wake up call and through prayer, now's the time we can do that with you together. All these things, you have the opportunity now.
Center.