Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, October 24, 2024. Lets Talk About Gods Love!
Good Morning, Good Morning my brothers and my sisters and welcome to Turning On the Lights!
Today, we reopen 1 Corinthians 12 and 13 just to clarify the definition of God’s love. The world tells us that, “love is love,” but is the definition of God’s love included in that? Spoiler alert – it isn’t.
So what is God’s love and what does it mean to the person who repents and believes? What does it mean for the person who doesn’t?
We explore all of this and have some good fun along the way. Enjoy the video or the podcast – just look up @ChurchtownChurch on YouTube or “Turning on the Lights!” on Apple podcasts or Spotify.
This is a video recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, October 24, 2024. Watch here via the YouTube link!
This is an audio recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, October 24, 2024. Listen here or through your favorite podcast app!
This is a transcript from the audio of this episode of Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, October 24, 2024
Good morning. Good morning, my brothers and my sisters. I’m actually early today by a minute according to my less than a minute. I’m sitting in the fourth pew back looking up at the pulpit of the church. For those of you listening on the podcast, that won’t mean much to you. Maybe you’re watching it on the YouTube channel and then you can see the altar of the church. Got my little fan up there. That fan goes all the time. There is never a time that I am cold. So I get that fan going all the time. It’s quiet in here this morning. The weather has changed. We’re back to fall. You can feel it in the air. Kelly is going to get off a little early today. I think we’re going to take the dogs up north and do a little sightseeing, a little leaf watching. That’ll be our relaxing event for the day. Come back and have a nice dinner. Good morning, Sandy. But we’ve got some things to talk about before any of that happens. And then I’ve got the church town weekly that I’m going to publish. If you are a listener, a watcher, whatever the case may be, and you would like to be tagged in this so you don’t miss it. Let me know that you would like to be tagged if you are not normally tagged in the live stream. And we can do that. There’s our, how about that? Just simple. I won’t show you behind the pulpit because it is a terrible mess. I am a clutter bug. I’m not dirty. Like if you, you know, you won’t find a half eaten sandwiches and rodents and insects and disgusting things. But I am a bit of a clutter bug, I guess. Is that the word things lay around? I know where they are for the most part, for the most part. But then things used to do stuff and then, you know, you put the stuff down and then you just sit there and then they clutters up. So good morning everybody. Welcome to turning on the lights for Thursday. What is this? The 26th, 24th. Oh my goodness gracious. October 24th. We will see you all October 31st for trunk or treat if you are a church Tony and please come and help. Please come and help. It is a wonderful community outreach. I mean, we’re talking hundreds of people. I get out there on the street with cones and lights and flashlights and all kinds of things and we try to regulate traffic because people just fly up and down the road. And so we are out there trying to keep everybody safe back in the parking lot. We’ve got big lights going, we’ve got people, we’ve got food, we’ve got drink, all kinds of stuff. It’s fun. It’s a fun and it’s like a couple of hours. It’s like build up, build up, build up, boom. And then it’s a couple of hours and then boom, it’s over. Trunk or treat because trick or treat is six to eight. So I want to talk a little bit today more. I might have to go just a little bit early. Maybe that’s why I started early, but I want to talk a little bit more about the difficult doctrine of God’s love. We need to clear this up because we were talking about God’s love, first Corinthians 12 and 13 on Tuesday and we made a big, big, big, big deal about God’s love. First Corinthians 12 and 13 on Tuesday, but we must understand what it means to love someone with the love of God. Good morning, everybody. Father, we do pray that your word will move out on this live stream today around the world, wherever you send it, people will hear, open their hearts, open their minds, repent and the kingdom of God will grow in Jesus name. Amen. We pray to the father through the son and the power of the Holy Spirit. So, good morning everybody. Like I said, we’re going to talk more about God’s love. People are joining and joining and joining because it’s, there are two principles that we really must bring out theologically. No, I don’t want to scare anybody off, but there are two principles that are either overlooked or not understood or misunderstood even sometimes with the most well meaning ministers of the word and sometimes with the most nefarious ministers of the word who try to manipulate people or change the word. Two things. One, God’s love. When you say God loves everyone, there is truth in that. If you say God hates sin, there is truth in that. Both are backed up in scripture. There’s not a image fair that is created that God would not want to be in relationship with. There are those that whose hearts are hardened, those, there are those who are blind. There are those who will never know God. He knows that, but that does not mean that he would not welcome them into the kingdom if otherwise were the case. When we say God hates sin, that’s backed up in scripture because they say God is love. God is love. God loves everyone. God loves, loves, loves God. There’s also many examples of hate that were brought up because if you have love, you can’t not have the opposite of it in God hates sin. God hates those who will, that are motivated to drive people into hell with them. All of that stuff. We read that in the Psalms. We read that in the gospel. We understand that even Jesus Christ says, if you do not hate your mother and father and brother and sister, right? If you don’t put me first, and we talked about that before, seek first the kingdom of God. We talked about that last Sunday. And some translations try to soften it. If they say, if you don’t hate your brother or sister, mother, father, by comparison, which is ultimately true, but that’s not what the text says. So we know that it’s not just this soft, gushy, love, love, love. We know that there is, there are parameters. We know that there is truth that is attached to God’s love. We know that the foundation of God’s love is salvation. None of the things in first Corinthians 12 or 13 happen unless individuals are saved by God’s grace and in dwelled by God’s Holy spirit. Now we’re talking about the spirit, the gifts of the spirit and often, and Paul is talking a lot about the order of the church, the order of the saved church. So we get, we are saved and then we have these wild ideas about what that looks like and sounds like. And then we take it upon ourselves to behave at like how we think God would behave or whatever. I don’t know, but we create great disorder in the church. He’s not talking about the wild pagans. It’s not Romans one and two when he’s talking about Corinth, Corinth, Corinth. Thank you very much. He’s talking about order in worship and he’s talking about all of the things, all of the gifts that God empowers us with the foundation of all is his love because his love is inextricably tied to salvation for God. So loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Those who believe in him will not perish, but have eternal life inextricably tied to salvation. So there is, there are parameters here. It’s not just, okay, God, I love you. Welcome to the kingdom. So that’s the first principle that there is truth attached to God’s love and that God’s love it. Well, I guess that’s two principles, right? And God’s love is inextricably tied to salvation. The second one is an offshoot of that. And that is not every human being is a child of God. Aren’t we all children of God? Aren’t we all God’s children? No. Again, scripture is very clear that you are not a child of God until you are adopted into the family of God through, say it with me, salvation. So God’s love is permeating this relationship and it is important to understand that God’s love is foundational, but God’s love is also, like I say, good morning, has truth attached intrinsic to it. And it is really designed and, and, and salvation is inextricably tied to it. It’s not just love is love, love, love, love, love is love. And I love all and all children of God and all are in the kingdom of God. It’s not that there is good and there is evil and God’s image bearers are created such that they are able to discern the difference, especially when you become a child of God, you recognize a lot more, don’t you? When your eyes are open and you’re like, wow, I can’t believe I used to do that. Think that, say that, and you see the world and the wickedness, you hear the lies that are being spewed and the lies that are being spewed about God and against God. And you understand so much more. That is true, but we are also born with that spark, right? It’s often described as we have this pilot light within us and God’s Holy Spirit right is the fuel, right? So we have this spark as his image bearers and we know intrinsically unless we become really messed up, which many people are, I guess, we know intrinsically that it’s wrong just to murder somebody. And this is, you know, you’ll hear that argument, well, I know it’s wrong. Yes, because you’re an image bearer of God. You understand intrinsically, you shouldn’t take things that aren’t yours. You shouldn’t murder other human beings. You shouldn’t do those things. That does not mean that you are just a part of the family. So we understand that when we open our hearts and we recognize Jesus Christ as our savior, we repent and we turn and we recognize him as our savior and we submit our wills to him, his, as the Lord of our lives, things change. And we are indwelled by his Holy Spirit. We are adopted into the family of God. We are a part of the kingdom of God on Earth. It is this truth that I am speaking that is inextricably tied to God’s love. That makes sense. It is not a boundary less love. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that those who believe in him shall have not perished, but have eternal life inextricably tied to salvation. God’s love does not mean I love you. He love he, like I said, you’re living in sin. You’re living a sinful life. You know, you do not know God, that sort of thing. And I say, God loves you. God loves you and he would love for you. He loves, he loves you and he wants you to repent and turn to him. It’s not God loves you. Welcome in just the way you are. God hates sin. God loves you and he wants you to repent and turn to him. He wants you to seek forgiveness of your sins and your sinful lifestyle. And he wants to empower you to change. That’s God’s love. That’s the difficult doctrine. That’s the difficult part. When we hear the quote unquote progressive Christian church just saying, love is love. No, it’s not. There’s the world’s definition of love and there’s God’s and God’s definition of love is inextricably tied to repentance and salvation. And that makes us, you say, well, that’s very exclusive. That’s very, yes, it is. If truth, if it is an absolute truth, we’ll get to that. And absolute, if it is an absolute truth, then yes, other doctrines are false. If it is an absolute truth, which it is, then other ways that we may interpret that or want that to be interpreted or want that to play out are not correct. They are false. God’s love is inextricably tied to his desire for your repentance and your salvation that you may become a child of God. So does he love the image bearer? Just where that image bearer is, he does. He loves them so much that he desires them to hear the good news, to repent, to submit, and to be empowered to intentionally change. They’re not just that the sins are forgiven, but you are transformed and you change and you seek not to sin anymore. And by the power of God, that power of sin, that addiction to the whatever sin you had is broken. And those moments of weakness, when you think that you’re going to break, you turn back to him, not to the world. There’s the difference. It’s not just boom, there I am. Whoo. Okay. Everything’s all better. You’re walking. It’s what we call it. A Christian walk, your Christian life, your Christian testimony, because it is ongoing and God will always be seeking to edify you. And then as you are a member of the church, edify that body through you. So when we talk about 1 Corinthians 12 and 13 and God’s love, we talk about all the things that human beings naturally are not patient and kind and forgiving and not keeping records of wrongs and not being vindictive. We are all of those things. God’s transformative love through salvation and the indwelling of his Holy Spirit empowers us to be as close to being 1 Corinthians 13 as we can be as human beings. And when we stray and we are feeling vindictive and when we stray and we are counting that wrong against us, when we stray and we are not patient and we are not kind, we turn to God, not to our own strength to try to overcome that feeling. Lord, I repent of what I’m feeling. I repent of my behavior. I repent of these thoughts. Lord guide me. Lord guide me, teach me, grow me. Lord lead me out of this thought pattern. Lead me out of this behavior. I don’t want to do that. And he will. Resist the devil and he will flee. That’s said to believers. It’s not said to non-believers, it’s said to believers. So you see that it is an ongoing process. It is growth. Good morning, Larry. It is growth. It is becoming. It is, what do we say? Learn, grow, become, go. That’s our little saying here at Church Town. Come together and we learn and we grow and we become the disciples that he sees he wants us to be. Now we go. Learn, grow, become, go. So understanding that, because that is what every anti-Christian and anti-Christ behavior will just latch onto. If we look at an individual who is in the midst of a sinful life, sinful lifestyle, and we say, God loves you, repent, submit, turn to him. That’s a very unloving because we are not accepting that individual just as they are. And so the other side of this progressive Christian movement, whatever will say, that’s all wrong. God loves you just the way you are. And they stop there with no repentance necessary. And it’s much easier in our human state to say, well, I like that other version better. Love is love. Come on in. Okay. Okay. Love is love. Come on in. Now what? Now we’re going to sing and now we’re going to do this and now we’re okay. Good. We’re doing all of those things. You want to throw a few Bible verses out there that you like? Good. Go ahead and do all of those things without repentance. There is no forgiveness of sin. Those are the first words spoken out of the mouth of Jesus in his public ministry. He came out of the desert saying, repent for the kingdom of God is near. I, you know, I can’t, I know, I guess many ministers of the word do. They want to change the word. They want to take detours around the word. They want to take out what they don’t like and they want to use what they do like and they want to take verses that seem to support some sort of theology or more like it, an ideology that they have. And you can’t do that. We must wrestle with it all. And I can, my neighbors love your neighbor as yourself. Absolutely. And they, my neighbors know who I am and they know what I do and they know what I believe. And I’ll be willing to have a conversation about salvation with any one of them. And I have had a few. It doesn’t mean that if they reject me or they reject the word that I now hate them. That is another lie that is perpetuated by mainstream secular progressivism. That if you don’t repent, that if you reject what I have to say, then I hate you. If I don’t accept that lifestyle into the church, if I don’t welcome that sin into the body, then I hate you. Not true. Not true. I can’t think of a single neighbor that I have, a single acquaintance that I have, Christian or non-Christian that has done anything to me to make me hate them. I don’t want to hate them, but I will constantly be very consistent with who I am and what I say. And if any one of them, Christian has questions and we ask and answer a lot of questions on here, non-Christian has questions. They can come and hear me preach anytime. They can check into the live stream anytime. They can go to the YouTube channel anytime. They listen to the podcast anytime. They know who I am, right? And if they want to say, “Okay, Pastor Brian, I have felt as though I’ve been a homosexual my entire life. Sit down and tell me why that’s wrong.” Like I always tell the congregation, first of all, you can read how that question might be asked. Secondly, my response is, “If you really want to have this conversation, I really want to have it with you. If you’re simply seeking a fight, I won’t do that. No, I’d like to have this conversation. Let’s go.” So that’s the way that we must approach God’s love, right? And even though it can be unaccepted, if God’s love is unaccepting of sin, God’s love is attached to repentance. It doesn’t mean that we hate those who won’t repent. Oh, there comes a point when things are toxic, perhaps. There comes a point when boundaries are necessary, perhaps. There comes a point in time, the scripture says that you do not cast your pearls, continue to cast your pearls before swine because they will simply trample them and attack you. So you do need discernment and you are still plopped right down here in the middle of enemy territory. And you need to be aware of that. It doesn’t mean that we’re just punching bags, but it does mean that we are consistent living in the truth. It does mean that we are, shall we say, so consistent that we live what we believe to the point where perhaps those who have not repented are curious. I’ve had people say those sorts of things to me, especially after funerals, because when we do a Christian funeral, I make it very aware that this is a Christian funeral and it’s a very odd Christian thing because we are both grieving and celebrating at the same time. How is that possible? And that opens the door for a lot of questions. How is that possible is one of them. And they hear that message through the funeral service and through the sermon and the call for repentance, which is attached to every funeral sermon. Well, it’s attached to every one of my sermons, whether it might be Sunday, whether it might be a live stream, whether it might be a wedding or a funeral, the call to repentance. Funerals are actually quite the object lesson because I will most often point to the urn or the coffin and say, you do not have a chance then, but you do have the opportunity now. So being clear about this is very important when you go into this, all the love stuff in John, it’s been his letters and in his gospel really goes into the love stuff. And maybe we’ll explore John’s letters next because it’s along these lines. Those who know God know love. Those who do not know God don’t know love. They love according to the world, which that definition is so messed up. So messed up. Repent, believe the good news. He could have stopped there. That’s it. There’s the sermon. My mentor always told me, it’s not a question of coming up with a different sermon every time. It’s a question of how do you say the same thing that many times over? How can you say the same thing in a different way? But it’s the same thing. Repent for the kingdom of God is near. So that’s what I wanted to talk about today. I don’t know if you might have any other questions. Rosie always comes up with these questions, which are great. Are hymnals written based on scriptures? I won’t say that hymnals are written based on scriptures, but the best hymns are, whether they be modern or whether they be from Luther, that’d be hundreds of years ago. The best hymns tell the story. The best hymns are taken from passages of scripture and they blow it up, right? And help us to understand it by singing it or, and or the best hymns take us from pre repentance through repentance, walking in our salvation. They tell the story of the good news. So I don’t have much experience with hymnals and I don’t have much experience with much modern music because I try to listen to things like K-Love and stuff and it’s just, no, it’s me, right? It’s the same reason I don’t watch many Christian movies and stuff or, you know, movies that have Jesus in them and things. I don’t think that the scriptures are a screenplay. That’s me. And when I hear a lot of the theology in modern Christian music, it might be entertainment. It might not be all wrong, but I just, it doesn’t, it doesn’t touch my soul. I love a good uplifting message as much as the next person, but once I, one, if I need it, that’s when I’ll turn to it. And two, once I’ve heard it, thank you. And I can move on, but that’s me. I’m not poo-pooing Christian radio stations. I will tell you to be careful because some of it is this love is love stuff. Some of it is absolutely the opposite of Christian. And that’s why we need to know the word. That’s why we need to be deeply. How great thou art in amazing grace. Yeah, baby. There, there’s two. There’s two. Just a closer walk with thee. I mean, there are, we could go on and on. And like I said, the best ones tell the story or a story, a facet of our relationship with God and Ricky are absolutely right. The Bible says the same thing over and over and over and over from Genesis through revelation, that the creator of the universe seeks relationship with his special creation, the Adam, the human, but we are separated by sin being that we can do nothing about this in our own works. God has made a way the perfect sacrifice who willingly sacrificed himself on the cross. So when we profess with our mouth, we believe in our hearts. Jesus Christ is Lord. We are saved by his grace. And my prayer is that everybody right now, everybody that may hear this moving forward, consider that if you need to know more, you can find me and message me on Facebook. We’ll talk or find yourself a Christian and say, like we said earlier, I would like to know more. Let’s go into the word. We do that every Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday, here at church town. So father God, we pray your word will go out. Open hearts and minds. People will repent. No, you as their savior forgiveness of sins, submit themselves to you, submit their will to your will as you are Lord and follow you as Lord of their lives in Jesus name. Amen. Hey, it’s Thursday. So on Tuesday we say good Lord willing in the river don’t rise or the Creek don’t rise, depending on where you are. Right? Mama D. Good Lord willing in the river don’t rise. I’ll see you Thursday on Thursday. We say what? We’ll see you in church or we’ll say that we have two sayings on Thursday. Now I’m just off in the weeds. I’ll see you in church or go to church. It’s important.
0 Comments