Love & Sin

Welcome. Welcome. So good to see everyone here today. I don't know if you can catch you off-guard. It's called love and thin I don't know the last time I heard of Levinson. But that's what we're going. and I guess I have a couple goals if you're sitting here old forever and

Yeah. My goal for you guys is I want you to kind of like look at this stuff in a different way. So maybe reinvigorate your relationship with God maybe have anymore until a little passion into your relationship with God.

Try to kind of shift your thinking about since I want to talk about different in a lot of this if you remember we had a sermon a month or two months ago called the choice where we talked about like flesh and spirit and how your flesh or following. So again, if you remember in that lesson when I think bad things don't do this thing, so I was kind of like to help you see that that's maybe not what it is by look at thin almost as a means to cure and then I'll tell you what you want to know but I got I got a couple stores along the way and here's the first one. I don't know if you can see that that is but this is chewy Louie. And this is chewing our cat before we had in. This picture is Everett and chewy. This is actually taking the night before we took him to the vet to put he was dying. He was very sick. And so this was the last night we had chewy in our house and it was very sad. We're all crying and we love to eat. I've been with us actually Joel Nagel gave us chewy Louie and there's a long story Jen came home from staff meeting with this cat never asked me if I wanted it. But then now then we have to lie low in the boys were born into a house with Chewy Louie. And so this is the only pet that Everett and Freddy had ever known up until this night when their goodbyes. So then the next day then I take him to the animal hospital and it's very clear, you know, what needs to be done. He's dying until we put him to sleep and we're holding our cat and like I'm like like like stopping as my cat is dying and I was crying and it was super super sent what I was saying. Is it broke my heart to watch to eat? I guess what? We got a new cat. And this is Ali in a lot of you guys know Allie if you're going over to her house.

it wasn't it wasn't that big of a deal and I was I was I was like, we don't I don't want a new cat. I think Carla was like would you like to cat-sit my cat for me? And she knew what she was doing. I remember holding it and I was like, I love you.

It's so yes. I love Oliver. He's a he's a great cat. He's a little crazy sometimes but he's a he's a cool cat very pretty and very soft is a cool cat and I love him now. He doesn't love me.

And if there's an article, I don't know if you ever read it or saw floating around the internet that was like your cat is plotting your murder and it was basically all about how your cat is. Like if you die in your sleep and no one comes to check on you they will eat you like they are vicious murdering animals and and they wish you were dead like in the power structure of your home. Didn't know that you're above but man I thought you meant our house ready is hilarious is the smallest in the house and Ali knows like okay. You're not this guy. But I I might be bigger than you. I might be more important than you. So he'll attack Freddy like feel like lie and wait around the corner and then pounce on him.

I love Oliver Oliver doesn't love me Oliver doesn't know how to love me and we're going to talk about that a little bit more. Here's Oliver and the

I tell Oliver I love him. I tell my boys. I love them. Am I saying the same thing? I'm not communicating the same idea. I'm not communicating the same feelings or emotions or sense of commitment. I'm saying to completely different thing when I tell Oliver I love him want to tell everybody that I love them. Because Oliver is my pet. And Evan Freddy are my sons. And we're going to talk about that a little bit. If the house was on fire. And I could only save all of her or Oliver and Freddy. I'm sorry Oliver. But you're probably not going to make it because I'm I'm not going to be as concerned with saving the cat saving my son. I hope that's not a radically scary notion for anybody. I'm hoping that most of the girls who like, duh.

I would take it up a notch and be like if if if God miraculously was like then you have two choices in front of you. Save your son's life or kill every cat in the world.

Sorry Chad, but I love my son more and then for the rest of my life, I'd be known as the guy that murdered all the cats in the world, but I like I don't feel for my cat what I feel for my son.

I would sacrifice my own life for my sons. I would not sacrifice my life to save my pet cat and maybe some of your like I totally would take a bullet for my dog. I guess you not me. Okay. I'm just saying not me.

Are not the same as children. And that might sound obvious. I'm going to dig into that for a little bit here. Pets are not the same as children pets will live at peace with their masters most of the time but pets don't love their masters and you might have seen some videos of the Vets coming home from overseas and the dog is like freaking out cuz I was like maybe dogs like your your fish isn't going to do that. Your cat isn't going to do that. Your bird is going to like dogs are kind of special in that way, but I would even say that's not that's not love that we're talking about. Pet like we saw with Chewy Louie can break your heart when they die. But here's what's weird pets. Don't break your heart when they're alive. Children though break your heart your whole life span.

From the time you have a child till the time you die. Your children are like they have the power to crush your heart and they can break your heart while they're still alive pets. When you like teach your dog a trick and he doesn't do it. Well, you're not emotionally wounded by your pets lack of like obedience a response or anything like that. You don't have that power over you while they're a lot man when they die or like the power to break your heart you might train your pet to perform a task all he's pretty cool because he's actually pretty trainable cat. So it's funny. We have this routine when we are one key has been trained to know which kid has him at which time of day so I should have put it up there but there's a hilarious picture of Freddy he comes down in the morning and he sits on the edge of the couch and all lovers like this is this is breakfast ready feed me breakfast on the edge of the couch. Just staring at Freddy. In Freddy's trying to watch television and I'm like, he's just waiting for you to feed them. Freddy's like I don't give in to terrorists.

You just sit there and wait for credit, but we can train our pets. When we go feed Oliver, like if I take the if he jumps up on the counter when I'm going to get the food I just kind of like and he jumps off the counter and then I peel back the wetsuit was super weird if you seen us do it, but I hold it right here and he like climbs up my leg and I click the the top of it and then he wants to lick the spoon and he licks it very specifically likes the front of the spoon and then he like does this thing where he's like, okay turn it over how many licks the back of the spoon and I put the spoon away and then I stand there and I just hold the play and I sit for his most cats. Just are not going to do that. But the Bengal cats are very trainable. So it's really cool. You can train a pet.

But children we trained them to do something. Children, we trained Blake think and feel and mature and develop in different way other than just, you know, if you do this, I'll give you a try. Okay. I hope that makes sense. Pets live with you. It's super cool play with snuggle with you never develop the capacity to love you and care for you. The way child can a child can take care of their parents? A child can grow up to respect their parents a child can grow up to like bring their parents into their house and meet their needs and that's something your pet is never going to do. I wonder how I can care for you. Now you've cared for me my whole life and now it's my turn to take care of you. As long as you feed them. Pick up there. Like they'll just have this relationship with you. And that's a long drawn-out little thing on the difference between pets and animal but this is at a glimpse into the heart of God and what he wanted in his relationship with Humanity. God broken.

but I want to talk about it in the idea of this thing this thing that makes up who God is and it took a piece off of that and you put it in US. And then that and then we are living as that like broken off piece of God, and we broke it. We abused that thing that God put in a what is that? That's what we're going to look at this point. This is love. Want to look at some scriptures, but I want us to start thinking of love as the thing that God has made up and he gave it to us. And then we broke it we messed it up. There is a difference between children and pets and God wanted children. He didn't want. And so all those differences that we just talked about sometimes when you're may be wrestling with your flash in your thinking man God. Why didn't you just do it like this one of the things that pops into my head every once in awhile, like it would be easier if I was just God's pet Like if I just we had a relationship that was very just much like I don't I just do what I'm supposed to do. You do what you're supposed to do. I don't we don't have to worry about actually like I don't I don't have to worry about loving you. Just I'll even live in a nice little cage if it's nice enough. Like if it looks like my house like God just like take care of me and we don't need to have messy relationship one that's made of love. You're the easier if we were just God's pets problem that God didn't want pets. And some theologians have speculated over there that God has enough pets like some of the other Spiritual Beings in the spiritual realm and some people think the angels are those are those are different than human. Because we're children and they are different creations of God what we can ask him that when we see him but pets don't share the same status as children. So let's look at the scripture in 1st John 4. It says dear friends. Let us love one. Another for love comes from God everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God does not love does not know. God God is love. Whereas God could have made us all robots or pets or something that just kind of sing songs and says that you're awesome, but doesn't have the choice to do that. That could be what God would want.

She wanted the next layer of our relationship where it's not just do the things I say to do and I'll program you and then you'll execute that program. And so sing this song for the next five thousand years in heaven and we're like, that sounds great. He's like no no. No, I want something different. I want a relationship thing called love. And it's a part of me. I'm going to put it in you and I'm hoping that we can cultivate love between us. Love is scary. Love is like dangerous its explosive. When you really think about it. And it's not love just like obedience like a like a few training a pet. And sometimes we can even make that mistake with our kids like if you do what I say that you love me. But it's not just that.

Love the Peace of who God is God is powerful and obedient. Love is what it is because we have the power to it so bad. We could say that to say this is the way I would like you to live and because we're not pet because we're not robots. We can say I do want to live that way. And that is the most loving thing that God could do like God, how can you be loving this kind of dips into the toe of like suffering in the world. How can you be loving and let this stuff happen and he's like if I didn't let you guys have those choices it would be the opposite of loving. As soon as you become robot, or if I if I like to do you like me as a parent if I'm like. Hey, I want to have a really well-behaved kid because then that reflects on me as a good parent, so straitjackets and lithium for Evan Freddy and they'll just be very compliant and very malleable and they'll do whatever I say and then I can show them to people like hey, look I have very well-behaved kids and everyone will be like, you're a monster. We complain about God in that way Love is only love when we give people the power to hurt us. As soon as we say, hey, nothing you do has any effect on me. We stepped out of the realm of Love or not in a loving relationship with them.

Obedience doesn't really count if there's not the choice to disobey. Then we're just robots. So let's read about how powerful love is. This is a prayer in a fusion of Prayer in the middle right at the end of the first half of the Season. We're going to study out this prayer a little bit later maybe in the fall, but I just want to read it. I want you to notice how much he talks about power coming from low. I pray that out of his glorious riches. He may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being so that Christ May dwell in your hearts through space and I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the Lord's. Holy people to grasp. How deep is the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that. You may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. I can already tell some of you guys I probably lost you halfway through that pretty religious sounding scripture. Find being totally honest there's times where I read that and I'm like, well, I don't have a clue what that means. It's just so magnificent. So amazing and I don't know. I don't know everything about love that surpasses knowledge. What does it mean the whole fullness of God, that's amazing. And how does being rooted and established in love bring about power?

What I'm trying to communicate God's love is extremely powerful.

It's not what's up. We'll talk about this in a bit, but it's not like, you know the warm fuzzy feeling. God's love is so overwhelming. Sometimes that we can't even process it. I'm so sometimes we just turn our brain off or like yeah. God loves me. I love God. I love you. I love you my kids. We don't go there to really explore how dangerous and powerful and terrifying actually, but if we can start like just take the first step to start thinking about how amazing love really is. It can change you it can transform you are I got this picture. I'm going to leave this up for a little while. If you remember from the last sermon that we did on the choice, I talked about Free Will and what's weird is it free will is not really a Biblical concept at all. It's not that phrase Free Will is not in the Bible. And a lot of people will say that the reason why we have sinned is because of Free Will and that is true, but it is overlooking one of the most important aspects of this. The reason we have sinned is because we have love I know that. That can be a really awful thing to have to admit. But we have sinned in our life because God loved us enough to not make us the robots for the pets gave you the ability and the power over his heart to crush it at in the Bible where like mankind Grieves God's heart.

We have the power. to make the wrong choice Interesting is not separate from love the idea of this pictures that sin is actually the shadow of Love Is Love Without light. It is love that is hidden behind love we can choose to make the wrong choice and that is with the shadows in which it's what we have is what happened when we take this amazingly beautiful dangerous explosive thing. That's part of God and we're going to talk about that. You're going to hear me say this a bunch of time. There's this thing is good part of God would bring it to give it to us and then we break it.

You respond to the you respond to the wrong way to God's love inside of you. That's what I'm going to say a couple times over and over and you respond to God's love inside of you. Love is not just the warm fuzzy feeling. Think about love is like a stick of dynamite. And if it were just warm fuzzy feelings or they go up and down and they come in and go shifting Sands. Like hey, I love you. You're awesome in the next day or like

If love was just a warm fuzzy feeling when your spouse would never cry your spouse would never feel like a failure. It's just warm fuzzy feeling but we know that's not true. I think everybody who's ever been married in this room hasn't experienced a lot of pain. As a result of their their relationship with that person. And anyone that you love dearly you probably experience some pain in that relationship. Why is that because we give that person the power over us like hey, I love you. But here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you a weapon that you can really mess me up with. I'm going to trust that you won't. And that person who just like you until they do and you hurt them and that is what love is because love is dangerous and terrifying is like like a stick of dynamite.

Because you love your spouse to have a power over you that they that you can't control. They can hurt you until like if I were walking down the street and some guy was like Hey, dude, you're dumb. I be like well, who cares what you think? I don't care and I do keep going and by the next day I had forgot that guy ever existed. because if Jen even like kind of hinted or like said something in a way with a tone that made me feel like maybe she thought I was dumb. Someone would need to come pick me up off the ground because I would be like I'm destroyed in my heart. Why because that guy down the street has no power over me. I don't care about him. Jen has more power than anyone over me because I love her. So the only way to solve that is to stop loving people if you never want to get hurt ever again, don't love anyone.

So here's what I'm going to say God's love has some aspects or super important. One of them is a compassion God's love is full of compassion and he put that in you. Now unfortunately super overwhelming when you see the pain and suffering in the world and you see people hurting all around you. This isn't Fun for every single person in the world. So that's what you do you protect yourself by Harden your heart to the pain of other people. So you see it in like mint. Whatever in overtime. You just build this protective shell around your heart where your liking your pain doesn't affect me whatsoever. That is simply because you responded the wrong way to the think God put inside of you. I put that in you for a reason and you have abused that you responded the wrong way. God's love is ambitious super ambition. God made a big plans for the world involving people stories of buried like Godly ambitious people. God is like you're going to do something great. I believe you you're going to do it awesome. He won't he appreciate people that want to do big things. But then what does that do inside of us? Doesn't always sit very well. So what our response is, but I don't want to be ambitious other people. I just want to be in fishes for me. I want people to praise me. I want to help myself. I want to have good thing. When have an easy life. That's my ambition. And if it's for anybody else

Until your heart can't handle God's version of what ambition is supposed to look like you start making those Idols in your life. You make yourself the most important thing and what has happened. You responded the wrong way to the good thing that God put inside of you.

God is romantic God is passionately romantic and desires intimacy with people. And maybe we'll have a marriage class about stuff. But the God's love is so filled with intimacy and passion and romance and we do not know how to deal with it. But I don't want to wait. I don't want to find the person you want me. I'm going to take matters into my own hands. So what do we do? We start looking around and we turn people other precious children.

And we are like, yeah, I can use you for pleasure. And I can use you for pleasure. And you can meet my needs for a little while and then I'll discard you cuz I don't know how to deal with this thing that God put inside of me. So I'm going to take matters into my own hands and we respond the wrong way to God's love inside of you is all practical try to think about it in those terms tempted. You're going to be you're going to think man. I'm being tempted with and you're going to name a sin, but I want you to bend for the next step to think like man. What is going on in my heart? What is the thing that God put in here that I don't know how to deal with and then this is what's happening. And you might not know the answer to that question.

Call someone and talk it over like me and I'm tempted to do this and I'm want to figure out you know, what's going on in my heart 9 times out of 10. If you do that the thing that you were going to do, you're not going to do it, but it's not just because you're like super self-control because you're getting deeper into the heart of like how you work as a child of God.

Ask yourself when you're tempted. Why am I lowering myself from God made me to this thing is below what God has in store for me. This overtime we we lose sight of the love of God and all we see is this is our whole culture. This is our world with blinders on to the other side what this is just all the message all the hurt that people are doing two other people in all the ways people are hurting me. And so this is just how we this is how we came to wreck now, right?

Seems like we live in a society where we only see the sin. We can't understand why we do the things we do. We've hurt used generation after generation after generation which wrapped in the cycles of hurting people and we get hurt and then we just take it out on other people. That's all we know how to do. We just live a simple world. And that brings me to my other point. I only got these two points guys. My second point is the same problem. So if you'd like standing on a Bible study with me I try to talk about Sin in is not just a list of bad things. You've heard me say that. When is the Feast of relationship breakdown between us and God the disease of sin? Not a certain type of person?

Jesus is the solution to the sin problem. And so if I were to list of sins like hatred lust murder the Purity all these things. It's the list and you can start thinking like oh, yeah, I got to remember those blisters like 17 things. I got a not doing. Oh my gosh. I forgot what number seven is and what am I doing? I forgot I should write it down. But we missed it. The same problem is not about a particular person is very simple problem. We wants to live in an intimate relationship a state of peace and then we messed it up. So the problem is not that we need to repent of 20 different things is that we need to repair the relationship. That was hurt. We once we lived at peace with God and then we were separated from him. Not about the things we do necessarily. It's about our position next in our standing with him our relationship with him. How is that? What does God want you to do whatever God has on your heart right now. This is what God wants me to do and you might have a concrete answer for that. But then the next thought in your brain is why don't you do that? So it's easy to think well. I'm going to do whatever I want to do. And that since it's not that you did the bad thing is that you are putting something in front of your relationship with God like a god. Yeah, you're cool and all but my relationship with you is not as important as what I want to do right now. So you can be like I didn't do anything wrong, but that's not what it's about. It's about our relationship is about God hears the bridge, okay? This is kind of a famous bridge in Colorado Springs bands this Chasm and you can walk across this bridge back and forth is very easy. Can you can cross this Chasm without even breaking a sweat super easy and imagine if this is our relationship? And we can go back and forth and we can have this relationship with God and he's like, hey, guess what guys I want you to know that I'm a God that shares my authority with all my creation and you are powerful people. So here's what I did this whole Bridge with explosive and here's the button don't blow it up and we're like

Can you blew it up and that's what we do and so it's not that and then we blame God like why did you do that? He's like I gave you the power to hurt me and you choose to do so, we blew up this bridge of peaceful relationship between us and God. Now I'm so that's the same problem. The bridge is gone. The same problem isn't I got to be a better person the sim problem is no more Bridge. So how we going to fix this one way we can think about it is I don't know if this is possible. I just put this like cheesy stock quote on a pallet of bricks on the side there so I can imagine if you were standing on the edge of a giant chasm and you had all the supplies with which to build a bridge next to you and you're like, well I can do this. All I need to do is put all the pieces of the bridge I will have And you can't build a bridge from one side of the chasm without any help. Like if you had all the supplies you put something and just fall into the chasm and you try to put it together. Maybe if I try harder I can build this bridge from me from here to the other side and everything. You do just falls into the cat is what it's like to fix this problem all on your own. Everything you do is never going to work. This is the all have fallen short of the glory of God. If that guy tried to jump across the chasm he's going to fall and it doesn't matter if it's John who's an amazing athlete by the way or Marshall. Both of them are going to die in the fall in the bottom of the pit because your ability to jump better than Marshall has no bearing on your village across this Chasm. That's the that's the same problem Marshalls. Like I'll give it a try.

Bridge is gone. Doesn't matter if you have more or less doesn't matter if you are smarter than the matter if you're better in any way across this Castle is a what we do. Sometimes is where like know I can do it and and teens need to call as soon as this is the mistake we make all the time. We pick up bricks or like yeah, this is part of the bridge. This is my lion and I'm going to fix it. can you put it on the edge and you're like

and you try that with every sin in your life. I'm going to I'm going to repent of this see if that will help you cross the chasm.

And you can repent of everything in the piecemeal manufactured really trying to be a good person. Everything you do fail because you're not you're addressing that behavior. You're not fixing the same problem, which is we blew the bridge. There's no Bridge. Take our breaks one by one. Is it better next time? We repent and start doing what is right. Stop doing what is wrong. We think we can build it. We fail we sail. Some of you are trying to work it out all on your own. And I'm telling you you will never solve the same problem. You will never solve your problem. Come to church think I can make it work if you can't make it work. So my job is we need a different Bridge. We need a new bridge and a bridge that you can't provide for yourself. And the life of a Christian is not fixing your bridge is Jesus coming and bringing you a new bridge? Jesus is the bread.

You need to fully surrender make Jesus Lord of your life. God will give you that new bridge Hebrews 7:25. Therefore the song about Jesus therefore he is able to save completely because he always lived in when he was wholly blameless pure set apart from Sinners exalted above the heavens.

He does not need to offer sacrifices day after day first for his own sins. And then for the sins of the people sacrifice for their sins once for all when he offered himself for the law of points appointed high priest men in all their weakness. What came after the law has been made perfect forever. What are the same thing the old way under the law with a guy standing on your side of the chasm helping you fix your bricks. Like I can help you see God and Jesus is like that's never going to work. You need a whole new bridge. So this works contrast with people can do versus what Jesus?

They're two people broken people like both are victims of the same problem if both need to cure.

Jesus is the thread so what now? Well, if you come to me and Jenny, like I have this problem, we will always try to help you with your problem practical healing is very good and real you will have different things going on in your life. And we want to help you with those. That's great. Was tricky because we can help with problems and never address the problem. We can't ever think that a single temporary solution is more important than the feud ternal. As a non-Christian my life. My son was starting to destroy my life. And I was living very self-destructive. I was going to end up in a very bad place.

So I remember thinking you know what cuz I grew up going to church and I'm grateful for that, but I got to go back to church. And I thought that that's what was going to do it. But sometimes we just changed the one part of our of our life because it's damaged but we're not fixing like that in our relationship with God. Your relationship is damaged. Not just the thing is messed up and got yourself into. So if you're like man, yeah, I'm lie I lie and I need to repent of that. Like I will tell you. Yes, you need to stop lying. I'm not going to say I will tell you you need to stop lying when you stop lying. That's not going to fix the bridge. That's not going to miraculously fix your relationship with God. I will tell you you don't stop having fits of Rage. Stop fighting. Good. You're like, okay, I'll stop doing that, but that's not going to fix the bridge either. But don't go to the bar and get drunk and punch people again. I will tell you to live a life. I will tell you to avoid the morality sexual impurity.

Because you came to church not thinking about your relationship with job if people just come to church and I thinking I just want to be a better person. That's what we talked about last week. I just want to self help. I want to be a better person to help me be a better person. That's not going to fix the bridge. And then here's the crazy thing. Is it sometimes God really does want to like improve your life. God does want to give you good things in life, which is awesome. Maybe he wants to give you a better job better place in life, beautiful turn that stuff down. That's fine. But you also have to accept the possibility that maybe that's not his job. Maybe if you come to church, you won't get a better job or you won't get you know into the ecology wants you and the person you want to marry. Cuz maybe that's not the most important thing the God maybe God is more interested in your relationship with him than your comfort and stuff in this world. So here's a bridge. Okay, we're done. Here's a bridge. This is another less famous bridge, but this is literally just three cables strung across this massive. I think this is America. And so you basically are just walking on one table while holding on to the other two.

Like what this isn't the bridge I want to. I want the I want the bridge I can drive my SUV across like this is a very scary bridge and here's what I'm here to tell you. The life of discipleship might be like this. It might actually be the most terrifying thing you've ever done in your entire life. You make Jesus Lord of your life and he gives you this he's like guess what? I love you so much that you get to experience this for the rest of your life until you.

Life of discipleship might be the most uncomfortable terrifying painful thing that you could have ever imagined. Remind Charisma is to remind you that the Jesus died so that we have a connection with God that you could never provide for yourself and it's not up to us to tell Jesus what that should look like. This is why I don't like the Prosperity Gospel because my Lord the guy that I am a slave to was a homeless. Like the guy that was murdered. And so I'm going to sit here and be like well, I don't deserve I deserve a lot better than that.

Or do you want to be like me? Jesus did not die to bring us safety per se but Salvation. So this is where I'm always going to take. You know, what makes Crossing this bridge a lot a lot easier when you have people and you have people that will help my job is to help you cross this bridge the bridge that Jesus gave you and it might be scary and might be hard and I might be the most frustrating thing that you'll ever do but I wanted you to know that it's totally worth it. And that we're here to help you and so with that I'm going to bring up Jen and ramayan to do our communion before we are dismissed. So