The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 2: Spirit of Love

Episode Date: July 28, 2019

God’s perfect love casts out fear and produces faith.

Good morning, church. How's everybody doing? You good? That was unconvincing at best. Hey, today, a couple things, two things before we jump in is we're going to be taking communion together today. And so here's what I need you to do. Everybody raise your right hand. Go ahead. It's all right, Baptist. It'll be, okay, keep them up. Okay, that's your right side. Okay. So when we take communion, go ahead, put them down. Just remember, that makes an L. That doesn't. We're going to go out our right side. of each aisle, and then you're going to come down that right side. There'll be people down front that have a cup and a piece of bread. Rip off a big piece of bread. Like we're remembering a meal, not like a little chicklet, right? So remember that, rip off a big piece of bread.

You can dip it in and then go back and go in the other side. So, hey, if you grew up in a Catholic church, you can help us. You're really good at having done this. So you're going to help give us a little decency in order. But go out the right, come down, rip it, dip it, and then, make your way back the other side. Don't try to swim upstream. Okay, it'll go real badly for you. So, hey, also, this is Bo, Bo Hena. Bo, every good, say hello to Bo. Yeah, wow. All right. Look at you. Getting whistled at.

Bo is, leads our student ministry here at the San Pablo campus and we're going to tag team this sermon this morning. And so I'm going to get us kicked off and then he's going to tap in, come in and teach the Bible for a little bit, and then I'm going to come back, wrap it up for us, and then we're going to jump in. So we've been in this series, right? This is the second week of a series that we've been in that is really about one verse, 2 Timothy, chapter 1, verse 7. God gave us not a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control. And last week, Pastor Jobi talked about what that spirit of power is, and today we're going to look at the relationship between what God. God did not give us a spirit of fear and love and how those two things work together.

But as we've been in this series, it kind of stirred up some conversations in our house about things that we're afraid of. And so we were talking at dinner about, you know, what are things that our kids were afraid of or as little kids we were afraid of? And Kristen, I've told you this before, but for Easter a few years ago, I gave Kristen skydiving. Because I said nothing says, I believe in the resurrection like you, jumping out of an airplane. So she said that was probably the scariest thing she's ever done in her life. Sophie, our 13-year-old, almost 14-year-old, she was talking about the first time she wrote a roller coaster as a little tiny kid. She saw all these big steel metal roller coasters, and then we took her to one of those rickety old wooden ones, and she said, I thought this

thing was literally going to fall apart on us. Probably scarred her for life. Gavin started driving this year. I asked him what the scariest thing was, and he said, the first time I got on 295 with a stick shift by myself, I was like, I feel you, bud. I was really scared too. I'd like find my phone up the whole way as he's driving. But not long ago, I was out for a run and I got stuck in the middle of a lightning storm. Like I was the only thing out there. I was the tallest thing, and I'm not that tall. And I mean, it was like crack, bang, and I could feel it in my fillings. You know what I'm talking about? And I thought, this is how I'm going to die. This is it. Like, I'm not scared of a lot. I have, I've donated foreign money to foreign military to get

out of situations overseas. I've jumped off cliffs like, you know, to sail around. I've done all sorts of crazy things in my life. But I thought, this is probably the most scared I've ever been in my life in a long, long time. But when Paul writes to Timothy and he says, God gave us not a spirit of fear, he's not talking about like that physiological reaction, right? That fight or fight kind of reaction, get you out, keep you from being on the Darwin Award list, that sort of thing. He's talking about that God didn't give you a spirit of fear. Like what is it in you? We all have it that is down at a deep soul level the thing that you're afraid of. Maybe it's that you're afraid of being alone. Maybe it's afraid of not measuring up. Maybe it's afraid you're like me that you're afraid your life

won't count, right? I mean, I know my life is like dropping a little pebble in a big giant ocean. And it's not about making a name, but at the end of my life, will it really matter? thing that I'm really afraid of. I was thinking about this the other night was I'm really afraid that I will operate and live my life in my power. That I would somehow be the limiting factor to my life, that I wouldn't lean in to the power of God. What is it in your life that you're afraid of?

And Paul says in 2 Timothy, God gave us not a spirit of fear, meaning that fear is not primarily a feeling. Fear is not primarily a personality type, that fear is a spirit. And if that spirit doesn't come from God, it means that the spirit of fear comes from the liar and the enemy. That is a spirit from the pit of hell. And so the question is, what do you do when fear rises up in your life? I mean, for most of us, what we do is we'll just ignore it, right?

I mean, think about that. Think if you're afraid of flying. And you're like, you know what? I don't like flying. I'm scared of flying. I'm just not going to get on an airplane. I'll drive there. I'll take a train there.

All that is doing is just ignoring the fear. Or we'll just, we'll sort of pretend like it doesn't bother us, right? We'll just go, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not scared of that. I'm not scared of that. And in essence, we'll just lie to ourselves. or we'll give ourselves a little pep talk, right? You've got to do something scary, and so you're afraid of it,

and so you give yourself a big pep talk, and you try to drum up all the adrenaline in your body, and then you'll just plow on through it. And sometimes you have to do that. But at the deep soul level of our fears, when we do those things, at best we're managing our fears. At best we're containing our fears.

but we're never actually eliminating or eradicating or getting rid of the fears in our lives. And in fact, every time we avoid our fears, every time we lie to ourselves and won't admit that we have a fear, like, I ask you, what is your fear? And you're like, I'm not scared of anything. Every time we do that, we're actually giving power and giving control over to the spirit of fear that is not a spirit from God. that when we just ignore or manage or contain, we're actually ceding control and power over to a spirit other than the Spirit of Lord. So the question is, how do you not just manage?

How do you not just contain? How do you not just somehow get through and push through when you face a fear? But how do you actually have fear eradicated from your life? that if fear is a spirit not from God, how do you actually have that spirit removed out of your life so that you don't live in fear? Imagine! Imagine not living under fear. Think about the freedom that you would have in your life.

And that's really the question. What eradicates fear in our lives? And John says, I mean, Paul says, God gave you not a spirit of fear, but of power and love, that it's love that actually eradicates the spirit of fear. John says in 1. John 418, perfect love casts out fear.

You and I don't cast out fear. You and I can't get rid of our fears. We can't eradicate our own fears. It is love. The Beatles were right. All you need is love. So the question then becomes, what is that love?

Like what is it about love? What is the love that actually eradicates and casts out the spirit of fear? That's the question that we have to deal with this morning. Thanks, Adam. Hey, for those that I don't know yet, my name is Bo Behenna. Behenna, I am one of the student ministers here at 1122 San Pablo campus. On behalf of our team, I just want to say how grateful we are that we get to come alongside you guys and just advance the gospel one more generation. I'm here to tell you this morning

that God is moving in our teenagers across all our campuses. And I love that we get to have a conversation around these questions. I mean, the questions that Adam just posed, I mean, these are really the questions we're rooting, I mean, we're dealing with at a deep soul level, right? I mean, how is fear eliminated from our lives? What is love? Right? I'm just like many of you guys, I have been face to face with crippling fear in my life. And I'm here to tell you there are answers to these questions. Answers that are rooted in truth. Like Adam said, man, 1 John 418, this is incredible news for you and me.

That there is no fear, there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. I mean, this is how it is completely eradicated from our lives. That love would drive this out. And if love is responsible, then there's incredible. credible value and that's understanding where it comes from and what gives love the power to actually drive this fear out. And scriptures are going to give us a clearer picture of this this morning. And as we kind of work through them together, I think the Lord is inviting you and me, just to be

honest with what we're facing to actually name some fears, right? And so we'll just kind of start off. Like I said, I am a student minister. It means I work with teenagers, right? Six through 12th grade. in student ministry, fear actually has a name. Can you guess it? It's called middle school.

Middle school is the name of fear in student ministry. How many of you can actually remember when you were in middle school? Anyone show a hand? Very nice. Here's the deal. You spent most of your life trying to forget what happened in middle school. And now insecurity is all bubbling up. It can be a petri dish where insecurity can grow.

This is why we need many of you to come and help with our middle school environment down the road here. But here's the thing. I am a recipient of a socially traumatic incident that happened at a school dance that's leaving me cripple with fear to actually dance in public to this day, right? Homecoming, senior prom, my own wedding, just completely avoid it at all costs, right? And we have these surface level fears, these things that we avoid, that I personally avoid. And I'm not here to belittle or anything, but just like Adam is saying, man, what if we pulled back the layers to just the core of what's driving some of these fears we have.

Like, for me, I've been able to identify a spirit of fear that says in my life, you will never be accepted for who you are. Your performance determines your worth and your acceptance. But here's what I know. As I grow in my understanding and affection for Jesus, there's a deeper craving for more of Jesus and the freedom that he brings. And essentially, this exposes and roots out this spirit of fear in our life. It completely does. There is no fear in love, but perfect love

casts out fear. And that's the tricky part. Because love is not the easiest thing to define in 2019. You can walk outside these doors, throw a rock in any direction, you get a different definition. And love is influenced by several different factors in our culture today. I mean, the movies we watch, the music we listen to, our social media feeds, hashtag relationship goals, right? It's a fail. You know, maybe love just the way it was modeled for you growing up or the relationship you're in. I mean, this maybe just gives you such a subjectively confusing definition of what it actually means. Let me demonstrate. Have you ever talked to a teenager about love? Asked them to actually define what love means? And it's a scary thing. You see some head nods in the car.

crowd, you start to identify the parents of teenagers. We just got back from student camp a few weeks ago. You know, at student camp, it was incredible, by the way. And sometimes when the conditions are perfect at student camp, Cupid draws back as bow. Love is in the air. It's a legitimate thing. We call this camp goggles. Student ministers call this camp goggles. It is a real thing. And I can go on and on about describing an eighth grader's philosophy around receiving and expressing his or her feelings of affection for their crush. You know, you hear all kinds of things from warm and fuzzies, right? That's how we describe love. You know, one of my personal favorites is there's a special connection. There's a whole spectrum for special connection, right? They're even quoting all kinds of

one-liners from movies that they've never even seen before. We've got no business quoting some of these lines. I'm telling you, but the two most popular viewpoints that I commonly notice in the world that I live in is you have to earn love that it is not freely given. Got to give it to get it. And it is a feeling and nothing more. Now, I just want to stop down that last one for a second because there's real caution here in reducing love to just being a mere feeling. See, humanity has an insatiable desire to consume whatever makes us feel good and repel whatever makes us feel bad. And the danger in being ruled by our feelings is that they can come and go depending on our

current circumstances. We have a tendency to place God-like weight on a feeling to get us through a moment. But here's the problem. Our broken definition of love is fleeting and conditional at best. Love, I mean, feelings are a bad God for us to place our trust in. There has to be more to this definition of love than a feeling that we just. just developed. There's got to be something more rock solid. And scripture describes a love that is radically different and set apart from anything that we regularly experience in our life. It's radically

different because of where it comes from. First John 4-7 says love is from God. He is the one actively displaying it and providing it. First John 3-1 says, see what kind of love the father has given to us that we should be called children of God. And so we are. See, we're embodying this love as his children. And this is a never-ending wave-after-wave kind of love. He's not just giving his love, but he's lavishing it out on his kids. And scripture is so incredibly explicit about where it comes from. And that's a big deal.

See, we have confidence in a good God that is not the provider of your spirit of fear. It can't come from him. Right? The scriptures don't give us a picture of a God who uses fear tactics to gain of followership. And to the contrary, it gives us a picture of this great, big, beautiful God that is lavishing good gifts on his kids. He's wooing his people to himself.

Love is a God-given gift. And when we grow in our faith, we start to take on, these things start to take on a different kind of shape than we're used to see. Pastor Jobi said it last week about power. I think it still applies to love. See, as we grow in our faith, God begins to reorienting. or flip our understanding of how we might interact or experience this love that he provides.

See, it's perfect, it's flawless because God is perfect. And we inherently, as humans, we do not know perfect love on our own. It's got to be given. And in God's economy, perfect love, it dismantles the lives of the enemy that says, you have to do just enough to gain affection and value. It's a gift. It's free. and we did nothing to earn it.

There is a deepening in our faith, knowing the provider of love. And not only is it a God-given gift, but love is powerful. It packs a punch. There's a guy named John Martin Millen. He writes great music. One of his more popular songs, How He Loves. He wrote this line. He says, loves like a hurricane.

I am a tree bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy. I've only been at 1122 for a minute. I mean, I'm coming from Texas, never lived through a hurricane in my life. Here it's awesome. She's totally looking forward to it. But there is incredible weight and satisfaction underneath something this powerful. Turn me to 1 Corinthians chapter 13. It's a popular passage.

You may be asking, what does God's love actually look like in all that we do? This passage is going to give us handles to God's standard for love, what perfect love looks like. Real quick, before we read, raise your hand if this is red in your wedding. Anyone? Very nice. Awesome. Here we go. 1 Corinthians chapter 13, starting in verse 1. Paul says, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clinging symbol.

And if I have prophetic powers and understand all the mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all that I have and if I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease.

As for knowledge, it will all pass away. And down to verse 13, it says, so now faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love. Not listen to the descriptors of God's love. This is patient, kind, not envious or boastful, not insist on its own ways, not rejoice in wrongdoings. never ending.

Anyone else out there out there have kids? Parents, I'm new to the game, man. 9 a.m. service. Probably got a lot of parents here. But look, new to the game, I've got three-year-old twin boys, a five-month-old son.

Right? Some would say that I'm in it. Right? It is a clown show, complete circus every single night. Try to have company last week. It was just the decibels were high, right? Now, for our twins,

we're on the back nine of potty training. we're almost out of it. And I just, as I'm kind of processing, I have not been the best version of myself throughout this potty training process. I'm telling you, patient, kind, hopes all things. I mean, if I'm just being vulnerable with you, there are many nights that I do not have any hope

that my kids will stop pooping their pants. It's a fact. I just don't have any hope sometimes. It's real. But here's the thing, man. In our parenting, do we know this kind of love? In our marriage, our friendships, our workplace, do we know this kind of love? I love this passage.

Look at our great, big, beautiful God who gives us a spirit of love that is so incredibly different and powerful than anything that we are exposed to in this world. See, it's empowering and it has incredible weight to transform our lives. And make no mistake about it, love is powerful because God is. love, right? Check out 1 John 4-8. Anyone who does not love does not know God because what? God is love. How about further down at verse 16? He says, so we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love. And whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him. See, culture may declare that love is God. But this morning, we're talking about the gospel declares that God is love.

And this changes everything. This changes our outlook on life, our perspective. This changes what stirs our affections. It changes the way that we even read scripture. I mean, if we go back to 1 Corinthians 13 with this understanding that God is love, it starts to give us a beautifully expressive look at what God is like. See, we can read this as God is patient and kind. He is not.

arrogant or rude. He is not irritable. He is never ending. See the great patience of our God that's not sitting in the clouds waiting for you to mess up. See your God that isn't resentful of you and expects you to gain his trust and his favor. This is what our God unconditionally gives us himself. And that is the best news for a broken humanity in search for. for truth. He is love and he fills his kids with it. And there's something to be said about a perfect and holy God that looks at jacked up sinners like you and me and gives himself. A God that provides the way for us not to be slaves to a spirit of fear, but he gives us love. See, he is a good father who desires and offers good gifts to his kids. So this presents some questions for us to

consider as we continue. If love is a God-given gift, how do we get it? If love is that powerful, how does it become a reality in our lives? And if perfect love casts out fear, then how does that love come to bear in our lives and set us free? That's the question, isn't it? And Bo, just a little hope. I've never met an adult who's not potty trained. So it will happen, man. I promise. That's the question. If fear is a spirit not from God and perfect love casts out fear and God is that perfect love. The question inside of us should be, well then how does that love come into our life? You can't, I can't manufacture that love. So how does perfect love displace the fear? How does it become a reality in our life? And in 1 John chapter 4 verse 9, listen to what this says. John writes this. He says, in this,

The love of God was made manifest among us. So he said, here's how love actually becomes a reality in your life. Go from being this sort of theoretical concept to a daily reality in your life that God sent his only son into the world that we might live through him. The love becomes a reality in our life when God took on flesh. The Bible word for that is the incarnate. nation. When Jesus Christ was born to his divinity, he adds humanity and takes on flesh and dwells among us. When Jesus did that, love came into our lives. It's why we love Christmas so much. It's why there's a story in the,

in the Bible, Jacob's Ladder, and there was the Tower of Babel, and people would try to, like, earn their way up to God. there's all symbolized kind of religious ways that we would try to get to God. We don't celebrate that. We celebrate Christmas. We don't celebrate that we have effort to try to get to God. We celebrate that God did everything necessary to bring perfect love into our life. He goes on, in this is love. Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us.

I mean, that's stunning. If you stop and let that sink down into your soul for a minute, that not only that God would take on flesh, the incarnation, and move into our lives, but that he wouldn't do it because we somehow cleaned up our life, went to him first and said, God, would you please come into my life? God took the initiative to put love into our lives,

to put himself into our lives. Look what it says. It says that God loved us, not that we have loved him, but that he loved us. The Bible says there's actually no such thing as a seeker of God. God's the only one that seeks.

God wasn't lost. You didn't find God. You were lost, and God found you and me. That God initiated his love towards us. And that is the best. news. It's really, really good news. So he goes on and he says, in this is love. Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Propitiation is just a big, giant Bible word to mean that Jesus was the payment that satisfied the wrath of God, the just

judgment of God against you and I and our sins. that the love of God comes into our life when Jesus took on flesh, that he initiated the move in and of himself, and that Jesus actually paid in his life, death, and resurrection to clear away every stumbling block, every hindrance, anything that would get in the way of us knowing the perfect love of our Heavenly Father. That Jesus lived the life that you and I should have lived. and in doing that he became the propitiation for our sins.

That Jesus on the cross paid the penalty that you and I deserve. The wages of sin is death. That God is just in his judgment against our sin. That he's right to exercise his judgment against our sinfulness. But Jesus, who knew no sin, deserved no sin, became sin on the cross for us, and he took upon himself the wrath of God and satisfied it fully and finally. Past, present, and future. Jesus fully satisfied the payment and the debt that you and I have against our Heavenly Father, and when he did that, he unleashed the perfect love of God in our life.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one's ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this, we know that we abide in him and he and us because he has given us. We didn't earn it because he has given us of his spirit. and we have seen and testify that the father has sent his son to be the savior of the world and whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God, God abides in Him and He and God. So we have come to know and to believe that the love that God has for us,

God is love. Whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in Him. Do you see what John says? John says the way that love comes into our life is not by earning but by believing. It's not by somehow cleaning ourselves up, but it's by confessing that we are actually such a mess that we don't actually have the power to clean ourselves up. But God has done that for us in Jesus Christ. If you believe in your heart that could raise Jesus from the dead, you confess with your mouth that He is Lord. you will be saved. The perfect love of God will come into your life

and it will cast out all fear of judgment and separation from God. Verse 17, by this is love perfected with us so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment. Because as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. for fear has to do with punishment, but whoever fears has not been perfected in love. He says that there is a day of judgment that is coming, but if you are in Christ, that day is not a day of fear.

John, the same one that wrote this will actually write in the book of Revelation, that there is a day coming when Jesus will return, that the resurrection will occur, that if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you will get a new bodily resurrected being, and Jesus will dwell with his people in a perfect resurrected, all things new, heaven and earth. That there'll be no more tears, there'll be no more pain, there'll be no more sickness, there'll be no more sadness,

there'll be no more anxiety, there'll be no more worry. There is coming a day when there will be no more fear. And Jesus is going to consummate all of that. And the way that perfect love casts out our fears is that Jesus comes into our lives, that he takes the initiative to come into our lives, that he lays down his life for us, that he satisfies the wrath of God. And then he makes a promise that is sealed on his blood and in his resurrection. The reason you and I can be sure and have hope that a day is,

coming when there will be no more pain and no more sickness and no more fear is that Jesus was raised from the dead. And that's the way it comes into our lives. And so when fear creeps up in you and me, here's what you do. You call it out. You look straight at your fear and you tell fear what it is. Fear, you are a liar and you are a spirit from the pit of hell. And then you call on Jesus. because Jesus is the love of God and God's perfect love is the thing that casts out, eradicates fear in our life, and then you claim the promises of God. You claim the gospel. Listen, when fear rises up in you, when fear rises up in you that you aren't lovable or loved,

that you won't be accepted or that you feel alone, you remember that God sent his son for you and you let that perfect love cast out fear. You remember that you are an adopted child of the king most high, and you let that perfect love casts out fear. You remember that God is not a distant deity, but God is your heavenly father, and you let that perfect love cast out fear. You remember that Jesus doesn't call you servant, but he calls you friend, and you let that perfect love cast out fear. You remember the promise that Jesus made that said, I will never leave you, and I will never forsake you,

and you let that perfect love cast out fear. And when you're afraid, like at a deep soul level, you have a fear that you've just done too much. You've gone too far. You've completely exhausted all the forgiveness and all the love of God. You remember that God is patient and you let that perfect love cast out fear.

You remember that God bears all things. Not some of your things, not a few of your things. God bears all things. And you remember that on the cross of Jesus Christ, God bore all of your sin. When fear rises up in you, that you've done too much,

you remember that God endure. all things, that God never quits on you, that God is never exhausted with lavishing his perfect love on you. And you let that promise cast out fear. And when you're afraid at a soul level, that your life won't matter, that you're not good enough, that somehow you're just going to be here and gone and the world won't be any different because of it, you remember that God created you, that he knows the very hairs on your head, that he has numbered and counted

and appointed the days of your life. And you let that perfect love cast out fear. You remember that God said you are a masterpiece created for good works in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the earth. God chose you for those things. And you let those promises cast out

the fear. And so when fear rises up, don't ignore it, don't manage it, don't run from it, don't pretend that it doesn't have it. You call it out as a spirit that is not from God. And you claim the promises of God and you call on Jesus to be the perfect love that casts out all of your fears. And you rest in the good news of the gospel. See, this is what we're going to celebrate as we take communion tonight this morning. If you, Pastor Michael talked about in John chapter 12, that story of Lazarus, if you turn the page over in your Bible, you get to John chapter 13 and Jesus is with his friends. It's the last night of his life. And they're sitting around a table.

They're going to celebrate the Passover meal. It's a celebration that the Jewish people had been doing for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years to celebrate that God had delivered them out of slavery. And it says in John chapter 13 that Jesus at a certain point in the dinner took off his outer cloak, put a towel around his waist. We talked about this last week. And then it says that at that moment, Jesus was to demonstrate the full extent of his love. So what Jesus was about to do in that moment in over the next couple days was a demonstration of not just a little bit of his love, not just part of his love, not just some of his love,

not just a glimpse of his love, but what Jesus was about to do in that moment was a demonstration in an acting of the full extent of his perfect love. He said he got down, he washed all their feet. and then as they're sitting together at dinner, he took the piece of bread and he broke it. And he said, this is my body. When we celebrate communion, we're celebrating the fact that perfect love

became incarnate in our world. We're celebrating that God came to us, took on flesh. This is my body. We celebrate that. And he said, this is my body which is broken for you. Meaning we celebrate that the love that God has shown us is a propitiating love. That on the cross, Jesus' body was broken as a payment for our sin. And every time we eat this, we remember that God came to us in the flesh,

took on the initiative to come to us, and that he gave himself in his son, Jesus Christ, to pay for all of our sins. And then he took a cup. And he said, this cup, this cup is my blood that is poured out for you. That it seals a covenant, not of works, but a new covenant, a covenant of grace. That you don't earn my love. You don't work for my love. You don't even ask for my love.

I give it to you freely by grace and you trust me and you accept it. So Paul would say as often as you eat this bread and you drink this wine, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes again. That we remember that Jesus did that for us. And remembering biblically is not just to kind of look back to an event that happened once in a time. It's not purely just this thing like it's a photo that we get to look back and remember, oh yeah, Jesus did that once upon a time. Biblically remembering is to take a thing in the past and drag it up and put it into our very present.

That when we eat this bread and we drink from this cup, what we are doing is we're looking back to the death, the life death of Jesus, and we're bringing it up and we're saying, I want that kind of love to be a reality in my life at that. this moment. I need perfect love to go down to the deepest parts of my body and cast out fear. And it's not just that we look back, but we look forward. Jesus said, I won't eat this meal again until I eat it in the kingdom with my father. That this meal is a looking forward to the hope and the promise that there will be a day when there is no more fear. That you and I,

as followers of Christ that we will stand in the presence of perfect love. And there will be no more fear. There will be no more tears. There will be no more sickness. There will be no more pain. There will be no more brokenness. There will be no more fear of those things ever happening again. All bad things will come undone in the presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And when we take this meal, we fix our eyes and we claim the promise. that there'll be a day when we just get to celebrate in the kingdom of God. And so I'm going to pray when I begin praying, the people that are going to serve are going to come, they're going to stand in front of all your section and remember your right and left,

come down, rip a big piece off, dip it in. If you want to eat it right there and then walk back the other way to your seat, or you want to take it and sit down and do that. But Paul tells us to not take this meal lightly, but to examine ourselves. to confess our sin and to throw ourselves on the mercy of Jesus. This is not a meal for perfect people. This is a meal for people that are desperate for the love and grace of Jesus Christ. And if you find yourself in that place and you throw yourself on the mercy of Jesus,

then Jesus would say, come on, come on. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you. thank you for your perfect love. Thank you that you are perfect love. Lord, in a room like this, there are literally thousands of deep fears. God, would you cast out those fears in your perfect love?

Lord, fear cannot stand. The spirit of fear cannot stand when you as perfect love are present. And Lord, we confess as we come to take this bread in this cup, we're not worthy of it. Lord, we have sinned. There's things that we've done that we shouldn't have done.

There are things that we shouldn't have done that we did do. There are things that we sort of said that we shouldn't have said. God, we're not coming as a demonstration of how religious we are, how much we have it together. Or we come and we throw ourselves on the grace and mercy in the life, death, and resurrection of your son, Jesus Christ. And so God, let this time where we take the bread, we take the cup, God, let it be a response to your gospel.

Lord, let it be an act of worship that just fills your house with the fragrance of faith. And God, would you be pleased? as we celebrate you, as we sing about you, as we think about you, as we pray about you, and we respond to you. We love you, Jesus. Thank you that you are perfect love. We pray it in your name. Amen. So would you please stand? And when you're ready from front to back, right to left, we're going to make our way down and share communion together.