The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 30: Love Rules

Episode Date: August 12, 2018

Love rules over all rules and regulations. Jesus tells us the greatest commandment is to love God and love people.

Amen, amen. How are we doing, church? Everybody good? Looking good. If you got your Bibles, I hope you do, we're going to be in Romans chapter 13, as you know. And in our time together, we're talking about love. Finally, all right, no obedience to the authorities and all those hard texts. We're going to dig into love. And before we do, I need to do a little bit of housekeeping. One thing's pretty heavy, and one thing is just going to be kind of fun. And we just need to pray for a brother that I dearly love. Pastor Stone is in Atlanta right now at the the bedside of his father. His daddy has been fighting cancer for 10 years since, as long as I've known, Stone. And he's a Baptist preacher. He led Stone to Christ. He is fighting the good fight. And we need a miracle. And we know that a miracle will happen, either miraculously he will walk out of that hospital or miraculously he will walk into the kingdom of heaven. And so, as you can imagine, we need to be praying for Stone and his family. I'm also going to make fun of him about 10 minutes into the sermon, so I feel like we need to pray for him now too, okay?

So at all of our campuses, would you just bow your head and let's pray for the stones? Our good and gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for Craig Stone. God, we thank you for his legacy. Lord, we thank you for his boys, called into the ministry, that declare the gospel to thousands of people every week of their life. And God, as he lays in that bed, fighting for his life, we know that you have numbered all of his days. God, we know that his faith has healed him, that by his stripes, by your stripes, he has been healed eternally. And, God, we thank you for the eternal miracle of salvation.

But, God, we pray, we pray, thy will be done. But, Lord, you said, we have not because we ask not. So we pray, God, that he would get up out that bed and he would tell more and more. people about you, the doctors, the nurses, God, that they would give glory because you moved in a mighty, mighty way. God, we pray in that room right now for a peace that transcends all understanding that you would guard hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. We pray this in Jesus name and all God's people said, amen. One other thing that I want to do is for some of us, school has already started and for others Monday. The kids go back to

school and all the mama said amen all right getting them jokers out of our head all right and so the kids said oh no and the parents i mean the teachers said here we go again and so one of the things that we know uh we got a lot of teachers and coaches and administrators here at the church of 1122 and um as long as you are in schools they can't keep god out and so if you are a teacher an administrator a coach anything like that at all of our locations would you please stand up right where you are teacher, if you work at the school, or even if you don't work, but you go there every day, stay standing, stay standing, stay standing, stay standing, okay. All right.

Listen, you guys do a thankless, thankless job. You really do. You are way underpaid, and legitimately you spend more time with my kid than I do sometimes, okay? That's one of my kids' teachers, and so I'm praying for you. But listen, as you walk into this mission field funded by the school, all right, then maybe you take the presence of Christ, may you take the gospel of Christ into that place, may you love these kids to a point where they see that the love that they get from you must be bigger than from you and may it point them to their heavenly father. And so we teachers, whether you want to

or not, we commission you right now as missionaries to your mission field, which is the school that you have been called to. Therefore, go and make disciples. One more time. for our teachers and coaches, et cetera. Amen, amen. You can be seated. All right, now back now to the sermon. We're picking it up in Romans chapter 13. We're supposed to start in verse 8.

This starts this way, oh, no one anything. For those of you long-time Christians, this has nothing to do with debt. In the context, this is not what it's talking about, okay? In the context here, when he starts out, oh, no one, anything, you've got to back up to verse 7 to kind of get the context of what he's talking about. If you'll remember all the way back in Romans chapter 12, verse 1, Paul begins to shift gears.

The first 11 chapters of the book of Romans is about the infection of the gospel. That we are justified by faith alone, that we are saved by grace, that it's not by our good works, but by the finished work of Christ, that we are made righteous, that we have a right standing before God. And then in 12-1, he says, therefore, because of the gospel, because of the gospel's work in you, this is what the work of your life should look like. When our lives are infected by the gospel, then here are some of the symptoms that our lives should show. Then remember last week in verse 7, he says this, pay to all what is owed to them. Taxes to whom taxes erode, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect, to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

So in this owing kind of motif he's got going, this is where we pick it up in verse eight, owe no one anything except to love each other. In other words, if you owe taxes, pay taxes. If you owe honor, pay honor. If you owe revenue, pay revenue. Don't owe anybody anything except, except owe everybody this.

love each other. That the primary mark of the Christian is and should be love. You know what's crazy? If you go, you know how, like if you start typing something into Google, it'll like finish your sentence for you. Like it's all trying to be prophetic. If you go into your Google and you type, why are Christians so?

Guess what comes up? Hypocrical, mean, close. minded, words like this. Don't do it. Just trust me. Okay. If you type in, why are dogs so? Dogs, not DAWG, because it would say like godly, champions, humble, but it just dogs, like puppies. Why are gods? It'll say like kind, fun, loyal. They literally, in our culture, dogs have a better reputation than us as Christ's followers, and we should be marked first and foremost by love that owe no one anything except love well i've got good news have you seen void i don't know if it's really a magazine void magazine okay it's mostly just surfing but that's great

if you love surfing you'll love this void magazine right now just came out with a like best of number one in 904 all right those are you podcaster that's where we live in duval and in the they had a vote an online vote you can tell those of you grinning know what i'm talking about Those of you staring aimlessly at me, you have no idea what I'm talking about. I guess you didn't vote. So the number one place, according to this, not inerrant, not inspired, it's just a magazine. The number one place to find love in all of Jacksonville is the Church of 1122. All right?

Now, I don't know how I feel about you clapping about that, all right? I really don't. Because I don't think they have my sermon today in mind, the love of God, all right? And here's why, because here's what it says, single, looking to mingle, try a Thursday or Sunday worship service at the Church of 1122. That's what the thing says. Now, I really don't know how to feel about that. Hopefully, I don't care why you think you come here.

Hopefully the love of God draws you here. Hopefully, whether you find a date, you find Jesus. And I will promise you this, if you find a date and don't find Jesus, you have found a date. and don't find Jesus. You have found nothing. See, 1st, Corinthians chapter 13, all right? And so I think I'm okay with it because the Bible does say God is love. So hopefully that is what you'll find.

And a part of the reason you look at that and we kind of laugh is when we hear this verse, oh, no one anything except love each other. Man, we live in a culture that loves love. I mean, we love love. Movies are about love, commercials are about love, everything is about love. But you really have to define what love is. because what our current culture says that love is, I mean, honestly, do we even know? You know, when I was growing up, there was a song, What is Love?

And all we could answer is, baby, don't hurt me. That's what we came up with. If you're a little bit older than me, the Beagle sang, all you need is love, and then they broke up. So I don't know how good that worked. A couple of elder prayers ago, Elder Rusty sang what this world needs is love, sweet love, all right? You never know what's going to happen at an elder-led prayer. You should never miss one. The next one, he had his face-painted blue screaming freedom.

That's not a joke. So you should be here for that. So Pastor Stone said to me that one of the ways to find out what love is is to watch his favorite TV show, The Bachelorette. All right? He legitimately watches it. And in the Bachelorette, there is a doctrine of love. There are five stages of love that we find in the bachelor's. Now, again, I've never seen this show.

I'm a Christ follower, but I'm going to take his word. I'm not saying he's not. I'm just saying. And so on day one, stage one is I see myself loving him. Like in your mind, you can begin to perceive, I think this could work out. Day two, 24 hours later, you get to stage two, which is falling in love with him. which is usually indicated by I felt something. Something happened.

In between him making it out with number three, four, and five, I felt like I'm falling in. I haven't fallen all the way in. Love is sort of like a mud pie or a pylomeneur or a mud puddle, something like that. Like if you get too close to it, it can get on you, whether you mean to or not. The third stage usually comes around day four.

when the announcement is made, I am in love with him. How do you know? Because we're soulmates. And he is the one. Which leads to stage next, whatever that is four. About the seventh day. Uh-oh. Now I am falling out of love with him.

You see, the thing about falling, you don't have control. It's not your fault. You didn't mean to you. You didn't mean fall into it. and now you're looking around and you're starting to fall out of it, okay? Because kind of the zing is wearing off. And then you get to day 10 by the end of it, which is I love him. I'm just not in love with him.

So this is kind of the roller coaster of conditional love that we know. And what that sounds like to me, like I see myself loving him, I'm falling in love with him. I love him. I'm falling out of love with him. I love him. I'm just not in love with him. Sounds more like the flu than love. Like I see somebody with the flu.

I think I'm getting it. Dang it, I have the flu. I'm starting to feel better. I don't have the flu anymore. So we're kind of confused between the flu and what love is. But whatever, we'll take it. C.S. Lewis, he wrote a book called The Four Loves. There's four Greek words that we translate love.

So he wrote a book called The Four Loves. In that book, talking about love between people, he says this. To love at all is to be vulnerable, love anything, and your heart will be wrong and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully, round with hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements, lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken. It will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable to love is to be vulnerable.

And Paul says, oh, no one anything except to love each other. So what is it? What does it mean to love each other? Well, the good news is that the Bible talks a whole lot about love. And I'm telling you, I've told you this 100 million times, my favorite way to study the Bible is before I go and see what the Bachelorette teaches us or even C.S. Lewis, though he's awesome, is see what the Bible says about the Bible. Always use the scriptures as commentary under themselves.

Because even if the human author may be different, the ultimate author is the same. And so in 1 John, there's a whole bunch of definitions and descriptions of what love is. And so here's some things that we know about love. According to Paul right here, we owe love. We owe it. But it's different than all the other things we owe, like taxes, et cetera, because when you pay your taxes, you're done paying your taxes. But when you love somebody, you've just begun it.

You never pay it off. that you never pay down on the principle of love and you continuously owe it but the reason that you owe it is not because they've necessarily done anything to deserve it the reason that you owe love towards one another is not because of what they have done but because of what Christ has done for you 1. John 316 says this by this we know love that he laid down his life for us

and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. In other words, the debt of love that we owe one another is because what Christ did for us, even when we didn't deserve it. So the moment you look at the unlovable person and you think, I don't owe that dude anything, then put yourself as the recipient of what God did towards you. He owed us nothing. and yet because God is love he laid down his life for us

and because of that we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers so we owe love for that reason that's one thing the Bible means when it says love secondly love is not primarily a feeling in the Bible love does now when we talk about love we talk about it as a feeling and honestly most of the time when we talk about love

when we say to each other I love you What we actually mean is I love me. I love me. And I love the way you make me feel right now. And I love me more when you're around. I know everybody's giggling. They're like, no, not you. I meant the hypothetical thing he's talking about there.

But look, it is. I mean, you know, it is more than a feeling. And you can lose that loving feeling and you can still love people. Because love does. And here's how we know. Because Jesus says love. your enemies. Well, if you felt great about your enemies, they wouldn't be your enemies. They'd be your friends. So he means when you look at a human and you're, not you, you, you're not, when you look at a human,

she's awesome, you're you. All right. So when you look at a human and you're like, ugh, and you don't have this thing that stirs in you, then Jesus says, yeah, yeah, love him. Or when you have this opposite thing that stirs to you and you begin to think, well, you don't what I owe him. I mean, he cussed me. I owe him that back. He talks junk about me. I owe him gossip back. And then the scripture says, no, no, no, no, no. That might be like what worldly response is, but biblical love is, love is not primarily a feeling that love does. How do we know this? John 316, for God so love the world. He did not look at us and go, aw, but God so loved the world that he did something. He gave his only begotten son. First,

Corinthians chapter 13, the love chapter, if you've ever been to a wedding, you've heard this. And it says this. It starts out this way. Love is. And then it gives 15 things that love does. Like love is patient. That's what love does. Love is patient. Think about that for a second. So loving your children is not that ooey-goey feeling that you have. That's more of a byproduct. but loving your kids is when they are driving you. Like you can't wait to take them to school on Monday. And yet we are patient with them. Love is kind.

Love does not envy. Love does not boast. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Like a part of the way we love one another when you're fighting. You know how sometimes when you fight with your spouse, you get historical. Not hysterical. Some of you do that too. That's different.

But you get historical. Soon as something comes up, Like, uh-huh, yep, just like your mama back in 1972, right? And the Bible would be like, no, no, no, no. Love doesn't do that. It goes on and on and on. Love always hopes. Love always endures.

Love never fails. Love primarily is not this thing we feel. Love is not the thing we feel. Love is like how we deal. 1st John 3, 17, and 18, I'll say it this one, this way. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?

Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but indeed in truth. Man, a lot of us have these like ought to feelings. But love puts them to action. Another definition or aspect of biblical love is this, that the source of love is not us. that the source of love is not us. 1 John 4 7 and 8, Beloved, that's us.

If you're in Christ, if you have received the love of God, if you have allowed yourself to be loved by God, that's what Beloved means. Beloved, let us love one another. For love is from God. And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. And anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love.

Now, parentheses in our generation, love is not God, but God is love. And so, I know this is bad English, but it's right theology. If you ain't given it, it could be because you ain't got it. And so anybody that is religiously correct about all things theological and yet does not love, that's not the primary marker of your life, it could be because you don't know God, you know about it. God, but you don't know him. And that's a real shame. To know about God, but not know the love of God, it's like Facebook stalking my wife. I would know a lot of things about her, but I don't want to just

know about her. I want to go on long vacations and make out a lot. That's what I want to do. That's knowing. There's like knowing, and then there's knowing. Like the Bible says, and Adam knew Eve and she bore a child. You understand? That's a depth of knowledge that I'm talking about, praise God. She loves when I talk about this stuff too. You see, so the source of love is not from here. So if you're a believer in Jesus, you're a follower of Jesus and you were to say, well, I'm just not a loving person. Danger will Robinson, because God is love. And if you have received Christ as your savior, then the spirit of God has moved on the inside of you, the spirit of love, the God, the that is love now lives on the inside of you and if some of God on the inside doesn't start

oozing out to the outside then that should be a major red flag you might want to crack open your chest cavity and see if he's actually in there or not not just in your brain because you're good at Bible study stuff but because the spirit of God lives in you beloved let us love one another for the love for love is from God and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love So the source of love is not us. Fourth, love sacrifices. Love sacrifices.

Again, you'll hear people all the time today, man. Christian marriages break up and you hear people say, well, I just don't love them anymore. It's a very worldly view of what love is. When we say, well, I don't love her anymore and I don't love him anymore, what we're essentially saying is, I don't love the way they make me feel anymore. more. So I'm out. So I'm out. And love, love is not primarily about self-satisfaction. Love is primarily about self-sacrifice. See Jesus on the cross. First John 4, 10, and 11. In this is love. You want to know what love is? Here it is. In this is love. Not that we've loved

God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sin. Remember that word? the payment that satisfies, that Jesus laid down his life at the cross, poured out his blood at the cross to be the payment that satisfies the justice and the wrath of God on our behalf. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he has loved us and sent his son

to be the perpetuation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. Now let me ask you, Did Jesus love us because we were so lovable? No. Remember times he was with his disciples and he would say things like, oh, you faithless generation, how long must I endure?

And yet even when we did not stir Jesus' affection towards us because of our own stupidity, Jesus says, Father, not my will, but your will be done. And he goes to the cross. Love sacrifices. And then another definition of love in the Bible, the fifth, this is the last one I'll give you, is that love goes first. Love initiates.

Love goes first. Romans 5-8. Paul told us a month ago or so, two months ago, but God shows his love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. You see, most of the time when we talk about love one another, we talk about it in a reactionary way. if you do for me then I will respond and I will do for you and the Bible would say you call that whatever you want to but that is not love Jesus says before you ever did anything to deserve love God demonstrated his love for us in this while we were yet still sinners Christ died for me

and then and then Jesus says as I have loved you so go and love one another so this is what love is according to the Bible. When the Bible says, oh, no one but love, then this is what it means. It means we owe them that because of what Christ did for us. It means it's not primarily a feeling. It's primarily doing. It means that the source of love is not us. The source of love is God. It means that love sacrifices, and it means that love goes first. That that's what we are to do. Oh, no one anything except love one another. And then it keeps going. For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. Now in verse 9, he's going to go through the law.

He's going to quote some of the commandments. One, two, three, four. He's going to quote four of the commandments. He says, for the commandments, and he starts quoting, you shall not commit adultery. That's the seventh one. You shall not murder. That's the sixth one.

You shall not steal. That's the eighth one. You shall not covet. That's the tenth one. And any other commandment are summed up in this word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. You see, what Jesus is saying here is, or what Paul is saying here is, that when the love of God infects our life, it's no longer about rules and regulations in order for us to keep a right standing with God. It's more that the love of God rules over those rules and regulations, and they can all be summed up this simply.

Love your neighbor as yourself. I mean, it's a really big deal. He's quoting, he's quoting Leviticus 1818. And the reason I think Paul is quoting it is because one time this lawyer comes up to Jesus and asks him this question. He says, Jesus, of all the commandments in the Old Testament, by the way, there's 613 commandments in the Old Testament. And some of them are really big, like, don't murder people.

And some of them are kind of weird, like don't live next to brackish water, all right? I don't know, it's kind of random. But they're there. And so this lawyer, he's trying to trip Jesus. up and he comes to Jesus and he goes okay over the 613 what's what's the greatest of all commandments and Jesus takes two commandments and jams them together one is Deuteronomy six four and five it's called the shema hero is you're the lord our god the lord is one and you shall love the lord of your god with all your heart and soul and mind and strength in other words with all of who you are you love god that's the first and

greatest commandment but then he says don't miss this the second one's kind of like it it's just like it And he quotes Leviticus 818, and you should love your neighbor as yourself. That all of the law, all of the whole Old Testament can be summed up with this simple phrase. Love God, love people. You love God, you love people. There really are no rules that rule over you because love rules over all the rules and regulations. In fact, the first four commandments are all about us loving God. There's one God, no idols.

don't use the Lord's name in vain. Honor God by taking a day off every week, okay, reconnecting with him. The laws number five through ten were all horizontal commandments about how we are to love one another. Don't kill each other. Don't be sleeping somebody in any of yours, that kind of stuff. Don't covet all of those laws. And so Jesus sums them all up in this, love God and love each other. Paul says that if we love one another, we have fulfilled the law,

that all of the laws could be sunned up in this word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Now, he goes on in verse 10 to say this. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. Love is the fulfilling of the law. I mean, think about it. Most of the time, we think that God is really into rules.

I don't know. Look, when I grew up, I didn't grow up in church, but when I would go sometimes, I used to wonder why in the world did we get like an entire Bible? Because it seems like all God had to do is write no on a three by five card. And then whatever I wanted to do, his answer was, no, can't do that. Right? I mean, again, you've heard the rules that I grew up with in the churches I grew up in that good Christians don't drink, smoke, or chew, or go with girls who do. Those were our rules. If it was anything that smelled like fun, God was probably not into it, okay? We couldn't do certain movies because if Jesus came back while we were in the movie, certainly we weren't going.

Those kinds of things. And so we begin to get this idea that God is primarily into rules. But if you look back in the beginning of all creation, God was primarily into relationship. He creates Adam and Eve. And there was only one don't. There was only one don't. He's like, listen, I love you. this whole thing is yours.

Subdu and cultivate. And he says, whatever you do, don't eat from that tree. It'll kill you. And I love you enough to let you know, don't either. There's one don't. Again, there was a lot of dues.

There was. My favorite one, be fruitful and multiply. That's a thing about it. That's a commandment of God. Okay, she's slow on the uptake. That's Hebrew for bown, check a wow-w-w-w-w-w. That's what that is. He made it up.

Not only was he walking in the garden in the cool of the day with Adam and Eve, but they just run around naked. Naked means you don't have clothes. Naked means some stuff's happening, okay? That's how they were creative. Relationships. And so what Paul wants us to understand here is that love rules, that love rules. The love, not like the love of ourself, but the love of God poured out towards us,

and then when God's love towards us overflows towards one another, when we love God and love one another, then that is the fulfilling of the law. And then in verse 11, he shifts gears a little bit. Because 11 through 14, what he's going to say here now is, the love of God in you not only changes the way you and I treat one another, but the love of God in us also changes the way you and I treat ourselves in our relationship with God. Verse 11, he says, besides this, you know the time.

See the shift here? Now it's not just love one another. Now he's going to talk about you and I individually. Besides this, you know the time. that the hour has come for you to wake up from your sleep. And honestly, there's a lot of folks been walking with Jesus for a long time, and if we're not careful, we're kind of sleepwalking. Kind of zombie Christians.

Like we kind of move around, but there's no heart there anymore. We're just into rules and regulations and do's and don't, and you show up to church because that's what you do. You check that box, and you're going through the motions. And Paul is saying here, wake up from your sleep. Why? for salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. Now, here's what this means.

He's talking about salvation, meaning the end of times. The end of times. That your ultimate salvation, I promise you, is exactly one week closer today than it was last week. And when we get out of here in an hour, you will be one hour closer to eternity than you are right now. That's what he's saying. But the way he's using the word salvation here is not like,

like eventually you might get saved because when the Bible talks about salvation, it really talks about salvation as past, present, and future. That the moment you surrender your life to Christ, you have been justified and you have been past tense saved from the penalty of your sin. Why? Because Jesus is the propitiation for your sin. So he has endured the full penalty or wrath of God for our sin. And yet, in the meantime, we are being saved from the power of sin. This is called sanctification. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the fellowship of the church, by the power of his word in our life, that God's got a chisel walking around in the innards of our life, chiseling

away everything that doesn't look like Jesus. And hopefully, hopefully there's some things that used to have power over you, and they just don't have power over you anymore. I hope you're experiencing that. I hope at some level, there are some victories that you have. because the power of God lives in you and you have been saved from the penalty of your sin and you are being saved from the power of sin over your life. And there's also a future tense.

One day that you will be saved from the very presence of sin. No more pain. No more tears. Nobody's homeless. Got so much gold up there to use it as asphalt. You understand? I mean, it's good. And so that's justification and sanctification and glorification.

And all of that in one word is salvation. And he's saying, your complete salvation is closer than it was yesterday. And so then he's going to get into, so how should this affect us personally? Verse 12, he says, the night is far gone. The day is at hand. This is salvation terminology. You and I, apart from Christ, we used to be blind, now we see. We used to stumble around in the dark.

Now we have the light of Christ. The night is far gone. The day is at hand. so let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. You see, the process of being a Jesus follower is not just a one-time decision, I believe, but it's a continuous decision to follow Jesus day after day after day after day. I'm not saying you're not justified the moment you surrender your life to Christ, but the sanctification process, the process of you and I becoming more and more like Jesus,

having the love of God just kind of flush through our entire lives is this constant, constant, constant, casting off and putting on, casting off and putting on. It's what the old Puritans called mortification and vivification. Mortification means to kill. John Calvin said, be killing sin or it'll be killing you. That's mortification. There are some things in our life that we need to cast off. Colossus chapter 3 says that we need to put to death.

This is constant repentance of sin. Now, I think part of the reason Paul is going here is because after 11 chapters of saved by grace that faith alone in Christ justifies us, then he's moving us to now the believer in Jesus is the person that is daily repenting of our sins. I got an email last week or the week before, and there was a disciple group talking. And they were like, hey, so is repentance a requirement of salvation? Like, well, really, if you're saved, you will repent because you will consistently be casting off things, casting off sin that's trying to kill you. Now, again, the mistake most of us make is we try to, like, we try to tame it like a pet.

Like the idiots that, like, ooh, I'm going to raise a gorilla in my house. You see these people? I'm going to raise a lion. man I promise you they are going to be on when animals attack any minute and they're going to stick my head in his mouth right and then they're like what happened he's a lion they eat people's heads off that's just what they do and some of us instead of casting off sin we just kind of lay it over here for a minute until Friday night or we cast it not like you cast the net like you throw it as far as you can we cast it like

a rod and reel like we throw it but we got to reel it back in And what Paul's going to do here is say, these things, he's going to list some things. He goes, these things that you need to cast off, they're going to kill you. They're going to smother your relationship with Jesus. And not only do we cast off, that's mortification, but we also put on. Here he says, put on the armor of light. This means that we consistently do the things that stir our affections for Jesus. Old dead theologians would call this vivification.

It just means bring to life. And no matter what those things are, I can promise you. You trace, you know, mature Christians for the last 2,000 years. There's going to be something to do with God's words, something to do with God's people, and something to do with God's presence. That's what stirs our relationships, our affections for Jesus. That means something to do with God's words. That's like studying the scripture or listening to sermons about the scripture.

Something to do with God's people. That's fellowship with this people and sharing the good news with people. something to do with God's presence, that's worship, that's prayer. Another way you can look at this is if you just go to our app and download the discipleship journey, what that is is our church trying to partner with you to create lanes and environments whereby you can cast off the things that are trying to kill you and you can put yourself in environments to stir your affections for the Lord. You see, one without the other just won't work.

It just won't. It's not enough to cast off. It's not enough to go into your pantry and throw all the junk food out. If you go to public's starving, guess what you do? You make terrible decisions. Have you not noticed this? You're a grown man walking through the cereal aisle. You ain't even looking for you, kids.

You're like, Captain Crunch. You forgot you'll bleed out from the lips that'll kill you. So what do you do? you eat a good meal before you go. And I'm telling you, make better decisions on a full stomach. Same thing here. Not only do you throw away the sin that's trying to throw you into hell, but you also put on Jesus.

Now he's going to list some of the things. You get real practical that need to be cast off. These things will kill your relationship with Jesus. Verse 13, let us walk properly as in the daytime. Not in orgies. Kind of a strong start, Paul. Just going to start with orgies, huh? Just right there, orgies.

That is something. By the way, if you haven't heard of our middle school environment, you should send your kids there. If you're here and you're young and you don't know what an orgy is, ask your mom when you get home. That ought to be fun. It's where he starts, man. It's just in the Bible.

I wouldn't normally, orgy is not a part of my normal vernacular, but I'm just, I'm going to say it as many times as I can because it's right here in the text. If I see anybody nodding off, for just going back to the orgy verse. So quite honestly, in Roman culture, it was kind of common, man. They'd have these bath houses.

People just show up. A lot of times they would link it to like a social status or they'd link it to worship. And people would just, I mean, just be sleeping with everybody all together. It was crazy, right? And you look at that and you think, oh, man, that is, that's something. Who would do that? Now.

And then a part of the problem is they had this false dichotomy between the body and the soul. You find out about it in Corinthians. Corinth and Roman were very, Corinth was a Roman town. So same kind of thing. And what people in First Corinthians were saying is they were saying, hey, listen, no, no, no, no. I've given my heart and soul to Jesus, but it's just my body. I can do whatever I want in my body. And what Paul is saying is, no, no, no, no.

Jesus died for all of you. And when you surrendered your life to Jesus, you surrendered all. and that includes your body. And so what you do with your body matters a ton. You see, all of these things that Paul is going to mention here in this list, it's not an exhaustive list. I think he mentioned six things. He says, love does not tear apart what God put together.

And so now here's the thing, man, you look at that Roman culture, and you think that's crazy. I mean, I don't, you know, I don't know. Maybe you're freaking you into that stuff. But normal people look at that and be like, ooh, I don't know about that. Yeah, we just do it on our phones and lap, and we just call it something else. Same thing. Same thing. And Paul just goes, see, love doesn't do that. See, because when you look at pornography, basically what you're saying is, I'm going to use you,

human being, as a commodity for my own benefit. And that's not love. You cannot love someone and use someone. It's impossible. And so Paul says, if you love, I mean, man, you go on that website and you see that girl, you know that's somebody's daughter. And if you loved her like your daughter, you would never use her that way. So walk in the daylight. Don't do that. Then he goes on to the next one. He goes from orgies to drunkenness.

So he says, let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness. You see, so if using someone as a commodity for your own sexual pleasure, that's just like, hey man, just love me at your expense, then what drunkenness is, it really is when you hate you. Like I hate me so much right now that I have to escape from reality via this vehicle. Because I hate what's happening right now. And Paul's going, listen, listen, man, if you knew how much God loved you, there's no way you could hate you that way. And you couldn't abuse yourself that way because Jesus was abused because he loves you.

So put it down. So let us not walk. in orgies and in drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality. This is the junk drawer of sexual immorality. He's saying this, love will never tear apart a covenant of one man and one woman in marriage. And so he says here, when the Bible says uses the word sexual immorality, the Greek word is pornao. It means any kind of sex that is outside the covenant of marriage. and according to the scriptures, marriage is between one man and one woman for one lifetime.

And what begins to happen is we try to self-justify and, like, no, we're married in our heart. No, you're not. Paul says, God says, that when you look for love there through physical intimacy without a lifelong covenant, you're looking for love in all the wrong places, and you are primarily just serving you. You're either feeding your insecurity because you think, if I don't give him this, he leaves, or you were being impatient and what bats lead off in 1 Corinthians 13 is this. Love is patient. Paul's advice in 1st Corinthians chapter 6 is this, flee sexual immorality.

Flea sexual immorality. He goes on to say this, not in quarreling and jealousy. In other words, don't walk in quarreling or jealousy. So the first category is about ripping you apart. The second category is about ripping marriages apart. And the third category here is about ripping you apart. And the third category here is about ripping communities apart. And what happens when we quarrel, it's about self-promotion.

James chapter 4 verse 1 says, what causes fights and quarrels among you? And if I were to ask you that, if you didn't know what was a Bible question, and I go, hey, hey, tell me about the last three fights you're in. By the way, you know what you have in common with every fight you have been in? You. You ever realize that? It's crazy. Everybody wants to fight with you.

Isn't it? What's wrong with these people? and you would say well say here's the problem my wife my son my daughter my boss that these people won't do whatever james four won what causes fights and quarrels among you and then he answers his own question i think james by the way james was the brother of jesus so he just used it straight he's like i ain't got time for all these stupid stories about feeding sheep and stuff all right this is what happens what causes fights and quarrels among you you want something and you don't get it that's a shocker isn't it yeah yeah but i deserve it okay all right you think you deserve it

something and you don't get it. Whatever it is, love sacrifices. Love doesn't self-promote. And quarreling self-promotes. And then he says, not in quarreling and jealousy. All jealousy is is James 4-1 against God. When you are jealous of someone, what you're doing is looking at God and going, I want that and you didn't give it to me. By the way, the Bible says that coveting, you know what coveting is? Coveting is, CETV. That's what it is. All right? That's what it is. It just is. You didn't even know you needed it until you saw it. You didn't even know what shiplap was, right? And then you saw him, like, I got to have this.

I have got to have this, all right? And what you do when you walk into your friend's house, you know, Chip, you're going to Chip's house. You're like, look at the shiplap. And the jealousy is, God, you got it wrong. You gave him some stuff I should have. That's what you're doing. It's quarreling against God. Now, see, the crazy thing is that you can.

can't cast off without putting on. You can't. You can't. Tim Keller says that idols cannot be toppled. They can only be replaced by something more beautiful. Idols cannot be toppled. They can only be replaced by something more beautiful. So then Paul goes on in verse 14 to say this, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. In other words, every single one of us, man, if you're a Christ follower, we have appetites. We do. We learn this in Romans chapter 7. We have appetites for the Lord.

We have desires for the Lord. And we have desires of the flesh. I can promise you this. The one that you feed will be the one that grows. The one that you feed will be the one that grows. And so our only chance is to topple the idols of our flesh by putting on something more beautiful, which is Christ. Man, I wish I had to, I could preach a sermon on each one of these,

but there are four incredible biblical pictures of what it looks like to put on Christ. In Luke chapter 15, I talk about this one all the time. When the dad runs to the younger son who's coming on and wraps his robe around his boy, this is what it means to put on Christ, because what we find out here is the lavish love of the father is better than the lavish lifestyle that leads to emptiness. Or in Ephesians chapter 6, when Paul says, put on the bar, breastplate of righteousness, what we find out that in a war, armor, the armor of God,

is better than going into war based on your own strength. In John chapter 11, when Jesus calls Lazarus to come out of the grave, the first thing that he tells him is Lazarus, take off your grave clothes. Why? Because living people shouldn't have dead men clothes on anymore. And when we make provision for the flesh, if you're a Christian, it just looks crazy, man, you're a living person walking around with your grave clothes on. And so what he's saying to Lazarus is that life is better than death.

In John chapter 5, Jesus looks at this crippled man and he says, take up your mat and walk. And guess where the brother goes? That brother walks into the fellowship of worshiping in the temple. And if you were to run into him a couple weeks later and a man that could walk was laying down on a crippled man's mat, he'd been laying there for 37 years. Imagine what that thing smelled like. I mean, you're a yoga mat that you corollocks every once in a while. It could use a little freshen up, couldn't it?

This brother been laying in this thing for 37 years. And if a man that can walk is laying back down in this, you'd be going, whoa, bro, what are you doing? People that can walk don't lay down in that filth. You see, walking in fellowship is better than begging in isolation. The only way to cast off that idol is to put on something better, and the love of God is better. here's the point love rules over all rules and regulations starting with God's love towards us and Jesus tells us the greatest commandment is this to love God and to love people and the only reason we can do that is because he first loved us so I'm going to hand it a little bit differently okay

if we were sitting if we were sitting together at my house and you were talking about your walk with Jesus I would ask you some questions normally the way I end sermons is I tell a story and then we just drop the hammer and sing. But no story. I'm just going to ask you some questions. You see, the reality is that love grows or dies depending on the environment in which it is planted. Your love for Jesus will either grow or die depending on the environment in which that is planted. So where in your life are you, quote, making provisions for the flesh?

Are you looking to food for comfort? And it has control over you. but you're making excuses about it. And the longer you keep that thing in the dark, the grosser and grosser and grosser it grows. Are you self-medicating with drugs or alcohol? And when anybody says something to you about it, you claim your freedom in Christ,

but you know it's not about your freedom in Christ. You know it's an escape from reality because you just hate you right now. Or you know you need to break up with him or her. but you fear loneliness more than you fear a broken relationship or money has a grip on your heart but you continuously justify it but you know deep in your soul

you'd rather have trinkets of this world than treasuring Christ above everything else or maybe you're trying to make a name for yourself at work and you're working yourself to death and again you justify it by saying I'm just trying to provide for my family but the reality is, is you're prideful. Because if you ask your family, they would rather just have you home more. Or maybe when it comes to sexual immorality, you're flirting. You're not fleeing.

Whether it's pornography on a screen or if it's a person you work with, you know that you're continuously putting yourself in situations that, like he says, are making a provision for the flesh. When you're getting up and getting dressed for work, you're thinking about them, not the one you're married to. And you could flee. but right now you're flirting. And in your mind you hadn't done anything wrong,

but I'm just telling you, no matter what the struggle is, I'm telling you, every single one of us are on a path that leads somewhere. Notice he said, notice he said, you take off that stuff and you put on the armor of light. Why? Because being a Christian means we are at war.

And if you are in Christ, the enemy can't do anything to steal your soul away from eternity in heaven, but he can steal, kill, and destroy you on this earth. And that is what he's trying to do. And again, you know, you know deep in your soul whether what you're dealing with and your excuses and your excuses and my excuses. You know whether it's self-justification or it's self-control. You know the difference.

And you also know this thing in your life is choking out your walk with Jesus. And so Paul said, wake up. he said wake up so let me ask you what do you need to cast off and what do you need to put on now here's the thing I don't know I don't know what that is for you I just wrote down some stuff I thought about

while I was praying about it in my office but I can guarantee you this the real preacher at 1122 the Holy Spirit he knows and I believe he's telling you right now he's telling you what's entangled you what's holding you back, what's choking out your relationship with Jesus.

And in this moment right now, some of you think it's impossible. It's absolutely impossible. How can I make this change? I can promise you this. If the tomb is empty, anything is possible. And the greatest thing that you will ever do in your sanctifying walk with Jesus is cast off the things that are trying to kill you and put on Jesus. That is not a one-time thing saturated.

That is a daily confession and repentance and running to the cross. and over and over. So let the real preacher preach to your heart right now. What is he telling you to cast off? What is he telling you to put on? What is it going to cost you? I can tell you, whatever it costs you, it is worth it. At all of our locations, we're going to sing an old hymn because of one line in it.

Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Man, thank God for honest hymns, right? because all that line in that song is saying is this is there's some areas in my life that I have begun to make provisions for the flesh because I don't know what's wrong with me but I am prone to wonder Lord I feel it prone to leave the God I love and what we could do in our time together is say here's my heart Lord taking seal it seal it for that courts above we just stand and pray with me our good and gracious heavenly father holy spirit do work would you please just do work

lord i pray that everybody left to fake them at their house and their apartment and i prayed that the that the real man the real woman the real student showed up here to do some real work with a real holy spirit really living in every believer god i pray we would owe no one anything but we would love one another like the bible calls us to and in doing so that would give us a greater of God's love for us in Christ Jesus. And God, I pray that we would cast off the sin that is entangling and cast off the sin that is killing our relationship with you. God, I thank you that we fight from victory, not for victory.

God, I pray for the addict that's never told anybody. God, I pray that tonight they would confess. God, I pray for the marriage that has been busted up by pornography, and somehow your grace would pour out on that thing. God, I pray for the workaholic that thinks that they just get one more promotion, God, that then they'd be fully and finally satisfied. God, I pray that they'd find their identity in you and you alone. God, I pray for the perfect Christian that's been in church their whole life and they struggle with some stuff that they're so ashamed of. God, I pray that they would know that therefore now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Spirit, won't you move? Spirit, won't you set us free? once again let us put on Christ to the glory of God we prayed in Jesus name amen