Pastor Brian and Jacque Lother
Brian: Thank you, bill. That was good. Wasn't that good? That was good. Wasn't it? That was good. Yes. Yes. Well, before I get into the message today, this is kind of a bittersweet day, but our dear friend, Carl and Sarah have bought a house and they moved to the other side of the river or the other side of the tracks. I'm not sure.
Jacque: The other side of the world.
Brian: It feels like the other side of the world. This is the last Sunday that they are going to kind of be able to be with us. Otherwise it's like an hour and a half commute or somewhere around there. But a church that's alive, Carl is worth the drive too, you know, so... I would like Carl and Sarah to just come up on the platform and I want to pray over them. We want to send them out to a new home body that they are going to be a part of down in the southern reaches of the city here. We are going to have him back of course, a few times a year. This is always going to be home for Carl and Sarah. They are kind of in a little bit of a transition time. He is going to be actually closer to the airport. He is doing more traveling and so forth.
Jacque: And Sarah's job.
Brian: And Sarah's job is way down there and the Shanghai's down there. I'm not sure that they have electricity and plumbing down where she is at.
Jacque: Do you know they talk about us? The people down south talk about us this way.
Brian: They say way, right. Yeah. So anyways, Carl and Sarah, please come on up to the platform here and just stand up here. We just want to extend our hands towards them and send them with the blessing of hope. Amen.
Jacque We love and appreciate you and all that you have meant to us in your friendship and you stand by him and will always love you be close .
Brian: Yes, yes, yes, yes. So father, I just thank you for Carl and for Sarah and all that. Carl has deposited into this ministry here and the friendship that we have through the years. We have people that are part of this fellowship that are part of his Born to Blaze ministry and support him. Lord, I just pray for more people to be raised up to help empower them to do the work of Jesus Christ. We thank you for the years that we've had over a decade Lord, that we've been able to work together and co-labor together and to be just together and be friends. We just are so thankful. Even though life and relationships kind of sometimes pass through our fingers, like sand would pass through our fingers. Lord, when people are knitted in your hearts, they are never, ever really gone. And so we just bless them now in Jesus name.
We lay hands on them. We send them with the anointing of hope. We send them Lord, with the gift of love and grace to guide their steps. We just thank you father for the years that we've had. May Lord, what has been sown here, continue to produce fruit and what we've been able to sow into Carl and Sarah, may it also produce fruit, Lord for them. Lord, in their days of discouragement, if they should come, may they reflect upon the love that they have received here and that they would be encouraged to know that that love is not ending. It's not ending with them moving to another part of the city. And so we bless they are going out and we will blessed them when they are able to come back in. We pray Lord that they will find a great home fellowship that is close to their home and that they can become a part of and deposit into that ministry there as well.
So thankful for the videos that Carl is producing and the Love Speaks book and the Love Speaks video series, Lord, that is being really viewed by millions of people around the world, that you are a God who loves and you speak. So we just bless them now, in Jesus name, we pray. Amen.
Jacque: And I want to pray for Sarah. Lord, I thank you for Sarah and all the wisdom and the strength and the love she has brought to this church fellowship, how she has supported the women of this church in so many wonderful ways and how she has brought such a fervor for missions and missions trip to our body, organizing missions trips, having that vision before us. I thank you for the many gifts you have put in Sarah and I thank you that she has so freely has used them at Hope. So we just bless her now, and we've learned from her and we will continue on. We bless her in her job, working for Bethany with missions. We bless her and we are so grateful to have her in our lives, and have had her here, thank you, Jesus. Amen.
Brian: Amen. Amen, Amen. We love you guys. We love you. God bless you. Some people ask why I light a candle or why we have a candle lit every Sunday. This candle just simply is a physical reminder that God's presence is here and he is the light of the world. And so I like to have a candle. We are not a super liturgical church in the traditional sense, but there are some wonderful things that, shall we say more traditional denominations have practiced for many, many decades, many even centuries. One of them is the lighting candles that represent the presence of God, and so I just like to have this here as a reminder, that God's presence is with us.
It's good to have physical reminders, isn't it? God told people in the Old Testament, build an altar here to remember. Do this to remember, right? How many know that if you don't have sometimes things that are jogging your memory, you can forget about things? These kinds of things help us. We have crosses up all over our house.
Jacque: And we light candles at home too.
Brian: And we have candle at home and we have crosses up all over the place. Most of them we got in Mexico when we went to Mexico. They remind me of the sacrifice that Jesus gave for us and how we are to live a sacrificial life for others. So it's good to do these things. It's good to have reminders. I've been sharing the last few weeks on how the kingdom of God actually functions and how the kingdom of God operates by a different set of rules or principles than how the kingdoms of this world function and operate.
Jacque: Do you have the scriptures?
Brian: Yeah, I've got the scriptures here. I've got a lot of scriptures today. I suppose you'd like to have some.
Jacque: I would. Thank you.
Brian: Okay. You know when I read a lot of scripture I get into less trouble.
Jacque: That's good.
Brian: Anyways. Remember what Jesus said, that that were to be in the world, but not of the world. We are to be involved in the world. We are not to be isolated. We are not to be detached. We are not to be just our own little group hiding away in an island, somewhere. We are to be in the world, but we are not to be of the world. What I believe that really means is there are principles of how this world functions, there are principles in how governments function and how businesses function in this world. Those principles are almost always a power-over kind of way of living, whereas the cross and Jesus is entirely different. It's a power-under. It's coming alongside of people. It's coming underneath people to support them.
It's so easy because live in this power over world and virtually everything in our culture functions that way, we try to manipulate people; we try to exert power over them. We try to get certain behaviors out of people by exactly more laws and things like that. That's how earthly governments function. And then we take those same principles because we are so used to operating that way in life, and we start to operate with those same principles in the kingdom of God.
What happens here is there is a huge temptation to trust in this power-over method, because our natural mind leans in this direction. If you were to ask somebody... We've always heard this phrase, "Common sense tells you to do this.” but common sense, oftentimes is a result of the way our natural mind things. The mind of Christ is entirely different than our mind. The scripture tells us to what? To pray that the mind of Christ would be in us. The scripture tells us that our minds can be renewed by the washing of the word. That's why the word of God is so important. We have to realize that the way the world, and when I say the world, I'm not just talking like sinfulness. I'm just saying the world that we live in, the kingdoms of this earth, the way those kingdoms function and operate, they think entirely different than the mind of Christ.
Jacque: When you say power-over, you are really saying control.
Brian: Control, exerting. Yeah, exerting an influence over.
Jacque: And even personally, we... I love that line in Micah’s song, “To fear is only to control.”
Brian: That’s right.
Jacque: So a lot of control comes as a reaction out of it.
Brian: That's right. That's right. And so the power-under idea, it's actually foolishness to the world. It's foolishness to the world. Laying down your life for someone or setting aside your desires for somebody else, be willing to be last. Who in the world wants to be last? We cheer for our teams because we hope they are going to what? Win the Super Bowl; not come in last.
Jacque: Be first.
Brian: I remember an old TV program where these guys came in and they were just cheering and shouting and everything because they had scored their first touchdown of the season. They still lost 78 to 7, but they still, you know... but that's just kind of... Nobody likes to be last and like giving up our rights to be right or being a servant rather than being served. Jesus said it's more blessed to what?
Jacque: Give than to receive.
Brian: Give than to receive. I'm going to pull some old memories out on you, but you and I sang a song at our wedding. It was the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi.
Jacque: Oh, beautiful.
Brian: Just share some of the words of that song. Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Jacque: Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Brian: Now, is that normal? Is that how the world thinks? If somebody does something that is hateful to us in the world, is our natural response is going to be to do something loving and kind back to them? No, it's what? Like eye for an eye; you do this to me, I'm going to do this back to you. Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Jacque: Where there is injury, pardon.
Brian: Yeah. So when you've been injured, what is the inclination that we want to do? Injure back, right? Someone says something that hurts our feelings; we are going to say something back to them that hurts their feelings, but...
Jacque: We need to forgive. Pardon is forgiving.
Brian: Yes. Where there is injury, pardon.
Jacque: Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light.
Brian: Yeah. Bring light to the darkness.
Jacque: Where there is sadness, joy, bring joy. Oh, divine master, grant that I may not always seek to be consoled as to console.
Brian: We are often looking to be comforted when the mind of Christ is more focused on what, comforting rather than to be comforted.
Jacque: Help me not to long to be understood as to understand
Brian: Boy, isn't that a problem in our culture today, especially in the political arena. Help me, Lord to understand what somebody else is saying rather than for me to want to make sure they understand what I'm saying.
Jacque: Like to listen.
Brian: Yes. Yeah.
Jacque: To be loved as to love. Like not always seek to be loved, but look to who I can love.
Brian: Yes. Isn't the world just looking to love and when they don't get it, well, I'm going to throw you aside and go someplace else rather than being more concerned about loving rather than being loved.
Jacque: For it is in giving that we receive.
Brian: Wow. Again, most people don't think I'm going to get something by giving. Most people think if they give something away, they are going to have less. That's what most of us think. But it's actually in giving that we receive.
Jacque: It is in pardoning, that we are pardoned.
Brian: Yeah. It's in forgiving that we are forgiven. It's in pardoning that we are pardoned.
Jacque: It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Brian: Wow. Wouldn't you say that this prayer is actually a complete upside down perspective of how the world thinks, how the kingdoms of this world operate, how businesses in this world operate? That's why I’m saying this power-under approach is foolishness to the world. None of it makes sense to the natural mind. How can it ever make sense that you give 10% of your money in tithing to the kingdom of God and that somehow you are going to have more than if you keep that 10%? There is not a business investor around that will actually tell you that makes monetary sense. And yet there are people, not just Christians, but there are very wealthy entrepreneurs that have understood the principle, that principle, and they live by it. They give a certain portion of what they have away. They just do.
It doesn't make financial sense on a ledger because when you give something away, you have less, but in the overall scheme of things, it works. It works. We are conditioned because so much of this world is a power-over kingdom. We are conditioned in our culture and by the power-over approach. And then we take these power-over principles and approaches and we begin to do the work of the kingdom of God with them. And so we start to think, well, if I can just pass a couple more laws, or if I can just get a legislator to think more like me, and we start trying to change our culture by a power-over system.
Our challenge is that once we've tasted of some measure of success with power over, it's hard to give it up, isn't it? It's hard to give it up. We begin to use these same methods in our churches and in the ministries that we have. When we try to make the nation into a church, the problem is that we end up treating the church as though we are a nation, and we are not the same thing. The kingdom of God is not anything like the kingdoms of this world. It's not. The two are not made from the same cloth, to put it that way. The kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world are not made from the same cloth.
The kingdom of God does talk about transformation that happens and how change happens in a person's life when the king of the kingdom of God comes to set up residence in our hearts. Every king has a throne, doesn't he? Every king has a throne. Jesus is sitting on a throne today, but he has many thrones that he wants to be sitting on as well. Those many thrones are the thrones of our heart, where the seats of our affections are, so that the things that we love, we place him there, of what we love the most.
I would like to read a portion of scripture. We find it again in 2nd Corinthians. I kind of land on this book a lot lately, but we find it in chapter 5, verses 14 through 20; this whole concept about how a person changes. The fact of the matter is we would like to see change in our world, wouldn't we? I want to see change in our world. I would like to see change even in some of your lives. Not that I'm judging your behavior. I'm just saying there are some things that I know you would like to have different in your life.
Jacque: I'm always trying to change things in my life.
Brian: That's right. Yes. That's not coming from a perspective of judgment. There are some changes I would like to see in our community and our state and our city and our world. This portion of scripture ultimately talks about this incredible change that happens in someone's life. So let's read it,
Jacque: All the messages, all the scripture, they are from the message Bible. Our firm decision is to work from this focused center.
Brian: So here is the focus center. We are going to know hear what this focus center is.
Jacque: One man died for everyone.
Brian: Okay, what a great thought. One man died for everybody. So that means we are all in the same category of having been died for. Go on.
Jacque: That puts everyone in the same boat. He included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life.
Brian: So he has life for everyone,
Jacque: A resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own. Because of this decision, we don't evaluate people by what they have or how they look.
Brian: That's so important. One man died for everybody, and so, because he died for everybody, it's important that we don't judge people or look at people by just how they look or how they believe or what they have, all the ways that we kind of identify people or categorize people. What we do when we start categorizing people is we end up judging certain categories, more than others, don't we? What the Lord is trying to get out of our hearts is this propensity that we have to really look at all these other categories of people that we have formulated to create judgments in them. What God is trying to tell us is that, listen, you are all in the same boat. You are all passengers in the same boat. Maybe we can see it this way; we are all slaves and chained in the lower bowels of the boat and we are all rowing. That's who we all are. We are all down there, and Jesus came to set, not just some of us free, but all of us free. Let's go on.
Jacque: We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong.
Brian: Yeah. Now, let me just talk about this for a second. I know it's hard for... I interrupt you.
Jacque: That's okay. No, it's great.
Brian: But the people of Israel were looking for a Messiah that was going to do what? Bring political freedom. Even the disciples right before the ascension said to Jesus, "Now, now when are you going to set up your kingdom here in Israel? So we can get back at the Romans." It's hard not to want to get back at people who have been oppressing you. It's hard not to do that.
Jacque: They wanted to be back on top.
Brian: They wanted to be back on top. Everybody wants to be back on top. That's the natural mind, isn't it? What Paul is saying here is as a Pharisee, that's what he thought the Messiah was going to do or be like, but he got it all wrong, because he was looking for the wrong kind of Messiah. That's what he was saying here. So we looked at the Messiah that we want and we got it all wrong.
Jacque: We certainly don't look at him that way anymore.
Brian: And why was that? Why didn't they look at Jesus that way anymore? Because they had seen how he lived. He gave himself. He died for us. He loved us. He didn't judge us. He was entirely different than the Messiah that they had envisioned.
Jacque: They were leaning. Yes. Now we look inside and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new.
Brian: What good news that is?
Jacque: The old life is gone, a new life virgins. Look at it. All this comes from the God who settled that relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other.
Brian: Yeah. So he is simply saying to us, I've settled my relationship with you guys. So now you settle all your relationships with each other. He said, “I don't hold anything against you. I gave my life for you. I've forgiven you. Now you forgive.” This is how Jesus is. Go on.
Jacque: That's good. You have to just pause and think about that.
Brian: You do, yeah.
Jacque: God put the world square with himself through the Messiah.
Brian: I like that. God put himself square with us. Have you ever said to somebody, everything is square with us? Right, right, right. God is saying, hey guys, everything is square with you. I'm square with you
Jacque: Giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us a task of telling everyone what he is doing.
Brian: Yeah. So what is he doing?
Jacque: He is forgiving us.
Brian: He is giving you and I the task...
Jacque: He is giving us new life.
Brian: That's right. He is giving us the task of taking this incredible message of, he wants to be our friend, that he has forgiven us, and he is asking us to take this message to the world
Jacque: And we don't have to live under the weight of past failures.
Brian: No.
Jacque: No. That's awesome. Thank you.
Brian: So we are Christ's representatives. I like that. We are Christ's representatives and God uses us to persuade men and women to what?
Jacque: Drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them. We are speaking for Christ himself now. Become friends with God. He is already a friend with you.
Brian: Isn't that a great perspective to say to somebody, listen, don't you think it's time to become a friend with God, because he is a friend to you?
Jacque: What a picture.
Brian: What a great picture. What a wonderful picture that is. And so this is talking about how...
Jacque: So many people think, but I've got to change myself for him to like me. I've got to get better. I've got to not do this anymore. I've got to...
Brian: Yeah. And what is that?
Jacque: He takes us like we are.
Brian: That is a power-over perspective. There is this sense of heaviness and oppression and pressure over you to become something better.
Jacque: I have to do. I have to do.
Brian: Yeah, I have to do. I have to do. Yet what Paul is talking about here is this change happens from the inside out, not the outside in. It comes from the inside out. This change is not to come from a power-over tactic, trying to bring about some measure of conformity to a behavior that we've defined as holy and so forth, but rather it's to come from a change heart, a heart that says I'm loved, where the walls will start to come down when someone feels they are loved.
When someone actually knows that they are loved, they will actually be transparent with other people. But when you are not sure that somebody really cares about you, loves you, whatever, what are you going to do? You'll put on a veneer or you'll put on some kind of wall or something so they don't see the real you. Historically, the church has been heavily bent towards shame tactics. They have. I grew up in shame tactics. I remember people in church regularly said shame on you for that. I remember hearing that over and over and over and over. The church has relied heavily on ought and should, or you better do this or you are going to be outside the camp. Right, Mike, right? We've guilted people, which is not our mission or calling. This is what we are to be, this first verse we just read and nowhere in there does it say, our mission, should you choose to accept it. No.
Jacque: Mission impossible. You loved that show.
Brian: I loved that show. Your mission is to make everybody feel guilty.
Jacque: Oh, that sounds sick.
Brian: How many would be excited about going out and doing that? I'm not excited about going out and doing that. But we've extracted behavior out of people, even like threat of excommunication. Like, I'm not going to let you take communion if you don't do something like this. Like I have the authority to tell somebody they can't partake in the blood and body of the Lord.
Jacque: That's what will bring healing and restoration to them. Yeah, focusing…
Brian: Yes. And I just feel like when we give people a place that they feel at home and they feel as though they belong, what is going to happen to their walls? They will start to come down. They will start to come down. All of these things, shame and guilting people, and you've got to do this or you better do that, or what have you, all of this is to extract some kind of social behavior or some kind of external behavior from the outside in.
I'll tell you another one that's has been used for years, and that's the threat of hell. We've dangled people over hell to extract certain kinds of behavior out of them. I'm not at all saying that there isn't a hell. Don't run down that road with me, because the scriptures, I think are very clear about that. But I don't believe hell is the motivation for what we should be talking to people about Jesus, because I just don't believe these external pressures ever get people to change on the inside.
Jacque: Dangling people over hell is all about fear.
Brian: It is.
Jacque: And perfect love, how God loves us is supposed to cast out that fear.
Brian: I was very troubled by this. Once I heard a pastor some time ago, he said this, because there was this debate over if there was really hell or not. His response was, “Well, if there is no hell, I have absolutely no motivation whatsoever to live a holy life.” I thought, wait a minute, aren't we supposed to be living lives separate unto Christ because we love him. Not because I'm afraid of some kind punishment. I think it revealed to me again, how we, historically, at times in the church, we've missed the mark in this area.
Let's face it. If we are all honest with each other, we've all been on the receiving end of shame, haven't we? We've all been on the receiving end of some kind of theological threat during the course of our life, some kind of treatment like this. If you are anything like me, none of us liked it. None of us felt like, oh, this is going to transform my life. I know that there are times where I became more externally conformed to some types of behavior, but Jack, you and I have a multitude of people who were our friends when we were young, that today don't want to have anything to do with the church, don't want to have anything to do with God, because their whole perspective was a power-over exertion on their behavior rather than coming underneath them and coming up power- under and saying, let me walk with you through these things that you are struggling with.
We don't have to look very far to figure out where all of this came from, because that's how the world operates this power-over exertion, this power over practices that we've used almost every day. You may not be aware of this, but did you know that our divorce rate in America is higher than any other nation in the world? That rate, that divorce rate is almost the same in the church for people who attend church as it is for people who don't attend church.
I recently heard a prominent Christian spokesman trying to address this issue and here is his approach. He said, the church isn't coming down hard enough on proclaiming how grievous a sin that divorce is and remarriage. And we need to crack down on divorce and remarriage. We need to be more intense, like a higher decibel level of speaking out against this grievous sin. Personally, seeing that the statistics are virtually neck and neck between the church and those who are not in the church, I just think doing more of the same with a little more anger, isn't going to help anything. I don't think it's going to help.
Here is the mindset that we've had in the church that this sin needs to be conquered. We need to come against it. And so we've exerted this power-over approach. We label the behavior with sin with a capital S and if we say it loud enough, or with enough shame or enough leverage, or we hold a big enough sword in a sense over people, well, then that will get the sheep to get in line and start behaving properly. We do it with tithing and we do it with all sorts of things, don't we? But what really happens when this approach is taken is I think it actually makes the situation worse, because when you have, especially social stigmas that go along with certain behaviors, then these problems go into hiding. That's what they do. They just go into hiding. People will hide and they go underneath the surface.
Jacque: They hurt more. So many times they hurt more.
Brian: And they hurt more. When you are underneath the surface, when you are underneath the surface, who wants to stick your head up, if there is a big sword being swung around? Anybody want to say, hey, I got a problem here? You don't want to stick your head up. You don't want to admit that. Especially if you are going to be faced with, how could you have done that?
Jacque: Lord, help us to be kind.
Brian: Nobody wants to say, I've got a problem going on in me. I'm addicted to alcohol or I can't stay away from looking at pornography and you can fill in the blank, just fill in the blank.
Jacque: I can't forgive someone.
Brian: Yeah. I can't forgive somebody. I'm so angry with them. So instead of having an open forum or dialogue or acceptance on how to deal with these issues, the person struggling with those issues then puts on a veneer, but everything that actually needs addressing goes underground. It goes underground. The real question that really should be asked in these circumstances, when you are dealing with people with addictive behaviors or sexual improprieties, or whatever it might be, marriages falling apart, the question we need to ask is how can we do Calvary towards this? How can we do Calvary towards saving marriages or getting people free off of drugs or alcoholism or again, fill in the blank.
How can we lay down our lives for a newly married couple, for example, so that their marriage will work? How can I lay down my life for someone who is addicted to drugs or alcohol or pornography or sexual deviancy? How can I lay down my life for this person? When we use the power over people, we never changed the inside. We might be able to exert some external behavior for a season, but it never changes the inside. It's only by coming under, by people knowing that they are valued by us no matter what condition they are in.
When we use the power-over, we never changed the inside and when we implement the power-under approach, we actually become a support to people because under implies support. When there is support, there is now an environment that is created where healing can take place, wholeness can take place in a person. I've had people say me, are you saying that all we just have to do is love the drug addict and trust God that God will heal them or the alcoholic or the thief, or again, fill in the blank, and any sin that is the one that angers us the most; are you saying that we just have to love them and trust that God will be able to work in their heart to transform them because we are loving them? I would simply say, why do you think just loving his so insignificant? Why would you think just loving somebody and just trusting God is such an insignificant approach? See, the only reason we would think that that's an insignificant approach is we are so accustomed to power over and controlling.
Jacque: It's like we don't really trust God that he can do it.
Brian: That's right. Are we supposed to just trust God? Are we supposed to just outrageously love people like God does? I guess I would respond to that question by saying, isn't that everything? Isn't that really everything that we are supposed to be doing? No more, just that. Isn't that really the kingdom of God? Isn't that really where transformation takes place in someone's life?
Jacque: Healing from the inside out.
Brian: That's right.
Jacque: That's so good.
Brian: You know what, experience is the best teacher? I've said this on many occasions. a person with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument. In other words, I've experienced the love of Jesus. I've experienced how he has transformed my life. I know what I was like at a certain point in time in my life, and I now know what Jesus has done in my life. So I am never at the mercy of someone who says there is no God, because I've experienced a personal encounter with the living savior. Even though my eyes have never seen him, the eyes of my heart have seen him. The eyes of my soul have experienced his love. In the darkness of my life he has come to me and I am never at the mercy of a man with an argument that says God doesn't exist, because I've experienced that.
That's how we've all been changed. We have never been changed by a coercive power from the exterior pressuring us and shaming us and controlling us and telling us, you ought to do this and you've got to do that, or you are going to be this, or you are going to happen to... These don't change the hearts of people. That is how I was changed. I believe that's how all of you were changed. Those of you are watching by live stream when you've experienced Jesus Christ in that way, that's how you were changed. That's how every person in the world will ever be changed.
Only God can change the inside. He can actually change a sinner into a saint. He can take the thieving out of a thief. He can take the lust out of a pervert. He can take all of these things out of us. He can take the hatred out of a hater. He can. So yes, we are going to trust God to be working in people's lives. And yes, we need to be committed to loving people unconditionally. I know that all sin misses the mark. We are all in that lower regions of the boat, rowing, right? That's where we are all at all. Sin misses the mark. But if you want me to make a list of sins, we can, but here is where I would start making a list of sins. I would actually start with Proverbs 6 verses 16 to 19. I want to read this real quickly, because a lot of us make a lot of lists of sins, but this is the list that jumps out to me always when people want to talk about sin.
Jacque: Proverbs 6, 16 to 19, here are the six things God hates. And one more that he loathes with a passion: eyes that are arrogant.
Brian: Wow. Was that in any of your lists of the top seven?
Jacque: That's kind of says pride.
Brian: Yeah.
Jacque: Okay. A tongue that lies; hands that murder the innocent, a heart that hatches, evil plots, feet that race down a wicked track, a mouth that lies under oath, a troublemaker in the family.
Brian: You know, what's absent here, all the sins that the world is calling an abomination. That's what's missing in this list. I'm not excusing any of those things. I'm just saying we like to make lists of sins and make a kind of, this one is less acceptable than this one. Let me tell you something.
Jacque: Can I say something?
Brian: Yes. You can
Jacque: You used the word pervert a little while ago and that kind of didn't sit right with me. That's like a really... a name. You know what I'm saying?
Brian: Yeah.
Jacque: It's like a name... like that's a sin, a person who is caught in sin.
Brian: A sexual deviant.
Jacque: So maybe we shouldn't...
Brian: Well, I don't mean to be offensive to anybody.
Jacque: Yeah, yeah, okay.
Brian: I'm just saying we are all...
Jacque: We all are, yeah.
Brian: Are in the boat rowing.
Jacque: That seems like a harsh name.
Brian: Well, I didn't mean to be harsh.
Jacque: I know. I'm sorry.
Brian: That's all right. I don't mean to be harsh. Hey, I'm 69 years old and there are there words that I use a lot during the course of my life that I'm trying to unlearn, I guess and sometimes they just come.
Jacque: I'm sorry.
Brian: No, you don't need to apologize at all. But the fact of the matter is a lot of things that you and I define as perversion actually, God, doesn't call those things perversion. Now, I think it's really dangerous to start making a category of sins actually, because when you get down to it, they all missed the mark, don't they? They all missed the mark, but you know what else? Self-righteousness misses the mark.
Jacque: That's so good, Brian.
Brian: Doesn't it? And greed misses the mark, doesn't it? And idolatry misses the mark and even not loving your enemies, misses the mark and being apathetic to the poor misses the mark. What we want to do... What I'm trying to do is help us understand that we all miss the mark. So we've all missed the mark. And that's the point. I want you to read one more verse. We find it in 1st Timothy, but don't read it quite yet because I want to set the stage here. I don't think there is any of us here, and most of us watching by live stream that have been followers of Jesus for any length of time would have loved to spend a few years with the apostle Paul. I mean, wouldn't you? Walk with him and be a part of his life and be taught by him and so forth.
At the very end of his life, I want you to see how he thought of himself. We see this in 1st Timothy 1 verse 15. Now, remember he has known come out of his Phariseeism. He has been on all of his missionary journeys, all of the work that he is done. He has had this experience of being in the third heaven and whatever, and all these things. He had visions of Jesus. Jesus personally spoke to him when he got knocked off the horse, and this is how he describes himself at the end of his life.
Jacque: Here is a word you can take to heart and depend on. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. I'm proof, public sinner number one.
Brian: Public sinner number one.
Jacque: Of someone who could never have made it a part from sheer mercy.
Brian: I could never have made it apart from his sheer mercy. Paul's view of himself the closer he got to God was that he was a greater sinner than anybody else.
I think we could learn something from that, couldn't we? When we start to think that that person sin is like worse than my sin, or I'm not as bad as sinner as that. I mean, didn't Jesus even talk about that in a parable with the poor man and the Pharisee at the praying at the wall and the Pharisee said, "I thank you, God that I'm not like this sinner here." And the poor man saying, "Father, I'm just so thankful that you have been merciful to me." I think the closer we get to God, the more we realize that our sins are so much more grievous than somebody else's.
Jacque: It is so easy to ignore our own failures.
Brian: It is. So we need to place our trust in power-under, the Calvary kind of love that will actually eventually win and change the world. That's the only kind of power that we can really trust in. That's the only kind of power that God ever uses to change a person's life. A person's life has never changed by an external exertion of force. Here is the other thing; and we will finish with this. Power-under cost us more than power-over will ever cost us. Power-under costs us a lot more, because if you live in power-over, all you've got to do is say, here is what you should do. Here is what you've got to do or here is what you better do. That's how power-over works, but power-under works this way. What can I do for you? What can I do to help you get free of this bondage that you might be in? What can I do to help bring you joy? What can I do to help bring you some peace in your life? What can I do to help you come to know Jesus in a deeper way?
When we say, what can I do? This is where it actually costs us something, doesn't it? Because it doesn't cost anything to say words to somebody. I remember years ago before Gordon and Nancy started the Robbinsdale Women's center, Joanne. Gordon, and I had a conversation and I said to him one day, "We just can't point our fingers in the faces of women who are abortion-minded and say, you better not kill your baby", unless we give them an alternative.
Jacque: And we are there to help.
Brian: And we are there to help. We have to come under these people who are in desperate places, and Robbinsdale Women's Center was formed basically out of that conversation. We did something to give a power-under support to women who were abortion-minded. God is wanting to come underneath us. That's what he has done. He has never come down on us like this, but he has come underneath us. I want to finish by reading a portion of scripture from Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 3 verses... I'm sorry. Ephesians chapter 1 verses 3 through 10, and we will be finished with this.
Jacque: How blessed is God, and what a blessing he is. He is the father of our master Jesus Christ and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love.
Brian: Just ponder on that for a second. Long before he laid down earth's foundations; long before he made the earth, long before he made the universe, long before he spoke and all the worlds came into order. Long before he ever did that, he had us in his mind. He had you in his mind. He had settled on us as the focus of his love. We were going to be the focus of his love.
Jacque: He had settled on us as the focus of his love to be made whole and Holy by his love
Brian: To me made whole and Holy how?
Jacque: By his love.
Brian: By how he loved us, how he was going to love us; not by what kind of pressure he was going to exert over us, not by what kind of threats he was going to hold over us, not by what kind of punishments he was going to dangle in front of us, but by his love. That's how he was going to make us whole and holy.
Jacque: Long, long ago, he decided to adopt us into his family, through Jesus Christ. What a pleasure he took in planning this.
Brian: Just think about that for a second. Long, long ago, he decided to adopt us. Maybe we could think of ourselves as orphans in a sense, lost and what have you, without purpose. But long, long before he decided to adopt us into his family through the person of Jesus Christ,
Jacque: He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved son.
Brian: He wanted us to experience one thing, and that was his lavish gift giving. I mean, isn't that a lot better message to bring to people than try to make them feel guilty?
Jacque: Lavish love.
Brian: Lavish love, lavish gift giving. Let's go on.
Jacque: Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the cross, we are a free people.
Brian: Yes, we are free because of his sacrifice, of his death at Calvary
Jacque: Free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds, and not just barely free either, abundantly free. He thought of everyone, provided for everything we could possibly need letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making.
Brian: Now just stop here for a second. I love Christmas time and I love to just think what is... When you find kind of a perfect gift for somebody, and you are so excited to get it and you wrap it and so forth. You are so excited about what you are giving to this person you love and you care about. That's how God was and is. He thought of everyone; this lavish gift giving that he wanted to give to all of us abundantly free, abundantly; not just barely free, but abundantly free. He just poured himself into excitedly, these things.
Jacque: That's beautiful. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him; everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.
Brian: He let us in on all of the plans that he took such delight in making. He is including you and I in all of these plans. He sets it all out before us in Christ. It was a long range plan, a plan that was going to be implemented over a long period of time. That's why Paul says, in the fullness of time, God sent forth his son at the right time. In the fullness of time at the right time, this long range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in the deepest heaven and everything on earth. Not from exerting his incredible power over us, because God is more powerful than the atomic energy that he has created. He is more powerful than anything we can imagine in terms of he can just speak and all of the universe come into order. Yet, that is not how he is trying to change our hearts. Our hearts are changed by the lavish gift-giving mercy of our creator, our father in heaven. When the heart is changed, that's when the behavior starts to line up and fall into place.
So father, today I pray that you would help us to do your work your way. It's so easy to let our natural mind, our common sense takeover and try and do your work. We will come up with all sorts of ministry strategies and we will come up with all sorts of ways to try and get people to behave better and yet Lord, only you have the power to transform a heart. Oftentimes, we are that first contact that is made with somebody who desperately needs their heart to be changed, but when they see us shaming them or threatening them or judging them, their walls are just going to go way up. If they are a little bit timid, they will probably go into hiding, but they will never be transparent and they will never be open, but Jesus, your ways are higher than our ways. Your thoughts are entirely different than our fallen human mind thoughts.
Your kingdom is a kingdom of great power, but it's not the kind of explosive power that actually we often associate with dynamite, even though that word power is the word we get the word dynamite from. But your power is the power to transform a heart. The hardest thing in the world to change with force, but your power can change the heart of man. So I pray today, I pray today, Jesus, that your love will break through, through our lives; that we will be the carriers of your mercy, the carriers of your grace and that the hearts of men and these people that you love so desperately would know that they are valued, and that, you know, we are just all in this boat here. This, we pray Jesus in your name and for your sake, and everybody said…
Jacque: Amen
Brian: Amen, amen. I want to invite you to tune in tonight. I think we are going to have some real good discussion with Nilo and just on taking this message another step further in not creating these categories of us versus them and how we can truly bring the love of Jesus to people who are different than us. Let's lift our hands together, shall me? May the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turned his face towards you and give you his peace. May you learn the great strategy of coming under, not coming over. This, we pray, in the name of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you. Have a wonderful day.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 8-9-20. If you would like to watch the full service, click one of the links below.