Pastor Brian and Jacque Lother
Jacque: Beautiful. Thank you. Thanks guys so much. Oh, that song can just be our theme for this week. Oh, just to be with you. As much as I talk to the Lord all through the day and we are with the Lord, I want to be with him more. Don't you? I just want to sit with him. I was listening to a podcast this morning about silence. That's not an easy thing for me. I like to talk. I process life through talking, but I just said, God, I'm going to have another assignment. I wrote down your assignment, Pastor Robert, another assignment for me this week, because it's good to go away from church with an action item, something that you are going to do on purpose, something that you took away from the service you are going to do on purpose to enrich our lives or the lives of others is. Another one of my action items if I'm just going to take more time to just sit and be, be with him quietly. He speaks in the quiet, doesn't he?
We just have a couple thoughts just to remind you of and all the details are online. Rachael does such an awesome job of keeping all the details together for us. Thank you, Rachael. We are just going to draw your attention to a couple things like today. Everybody gets to just have lunch here together. So that's going to be fun and we are going to know Daniel better and his mom and dad, Scott and Michelle. Remember to meet them today if you haven't met them. It's going to be a good time for the family, family lunch. Family lunch is good. And then of course Easter is coming so quickly. We have got to work on our Easter songs. You know that.
Brian: We do.
Jacque: We do. One of the last calls, if you want to buy an Easter Lilly in honor of somebody that you love, talk to Rachel today after the service. Game day is Saturday, April 9th. If you have a special game that you want to introduce to our fun party group, that day, talk to Rachel. She'll get you set up on that too. And then one thing that we can do as a body is remember little Nadine Kick. We've been praying for her the last several months. She is expecting a baby any day now, like the next week or so. A few months into her pregnancy, they found that she had thyroid cancer. She went to Mayo clinic and they removed the cancer, the tumor and a few months later they found more. So we've just been praying for her along this journey. It's almost done. Her baby is almost here. We were talking this week and she's now on medication because of the cancer and it's making her very sick. I said, what can we do for you? She said, just pray for me. So can we pray for her? That's another action item for this week: pray for Nadine. The last few days and weeks of your pregnancy are the most difficult. And then being sick on top of it. Oh Lord, we just bless Nadine. We just draw our hearts together right now and just bless Nadine. We know God that you are at work in her body and that you are with her. Just help her just to feel you so close to her. Thank you, God. Thank you.
And then another practical thing we can do is we want to provide some meals for their family, starting next week, even before the baby comes and after the baby comes. So if you can be a part of that, please talk to Lana. Will you stand up Lana? Raise your hand. There she is. She says I am standing up. I'm sorry. It's not necessary. These things just fly into my head. Forgive me.
Brian: Not everything that comes into our head should be spoken.
Jacque: I know it.
Brian: That's said of me about every week in my sermon too.
Jacque: Do you think it happens more as you get older?
Brian: I have no idea.
Jacque: We shouldn't talk about that. 'Olay then. Let's just move on. Pastor Robert and TaQuaris will be serving communion after service today. And then we've started having prayer leaders, just people up at the front waiting to pray with you. So if you would like some individual prayer, we will have a few prayer leaders up today. I think that's it. Dismiss the kids.
Brian: Kids, you can go to your classes. Thank you, Cindy and Katie, and all the work that you guys do. Jackson is such a good help. Thank you, Jackson. God bless you, buddy. Hallelujah. I remember Kareem Abul Jabbar when he was in sixth grade, his teacher told him to sit down and he said, "I am." He was like 6”7 when he was in sixth grade. So he ended up being one of the best NBA players of all time. I always thought there was a funny story that the teacher says, "Would you please sit down? "And he said, "Ma'am, I am sitting down." That's how tall he was.
A couple things before we get into the sermon today. First of all, I'm so grateful. I think I'm a better person because of pastor Robert and TaQuaris and Pastor Jeff and Cheryl. I'm a better person. So thank you. That's the effect that we all should have on each other. That we should be better people from it. One of things that we've been wanting to do, uh, as a kind of a mission of ours is to make a difference in our community, our churches in Corcoran, here in Minnesota. We want to make a difference in our community. It's not that other communities don't matter, but this is where we are located. And so we want to have an impact in our community and we are doing that.
It's interesting how our online community keeps growing. We have another person, a new friend who's now been watching us for a few weeks from Corcoran. But this Corcoran is actually in California, not Minnesota. How many knew that there was a Corcoran in California? Anybody know that? If you go to look up— I discovered this by wanting to go to watch a city council meeting online and I went to Corcoran city council, and it pops up Corcoran, California. Well, out of the blue, we got a phone call from a new friend, Marty.
Jacque: I bet you Marty's with us today
Brian: We welcome you from Corcoran, California. She was looking for a church. She fell in love with Hope Community Online and wondered where we were in Corcoran. Unfortunately, there was a Minnesota after Corcoran instead of California. But we are so glad you are part of our online community and part of our family here. And so we are grateful for Mike and Jeff and, and Don and all the people that work with our livestream and the help that they are.
Jacque: I have to tell you something that Marty wrote to me while we were talking this week on the phone. She said, "Last week when we were worshiping, I experienced God for the first time," even with tears. She knows God and loves God, but even through the airwaves, God's presence can touch us in such a beautiful way. He's always with us. That was a real blessing to hear.
We just invite Lord more and more people to come. We want to go beyond the borders of our Corcoran, of course. We just ask God that you anoint everything that we do. May it fall on for little ground and open ears in Jesus' name, hallelujah.
Jacque: May you bring just the right person across our path this week to invite, to come with us to Hope.
Brian: Someone who is hungry. I'd like to talk to you today about this topic and, and really, it's a question that I want to ask all of you, and that is, this: is the cart before the horse in your life? Is the cart before the horse in your life? We don't have any record of Jesus using any form of the word religion, yet the word religion is used a lot in our culture today, around the world. And yet we have no record of Jesus ever using any form of the word religion. He uses a different word to denote an intimate, heartfelt connection with God. That word that Jesus used to denote a connection with God is the word faith. Faith is a relational word. Inherent in the word faith is this concept of trust. When you have faith in somebody, you have trust in somebody.
The earliest followers of Jesus regularly describe themselves, not as religious, but they describe themselves as spiritual people. That's how they describe themselves. As an example, when Jesus refers to the church, he's always referring to his followers. He's not referring to a building. He's not referring to an organization or what we might define as a denomination. He is not referring even to the building that the early church people, followers of Jesus met in or any organization to which they ultimately would belong. Jesus viewed things such as prayer and baptism and the study of the scriptures, gathering together, charitable giving, many of the things that we do on a regular basis, he looked at those things as expressions of a spiritual life. That's what he viewed them as, expressions of a spiritual life, the spiritual life that God gave to us. But he did not view prayer, or he did not view assembling together or church contributions or all the other things that we do as followers of Jesus. He did not view those things as a means or a way to obtain the life that Christ has offered to us.
Those aren't the ways that we obtain the life of Christ. It's not the means that God has made available to us to obtain that light. The good news message of Jesus includes this wonderful, beautiful truth that God gives us this spiritual life as a gift. It's a gift, which the Bible writers, the biblical writers summarized by using the word grace. They use the word grace to summarize or describe this gift that God makes available to us.
Oftentimes when I say things like this, people say, does our behavior not matter to God? It matters a lot, but it actually probably matters more to each of us than it does to God. Fact of the matter is my wife actually does care how I treat her and I care how you treat her. We are not saying that our behavior doesn't matter. My behavior matters to you. My behavior and my integrity matters to you. You wouldn't be coming here if you knew that I wasn't a person of integrity. If you knew there were all sorts of things in life that were contrary to moral values, you would have a hard time coming here and sitting under my leadership and my teaching.
Of course, the Lord wants us to live morally good lives. But the goodness that we live out in this world is an act and or should be an act of gratitude for the spiritual life that God has given to us, not a religious attempt to earn that life to become good enough. There is a big difference. The life that I live, the way that I try to live sacrificially and being generous and giving to other people and putting others first in my life, I don't do that to obtain eternal life. I do that because I appreciate the eternal life that God has given to me. I appreciate the gift of eternal life that Christ has given to me.
The earliest followers of Christ taught that living a good and loving life should be the joyful expression of a person who has received eternal life. I've received eternal life, and therefore he's given me joy and because of that joy, I want to live a life that expresses that life of love and grace. But nowhere should we ever feel that doing these good things is how we obtain eternal life. We read in the book of Romans, a very short verse, Paul is writing of course to the church that's in Rome. Obviously there is oppressive rulership, especially to Christians in Rome and, obviously, false gods. He writes this in chapter 6, verse 23. This is wonderful scripture that's very revealing.
Jacque: For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus, our Lord
Brian: There is a lot packed into this very short verse. First of all, the word wages like points to an analogy of, of a salary. When you go to work and at the end of the week or the end of two weeks, or however your pay apparatus goes, you get a paycheck. You get wages for your labors. Wages are always connected to the work that we do. This analogy is that we have all received a wage for our sin; there is a wage connected to our sin. If sin was a job that we worked hard at— and a lot of us have been there and done that. Right, Mike? If sin was a wage, a job rather, that we worked hard at, once payday came and we collected our wages or compensation, the check would read death. That's what the paycheck would read: death. The fact of the matter is all of us would have earned every penny of it, because we've all sinned, fallen short. So we've all collected the at check with the word death on it. We've all done that. But notice the rest of the verse. I want us to notice what it says and what it actually doesn't say/ Let's read it again, Jacque.
Jacque: For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Brian: If the apostle Paul was simply introducing, shall we say, another religion and by the way, we need another religion like we need another war or another pandemic. We don't need more religion in the world. If Paul was actually introducing another religion here, this verse might read something like this: for the wages of sin is death, but the wages of working for God is eternal life. If he was trying to introduce another religion, that's probably how he would've written that verse: For the wages of sin is death, but the wages for working for God is eternal life. But this really isn't about changing employers. It isn't. It's not about changing employers for better pay. We see people trying to do that a lot nowadays. They just quit their jobs. I'm not going to work for this. You need to pay me more money, whatever. But this isn't changing employers for a different pay.
It's about a spiritual journey where we actually stop working and we actually accept or receive a gift from God. That's what this is. By the way, the gift wasn't earned; it's free. It's free. It wasn't given to you because you qualified for it. It was offered to every single one of us because of the generosity of our father in heaven. The wages of sin is death, but the gift, not earned, of God is eternal life. We should not carry the burden of trying to live exceptionally good lives in order to be qualified for salvation. Let me say that again.
In an organization that oftentimes focuses on behavior, this is hard for us to actually accept at times. You want to know why judgment is so much higher in the church than it is in the world because our focus is on behavior. When someone's behavior doesn't measure up to what we think it should be, our response is judgment. And yet God says he's given you and I a free gift. Our behavior matters, but it doesn't matter whether the gift is being offered to us or not. My behavior matters to you, doesn't it Jacque?
Jacque: Yes, it does.
Brian: My behavior matters to all of you. Would you nod your heads and say yes? If you shook your head this way, I'm just going to say, I think you are lying. Let's not make this about behavior doesn't matter. Behavior is the cart. God is the horse. So often we put the cart in front of the horse to get to God.
Followers of Christ are certainly encouraged to live loving lives, loving each other, caring lives out of gratitude for what we have received, not as a qualifier to get that gift in our lives, not out of fear of losing our spot in heaven. I love to hold my wife's hand. I like to embrace her. I'll be so bold as to say I love how she kisses me and I love to kiss my wife, but I don't do it because I'm afraid she's gonna divorce me if I don't. I do it as an expression of what is in my heart for her. I love to do things for her. I want to do things for her. I want to go to the store with her so she doesn't have to do it by herself. Now all you wives. Don't look at your husbands and say, why don't you do that? I'm just talking about my relationship with my wife and the things that I know bless her. I want to be a blessing to her. You know why? Because I love her and I'm so thankful for the gift that she is to me. I don't do those things because I'm walking around in mortal fear that I'm going to come home and the house is going to be locked with the keys changed. Paul was writing the church at Ephesus and he said it actually this way in Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 through 10.
Jacque: God saved you by his grace when you believed and you can't take credit for this.
Brian: Wow, that should be pretty clear. Shouldn't it? He saved us by his grace and there is not one thing that we can take credit for in this salvation.
Jacque: It is a gift from God.
Brian: Yes, it's a gift.
Jacque: Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done. So none of us can boast about it, for we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
Brian: God has plans for us to do good things. Our behavior matters especially to each other, it matters. But it doesn't come to acquire this gift. It comes because we have already received it and we are thankful for it. So notice that the gift of spiritual life comes first. The gift comes first. God saved you by his grace. The only thing we do is we receive it or we believe it. We believe and then in the believing we receive. Notice that the gift of spiritual life comes first, then the good works come as a result of that.
This kind of good behavior is not like the prisoner of war attempting to impress the warden in order to somehow be released from prison camp. Oftentimes, that is our perspective. If I simply do this, do that, say this, say this, what have you, if I pray enough, if I read my Bible enough, or if I go to church enough, or if I give an offering, especially if I give an offering, then I'm expecting God to somehow do something for me. We are hoping to impress the warden of the prison camp sufficiently enough that maybe he'll let us out on an early release.
It's the joyful and grateful expression of a prisoner of war set free that results in good behavior. I don't know if you remember the series, Band of Brothers, that came out a few years ago. There was one very moving episode in that particular series of movies. It was about World War II. And this particular series was called "Why we Fight". It was shortly after the beginning of 1945 and the allied troops were making more inroad and they had now gotten into Poland and they had now gotten into parts of Germany as they were moving towards Berlin. They came through this forest and into this clearing and here it was a site that they were aghast at what they saw. It was a death camp. It was where the Nazis had housed or put into prison mostly Jews. They had forced them into some kind of slave labor and when they were sick and dying and some of them were put into gas chambers and burned, the allies came across this horrific site. They opened the doors, and one very moving scene shows this emaciated prisoner who had really virtually been in slavery and he came up and he took this soldier's face in his hands and kissed cheek.
I asked myself today, can I kiss the cheek of Jesus? Because he has set me free. It's not the things that I've done. He has given me a gift of eternal life. I was in that prison. I was not able to get myself out. I was in a place that I was not able to free myself from and he came and he opened that prison door and he invited me to come and walk with him. We do not have to work for salvation. God gives us salvation. He gives us life and he gives us love and he gives us everything we need up front, not after. He makes it all available to us upfront, including having a purpose for why we want to even live in this world today. I would just ask you all this question and you who are watching my livestream. Have you discovered that purpose for why you are alive today? If you haven't, God is here to give you that purpose and reveal it to you, the true meaning of life.
Religious people often miss this message. It's because they have turned to rituals. They've turned to regulations. They've turned to odds. They've turned to all sorts of activities, prescribed to them as the way to achieve what God has already offered them as a gift. Believe it or not, this is why Jesus and the religious leaders had such confrontations with each other. Jesus came to set prisoners free, so he would heal a blind man on the Sabbath. He would heal someone who had been paralyzed for 38 years on the Sabbath Because it wasn't about trying to climb a ladder or a stairway to heaven because Jesus already knew that the ladder had already descended from heaven. But in doing all of these things, they forget that salvation is a free gift and they miss the life that God has for them and they fail to satisfy the spiritual thirst that they have.
There are many different forms of slavery in our world. In my opinion, the most heinous kind of slavery was the kind that we allowed to take place in our country in our past. I personally think that's the most heinous kind of slavery, but there are many kinds of slavery in the world. There is slavery to other people, which is what we suffered under. Our civil war was a result, I think of that, but there is also slavery to drugs. There is slavery to power. There is slavery to fear. People are in bondage to fear. There is slavery to sex, There is slavery to money. The common denominator of slavery is this: Anytime there is slavery, there is an of freedom. That's a common denominator. There is an absence of freedom. Salvation can never be achieved. Any time we try to achieve it, we lose our freedom. We become slaves. It can never be achieved. It can only be received. Any stairway to heaven that we must climb in order to achieve God's approval and achieve God's love is pure spiritual slavery, its spiritual slavery. Jesus came to set the prisoners free.
Paul is now writing in the church in Galatia and these gala Galatians had now started to fall into a problem. He recounts a story that took place in this community or town called Antioch, which is where they first called the followers of Jesus Christians. The story goes something like this, that Paul and Peter were there and there were a bunch of Gentiles that had come to know the Lord. They were so excited and they were so free in their walk with God. And then some, what's called, Judaizers came to Antioch from Jerusalem And Peter starts to connect with them and they start saying, well, you have to do this and you have to do that and you need to get circumcised if you are going to be a follower of Jesus, and you have to start doing these things. What they did was they were starting to bring all the Old Testament laws Forward into their relationship with Christianity or with Christ. Peter gets persuaded by them and Paul and Peter butt heads.
The book of Galatians is actually written, basically telling that story. He starts in the first chapter and says, you started so well; what happened? What happened? Some of us have started really well. Some of you watching has started really well. You remember the joy it was to serve the Lord. But now the Joy's gone and it's a bunch of rules and regulations. The intimacy with Christ is no longer there. And you put the cart before the horse. But Paul has something that will free us all today. If we will buy into it, it's in Galatians chapter 5 verses 1 through six and then verse 13 and 14.
Jacque: So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free and don't get tied up again in slavery to the law.
Brian: We just need to ponder that a lot. Christ has truly set us free, But now make sure you stay free. How do we lose that freedom? By thinking that walking with Jesus is about all the things I have to do When it becomes that you've lost your joy and you've lost your freedom. And now you are under a yolk of slavery because it's no longer coming out of a heart of gratitude, but rather it's coming out of an exertion over you. That is not what it means to be in a relationship with Jesus.
Jacque: I think that this is all so deeply embedded in our thinking that a lot of us listen to this and don't even realize that we have that yoke on us.
Brian: You are so right. It's because we want to exert behavior out of people and the way to do it is you morally manipulate them. We do it through judgements. What would this person think? What would dad think? What would the pastor think if they knew I did this and we have lost our freedom that Jesus has given to us as a gift.
It's also like I see a hamster running on a wheel and there is no end to it. It even goes into like, I know I'm going to heaven. I mean, I get that. But sometimes there are so many things: you should do this, you should do this. We were in discipleship school; you need to read 10 chapters in the Bible every day. So many ways of being the best Christian you can be. Sometimes I hear this voice telling me how disappointed God is in me because I haven't kept up to all of these modern day laws.
Brian: And like you said, it is so deeply ingrained in us. I tell you the beginning of freedom for me, believe it or not, I owe to your dad because I worked for him for two years, pouring concrete. There was a part of me that would look at other people who weren't reading 10 or 20 chapters in their Bible a day. They weren't praying two/three hours a day. They weren't at church every time the doors were open. I began to judge them for not doing all of that stuff. And then I needed employment and Ted said, "Well, why don't you come and work for me?" The best thing and the worst thing I did in my entire life. But I was up at five o'clock in the morning, leaving the house, working all day. Micah knows about all this kind of stuff. You work for Ted, I think a little bit, right? Carrying forms, pouring concrete, getting home at 6:00 or 6:30, concrete in my hair, exhausted, tired.
After I took a shower and cleaned up, I barely had enough strength to eat supper and play with my, at that time, two year old or one year old son for a half an hour and fall into bed only to do it all again the next day. Pretty soon I began to question where my heart was with God, because I wasn't able to read 20 chapters a day. I wasn't able to pray two/three hours a night. I certainly had no desire to go to church every night of the week. The model of what it meant to be truly a committed Christian was a skewed model for me. God put me in the concrete business and the best training I ever, ever had for the tree was working for my father-in-law. It didn't come from a Bible school or seminary. The best training I ever had for the ministry was having to pour concrete because it taught me how hard people have to work for a living.
Just because I can sit now in my office and plan all of the events for the church, for all of you to attend and participate in doesn't mean you have the time, the energy or the resources to be able to do it. And then on top of it, we start saying, well, if you really love God, you would do this stuff. Now, our walk with God becomes all the things we have to do. And that's how we retain our salvation. And that's how we don't lose our spot in heaven.
Jacque: And that's how we earn God's love.
Brian: And that's how we earn God's love and his favor.
Jacque: It's a lie.
Brian: It is a lie and it's right here. Make sure that you stay free and don't get tied up again in that slavery to the law, all these odds. Let's finish it.
Jacque: Listen, I, Paul tell you this, if you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God—
Brian: And by the way, we can insert any 21st century religious law in there other than circumcision. We can just insert whatever law you want to insert in there that the church, through history or whatever, or we've been made to feel, that needs to be there. We can just insert that there. I tell you that if you are counting on that to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you.
Jacque: Of no benefit to you. We did it ourselves.
Brian: I want Jesus to be all the benefit I can get from him. Don't you?
Jacque: I'll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God, by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses. It's also like I see a hamster running on a wheel and there is no end to it. It even goes into like, I know I'm going to heaven. I mean, I get that. But sometimes there are so many things: you should do this, you should do this. We were in discipleship school; you need to read 10 chapters in the Bible every day. So many ways of being the best Christian you can be. Sometimes I hear this voice telling me how disappointed God is in me because I haven't kept up to all of these modern day laws.
Brian And like you said, it is so deeply ingrained in us. I tell you the beginning of freedom for me, believe it or not, I owe to your dad, because I worked for him for two years, pouring concrete. There was a part of me that would look at other people who weren't reading 10 or 20 chapters in their Bible a day. They weren't praying two/three hours a day. They weren't at church every time the doors were open. I began to judge them for not doing all of that stuff. And then I needed employment and Ted said, "Well, why don't you come and work for me?" The best thing and the worst thing I did in my entire life. But I was up at five o'clock in the morning, leaving the house, working all day. Micah knows about all this kind of stuff. You work for Ted, I think a little bit, right? Carrying forms, pouring concrete, getting home at 6:00 or 6:30, concrete in my hair, exhausted, tired.
After I took a shower and cleaned up, I barely had enough strength to eat supper and play with my, at that time, two year old or one year old son for a half an hour and fall into bed only to do it all again the next day. Pretty soon I began to question where my heart was with God, because I wasn't able to read 20 chapters a day. I wasn't able to pray two/three hours a night. I certainly had no desire to go to church every night of the week. The model of what it meant to be truly a committed Christian was a skewed model for me. God put me in the concrete business and the best training I ever, ever had for the tree was working for my father-in-law. It didn't come from a Bible school or seminary. The best training I ever had for the ministry was having to pour concrete because it taught me how hard people have to work for a living.
Just because I can sit now in my office and plan all of the events for the church, for all of you to attend and participate in doesn't mean you have the time, the energy or the resources to be able to do it. And then on top of it, we start saying, well, if you really love God, you would do this stuff. Now, our walk with God becomes all the things we have to do. And that's how we retain our salvation. And that's how we don't lose our spot in heaven.
Jacque: And that's how we earn God's love.
Brian: And that's how we earn God's love and his favor.
Jacque: It's a lie.
Brian: It is a lie and it's right here. Make sure that you stay free and don't get tied up again in that slavery to the law, all these odds. Let's finish it.
Jacque: Listen, I, Paul tell you this, if you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God—
Brian: And by the way, we can insert any 21st century religious law in there other than circumcision. We can just insert whatever law you want to insert in there that the church, through history or whatever, or we've been made to feel, that needs to be there. We can just insert that there. I tell you that if you are counting on that to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you.
Jacque: Of no benefit to you. We did it ourselves.
Brian: I want Jesus to be all the benefit I can get from him. Don't you?
Jacque: I'll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God, by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses.
Brian: Who wants to do that? I don't want to do that. Go on.
Jacque: For if you are trying to make yourself with God, by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ. You have fallen away from God's grace, but we who live by the spirit eagerly, wait to receive by faith, the righteousness God has promised to us. For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love.
Brian: This faith and trust we have in Christ being expressed as a result of, shall we say, um, our walk with God, we have this expression of love and grace and so forth. Then there are two more verses: 13 and 14.
Jacque: I love that line: Faith expressing itself in love. That's so good. For you have been called to live in freedom my brothers and sisters.
Brian: Some people say, "Well, I don't know if I'm called to do that." That's usually what somebody says when they actually don't wanna do something. Not always, but—let me tell you what, you know what our real calling is? Our real calling is to live in freedom, the freedom that Jesus has given to us where his spirit leads us into all forms and sorts of things that will bring pleasure to him and bless each other.
Jacque: Called to live in freedom just sounds joyful.
Brian: It does. Yes. Just think of that prisoner that kissed the cheek of that soldier. That's all that he could figure out how to do to express his appreciation for being set free.
Jacque: Not I have to; I get to. Yeah. For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters, but don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature.
Brian: Yes. We can let the pendulum swing too far. Can't we? Well, I don't need to do anything.
Jacque: People are good at that
Brian: Yes. We are really good at letting the pendulum swing too far. The pendulum should be right there in the middle, not too extreme here, not too extreme there. Don't let your freedom be used for license, or to satisfy your sinful nature here.
Jacque: Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: love your neighbor as yourself.
Brian: When we focus on our behavior, we are putting the cart before the horse. What we need to focus on is the beauty of the Lord. We need to focus on how he gave his life to set us free. We need to focus on falling deeper in love with him. When I got married— and Jackie and I are gonna celebrate 48 years this June. That seems like a long time. It's gone fast.
Jacque: It has gone fast.
Brian: I was deeply in love with Jacque when we got married, but I am more in love with her today than I was before. And the reason for this is 48 years of receiving her gifts of love and expression to me has caused my heart to grow bigger, and deeper. I want us all to fall in love with Jesus more. The more we fall in love with Jesus, the less I'm gonna have to ask you to do anything. It'll just be in your heart to want to. And when we love Jesus, he puts in our hearts the want to bless. We need to receive, again, his gift of grace to us, a free gift of grace to us. He has extended this ladder down from heaven. We don't have to build one to make it to heaven. We don't have to achieve or to qualify somehow to get into heaven's gates. It has all been done. It's completed. Jesus even said on the cross, it is finished. What he meant by that is everything has been completed and now everybody can have the gift of eternal life. Everybody can receive it. There is nothing left to be done except one thing, and that is, let's start walking with him. Let's just start walking with him. Let's start believing in him. I can't think of a more wonderful invitation then it's all done.
Take my hand. Just walk with me. Just walk with me.
Let's pray, father. I thank you that you have given yourself to every single one of us so that we could receive this wonderful gift of salvation. I bless you, Lord. I bless you, Jesus for that. I'm gonna ask Pastor Robert to come and just really say a prayer that will solidify this and pray for you who are watching online that maybe you are in a place where religion has gotten the best of you. Maybe you are very similar to Jacque and I, where so much was ingrained in us and it has taken me a lifetime to try and unlearn some of this stuff. And we lived under this yolk of bondage, thinking that we are never measuring up. I want that to be broken in you today and I want to date to be that first day that that prison door has been opened up. Maybe you can kiss the cheek of Jesus today. Pastor Robert.
Robert: This week in our online discussion group, Engage, we were having a conversation about the innate desire within every human to have a savior. You can see that theme in the movies that we watch, the novels that we read. There is always this savior sacrificial figure, but it always falls short of the one savior, Jesus Christ, because all of these heroes put together, can't measure up to the Lord and then you have the other extreme where you have humanity trying to find the right knowledge or walk the right steps to gain enlightenment or to gain salvation by the things that they do. So they have to follow the right path or say the right words or achieve the right treasure. It all falls short of this precious gift that we were given through our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.
My prayer for us today is for us to search our hearts to find where we have fallen short in accepting that gift. Maybe we have said the words, Lord, forgive me come into my life, but for whatever reason, there is been a tug on our heart that we want to revert back to being slaves. Every time that I noticed that the words of Paul shout out to me, "Oh, foolish gala Galatians, who has bewitched you?" As Paul was saying, you must be under a spell if you accepted this free gift and you want to go back into the yoke of the law, because you can't be in your right mind to receive, and achieve the free expression of grace and salvation to trade that in for the other.
My prayer is that we don't trade in this precious gift that's worth more than gold or silver. We don't trade this in for chains of slavery and. I would like everyone to pray online and in person. Lord, we thank you for your gift. We ask you Lord to forgive us for even being tempted to go back into. Lord, I pray that those old things that have such a stranglehold on us Lord, that we would make a decision today to be finally unchained and unyoked from death, that we would embrace the gift of life. For, Lord, you have the greatest sacrifice in all the world so that we have an opportunity to be in full relationship and fellowship with you. I pray, Lord, and I join all of those that are witnessing and hearing this message today.
Lord, we accept you Freely. We accept your sacrifice. We accept the words of our Lord and savior on the cross that it is finished. We lay down all of our striving, all of our jockeying for position, and we truly surrender at your feet and we lay down all of our heavy burdens and every heavy yoke, we lay it at your feet And we accept your love for us. We accept the benefits and the promises of that love and we say goodbye to death and we open the door of life into our lives.
Father, we pray that you would saturate our minds and our spirit with the goodness of God that you would free our heavy hearts of all the wariness of trying to get it right and Lord that we would just surrender and let go so that our hearts can be free to love you and that our expression through our behaviors is because we love you. As we surrender to that love, we will please you and our fellowship with you will grow more than ever. I pray as we open up our hearts to love you more, you would expand our borders to receive you more so that we can become whole and we can become pleasing in your sight in Jesus mighty name. Amen.
Brian: So thankful today for the cross of Jesus. He made the bridge that crossed that great chasm between death and life. He's the one that extended the latter to us. We can't do one thing that can earn or somehow put us in a better position to receive his wonderful gift of eternal life. I'm so grateful today for the love of Christ that is without measure and without end. And because he loved us, because he set me free, that's why I want to die working for him and loving him and doing whatever he calls me to do. It's not to earn something. It's not to get a better spot in heaven. It's not to move to the front of the line. It's simply because I can kiss the cheek of Jesus because he set me free.
We invite you to stay for lunch afterwards, and actually, if you are watching online and you are within maybe 10/15 minutes of Hope, leave now, and you can get here in time for lunch. You can meet our new youth director, Dan and his mom and dad.
Jacque: Scott and Michelle.
Brian: Scott and Michelle. There we go. Scott and Michelle. We are so thankful for him being with us. We'll do a Q and A here today as well. You just can't ask him if he's got a girlfriend or anything like that. About the future of the youth group, we are all excited about that. Let's raise their hands together, shall we?
And now may the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you and may the Lord make his faces upon you and be gracious to you and may the Lord turn his face toward you and give you his peace. And may the cart always be behind your horse. This, we pray in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. Pastor Robert and TaQuaris will be here to serve communion for any of you who want communion. Please stay for lunch. We would love to just visit with you while you are here. If you need prayer for anything, we will have people here at the altar to pray for you. God bless you. Have a wonderful day.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 3-27-22. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.