The Jesus Way: Generosity of Spirit

Pastor Jeff and Cheryl Orluck

Jacque: It's so good to have everyone here today. I just have a couple family announcements for us. I can get so distracted because every one of you, I want to come out there and give you a hug. It's so good to see everyone and to be with the family, to be with the family. We have a couple fun events in September. Please do your best if you can, if your calendar's free to come and join us because we get closer when we are in the same place. When we spend time together, we get closer to each other. Sunday, I guess it's next Sunday. We are going to have a fall kickoff lunch here and then have a water baptism service afterwards. So, if you haven't been baptized, talk to Pastor Brian. Talk to anybody, me, Pastor Robert, anyone, and let's have you follow the Lord in water baptism.

Next week, we are going to have lunch together. Pastor Robert has got a great menu planned and we are just looking for a few people who want to bring your favorite soup to share. If you want to be one of those that brings soup, talk to pastor Robert or me. Okay. And then on September 17th, we are going to have a picnic in our yard. We just live right across the road on the other side of one 16. We are going to have some fun yard games and a picnic and a bonfire, and we would love everyone to come. Just come to that. And then we have a fun group in the church, just older youth, the Joy Group. Pastor Jeff planned some fun events for us. We are all going to the Chanhassen dinner theater at the end of October, but he's working to get all the reservations in now. Please talk to him or sign up online. All the information's on our website and you can sign up for everything with just a couple clicks and you are already signed up. So please do that: two clicks. We'll dismiss the kids. I get to go be a kid today. I'm going to go help with the kids. We do need a few more people who will help with the children for this fall session, so think about that.

Brian: I just want to welcome Jean Gmach, back to church. She has been really battling some lung stuff. I'm so glad to have you here, Jean. God bless you. I want to also give a special welcome to Dave Hoyland. Dave is sitting back here. Dave is a high school classmate of Jacque and David Riley. He's our bass player today. Let's give him a welcome. Of course, Ronda, his wife is sitting over here. Make sure you say hi to them before the service is out today.

Jacque: We should pray for Deb.

Brian: Yes. Let's just take a moment before Pastor Jeff comes. Butch Nelson needs our prayers and so does Deb Thompson. They are both in treatment for cancer. We know that God has the answer for them. Let's just take a moment to pray for them. Father, we lift up Deb and we lift up Butch to you and we ask that the grace from your throne of grace would descend from heaven and just overshadow them. From the inside out, renew them, Lord. Renew all those cells that are not in alignment with your will and just bring your grace, your strength, your power, your love, your mercy to them in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

I so appreciate Pastor Jeff and Cheryl, don't you? As they come, let's give them a warm welcome. I always enjoy Pastor Jeff's insights. Truth be known, I just take a lot of his stuff and steal it and then everybody thinks I'm a good teacher. God bless you. Thanks for being here again today. Thanks for all your work.

Jeff: Great. Okay. I'm on. How about you Cheryl? You got a mic there. Hallelujah.

Cheryl: I'm on.

Jeff: Great to be together. Isn't it? Yeah. Great to worship. Thank you, worship team. Thank you, Pastor Brian. You are all looking good this morning. I see you put on your Sunday best.

Cheryl: Who was cold this morning?

Jeff: 48. Yeah. Woo. We are doing the fair today. We have to bring warm clothes. This morning we are going to spend a little time teaching about the Jesus way. I just want to give a quick shout out to Jim Stein. Jim, are you here today? Jim and Brenda are going to be at the communion table after the service. Jim really inspired us at the men's retreat. He did a teaching on all the "one another" in the Bible and it was amazing. I had no idea how many Bible verses there were in the New Testament about how we are supposed to treat each other. It's really quite profound. I have his notes and I'll print them for you if you want because it's a Bible study that's worth going through.

He actually took a lot of the information from a book that he read, and I bet he can refer you to that book as well by Jean Getz. Thank you, Jim. That was really inspirational and it ties right into everything Cheryl and I are going to share. Today we are going to talk about generosity. Generosity is a Jesus way, but it doesn't begin with money. Generosity begins in the heart and it's formed in us as his love heals us. What he does over time is he creates in us a generous spirit. That's really what we are going to talk about today. We won't be talking about giving money. We'll be talking about giving ourselves and we'll be talking about giving to others. Nobody ever left the presence of Jesus that they weren't a better person for having been with him. Always, he invested something in them and they left with more than they came. It wasn't just healing. It was a sense of self-worth. It was a sense of value. It was a sense of being loved, and he wants us to carry that with him.

We are going to start actually out of Colossians. Actually, this was a verse of the day that Cheryl and I read some weeks ago. Many mornings, we have breakfast together and then we share together over the verse of the day in the Bible app. This was one of them and it really says very well what it means to have a generous spirit, so we thought we'd start with that. If you want to put that one up, Rosina, Colossians 3:12-14. This is out of the Passion Translation.

Cheryl: You are always dearly loved by God. I wanted to say, okay, we can all go home now. Isn't that awesome?

Jeff: You are always and dearly loved by God. Okay, message over.

Cheryl: Wait, there is more. There is more. So robe yourself with the virtues of God, since you have been divinely chosen to be holy. Be merciful as you endeavor to understand others and be compassionate, showing kindness toward all. Be gentle and humble, unoffended in your patience with others. Tolerate the weaknesses of those in the family of faith, forgiving one another the same way you have been graciously forgiven by Jesus Christ. If you find fault with someone, release this same gift of forgiveness to them for love is Supreme and must flow through each of these virtues. Love becomes the mark of true maturity.

Jeff: That's good. Sometimes you might think the mark of true maturity is the people who are wise, the people who know the most Bible verses, the people who have studied theology enough, the people who are just older. Somehow, by older, we become mature. That's not necessarily true. Paul tells us that love is the mark. That's good. There is a lot here. We could spend probably a couple of weeks just unpacking what Paul has written here, especially as it's written in the Passion Translation, but actually, we are not going to spend a lot more time in these verses because what I really want to do is I want to take the qualities of a generous spirit that are espoused in what Paul wrote here, and I want tie them back to Jesus's life. What we are going to spend this morning doing is looking at Jesus's life and how he carried a generous spirit in every encounter that he had with individuals. We'll kind of look at the qualities here and we are going to see how Jesus lived them. We are going to start with just the overall theme of the generosity of Jesus, and we are going to start with another verse, Matthew 9: 35 and 36, Rosina, if you want to put that one up.

Cheryl: Jesus went through all the towns and villages teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

Jeff: Emphasize when he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them. That was the primary characteristic of Jesus' life. He lived with the heart of compassion towards those that he saw as harassed and helpless. I think he probably recognized those qualities of misfortune, not just in the people who were poor or people who were sick, but probably he saw that in the Pharisees as well. Probably he saw that in the Roman soldiers as well. We are going to see that as we go on farther. Jesus recognized the inner needs of everybody, and so, as a result, he responded to people with compassion. I don't know about you. I don't necessarily have compassion for crowds of people. We were talking about this this morning.

In 2001, I took a trip to India. Talk about crowds of people. Unfortunately, if I'm honest with you, what I have to say is I didn't really feel a lot of compassion for those crowds. I felt quite a lot of disgust.

Cheryl: Well, today we can practice looking at crowds and having compassion.

Jeff: We are going to be at the fair. Yes, that's right. Great opportunity. I remember we were instructed, "When you get to the doors of the airport building, just go straight to the taxi and do not stop till you get there." We got to the door and there were just massive people standing in the door. My traveling companion was in front of me and we got to the door, the door opened, and he stopped. I said, "Jerry, go!" We are making a beeline for the taxis, and literally people are trying to__ they want to help you, so you tip them. And they are trying to grab our suitcases out of our hands. It was more frightening than anything. The whole time you are there, all you see is people wanting you to give them something, constantly coming to you to give them something. After a while, you just feel disgusted with it all. I'm sorry; that's me. I wasn't quite where Jesus was. Cheryl, on the other hand, tells me that when she's at a place like the fair, she really does feel compassion when she sees the throngs of people, which is really a wonderful place to be. Because then when you go up and say hello, Pastor Robert, there is something inside of you that is going to come out, that's positive for them. You know,

Cheryl: I get frustrated because I want to tell them all. I'm thinking of a soapbox. I'm thinking, wow, could I ever do that? And would they listen?

Jeff: Would they listen?

Cheryl: Somebody would. I mean, they would hear it.

Jeff: They can just be loved. Here are a few examples of Jesus being in a generous spirit. Remember the leper that came to Jesus, and he said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean"? What did he say? "I am willing. I am willing." Three of the most powerful words in all of scripture: I am willing. That was Jesus. At one point it says he was just leaving Capernaum and a synagogue leader came to him. It says in the TPT that he was an influential Jewish leader. He said, "My daughter just died, but I know if you come and lay your hand on her, she will live." That's pretty remarkable faith, isn't it? It says in verse 19 of Matthew 9, Jesus got up and went with him.

Remember this was a synagogue leader. So this was a religious leader in league with the Pharisees who were plotting how they could kill Jesus. This was not a friend of Jesus. This was not even a poor and needy person. This was a guy dressed in all of his stuff, carrying all of his religiousness with him who came to Jesus with a need and Jesus got up and went with him. He didn't rebuke him. He didn't say anything about how he had to qualify. He just went.

How about the Centurion soldier? Here is the man who came to Jesus, who was hated by everybody in Israel who saw him just because he was a Roman soldier. And rightly so. If you look at how the Romans treated them, what they did to them__ I mean, if you were an occupied nation, you would hate your occupiers. But this man came to Jesus and said, "Jesus, my servant is sick." And Jesus said this, "Shall I come and heal him?" Immediate response to someone that everyone else around him hated. Can you imagine what people thought when he did that? What is that Centurion? What does he think he's doing talking to Jesus? Shall they come and heal him? What!?

How about Zacchaeus. I love that one. He was in a town, and everybody hated him. He was a traitor, and he was a cheat, and he was very wealthy taking advantage of all of his neighbors. He gets up in a tree so he can see Jesus coming into town, and what does Jesus do? He honors him. He stops under the tree and he honors him. All the people are watching. Everybody would love to have Jesus for dinner. Nobody ever thought that could happen. He stops under the tree and he says, "Zacchaeus, come down. I need to go to your house for dinner tonight." Can you imagine what people thought? In this case, Jesus wasn't responding to a need with a generous spirit. He was searching for somebody that he could be generous towards. He looked for people to give to. Why? Because he was looking for opportunities for their redemption.

Nicodemus was redeemed, wasn't he? His life was transformed because Jesus took a moment and talked to him. He didn't deserve it, and he knew he didn't deserve it. Everybody around him knew he didn't deserve it. Right. Don't you love in The Chosen how it treats the disciples, trying to grapple with the fact that Jesus called Matthew to join them? I never thought of that till I saw The Chosen. It's like, man, he really just messed their whole minds up. This is a guy they hated and he joins him to be one of the 12. But that's Jesus. You see, that's his generous spirit. Let's read Matthew 11, Rosina. This kind of says it all.

Cheryl: Then Jesus said, come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens and I will give you rest.

Jeff: Come to me and I'll help you. Come to me and I'll give to you. Come to me, I'll carry the burden for you. I'll lift the burden off of you. I'll strengthen your shoulders. I'll give you the grace you need. I'll heal. You will get what you need. That's Jesus.

In Colossians, Paul talks about being merciful and forgiving. Let's look at some of the ways that Jesus was that. Remember when he was surrounded, he was teaching and they lowered the paraplegic through the roof. First words of Jesus to paraplegic: your sins are forgiven. He actually understood that the man who came to him for healing needed even a deeper healing than just the physical healing. That's something that we really believe is true about even Hope Community Church.

Pastor Brian shared, a couple weeks ago, how that's one of the callings of this church is to be a healing center, but we've seen not just physical healings, but we've seen inner healings, spiritual healings, emotional healings, because many times that's a much more needed healing than just a physical healing. We love to see them both, but we love to see people's souls made whole, and that's what forgiveness brings. That's what Jesus understood.

I love, of course, the story of the woman caught in adultery. Jesus asked one simple question, and everybody realizes they are disqualified to condemn her, which is pretty remarkable actually. They all dropped their stones, and they walk away and he stands up and he says, "Woman, where are they? Hasn't anyone condemned you?" "No, sir." The one man who actually could condemn her didn't. I don't condemn you either. Go start a new life. I've got something better for you.

One of my favorite stories about Jesus is his time in the home of Simon, the Pharisee, when the woman of the night came into the house. I just can't imagine how she was able to bring herself to go into the house of a Pharisee. But Jesus was there. She ran in, and she fell at his feet. She began to weep all over his feet. She dried his feet with her hair and she started to kiss his feet, highly inappropriate. This is a prostitute who is kissing Jesus' feet.

And so of course, Simon says to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who was touching him and what kind of woman she is." That's how Simon thought. Guess what? That's how we think. We all carry a sense of what's appropriate and inappropriate. And we make judgments about people who behave inappropriately. We all do. Simon made a judgment, not so different from what any one of us would've made, because this is__ can you imagine how awkward this was even for Jesus to have this woman of the night there crying all over his feet and kissing his feet?

Cheryl: But Jesus saw her heart.

Jeff: But Jesus saw her heart.

Cheryl: If we would look at the heart, be in that person's situation, be them we might have a desperation and you know how much the Lord loves that if we have desperation.

Jeff: That's really the point of this whole story. He tells Simon, "I tell you her many sins have been forgiven as her great love has shown, but whoever has been forgiven little, loves little. This woman realized her need for forgiveness, and Jesus provided that. He provided that. She ran to him because she knew he could provide it. Whereas Simon didn't think he needed forgiveness. So who showed the greater love? The person who knew they needed forgiveness. That's what changes your life: when you finally realize that you really need someone to forgive you. And he does. That changes everything.

One of my good friends, his conversion story was he was seeking for God in every new age way you could. He was living alone. He was in his apartment and Jesus revealed himself to him. He said he was literally shocked that it was Jesus, because he grew up in the church as a Lutheran or something. He had rejected Jesus a long time ago and now it finds out it really is Jesus. He said he had this awareness when the presence of Jesus came into the room. He realized all he could realize was what an awful sinner he was. That just came to him, how filthy he was. He was heartbroken. He was sick. He was broken. That lasted for just a short moment. And the next thing he felt was the forgiveness of Jesus, washing him clean.

Cheryl: I will not leave you forsaken.

Jeff: Yeah. Cheryl, we were talking yesterday morning about this. Cheryl said, "When you realize that you were completely forgiven, you realize how much you need it, it ruins you. It ruins you."

Cheryl: In a good way.

Jeff: In a good way. After his discussion with Simon, as he tries to explain to her what he's actually seen here, what does he say to the woman? Your sins are forgiven. And she got ruined.

Cheryl: She's dearly loved by God

Jeff: Dearly loved. And her life changed forever.

Cheryl: When I was a child, I was alone. And I've told a lot of you. I heard the scripture that he is always with you. I'm telling you, when I got a hold of that scripture and had a revelation of it, he noticed that like I know that he said, "Oh, look at that. Look at her heart." I'm little, and I just had him as such a companion at a young age. Just that little thing of a little girl being lonely was a big deal. It's a big deal for the rest of my life.

Jeff: Yeah. We are going to talk more about offense. We are so easily offended by other people in what we think is inappropriate. How many of you were around or remember the Toronto blessing? Some of you? It was in a vineyard church, airport, vineyard church in Toronto that the holy spirit came in an extraordinary way. I think it lasted for 3, 4, 5 years. It was a long and profound move of God. Anybody who went there came back completely transformed. What was really cool is that for a couple of years, every plane from England to Toronto was filled with Anglican parishioners, going to the airport vineyard to see what they had heard about God was doing there. The entire Anglican church of England was totally transformed in a couple of years as a result of the outpouring in Toronto.

Cheryl: The anticipation on the highways was huge.

Jeff: Oh my goodness. Yeah. We went there with great anticipation. But there was so much offense in the church because of the inappropriateness of what they heard happened there: people crowing like roosters. That's not supposed to happen in church. We happen to know the lady who did that for the first time

Cheryl: And the chicken walk.

Jeff: And she's an extraordinary woman. She was on her deathbed. Her two closest friends were a pastor and his wife. The pastor had been totally brutalized by his church in Canada and was out of the ministry, renting the basement of a house. This woman who was dying, she would be his mother's age. It's him and his wife and Steve, Marilyn and Carol. Carol was the woman. She was dying. They literally heard about Toronto. I think the pastor actually knew him and called and asked him to come, which he was hesitant to do, but he did. They literally carried their friend Carol into the church. She couldn't even walk. She got completely healed

Cheryl: And she's still alive today.

Jeff: And she's still alive today. Steve and his wife got completely revitalized and restored back to ministry. Carol, in one of the services, started crowing

Cheryl: I don't know.

Jeff: Somebody asked her, "What are you crowing for?" She said, "It's a new day." Crowing, barking, roaring, falling on the floor, shaking, rattling, screaming, crying, moaning, all of it. I remember they told a story about one of the leaders of one of the churches there. He was a very stately man. He ended up there one time and he was passed out. He had been up on the stage, and he was passed out and he was actually over a speaker. He was laying there over the speaker and his fly was open and it was just so inappropriate. So much of the church world at that time was offended instead of being excited because God was healing people and changing their lives. We were offended because it wasn't appropriate. We get so bent out of shape about stuff that isn't the way we think it should be. Give it up, people. Let God do what he wants. Let people respond in the way they need. Sorry. I got a little preachy there. John 20;23. This is a powerful scripture. Cheryl, why don't you read that one? Rosina can put it up.

Cheryl: If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.

Jeff: Just think about that. Jesus gave you the authority to forgive sins or not. Based on his behavior, which one do you think he would want you to do?

Cheryl: We don't want to leave those people to go unforgiven because then that produces a world that we probably are living in right now. Let's forgive them. We have the power to do that. It has been given and we want a better world.

Jeff: Let's try this one, Robert. We go to the fair today and we'll just grab somebody. We'll say, "Oh your sins are forgiven. God bless you."

Cheryl: And here is a card to our church.

Jeff: Forgiveness opens the door to redemption and we have the power to open the door to redemption for everyone in our lives. When someone offends you, when somebody hurts you, when you see some behavior that's inappropriate, when you see somebody that typically you would regard as the way the woman of the night was regarded, you have the opportunity to hold their sins or forgive their sins. You have an opportunity to leave them in their brokenness or to open a door of redemption. Which one do you want to do? See? Are you a person with a generous spirit or are you full of judgments? If we are full of judgments, we hold the sin. We don't forgive it. We choose not to because they don't deserve it, right?

This is a powerful, powerful thing that he gave to his church. If you forgive people, sins, they are forgiven. The Pharisees were greatly offended when Jesus forgave the paraplegic. Who is this? What does he think he's doing that he's forgiving sins? And then Jesus tells us that we can do it too, so let's do it. It starts with your own family. It starts right here in the church. Family. We'll talk more about offense, but we have opportunities every week to be offended with each other because we are human. Practicing forgiveness is something that becomes just a part and parcel of a generous people.

Cheryl: I can see us in our home to our family saying, "I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you."

Jeff: Oh yeah. What do I need forgiveness for? He who has forgiven much, loves much. We find reasons to be offended all the time, don't we? And the Lord has better for us. Humble and unoffendable: those are two of the qualities that Paul talked about. Be gentle, humble and unoffendable.

I'm just thinking about the woman at the well. That's one of Pastor Brian's favorite stories. It's interesting here that__ actually, we can pull this one up as John 4:16. Cheryl, you can read verses 16 to 18. Go ahead.

Cheryl: He told her, "Go call your husband and come back." "I have no husband," she replied. Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is you have had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."

Jeff: This is not about offense. This is about attitudes. How many of you know there are a lot of different ways you could say those words? How would you say them? How would I say them? The fact is you've had five husbands and I happen to know the one you are living with now, you are not even married to him. What do you think you are doing?

Cheryl: You! You!

Jeff: That will win her heart. She will love you for that.

Cheryl: She won't be afraid at all.

Jeff: How did Jesus say these words to her that she was so amazed, she went and told the whole town about this guy? He called her out. You can speak the truth to somebody in a way that actually brings life, not death. It all has to do with the tone of your voice. It all has to do with what's dripping from those words. Is it sarcasm or is it love? In the church, when we think we are trying to be like Jesus, what we do is we don't ever confront anybody with the truth. We just talk about them when they are not with us. That's what we think loving is, because we don't ever say anything real. But Jesus didn't call us to be loving. He called us to become love. Love is able to speak the truth in a way that changes a life. Love can be honest. You won't always get this response in your family even if you say it right, but it's better to be honest and loving.

Cheryl: I was just thinking of the lady. I was going to help unload her cart in the store. She had a lot of stuff in her cart, and I lovingly said, "Can I help you?" And I started helping her. And she said, "No, you may not help me." She just went on and on, and I was like, whoa. It didn't matter to me because I always think that little road in, you know, that the fact that she refused what was a good thing, you know, is an in road.

Jeff: Yeah. When Jesus told her the truth she didn't say, oh, you are right. I need forgiveness. What she said is verse 19. Cheryl, you can read verses 19 and 20.

Jacque: Sir, the woman said, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem

Jeff: In psychology, we call this deflection. She deflected. He told her he just very__

Cheryl: Is it like saying squirrel?

Jeff: Yeah. Not only did she deflect, but what she did is she tried to start an argument. You Jews say__ that's another place where we so easily find ourselves raising up with offense or with something opposite of Jesus, of a generous spirit when people start to challenge the truths that we hold dearly, when they disagree with us about our theology or when they question our political views or anything. I don't know about you, but this argument starts to rise in me. If Jesus wasn't who he was, he could have totally missed the opportunity and got into a debate with this woman about the value of the temple and why it was the place to worship. It wasn't the point because what he was interested in was the person that was inside of that argument. We tend to want to get into arguments.

Pastor Robert has touched on this so well, the whole issue of how we end up divided, and so has Pastor Brian, divided over all this stuff. Many times, in just conversations with people that I love, who aren't believers, I leave kicking myself because I found myself debating again instead of loving. It's so easy to get there. It's so easy to get there. This is part of what we are trusting the Lord to do in us; change our hearts, so we are not offended when somebody challenges what we believe and we don't have to jump to defend it. Jesus doesn't need our defense. He really doesn't.

Oftentimes, I think about Salman Rushdi and all the death threats against his life. Jesus doesn't need that. All kinds of good people in America lately have faced death threats for foolish things. Why shouldn't an election judge get phone calls, threatening their death? Why should that happen of all places? But we are no different in America than anywhere else. We are human. We are fleshly. We are full of anger and hurt and brokenness and fear and it drives us to do unconscionable things, talk to each other in ways we should never talk to each other, treat each other, think about each other. But the Lord has something better. The Lord is something better. He wants us to speak the truth in love, not without love.

We will wrap this up here. James 9 is the story when Jesus tries to go into a town in Samaria, and they won't open the gates to him; they reject him. James and John decide well, Lord, should we call down fire from heaven? They are starting to get the power thing. Love the power. Jesus' response is really, really important for us to hear. He turned and he rebuked them. And he said, "You do not know what spirit you are of." That's scary when you want to call down fire. Anybody have political leaders right now they would like to call down fire from heaven on? You do not know what spirit you are of. Those feelings exist on either side of the fence, depending upon who is president, right? There is always somebody that wants to call down fire. You do not know what spirit you are of. What spirit are you of? What kind of spirit is that? I remember somebody told me there are only two sides of this. You are either on the side of the intercessor or you are on the side of the accuser. What side do you want to be on? That was good.

He's talking to the Pharisees in this conversation with the Pharisees. At some point in Matthew 12, he says, "You brutal vipers. How can you be evil? Speak good things, for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks all of the judgements. All of the curses, all of the manipulations, all of the things that are contrary to Jesus' generous spirit are rooted in the heart. That's where they reside. You can't change your behavior. You can't change your thinking. You can't change what's going to come out of your mouth. We've all used the word or we understand the concept of coming out sideways, right? That's when you got things in your heart that aren't resolved and you would never say it's straight, but it always comes out in a different way for a different reason. Or it's like someone loses their temper, and it's like, what was that really about? It's here. It's here.

The only way to change your behavior if we__ let's not use the word "if". We are all judgmental people. We carry judgements. We carry offenses. We are easily offendable. We are not easy to forgive. We don't show compassion or try to understand one another. We don't want to understand each other. It's easier just to judge each other. It's easier just to cut the troublemaker off than to understand them. Why are we like that? It's rooted in here. This is what has to change. Jesus has to transform our hearts. It won't happen just in one Sunday message. It's a lifelong process that he does. It's been lifelong for me. I have ways to go, but I'm so thankful that he is so patient and so good and so loving.

The point of it all is that he wants us to become like him. He wants us to become love. Jesus is love. He's love itself. Everything he did, he did because he was love. That's why he could do what he did. It was natural to him. He didn't even have to try. It was who he was. It came out of him because it's who he was. He wants to make it who we are, not something we have to think about. For a long time, we have to think about it. We have to be intentional. We work at it. We blow it. We repent. We try it again. This is part of walking with Jesus. The whole time the holy spirit is working in our heart, transforming our heart, healing our broken hearts. How does he do it? With his love. We come back to the two key scriptures in Colossians 3, which we will bring up. The first one is the end of Colossians 3, verse 14. And then that says__

Cheryl: Our love is supreme and must flow through each of these virtues. Love becomes the mark of true maturity.

Jeff: Love becomes a mark of true maturity. It has to flow through it all. Paul said that in first Corinthians 13. Paul said it here. Jesus lived it every day, but how to get there is actually at the beginning of this section in verse 12. And what does it say there, Cheryl?

Cheryl: You are always and dearly loved by God.

Jeff: That's where it starts. You are always and dearly loved by God. As we've been encouraged by Pastor Robert and Pastor Brian, the more you search out this God of love, the more you get to know his love for you, the more you let him embrace you when you need encouragement, the more you let him forgive you when you fail, the more you recognize that he loves you in spite of all the negative things you think about yourself, the more the love begins to become something real inside of you. The more his love becomes real to you, the more loving you will become. The love will be there because you know you are loved. If you know that you are loved and you are forgiven, how much easier is it to love and forgive others. That's where it comes from.

Pastor Brian has said we don't need more rules. We don't need a rule that says now you have to love each other. What we need is Jesus. We need him. We need to understand his love for us. We need to press into his love in every way that we can because as we understand, as we experience that healing love that he has for us, we find our hearts enlarged and able to embrace all kinds of people we normally couldn't. As we, the church, find ourselves in that place, the world can be redeemed. The nations will experience redemption. I just gave myself goosebumps.

Think about it. Think about the nations coming to Jesus. Think about the revival of love that he is bringing to the world. It's not just us, but we get to be part of it. The way we get to be part of it is by pressing into him, to know him more deeply and to realize his love more clearly. Let's just open our hearts and ask him to do it. You want him to do it? Are you good with that?

Holy spirit, we need your love. We need your forgiveness, and we need your presence, and we are willing. We know that Jesus is willing to step into our lives with healing and transformation. And we just say to you, we are willing to let you do it. We are willing to let you work in our hearts. We are willing for you to change us. We are willing for you to confront the things that are amiss, to reveal the things that we don't even yet know are crooked, and to make those paths straight. We open our hearts to you, and we say have your way in our lives and teach us your ways, the ways of holiness, the ways of Jesus, the Jesus way. Amen.

If you feel a stirring in your heart at all, it's a great moment to come and just continue what God has started in your heart. Even this morning with coming to the altar and letting one of our prayer ministers pray for you. That kind response is always welcome to the father. Or if there is anything that you need in your life or people that you are really caring in your heart right now, come up and get prayer. Get communion with Jim and Brenda. You can go in peace. Pastor Brian.

Brian: Thanks, Pastor Jeff. I read that passage of scripture many times about the paraplegic being let through the roof, and the first thing that Jesus said to him was, “Your sins are forgiven.” I remember reading that many times and asking myself the question, well, how can that be? He didn't ask for forgiveness. But what Jesus was really saying was that was the attitude of the father. That was the attitude of our creator and God's attitude towards all of us is that our sins are forgiven. For us to truly experience the value of that and the joy of that, we do have to recognize our sinfulness and to repent of that and ask God to forgive us. But the problem wasn't in the heart of God. God's heart was, it was always forgiven. That's why the first thing he said to this man was, "Your sins are forgiven."

I think that if we could have that same attitude__ and as I shared last week and will be sharing in the future that Jesus said a new command I give unto you, that you love as I have loved you, to walk in that place of forgiveness whether someone asks for it or not, and that the power that we actually carry within us to forgive other people of their sins. As churches start to grasp this around the world, I just saw a picture of all of these like fires starting all over the world, where congregations really grasp that this isn't about more rules, more regulations trying to become more religious, but this is really genuinely about becoming like Jesus, where we actually have the nature and character of God coming from our hearts because our hearts have been transformed because of the encounter.

The woman at the well, one of my favorite stories as Pastor Jeff said, is this incredible encounter with a very, very broken person. Our world is very broken today, so broken. You don't have to go very far to find brokenness in her world today. And yet this very, very broken woman rejected in her culture, rejected by every culture there was, was completely transformed and made such an impact that church history says that she and her three sons were the greatest evangelists throughout Samaria their whole lives. Imagine that from being that broken to that impactful, because she understood the love that God had for her.

So we pray, Jesus, that our hearts would be open to that. May Hope Community be a light that shines, a light that shines and reflects the true love and nature of our creator, that this would be a place and the community, whether be online or those who attend here in person would grasp how high and how deep and how wide the love of our father is for us and that we would reflect that every day of our lives. Hallelujah. Let's lift our hands together, shall we?

And now may the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you. And may the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may the Lord turn his face towards you and give you his peace. This, we pray in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you. Have a wonderful day. Enjoy vacation day tomorrow, but don't take a vacation from loving each other. How about that? God bless you. God loves you. Bye-bye.

Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 9-4-22. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.