Summary:

The most important piece of real estate in the totality of your life is the 18 inches between your mind and your heart. God knows us in such a way that we can't BUT love Him. His knowledge of us generates love in our hearts for Him. In turn, God calls us to know people in such a way, they can't but love us.

Audio Transcript:

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God, you are a great God, and you are a good father, and we thank you for that. For all the dads in the house, Lord, I pray that you strengthen their relationship with you today. By the power of the Holy Spirit, set their eyes on Jesus Christ, your son whom you gave sacrificially in order to redeem us and show us what it means to be a father. Draw their hearts closer to you, so that they understand, we understand, so the fathers understand who you are and what your heart is and so that forms us to be the fathers we ought to be and get to be to our kids. To love them, to delight in them in the same way that you delight in us, to remind them that they are beloved in the same way that you look at Jesus Christ, your son, and say, "This is my beloved son in whom I delight."

I pray that we delight in our kids, so that they never feel like they're a burden to us, that we never feel like we have to parent them, that we have to teach them, we have to... Flip that switch in our hearts, flip it upside down, so that we understand we get to, what a blessing it is to be parents and what a blessing it is to be a child of God, a son or a daughter. I pray Holy Spirit, come to this space and prepare our hearts not just to hear words for our minds, but to receive truth for our hearts, to transform our lives, to transform our where our will, teach us what it means to know God and Love God, to know people and to love people. And we pray all this in Christ's holy name. Amen.

What is your favorite food? The one thing. The one thing that comes to mind right now. Don't say it out loud. Unless you want to the person next to you. Just go there for a second. My wife loves Tiramisu. She loves Tiramisu. The good kind, not the kind from Trader Joe's in the frozen section. But if you had never experienced Tiramisu, I could describe it, I could try to describe Tiramisu for you, but that would do a disservice.

What's your favorite song? I could try to describe to you my favorite song by Louis Armstrong, It's a Wonderful World, I love that song. I could try to describe the lyrics, I could try to quote them, I could try to describe his raspy voice. I actually listened to it this morning on YouTube, so good. But the words, the words do a disservice to... What's your favorite painting? You could try to describe your favorite painting to me, that would do a disservice.

My wife and I just celebrated our anniversary on Monday, and I took her to the one of the most glorious places in the world, Fenway Park. She had never been there. And I had described Fenway Park to her. She doesn't like baseball, she doesn't... She's from Ukraine, that's not a thing. I tried to describe, and I was like, "Baby, but you need to be there on a Sunday evening in June. You need to be there. You need to walk and you need to have the smells of the sausage and peppers wafting over you. You need to walk in and just be amazed by the ambience, by the energy in the stadium." And she was. She walked out, and I said, "How do you feel?" She's like, "This was not what I expected." And we sat through four innings. That was enough for her. And then we went out to dinner.

For us to truly understand the greatest things in life, yeah, we need the words, we need the descriptions, but we need to experience it. We live in a city where real estate's super expensive. And a lot of our thoughts are dominated by real estate. Just thoughts of real estate, getting an apartment, how much they cost. I have conversations with people about this all the time. I'm there too. Many of us, we think that the most important real estate in our life as the place where we live. And I would submit to you that it's not. I would submit to you there're two really crucial parts like your real estate in life. Number one is the bed that you sleep in. For me, that's the most important.

But there's something even more important than the bed. It's the 18 inches between heart and mind. And for many of us, we're very cerebral. We turn to Christianity before the intellectual stimulation, and many of us are fine with doctrine and truths and exegesis and hermeneutics. The problem is unless that truth seeps down to 18 inches, give or take order of magnitude, into our heart and begins to transform our heart. And unless that true then turns into love that comes up into our mind, unless that happens, we don't experience God.

It's one thing to read on a page, God is with you. It's one thing to read that I am with you forever until the end of the age. It's something completely... Altogether different when you know that God is here. It's one thing to read Jesus loves you. It's something all together different to know that God loves you. He's proven his love to you. It's not just abstract, it's, he's given his son, Jesus Christ, to prove his love for you. And Jesus was willing to die on the cross for our sins because that's what it took for us to be reconciled with God, the father, and then he sends the Holy Spirit to indwell us. God calls us to a robust Christian knowledge, he also calls us to a robust Christian Love. To know God, love God, and then in turn, to know people and love people together.

Now, today we continue our sermon series called Prodigal Church through First Corinthians. And the Christians in Corinth, the brand new Christians, the church is only a couple of decades old, and Saint Paul who planted the church, he's now gone, but he hears about problems emerging in the church. One of the problems was that they're living in a counter Christian culture of a pagan culture. And one of the things they were wrestling is how do we interact with the culture? How do we interact with the neutral things in life where scripture doesn't say, this is wrong, and can we partake?

And so Saint Paul writes to them, and he doesn't say, recede from the world. He doesn't say, I'm asking you to leave the world. He's saying, "I want you to be in the world, not of the world." We're called to be salt and light. There's two temptations for Christians when it comes to figuring out how to deal with culture. One is legalistic fundamentalism. We recede, we've got our own little tribe, our own little subculture, or relativistic liberalism where, yeah, we kind of believe, but we're going to pick and choose al a carte, what fits our life from scripture. It's either sectarianism or syncretism.

In both fundamentalists and liberals, what happens is they begin to edit the Bible. Fundamentalists, they begin to add rules to the Bible. With the Bible, it says this is a neutral thing, and you need your conscience, and you need the power of the Holy Spirit to inform the decision. And they said, "No," that, "we're going to add these rules in a very pharisaical way." And then liberals want to add to the... they want to remove from the Bible things that just don't fit their current lifestyle.

What happens is that both are intolerant of one another. There's no love between the two. Both say, "I love you, and I'll have the relationship with you when you agree with me, when you begin to think like me." And the Gospel isn't just a third way down the middle. It's not just merging the two. The Gospel is all together different dimension, and that's what we're going to talk about today. We are looking at First Corinthians Chapter eight verses one through 13, and then we'll also cover the second part of First Corinthians 10. Would you look at the text with me? First Corinthians chapter eight.

Now, concerning food offered to idols, we know that all of us possess knowledge. This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence, and that there is no god but one. For although there may be so called gods in heaven or on earth as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God, the father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

However, not all possess this knowledge. But some through former association with idols eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience being weak is defiled. Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged if his conscience is weak to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge, this weak person is destroyed. The brother for whom Christ died, thus sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother's stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.


First Corinthians chapter 10 verse 23, "All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor> Eat whatever's sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience, for the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience.
But if anyone says to you, 'This has been offered in sacrifice,' then do not eat it for the sake of the one who informed you. And for the sake of conscience. I do not mean your conscience, but his, for why should my liberty be determined by someone else's conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced? Because of that for which I give thanks. So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the Church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many that they may be saved."

This is the reading of God's holy word, holy inerrant, infallible and authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame up our time together, knowledge without love, then love without knowledge, and then knowledge with love fused into one hole. Here in point one, Paul is moving onto the next subject. He's is going subject by subject and answering questions that these Christians have raised. He comes in, and he starts talking about food offered to idols, not really, on the surface, relevant to us.

I don't think you go into Whole Foods, and before you get that Nice grass fed... You don't say, "I wonder if this is demon possessed meat, demonic meat." You might wonder why the prices seemed so demonic before he go to stop and shop, but it's not an issue for most of us, but the principles are the same. God's word is timeless, therefore timely. What is the principle that he's dealing with? It's how do we make decisions concerning the gray areas of life? Like some moral issues are clear. This is right, this is wrong. This isn't morality issues that he's talking about. It's wisdom issues. Not right and wrong, but right and left.

So things where in scripture, it's not clearly forbidden. For example, alcohol, is it wrong for a Christian to have a glass of wine with dinner? Well, scripture says on the one hand, God sends wine to gladden the hearts of man. On the other hand, he says, "Drunkenness is a sin." That's absolutely clear. How about football? Is it okay for a Christian to watch football? How about mixed martial arts? How about hockey instead of an entertainment in general? What's okay to watch on Netflix and what isn't? Diets, what kind of diets should I pursue? Yoga, music, romantic comedies; all gray areas.

So these people, for them, the gray areas, can we buy meat that was sacrificed at the temple? Here, just to set the context, there were two places to buy meat. You can go to the Agora, which the main marketplace. The problem with Agora is it's more expensive. That's the Whole Foods. So they're wondering, "Okay, can we not go to Whole Foods? Can we go to Stop & Shop of the meat?" The stop and shop was the temple. At the temple people, would go and they would bring meat to be sacrificed, an animal to be sacrificed, and it would be prayed over. Why? Because the Greeks and the Romans, they were polytheistic, meaning they believed in lots of gods, and there were also polydemonistic, meaning they believed in lots of evil spirits.

And what the Pagan priests started to teach is that the evil spirits could invade humans by attaching themselves to food. So, if you want make sure that this food is clean, that there's no demon in it, you've got to bring it to the temple, it'll be prayed over, demon exorcized, sacrificed, and then you can take the meat home after the priests actually save a little for themselves. The little, I don't know how much it was. It was a nice piece of...

By the way, if you were making up a religion, this is brilliant. If you're a pagan seminarian, and you're like, "I am hungry, and I don't have a job." We need to tweak our little polytheistic worldview, and we need to say, "Those are demonic steaks right there. Bring them to us, and for a little cut for ourselves…" Whenever you analyze worldviews or religion, you got to say, "Is this something people would have made up?"

And I submit to you, Christianity, no one would've made up. That God himself humbles himself. What kind of God is that? That God himself sacrifices himself. What kind of God is that? So that's another sermon for a different day. Moving on. So the temple has now become banquet halls, and they become butcher shops. Now, for Christians who became Christians and now they're mature in the faith, they say... The mature Christians say, "Obviously, there's no demons in the meat, so why would I go to the Agora and pay more money? I'm just going to go to the temple and buy the cheaper... There's no such thing as demons possessing this meat. Once it's dead, that's it. We pray over it, it's clean," et cetera. Those are the mature Christians.

And it all starts with knowledge. First Corinthians 8:1, now, concerning the food offered to idols, we know that all of us possess knowledge. Saint Paul is talking about, we know this truth, that strong mature believers possess knowledge, and that's verses four through six. He says, "Therefore as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence. And there is no God but one, for although there may be so called gods in heaven on earth as indeed there are many gods and many lords. Yet for us, there is one God, the father from whom are all things and for whom we exist and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist."

So these mature Christians know that there's only one God, and they'd been marvelously converted from Pagan polytheism, and they know that foolish worship of idols is foolish. It's superstitious. They just see the meat. It's just meat. In First Corinthians 8:1-2, Saint Paul qualifies this idea of knowledge. He says this knowledge, when it's just knowledge, it puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.

He's saying if your knowledge is making you condescending, if your knowledge is puffing up, if it's feeding your ego, if it's feeding your pride, then you do not know truth as you ought to know it. If it doesn't make you more humble, if it doesn't make you more sacrificial, a greater servant of other people, then you don't really get the truth, because knowledge not infused with love is just... It's poison. It's undercooked meat.
Now, this group, knowledge without love, that's many of us, naturally. This is introverts. And I is one. I'm one. And people who don't know me, they think I'm really extroverted because I'm up here, and I'm doing this. But my wife calls this, like this is what's going on, this pastor [Yang 00:18:21], she calls it... She has a way of describing... She says there's a Pastor Jan button. She's like, "You press that button, and there's a turbo boost."

My element is books, sitting in a room, by myself, sound canceling headphones. I'd rather be right here, in point one knowledge without love. This is introverts. You love to study, love to read, you love to learn. And a lot of us, we turn to Christianity for the intellectual stimulation, and there is much of that. However, the idea of, "I can't be around people because they drain me. Don't talk to me. I exhausted by people. I don't want to know you. I don't have time to love you." There's a problem with that.
And if we only stay in the mind, if Christianity is only up here, it puffs us up, and what it leads to is just ugly behavior, we're cantankerous, judgmental, censorious, cold and hurt, knowledge now becomes a stick with which we whack others. No sensitivity to the feelings of other people. Facts don't care about your feelings. That's where we are. It's facts, the facts are right, but the heart is wrong, and we only have fellowship with people who are just like us. I have the truth, and you don't, therefore I'm better than you. It's still a power play.

First Corinthians 13:2 says, "If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing." I'm sure you've heard the adage, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. That's true. But also in Boston, you can't just have love. And that brings me to point two, love without knowledge. Because in a place like Boston, people don't care how much you love until they know how much you know. That's still part of it.

So you can't just say, "Let's just love, let's just be friends." And point two, this is naturally, this is where a lot of extroverts are. Let's just be friends. Let's just talk about tolerance. Let's just talk about unity for unity's sake. Let's not talk about doctrine. Doctrine divides. Let's not talk about truth and knowledge. Nobody has the truth. And if you say you have the truth, then I'm better than you. And by the way, that's also a power play. And by the way, that doesn't work because as soon as you say there is no truth, that's a truth statement, and also you're saying, "I have the truth. No one else has the truth," which just doesn't work.

These are people who turn to Christianity, not for primarily intellectual stimulation, but for emotional satisfaction. These are people who respond to the first crowd by saying, "Feelings don't care about your facts." So First Corinthians 8:7, "However, not all possess this knowledge," Saint Paul says, "but some through former association with idols eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience being weak is defiled." He's talking about the newer Christians that after conversion, they're really sensitive to eating meat from the temple because it reminded them of their previous lives, of their pagan demonic worship. The associations are too real. They're too vivid, and there's a breach of conscience. They really still believe that these idols were real.

And here we need to talk about conscience for a little bit. Every single human being is born with a conscience. Now, if we can... through a life of saying no to conscience, ignoring conscience, spurning the conscience, that voice gets weaker and weaker. And when we are saved... When we come to Jesus Christ, we're saved by grace through faith, what God begins to do is rebuild our conscience, strengthen that voice, the volume begins to go up, and he rebuilds it through the Holy Spirit who's in us, through the holy scriptures and through fellowship with other Christians.
So now the conscience becomes spirit sensitive, scripture saturated and well informed. It's one of the critical things that we as Christians need to always be asking is when it comes to these questions of gray areas, what does my conscience say? How does my conscience make me feel when I have a glass of wine? How does my conscience make me feel when I listen to a song, when I watch a particular movie? How does my conscience feel when I watch a romantic comedy?

I know all my conscience makes me feel. "Turn it off," that's what it screams. But I'm not going to bind you with my conscience. But is my conscience clear before God and before people? And what happens is in this church, the two groups start looking at each other with suspicion, with resentment, with bitterness. The new Christians look to the old Christians, the mature Christian, and they say, "You're compromising with the world. How are you eating that meat?" And in response to the old Christians say to the new Christians, "Well, you're being pharisaical, legalistic, judgmental, imposing excessive restrictions."

And then the worst part is the old Christians... Saint Paul talks about this. They start taking the new Christian that, "I'm going to help you grow." And they force them to go to the temple to eat this meat. And I'm trying to force you to grow in your faith, but because growth can't be forced, instead the newer believers, their conscience was stinging and there were being wounded. So Paul isn't just saying, all you need is love. You don't need knowledge. He's not pitting one against the other, because God wants us.

So to the old Christians, Saint Paul is saying, "You got to be loving. You got be sensitive." To the new Christians, he says, "Hey, you need to grow. You need to grow in the truth because God wants us to know him deeply." God revealed himself in a book, therefore he wants us to learn. He wants to study, he wants us to store it up in our mind. Understand the different doctrines and how they fit together in a coherent system that magnifies God. But when you understand this truth, if you are not deeply humbled by the god of the universe, for knew you before you were even born, and that to save you, he sent his son Jesus Christ to die an excruciating death, pours out his love, generously. Didn't come to be served, but to serve. When you understand all of that, the power of the Holy Spirit is what converts us, your heart is melted. It can't be melted. Your heart is filled with the love of God.

So that brings us to point three, knowledge with love. We need both. Are we really on point three already? Yes, but this is the longest point. So, just FYI. Knowledge is essential, but it's not sufficient. Love is essential, but it's not sufficient. Just like in any relationship, if you want a deep relationship with another human being, you can't just know facts about them like stats. You need to love them. And love isn't... it's essential, but not sufficient. You can't just say to the person, "I love you, now don't talk. I don't want you to ruin this thing that we got right here." It doesn't work. That's not a true relationship. Knowledge without love isn't knowledge and love without knowledge isn't love.

To truly know is to love, and to truly love is to know. This this how God talks about... Adam and Eve, when God walks his daughter, Eve, down the aisle and gives her to Adam and they're married, and the text says that Adam knew his wife. What's that communicating? That's communicating that knowledge and love are just flip sides of the same coin. To know is to love, and to love is to know. So that's why Saint Paul says... And this is verses seven through 13. I've already read it, but I'm just going to point some stuff out.

Like, "If you, as a mature Christian, are wounding the conscience of your fellow Christian by deciding to partake in one of the gray areas when it's against their conscience," he says in verse 11, "and so by your knowledge, this weak person destroyed. The brother from whom Christ died, thus sinning against your brother and wounding their conscience when it is weak you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brothers stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother's stumble."
I struggle with lots of verses from the Bible. But maybe none more than that. How much, Saint Paul, do you love these people that you're willing to give up steak? How much? Silly example, but are there things in your life, like neutral areas, I have freedom to do this, that you wouldn't be willing to give up for the love of a brother or a sister? If so, God is revealing an idol right now who has an iron grip on your heart. And what he's saying is don't choose freedom over fellowship, over friends.

Let me just give you a couple of examples from my own life. I grew up in a Russian Baptist church, a fundamentalist Baptist church. Now, if you're not familiar with fundamentalist Baptist churches, I'll just explain it like this, these people who don't believe in fun, just a little too much damn, and not enough mental or too much mental, sorry. And as I grew up in this... I love these people, I love this church, but there's a certain subculture... And a lot of them came from the former Soviet Union.

And if you don't know anything about Russian culture, you know at least two things. That in Russia... Vladimir Putin, you know that part, and everyone's drunk. You know that part. Vodka is the thing. So when people became Christians in Soviet Union, they said, "No, no alcohol. We're absolute teetotalers." Because in their culture, you can't just have a drink. I actually went out, I did a study abroad. There was a slogan that they put on beer glasses. It says, "Beer is a waste of money unless it's a chaser for vodka." That's a real thing.

So in the church, it's a sin. It's a sin to have alcohol. And also, they don't... So they don't believe in drinking alcohol publicly, and they also don't believe in dancing. Dancing is bad. You know the primary reason why a lot of Baptists don't believe in premarital sex? Because it leads to dancing. Just kidding. The primary reason why we don't believe in premarital sex because God said so, that's the primary.

So when Tanya and I met... She comes from a Ukrainian Baptist church. I come from a Slavic Baptist church. And then we need to get... We're getting married, we get to get married now... We're getting married, and we get to play in our wedding. And half the people are from that part of my life, and half the people are from her work life, and then my school life. And t's like, how are we going? And really the question is, are we going to have booze, and is there dancing? That's really the question.

I know that this is neutral, and I know all of this, but I also know the conscience issue. This would have been a huge stumbling block. So we decided we're not going to do alcohol, we're just going to do a lot more food. We did like seven course meal. And people who commit this under gluttony, that's on their conscience. Just a lot of... And no one even noticed that there was... And we didn't do dancing. We just did a lot of testimonies. We did good music, there's a great band. And then at the very end, we had the band perform Louis Armstrong's It's a Wonderful World. And I side hugged my wife because we're Russian Baptist, and we swayed together. But in my heart I was dancing. I was absolutely dancing.

So that's just one example. Another example is just the way we worship. The way we worship when we get together. A lot of people come from different cultures, and they have different styles of worship, and we try to create a space where you can worship as the spirit leads you. But one of the things... If you've noticed, our band is so good, they're so good. But you look around, and people are into it, but it's not like, into it. You know what I'm saying?

So you can, but one of the reasons is because in this culture, where we live in Boston, for people who just come to faith or just show up to church, this right here, is so different. I had one guy show up and be like, "I like the music, but I didn't understand the Christian Karaoke part. Is that what's going on?" And it takes time to... It's worship. It's to get your heart ready. So as we worship, worship as you're led and be sensitive of the people around you.

Clothing; what am I free to wear? There's freedom. This is a neutral area. However, we need to be sensitive to how it impacts the people around us. Does it build up their faith? Politics. Lots of different people, lots of different political views. Be sensitive to the people around you in how you talk about politics. Romans 14:1-4. Those are just some examples. "Ask for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes that he may anything while the weak person eats only vegetables, let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls, and he will be upheld for the Lord is able to make him stand."

This right here is counter cultural. Let me explain. Saint Paul is saying, welcome. welcome the immature, the one who is weak. Welcome. Though this person's theologically wrong and though this person's spiritually immature, welcome this person. This is counter cultural and absolutely radical because our culture says, to accept a person, to love a person means to accept all of their values. Everything. That negative evaluation just feels unloving, therefore it is unloving. So if you say you love me, you need to accept all of my views. This is false.

ike if you're really friends with someone, if you really know someone, if you really love someone, you feel free to call them out when they're absolutely wrong. And they don't question, they don't doubt your love for them, so you get into a nice healthy debate, you have a conversation. We can love people without fully agreeing with them, and we can disagree with people without hating them. I love you, but you're wrong, and let me show you where and how.

So the word welcome here is [foreign language 00:33:47] in the Greek, and it means to pull toward, to bring alongside of you, to start a relationship, to bear with the weaknesses of the weak. This is the Romans 14:20-23, "Do not for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves, but whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats because the eating is not from faith, for whatever does not perceive from faith is sin."

How does St Paul try to reconcile the two parties? Does he just say, "Hey, cut it out"? That's not what he does. He does something a lot more powerful. He takes a different approach. It's a different paradigm. Here in verse three of chapter eight, he says, "If anyone loves God, he is known by God." That's something that we just read and we just keep reading because what we... when we read that, what we expect is for this to mean if anyone loves God, he knows God. That's not what the text says. This is absolutely unexpected.

Paul isn't saying if you love God, you know him. That's not what he's saying. What he's saying is a lot more radical. He's saying, if you love God, you only love God because you have been known by God. The knowing God, knowing you perceives your loving him. And we see this pattern all over scripture. First John 5:1, "Those who believe have been born again, regeneration precedes faith, which is a gift." Both are a gift. If you love God, it's because you have been known by God.

He's saying God knows you so deeply, so powerfully, with such a transformational knowledge that you can't but love him. God knows us with the knowledge that is so loving, so intimate, such deep communion, so profoundly that it changes. God doesn't just know stats about you. He doesn't just know your resume, se doesn't just read your LinkedIn and say, "Oh, you've done a lot of good." He knows you with the father's love before the foundation of the world, but the same father's love.

On Father's Day, I always remember the birth of my babies. I was there. I was there. The holding your baby for the very first time and be like, "Oh, wow. Oh Wow." My wife has said no pictures until day two, because they still look like little aliens. But there's so much love. There is so much love. And then you get to know. You get to know in such a way that it fills the child's heart with love. And God knows us like that. He knows us in our sin, he knows us in our failure. Between past, present, and future, he knows all of our struggles. And even when we grieve him, he presses and perseveres, continues to love us, continues to know us, fully known and fully loved.

This is our greatest desire. And being known like that, it changes your heart. It ignites your heart. You can't but love God. And this is how you grow in your relationship with God, connecting knowledge and love. You Know God, you love God. Those connect, that right there, that grows you. First John 4:19, "We love because he first loved us." Now, this connection between knowing and loving, not only grows us in our relationship with God, it also grows us in our relationship with Christians, builds community, and it grows us in our relationship with non Christians. This is what it means to be missional, it means to spread God's love.

God knows you and he loves you. You know what that does to you? It humbles you. God loves me. What did I do to get God to love me? Nothing. He loves me even when I was a sinner, when I was unloving. He loves me because he is loving, and that changes me. That makes me lovely. It humbles me. But then there's a confidence aspect. The confidence aspect is, God adopted me as a son. God adopted you as a daughter, son and daughter. And when God adopts, he adopts for all of eternity, so now you have confidence.

You're humble, and you're confident. That right there is one of the most powerful combinations in the universe. If you get this principle, it will change every single aspect of your life. If you're both humble and confident, you become 99th percentile of the human population. Here's what I mean. A lot of people who are humble, it's kind of a fake humble. It's like, "Oh, I'm so terrible. I'm bad at everything," but still self focused. And no one wants to be around that person, because you're like, "Oh, you just drain me. You bum me out. Okay, I'm going to go talk to someone else." And then no one likes the proud person. The person who is walking around building walking Connor McGregor, no one likes that guy.

And here God says, no, no, no. Confidence, that's not grounded in you. It's grounded in the righteousness of Christ. Humility, we're saved not because of anything we've done, but because of Christ. You're humble and you're confident, and that, by the way, is the recipe, the formula for likability. Google it. And I found this... This is from scripture, but I also found out there's a YouTube video of how to be funny, how to be a comedian. And the formula is point number one... not that I studied this. But point number one is, be likable. And they say, how to be likable? You're humble and you're confident. That leads to likability, and people want to hear what you're saying.

You know who was the most likable person who ever lived? Jesus Christ. And he was also the funniest. I guarantee you. Because he's the lion and the lamb. Confident and humble, it absolutely changes you. Now, this changed the way that you relate with people. You begin to know people because you're humble and you are confident, because you're not insecure, you're not self conscious, you go out, you become outgoing. You want to know people, and you want to know them in order to love them, and you know them in such a way that they can't love you.

And I'll share this. This is something I'm still growing in. This is not natural to me. I'm a fallen guy, sinful flesh, I wrestled with pride and insecurity. Just like all of you, I need grace on a daily basis, I need the Holy Spirit. Here's how I've excused not being loving, truly loving. I lived down south for a couple of years of seminary, I know how to pretend to be loving. Jim from the office smiled like. Like that's the Pastor Jan button. Here's the problem with that. The Pastor Jan button begins to malfunction. Because [sound effect], like, I love you, I can do that in the flesh for a little while, and then my energy just runs out, and then I become of not a very pleasant person to be around or to drive around or to live with.

So one of the things that the Lord has been teaching me is that when God calls us to be loving, he doesn't just call extroverts to be loving. He calls everybody to be loving, and to really know people, and to go out into serve people, help people, encourage people any way we possibly can. So for the introverts, we, we have access to the holy spirit, and now, we have access to inexhaustible resources of love. So as an introvert, I need the Holy Spirit to love in the way that God has called the love. As an extrovert, you need the Holy Spirit to know God and to spend time in your room studying scripture and studying the truth. You need both.

So by the power of the spirit, you can know God and you can love God. By the power of the spirit, you can know people, and you can love people because your humble changes absolutely everything. Let me just give you a few examples. It changes the way you relate to everybody. It changes the way you relate to baristas at Starbucks. Few weeks ago, I went to... I do the mobile order, because they always mess up my name, and I don't want to talk to them. Deep inside, I'm like... And I do a mobile order for my Trenta iced coffee, just black. And I go there 4:15 because I need to be here for sound check around 4:40, 4:45.

I get there at 4:15 it's not ready. I wait 4:24 4:30, it's not ready. Finally, the guy gives it to me, and I demonstratively say, "No, I don't want it. I waited too long." And I walked out. And I went and preached a sermon on God's in love and loving people. And the whole time this Holy Spirit shellacking me, convicting me from the... After the service, I went like, "Dude, I'm so sorry." He's like, "Thanks man." There you go. Cool. So now we're friends. He's a cool... So this changes the way you interact with customer service representatives from Comcast. You know. That's a human being made in the image of God, and you may be one of the only Christians that he has a conversation with that day. So use the word wonderful.

I love the word wonderful. "Have a wonderful day." No one says that. Have a wonderful day. Blessed, no one knows what that means. Have a wonderful day. It changes the way that you deal with Uber drivers. It changes you as an Uber driver. It changes the way that you act in an Airbnb. And if you're an Airbnb host, it changes how you relate to these people. That these are people created in the image of God, and I have an opportunity to love them. Waiters, you're not entitled, "Oh, wait on me." This is a person that God is bringing into your life, and you have an opportunity to serve them with words and with money and with a tip.

This is the way that you relate to clients and employees. If you are a boss, it changes the way that you deal with your employees. If you're an employee, the way that you talk about your boss behind their back. Coworkers, you're not just there to compete in a dog eat dog culture. You're there to build them up as well. Roommates, students with professors, professors with students and neighbors, it's a mind shift. That God has called me not to be a consumer from everyone. What can I get from people? How can I use people for my own benefit? How can I love people instead to serve them, to build them up, to add worth, to enrich them.

Love kills this entitlement that we feel, it kills the prize. And then we don't just know what our mind or with our heart, we begin to see needs. And this is Titus 3:1, "Be ready for every good work." Meaning when you know people and when you love people, and you hear that they have a need, you're there. By God's grace, Sharia and Marion are in my community. They just moved to Pennsylvania and they got baptized at MOSAIC. They're from Iran, from a Muslim background, and they got baptized at MOSAIC. Sweet family. And I knew that he was moving.

And a few weeks out, I was like, "Sharia, if you need help moving, it's one of my spiritual gifts, to pick things up and put them down. I'm pretty effective at that. I can do it efficiently. And I love doing it, and I don't have to go to the gym that day." And he's like, "Oh, it's okay. Oh, it's okay. Oh, it's okay." And I was like, "Who's coming to help you move?" Nobody. I'm there 8:30. I'm there. Give me the address. You know one of the things that we were talking about? He was like, "I have a lot of friends who said, 'Let me know if you need help.'" And he said, "And I knew that they didn't really want to help."

I have this personality, I'm kind of intimidating. I'm working on that part too. But it's like it takes humility to help. It also takes humility to receive help. It does. It's okay to ask for help. It's okay to ask that to be served. And then when we begin to serve, you know what happens? We realize that our greatest need isn't to have our needs met. Our greatest need isn't to be focusing on ourselves. Our greatest need is to help someone else and get our attention off of our needs because it's more blessed to give than to receive. It's more blessed to serve than to be served.

And you can study this. There's this thing called the altruistic, where when you help people through generosity, through philanthropy, you actually feel better about yourself. It changes your heart. And then what happens to the person that you served? It changed their heart. Now what are they doing? They're saying, "Man, I want to serve someone as well." And you know how people say it? "We should love the world. We should love all people." We should, let's start with one person. Start with one, and do for one what you would do for everybody. And this changes the way that people relate to you. And by the way, this is how you make friends.

This is really important. If you're zoned out, come back. This part's really important. They're all important, but... I meet a lot of people who moved to the city, and they're lonely. And they come to church and they say, "Where's my friends? Where's my friends?" I try to do this in my own relationships, and I try to do this at setting a culture, creating a culture of care and service where people are intentional, people are friendly. But one of the things I try to help people understand is when you come and you say, "Meet my needs," when you come and say, "Be my friend," that's not healthy. And no one really responds to that and says, "Yeah, okay. I want to meet all you need."

It actually eats the codependency and it leads to emotional crunches. But if you go and you be friendly and you say, "How can I encourage you? How can I speak truth into your life? How can I be generous? How can I enrich your life?" Now people are like, "I want to spend more time with this person." You'll become a radiator of energy instead of a drain of energy. People just are magnetically drawn to you. Everyone loves that. Now how do we get the strength to do that? How do we get the strength to love like that? We need the Holy Spirit.

And this is Galatians 5:16-22. But I say, "Walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh, for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things that you want to do. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law, and now the works of the flesh are evident." These are signs that you're living in the flesh, even as a Christian. Here's the signs. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity.

I'll just focus on enmity. That's where you're not getting along. Strife, conflict, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these. I warn you as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. This person is driven by selfishness. No one likes this person. No one likes the person who's just like me, me, me, me, me. It leads to ugly behavior, and no one wants to hang out with this person. And at this person's funeral, if you keep going down this path, there's not going to be that many people. Maybe this person's mom. That's about it.

Now, if you're driven by the spirit, where instead of using people to meet your needs, you're using your gifts to meet other people's needs, this is what happens, the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control against such things. This is selfless. This is you giving of yourself. The more love you give, the more love you have, the more money you give, the more money you have, the more time you give, it seems like you'll have more time. Everyone wants to be around the loving person, the joyful person, the peaceful person, the self controlled person. This is a beautiful life. This is a life where when you die, that funeral is packed. Everyone's rejoicing.

I was at a funeral like this last Saturday, 91 year old lady, Babushkimania, happiest, joy filled funeral I've ever been to. I want a funeral like that, and not because people are happy that I'm dead, but people are just rejoicing. And the only difference between that funeral and mine is I want lots of brisket. And this is when you walk in the spirit. This is the unchanging principle of holy scripture, you find yourself by losing yourself. Christianity isn't about self help. It's about self denial. And when you deny yourself, you actually find your true yourself.

When you act selflessly, it's actually the best thing for you is it changes absolutely everything. You're transformed from a mindset of, "Oh, I have to do this." And by the way, I'm going to talk to Dad's real quick for just a second. When you have the spirit of God through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you go from, "I have to" to "I get to." "Oh, I have to spend time with my kids, oh, I have to listen to them, oh, I have to provide, oh, I have to..." I get to.
ids hate feeling like they're a burden. They love feeling like they're bringing delight to their parents. It changes marriages. "Oh, I have to take care of my... Oh, I have to take care..." How can I serve you? How can I build you up? How can I encourage you? It changes every... I get to do that. It changes absolutely everything. Where did Saint Paul learn this? First Corinthians 11:1, "Be imitators of me as I am of Christ." He is getting this from the example of Christ. At the cross, we learn to imitate Christ's costly giving of self. This is true love, and it changes everything. Christ himself did the supremely costly thing for our good, dying in our place.

If you're not a Christian here today, I welcome you. I welcome you to become a Christian, a child of God, and not just through words for the mind. You know how I started with what's your favorite food? What's your favorite song? Christianity is the same way. You know what Christianity says? Taste and see that God is good. With the taste buds of your soul, welcome the Holy Spirit, welcome Jesus Christ, repent of sin, repent of pride, of selfishness, and allow your heart to be filled with God's love.

I'll close with this. Octavius Winslow, the sympathy of Christ, one of my favorite quotes. He says, "There is not a circumstance of our Lord's history which is not another form or manifestation of love. His incarnation is love stooping, his sympathy is love weeping , his compassion is love supporting, his grace is love acting, his teaching is the voice of love, his silence is the repose of love, his patience is the restraint of love, his obedience is the labor love, his suffering is the travail of love.

His cross is the altar of love, his death is the burnt offering of love, his resurrection is the triumph of love, his ascension to heaven and his sitting down at the right hand of God is the enthronement and the intercession of love. Such as the deep, the vast, the boundless ocean upon which our thoughts are now about to launch the sole muses in silent awe as it gazes upon this fathomless, limitless sea of God's love." Let's pray.

God, we thank you for this time that you've given us and the holy scriptures. We thank you God, for being a God that calls us to know you truly and to love you wholeheartedly. Make us people who know God and Love God, and know people and love people. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.