Jesus Christ's love sets us free to love God back and then we're set free to love others.
Transcript:
We're in the series that we're calling That Love in First John and we've been going through just passage by passage almost verse by verse at times in taking what God has for us about love, and the culture says a lot about love does it not? But this passage of this book of the Bible is kind of reframing, it's kind of re-calibrating our viewpoint when it comes to God's love. How many off you would say the topic of Salvation is important? Yeah probably like pretty like up there you talking about like what's important in life probably salvation, I would think man that's up there at the top. For those of you that are new that is the teaching of how we can have a relationship with God and be reconciled to him. Tt is how we can be saved from our sin and death and eternal separation from God and have an eternal reconciled relationship to God so man getting that right I would think that is exceedingly critical. I wanted to share with you the story of this man his name is Marcus Gray. He also goes by the name Flame because he's a rapper; he is an Oscar nominated, uh rather excuse me, Grammy nominated artist and he came from a theological tradition where they were teaching God talks to you through your inner voice so I don't know if any of you have kind of mastered that but you know
that can be kind of challenging. But anyway, he really tried to do that, he tried to discern how is God talking to me cuz that is what his church was teaching him to do and he describes this day where he was in his bedroom and he was like God can you please just give me a word from you and so his inner voice said turn to John chapter 23. Just seeing seeing how many of you caught it, and as he opened up to John 23, and he's like "man there is no John 23", so he was like "God you're playing games with me you're messing with me." and then you know he kind of was like "man I'm going to I just need to graduate from this inner voice thing that I'm trying to do here." And so also in his theological tradition they were teaching you know you are saved by your performance, okay so by your good works you will know you are saved. Also you know you are saved by having pure motives and so there was a lot of internal kind of looking at what kind of motives do you have what kind of affection do you have. And I would say is it good to have affections for Jesus Christ yeah but man if that's all you're looking at from day to day, like "did I have pure motives as I woke up really early and dropped my kids off at school this morning when I really didn't feel like getting out of bed," like you could go crazy with looking inward at your motives and your affections and what is going on. And so what ended up happening is Flame did not have assurance of his Salvation and it led to depression. He was depressed like man he just was like I don't know if I'm in or if I'm out for sure cuz I'm looking inward and I am not sure and so what I would tell you is this is that Satan has a lot of lies he will seek to throw at you from your day-to-day lives; I would call them deception. That's what he seeks to do but I would say they're all going to be summarized by fear if I could just analyze how Satan's schemes how does Satan work he's going to try to get you to live in a state of fear all of the time and deception. Number one from Satan is this: he wants
you to ultimately doubt God's love for you. That is kind of his endgame because he knows if he can get you to doubt God's love uh then you're going to spiral into discouragement or despair or not trust in his love you're not going to have a flourishing relationship with God and man he's got you where he wants you. And so how many of you have had doubts before? All right this is you guys are engaging. I love it! How about some of you are like man I haven't done my devotion in a while I haven't done my quiet time in a while haven't had my prayer time in a while my Bible reading time and man you could start to think I maybe I'm not as righteous as I used to be or as I think I was and maybe God's not happy with me right now. Also how
many of you have a habit that you just can't break and you would love to just break it? It would be nice if you could break the habit that you have been seeking to break? I mean I think that a lot of human beings are after that. A year ago there was a book going around in our church called Atomic Habits. There's a reason why it's selling a lot because we don't have them. You know we need them. At the time of the Reformation, this is 16th century, the Protestant reformer Martin Luther also was in great discouragement much in the similar way as
Flame. He had doubts. The teaching of the church at that that time was good works are necessary to merit your salvation, okay we would use the word earn your salvation. Also, if you didn't have enough good works, check this out, there was a treasury of saints that had merits stored up for you. So the treasury of the merits of the saints were like all of the saints from the past who had this record that could hopefully be transferred to you by certain church practices. Penance was an important doctrine at the time in which you would then try to pay off the debt you owed God depending on the sin you incurred. So I kind of liken it to like when you have to do community service because you committed a crime in the eyes of the law. They actually had that in a strong way in the church. In addition you could make pilgrimages to holy sights and this was a way to merit or earn your salvation before God. You could say a certain amount of Hail Marys and Our Fathers on certain steps of a particular building that was considered a holy sight and hopefully your motivations. But what I read is if you believe in Jesus Christ and you possess saving faith in his death and his resurrection for you, his atonement and his bodily resurrecting victory on your behalf, you are born of God, born of the Holy Spirit, born again, you are spiritually made new, that's what it says. And here is where I would go with this kind of verse today and this is the teaching that inspired the Protestant Reformation which we are also commemorating today this is the day where we observe it in the church it is don't look internal to yourself all the time look outside of yourself to God's love his death and his resurrection they're outside of you um and then also his word like you just read it and it's coming at you in verbal form right as we speak this is the word of God outside of you and so you believe it and you receive it and the word of God is this God says this today to you I love you because I love you that's his word to you simple it's external to you and when you believe it you receive it what does he say You're Made Alive you don't need all this other stuff to earn your way into getting God's love but rather through the gift of Jesus you can have a personal relationship with God by faith in Jesus Christ and you have the victory okay so the triumphant are born of God by faith in Jesus Christ but then in addition check out verses 2 and three it says this by this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his Commandments. All right now some of you may have been thinking with that first deception of Satan Pastor Andrew there's a flip side to that too right Satan can also make people think they're Christians when they're not showing evidence either so let me be clear: good works are evidence of Salvation they are not a means of earning salvation. Obedience to the Commandments of God is not a way that you earn salvation but it's evidence and a byproduct that you are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and so other people may kind of challenge you or from time to time or whatever uh and call you to a great A Closer Walk With Jesus because what does Jesus say you will know them by their fruit however I want to continue to see where he's going with it he says this he says for this is the love of God that we keep his Commandments and then this is the part I highlighted here and his Commandments are not burdensome how many of you see the Christian life and all the Commandments as burdensome it could become a burden if you think about it in terms of obligation here's another way Satan will try to get at you check this out I want you to be so aware of his schemes he Satan wants you to think think that God com God's Commandments are burdensome because if you think they're burdensome man it's going to be all about your willpower can I get the willpower to do it and then maybe you're like man God's Commandments take away my freedom I don't have fun I don't get to do what I want to do and then he's got you flame was under that discouragement and depression because he really felt the weight of God's Commandments he thought that they were a means to earning your salvation Marcus gray in 2018 that's Flames name he ended up by the invitation of a friend to go to Concordia Seminary in St Louis in 2018 to get his master's degree that's where I graduated from in 2009 and it was at the Seminary where a lot of the professors that are still there from the time I was there um they taught him a paradigm based on scripture that would transform his life and it was this teaching that Paul and Luther it's inspired by the Apostle Paul but Martin Luther the great Protestant reformer would call it two kinds of righteousness and it goes like this in the vertical Realm in your relationship before God you are righteous by faith alone not by your works you are declared righteous because of what Jesus did for you not because of what you can do for God and then in the horizontal Dimension this is your relationships with other people you are righteous by your Works people know you are righteous by how you live and by your lifestyle by how you behave but see check this out the freedom for flame was that how he's doing in his growth and Holiness has nothing to do with his righteousness before God but rather he is declared righteous and now what he can do with his good works is be set free to bless his neighbor his good works are not to earn righteousness but his good works are to bless the people around him so here's my question for you this morning does God need your good works no but your neighbor does the people around us do now this is this is a freeing belief if we embrace it because Jesus has setting us free to live free Jesus is setting us free to flourish and now it's the people around us that simply need to be love and there's a blessing that God gives us as we love them and that's what John was focusing on in those couple of verses and so um it was a process but Flame converted to Lutheranism uh while he was at the Seminary he had a paradigm shift that caused him to regain his joy in the Lord um and to regain the biblical truth that we are justified by faith alone and not by our works his last three albums are all about his conversion um to uh believing that you're righteous before God by faith and he will come to St John's Church to do a concert right here uh May 10th 2024 if you want to just save the date right now can mark your calendar uh Hey Hey listen even if you don't like rap this is a great family friendly opportunity cuz see your children if you're here and you have kids live in the home rap is gonna come through their phones at some point so trust me you don't want them listening to the you don't want them listening to Eminem that dude is crazy so just you know you want to get them back into some really good content flame is awesome um but then I would also say this it's not just about the music and whether about you like rap or not but it's going to be like his messages before each song that I think you're going to really appreciate I'm finishing up a Book By Flame I highly recommend called extra no in Latin that means outside of us um I'm almost finished with it highly recommend uh coming to just show support that's May 10th 2024 here and then here's what happens the burden becomes a blessing when you adopt this Paradigm into your life the burden becomes a blessing now all these things that I think I have to do it's not for me to earn righteousness but it is to receive blessing and to bless others check this out worship okay you could say man this is a burdensome commandment God wants us to come on Sundays and worship him or you can say he's going to turn that burden into a blessing as I get blessed by his word and I also Bless the people around me like it's a blessing to see your facei your faces it's a blessing to see each other's faces as the family of God see and now all of a sudden there's a different Paradigm a burden becomes a blessing honoring Authority have you ever been in a situation maybe someone near to you or whatever where Authority wasn't being honored maybe it was a supervisor uh there's several contexts but I'll tell you what man it can be a disaster for the whole company it could be a disaster for the people around when it's healthy supervision when there's healthy Authority see now all of a sudden I'm not doing this to earn righteousness I'm doing it to be a blessing to my community making time for your marriage we're busy people right but God turns it around the burden becomes a blessing as I make the time and as I bless my spouse Purity our culture and Satan will tempt us towards impurity at every chance he can get our sinful nature will be tempted towards impurity okay God's word would turn it around and say I want to bless you I want to protect you I want you to flourish okay and then it's going to be a blessing to those around you peacemaking okay how many of you have some enemies right now no none of none of you that's good uh God turns the burden into a blessing why Jesus said blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called Sons and Daughters of God you can forgive as God in Christ forgave you and now man peace does our world need a little peace right now yes it can be a blessing to those around us have you ever been around someone that is consistently discontent man that's hard cuz you could try all kinds of different angles but man if they're just discontent and they're happy to be discontent they're it it's just a it's a ripple effect burden becomes a blessing your contentment blesses others in Christ you're set free by the love of Jesus to help to flourish and man you're flourishing and guess who else is flourishing your family your community the people around you are flourishing because you are flourishing in Christ I want you to know that the Commandments of God they are not meant to be a burden they're meant to bless you protect you and keep you safe when you see it like that man you're going to say I want this not I have to do this but man I want this and I know that I need this so the triumphant are born of God the triumphant obey God's Commandments but then also I would tell you this and let's jump back in together let's read it together for everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory that has overcome the world our faith who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the son of God and I highlighted this key phrase and it's what was kind of the the key to the Reformation that we celebrate today and it is this that we are saved by faith and faith alone Sola Latin means alone faith alone by grace alone and that where is Authority in our life it's in scripture alone these three Solas inspired the Protestant Reformation and I believe that one of Satan's deceptions is this that he wants you to wants to come at you with he wants you to live in fear of the past and fear of the future what does God want want you to receive his peace here's how you get it when you live in the moment you live each day by faith worrying about tomorrow does nothing Jesus said you will gain nothing it will add not one hour to your life and it messes with your health on top of that live by faith each day faith says God you got this fear says Satan I trust you I want you to know that sounds harsh but we have to hear it because man I don't think any of us in this room want to trust Satan with anything. So about every month or so I have a mentor that I zoom with. He's a pastor in Oregon who is a retired. Sometimes we meet and he kind of talks to me about different things and there was a time where I was getting into this mode of rehearsing a conversation that I might have with someone. Have you ever done that before? Some of you are nodding you're like I've done that before sometimes it happens when during your jog right or when you exercise whatever but we've done it and so one person that I sought advice from he was like Hey you could and it is very therapeutic to practice what you would say and then to kind of practice what you think they would say and I was like there would be nothing therapeutic about about that for me zero so I talked to my mentor and he said Andrew what you need is Ephesians 6:16 which says this in all circumstances take up the shield of Faith it's a weapon with which you can extinguish all the Flaming darts of the evil one and he said Andrew and he says this to you too living in fear of the future those are darts that he's coming at you to attack you but Faith you live in the moment you get peace with God and you also get peace from God Elise Fitzpatrick came to our church uh yesterday there were 70 women in that room over there hearing from this wonderful author and speaker and she talked about how the love of God in Jesus Christ sets us free sets us free and it does two things we can love God back and then we're set free to love others and this is what she said that I thought was so beautiful she said do you want to be around people you love I think we all would say yeah it's much better Jesus is love is Limitless in its dimensions and it's high and wide and deep and it's for you all of you here and when we receive it and when we have the strength to comprehend it who do we want to spend more time with Jesus whose presence do we want to be with Jesus who do we want to follow their directions Jesus because we know he loves us Satan would cause us to live in fear God would lead us to live by faith fear causes you to live defeated Faith gives you the victory and it's Faith so we would love him back as he has loved us and so the triumphant are born of God the triumphant obey his Commandments because we know they're good for us and it's his best for us and the triumphant live by faith we walk by faith and not by sight and so I'm excited because today we're going to sing A Mighty Fortress as our God I can't wait to sing that uh together with all of you and that Anthem is a declaration that we are declared righteous before God by faith alone in Christ alone and now may the peace of God which surpasses all understanding may he guard your heart may he guard your mind through faith in Christ. Amen
