Ruanna Levi - The Affections of Christ - Sunday March 22, 2026

Thank you.

Um, I feel like we're contending against some things today.

It's like wow.

It was a fight for the worship team to get us in deeper.

Um but I believe that the Lord lets us push and press and wrestle for more for the deep things because in that process we're strengthened, in that process we learn to overcome.

In that process, there is reward.

In that process, there's fellowship with him that's different to the times that it's still waters, the times that it's green pasture.

So, Father, we just we just thank you for your wisdom, and Lord, we just silence everything that is contending for our attention.

We silence it now that our attention is on you, and our hearts are for you, and our delight is in you, and our longing is for more of you, and our cry is to come closer with you to fill us.

Let us see you in a new way in our Lord.

Let your truth remove everything that limits our seeing, limits our understanding, limits our coming closer with you, God.

I want to speak today on the affections of Christ.

And I believe that if we will give ourselves to the affections of God, if we become students of the emotions of God, we're transformed profoundly.

And all of us, in whatever measure, know something of the emotions of God.

But we often just, yep, we know God loves us.

Yep, we know God has an anger against sin and everything that breaks the human spirit.

We know that he has joy, we know these things, but we often watch from afar.

We know John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever should believe in him would not perish but have eternal life.

And we're so grateful that we're in that crowd, we're so grateful that we believe, we're so grateful.

But how close have we drawn to that love, that love for God so loved the world?

Has it shattered us to our core?

Has it undone us in deep places?

God so loved the world that he gave his own son.

Has it shaped our value of ourselves?

Has it shaped our value of one another?

Has it shaped our value of the church?

Has it shaped our value of the lost?

Has it done something to us?

And I, for one, want to spend my life on studying and understanding and being consumed and fellowshipping with the emotions of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

You've heard me say it before, but when the instruction was to go and baptize them, baptize the nations in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

What does baptism mean?

It means submerge.

Submerge the nations in who the Father is, submerge the nations in who Jesus is, submerge the nations in who the Holy Spirit is.

That's the instruction.

And there's only one way that we have even a minute chance of doing that, is when we ourselves are submerged.

When we ourselves, when we got physically baptized, it was a statement in the spirit that old nature is dead in Christ.

And I am submerged into him and resurrected with him.

And so I'm I just want to start with the emotions, the affections of Christ.

Because Jesus said that no one can know the Father except through him.

And so as we draw into the affections of Christ, as we as we come close, as we as we get consumed with the affections of Christ, he's going to reveal the affections of the Father.

He came to show us the Father.

And I believe that as we engage with the affections of Christ, for us as we sit, as we yield ourselves to be submerged into his affections towards us, I believe that we'll begin to understand the mystery and the beauty of the affections of our Father, and the mystery and the beauty of the affections of the Holy Spirit.

You know, the affections of Christ is this incredible compassion and tender mercy towards people and an equal hatred of sin and deception that the enemy holds people bound with, that the enemy holds people confused or distant with.

And Jesus held both constantly.

He warred against the religious spirit that held people at a distance.

He warred against it.

He contended with it.

He contended with that just political spirit of just wanting to weave around and care what people thought, because it holds people back from the love of the Father.

And yet his actions were underpinned.

His choices, his language, where he went, what he did, was constantly this outflow of his affection.

It wasn't just this generic kind of, I love people.

Jesus loves us.

But he would get into people's faces.

He would look into people's eyes.

Sat at their feet, their tears falling on his feet.

He'd embrace them.

He had John lying on his chest.

This is affection.

And he longs.

He longs for us to experience that.

Because in that is redemption.

And then we see his affection, the affections of Christ for the Father.

He wasn't just, okay, I've got the assignment, off I go.

He wasn't just, okay, I better pray now.

The Jesus was constantly consumed with this affection for the Father, constantly withdrawing to be with his father, constantly talking about the Father, constantly like, I'm only doing what I've heard him do, what I see him doing.

I'm only speaking what I've heard from my father.

There was this intimate love, this affection, this freshness, this ongoing thing between them.

And I just want to revive your heart.

I want to fascinate your heart.

I want to invite your heart into the beauty realms of the affections of Christ.

It is not, okay, I know that.

This is eternity.

This is eternal life to know Him.

This is what we're doing from now to eternity.

If you want to turn to Matthew 9, verse 35.

Matthew 9:35

You know, we are meant to be fascinated with God.

I spoke on it when I was speaking on the beauty realms of God.

We are designed for fascination.

And there's things that we're discovering that are designed to fascinate us.

This morning I read this.

I like, I was like, Joel, come and hear this.

Voyager has just got to the end of the solar system.

Just crossed the border.

And against all expectation, against everything all the scientists knew, it got to the edge of the solar system and it found a ring of fire, 50,000 degrees.

A ring of fire around the solar system that they didn't know was there.

They didn't expect it there.

They didn't have any understanding.

And this thing's hurtling through, and it meets the ring of fire around the solar system.

And as they were like, What is this?

What is this?

And this ring of fire they think is there.

It stops all this unnecessary radiation coming in.

It stops all this damage that could happen to us.

We are surrounded by a ring of fire.

And I don't know why it undid me this morning.

I think it's because they didn't know.

We think we know so much.

We think we understand.

Just our little solar system, like, okay, we understand that.

And there's a ginormous ring of fire they didn't even know about.

It's like the covenant of the Lord with us, surrounded.

This ring, the fire of his presence circling us.

Anyway, back to Matthew 9.

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.

But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them because they were weary and scattered like sheep having no shepherd.

Jesus is teaching, he's preaching, he's healing everything that the enemy is trying to do to wreck people's lives.

Do you remember that when that one woman with the issue of blood touched the hem of his garment, he was like, Who touched me?

And Peter's like, What are you talking about?

Man, there's crowds everywhere.

And Jesus said, No one, someone touched me because I felt power go out of me.

He knew power went out from Jesus every time he healed someone.

He could feel it.

He could feel it.

I don't know if you've felt that when you've intensely prayed for someone or something, or when you've ministered to someone, when you've poured yourself out worship or whatever.

It's like you know something went out from you.

And here's Jesus, and there's thousands and there's thousands and there's thousands, and there's people that really need him, and there's people that really need breakthrough, and there's people that are desperate, and they're clamoring, and they're pushing, and they're trying to get in, and they're trying to get from him what they so desperately need.

And Jesus is healing everyone.

Can you imagine the exhaustion, the power going out from him, the the just the just the outflow?

Thousands healed, thousands set free, thousands taught, teaching and preaching and wrestling against the wrong understanding that is holding people back from the Father.

And he's doing that, and he's doing it, and he's doing it, and he's doing it.

It's to the point his own family come and try and drag him away.

They think he this is insane.

This is not sustainable with life, they think.

What allowed that incredible outpouring?

It says he was moved.

He was moved, he was moved with compassion.

And that word in the Greek, it's this ongoing verb, and it means the bowels were yearning.

I love that.

It's like in the very core of Jesus was this yearning for people to experience love, to experience that it matters their suffering, it matters what they need, it matters what they're going through, it matters, and he's got this yearning deep within his gut.

That's what moved with compassion means.

It's not some distant, like, oh well, we better do something about these crowds.

He's moved, he's groaning, it's yearning, and the word means when your inner being is yearning with inward affection and tender mercy.

This is our Jesus.

It wasn't just a show of power to prove who he was.

He's there pouring out day after day after week after week, pouring out each person coming in, receiving from him, I believe every gaze into every person's eyes was that yearning of tender affection and mercy.

There's a yearning in Christ for you.

There's a yearning in Christ for me.

There is a yearning for Christ for every person.

It's for us to know freedom.

It's for us to know redemption.

It's for us to know our worth.

It's for us to know what's possible.

It's for us to know the Father.

He was yearning from the core, and he yearns now for you, for me, for your colleague, for your neighbor, for your child, for your parent.

He's yearning with deep, deep, deep affection.

And it caused him to draw near, and it caused him to touch and to heal and to allow his life to pour out.

And then it caused him to cry out to the disciples.

And he cried out, and he's like, The harvest, the harvest is ready.

Can you pray?

Can you join me in prayer?

Because I want people to know this love.

I want people to know this.

In Luke 7, verse 13, Jesus is walking along, and he sees this funeral procession at the city gate, and he hears the wailing and he hears the commotion.

Luke 7:13

And the person that has died is the only son of a widow.

She wasn't just coping with the grief of her only son.

She's already been through the loss of her husband.

We don't know if she's lost other children.

But to have no husband and no son in that culture was poverty and vulnerability.

And so in the midst of her grief for her own son, is also the unknown of how to survive.

And there's a large crowd, but Jesus saw the mother.

It says, Jesus saw the mother.

It says when he saw her, when the Lord saw her.

The word Lord there is Kyrios, the one with supreme authority.

It's not very often that Jesus is referred to by the gospel writers as the Lord.

They mostly refer to him as Jesus or the teacher or rabbi.

But here they say when the Lord saw her, when the supreme one, when the owner of the universe saw her.

And that word saw is not, oh yeah, that's the mom.

No, the word saw there is stared, beheld, gazed.

It's like he looked straight into her eyes.

And the one who was supreme looked into those eyes and saw her.

And you know what that word saw means?

It means as you behold your experience.

And as the Supreme One looked into her eyes and saw her, he experienced her emotions.

Jesus experienced grief.

Jesus experienced what she was going through.

Jesus experienced the questions, the fear, the wonder, the loneliness, the abandonment, the fear.

He experienced it as he stared at her.

And it said he had compassion on her.

And then he said something.

And he did something.

His bowels yearned.

It's the same word.

The innermost being of Jesus groaned with love for her.

As that one who owns every single one of our lives.

Locked eyes with her.

He didn't just see her.

He experienced her.

Do you know what happened in that moment of affection?

This was the first resurrection.

That affection pushes back death.

That affection says no to the enemy.

That affection, that affection lays hold of that which is lost.

That affection says no more.

That affection takes what has been stolen and brings it back.

And that resurrection wasn't a power demonstration, it was compassion on the move.

It was a deep move of the affections of Christ, so profound that it moved death.

Think about what's gonna happen when you sit in the affections of Christ.

You engage in that infection.

Things that the enemy has tried to steal, try to rob you of, understanding life.

It's pushed back in that case.

Mark 10, verse 17.

Mark 10:17

Jesus is going along a road, and it says one came running.

Do you understand running was completely undignified in that culture?

But one came running.

One came running.

And the one that came running was a rich young ruler.

They don't run.

They don't run.

They don't show need in that culture.

They don't show desperation.

But this guy, this rich young ruler, came running.

And he didn't just came running, he fell before Jesus.

He got down on his knees in the dirt, in the dung, on the road, in public.

He got down on his knees and started asking Jesus questions.

And he came wanting truth and he humbled himself.

And Jesus stops and talks to him.

And they discuss the law and they discuss his life.

And he says, Teacher, all these things, all these commandments I've kept from my youth.

That's quite a testimony right there.

That's quite a heart right there to state publicly that you have earnestly tried to keep all the commandments.

And then in verse 21, it says this, then Jesus looking at him, loved him.

Can you imagine the affections of Jesus in that look?

This one that had so much in the world's eyes needed nothing.

But he came running and he knelt down and he tried.

He tried to live his life.

And Jesus, looking at him, loved him.

That word love is this fondness to love dearly, to be well pleased, to welcome.

And to treasure.

That's how Jesus looked at him.

And he said to him, out of that compassion, out of that mercy, out of that deep affection, out of that fondness, to the one that had come running.

He tells him what's needed for him.

Because he can see what's holding him back from this profound revelation of who he's meant to be.

And he says, Go sell everything.

Get rid of all the stuff because there's more for you.

And at the time he couldn't respond.

At the time, it was too big a leap, too hard, too high, too confusing.

But the thing is, he'd seen that gaze.

The thing is, he'd sat in that affection.

And history tells us a different story.

This guy gets a bad rap mostly when it's talked about.

Just went away, missed.

Read the history books.

The historians tell us this one that was loved, this one that Jesus loved, this one that had experienced that compassion, those eyes of affection, that fondness of Jesus.

He got himself free from the love of money.

Do you know how I know?

Because he went.

He went, they say with Lazarus and Mary Magdalene, the three of them went as the first ones to take the gospel.

On a small boat they went, and they went to France, and they went and laid down their lives to tell about that one that had looked him in the eyes and loved him.

You can't be in that stare and not change.

You can't sit with Jesus looking into your eyes and hold on to stuff.

You can't, it's not possible to remain untransformed if we will get ourselves to experience his fondness and his affection and the eyes of Jesus.

We can't go back.

We can't live unchanged.

That compassion pushed back death and it will certainly push back our old nature and set us free.

We just got to get there.

We just got to position ourselves and say, show me your face.

In Matthew 23, verse 37, Jesus is teaching on the end times.

Matthew 23:37

He's teaching on judgments and things to come.

He's teaching on judgments which are still part of the beauty realm of God.

But in the midst of it, he breaks into the yearning.

He breaks into the groaning.

He breaks into the tender mercy.

Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her.

How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you are unwilling.

The aching, the longing for people, for cities to come under the wings of God, under the affection and nurture, not beaten around, not vulnerable to lies and the deceptions of the enemy, not twisted by the religious spirit, the affections of Christ.

In Luke 10, verse 21.

Luke 10:21

The 70 are returning from a mission trip.

They've healed the sick, they've proclaimed the kingdom.

Even demons are subject to them.

And they're excited.

They can't talk fast enough.

And this happened.

No, no, and then this happened.

And we saw this, and that happened.

And Jesus begans to teach begins to teach them that the greatest joy is that their names are written in heaven, that they're known, that they're noticed, that they belong there with the Father.

And then in verse 21, it says this in that hour, Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes.

Do you know what that rejoiced is?

In that moment, Jesus leapt.

In that moment, he started dancing.

In that moment, he's so overcome with joy and excitement and affection.

He was moved with exceeding gladness and rejoiced that the Father's kingdom is for those that come hungry, willing to learn.

And he says, All things have been delivered to me by my Father.

And no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son will reveal him.

In the affection of Christ, He's revealing the Father.

And he had such delight, he couldn't physically restrain himself.

Like, I don't know when the last time was that you started leaping for joy.

When was it?

When was the last time you were so filled with emotion?

You were literally just unable to stand.

You had to jump, you had to leap, you had to twirl, you had to shout.

This is the affections of Christ.

They're unrestrained towards us.

In Zephaniah 3, verse 17, it says, The Lord your God is in your midst.

Zephaniah 3:17

The mighty one will save, and he will rejoice over you with gladness.

He will quiet you with his love.

He will rejoice over you with singing.

The mighty one, the glorious one.

But that word rejoice here means this.

It means to spin around under the influence of intense emotion.

To rejoice, delighting, exulting.

Do you understand?

This is the God Almighty around you.

Whirling, singing, dancing with this violent emotion of love and delight.

Over you.

Over you.

Over you.

Over you.

He comes in and he dances over you.

He sings, he's shouting over you.

And we are designed to experience and live in these affections.

And without them, you will be at your core bored.

And the problem is when you're bored, you will look for other things to entertain you.

You will look for the world to somehow desperately fill that boredom.

And it never can.

Because we are designed to be saturated in the affections of our God.

You know, John the beloved, he just, his whole identity just all through the book of John, just became the disciple that Jesus loved.

And the one Jesus loves.

And the one that Jesus loves.

It wasn't arrogant.

He wasn't saying he was loved more than anyone else.

It was just all he could see himself as anymore was I'm loved.

I'm the loved one.

I'm the loved one.

And I'm telling you, when we begin to believe that, when we begin to see ourselves as the loved one, we'll live very differently.

I would suggest just have a practice this week.

Get up, whatever, brush your hair, clean your teeth, whatever, whenever you're in front of a mirror.

Just go, I'm the loved one.

I'm living today as the loved one.

I'm living today.

Because it was this loved disciple that gave us the mystery of union with Christ.

It's in his gospel.

This one that knew he was loved gave us the details of the Last Supper.

The teaching on abiding and oneness with Christ.

And he's the one that gave us insights into the affections of the word, become flesh with the Father.

Because love, when you know you're loved, it takes you into the mysteries of God.

It's John the Beloved that gives us insights into the prayer of Jesus.

In John 17, 21, is yearning again, that we may be one as you, Father, and are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me, and the glory which you gave me, I have given them, that they may be one just as we are one.

I in them and you in me.

And then in verse 24 it says, Father, I desire that they also whom you gave me may be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which you have given me.

It's John that heard it.

It's John that entered into that prayer.

It's John that could understand, the one that had laying on Jesus' chest, the one that was by side, the one that had looked into those eyes of compassion, the one that had kept going closer and closer and closer and closer.

He's the one that heard the cry of Jesus.

Father, I desire, I desire, father, I'm longing for them to be with me and be with you.

Father, I desire that they would be in us and us in them.

And I would don't think it's too far to say that the degree to which we have experienced and positioned ourselves for the affections of Christ is the degree to which we will also hear what Jesus said on that night, which is this if you abide in me, you can ask whatever you will, and it will be done.

If you abide, if you come close, if you sit in that gaze, it's limitless.

It is limitless what you can ask.

It's in that gaze, it's in that affection.

And I'm telling you, we need to learn how to pray one heck of a lot bigger than we're praying.

We need to learn who we are.

In the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, I'm not going to read it all to the time.

You know, the story, there was the guy with five, and he was faithful, and he entered into the joy of his master.

There was the guy with two, and he was faithful, and he entered into the joy of the master.

But Joel said this the other day at prayer meeting, and it undid me.

Verse 24 then he who had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed.

And I was afraid and went and hid your talent in the ground.

Look, there you have what is yours.

He didn't know the master.

He'd made assumptions about Jesus.

He lived distant and afraid.

No risks, no cost, just hiding.

He didn't think he owed anything to the master because he hadn't experienced love.

Because Paul says in Romans 13 8, he's living under a debt to love people.

He's experienced the affections of Christ.

And it's so transformed him, he owes it to the world to pour out that love.

It says in Philippians 1 8 that Paul says he longs for them with the affections of Christ Jesus.

It's possible.

It's possible for you to love people with the affections of Christ.

If someone can just hand out communion, I'm just gonna read 1 John 4 16.

This is communion.

It's from John years later.

And it laying on that chest.

The one that felt that heart beat again and again.

And he writes, and we have known and believed the love that God has for us.

God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him.

Love has been perfected among us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear involves torment.

But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.

We love him because he first loved us to the degree that you stand and experience the love of Christ is a degree to which you can love yourself or love anybody else.

And John says here, we have known.

It's an ongoing verb to come to know.

I've come to know the love of Christ, and it's still growing.

I'm still going, I'm still coming closer, I'm still experiencing more.

You want deeper union with Christ, you want deeper oneness with the Father, then let Him love you.

Let Him love you.

Let Him look into your eyes until that love undoes you, until you hear the yearning in Him for you, until there is no more fear, there is no more shame, there is no more worry, there is no more wondering.

You know you are loved and you know you belong in heaven with him.

This is communion.

Jay was saying when they were praying before the service.

I said, Did you get anything?

And he said he just began to see the Godhead dance the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit in union.

And that if we would step into the midst of that love, we would be changed.

Not watching from afar, but standing close.

This is what Jesus died for to bring us to the Father.

So let's have communion.

Jesus, we thank you for your body that's broken was broken for us.

Your blood that was poured out for the forgiveness of sins.

More profound, the forgiveness than we will ever understand.

We are forgiven.

We are forgiven.

We are forgiven.

And we are brought into your presence, into your love, into your affection, into your compassion, into your embrace.

And we take what you've done, Jesus, and we consume it.

We have known and believed the love of God.

We are knowing and believing your love.

And we're being transformed by it.

Father, I ask that all of us would experience your affections in a new measure this week.

Jesus, show us your love this week.

Amen.