Who Are We? // What is a Christian? (Dan Pettersen)

I am going to start a new series today kind of really actually

really excited about this. You know, I think we we often

feel, you know, I think if we're honest with ourselves, we often

times feel insecure. And my experience is that the

people that can hide their insecurities, the best are often

the people Well, that feel it. The most is that you found that

to be true. Yeah, a few people nodding.

It seems to be the way it is. Why are we so insecure, right?

And I think a lot of the time, it's because we believe things

about ourselves that just aren't true, right?

Because after all, were made in the image of God, right?

And he's not insecure, you know. And anyway, so the question is,

What did he create us to be? Like what are we supposed to be

like, what are The Lies? We believe about that and about

ourselves. And how do we get past those

wrong beliefs and become more like the people that were meant

to be that we've designed to be. And so that's what we're going

to be looking at in our new series which is called who are

we, who are we? And so we're going to look at

about a look at a few different things that we mentioned this

before, but we're going to look at who are we as I like, what

does that even mean? We look at that this morning

then we're going to look at who are we as a church, right?

So what are we supposed to do, right?

As a local body of Jesus Christ, you know what, what are we

supposed to be doing? What is what does that even look

like? Yeah, then we can look at, who

are we as individuals, you know, who does God say that we are?

And how does that affect the way that we live?

And the way that we relate to other people, And then we can

look at what does God want us to become, right?

Both both as individuals and as a, as a corporate body what does

God want us to be right? What needs changing in Us and

how do we make those changes? And so I'm excited about this.

It's going to be really good so we're going to begin this

morning with this. This question of what is a

Christian, right? And I need to apologize a little

bit to the linton's house Church cost because we looked at this

about a year and a half. Go.

And some of you might remember that and I keep going off and on

different tangents looking at this and I keep coming back to

the same thing. So there's going to be a lot of

review in this for you guys. That's right reviews.

Good for us. It was found that really good

for me because it's really important to to lay this

Foundation. All right?

So this year is a census year. We haven't had one for quite a

while. 2018 was the last time we had a census.

Remember, filling out all these forms and all that kind of

stuff. So in the 2018 census 37% of the

population in New Zealand identified themselves as

Christian. Let's say, take Christian on the

Christian box on the census from 37 percent.

Right? About 12% of the population said

that they are turn they attend church regularly That's quite a

disconnect there, isn't it? A huge number of people who said

they were Christians. Don't go to church.

Yeah, that's quite a disconnect when I was in Scotland.

That was you. We used to do just panting there

in Scotland and it was even more extreme.

There are about 60 percent ticks Christian on the census form and

about three and a half percent went to church.

Yep. So just yeah, massive

disconnect. So when you start analyzing this

you realize that the the difference comes down to.

How do you define Christian? What do you mean when you say

that right? If we ask this question you know

what is a Canadian we asked him people that question you

probably get 10 similar answers right it Canadian someone from

Canada. Oh you know something something

like that right? But you ask 10 different people.

What is a Christian you might get 10 different answers.

Yeah, true, right? Some people would sort of say,

well you know, it's just kind of a tradition that you're born

into, right? So people had that kind of

belief would say you know sometimes you'll hear a phrase

like I used to be Christian but I'm not other people would say

no no it's not about that at all.

It's about. Jesus Christ has died and paid

the price. That was ours to pay, right?

And so we turned it, turn to him and say we're sorry for what

we've done and we accept his rescue right here, sir.

Salvation, right? And that's, that's what a

Christian is. I'm other people say, no, no,

it's more than that, right? It's a follower of Christ.

So it's about dedicating your whole life to this and doing

what he wants us to do, right? So like I say yes, 10 different

people, you get 10 different answers.

And so, here's the thing about this, right?

The term Christian. And all of its derivatives only

appears in the Bible three times, right?

In the whole Bible. And so that means that there are

some Clues as to what it means, but it's not defined in any

great detail. And the other thing about it is,

it was a derogatory term, right? It was kind of a slander.

It was. Is it Des?

All right, that was sort of against these people who were

outside of mainstream Judaism. Because they followed the

teachings of Jesus Christ, but the, the followers of Jesus

never never called themselves Christians, right?

They never use this term to describe themselves.

It's kind of like, you know, the term, you know, nerd or geek

redneck or something like that. Right.

You know, if you think about geek, it was the, it was used as

a term to describe a group of people in a negative way.

I such a geek right? But over time, right people Have

kind of embraced this term. And there you see stuff like

this right, where the Geek Squad we're here to fix your computer

right there just kind of embraced it.

And that's kind of what we've done with the term Christian.

It was a, it was a - derogatory term.

But over time we've kind of we just embraced it when yeah,

that's us. And All three of the times when

we see the term Christian used in the Bible, it's being used by

Outsiders to describe this group of people who are all acting in

that in the same way and following the same person.

Right now years ago, when I have first, I looking at this, I

looked at what a lot of other people had written about this

and they sort of we're trying to do what I had done is try and

extract some Clues from the different text with the Swede

Christian appears. Let's see if they could figure

it out. Then I finally came across the

sermon that sort of dealt with the reality that this word is

not. Well, defined in scripture and

it it had a profound impact on me.

And so I kind of stole the outline a little bit and and

shared it with Outhouse Church in Scotland, they had a profound

impact on them. And and so we're going to start

off in Acts chapter 11. If you want to turn your Bibles

Acts 11 · chapter mention

there or Point your app there Acts chapter 11, we're going to

Acts 11 · chapter mention

look at this will be in about start about this.

Five. So just a bit of a sort of

background to hear. After the death of Jesus, this

huge persecution broke out against the people that follow

Jesus teachings, and they were usually known as followers of

the way. You'll see this term a few times

in the book of Acts, the followers of the way, right?

And there's this huge sort of persecution against them and so

a lot of them fled Jerusalem for their lives, you know,

persecution was pretty intense and so a lot of them left and

moved to two other. He's got out of Jerusalem and so

a bunch of them ended up living in a city, which is now in

southern turkey and it said he was called Antioch.

And so, you ended up in the first century here.

You end up with a fairly large number of these followers, of

the way now, living in Antioch and they began to tell other

Jewish people that live there. But also just the citizens of

Antioch. Hey, God has done something

incredible in the city of Absalom.

Right. And a man actually rose from the

dead and we saw him and and we know a lot of other people who

did too and and they shared that the truth of Jesus Christ and

and all that and her. So a whole bunch of these

greek-speaking Roman minded people in Antioch Embrace this

idea, right and embrace this this this new group this kind of

sect of Judaism if you like at the time and You know, accepted

that, you know, this Jesus back in Jerusalem, your rose died and

rose. Again, he paid the price for the

sins of everyone in the world and they connected with that and

a church gets established at Antioch.

And so back in Jerusalem, a bit of a map here just to kind of

point this out. So Jerusalem's right down the

bottom of your screen, is there antiox kind of in the middle?

And so back in Jerusalem, you've got whole bunch of the Apostles

there and you've got James and you got the other James, the

brother of Jesus, and you've got Peter and, and, and the others.

And so they decide to send Barnabas up to Antioch to sort

of provide some, some teaching and training and encouragement

and support for the Believers up there Itzhak.

And so one of us gets up there and when he when he arrives he

realizes there are so many Believers there that he's going

to need some help. Now Saul, who would later be

known by his the Greek version of his name.

Paul was just around the corner, just sort of across the bay at

Tarsus right visiting his hometown there.

And so Barnabas decides to go around to Tarsus and gets all

and bring him back to Antioch because he's going to need some

help. And so that's kind of where we

pick up the story here in Acts chapter 11.

Acts 11 · chapter mention

So actually after live invest number 25 and it says this then

Barnabas do. Apoptosis to seek soul and when

he had found him, he brought him back to Antioch.

So it was that for a whole year, they assembled with the church

and they taught a great many people, right?

So again, you've got a large number of these sort of

greek-speaking people who have committed to this thing and then

check this out and the disciples and we'll come back to that in a

minute were first called Christians in Antioch.

Okay, now they didn't call themselves that All right, this

was a label that was put on them and we get a fascinating.

Look at this. From another piece of writing,

that's not actually in the Bible.

Some of you may have heard of this guy Roman historian by the

name of Cornelius tacitus. You might have heard the name

tacitus and Cornelius, tacitus wrote In the late, first

century. He died about, I think I got the

117 ad, he died, but he lived a long time and he wrote about

lots and lots of different about four or five different row.

A. Yep, kind of a story and a lot

of what we know about these Emperor's is written by tacitus

from the writings of testers and he wrote about one particular

Emperor called Nero. And actually, most of what we

know about Nero comes from from Tessa, this is writings, because

in 64, ad Nero did something extraordinary, all right?

Narrow looked out at the city of Rome and went.

Yeah, they liked it so much. I think we need a new one and

so, he decided to burn the The old one down.

And that's what he did. Right.

And so, you know, pretty crazy and as you can imagine that

didn't go down too. Well, you know, when you burn

down people's homes and their businesses and all that, and

they tend to get upset so Nero decided to blame the fire on who

On the Christians. Yeah.

You know how, you know that from a piece of writing that I'm

about to read you from written by test of this.

Here's what he said, listen, listen to how test this

describes this in the first century.

He says, consequently to get rid of the report, right?

This is the report that Nero himself burn down the city Nero,

fastened, the guilt and inflicted the most Exquisite

torches on a class, hated for their Abominations called

Christians. By the populace.

Okay, they didn't call themselves that right?

Christians didn't call themselves Christians.

That's what the general population referred to the mess.

Those Christians, right now, this is where it gets

interesting, right? That the word Christ is actually

a title. Right?

The the Hebrew word Messiah means, you know, that the

appointed one, the anointed one, the chosen one, right.

And and when you translated into Greek, it's a weird Christ has

the same kind of meaning it. So it goes on the end, it's a

bit like, you know, those lawyers who are qcs and they'll

little their name will be Fred Smith QC by this kind of the

tightly, the quaint, the Queen's counsel, I guess it's King's

Council Now. Isn't it?

Caicedo bkc Fred Smith Casey, right?

And so that that is a title, right?

Like me. Messiah, Jesus Messiah.

Jesus Christ, right? A lot of times we did, we don't

understand that, we kind of think that it was his last name,

you know, that there was, you know, Joseph Christ and Mary

Christ, you know, and they had Jesus Christ and and Jude Christ

and James Christ. And you know, the rest of the

Christ family, you know, but that it's actually not, it's a

title but evidently tested as didn't know that either.

And that's kind of helped what he was thinking, but here's what

he says next. This is pretty interesting, he

says, Christus from whom the name had its origin suffered,

the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands

of one of our procurator's Pontius Pilate.

Now obviously, this is an incredible piece of

corroborating evidence for the things that we see written in

the New Testament, right? Pontius Pilate was governor

Tiberius was the emperor Jesus was crucified, right?

The the extreme penalty. All of that.

But the point of this is that there was these Outsiders,

there's a bunch of Outsiders looking at this movement, trying

to come up with a name for it and they call these people

Christians, the Christians didn't call themselves that they

call themselves something far more terrifying, writes

something far more well-defined and something far more

disturbing and far more convicting than Christians.

Like we say one of the reasons you can't get five people to

Define Christianity. The same way is that it's not

defined with any great resolution in the Bible.

There's this passage that we just looked at the disciples

were first called Christians at Antioch.

There's a passage where Peter is talking about when you're being

persecuted as a Christian, he's talking about that and then

there's another passage where Paul is kind of standing in

front of a king and he's just describing what he believes.

And the guy says your Whispers Wade, me to become a Christian.

Yeah, let's the three times where we see it.

But if you look at the New Testament, the gospels, and

especially, in the book of Acts, there is a term that is used

very, very consistently to describe these people that were

part of this, kind of Jesus movement.

It's a terrifying term, and it is the term discipled, right?

Disciple. And the reason that it's a

Terrifying term. And that should disturb you is

because it's so clearly defined because you can kind of hide

behind the term Christian or Christianity a little bit

because you can it's not well-defined so you just give it

your own kind of definition a little bit.

You know, you can go to war in the name of Christianity or you

can do all kinds of things and you can Define it and redefine

it and mystifying it undefined it and do all kinds of things.

All kinds of stuff was Christian but I'm telling you what, you

you lock in To this word your and you get into the New

Testament and all my goodness, right?

So here's a few examples, right? So there's the one that we just

looked at acts 11:26 and the disciples were first called

Acts 11:26

Christians in Antioch and now so think about the significance of

this term. Now if you'd ask the followers

of Jesus, what they call themselves, they would have said

I'm a disciple. The disciples who called

themselves. The disciples were first called

Christians at Antioch. So what does the word disciple

mean? The English word means exactly

the same thing as the Greek word.

Translated from my feet. He's is the Greek word.

It means a learner, a pupil, and apprentice and adherent or a

follower of someone's teaching, Right?

So just to kind of put it in general terms.

The disciple is someone who says I'm trying to make a decision.

How would you handle this? Because that's how I handle it,

right? I'm trying to decide how to

respond to the situation. How would you, how would you

respond? Because, because that's the way

I'll do it, right? We would you go because that's

where I'll go. What would you do if you were

me? Because that's, that's what I'm

going to do. So, how would you react?

How would you live your life, how would you manage your

relationships? Because because that's how I'll

do it. That's, that's what a disciple.

Does it disciple is someone who's looking for instruction

and Direction on how to live life and the answer is, right?

How would you do this in before you even give me the answer?

My answer is yes. Right.

I'll, I'll do like what you tell me to do.

I'm your father, I am your disciple, right?

That's very different. Justin, isn't it?

That we give very broad. Definitions to Christians, not

well defined. But disciple really is it really

is. And so, you'll all be hoping at

the end of this, that I'm not going to say, which I'm not

right. Let's not call ourselves

Christians anymore. I let's just guys that which,

you know, which is kind of the point, right?

That'll be a little bit hokey but weird, but it's very hard to

to dodge the word disciple and just redefine it.

Yep. Here's a couple of other

examples and you'll find these throughout the New Testament.

This one's from Acts chapter 6. Verse number 7, then the word of

Acts 6 · chapter mention

God spread and the number of the disciples multiplied, greatly in

Jerusalem and a great many of the priests were obedient to the

faith. Right?

So this thing is spreading more. People are connecting with their

Savior and connecting to the group and there are more

disciples. It's pretty this one's

interesting. This is just just acts chapter 9

Acts 9 · chapter mention

and verse 26. Got a couple here from Acts

Acts 9 · chapter mention

chapter 9, but I accept a 9 verse 26.

And remember, Paul, originally persecuted the church right, he

thought it was kind of a, some kind of aberrant cult, right?

He was trying to stamp it out and now he is one of them,

right? And now he's become one of them

and it says watch their reaction when he finds First turns up in

Jerusalem X. I'm 26.

And when Saul did come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the

disciples right now. This is not just the Twelve

Apostles, they're also called Disciples, but this is a much

much wider group than that. This is, but they were all

afraid of him. It did not believe that he was a

disciple, right? They thought he was trying to

infiltrate, this was some kind of trap right to arrest them

and, you know, put him in prison and maybe have them executed or

whatever, you know. No.

So he tries to join the disciples.

They didn't believe that he was a disciple.

Okay, this one verse 36, just about ten verses down Acts

Acts 9:36

chapter 9, verse 36 at Java. There was a certain disciple

named Tabitha which is translated Dorcas, okay?

So her name is Tabitha in Aramaic.

If you translated into Greek, its Dorcas, you translate it

into English Gizelle. Yeah, Tabitha's.

A nice name. Isn't it?

Gazelles a nice name. I'm not sure.

You know. Here's my daughter Dorcas.

Yep. Anyway, so we've got this, this

lady who's a disciple and says, nice things about her carries on

this woman was full of good works and charitable Deeds which

she did okay. So no gender barrier there,

right there were disciple. Let's as well.

Yep and women were disciples to and so the point is here you

know we can sort of hide behind the word Christian but if you

look into the New Testament, you ask, What were these people

really about? How did they, how did they

describe themselves? They referred to themselves and

each other as disciples. And this brings us to a kind of

a terrifying and disturbing question, which is this I'll we

disciples. We disciples.

Right? Well we just Christians.

Yeah a lot of people tick that box on a census form.

Are you a disciple of Jesus? Are you a follower of Jesus is

your answer? Yes.

Jesus. Right?

Doesn't matter what the question is, you know, how would you do

this? Because we're however, you tell

me that's what I'm going to do. Are you the sample?

That's that's kind of a lot more convicting, isn't it?

There's a lot more responsibility in that one.

So what I want to do now is just take us quickly to a passage

where Jesus talks about talks to people who want to be his

disciples and he gives them the okay if you're going to be

disciples and and you know not just something more vague.

Here's the bottom line, right? He says if you don't hear

anything else that I say or do anything else, I do, here's

here's your specific marching orders.

Yes. And this isn't going to be new,

right? If you've been in church for any

length of time, you're not going to hear this ago.

I didn't know that was in there, right?

It's not a new thing, but if the followers of Jesus had followed

just this one instruction that he gave them, you know, not not

the whole new testament or anything like that.

Just everything the Apostle Paul taught but if you just if we

just followed this one, teaching Jesus and got this right now and

Entire world would be an entirely different and better

place. So we're going to be injected in

Book of John Chapter 13 and and here's what happens here in it's

John 13 · chapter mention

the last passover, right? And, and Jesus is going to be

meeting with his disciples and Judas has already left to go and

betray them to have them hand it over.

And so this is his last Jesus. Last moment to give his

disciples, some advice. Right before the whole

crucifixion thing, you know, gets into motion, and what's

going to tell them? You know, what advice?

Do you give last piece of advice?

He's going to give them here it is.

John Chapter 13 Verse number 33. Says, this is what he said,

John 13 · chapter mention

little children. I shall be with you a little

while longer you'll seek me, and as I said to the Jews where I'm

going, you cannot come. And so now, I say to you, so

when he says, look, I'm leaving and you can't come everybody

kind of freaks out as you can imagine, you know, they put

their life into this and Peter in particular, you know, there's

this kind of freaks them out and you can imagine that would be

the case and you can imagine Kind of a kind of imagine the

thoughts are going on in their heads, you know.

And Peter says, what do you mean, you're going?

And we can't come and I can't come.

There's Andrew going. Are you just leaving me out?

What's, you know what? What's the deal here?

You know, it sort of starting to panic and so, Peters kind of

obsessed with this idea that you're going somewhere, we can't

go. But Jesus just kind of moves on

and he says this. A new commandment.

I give to you now. The Little Greek word there,

that's translated new can mean new but it means new.

That's a good translation but it means new in the terms in the

sense of unusual, right? Strange, little bit odd may be

impractical. Even the kind of the idea of you

never really thought of this before and sitting here most of

you know what's coming next, right?

You've probably heard this before.

And even at the time, this wasn't that new on the surface.

Oh Jesus like okay. Linen guys.

We had 12, we're down to 11. Listen up, you ready?

And here's what he says. A new commandment.

I give to you that you love one another and the disciples will

be thinking. Well it's not really new.

I don't think that's in the Old Testament and actually we've

heard you say it before. Love one another right B says a

new commandment. I give to you that you love one

another and he goes on. You love one another.

As I have loved you, That you also love one, another.

I want you to love one another. The way that I have loved you.

I know Jesus didn't do this but he could easily have gone around

the room, couldn't he? And he could have said, Matthew,

do you remember what we were doing when what you were doing

when we met and Matthew would have gone tax collector?

You know, is that that was pretty bad, bad thing to be

right in Jesus because said yeah that's right.

You are you betrayed your people, everybody hated you

Peter. You remember what happened?

When we met Matthew Peters like, yeah, you took us to a party at

his place where there was a whole bunch of those kind of

people so, you know, and they didn't like, to be around Tax

Collectors. There was sort of Sinners and

then there was Tax Collectors, right?

And that's Matthew. And you can say, Matthew,

remember how I treated you, That's what I want you to do.

Remember to the others. You know how I treated Matthew?

That's that's how I want you to treat each other.

I want you to love one another Nathaniel, right?

Remember, you know his brother came to him and said, hey, we

think we've found the Messiah comes out of Nazareth and

Nathaniel said, what good thing could come out of Nazareth?

Nothing, nothing good. Can come out of Nazareth, right?

He just dissed, Jesus whole family, right?

That's quite disrespectful, isn't it?

You know, you know, if someone just kind of does that to you we

are from Yeah, but how did Jesus treat him?

He said come be one. My follower and he could have

gone around the rooms. He every one of them and done

that, right? The way that I loved you.

That's how I want you to love each other, right?

That's what I want. I want that to be the thing that

characterizes your relationship with each other.

One another. And then he says this by this,

right by this kind of one Dynamic, this one, relational

breakthrough. By this all will know that you

are my what's the next word? Disciples.

Disciples. If you have love one for

another, See, it's easy to say you a Christian because you can

give that a fairly wide definition.

Yeah. But a disciple means love people

the way Jesus loved them. Right?

And now we're in a much smaller box on.

WE it's a much tighter category when we, when we get to that.

That's, that's a lot tougher. Here's my favorite part about

this passage, right? This is big, right?

It's not how much you know about stuff or how much you know about

the Bible. It's not, you know, how many

things you're involved in and how many moral actions you

appear to have the litmus test? Jesus was saying, you know, the

the The bottom line characteristic that defines my

disciples is not going to be, you know, how loud they sing and

pray or anything. It's going to be how much they

love each other. How much they love each other

and Peter raises his hand. And Jesus says yes, Peter and

Peter says, so a decision. Well, we going there was just

sort of stuck in his head, you know, I can imagine going.

Okay. Okay.

Did you? Did you not hear what what I

just said and people would be like, yeah, no, that's cool, but

but I want to go with you. I want to be seen with you.

I want to die with you and Jesus.

The key look, Peter and a few hours, a teenage girl is going

to intimidate you It's saying you don't even know me.

I a like, no, no, I'm I'm willing to die for you, right?

And, and, and Jesus saying, look, Peter, I don't want you

right now to go where I'm going or Die For Me.

Yeah, that would come, you know, but he said, you know, I want

you to do something far more important than that.

What does that? I want you to love these guys

for the rest of your life. I want you to love them in such

a way that when people from the outside looking in and they sit

and they see the way they that you guys relate.

And, and the way you love each other, I want them to be drawn

to the edge and peer in and go. Look at the way they love each

other. You know, I want you to create a

community of people who are defined and characterized by

that kind of unconditional compassionate ridiculous.

Who would do that kind of love. I want people from the outside

to, to look in unafraid that they're going to be dragged into

something and unafraid that you're going to accuse them as

something. I want people to be able to come

to the edge of your T looking and go.

Look at the way the men treat the woman, right?

Look at the way they treat widows.

All right, look at how they treat sick people.

Look at how the weight the way the woman.

Honor their husbands. Look at the way the woman care

for each other. Look at the way, they honor

children how, you know, all of that, look at what they do with

their money, look at how they handle Oh my goodness, it's like

they don't even fear death, right?

Look at them. Love And she said, I want you to

go out and I want you to build communities like that.

And they got to grow and expand and grow and expand and people

from the outside of going to be drawn to the edge and - that

offer going to say, you know, I don't know if I want to become

one of those, but I certainly would like to work for them.

We for one of them, you know, I don't know if I want to become

one of those, but I actually wouldn't want employing them.

You know, when they mess up, they let you know, they're

honest, you know, to a fault right that willing to do the

right thing, even if it's going to cost them, Financially.

You know I don't know if I want to be one but I wouldn't mind my

daughter marrying somebody like that or my my son marrying you

know. One of the women like that and I

thought I'd be one but look at the way they love, right?

And eventually they just kind of draws people in.

Can you imagine in our community or in our neighborhood in our

workplace or schools or whatever?

Even if we just got this one thing, right?

What a difference? It would make, if we decided

forget Christian, we're going to be disciples.

We're going to love people, the way Jesus loved us, write the

way Jesus loves them. Could you imagine what impact

that would have on our whole country?

If we did that and I love the people around me, just like

Jesus, loved the people that followed him and Jesus knew

right? He knew that he could have

talked about anything. This was his last moment he

could have talked about marriage or honesty or anything else.

But this was the one thing that he said was going to be the

distinguishing feature that people would know.

They were a follower of his, okay.

So conclusion, Try this out this week.

All right, try this out this week and you're surrounded by

idiots. I know that, right?

But Jesus was God in a body, right?

And he had to put up with Peter going.

Wait, where are you going? And Jesus, still loved like this

right now. It won't come back to you.

You know, let's just not like one of those self-help books,

you know, we, you know, I did this for 10 days and now my

husband is a different person, right?

Nothing like that. All right, people won't treat

you any. There they crucified, Jesus,

right? Get ready.

Gary. But this is what it means to be

a disciple. This is Way Beyond the kind of

broad definition of Christian, right?

This is how the world changed. This is how an empire was

toppled without an army does. Because people crept to the edge

of these churches, right? These ridiculous, Jesus

communities. And and went look at the way

they treat each other. I'm not sure yet.

If I want to be a part of that but I you know, you know, I'm

not sure. But yeah, my baby.

I do want to be a part of that. Not sure I believe yet but I am.

You know, there's just something about that that draws people in.

We learn to love. Like that from Jesus who loves

so much. The Bible says he loved them to

the end. They can literally be translated

as he loved them to the uttermost.

Right, he went to the wall for us, right?

Yeah, that's pretty sobering isn't in calendar.

The fantastic job, you know, wanting us to that it communion

this morning. Now, some people have a very

negative view of Christianity and, and it, if I'd seen the

things that you've seen in an experience, you know, maybe I'd

feel the same way, but all of us feel full short, not only of

God's standard, but, you know, we've talked about this before

Ava understands, we set standards for ourselves, and

don't meet him, you know, And so we need to figure out what we're

going to do with our failure. And I would hate you to miss

that because Christianity has been poorly represented to you

in some way, right? And that, and it's been so badly

represented to you, that you miss, what it is that Jesus has

done for you, right? Tortured to death, right?

A punishment, you should have taken, that's how much he loved,

that's how much you love. If you, if you haven't ever

gone. I got, I'm sorry.

Please forgive me. You know, you know, thank you

for doing that. For me now is the time now is

the time if you want to talk to somebody about that find meal or

one of us and and have a chat do that.

If you've done that right disciples right?

That's how we Define ourselves. Love people like Jesus loved us.

You know, a lot of people like keep pointing to that one.

And he runs an illness like that.

Yeah. I love people like Jesus loved

us. Yeah.

Whoa, it's big, isn't it? All right, let's pray and then

I'll him back over to to create a father.

Again, we thank you for that love we thank you for What it

took for you as a father to give up.

Your only son. We thank you for Jesus coming in

instructing and teaching us and coming, knowing that he was

going to go through that. And even when he had options to

to not go through that, he did it anyway.

He looked he loved us to the uttermost and we thank you for

that this morning. Well, we just pray that we would

be a people who would be so impacting by that that it would

affect every relationship we have.

And that we would love each other with that.

And of love, and that people would see it be affected, be

drawn in and be changed. Let's separate this morning.

We just pray these things in Jesus name.

Amen. Right.

So we're going to carry on with the series will go will be and

going to start next week, Baro is going to give us an overview

of Peter and then we're going to get into first Peter and pull

out because what does it mean to love like that?

How do you how do you draw out? The you know, we can say I love

each other but how do we draw that and Peter defines out

really well for us. So we go through the book,

exciting stuff.