He Is - Celebrating the Advent Season - Love

Welcome To The River. City Church podcast and a

message by our lead. Pastor Jason Powers our prayer

is that this message would Inspire and encourage you, build

your faith. And point you to the

life-changing love of Jesus, may you enjoy the goodness of God,

as you follow him today. If I hadn't met you, my name is

Nick. I'm the associate pastor.

We're in the third week of Advent.

So the first two weeks, I was up the first week.

We talked about Hope Jason talked.

About peace last week. And so this week, we're going to

talk about love, which sounds great, right?

Like, you get the week for love and you're like, that's easy,

right? God's love.

This is going to be really, really simple.

It's not It's not. We're going to look at this kind

of love and I think you know especially even since 2020 I

think love has been really hard. I think it's been a really

difficult thing for us to do something that you may or may

not know about me. I was in education for 15 years.

13 of that was in the classroom. I was an English teacher.

And so when we talk about words, I think somebody just cheered.

Is that? Yes, you talk about words.

Read a lot with kids and I was high school a little bit of a

junior high. There's Always a conversation

about swear words, always, because teenagers want to be

able to justify that what they say is not bad, right?

And so, it's always this conversation, it's just, it's

just a sound, it doesn't really have a meaning, you're right.

You could say any word in a bad way and it's this nonsense,

right? But the conversation almost

always came back to the word love because as we would have

this conversation, my question for them would be what makes a

word bad? What makes it It irrelevant what

makes a word not mean anything, right?

And this word that we would come back to is love because guys, I

hate to tell you, I think that We don't know what love means.

Not in our culture, not in our society, right?

We use this word in the same breath.

I'll tell you, I love pizza and I do.

And I love my wife and I do And I love cheeseburgers and I do

and I love my kids. But I don't love any of those

things in the same way and yet that's how we express it, right?

And so this week I was just kind of doing this thing where in any

meeting or I had lunch with anybody or with my kids and I

would just simply when they were in front of me I'd ask them.

What do you love Okay, the answer almost every single time.

What do you mean? What do you love?

And I found out interesting things.

A lot of people like enchiladas a lot of people love their

family but it was it was all over, right?

And I think this is why when we try to explain love this is why

we use terms like I love you so much.

I love you to the moon and back. I love you more than anything

right? Because we try to have to

justify this because we overuse and abuse the word love so much

that I think it's just kind of its really lost.

Its meaning, it's become kind of this.

Like, you guys have junk drawers in your house but you just

throw. Everything is like, I don't even

know, throw it in the drawer, I don't know, maybe we'll use it

someday. I feel like that's where we've

gotten with this word. Love, we have used it in abused

it and overused it. So much that we don't truly

know. Know, the biblical meaning of

love, we don't truly know this word that we throw around every

day and all of these different ways.

And so as we go through this guy's for my my type A people,

I'm going to go, I'm going to give you my outline right now so

that you know so that you can get ahead and we're going to

walk through this one thing I want you to know much like we

said every week, if you're going to take nothing else away,

please hear this. Aside from Jesus.

You cannot know or understand love.

Okay, aside from understanding Jesus and understanding the love

of God, you cannot ever fully understand love.

And so as we go through this, what I'm going to say is we're

going to talk about how love has been made visible.

About how love has been defined and how it is only in the coming

of. Jesus Christ that real love.

Okay, real love, true, love not thin powerless, rootless love,

but real love can actually expand across the globe.

Okay. So if you have your Bibles take

those out. Or if you're falling on a

device, whatever, that's fine. We're going to be in first John

first John four seven through twelve.

That's going to be our anchor text.

Okay. And I'm going to walk us through

this and there's going to be some stuff and You can be like,

oh man, that's so that's awesome man.

Being a believer in love and God and Jesus, it's so great.

And then there's going to be things that are going to make

you uncomfortable. I just want to warn you about

that today. Okay?

As we walk through this, I want to start first, John 4:9, and I

John 4:9

want to read that. Okay, it says God's love was

revealed. Among Us in this way, God sent

his only son into the world so that we might be so that we

might live through him. Okay.

What he's saying, the manifestation of love love made

visible came as Jesus came, right?

As we as we enter into this Christmas season, right?

When Jesus came love, was made visible.

That was a place where we were able to see it when he came in

the flesh. And so, how can we say that,

right? When we look at the coming of

Jesus, we see that love is made manifest.

That means it's been made visible.

So, love this idea, this concept it's been made visible and John

argues that the sending of Jesus is Love made visible because of

the Trinity, okay, stay with me. This is the fun part, right?

So, it's because of the Trinity, it's because of the Triune God,

right? You have God, the Father God,

the son, and God, the Holy Spirit, and they live in this

Everlasting Lasting love relationship, right?

Where God the Father, loves God, the son and God the son loves

God, the father, and God, the Holy Spirit, loves the Son and

the father, and it's kind of this eternal mixing.

See us lose c.s. Lewis.

Calls it the dance. Okay, when you talk about this

and I understand, like, the Trinity, it's hard.

It's hard to wrap your brain around.

And one of the most brilliant Theologian c.s.

Lewis the way that he narrowed it down.

He said, he called it the dance. Okay.

And that is, we see that. Like, that's the reason that's

how we say that. Love is visible because of that

guy's the the scandal of Advent, right?

The scandal of Christmas is this, it's that God, the son.

The second person of the Trinity coeternal has always been, will

always be omnipotent the active agent in all of creation.

Put on flesh and came here to dwell with us.

That's love made visible, that's exciting, right?

Like that's that's the key but why?

Why write as a teacher always here's here's the thing.

But let's ask why you always want to go a little bit deeper.

Why? Because God wanted us to see and

understand Divine love. And so he sends his son so we

can see the enormity of this love.

All right, this isn't just, I love pizzas.

This is the enormity of God's love in the way that he shows us

his by sending his son. Okay, and I want to listen to

something that's been on my heart.

A lot lately, I've been reading and kind of studying, and it's

this idea that outside of Jesus, you might exist but you will

never fully live. Okay?

Let that sink in a little bit. You, you will absolutely exist

but you will never ever Fully live.

You'll experience all the blessings of what's called

common Grace. But you'll never be fully Alive.

You'll experience common Grace. And guys, you don't even need to

love God to experience, coming Grace, you can hate God, you can

be hostile towards God and still benefit from common Grace.

Do you know anybody like that? Anybody who's hostile toward

your faith hostile toward God? But it seems like they're living

a pretty good life. Yeah, maybe just me.

I don't know where you guys work.

I work at a church and I still see people that way, right?

People who cannot, they will not give way to your faith, or your

thinking, or to Jesus, or anybody and yet it seems like

their life is pretty good from the outside, depending on how we

measure good, right? They have a lot.

They have a nice house, a nice car cars.

Because you have to acknowledge that the beauty of coming Grace.

It wasn't just given to Believers, common, Grace was

given to everyone freely and God said you don't even have to

believe in me. You don't have to love me.

Here's common Grace, right? Because you can have A good

meal. You can have good friendships,

you can get a good night's sleep.

You know, all those things you have to believe in God to do

those things. But the Gospel of John, write,

the Book of John Jesus is argument, is about you coming to

life and there being something Beyond common Grace.

Okay? This is where the love is made

visible, right? Turn with me.

If you can to John 1, we're going to look what Jesus says,

right? We're gonna look at three of

these pretty quick if I can get there.

John 14, it says in him was life and the life was the light of

all people. John 4:14.

John 4:14

It says, but those who drink of the water that I will give them

will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will

become in them, a spring of water, gushing up to eternal

life. John 10:10.

John 10:10

You've heard this one a lot. I've heard Jason preach.

This a lot. The thief comes only to steal

and kill and destroy, but I came that they may have life and have

it abundantly. That's different.

That's different than common Grace, right?

Your existing but God created you to worship, right?

The transition is in the worship.

Who do you worship? What do you worship this

morning? Is you're sitting there?

What do you worship? What is the thing?

Because we were made to worship every one of us in this room

worships something. So, what is the thing that you

worship? What is the thing?

That means more to you than anything in the world will tell.

You is I know football, season is Texas.

There's a lot of worshipping going on.

There just is right? You got High School playoffs

right now and a fellow College, getting ready for bowl games.

There is worshipping, there are crowds cheering.

There are crowds with their hands lifted High.

There are crowds talking about what's going on.

There are crowds worshiping in those Arenas.

You think that it's not you think they're cheering right?

That is that is worship. We were made to worship.

We were made. To live that way.

See the gifts of coming Grace, Were Meant To Be experienced,

but then to expand past themselves to The Giver, right?

So come and Grace, you may have a great meal.

Congratulations, everybody can do that.

But if you are present in that moment, as you're eating that

meal and and worshiping and acknowledging, the fact that God

you gave me flavors and tastes and Sensations and the ability

to afford this meal and to be able to share this meal with

someone else, that's where you take common Grace of a good meal

and it goes up and expands to the Creator.

Right? That's where you worship because

it's different. It's a different experience.

It's something beyond that. What about having a good night

with your friends? Everybody can do that.

That's coming Grace. Anybody can have a great night

with their friends. Anybody could have dinner with

their friends. They come over.

You have a great conversation, it's good.

The difference is, when it expands and extends up is when

you realize that God loved you so much, That he knew the

community mattered, he knew that we needed to do life together.

That God gave you friends because guys, I don't know,

maybe it's just me, but friends are kind of hard to find.

Good friends. Are hard to find those friends

that They know you like really really know you and you know

them they see you for who you are and you see them and you

love each other anyway even though you're both screwed up,

right? That's the difference.

The difference is when you have a friendship, That you can

Relish in and worship God for because he provided it to you,

right? That's that's the difference.

You can be married, you can have a good marriage apart from God.

You can say it's successful. Well, I'll tell you, that's

common Grace, the way that it extends and expands is when you

are praying together and walking together with him and living, in

a way that he has desired for you, that's different.

That's different worship. See what happens is, having

common Grace and knowing it, but knowing there, something Beyond

it, that's what's given to us. That's what's given to those who

believe, because we know that, there's always something better

in him. That's different.

For people who don't the problem is that the pleasure of the

experience ends. There there's no extension.

It doesn't go beyond, it doesn't expand, it just ends with that

thing. Oh, that was a good meal.

It was a fun night. They're nice people.

We should do that again. Right.

It ends with the experience. Have you ever what about like

the idea of tasting? The goodness of the world that

never being satisfied, right? Because these people, they they

lived through life and it's common Grace, but they're never

really satisfied, right? I talked about 2020, we go back

to covid. I think most of us are some of

us at least had it right? You know, this experience.

You really want to taste an experience, good food, but you

have no taste, right? That's life in common Grace

without ever expanding up. That's being in that moment.

You really, really want to taste it.

You want to enjoy it but you can't.

And I love this idea. I think Matt Chandler talks

about is the idea of the shadow in the form that the shadow of

Our Lives is good. That's the common Grace part,

the shadow of Our Lives is okay. But when it reaches, the form is

when we turn it into worship of the Creator and not the created.

That's the extension, that's the expansion.

That's what makes it different. So if you want to see love guys,

we have to look at the coming of Jesus as the manifestation of

that love. That's love put on skin.

Okay, that's where this moves over and you might get it and

you see it and you're like, well, great.

But that doesn't really Define love you just said that it was

made visible. I want to keep reading.

Look back first John four, but let's look at 10.

It says in this is love, not that, we loved God, but that he

loved us and sent his son to be the atoning sacrifice for our

sins. This guy's here's the argument.

You cannot try to Define Love by watching Humanity.

Try to love. If you look to other people, As

the experience, or as the model for how to love, you will be let

down. That cannot be your model for

loving, you cannot watch Humanity because it's all been

tainted by sin. Every relationship has been

tainted by sin but God hasn't We cannot Define Love by human

ideals because it will always fall short.

Let's do it this way. I want you to think of someone

that you really love picture them.

Get the picture in your mind. Maybe it's your spouse, maybe

it's your children parents. Grandparents, neighbor, best

friend that you love that you would do anything for Got it.

Have you ever harmed them? Intentionally or

unintentionally. Have you ever had significant

conflict with this person? Have you ever purposely started

the conflict with this person? Guys, even the best that we try

to love fall short, because of sin, because it's all tainted by

sin. The only love that is pure and

perfect is God's love, because it's not, we don't intentionally

harm each other. But we do because we're humans.

I told you they were going to be parts that are difficult in this

and that wasn't it. This is it. so if we're starting

with God and his love is perfect, how do we Define it?

And what does it mean for him to love us?

I want us to look at John 3:16 and we heard it earlier John

John 3:16 John 3:16

3:16 and 17. And I want us to really, really

pull this apart a little bit. It says, for God, so loved the

world. This is like the most famous

first ever right for God. So loved the world that he gave

his only son, most of us. Grew up reading his only

begotten son, right. His only son, so that everyone

who believes in Him, may not perish, but might have eternal

life. Indeed.

God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world,

but in order that the world might be saved through him, he

came to seek and save the Lost. And he came not to condemn, but

to save from condemnation, right?

Let's look at Luke 19:10, told you, we're gonna be all over

Luke 19:10

this this morning, right? Luke 19:10 for the son of man

Luke 19:10

came to seek out and to save the Lost.

Okay, now let's go back to our scripture in 1st, John 410.

Says in this is love, right? We just read this in.

This is love, not that, we loved God, but that he loved us and

sent his son to be the atoning, sacrifice for our sins.

Some of you, depending on your translation, it might say the

word propitiation That's the atoning sacrifice.

And this doesn't make sense to us because of our junk drawer

love, right? That doesn't make sense.

This is where it gets uncomfortable.

God wanted to make his love. So visible, to us that in order

to do that, he needed to send his son, but in order for us to

understand the depth of his love, he had to appease Wrath.

That's the hard part right? We don't like to talk about.

You didn't come this morning, no one you're going to hear about

love and think you're going to hear about wrath in order for

God to show and to prove the enormity of his love the depth

and the width and the length of his love Jesus.

He had to allow wrath to be appeased to cover us so that we

could be made perfect. He had to allow wrath to happen

to his son. for you and for me to cover us, And allow wrath to

complete the work. That's how much he loved you.

Would you be willing that person that you loved so much that you

pictured? Would you be willing to let them

go to save mankind? That's what he did.

He gave his son to cover everything.

And we don't understand that we cannot fathom that in our

culture. In our society, we cannot

understand the enormity of this The idea that God is love,

right? That we have this idea that if

God is love, he can't be Wrath. And we want them to be separate.

We want them to not be related. But what I want to tell you you

cannot separate love and Wrath. not, when you talk about God,

That's the part that's uncomfortable for us.

The more that you love something think about this the more that

you love something, the more capable you are of Wrath, the

more capable you are of hurting that thing that person.

Love and wrath, go hand-in-hand because if you if there's an

assault on the wrath of God, it's an assault on the love of

God. I know.

I'm sorry. This is not a happy.

Merry Christmas message right now.

But it's in the book and so I've got to tell you what it says.

When we say that God is never bothered by sin or he doesn't

dislike Sinners. It's an assault on his love.

And don't get upset. I know some of you own the

t-shirt that says hate sin. Love The Sinner 's.

I don't show you because this is where it's hard for us to

understand. Roman Romans, one calls us

sinners, because we think we're smarter than God.

Look at your life. Look at my life.

I definitely live my life like I think I'm smarter than God.

And I think, if we're honest, at least in moments, most of us in

this room, do we think we know the right thing and hopefully

God comes along with us? I want to read Psalm 55 and 6.

It says the boastful shall not stand before your eyes.

You hate all evildoers the problem, guys, he didn't say

that you hate all evil doing You said you hate all evildoers?

So, as you destroy those who speak lies the Lord abhors, the

bloodthirsty in the deceitful 14 times in the first 50, Psalms

their explicit sentences about God hating those who do evil and

this is hard and it's uncomfortable because we want no

God, I just want to talk about your love.

I don't want to talk about. You hating my sin, I just want

to talk about the way that you love me, but in order to get to

his love, you have to go through this in and let him cover the

sin for you. There's no tiptoeing through it.

We can't talk about one and not the other.

Guys are lack of holy fear of a loving and all parlor.

Powerful God. We've completely neutered him

and pretend that he doesn't hate sin.

And what I'm going to tell you is that the if you just look at

the cross and the reality of hell, you know, that God is Not

screwing around with sin. It's there.

We have to acknowledge because now is the hard part right?

That I told you there was going to be hard part but here's the

beauty. We have the Gospel of Jesus

Christ. We have the gospel, that's the

good news and what ultimately happens here in the middle of

God's, right. Just wrath towards.

What's destroying? All that is good and beautiful.

And his creation is that he sends his son to become the

visible propitiation wrath absorbing agent.

So that you and I can be perfect and blameless and covered in

God's sight. That's the beautiful part.

That's the part that should excite you.

All the Wrath stuff that made you cringe and uncomfortable in

your seats. This is the one that sets us

free. So when we look at this time of

the year and we look at the baby in the manger, we shouldn't be

going all We should be in awe. We should be looking at the baby

in the manger. God sent his son, not to a

palace to be proclaimed King, not to Rome to overthrow the

government to Bethlehem, not even on a map.

To lie in a feeding trough of animals as a baby.

How much more vulnerable could you be than that?

Be very easy to kill that version of God.

And yet, he sends his son in that way.

His ultimate love is ultimate sacrifice was to send him to

cover us because we were dead in our sins and he made us alive.

That is the Advent of love. That's the Advent of love.

If you want to see that, love you look to Jesus.

He said in scripture, we say so what is love, right?

Love is seeking and saving the loss.

Love is not condemning the world but saving the world from

condemnation. Remember God is love and has

wrath, he is not wrath, that is loving, those are different

things. And the only way to see real of

expand is for this to be true. I want I think most of us if we

were to admit it, we would say that we want to end well in our

lives, right? I want to be a good father, I

want to be a good husband. I want to be a good pastor.

I want to live. Well, I want to be a good

neighbor. I want to be devoted in my

faith. I want to end this race.

Well, and so I've got Jason and the elders and people that I

trust and they are constantly holding me accountable, right?

If they see me slipping, they need to be in my face, they need

to be in my feet. Well, they know me so they need

to call come calmly into my face and just talk nicely to me.

They need to hold me accountable.

I want them to do that. Because if they don't, who knows

what's going to happen, guys? You should want this for

yourselves. The problem is that we have this

thin rootless idea of love and we live in a culture that if

somebody were to come up to you and be like, hey man, I think

you're struggling. It seems like, I don't really

like the way that you responded to your wife.

The other night when we were at dinner and what do we do?

Don't judge me. You don't have the right to

judge me. That's my life, right?

You're so judgy, maybe or maybe they just love you.

Maybe they love you enough. To tell you that your life is

out of line and that you maybe you're not walking in step with

Jesus but we're so sensitive. This idea that people aren't

allowed to speak into our lives and the problem.

Maybe they're not judging you. Maybe they love you enough.

To tell you, I tell my kids. When they were growing up and

they would get in trouble. Now tell him to things one.

You can never do anything to make me.

Not love you, right? And the second Is that I love

you too much. To let you do that thing or be

that way or say those words. It's not that.

I don't love you. That you're in trouble.

I love you too much. To let you be that way.

And I think that's what God is saying to us, right?

I love you too much. To let you just walk in your sin

and die, but we have to see that.

Real Love is deep rooted Eternal it's unmovable it's a never

ending. I told you guys two weeks ago my

son crew for he's awesome and also a pain but crew he does not

like being in trouble. He gets very emotional and he's

in trouble. And he'll do one of two things.

He'll either tell you that he loves you, a ridiculous number

of times in a row to make sure you say it back or he will

literally just say, do you still love me?

And this is just like, hey dude, stop flicking your cereal across

the kitchen, not like screaming and yelling.

He's like, do you still love me? Isn't that us?

We make these mistakes, we do these things, we get in trouble

and it's like, we just go back and we're like, well, do you

got? Do you still love me?

His love is deeper than that. It's deep-rooted, right?

That's what's going on in First Corinthians, the great love

passage. We hear it at weddings.

All the time side note, it's about the church.

It's not a wedding passage, that's just extra knowledge for

you. Congratulations.

Look back at verse 7. Okay.

First John 4:7 says beloved, let us love one.

1 John 4:7

Another for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born

of God and knows, God, anyone who does not love, does not

know, God, because God is love. It doesn't say that anyone who

Has not love. God doesn't know God.

It says anyone who doesn't love that's hard.

If you don't love others, not those that are just like you,

not those that voted like you not those who drive the same

cars as you, not those who dress like you not those in the same

tax bracket is you not those who look the way that you look, if

you do not love others, if there's no experience of God's

love in you that makes you love others than you don't know.

God. That stings a little bit.

He tells us to love others, that is how we know he made this very

broad. It wasn't if you have to love me

or you don't know me. He says if you don't love You

don't know me. If you don't love others without

account without judging them, without making sure that there

is good as you are, you just have to love otherwise, you

don't know me. John 17 verse 17.

John 17:17

It says sanctify them in the truth.

Your word is the truth as you have sent me into the world.

So I have sent them into the world and verse 17 is just as

this Priestly prayer, that Jesus is praying before he gets

arrested. Says it.

God, the Father sent the son to save the lost and not bring

condemnation of the world. He says you sent me now.

I send them. That's the dance.

That's the invitation right? That's where we get involved.

If we will love one another, he's arguing that you if we will

not love one another he's arguing that you don't really

know God or understand anything about him anyway.

And so how do we love? I'm gonna give you two ways and

then we'll be done. The first is, I believe the way

that we are the most loving is through vibrant.

Ferocious committed prayerfulness, we have to pray.

And you think maybe that's not where I was going to start,

right? How do we show love?

We show love through prayer, our prayer team.

We have a guy named Dave Simms Simms.

He helps to head up the prayer team.

He comes in every Sunday and he prays over every single chair in

this room before you get here. And then he comes upstairs and

he prays over Jason when he's preaching and praise with me.

And then he prays over me when I'm preaching and praise with

Jason, No One Ever Knows that, but he loves us enough to pray

for us. He loves you enough to pray for

you before you ever sat down in that chair.

The way that we love the most in the hardest is to pray, guys,

structures and programs and big events in churches.

I hate to break it to you. That's not how we show love.

I don't care how big your program is.

I don't care how many people attend your event?

That's not love, that's Entertainment.

We live in an entertainment culture, the way that we show

love. First is to pray.

There's a quote by a guy named Richard Lovelace, I think it's

going to come up here. He says, if all regenerate

church members in Western Christendom and we means when he

says regenerate church members, he means real Christians.

Okay. He's not talking about people

who go to church. That's not always the same thing

right since. If all regenerate church members

in Western Christendom were to intercede daily simply for the

most obvious spiritual concerns visible in their homes, their

Laces, their local churches and denominations their nations in

the world and the total mission of the body of Christ within it,

the transformation, which would result would be incalculable.

Not only would, God certainly change those situations in

response to prayer. We have Christ's word that if we

ask in his name, he will do more than we ask or think, but the

church is comprehension of the task would attain.

An unprecedented sharpness of phocis, perhaps much of our

prayer now, should simply be for God to pour out such a spirit of

prayer and of Supplication in the hearts of his people, guys,

I love a great book on prayer, but you know, what's better than

a book on prayer praying Just pray.

And I know that that some of you you're thinking, yeah, I just I

don't really know how to do that.

It makes me uncomfortable. I'm not really sure how I would

how I would really do that. I don't know that I would have

the right answers. Let me tell you something.

I want you to hear it. God does not care one.

Bit about your Doctrine or your theological vocabulary.

When you pray And if you think that's what he cares about, you

don't understand him. Guys, pray, what you've got.

Pray, what's here? Read about David and Psalms he

wasn't super eloquent, right? This doesn't need to be in like

Shakespearean English when you pray.

It's not King James prayers. Only pray, what's here?

If you're angry pray anger. He is not afraid of your anger.

Pray your sorrow, pray. Your sadness, in whatever words,

you have, whatever words you can create pray.

That way, that's all that he wants.

Yeah, doctrines important. But if praying paralyzes you I

don't, I don't know that you really understand.

What he wants from you. Pray.

That quote it said at the end, if you would just simply when

you wake up in the morning, right in the kids have gone

crazy, you're not connecting with your spouse.

Your roommates are driving you nuts, just pray.

Have you ever woken up frustrated and angry?

And you don't really know why pray.

Have you ever woken up frustrated angry and do know

why? Pray, you get to work and it's

craziness. Pray, you sit next to a

co-worker that you don't really like we've all been there.

Pray, you're going to lunch with a friend, pray.

It's the first thing. It's the first way that we show

love before you respond on social media.

Please for the love of God pray. If you think that we don't see

the things that people post that go here.

You're crazy. Please God pray before you post

on social media. Because it's not very loving.

It's heartbreaking. Guys, I tell you what, if you

pray, you'll line up in a way with God that you maybe never

have before. In a way that maybe you don't

even understand. There's a reason that one of the

things that Jesus taught his disciples most was to pray.

The thing that he modeled the most for them was prayer.

It's the thing we do. First to show love, I want to do

something with you real quick and we're going to end with this

ring. Yet two things I want to pray.

I really want River City in the family's here to be marked by

prayer. Okay, Jason.

And I the elders and we all want this to be a place of prayer

plate. That is excited too.

I pray and so I want you to do something and this is not weird.

We're just getting your body active, I want you to put your

hands out in front of you like this, and if your prayer and you

want to just rest them on your knees, that's cold to whatever.

I want you to receive. I want you to be physically able

and involved in this practice, okay?

And I'm going to pray for us, I just want you to be ready to do

this. And I'm going to pray.

And if you feel moved this morning in any way, pray with

me, right? Pray it, if you're not sure,

listen. Let me pray.

Father. We bless your name.

You are love. You are love, made visible.

Love, isn't love, love is Jesus and his life and his death and

Resurrection for us for Sinners. We thank you.

That all wrath is gone from us. That we are loved and cherished

and delighted and rejoiced over God, make a serious about your

Holiness. Serious about your wrath towards

sin and all that it destroys in your universe.

So we just ask you now in the name of Jesus, was you grant us

an excitement in prayer in our families?

And in this Church Father we just haven't been discipled.

We just don't know how to do it. And so I just pray that you give

us the courage to just pray, what we've got with the language

and the heart that we've got to just come to you, just talk to

you in the morning, talk to you in the evening and throughout

our days, help us to commit space, where we just fight to

figure out. And I pray that you bless us

with prayerfulness. Bless us with the power dial.

In our hearts. Got into your goodness and

Grace. And it's in your powerful name

that I pray. Amen.

And so we know that. The first thing we do is pray,

the second thing in, this is where we're going to end is

practice Hospitality. Okay?

And some of you in this room, you're like, I know, Joanna

Gaines. I know Hospitality, it's shiplap

in the silos and her cookbooks, not that kind of hospitality,

okay? Type of hospitality we see in

the Bible, as God is just present.

It's just presence. Wasn't God.

Hospitable, when he created a garden that he could just be

with Adam and Eve. When he was in the Tabernacle,

he said I will be in their midst.

It was his presence. He puts a temple in Jerusalem

and floods it with his presence. He was present, Hospitality

doesn't mean you have to be a good cook.

It doesn't mean your house has to be clean.

It doesn't mean that all the colors have to match, our needs

to be able to go in a magazine. Hospitality means that you are

present Wasn't he hospitable when he put on Flesh and Blood

to dwell Among Us. Isn't it hospitable when?

The spirit of God dwells in makes its home inside of us.

That's presence. As I pray that your dinner table

over the next few weeks is filled with people who are

seeking. And when you have coffee with

people that it's filled with people who are hungry to know

the form and not just the shadow.

And so, we're going to pray again and then we're going to be

done. I want to ask the spirit to

bring somebody to your mind. somebody that, you know, And

maybe they might be open to conversation about these things.

For whatever reason you do, you're going to be with family

during the holidays. And maybe there's this person

that, you know, you really want to share your faith, but you

don't know how this person whose life is a dumpster fire and you

really want to talk to them but you know, they're going to be

offended and we just we get tense, we get timid right.

You may not know the answers to all their questions.

They might ask you about dinosaurs, not being in the

Bible and you're like, I don't freaking even know how to talk

about that, right? You Have a good answer and

that's okay. I want to pray courage for you,

okay? And then we're going to close.

I want to pray for you to have courage two weeks ago.

I challenged you to share your hope with people that didn't

have hope and if you didn't have hope to come talk to me or Jason

challenge. This time is similar.

Will you share the love of Jesus with other people?

Will you be willing to be uncomfortable?

Will you be willing to talk of the enormity of God's love?

This holiday season. Will you pray and when you

practice Hospitality. Okay.

Hold out your hands again and close your eyes.

Nobody pranked you last time. Nobody dropped anything in your

hands. While you're doing this, you're

going to be okay. And I'm just going to pray one

last time for us. father, again, we come to you in the name of

Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit, Would you embolden

Us in this season to have a conversation with the people

that you've brought to our minds and hearts?

Give us an opportunity to sit down over a meal for to sit down

over coffee or something else. And just talk about you and who

you are and what they think about. and enter into this

prayerful deeper level of friendship where we truly love

them, not as the world defines love, but as you define love, we

love you. Help us help us to see your love

for us. And to understand that is far

greater. Than we could ever try to define

or see in other humans. God, it's in your beautiful name

that I pray. Amen, thank you for joining us

today. River City Church is all about

experiencing and expressing God's love in our lives and

community. And we hope that you've been

able to experience that today as grateful.

As I am, that you've spent this time, listening in this morning,

this podcast is no substitute for full participation in a

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listen to other pastors, but it is those who show up week after

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May the Lord bless, and keep you in all Grace and peace.