The Way of Jesus 11.0

Okay, well let us dive into our word for this morning and we are continuing

our series, uncovering the Way of Jesus, which we have now been in

for probably coming on three months.

This is part 11 today,

now, and we have been doing this conversational format,

and that's wonderful.

And.

It's wonderful.

I know some of you really appreciate it and me keep going.

I'm just desperate to get up and do a normal preach sometime soon.

But anyway, it's not about me.

So today is we are looking at uncovering the way of Jesus,

uncovering the heart of Jesus.

So this month is a bit of a sub theme to this, uh, overarching theme.

We have really been leaning into this idea of the burden of the Lord.

The overarching theme just to loop you all in, in case you've forgotten

or if you're new here this morning.

Is this uncovering the way of se Jesus series has really been

about, based out of the scripture from Matthew seven verses 13 to 14.

And it says, you know, when Jesus talks about enter through the narrow

gate, because you know, wide is the way that leads to destruction, but

narrow is the way that leads to life.

And so we're uncovering the way of Jesus that leads to life.

And then also drawing from the wisdom of Proverbs 14 there, uncovering the ways

also that can seem right to us, but in the end, lead to death because we can

very often get tempted and deceived.

To walking in ways that we think other ways of Jesus but are not.

And it is only, it doesn't matter how sometimes we like to think that

the ends can justify the means.

And it doesn't matter how virtuous our ends might be.

If the way we are getting there is not in accordance, in alignment

with the way of Jesus, uh, the ends do not justify the means.

We will not end up with Jesus ends using worldly ways.

And one thing I would just like to reflect on.

And we, as we consider these things right now, and really this undergirds,

the whole intent of this morning is let us just reflect on the, on a

mo for the moment, on the heart of God that lies behind these words.

When Jesus says, enter through the narrow gate, what is his desire

behind these words as he says them?

Is it just that he enjoys saying hard things to people?

Well, no.

We know that that's not it.

Right?

When we think about the writer of Proverbs inspired by the Holy Spirit,

and he pens this wisdom in Proverbs 14, what is the heart and what

is the desire behind these words?

Well, it's fairly obvious, isn't it?

It's life.

What is the heart of God for this world?

What is the heart of God for you?

As you see here this morning?

It is that you would know life is, is have you reflected on

the heart of God in that way?

So often we can reflect on the heart of God.

We can get all caught up in a, you know what?

What are the things God wants to correct in my world?

And we forget the deeper heart of God and just to abide in that place and

rest in that place and meditate on his intention for us and the world,

which is that we would know life, true, eternal, and abundant life.

And so like I said before this month we have centered around this

theme of the burden of the Lord.

We began with Matthew, the end of Matthew nine, where we see Jesus looking at the

crowds who are harassed and helpless.

It says in the NIV version there, and it talks about this heart of

compassion that Jesus has for them.

They are like sheep without a shepherd.

And this admonition that he gives to the disciples in that moment when he

says, as he's looking with this heart of deep compassion upon the people who are

helpless and harassed, and he says to his disciples, pray to the Lord of the

harvest to send laborers because what?

The harvest is plentiful, but the work is a few.

So we considered this burden of the Lord in this place for the

lost and for the broken, for the harassed, and for the helpless.

And we've considered the ways in which we can apprehend this burden of the

Lord for ourselves and what a blessing it is to have this love birthed burden.

For the brokenness of the world and to know our unique part to play in

co-laboring with Jesus as he outworks his plans of redemption in the world.

And we broke it down this way.

We got that slide there, Sarah.

We are talking about where we don't have a harvest problem.

There is no shortage of harvest, is really what Jesus is saying in that passage.

One of the implications, we actually have a laborer problem.

We need more people who carry a burden of the Lord to go out into the harvest and we

don't actually those we keep diving down and if you haven't heard these messages,

you can go back and listen to the podcast 'cause they were very, very good.

We don't have a laborer problem.

We have a prayer problem.

He says, ask the Lord of the harvest, doesn't he?

But why don't we pray?

Why don't we ask the Lord of the harvest with a God burdened heart

for the brokenness of this world?

Because there is a pride problem that can undergird our prayer problem,

and then under the pride problem.

There is a heart problem, and so we're gonna dive a little

bit more into the heart this morning, which we did last week.

But this morning what we really wanna do is look at the heart of God to sit in the

beauty and the wonder of the heart of God.

And, we looked last week, oh, I think over the last couple of weeks at

some of the obstacles that can, that

can fill our hearts, that can cause the

burden of the Lord in our hearts to be pushed to the margins

or pushed completely out.

So wounded heart prayerlessness in our life.

Worries of the world.

I'm not gonna go into these in detail because you can go back and listen

to these podcasts if you miss them.

If you miss being

here on these Sundays, our hearts can be numbed

or hardened to the pain of the city.

There can be a lack of desire or faith for the presence of God.

Just the transience of our society can make it really hard because

often the burden of the Lord is for a people, a place, a city,

a, a minority, whatever it might be.

and our transience

can make

it really hard to, operate outta that

burden of the Lord.

Pressure of just our own burdens and ambitions, cynicism.

So much cynicism in our culture.

Frustration, we talked about that quite a bit a couple of weeks ago.

And so last week we looked at what it was to have that mindset

of a victor mindset.

when Paul says at the

end of Romans eight, you are more than overcomers in Christ Jesus who loved

you, the importance of us having that.

As our default mindset and posture in this life that we are not victims

does not matter what has come against us or is coming against us in Christ

because of the love of Christ in us.

We are always now and eternally overcomers, and that if we carry

that mindset, then we will not be crushed by the things of this world,

and we are able to hold and steward that burden of the Lord in our heart.

And advance the kingdom of God in this world as the Lord Jesus would have us do.

All right, so this brings us to this morning, and so we wanna stay

with the matters of the heart, but we wanna have a conversation around

the heart of Jesus and his heart of love towards us and to the world.

So we wanna uncover the heart of Jesus this morning, and we wanna

uncover the way of Jesus that flows out of the heart of Jesus.

For, as you know, Paul so eloquently puts it in one Corinthians 13.

If we do not have love, what are we.

Clang gongs, you know, and so we can have all the best

intentions of the world.

we can be busy little

beavers doing things, we think in the name of Jesus.

But if it's not in love, we're just gongs.

And, and a lot of the experience of the world outside of the church

is that the church is a gong.

The church has adopted in many ways just this position as

the moral police of society.

And we can come across as like gong, clang, clang, judgment,

judgment, criticism, criticism.

But that's not, that doesn't reflect the beautiful heart of God and the beautiful

heart of Jesus and, uh, oh, that the

church would be so, captivated by the beauty

of the heart of God that it would overflow out of us.

And that the world would come to see Jesus as beautiful because

we truly see him as beautiful, and I love that Tim Keller line.

Is Jesus beautiful for you or is he just useful?

Yeah, we so easily in, uh, the culture in which we live in, which we all want this,

the, the three steps and the tools and the formulas to succeed in life, we can

apply that to Jesus and our relationship with him, and he just becomes useful.

He's just this useful way, or this even Christianity becomes a philosophy where

we just, if we just apply it right then we can live our best life now.

And Jesus doesn't, isn't beautiful in that place.

You ever have been, you know, with somebody who's like trying to tell

you about another person and they're like so captivated by this other

person, by how great they are, right?

And you've never met this person, but they are just overflowing

with enthusiasm, right?

Oh my gosh.

You've gotta meet them.

Like, they're so great, like da da, da, da.

Imagine if we all talked about Jesus like that.

To the world around us, like we were so captivated by his beauty and his

goodness that we just talked about him, and we knew him so intimately in

that way that from the overflow of our heart, that's how we spoke about him.

And would people then not be compelled to ask questions, to

wanna know, to be curious, right?

We would spark people's curiosity because everybody wants to

be around what is beautiful.

Everybody is compelled by beauty.

And so I, I think my big hope from this morning is that you would be

reminded about how beautiful the heart of God is for you and for the world.

And that you would be somehow more

captivated by that, than you were when

you walked in and you would be somehow equipped and

motivated to wanna share that.

Do you have any thoughts at this point?

As I go off on one of my ranting pictures,

I think the, the thing that's to keep in mind is when we consider what the burden

of the Lord is, if it's not actually birthed out of his love, it'll be birthed

out of something else, obligation, fear.

And so I suppose part of the reason why we are.

Entering this conversation in, in relationship to the way of

Jesus, which is the way of love, which comes out of his heart.

We need to recognize that if we're gonna carry the burden of the Lord, it needs

to be birthed out of response to his love rather than this sense of trying to get

it to understanding the heart of Jesus.

Critical too working and walking out the burden of the Lord that he ca you carry.

Plus, if the burden of the Lord is not matched with grace, with love, it's

actually not the burden of the Lord.

It's actually something else.

It's your own sense of internal pressures and obligations that you

feel in some sort of Christian duty.

I'm like, no, this is, we're talking about a spirit birth burden

that comes out of his heart of love for the world around him.

Yep.

Now, some of you might be here this morning and you're like, oh,

people just need to know the truth.

Right.

But if the truth isn't beautiful, it's not.

It true.

And if beauty isn't true, it's not really beautiful.

You can't separate these things.

We do a great job at trying to separate beauty.

We do.

But also the reason why Jesus is beautiful is because of his love, right?

The world tries to separate love.

And truth, but you can't actually separate it, right?

If, if you trying to separate, if you're just trying to be truthful

and there's no love, it's not truth actually, do you hear that?

If you're just trying to be loving and you're actually hiding

the truth, that's not loving.

So truth and love go together.

Do not separate them.

The world is trying to separate them.

They don't.

They can't separate.

The perfect beautiful expression of truth and love was at the cross Truth.

Sin must be penalized.

Sin must be penalized.

That's the truth.

But love simultaneously because it wasn't you on the cross.

It was God himself on the cross, taking on our behalf the perfect

expression of love and truth.

Beautiful.

if this is a space

where you go, wow, I just really, you know, struggle to apprehend

God as beautiful, maybe this is even a, this conversation is maybe

even a little bit uncomfortable for you, maybe a little bit foreign.

Can I recommend to you the book by Dane Orland called Gentle and Lowly?

It is an incredibly profound book, uh, where he takes the thoughts of one of

the Puritan writers, Thomas Goodwin, and he just, just over and over again

in different ways, clarifies, articulates,

expresses the beauty of the heart of Jesus.

It is a phenomenal book, which I cannot recommend highly enough.

So one of the things, uh, one of the quotes from the book, um.

On this topic that we've just been talking about this morning, he says

this, the cumulative testimony of the four gospels is that when Jesus Christ

sees the Fallenness of the world all about him, his deepest impulse, his most

natural instinct is to move toward that sin and suffering, not away from it.

See, we think our sin repels him.

No, when he looked at the crowd.

In all this sinfulness and brokenness, what does it say?

Compassion, which is that burden in the guts actually

is what this word, compassion.

He was

moved with compassion, moved with not repelled by compassion.

Yeah, compassion.

You know, like what he's seen.

He

wasn't moved by obligation.

You know, he was moved by compassion.

Uh, Matthew 1129.

This says, just, I think it's one of the very few words, is where Jesus

actually reveals clearly his own heart.

Take my yoga po.

You learn from me.

I'm gentle and I'm humble.

In heart is your Jesus.

Gentle and humble in heart.

You know, as you think about your image of Jesus, is this what describes his heart?

Because if it isn't, you do not have a true image of Jesus.

You know, some of you in here, I know you because I am you.

You lean into the revelation, Jesus, right?

You want the guy riding back on the horse, sort outta the mouth, words on his thigh,

you know, come at a wreck shop, okay?

Now it's not that that isn't true, right?

But this is her.

This is the heart of Jesus, as Jesus himself reveals it.

So even if you find this uncomfortable, you need to wrestle with it and

submit to it because this is Jesus' self revelation of his own heart.

The way of Jesus flows outta the heart of Jesus.

So we need to be really clear that we are rightly understanding his heart

and his heart for sinners like you.

And I,

and so we're gonna, dive in a little bit

this morning from this passage here in Galatians chapter five.

You wanna read this, babe?

I am.

This is a bit of a mashup of a few different verses, so as you can see on

the bottom, get hold of those references.

But we're gonna read, I suppose, an extract of Galatians five here.

So starting at verse one.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free stand firm then.

Do not let yourselves be burdened by a yoke of slavery.

Verse 13, you, my brothers and sisters were called to be free.

Do not use your freedom to indulge in the flesh, rather serve one another.

Humbly in love for the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

So I say, walk by the spirit and you won't gratify The desires of the

flesh for the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit and the spirit.

What is contrary to the flesh?

The acts of the flesh are obvious.

Sexual morality and purity, and debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred,

discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions factions and

envy, drunkenness, orgy, and the like.

Good list.

Wow.

I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will

not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, also known

as patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and gentleness and

self-control against such things.

There is no law.

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh

with its passions and desires.

Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the spirit.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be God.

Yeah.

Uh,

can we just have the next slide up there, Sarah?

Okay, so if we just quickly just look at this first verse here, it is for

freedom that Christ has set us free stand firm then, and do not let yourselves

be burdened again by yoke of slavery.

So the broader context to this letter that Paul's writing to the church in

Galatia here is that here is a church, um.

There's gentiles in this church and they are being told by the Jewish people,

well, you need to go get circumcised.

You know, it's not just enough to have faith in Jesus.

Uh, you need to go be circumcised.

So trying to add to the gospel, you know, earlier on in the

letter, Paul writes these very

strong, emphatic kind of, words of you foolish

Galatians, who has bewitched you.

It's like Jesus went to the cross for your freedom and now you're trying to

add to his work by these good works.

Stop it.

And, and this is the slavery that he's talking about.

What is the freedom that he's talking about here, right?

When he says that, it is for freedom that

Christ has set you free.

What, what is that?

Is that freedom just to go do whatever we want?

What is it freedom from and what is it freedom for?

And we need to think about that when we read these words, right?

'cause that's really important.

And really one of the things he's saying is, is that the gospel sets

you free, sets your conscience free.

And Adam's gonna talk about a list a little bit more in a moment, what

Paul is actually talking about there.

But what I want you to consider again is I, as I highlighted before when we talked

about.

The passage of, you know, what is it

behind the heart of God that would say, enter through the narrow gate.

Well, that God wants us to know life, right?

God, walk this way because I want you to know life.

What is the heart of God behind this here?

He wants us to be free, right?

He wants us to know freedom.

Now he is a good God.

He is a good father and he wants his children to be free.

And we'll explore what that freedom actually is and for in a

little bit moment in, in a bit.

But we've gotta also understand this warning here to stand firm to.

Don't take this burden, this yoke of slavery upon you.

This is one of the things we were touching on with this burden of the Lord, right?

Because if your burden of the Lord isn't grounded in a burden of love, a burden

of joy, a burden of hope, a burden of peace, it's not a true burden of the Lord.

It's easy to say something, this is my burden of the Lord, and actually

be so weighted down because you're trying to live out of this burden

in order to earn God's approval, in order to earn God's favor.

Okay, that is to take on a yoke of slavery, and this is what is undergirding

what Paul is writing here to the

church in glacier.

the great evangelist,

DL Moody, he illustrated the point that Paul's trying to make here in this verse

by quoting an old former slave woman in the South, following the Civil War,

being a former slave, she was confused about her status and asked, okay, and

it's, I, I remember quoting it here.

I'm not trying to be patronizing, but the way he wrote it was as if it was in.

You know the way a slave would speak.

Okay, so I'm not trying to be funny here, but this is literally how he wrote it.

So he's talking about this slave woman and how she responded to being told

she is free, struggling to believe it.

She writes this.

Now, is I free or been I not?

When I go to my old master, he says, I ain't free.

When I go to my own people, they say I is, and I don't know whether I'm free or not.

Some people told me that Abraham Lincoln signed a proclamation,

but master says he didn't.

He didn't have any right to.

Many Christians are confused on the same point.

Jesus Christ has given them an emancipation proclamation, but their

old master tells them they are still slaves to a legal relationship with God.

They live in bondage because their old master has deceived them.

And so again, another quote from the book, gentle and Lowly, which

I recommended before says this.

There are two ways to live the Christian life, and this is essentially what Paul

is talking about here in verse one.

Two Ways to live the Christian life.

You can live it either for the heart of Christ, or you can live

it from the heart of Christ.

One is bondage and slavery, one is freedom.

If you're living it for the heart of Christ, you're trying to earn something

that has already been freely given to you, but we do it from the heart of.

Christ, we get to do it with complete and utter freedom.

Mm. Very good.

I was thinking, always thinking about that, the order of what happened in the

Exodus story, you know, so they were slavery in, uh, they were slaves in Egypt.

Yeah.

Now question, did God give the Israelites the 10 Commandments before they were,

were now free or after they were free?

Any, any answers.

Thank you very much.

So, God, his heart is to set you free.

And then once you are now free, here's some instruction on what it

looks like to live as free people.

Do you understand the order?

Like get free.

Sorry, you are free now here's how you live it.

Like, like yeah, get free.

Like do it yourself.

No, God has set you free.

And then he shows you how to live like you're free.

Right.

He didn't give us the list.

He go, oh yeah, you're slaves, but don't worry.

Do these 10 things and you'll be free.

No, no.

I will rescue you 100%.

You are free.

I'll even split the Red Sea just to let you know who I am.

I love that picture.

We're gonna go to verse 13 to 14, and, uh, I've got this scripture, I

think, oh no, I'm just gonna read it just to, just to remind you, it says

you brothers and sisters, you were called to be free, but do not use your

freedom to indulge the flesh, rather serve one another in humble love.

For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this command.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

So now I know we've been focused on freedom.

Now I wanna shift your mind to go, how is freedom and love connected?

How does freedom and love work together?

Because you can't love from a position of fear.

Just give you the answer straight away.

You can't love from a position of fear.

So now let's go deeper.

Why can't you love from a position of fear?

Why can't you love?

So fear and love are almost in opposition to one another in the Christian life.

One John four 18 clearly spells out that this is, this is not, you can't love

because there is no fear in love, right?

Perfect.

Love drives out fear because fear has to do.

With punishment.

So fear is actually self-protective.

First thought fear is self-protective.

So when you're afraid, what happens?

You focus on yourself.

You focus on your safety, you focus on your uh, reputation, your control, and

it's that inward focus that makes the genuine expression of love impossible.

Because love by definition is self-giving, not self-protecting.

Is that land?

You hearing me?

Yeah, that's good.

Second thought here.

Love requires freedom.

So to really love one someone, you must be free to give yourself without calculating

the risks, you must be free to love others without calculating the costs.

You must be free to love others without any expectation of

getting anything back in return.

So if fear dominates you, your love will always have conditions attached.

You'll always be cautious.

You'll never be wholehearted.

So if love has conditions, are you tracking with me?

If love has conditions, it's not really love.

Do you hear that?

Mate?

You gotta get that.

That's just some gold coming out right now.

Did you get that?

If love has conditions, it's not really love.

We live in a condition orientated love system in terms of how we define

love in 2025 in Western culture.

We have attached conditions to love.

That is a incorrect false definition of love.

If love has conditions, it's not really love because then it's about

what you are getting in return.

So here's, here's, here's another definition.

Love is giving without any expectations of getting anything in return.

Charles Spurgeon.

This is an awesome quote and you're gonna not like it in a minute, but here we go.

Love never asks What be benefit will derive from love.

Love from its very nature is a disinterested thing.

What did you feel?

The jar right there disinterested.

It loves for the creature's sake.

It loves.

And for nothing else.

So the jar there is good on, good on your Spurgeon.

Well done.

Love from its very nature is a disinterested thing.

Anyone go, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.

How?

How can love be disinterested?

Surely love is moved by compassion and depth of feeling.

I am.

Broken by this.

Interesting, isn't it?

So what Spurgeon is trying to get at is, it's, is it's, it's, it's so

disinterested doesn't mean I don't care.

What it means is disinterested is love's self focus has gone.

I'm so not interested about expressing love to in order for me to get something.

That's why it's disinterested.

It's like loving when you only feel like you wanna love

like a feeling sourced love.

That's what Spurgeon's talking about.

He's disinterested in feeling like, I need to love.

No, no.

I wanna embody the one who lives in me.

He is love and he's living out of me.

So the, so it's not a posture of self, that's why it's disinterested.

Does that make sense?

It's quite an exposing quote.

I think I was quite challenged by it earlier this week.

Uh, next thought around this, the gospel removes fear.

Now listen, you can't give what you don't have.

That's a fact In every day of the week, you can't give what you don't have.

It's only when you know you are completely love and accepted by God through

Christ, that fear will lose its grip.

That's true.

If you already have God's approval.

You don't need to secure it from people, from circumstances, and that

frees you to love sacrificially.

We can't love from a position of fear because fear keeps us turned inwards.

Well, love requires us turning outwards and it's only the

assurance of God's perfect love that can help you Look outwards.

Free to give free to risk, free to serve.

One John four 10.

Ah, this is gold.

This is love.

Hey, Western Society 2025.

You wanna know what the definition of love is.

Uh, thank you Lord.

This is love.

Definition time.

You got it.

Don't miss this.

Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an

atoning sacrifice for all our sins.

What would you write as the definition of love without looking at that reference?

I don't know if you'd write that, but the one who is love defines love

made the cosmos, says this is love.

Not that we love God.

You could just end there.

Let's go home.

Yeah.

It's not about what we do everyone.

It's about what he has done and what did he do?

He sent Jesus as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

The love we see in Jesus is him giving love, knowing that

many would never accept it.

So go back to the condition conversation.

If love has conditions, it's not really love.

Did God love with conditions?

If he did, he wouldn't have done it.

But he gives it freely knowing people won't accept it.

This is love.

This is love.

God gave completely of himself, not based on how deserving the recipient was.

We like that, don't we?

Oh, I'll love them 'cause they're easy to love.

No, that's not love actually.

It's not dependent on the recipient's deservability.

Guess what?

We're all undeserving.

The love that was most costly was given.

What's the most costly thing in all of the universe?

I. Actually the chandelier of heaven, Jesus, the Son of God, chandelier of

heaven, can't help but talk about that.

He is the greatest people.

He, there's no one who comes close to the cost of the Son of God in heaven on earth.

There is no greater cost.

And he was willing to spend the highest value commodity in all of creation.

And he gave himself no more costly love than this people.

And this is the way of Jesus.

To walk in his way means being anchored in God's love so deeply that fear no

longer rules us when we know that we are already accepted and safe in him.

We are free to love others with courage, with generosity, and it's the invitation

to let God's perfect love, drive out fear to follow Jesus, and to follow him in all

of life is not trying to self protect.

Because of the wounds we carry, but saying, Lord, by your wounds,

I am healed and I'm free to love.

On the cross, Jesus entered into the deepest wound sin and separation so

that we would not have to face it alone.

He was wounded so that our wounds would not have the final word.

Can I say that again?

Yeah.

He was wounded so that our wounds would not have the final word, but

his wounds would have the final word.

Do you see that?

This is the means by which we don't have to live in fear anymore.

We can live in love because his love has already carried the worst for us.

I hope you're hearing that.

Yeah, it's, it's such a revelation of the spirit in your own heart,

what I'm talking about today.

If you're trying to mathematically work this out, like, like God's

love is a maths problem I have to solve, you're gonna miss it.

It's a song of love that you hear and your heart just melts, oh, melt my heart, Lord.

Which I think is why like Ephesians, when Paul writes, you know, give us the

spirit of wisdom and revelation that we would know you wisdom, because it's,

you know, we don't just apprehend this truth, uh, cerebrally it needs this spirit

of wisdom and yeah, we don't apprehend

it, it, he, it apprehends us.

Mm-hmm.

Oh man.

Which is the nature of beauty.

Right?

Sorry, I'm on a tangent now.

Is it my turn now?

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

just as a little aside,

just as a bit of a practical example of this, the other

night in Word and Way, we were looking at, Genesis three and I

was reading the passage we were talking about, and it's, um.

Specifically Genesis three, verse

nine.

It's, so, it's you know, after Adam

and Eve have taken the fruit, now they're hiding from God.

And it says in, uh, verse nine, you know, the Lord called to the man, where are you?

And I caught myself in the moment when I read that right.

I read it like, where are you?

Right.

I read it with this tone of frustration.

So I had projected upon to God a certain posture, which represented mine, right?

How I would've responded in that moment.

Okay?

And then I had to back up the track and go, okay.

I got a few verses on.

I went, oh no, stop.

I need to go back and read that again.

Okay.

Because I totally put my tone into that.

We do this with scripture all the time, and we have gotta catch ourselves, right?

We put.

Our dad's voice.

There, we put the tone of somebody in a position of authority or our

own, and we need to stop and go.

How would love say this?

How would the one who is love say this?

But he is all love and he is all truth.

And yes, there is the fear of God and there is the judgment of God,

and there is the wrath of God and all of this, but God is love.

How would love say this and stop and think and ask again.

And this brings me beautifully to my next point, okay?

Because my next point is this verses 16 to 21.

How do we live in this freedom?

Well, it's by the spirit.

Okay?

So even as we sit before the word of God.

We arch entrusting ourselves to the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

Yes.

So Holy Spirit, please help read, help me read this rightly.

Help me interpret this rightly, including the tone.

And so we do not do this on our own.

And even as I was just sitting here, as Adam was talking and I'm.

Thinking, oh, what am I about to say next?

I go, oh my gosh, Dale.

You keep trying to do all this in your own strength.

You keep trying to love with this freedom that you now have in Christ, and you keep

trying to do it in your own strength, so you keep getting very discouraged.

Okay, I keep forgetting this is meant to be done in the spirit.

Yeah, this is what Paul's talking here.

He says, so I say, walk by the spirit, walk.

Walk by the spirit.

To walk in the spirit first means that the Holy Spirit is living in you.

Second, it means to be open and sensitive to the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Third, it means to pattern your life after the influence of the Holy Spirit.

This is all what Paul is talking about in this passage

here in chapter five, and, um.

Oh, just got my notes out of order.

Bear with me people.

Okay.

How do we do life in the spirit though?

And I just wanna be practical for a little moment and it's 'cause

time just accelerates whenever we're up here very quickly.

So I just wanna give you some practical thoughts about, okay,

how do we live life in the spirit?

And I heard Tim Keller preach this this week.

Obviously not live, but and actually.

Alive

in Christ.

Alive in Christ.

He's in the best place now,

and I think he was equating DA Carson, something he had heard Da Carson

say in terms of life in the spirit.

And he says there's three areas where we have to be willing to pay the price

in order to live life in the spirit.

We need to pay the price of spending time with God, which is the way of conversing.

It takes time.

Yeah.

We can't know God, we can't know.

Life in the Spirit just.

Communicating with God on the fly, throwing up some quick, gimme a parking

spot, Lord, prayers, you know, but living life in conversation with God.

If this is a new concept to you, I highly recommend the works of

Dallas Willard, who is an absolute genius in this space of living life.

In conversation with God, the next price we have to be willing to pay

is vulnerability to other people.

We will not lower life in the spirit if we do not live life of transparency,

of vulnerability with those around us.

Okay?

We just

cannot.

There is no, solo life with Jesus.

It is lived in vulnerability with others.

The way of exchange, exchanging our loves, our burdens, our cares, our worries, our

struggles, living life and vulnerability together, and they're finally paying

the price of submission to God's will.

Which is the way of acceptance in suffering.

I thought this was really good, right?

It's costly to live a life submitted to God.

It will cause suffering.

In your world in different ways, shapes and forms, little or big sometimes

it is just the, the rebelliousness of our own flesh that just feels just so

costly to submit that and surrender.

Sometimes we so want our own way, right?

And that journey of crucifying the flesh can actually be a form of pain.

Sometimes submission to God's will, you know, it can cost you a job,

it can cost you a relationship.

And those are places of deep pain and suffering.

You know, even living vulnerability with leaving lives of vulnerability with other

people can be a place of deep suffering.

'cause people let you down and you know, you show them your belly

like a little puppy and you go, you not being vulnerable before you.

They don't respond kindly.

Oh well.

And sorry, I just had that, you know what puppies are like and they just roll over.

So cute.

It's like, don't hurt me.

I'm

being vulnerable.

And, I don't know why that

picture came.

Maybe it's helpful for somebody.

It's probably un helpful for

anybody.

But anyway, but they can be a cost

to that vulnerability because peoples don't always respond how we want them to.

You know, one of the things that we hear, and I think this is something we've

gotta be really careful of in the church, we want church to be a safe place, but

church actually can't be a safe place.

We can't guarantee that.

For any of you, and it's a horrible expectation to put.

Upon people, I'll come to our church.

It's safe.

Well only if there's no people in it.

It's called a safe.

They lock it up and put no one in it.

And it's just, and

it's, and it's not that we're not thoughtful and we're not careful, and

we do all that we can, but we can't guarantee your safety in this place.

No, because it's full of broken people.

And even if there was no people, it still wouldn't be safe because the only safe,

pla safe place is actually in community.

This is where God's got it rigged, right?

Because we think self protection kicks in.

We think safety is going, I'm a rock, I'm an island, but that's not safe either.

That's its own form of danger.

Was there in that CS Lewis quote, you know the Aslan Aslan, oh, he is not safe.

But he is good.

But he is good.

Even

God's not safe, new flesh.

Right?

And that's a

much better vision for a church family than it being safe.

Is that It would be good.

Good.

That's a lot more compelling, isn't it?

'cause safe is all about the fear.

It's all about protection.

Right?

But good.

If something is good, then it's about life.

It's how is this life giving?

How do we make this space life giving?

Oh yeah.

That's great.

Dale.

That is good.

Can I continue?

You can and you better, better, and you better do it quick.

I better, I'll better try.

In that scripture, you

remember the list of like, sexual brokenness or,

or actually X of the

flesh it was called, just for a slide here

just

very, very quickly, that where we consider

sexual morality and purity, debauchery, they're actually counterfeits

of love among God's people.

These are counterfeits of love, idolatry, witchcraft are

counterfeits of love to God, right?

Actually hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, all of

that, they're opposites of love.

Drunkenness and orgies are sad attempts to fill the void that only love can fill.

That's a really, I thought I found that a really helpful list as we bring this

to close to a close, verses 22 to 25.

It's

the fruit of the spirit and the first word in the fruit of the spirit list is what?

It's love, right?

D Moody has this wonderful way of thinking about the list

of the fruits of the spirit.

I actually hadn't seen this before.

There's nine fruits of the spirit in this list, right?

And love comes first, but love.

Sorry.

Joy is love rejoicing.

Peace is love.

Resting.

Patience is love.

Enduring kindness is love reaching out.

Goodness is love doing right?

Faithfulness is love.

Standing firm, gentleness is love behaving humbly.

Self-control is love and discipline going together.

It's a great picture, isn't it?

Where love is the one that's.

The primary place.

Yeah.

You know when you go to a wedding and they read First Corinthians 13, because they

actually are under the assumption that the couple can, who are getting married

are gonna be able to love each other like this, and it's a complete, complete fasts.

Right?

Yeah.

You know, because it's actually that First Corinthians thirteen's

got more to do with who God is.

And how God's God loves.

I'm gonna read it, first Corinthians 13, verses one to eight.

If I was to speak in the tongues of a men or angels and have not love, I'm a

resounding gong and a clanging symbol.

Symbol.

If I have the gift of prophecying and fathom more mysteries and all knowledge,

and I have faith, the Kmud mountains, but do not love, don't miss that I am nothing.

Wow.

If I give all I possess to the poor, give over my body to hardship that I my

boast, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient.

Love is kind.

Love doesn't envy.

Doesn't boast.

It's not proud.

It doesn't dishonor others.

It's not self-seeking.

It's not easily angered.

It keeps no records of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

See, the connection of love and truth there rejoices with the truth.

Wow.

It always protects, always trust, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails.

And the reason why love never fails is 'cause God never

fails and God never fails.

'cause God is love.

As we see the love that is the way of Jesus.

You gotta understand this is not him choosing love.

It's He is love.

He is the source of it.

He is.

It's love is flowing out of who he is.

So we don't receive his love or more accurately.

We don't receive who he is, like if we don't receive who he is.

The burden of the Lord is that we long to live out will only actually be motivated

out of selfish ambition and fear.

The burden of the Lord is always carried in love.

If the follower of Jesus carries the burden of the Lord without love,

it becomes this harsh condemning.

Prideful and with love, it actually reveals God's compassion.

And when you are living out the burden of the Lord out of a motivation of

God's love in you, what happens is it's actually an invitation to return to him.

One Corinthians 13 guards the heart of the burden.

Without love, the burden can crush, but with love, the burden

becomes a redemptive invitation.

Pointing people not to yourself, but to the source of love.

If you don't have his love forming the motivational driver out of your

life, what you're actually doing.

When you carry out the burden of the Lord, you're actually making disciples

of self, not disciples of the Lord, because you're pointing to the inner

resources that you alone carry.

Rather than recognizing, actually it's the inner resource that because

he's in there, he's living in there.

So I've got these reflective questions for us to sit for a moment just before

you

do the questions.

Yes.

Just a quick thought for some, this might be relevant

for some of you here.

so we need to remember

in this, okay.

Some of you might be sitting here under the weight of guilt, shame, condemnation.

You know, it's like fine for you to talk about love of God, but

you don't know what I've done.

Yeah.

You know, and that condemnation can crush.

And what we've gotta remember is, okay, sin is not a problem for God.

Okay?

He solved sin at the cross.

Okay?

So now the problem, what was the problem?

Jesus didn't have a problem with sinners.

He ate with them.

He hung out with them.

He was good with sinners, right?

Who did he have a problem with?

Pharisees.

Yeah, it's, it's not sin.

That's the problem.

It's self-righteousness.

And when you, you are crushed by condemnation.

Self-righteousness can come in that tells you you need to do

certain things to atone for what you have done wrong, but you can't.

Right.

And he's not repelled and.

By your sin and by your brokenness, he is drawn to it, which is why

Paul says, we are sin abounds.

Grace abounds even more.

And yes, no, this does not mean that we go on sinning so we can experience this

bounding grace, because if that's what you're doing, okay, you haven't actually

received the love of God that will melt your heart and wanna drive sin out of you.

But if you're stuck in guilt, shame, and condemnation, okay?

That's not the thing that is stopping you from knowing Jesus.

Okay?

You know, it's not a problem solved at the cross.

It's purely your posture to it.

Do you believe that he's willing and that he loves you and that he

wants to heal you in that place and set you free from those things?

Because he does.

And that's what scripture testifies to.

Now you can do your questions.

No, it's good.

I'm just gonna pray for us, because again, like I said earlier, this,

this posture of receiving his love is not a work of the brain.

It's a work of the spirit.

And so we're gonna just, I'm just gonna pray for us all, uh, that his love would.

Abound today for us.

And then we're just gonna spend some time on these questions and

then we're gonna finish in worship.

So Father, I thank you.

Just close your eyes, just put your hands out in front of you.

I know you've done that this morning.

Already.

Do it again.

Father, we just wanna say, Lord, we need, we need a fresh revelation

of your great love for us.

We actually need it.

We can't do this following Jesus thing without it.

And so come Holy Spirit.

Come Holy Spirit and provide in us more love.

For many of us, you're caught in a treadmill of I need

to try and love God more.

But you've forgotten to realize that you need to receive more of his love.

This is about you receiving more than it is you doing something.

So Holy Spirit, come and help us to receive your love so much so.

That the explosive power of that love, the love of God would cause every condemnation

to flee, every lie and darkness, to evaporate before you are throne.

You are the king of all grace.

You are the king of all love.

Holy spirit, come

fill our hearts afresh today.

Help us to receive Holy Spirit, your great love for us.

We've done nothing to deserve it.

You've done everything to give it in Jesus' name.

So I've got a list of the questions I just want you to, we're not gonna

sing straight away, but I just wanna, I

want you to just ponder on these questions.

Sometimes we rush off quite quickly and I know we're out of time.

Don't worry, we're not gonna spend

half an hour on this.

we're gonna spend maybe

2, 2, 2 or three minutes.

So you put those up, please.

Those questions?

Sorry.

Yeah, here we go.

Just read them through them.

Something jump out.

Just ask God what is it about

I.