Love Rules // Pastor Nick

Hey, good morning.

If you don't know who I am,

my name is Nick Adams.

I get to be one of the pastors here.

I always ask myself right before I walk up here how.

I don't know how long I'm going to keep saying that,

but I hadn't had an opportunity to preach in as long as this doc's been

here because I walked up here and oh,

different.

But before I get carried away,

I want to pray for all of us before we get started.

So let's pray.

Dear Lord,

thank you for this new day.

Thank you for this time we get to spend together.

Thank you for the rain showers today,

dear Lord.

We need them.

Dear Lord,

I just pray that this time we're about to spend together would just honor

and glorify you.

Holy Spirit,

I invite you to come and just fill this place,

dear Lord,

and overwhelm us to the point of repenting,

dear Lord.

To conviction,

to change,

dear Lord.

To put off our flesh,

dear Lord,

and to put on Christ.

Thank you again just for this time and this opportunity just to

communicate your word.

Dear Lord,

I pray that you just speak through me in a way that people respond to you.

Take a step of faith and I look forward to what you're going to do.

Love you.

Amen.

I hadn't been,

like I said,

I hadn't,

hadn't preached in a few months and been kind of following along with

what has been talked about,

preached on over here.

Kind of been going through the gathering mission statement,

right? Or does anybody know it?

Does anybody know?

Did you even know?

We kind of have a mission statement.

Yeah. So loving God,

living Jesus,

walking together.

So we've been going through the loving God part and so how do you love

God? Right.

Bobby preached on Psalms,

right? And worship what you worship what you put your worth in.

Right. That's where the word worship comes from.

So what you value and if it's not God,

then you're probably going to be let down.

A lot of times might take longer than others,

but I found that to be the case over and over again when I didn't put God

in his place.

So we talked about loving greatest commandment last week,

I believe,

right, love God with all your heart,

soul and strength.

And the second is like it,

love your neighbor as yourself.

Today we're talking about that second part,

what is love?

And I laugh because depending on how old you are,

I think if somebody asks you,

what is love,

what do you think about them?

And whether you know it or not,

a lot of times what you think about love,

it subconsciously is dictated by what the culture has put out to you in

whatever era you grew up in,

right? So I grew up in the 90s.

And so when I think about what is love?

I think about the song by.

I think Hadaway's the guy.

What is love?

Baby, don't hurt me no more.

Y'all know that.

So every Thursday during the summertime,

I went to daycare called Learning Station.

Every Thursday went to Seven Gable Skate Ring.

So thinking about love and what love is and that,

you subconsciously kind of get preconditioned to trying to figure out

what love is.

So when you're in 4th,

5th grade and you're at 7 Gable skating rink and that song comes on,

you know,

it kind of gets you hyped up and everybody's rolling around.

And, you know,

normally right after that song,

a slow song would come on,

and so you would look for somebody to hold hands and skate with and

everybody be rolling around.

And it made you feel a certain way,

right? And you started trying.

I started associating that with love because I heard the song,

and then now me and this girl are holding hands,

and it's like,

this makes me feel good.

This makes me feel weird,

but I like it.

This is love,

right? Or maybe it's movies or TV shows or music,

or it's the Bachelor,

or it's love whether you mean to or not.

If you're not grounded in the word,

and if you maybe got the opportunity to have a godly father and him know

all these things and teach you and coach you through it through your kind

of adolescent puberty,

middle school,

high school years,

then God bless you,

and you better go home and thank him.

Or if they're no longer here,

you better send a prayer up to them.

Because I think a lot of people didn't,

probably didn't get that.

And so you got whatever the world gave you,

right? And then it took you a while to figure out that love isn't really

a feeling,

because that would be kind of like the flu.

Like, it comes on you,

makes you feel a certain way,

and you got it.

But then it goes away,

and you're like,

well, I don't feel that way anymore,

so let's throw this one away and get another one.

Next Thursday,

you're holding hands with a different girl,

right? At the skating ring.

Just an example.

But in thinking about what love is,

Romans chapter 13 explains what love is,

Romans 13 · chapter mention

how to do it,

how not to do it.

And that's where we're at this morning.

Romans chapter 13,

Romans 13 · chapter mention

if you got your Bible,

I'm reading out of ESV,

if it sounds different than what you're reading.

But starting in verse eight,

thinking about what love is,

it says,

owe no one anything except to love each other.

Owe no one anything doesn't mean.

Isn't necessarily talking about just debt.

Like I owe somebody a payment every month for this car I drive.

If you back up to verse seven,

it kind of explains that statement.

And it says,

pay to all what is owed to them.

Taxes to whom taxes are owed,

revenue is owed,

respect to whom respect is owed,

and honor to whom honor is owed.

So it's not just talking about taxes,

it's not just talking about money,

it's not just talking about debts.

If you owe honor to somebody,

pay them.

If you owe respect to somebody,

pay them.

If you owe debt,

pay them.

You might owe somebody an apology,

do it.

That's what Paul's saying.

And then it goes on to say,

except to love each other,

you can't fully pay love back.

Why does anybody know?

So pay off all your debts,

pay off what you owe to people,

pay what you owe to God,

right? But you can't pay love back.

Why can't you pay love back?

Because it's not ours,

is it?

We didn't create it.

We're not the source of it.

God is.

Owe no one anything except to love each other.

For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

So in the gathering's kind of mission statement,

two proclamation,

two believers in Christ,

loving God,

living Jesus.

And this is the living Jesus part,

right? Love your neighbor.

If you love God and love your neighbor,

you're going to take care of the rest of the rules,

the laws,

the regulations,

the debts,

right?

It's.

There's a verse in the Bible that talks about,

it's hard to serve two masters.

So if you're constantly in debt,

whether it's money,

whether it's honor,

respect, apologies,

if you're constantly owing somebody something,

it's hard to serve.

It's harder to serve God,

is what I find.

Because you're not free,

right? It's not paid for.

And you're having to have these obligations other than for the one who

loves another has fulfilled the law.

For the commandments,

you shall not commit adultery,

you shall not murder,

you shall not steal,

you shall not covet,

and any other commandment are all summed up in this word,

you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Love does no wrong to a neighbor.

Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

So he tells you kind of Like Bobby preached the two greatest commandments

last week in Matthew.

The reason and it's funny,

we tried to shorten when we were.

When the.

When Kyle,

Jordan and when Kyle and Jordan and I were kind of going through

ordination and becoming pastors and going through that whole process.

And then we started talking about and Bobby sort of started mentoring us

and we were going through that.

I think Bobby was explaining this to us and there's a reason why I think

Kyle shortened it one time to love God,

live Jesus,

walk together for a sticker or something to put on a and Bobby corrected

him, said no,

it's loving God and living Jesus because when you put ing on it,

it's active.

Love does,

right? It's not.

Love is.

Love is not a feeling.

Love does.

It requires you to do something.

So remember that when you see it.

If you can love your neighbor,

you don't have to worry about all the rules.

So what is love?

So love should be the primary mark of a Christian because we're image

bearers of God and we reflect him and love is the way we do that.

So I was listening to another pastor,

Joby Martin,

who said he what do people say about Christians?

If you typed into Google why are Christians so what would come up?

So I got curious and I did it well,

why are Christians so hypocritical?

Why are Christians so mean?

Why are Christians so close minded?

Why are Christians so forceful in their beliefs is what came up.

Well, guess what?

If you Google why are dogs so guess what comes up?

Why are dogs so kind?

Why are dogs so loyal?

Why are dogs so fun?

So dogs in our culture have a better respect than Christ followers.

Why do you think that is?

Dogs have a better reputation than Christ followers.

Maybe I should say dogs have a better reputation than church attenders or

members. Because if you're following Christ,

it's active,

right? It's every day you're chasing after him,

you're following him.

And he says,

if you seek me,

you will find me.

Knock and I will answer.

We should always be marked by love.

So what is love?

It's not 7 Gable skating rink it's not what Hadaway says or it's not

conditional. It's not a feeling.

A couple things the Bible says about love.

I think you can only interpret what the Bible says by the Bible because

it's God's inerrant word.

And when you try to add stuff to it is where you get led astray or

confusion. But we know God is the source of love.

1 John 4,

10, 11 says in this is love.

Not that we have loved,

but God,

that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

That's a big word that I don't hear people use.

Propitiation just means the payment that satisfies Jesus was the payment

that satisfied our sin.

Beloved, if God so loved us,

we also ought to love one another.

I don't know where you're at in your walk with Christ or in your journey

of maybe trying to figure out who God is or who God isn't.

But if you don't know that God loves you,

then that is where you have to start.

And once you start figuring out how much God loves you and that he sent

his only Son to pay,

you're dead.

That's unconditional,

right?

And once you start to realize that,

then you respond to it in love.

I've said it before.

Once I started to realize how much God loved me,

I can't help but respond to it.

You can't help but be overwhelmed,

overcome by that kind of love.

Because the world and even people don't love you that way all the time.

1 John 3:16.

1 John 3:16

By this we know love,

that he laid down his life for us.

And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

Pay for your stuff.

Except love,

right?

We can't pay back love because it's not ours.

And then he gives you the commandments,

right? Not all of them.

He gives you the kind of,

the second half of them.

You should not steal,

you should not covet.

And you should not commit adultery.

You should not murder.

And what do we do?

I ain't killed.

At least I ain't killed anybody.

You know,

pretty good.

But what did Jesus say?

If you think about it in your heart,

then you have committed it.

You shall not covet.

You should not want what other people have.

You should not want other people's stuff.

You shouldn't want other people's wives or husbands or daughters or sons.

Those are horizontal commandments.

Those are to each other,

right? Well,

if you don't get the vertical ones,

have no other gods before me.

Worship the one true living God.

Those first four,

if you haven't aligned yourself with those,

then it's going to be hard to get the horizontal one.

And thinking about love and it's not a condition,

it's not a feeling.

It is Romans 5:8,

Romans 5:8

just a few chapters before God showed his love for us in that while we

were still sinners,

Christ died for us.

And I think everybody,

you've heard most people in this room,

I would say,

have heard.

Heard the gospel,

you've heard that message.

You have acknowledged that you are a sinner in need of saving.

And you have been justified in Christ,

right? But in salvation,

that is just the first part being justified.

You have been bought and paid for with Christ's blood.

I don't know many people that.

Once you explain that to them,

they can't say,

you know,

I'd like to have some of that.

Once you've realized that you've stole,

you've murdered,

you've thought about it,

you've lied,

you haven't obeyed your mother and father,

you go through the list and ask,

and everybody will raise their hand.

Yeah, I've thought about that or done that.

And somebody needs to pay for that.

In salvation,

that's just the first part,

being justified.

And yes,

once you are saved,

yes, you are saved.

But then there's.

That is just kind of the diving board into what Christ has to offer.

Sanctification is what smarter people than me calling.

You're being sanctified,

you're being made new.

Right? You're taking off the old and putting on the new.

And baptism is a representation of that.

And it's kind of like God is chiseling away everything that don't look

like Jesus.

And that's a process.

It's a lifelong process.

And we're in that process of sanctification.

And if you don't have Christ and you're not living Jesus,

you're not thinking about those things,

and you're thinking about the desires of the flesh,

and you're thinking about what I want,

you're probably going to not feel saved all the time,

are you?

Remember that sanctification is a lifelong process.

Galatians and thinking about the flesh,

you know,

Galatians, if I can find it,

Chapter five talks about it and it says,

I'm getting there.

Hold on.

I don't use this Bible all the time,

but I like what the esv,

the way the ESV worded it.

I normally read out a new living translation,

the desire.

It talks about the desires of the flesh.

And Paul kind of transitions.

Once he explains what love is to you,

he transitions in verse 11.

And he says,

besides this,

you know the time,

the hour has come for you to wake up from your sleep.

Besides this,

besides knowing what love is and what love isn't,

besides knowing that you should love your neighbor,

and love does no wrong to a neighbor.

The time is at hand.

The hour has come for you to wake up.

How many of us are thinking about that,

especially now in the time we're in.

I don't know about you,

but it seems pretty easy right now to be able to tell if you're looking

what the truth is and what the truth isn't.

And yeah,

I know it's election season and I know the time we're in.

I know what week it is,

and I know what's happening next week.

And people don't like to talk about it in church,

but you should vote if you haven't voted.

I encourage you to vote.

If you don't know that there's good and evil out there and that it's very

apparent and you're not sure who to vote for,

come ask me,

I'll be more than happy to tell you.

It's not hard to see.

I'm not here to talk about people or the political candidates,

but it is pretty plain to see who's trying to stand up for the truth and

who's trying to evoke your emotions or feelings or lies.

I'll find it in a minute.

The hour has come.

We're closer now than we've ever been.

We're a day closer today,

we're a week closer than last week,

and we're 2,000,

almost 2,000 years closer than when this letter was written.

And in that same what are we closer to?

I talked about salvation,

part of that salvation process,

justification, sanctification,

sanctified, meaning you're just being made more like Christ.

That kind of chiseling away of everything that is not Christ.

It takes time,

right? How do you get to know somebody?

It takes time.

You got to spend time with them.

If you're not spending time with Jesus,

if you're not spending time in the Word,

you're probably going to let the culture tell you what love is,

whether you mean to or not.

We're closer than we ever been.

What are we closer to?

We're closer to finally being glorified.

Glorification is kind of the end of that salvation process.

When Jesus comes back and finally judges,

finally makes right,

wrong, finally makes this world as he intended it to be.

And not only that,

but if you're storing up those treasures in heaven and the things that

the world can't take away and not things of this world,

all those things will be revealed to you and you'll get a crown and

you'll cast it at his feet and you will worship him,

and it's going to be so glorious that they're going to use gold as

asphalt.

That's what I'm looking Forward to.

That's the hope I have.

That's what I'm reminded of.

That's what motivates me to keep on keeping on.

It's hard to deny yourself,

right?

And Jesus gave us that example.

And if you're not around people that know those things and can remind you

of those things,

then you're probably going to get deceived,

right? You're probably going to give into the desires of the flesh.

You're probably going to have a hard time understanding what living Jesus

means. All it means is it's just our way of saying,

love your neighbor.

Who's your neighbor,

could be the person sitting beside you,

who's your closest neighbor.

I think Bobby said something about it last week.

Somebody made a joke,

you know,

yeah, it might be your wife.

Your wife's your closest neighbor,

might be your kids.

But how do you.

Jesus even says love your enemies.

How do you love somebody that's not worth loving to you?

Right? That word love in this context is agape,

right? We've been talking about in youth the past couple weeks.

That kind of love means to will yourself,

to. To choose to.

It's not reactionary.

It's not how you make me feel or what you do for me.

You're not waiting for something to happen.

You're doing it.

You're choosing to love someone.

You're choosing.

You're willing yourself to do it.

Because why?

Because that is what represents Christ and that is what shows people

Christ. And if we did that more,

we wouldn't have to work so hard at trying to convince people to come to

church or to be a Christian or to what people think about Christians.

Paul is urging you to wake up,

to not be spiritually lethargic,

to not be lulled to sleep by the desires of your flesh and the deceiving

of this world and the lies.

And like I said earlier,

it's hard to serve two masters if you're constantly in debt financially.

If you're constantly in debt to people,

constantly owe them things,

then you're going to probably be more deceived,

right?

Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.

The night is far gone and the day is at hand.

The time is now.

So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of

light. So Paul kind of transitions after he explains what love is,

what love isn't.

Love your neighbor.

Two greatest commands besides setting this aside.

Adding to this,

the time is now.

How do we do that?

You got to deny yourself.

You got to surrender,

give up the desires of the flesh,

put on the armor of light.

If you notice,

flesh, darkness,

night, are most of the time associated with death.

I think about Lazarus,

he died in the tomb and everybody's mourning and sad and Jesus kind of

isn't and confused about that.

When he tells Lazarus to get up and come out of the grave,

he says,

take your grave clothes off.

Some of us when Paul says,

wake up.

That's what I think about.

You're walking around with dead man's clothes on.

You've not been made,

you've been made alive in Christ.

And a lot of times that's easy to feel.

When you do something like get baptized because of what it represents and

people celebrating it.

And then what happens?

You get back out there in the world and you put those grave clothes back

on and you do everything like everybody else does and you are spiritually

killing yourself.

But when you put on the armor of light,

what are you doing?

Talks about it in Ephesians,

putting on the armor of God.

Because we know,

like First Peter says,

the devil is a roaring lion seeking to kill,

steal and destroy.

And if you're not putting on those things,

you're going to be in trouble.

And we're getting closer every day,

every week.

I don't know when God's coming back.

That's not the point.

The point is you could be living in freedom.

By what?

By owing no one anything?

By putting on the armor of light.

By getting out of darkness.

By loving your neighbor.

He goes on to say,

let us walk properly as in the daytime.

Not in orgies and drunkenness and sexual immorality and sensuality.

Not in quarreling and jealousy.

Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to

gratify its desires.

So how can we love others as Jesus does?

Last thing on to by helping people when it's not convenient.

By giving even when it hurts.

By devoting the energy to others welfare rather than your own.

By absorbing hurts from others without complaining or fighting back.

Turn and give them the other cheek.

Matthew 5:38.

Matthew 5:38

This kind of love is hard to do,

right?

That's why people notice when you do it.

Like I said,

love goes first.

It isn't reactionary.

The greatest commandment.

Love God,

love people.

Living Jesus.

And the only reason we can do that is because he first loved us first.

1 John 4:19

John 4:19.

We love because he first loved us.

And if you don't know that,

I'd love to tell you about it.

If you do know that,

stop walking around like a dead person and wake up.

Take Your grave clothes off.

And remember,

you've been made alive in Christ.

So the point of,

the point I'm trying to make the point of all this is the title of the

message. Didn't even say it.

Love rules.

All of the rules.

If you can do those two things,

it takes care of everything else.

Last question I ask is in that last verse in 14.

Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh.

What are you making provisions for?

You know what a provision is?

It's kind of like saying,

God, I can get along with all those things.

I want all those things.

I want what you have for me.

I want the blessings.

I want to be bought and paid for.

But let me just set this aside,

Let me just put this over here and have it for later.

What are those things in your life?

And if you'll cast off those things and put on Christ,

you don't have to work so hard at being a Christian.

You don't have to work so hard at checking the box of making yourself

look like something people won't have such a hard time seeing.

Day light,

love.

I don't know what those things are for you,

but you do.

And like I say,

a lot of times,

I just encourage you.

I'm asking you,

I'm begging you to wake up.

Confess those things.

Repent.

Give them to God.

Cast them to them.

Cast all your cares on him who cares for you.

And not like a fishing rod,

not like a cast net,

not I'm going to throw it out there and if it don't look like I want it

to, I'll reel it back in.

Let go of them.

Surrender.

This is what living Jesus means,

is where are you making provisions for the flesh?

Bands will come up here and sing one more song as they normally do.

And while you're worshiping,

I encourage you to be bold enough to ask that question and to respond

however God asks you to respond.

I want to pray for you one more time and we're going to sing.

And I just encourage you to respond however God asks you to.

Let's pray.

God, I just thank you for having the grace and mercy to remind me of

these things,

to remind me where I make provisions in my own life,

to show me where I need to put off the desires of my own flesh to stop

making provisions.

Stop making excuses,

dear Lord,

and wake up.

God, help us remember that you have things for us that outlast this

world, that are true treasures,

dear Lord.

They're not just trinkets or toys or stuff that goes away.

They're true and right and holy and,

dear Lord,

help us to honor and glorify you by doing those things.

Help us to remember that you first loved us.

And that's the only way we can try to love others.

So help us,

dear Lord,

in these next few moments,

to just give those things over to you and know that you'll meet us right

there.

I look forward to what you're going to do right here.

Now. Help us just to be present with you.

Love you.

Amen.