Living Jesus // Pastor Bobby

Well, I'll tell you,

it's interesting to see some of the things that are going on.

And last night,

I got a phone call while I was.

I was actually doing a celebration of life memorial service last night.

Pray for that family.

That's the 21 year old that passed away last Sunday evening.

But actually,

about seven years ago,

I baptized him and his mom and his daddy.

So just keep them in prayer because it was a difficult time last night.

But during that,

I got a phone call.

And when I finally listened to the message,

it was a guy I knew up in the mountains.

And the first words out of his mouth were,

I think I love you.

But anyway,

we had one of the gathering that donated a camper two weeks ago,

and. And I called a young man that I had discipled years ago,

who is now a pastor up there.

And anyway,

I called Nate,

and I said,

nate? I said,

we got a camper.

I said,

you think you could use it?

And he said,

yeah, my neighbor needs a place to live.

Her house was flooded.

And I was like,

wow. And so he told me her name,

and I didn't think anything about it.

And then when I was up there this week visiting with a couple of pastors

on Tuesday,

he pointed to the house.

I went,

well, I know her.

I've known her for 20 years.

So when they delivered the camper Friday evening,

I think they were cleaning out her house.

I mean,

gutting it,

you know,

from the flood and everything.

And so her brother called me and he said.

He said,

man, he said that thing showed up,

right? Just like at the exact minute it needed to show up.

So God connects dots,

and that's exciting.

So thank y'all for being loving and generous and all those kind of

things. Because that's where we are right now.

Obviously, we finished up going through the book of Hebrews.

And so now we're talking about the gatherings priorities.

And the idea of priorities,

meaning those things which are important.

And Jesus identifies these as important.

So I want to read the text for you.

From Matthew,

Matthew 22:34

chapter 22,

verses 34 through verse 40.

I don't know if I.

It says 39,

but I'm going to give you.

From 34.

It says,

when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the sadducees,

they came together.

One of them,

an expert in the law,

asked a question to test him.

Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?

And he said to them,

love the Lord your God with all your heart,

with all your soul,

with all your mind is the greatest,

most important command?

The second is like it.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

All the law and the prophets depend on these two commands.

So that's Jesus talking,

so we're going to pay attention to it.

All right,

let's pray.

God, we thank you and we praise you again,

that your word is true and faithful.

And God,

you've spoken to us.

And so,

God, it becomes our responsibility to listen.

Not just to hear it,

but to listen.

To pay attention.

God, that we might do the things that bring you glory,

but that speak of you to the world around us.

And we pray it in Jesus name.

Amen. We started right toward the end of September with what I've

referred to as the gatherings priorities.

And the first thing we talked about was identity.

Who are we?

You know,

we're a worship community of passionate people that we live out the

gospel by loving God,

living Jesus and walking together.

And we spent a couple of weeks on be the.

We spent one week on be the people,

be that people that lives out those priorities.

Next week,

we spent that Sunday talking about be the gathering that lives out those

priorities. Then we started dealing with the loving God part of it and

what it means to love God,

what it means to love.

Kyle preached great on that Sunday on the definitions of love and how the

Bible depicts love to the world.

And then last week,

as I was sharing with you,

that love,

you know,

the strongest statement I made last week was the fact that you will

worship that which you love,

and you'll worship most that which you love most.

So if there's something other than God that you love most,

you're going to worship that more than you'll actually worship God.

So when we're going to love God,

we're going to worship him.

And if we're going to worship him,

we need to love him most and best.

And I've always said he loves us most and best.

So we love him most and best back.

So why are priorities.

Priorities. I mean,

why did Jesus name these as the two greatest commands?

The first one,

the greatest.

The second is,

like it,

love your neighbor as your.

As. As you love yourself.

And the idea being that these are those things that God has identified as

the most important things that we can do.

Because if we don't do the most important things,

we don't follow the instructions,

we can't possibly get it right.

So I'm going to tell you a parable.

This is just a Bobby parable.

It's not a Bible parable.

Bobby Bible kind of goes,

but anyway,

Bobby parable.

Anybody ever heard of the restaurant called Ralph and Kakus?

Who's heard of Ralph and Kakus?

Couple of you.

I am shocked.

Well, this is a Ralph and Kaku's cookbook right here.

Now, it appears that Ralph and Kaku Olindy were restaurateurs in

Louisiana.

Says their first restaurant was on a dead end road by a river called the

False river.

It was like a sort of a branch of the Mississippi.

And they made Cajun food,

and it got so popular.

They opened one in Baton Rouge,

and they opened one in Bossier City,

and they opened one in Metairie,

and they opened one in New Orleans,

and they opened one in Houston.

They opened one in Jackson,

Mississippi.

Somewhere around 1996,

I think there was a fatal era that took place.

They sold out to Piccadilly cafeterias.

Ralph and Kakuz wasn't the same after that.

But listen to this.

One pound crawfish tails,

one half cup of butter,

two tablespoons of garlic,

chopped, one half cups of onions,

chopped one half cup of celery,

chopped, half cup of bell pepper,

chopped.

One can of rotel tomatoes and green chilies.

And the juice,

one teaspoon of salt,

one teaspoon black pepper,

half cup of parsley half cup of green onions,

three cups of cooked rice.

Somebody tell me what that is.

Jambalaya. Thank you very much.

That is crawfish jambalaya.

Now, some of you might not like crawfish,

so what we would do then is we'd put,

what? Shrimp in it,

sausage in it,

chicken in it,

any number of other things.

But you know what happens when you change out the first ingredient of

that recipe?

It's no longer crawfish jambalaya because you didn't follow the

instructions, you didn't consider.

Now, this is Kakua Lindi's personal recipe.

It says so right there.

If you don't follow the instructions,

you don't make the dish that's on the page.

It's a recipe to accomplish what's set out before you.

Now, I'm not going to go into the instructions because that could get it

confusing. Likewise,

if you don't follow God's instruction for how to live the life that he

set before us to live,

it's not gonna come out right.

It's not gonna be what God intended for it to be,

and you're not gonna.

And I'm not gonna be who God intended us to be.

We've gotta love God first.

We gotta love him the most more than anything else.

That's what we've talked about the last two weeks.

So today,

the title of the message is just living Jesus.

Because that's kind of the way that over,

you know,

a little over 15 years ago now that I identified.

What does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself?

We're gonna go out into this community,

and we're just going to live Jesus in the community.

We want people to see Jesus in us,

so we're going to love the community.

It was really interesting because when I first came here,

the sunrise worship gathering that we have was held down at the welcome

center right there next to Buddy's,

next to the pier down in that area.

And surf city Baptist Church had always rented that building for the

sunrise worship gathering,

right?

And I didn't know.

I showed up,

and they said,

yeah, that's where we do it.

I said,

okay. And we do the sunrise worship gathering.

And every year,

people would come up to me and they'd go,

you didn't take an offering?

I'd go,

so, right.

I mean,

well, where's the offering plate?

Well, there's not one.

Well, where do we.

And I was like,

no, look,

this was something that we do and did and we still do as a gift to the

community, because we want to tell the community about God's love.

We want to tell the community about the resurrection of Christ.

We want to tell the community that we love them.

That's why we're giving this to you as a worship gathering.

Right. That's how we wanted to get out into the community.

And one of the things I used to say quite often is that if we love the

community, then the community will respond.

And so when I look at this,

I'm like,

wow, loving God is something that we do.

Yes, between us and God,

but it's also something that we do that the world needs to see in us.

Do we behave as if we love God?

Do we act like it?

Secondly, do we behave as we love our neighbors,

others? That kind of idea,

because the priorities are,

is that we,

as the body of Christ,

we love God first.

We love others.

We walk together in that.

You know,

the idea of the body of Christ coming together.

You know,

when I do a wedding,

it's interesting because everybody,

nobody knows how to stand in a wedding.

You know,

you got all the ladies on this side and all the men on that side,

and they're all standing out.

Well, what do we do with our hands?

Do we put them in our pockets?

You can put them behind you.

You can put them in front of you.

Somebody's got to give them some instructions.

One of the instructions I always say is that,

you know what?

If you want to know where to face when you're standing up here?

It's always eyes on the bridegest,

eyes on the bride all the time.

And you just rotate with the bride as she comes down.

Can I tell you all something?

For us,

as the bride of Christ,

ours is always eyes on the groom.

Right. Fix your eyes on Jesus and don't take them off.

So, as I was looking at this,

to live like Jesus,

to live Jesus in the culture and the community around us is to love other

people. And where does that start?

You know,

Jesus told us to love our neighbors.

And any defined neighbor,

he said the Samaritan and the Jew to each other were neighbors.

The Samaritan loved the jew.

As if a neighbor said,

which one act more neighborly,

the priest,

the scribe,

or the Samaritan?

Right. Are there neighbors that you love?

Are there neighbors that you don't love as much?

Right.

You see?

So when I look at this,

I start to think to myself,

all right,

who are my closest neighbors?

Cause Jesus says the second is like it.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Who's your closest neighbor?

Jennifer. Tom.

Right. Exactly.

Right.

That person closest to you,

that person that God's put into your life as the closest one to you,

who's your next?

I'll tell you.

My closest neighbor's Angie.

My second closest neighbor is Eli and Lillian,

soon to be.

What about beyond that?

Who do we keep loving?

Right. I tell folks all the time,

you know what?

You run into people all day long that need to know that God loves them.

How are you going to show them that?

How are you going to show people that God loves them if you don't show

them God's love?

You see,

that's what it means to live Jesus in the culture and the community

around us.

Why is loving your neighbor as yourself the second most important

command? I mean,

we live in a world now that say,

oh, God's all about love.

Well, yes,

he is,

but.

But our love for him gives us definition and identity.

And then as we show his love to others,

that's how the world becomes aware of a God who loves them.

I mean,

John said in one,

John 19,

he says,

we love.

Our capacity to love is because God loved us first.

So what does that mean?

That means that God's love for us shows us characteristics of what we

call love that we're supposed to,

in turn,

emulate to others.

God's love is an unselfish love.

God's love's a sacrificial love.

God's love is always giving,

giving, giving,

and so God expects for us,

if we're going to love others,

then we've got to give of ourselves to others.

That's the whole command there.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

So who do we love?

We love people,

right? I know some folks love non people more than they love people.

Y'all know that.

I know some folks love animals more than they love people.

I came through the seventies and eighties when some people loved trees

more than they loved people.

They hugged them.

I think I heard.

I don't know,

you know,

but that goes.

Guess what?

I started again this week.

I've been working on it for quite a while.

But we start the second Sunday of January in the book of Romans.

You know,

in chapter one of Romans,

it says that people started loving the creation more than the creator,

right?

We see that in our culture and in our society today.

So who do we love?

We love one another.

We love our neighbors.

We love within the body of Christ.

I remember a preacher saying one time,

look across the room.

If you see anybody in the room,

pick the one that you love the least.

That's as much as you have any love for goddess.

The fact that if you love less in the body,

that's the limit of your love back to God.

Because God expects us to love one another with his love,

you see?

So we love within the body of Christ,

but then we love everyone else,

too. Now here's kind of a defining thing for us.

That doesn't mean agreement,

okay, I love people in the world around me,

but I don't agree with them all.

I promise you,

I'll even hug people I disagree with.

I mean,

I hug people that,

is there a differentiation between love and,

like, you know,

I've always,

I've heard people say,

and I think I've probably said it,

too, I love everybody.

I don't like them all.

I think that's a difficult differentiation right there.

But I can love people that I disagree with.

Do you know that it's a loving thing to tell people what God's word says?

Do you know it's loving to tell people that they're wrong about what God

says?

You know,

I spent a whole year,

remember, talking about,

God didn't call us to be editors and redactors.

You don't get to throw out of the Bible that which you don't like or that

which doesn't meet your identity or whatever you want to call it.

We're supposed to pay attention to what God said and listen to him and

live that out.

So when I look at this and I'm thinking,

all right,

we've got to love God.

All right,

so I asked you last week,

how many of you took your own test this week?

When I said,

what does your worship look like?

What does your love look like?

You know,

how do you show someone else love?

Because loving like God's love is that unselfish,

sacrificial, giving love.

How do you give of yourself to others?

How do you give of yourself to God?

Yesterday we had this wonderful women's conference here.

It was wild.

I came over early to say good morning and I,

and left.

After I said good morning,

I came back to say goodbye as they were all leaving,

that kind of thing.

But they,

everyone, everybody I talked to said,

oh, it was wonderful.

Oh, it was great.

Because guess what?

There was this open door for people to come in and be exposed to the love

of God,

that people wanted to share God's love with others.

And the theme of the,

the conference was praise him in the storm.

And so there was a lot of speaking and a lot of stuff about the storms

that we go through in life and that in the midst of the storm,

we still just praise God,

you see,

and how God takes us through storms.

So how much do we love our neighbor?

With your whole self as you love yourself,

how much do you love your neighborhood?

Right? What does that mean?

Here's the question that I've asked myself.

What are you willing to do for a neighbor?

What are you willing to do for the person?

Now, I'm going to get kind of specific here,

and I kind of made this point to myself.

What are you willing to do for the neighbor whose dog likes your yard

better than his?

Right. You know the point I'm making here?

I've told y'all the story.

For a time up in Maryland,

we lived in a row house,

a townhouse.

Ours was wider than some of the other ones on the row.

And so we actually had three parking spaces in front of our house that

our neighbor enjoyed.

God was testing me.

Right? See,

sometimes those that live closest to us or those that are within reach

are not the ones that are the easiest to love.

And yet God says,

love your neighbor as yourself.

So here's the other question.

How easy are you to love?

And God,

who is perfect,

and Christ,

who walked this earth and died in our place?

Right. How easy were we for him to love?

Love your neighbor with your whole self as yourself.

Love your neighbor.

See, these are priorities.

If you take the first ingredient out,

you're not going to end up with what God intended you to end up if you

take any of those ingredients out,

you're not going to end up with what God intended for us to end up with.

Okay?

So I call them priorities.

God's purpose,

God's plan,

our identity.

Might as well call it a recipe,

right? And you got to put the stuff in the recipe if you want to see what

God intended.

It all starts with Jesus,

folks.

If you don't know Jesus,

you need Jesus.

You might have come this morning.

And I always.

It intrigues me throughout the morning that there are folks who show up

for the very first time ever at the gathering,

and I go,

you know what?

I don't know why you're here.

I mean,

I love it that we're having worship,

and I love it that we do worship well,

because that's a priority for us.

Right? Loving God,

our worship is a priority.

But why are you here?

Right?

What motivated you to get up and make this a priority?

See, I'm glad.

I love it that you're here.

I love it when vacationers show up for worship.

I think that's a cool thing.

You're on vacation and you make worship a priority.

Yay. It's a great thing.

But here's the challenge.

Here's the challenge is that if we want to be the people that God called

us to be,

then we got to do the things that God told us to do.

Okay? So if you're here this morning,

you don't know Jesus.

Guess what?

God loved you that much.

He loved you first.

He loved you most.

He loves you best.

He gave his son.

Jesus died on the cross,

that we might be saved.

He rose again to give us victory over sin,

death and hell.

If you don't know Jesus,

you need Jesus.

And we're going to sing one more song,

give you the opportunity to respond to God,

whatever it is God might have said to you this morning,

one of the things in preparing these priority messages,

I'm going to go ahead and tell you.

I look at it and I go,

I've already said that.

I've already said that.

I've been saying this for 15 years.

I've been saying these exact.

Well, we didn't have the walking together about five years ago.

I've been saying these same things for 15 years.

But here's what I want you to know.

There was a new pastor in town,

got to his new church,

and he got up and preached.

And, man,

it was a good message.

If you've already heard this joke,

just put your fingers in your ears.

Anyway, it's a good message.

And people went out the door going,

preacher, that was such a good message,

man. I tell you what.

I don't know.

That might be the best message I've ever heard.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next week,

he comes in and he preaches the exact same message exactly like he

preached it the week before.

And people said,

preacher, I told you last week,

man, that was a great message.

Loved that message,

man, that's a good message.

Probably one of the best messages I've ever heard.

He came back the third Sunday,

he preached the exact same message again.

Same guy goes,

preacher, you know,

love the message.

Gotta admit,

one of the best messages I've ever heard.

But are you ever gonna move on to a new one?

He said,

when you start doing that one,

folks, I just want to encourage you.

God has given us our priorities.

God has given us the recipe.

Now we have to go do it.

Alrighty. Pray with me.

Father, thank you for today.

Thank you for your love.

Thank you.

That indeed,

you loved us first.

You love us most.

You love us best now.

God, help us to go and love others.

God, I would challenge myself and us to pick the person that's hardest to

love and find a way to love that person this week and then take the

opportunity to explain why.

Cause you loved us so.

God, I thank you.

I thank you that you've given us priorities.

That you've given us opportunity.

And, God,

it's indeed a privilege for us to be,

as Diana said in the video,

the hands and feet of Jesus.

Thank you,

God, that we've been able to love our neighbors up in the mountains.

Thank you.

That there's a camper that somebody gets to live in.

Because somebody said,

I want to give it.

God, help us to give.

Help us to give love.

God, help us to give Jesus to those around us.

And we pray it in Jesus name.

Amen.