WEBVTT 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:22.920 Good morning. Hey, we're continuing our who told you that 00:00:22.920 --> 00:00:27.020 series. I've got I think two more weeks to this and then should 00:00:27.020 --> 00:00:36.480 wrap it up. Thank you. But today, I'm going to start out with a 00:00:36.480 --> 00:00:45.480 story about my dogs. We have two dogs, a white boxer. Same as 00:00:45.480 --> 00:00:53.640 Desmo. And then a he's I think he's a Frenchie. That's what 00:00:53.640 --> 00:01:00.440 body tells me. French Bulldog. His name is Rev. I should, I 00:01:00.440 --> 00:01:03.000 got a picture of him. Like these, these are our two, these are 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:10.360 two guys. Anyway, they're cute. But at our house, we have some 00:01:10.360 --> 00:01:14.280 rules for the dogs. One of those rules is no dogs on the 00:01:14.280 --> 00:01:22.280 couch. And definitely no dogs on this big love sack that we 00:01:22.280 --> 00:01:28.480 have in the living room. They're not allowed on there. And 00:01:28.480 --> 00:01:33.960 when I'm home, they obey perfectly. Like model citizens 00:01:33.960 --> 00:01:37.800 couch what couch? They stay away from it typically. If it's 00:01:37.800 --> 00:01:40.280 just me at home, they're definitely not on the couch or 00:01:40.280 --> 00:01:43.680 the love sack. There's some violators in our home that allow 00:01:43.680 --> 00:01:51.400 them to. At one point, there was someone who spent a lot of 00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:55.640 time at our house. And she would call the dogs up onto the 00:01:55.640 --> 00:02:02.680 couch. And I was like, no, Brittany, stop it. So I've had to 00:02:02.680 --> 00:02:05.880 try and break that. But when I'm home, they don't go on the 00:02:05.880 --> 00:02:09.840 couch. But the second I leave, they're on it. Like they 00:02:09.840 --> 00:02:14.520 ride up on the couch every time the boxer, the white boxer is 00:02:14.520 --> 00:02:22.720 like the main offender. And I like he knows, he knows. I'm not 00:02:22.720 --> 00:02:26.560 sure that the Frenchy understands really anything. So he 00:02:26.560 --> 00:02:29.600 just looks at me with his tongue out most of the time. So I 00:02:29.600 --> 00:02:33.040 don't know if he really knows what's going on. But the boxer 00:02:33.080 --> 00:02:36.520 Desmo, he knows, he knows the rules. He knows what he's 00:02:36.520 --> 00:02:41.760 supposed to do. He's known for years. Sometimes I'll come home, 00:02:42.040 --> 00:02:47.760 and he doesn't hear me pull in. And I'll catch him. I catch him 00:02:47.760 --> 00:02:50.080 on the couch. And it's the funniest thing in the world. 00:02:50.080 --> 00:02:55.960 Because when I catch him, he like, tries to slide off the 00:02:55.960 --> 00:02:59.920 couch, like just like, try to say is low like like slide slithers 00:02:59.920 --> 00:03:04.760 off the couch to pretend like he wasn't there. It's like this 00:03:04.760 --> 00:03:10.400 slow motion, like guilty slither, just like, I don't you 00:03:10.400 --> 00:03:15.240 don't see anything. It's hilarious. But other times I don't 00:03:15.240 --> 00:03:19.240 catch him. But it's obvious that he's been on the couch, 00:03:19.440 --> 00:03:24.720 because he's a white boxer. So he has small white hairs. So 00:03:24.720 --> 00:03:27.400 then there'll be hairs all over the cushions of our gray leather 00:03:27.400 --> 00:03:32.920 couch. And I will stand at the couch and just brush all the 00:03:32.920 --> 00:03:37.360 hair off. There's more looking at him. And he's like, I don't 00:03:37.360 --> 00:03:40.960 know what you're talking about. Or if I don't catch him and I 00:03:40.960 --> 00:03:46.880 lay in the love sack, in my black t shirt. And I get up, it is 00:03:46.880 --> 00:03:52.840 covered in white hairs. They were taught what to do like they 00:03:52.840 --> 00:03:59.280 know, they know the rules, Desmond knows the rules. I put the 00:03:59.280 --> 00:04:02.320 hair on the couch should have a love sack that is the receipt 00:04:02.320 --> 00:04:11.000 that he's not following the rules. I love my dog dogs. I love 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:20.480 them both, not equally, but both. No, I love my dogs. But in 00:04:20.520 --> 00:04:24.800 Desmond's not a bad dog. He's just a dog. And I'm telling you 00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:29.440 about him, because a lot of us myself included were taught a 00:04:29.480 --> 00:04:36.880 like kind of obedience that works exactly like this, behave when 00:04:36.880 --> 00:04:44.120 God is watching, and get away with it when he's not kind of like 00:04:44.120 --> 00:04:47.600 what nobody would actually say that God's not watching. Obviously, 00:04:47.600 --> 00:04:52.840 if we ask any of us, like, is God always watching? We would 00:04:52.840 --> 00:04:56.280 say, yes, of course, God's omnipresent. Of course, he's 00:04:56.280 --> 00:04:59.840 always watching that that's as we've talked to the series, that's 00:04:59.840 --> 00:05:03.120 our God concept. That's the knowledge that we have of God. We 00:05:03.120 --> 00:05:07.040 know that he's omnipresent, that God is everywhere. But our God 00:05:07.040 --> 00:05:13.520 image, the way that we feel in this relationship with God, most 00:05:13.520 --> 00:05:16.920 of the days, I would say that we don't feel a God who is 00:05:16.920 --> 00:05:22.960 watching until like shame creeps in. And they're like, Oh, like a 00:05:22.960 --> 00:05:26.720 cat, I'm in trouble. I do what I wasn't supposed to do. Suddenly, 00:05:26.720 --> 00:05:33.080 like the watching is everywhere. And we're my boxer sliding off 00:05:33.080 --> 00:05:36.880 the couch like you didn't see this God. So we do these like 00:05:36.880 --> 00:05:42.200 mental gymnastics of God's kind of watching, but I could do 00:05:42.200 --> 00:05:46.040 this. And he's not like we compartmentalize, because if we 00:05:46.040 --> 00:05:50.480 really felt watched by God all the time, we couldn't function, 00:05:51.000 --> 00:05:57.880 not in that type of belief system. So underneath this, like 00:05:57.880 --> 00:06:04.800 whole arrangement is a question that if any of us said out 00:06:04.800 --> 00:06:12.040 loud, might make us kind of uncomfortable. And the question 00:06:12.040 --> 00:06:14.760 is this, it's the one that we've kind of been hovering around 00:06:14.760 --> 00:06:18.280 this since like week four of the series. It's the one that I get 00:06:18.280 --> 00:06:23.480 from a lot of you. When I'm teaching something like this, the 00:06:23.480 --> 00:06:27.600 question is, if there's no fear in the theology that we're 00:06:27.600 --> 00:06:30.920 teaching, if we're saying that fear based theology is not it, 00:06:31.200 --> 00:06:35.080 if there's no fear of like punishment, or hell or losing 00:06:35.080 --> 00:06:38.560 myself, like, what's to keep me from doing whatever I want? 00:06:40.800 --> 00:06:45.240 Right, anybody ever had that question? Just me, and the 00:06:45.240 --> 00:06:54.240 people my DMs? I've heard this question for years. There's 00:06:54.280 --> 00:06:57.560 the situation that happens quite a bit where pastors who 00:06:57.560 --> 00:07:00.880 disagree with me on some theological place that I've 00:07:00.880 --> 00:07:04.320 landed. Usually someone like I have a relationship with me, 00:07:04.320 --> 00:07:07.360 I'm sitting with them, we're talking, they're asking like how 00:07:07.360 --> 00:07:11.560 I got somewhere, like they're genuinely trying to figure out 00:07:11.680 --> 00:07:15.360 like where, where's the break in my theological car, right? 00:07:15.480 --> 00:07:19.120 Where do you stop on where the breaks at? It's a fair question. 00:07:20.320 --> 00:07:24.040 And I'll try and answer it as honestly as I can. But first, 00:07:25.880 --> 00:07:32.040 these pastors whenever, whenever a pastor pushes back on what I 00:07:32.040 --> 00:07:40.560 believe about sin, repentance, hell, my beliefs on LGBTQ inclusion, 00:07:41.920 --> 00:07:47.840 the conversation, it almost always goes to the same place, 00:07:48.040 --> 00:07:51.560 not almost, it always goes the same place. Within a couple 00:07:51.560 --> 00:07:57.560 minutes, it always goes to LGBTQ. And the pastor is saying 00:07:57.560 --> 00:08:04.160 something like, well, I mean, if I just wanted to cheat on my 00:08:04.160 --> 00:08:10.960 wife, wouldn't that be wrong? Wouldn't that be a sinful lifestyle? 00:08:11.960 --> 00:08:17.840 Would you be okay with me living in a sinful lifestyle? Like 00:08:17.840 --> 00:08:20.160 literally, I've heard this version of this question so many 00:08:20.160 --> 00:08:24.560 times. And so now when we're having this conversation, I start 00:08:24.560 --> 00:08:26.840 listening, I'm like, all right, I'm just waiting for it to come. 00:08:27.160 --> 00:08:31.880 And for me, like, gently because I do love these guys and trying 00:08:31.880 --> 00:08:36.520 to be as honest as I can. But when a man tells me that the only 00:08:36.520 --> 00:08:44.200 thing keeping him from cheating on his wife is the threat of 00:08:44.200 --> 00:08:51.040 divine punishment. He's telling on himself a little bit. And it's 00:08:51.040 --> 00:08:55.120 not and it's not always cheating on wife. There's another part of 00:08:55.120 --> 00:08:59.240 it that I get. But I think there's kids in here. So they're 00:08:59.240 --> 00:09:02.560 always like, well, if I'm addicted to watching this thing, or 00:09:02.560 --> 00:09:05.080 would you be okay with that? You guys know where I'm going with 00:09:05.080 --> 00:09:13.720 this? He's admitting that fear is the break for him that without 00:09:13.720 --> 00:09:20.080 the threat, he'd do exactly the thing he's warning me about. And 00:09:20.080 --> 00:09:25.280 I want to ask as kindly as I can, if fear is the only thing 00:09:25.280 --> 00:09:29.640 keeping you faithful to your spouse, to your kids, to your 00:09:29.640 --> 00:09:35.640 community, like, then how solid is the love underneath that? Because 00:09:35.640 --> 00:09:42.480 it's not the obedience of a husband who adores his wife. That's 00:09:42.880 --> 00:09:47.720 like the obedience of a hostage. Really, like, they're in 00:09:47.720 --> 00:09:53.120 those are two very different things. Because fear can make you 00:09:53.120 --> 00:10:00.480 comply to the rules. But only love can make you want to. And 00:10:00.480 --> 00:10:08.560 Jesus was always after the want. So last week, I said, fear 00:10:08.560 --> 00:10:13.600 changes behavior, but it doesn't change the person. It 00:10:13.600 --> 00:10:19.880 produces compliance without transformation. So people who 00:10:19.880 --> 00:10:26.680 act right in public fall apart in private under this, this fear 00:10:26.680 --> 00:10:30.400 system fear can produce that hostage, but it can't produce 00:10:30.400 --> 00:10:34.880 like a child of love, like someone who believes they're an air 00:10:35.040 --> 00:10:45.560 to the kingdom. And here's someone I want you to hear today. We 00:10:45.560 --> 00:10:51.920 don't have to argue this in theory, because we have decades 00:10:51.920 --> 00:10:58.800 of receipts. Look at what fear based theology has actually 00:10:58.800 --> 00:11:05.960 produced every week. And the Christian leader is in the news 00:11:05.960 --> 00:11:11.960 for something hidden. sexual abuse, financial fraud, affairs, 00:11:11.960 --> 00:11:19.040 cover ups. In 2019, our own paper, the San Antonio Express 00:11:19.040 --> 00:11:23.440 news, along with the Houston Chronicle, did a six month 00:11:23.440 --> 00:11:28.560 investigation called abuse of faith, exposing the Southern 00:11:28.560 --> 00:11:32.320 Baptist Convention leaders, and how they spent two decades 00:11:32.320 --> 00:11:38.720 covering up sexual abuse, about 380 leaders and 700 victims were 00:11:38.720 --> 00:11:43.480 found in this study. Many of the abusers had been moved quietly 00:11:43.480 --> 00:11:50.480 from church to church. And then in 2022, the SBC Southern Baptist 00:11:50.480 --> 00:11:53.120 Convention, they finally, they were forced to release like a 00:11:53.120 --> 00:12:05.160 public list of accused abusers. And the list was 205 pages long. 00:12:06.240 --> 00:12:12.240 So 205 pages. And the part that she like sit with us, straight 00:12:12.240 --> 00:12:16.440 from the Express News editorial board says this, SBC leaders 00:12:16.480 --> 00:12:20.320 have used the lack of hierarchy as an excuse for why they've done 00:12:20.320 --> 00:12:24.200 so little to punish predators. Yet they've been able to expel 00:12:24.200 --> 00:12:28.080 churches that violated their rules by having female pastors or 00:12:28.080 --> 00:12:34.520 welcoming gang lesbian worshipers. I read that again. They 00:12:34.520 --> 00:12:39.840 couldn't act on sexual abuse. But they could act on women in 00:12:39.840 --> 00:12:47.840 ministry and LGBTQ affirming churches. This isn't a structural 00:12:47.840 --> 00:12:55.240 problem. It's a values problem. It, it tells you exactly what the 00:12:55.240 --> 00:13:01.600 framework prioritizes. And exactly what it doesn't. And these 00:13:01.600 --> 00:13:07.120 aren't outliers. This is a pattern. And if we stop ignoring it, 00:13:07.160 --> 00:13:13.800 maybe we can address it. I don't want to sound like I'm just 00:13:13.800 --> 00:13:16.320 attacking the church, but I think we have to call it out that 00:13:16.320 --> 00:13:19.640 like my attention here is not to just attack. My hope would 00:13:19.640 --> 00:13:22.840 really be that we would start asking better questions in the 00:13:22.840 --> 00:13:26.960 church. Like actually look at the fruit of what our theology 00:13:26.960 --> 00:13:34.480 and frameworks produces. Matthew 715, Jesus says, watch out for 00:13:34.480 --> 00:13:38.000 false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing. But 00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:41.600 inwardly, they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit, you will 00:13:41.600 --> 00:13:46.240 recognize them. Which is always funny because this verse will 00:13:46.240 --> 00:13:54.040 get thrown at me. I'm like, I mean, okay. Let's look at some 00:13:54.040 --> 00:14:00.960 fruits. One aren't always good. But I think that love, joy, peace, 00:14:00.960 --> 00:14:03.760 kindness, fate, like these are the things that we're trying to 00:14:03.760 --> 00:14:09.400 achieve here. If the fruit is producing things that harm 00:14:09.400 --> 00:14:13.280 people and I don't protect the vulnerable, then I think it's 00:14:13.320 --> 00:14:20.080 absolutely mandatory that we start asking questions. And the 00:14:20.080 --> 00:14:24.480 push back all here on this question or on this push on this 00:14:24.480 --> 00:14:29.920 like approach is you have a chat that the church does like so 00:14:29.920 --> 00:14:34.240 much good. Like enormous amounts of charity work. Church gives 00:14:34.240 --> 00:14:37.640 billions every year. They're in hospitals and food banks and 00:14:37.640 --> 00:14:41.120 shelters. They're often the biggest organization serving 00:14:41.120 --> 00:14:47.680 people in need. And all of that is true. That's real work. It 00:14:47.680 --> 00:14:52.520 matters. But my thought there is that there's still something 00:14:52.520 --> 00:14:59.440 underneath all of this. You guys know that I'm in school 00:14:59.440 --> 00:15:04.240 doing psychological research. Some I'm I've got lots of 00:15:04.240 --> 00:15:08.760 questions. And when I look at things like the psychology of 00:15:08.760 --> 00:15:16.360 religion has long produced like paradoxical literature 00:15:16.360 --> 00:15:23.240 findings on religion and repeat like religiosity. In the way 00:15:23.240 --> 00:15:27.520 this is what I mean, the paradox here. Religion in studies 00:15:27.520 --> 00:15:34.720 correlates with both pro social behavior and prejudice or 00:15:34.720 --> 00:15:39.800 religion correlates with compassion and authoritarianism. 00:15:42.280 --> 00:15:46.800 So basically when psych psychology researchers say someone is 00:15:46.800 --> 00:15:50.800 more religious. Like what they actually mean, it's a 00:15:50.800 --> 00:15:53.520 combination of a few measurable things. But how often does 00:15:53.520 --> 00:15:56.040 somebody attend church? How important do they say their 00:15:56.040 --> 00:15:59.800 faith is to them? How strongly they hold their religious 00:15:59.800 --> 00:16:03.120 beliefs? How central religion is to their identity and how they 00:16:03.120 --> 00:16:06.240 see the world? So you ask all these questions. And once you 00:16:06.240 --> 00:16:09.640 get some like the list of people that score high on 00:16:09.640 --> 00:16:12.800 religiosity. So their religion matters to them. And most of 00:16:12.800 --> 00:16:14.760 these studies are on Christianity in the US right 00:16:14.760 --> 00:16:19.960 now. You score high. So these things get measured. And then you 00:16:19.960 --> 00:16:22.920 add them together and you get a score for how religious a 00:16:22.920 --> 00:16:27.440 person is. And the more they show up, the more they pray, the 00:16:27.440 --> 00:16:30.280 more central their faith to hire their religiosity score. 00:16:30.640 --> 00:16:37.720 Right. And then researchers will take that finding and they'll 00:16:37.720 --> 00:16:40.840 correlate that score with other things. Like, are these people 00:16:40.840 --> 00:16:46.600 more generous? More likely to volunteer? More likely to help 00:16:46.600 --> 00:16:53.800 a stranger? Yes, oftentimes, when they're studying this, the 00:16:53.800 --> 00:16:58.000 high religiosity leads to giving more to charity or serving 00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:05.280 more hours. But are the same people also more likely to hold 00:17:05.280 --> 00:17:10.800 prejudice views? More likely to support authoritarian leaders? 00:17:11.880 --> 00:17:14.640 More likely to discriminate against people outside of their 00:17:14.640 --> 00:17:21.240 group? Also, yes, those correlate in the psychological 00:17:21.240 --> 00:17:28.000 research findings. So in the same study, the same people can 00:17:28.400 --> 00:17:32.920 give to charity and volunteer their hours, and also be highly 00:17:32.920 --> 00:17:40.160 prejudiced. And this doesn't shock anyone. How does the same 00:17:40.160 --> 00:17:44.760 thing produce both? How does high religiosity produce both of 00:17:44.760 --> 00:17:49.640 these things? Well, that's the question I'm trying to find 00:17:49.640 --> 00:17:53.760 out. That's the question that I want to test. That's why my 00:17:53.760 --> 00:17:57.320 focus, one of my focuses in the research, but my my growing 00:17:57.320 --> 00:18:01.320 belief in this is that the God image that we've talked about a 00:18:01.320 --> 00:18:03.960 person carry, like the God image that a person carries, how they 00:18:03.960 --> 00:18:08.360 feel about God, who they feel God is, is God a punishing God, a 00:18:08.360 --> 00:18:13.560 God that is evaluating their performance, or is God a loving 00:18:13.560 --> 00:18:18.600 God, a kind God, one that forgives one that is unconditionally 00:18:18.600 --> 00:18:23.680 loving? Like, which which way do you experience God? And I think 00:18:23.760 --> 00:18:27.360 my belief is that that God image that a person carries matters 00:18:27.360 --> 00:18:31.800 more than how religious they are. And a lot of the studies don't 00:18:31.840 --> 00:18:36.400 don't measure these things. So studies are finding like 00:18:36.400 --> 00:18:40.560 religious religiosity reliably predicts compassion. This is an 00:18:40.560 --> 00:18:44.000 interesting one. But it doesn't reliably predict empathy. 00:18:47.240 --> 00:18:51.680 That one stood out to me, there's like lots of studies, high 00:18:51.680 --> 00:18:57.960 religiosity, compassionate people, high religiosity, not really 00:18:57.960 --> 00:19:05.800 empathetic. And most of you probably don't live in this world. 00:19:06.920 --> 00:19:14.600 But watching over the last few years, pastors have become like 00:19:14.640 --> 00:19:22.240 anti empathy in a lot of their content. Empathy is not Christian, 00:19:22.840 --> 00:19:29.440 is and is not Christ like, which is mind blowing. But here's my 00:19:29.440 --> 00:19:31.560 my thought on this. Here's here's where I'm landing right now. 00:19:33.080 --> 00:19:39.320 Compassion is it is the impulse to help. Like it can come from a 00:19:39.320 --> 00:19:44.600 beautiful place. But I also think it's performance compatible. 00:19:45.640 --> 00:19:50.800 Like it can coexist with an evaluating God who rewards moral 00:19:50.800 --> 00:19:57.640 effort. So a God who is getting like grading your performance in 00:19:57.640 --> 00:20:02.920 that God image, compassion can can fit in that, because the more 00:20:02.920 --> 00:20:08.240 compassionate I am, the better I look. And I'm not saying that 00:20:08.240 --> 00:20:11.160 everyone that that's the reason they're compassionate. But I 00:20:11.160 --> 00:20:14.120 think this is where this correlation happens. You can be 00:20:14.120 --> 00:20:17.440 compassionate and still believe certain people don't deserve 00:20:17.440 --> 00:20:25.520 your help. Empathy is feeling with someone entering their 00:20:25.520 --> 00:20:31.680 experience. And empathy requires what compassion doesn't. You 00:20:31.680 --> 00:20:38.560 have to feel safe from evaluation yourself to enter another 00:20:38.560 --> 00:20:46.160 person's pain. Because if like, let's just use a an analogy, 00:20:46.160 --> 00:20:52.360 like, if someone is messy, and you're being graded on your 00:20:52.360 --> 00:20:56.880 performance of how clean you are, when you get into their mess, 00:20:56.880 --> 00:21:01.680 and you become messy also, because you're in it, then you're 00:21:01.680 --> 00:21:08.000 being evaluated. So with empathy, if you are in the mess with 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:12.760 someone, you can't be unless you can live in a place where 00:21:12.760 --> 00:21:17.880 evaluation isn't the focus. Only a non evaluative God image 00:21:17.880 --> 00:21:25.120 makes that possible. Like watch how this plays out. The church 00:21:25.120 --> 00:21:35.120 builds hospitals and supports wars that destroy them. After 9/11, 00:21:35.120 --> 00:21:39.440 American evangelicals became one of the most consistent blocks 00:21:39.440 --> 00:21:43.240 supporting military action against Muslim majority countries. 00:21:43.240 --> 00:21:49.680 Still are. Prominent Christian leaders publicly call Islam a 00:21:49.680 --> 00:21:55.720 wicked religion. While their church funds mission work in 00:21:55.720 --> 00:22:00.680 those regions, because there's an evaluation part of that. So 00:22:00.680 --> 00:22:05.840 compassion for the convert, and then warfare on everyone else. 00:22:08.280 --> 00:22:11.320 The church runs food pantries on Saturday on Sunday preaches 00:22:11.320 --> 00:22:14.680 that immigrants in the poor don't deserve government help. They 00:22:14.680 --> 00:22:17.480 need to work for prove they deserve it. The deserving poor 00:22:17.560 --> 00:22:23.760 get charity. The undeserving. They get policed. That is 00:22:23.760 --> 00:22:28.120 compassion without empathy. It's selective. It's evaluative. 00:22:28.120 --> 00:22:31.520 It's performance compatible with a God image that most of us 00:22:31.520 --> 00:22:41.760 inherited. But my thought is the fruit testifies. So what's the 00:22:41.760 --> 00:22:46.320 alternative? Jesus said something that almost every Christian 00:22:46.320 --> 00:22:49.960 this room has heard a hundred times. It's usually quoted as a 00:22:49.960 --> 00:22:53.760 warning, sometimes a threat, almost never like a description. 00:22:53.920 --> 00:23:00.560 But Jesus says, if you love me, keep my commands. If you love 00:23:00.560 --> 00:23:04.720 me, you'll keep my commandments. Most of us read that verse like 00:23:04.720 --> 00:23:09.440 this. If you love me enough, you better keep my rules. A test, 00:23:09.440 --> 00:23:12.600 a condition, a door, you have to keep proving your worthy to 00:23:12.600 --> 00:23:19.000 walk through. I think we've been reading it wrong. Jesus isn't 00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:22.880 making a condition here. That's not how Jesus worked. He's 00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:27.360 making an observation, stating a fact about how love actually 00:23:27.360 --> 00:23:32.800 works. When you genuinely love someone, you don't need a rule 00:23:32.800 --> 00:23:38.000 telling you not to hurt them. The love itself makes harm 00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:41.200 unthinkable. The relationship protects the relationship. 00:23:42.800 --> 00:23:46.360 That's not lowering a bar of obedience. That's relocating 00:23:46.360 --> 00:23:54.280 the source. And when Jesus says, keep my commands, we typically 00:23:54.280 --> 00:23:58.160 want to ask what commands, right? And the church has spent 00:23:58.160 --> 00:24:03.720 2,000 years importing all kinds of things onto that list. The 00:24:03.720 --> 00:24:07.840 entire Old Testament code, pause letters as a rule book, 00:24:09.120 --> 00:24:13.360 centuries of moral codes that varied by culture and era. 00:24:15.760 --> 00:24:21.040 We hand all of that to people and say, this is what loving God 00:24:21.040 --> 00:24:22.560 looks like. Keep all of this. 00:24:25.280 --> 00:24:33.560 But in the same set of scripture, Jesus told us in his own words 00:24:33.560 --> 00:24:39.440 what loving him looks like. He gave us a specific picture. He 00:24:39.440 --> 00:24:45.200 said, for I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you 00:24:45.200 --> 00:24:49.360 gave me a drink. I was homeless and you gave me a room. I was 00:24:49.360 --> 00:24:52.880 shivering and you gave me clothes. I was sick and you stopped 00:24:52.880 --> 00:24:56.080 to visit. I was in prison and you came to me. I'm telling the 00:24:56.080 --> 00:24:59.080 solemn truth. Whenever you did one of these things to someone 00:24:59.080 --> 00:25:02.560 overlooked or ignored, that was me. You did it to me. 00:25:05.920 --> 00:25:10.040 When Jesus tells us what his commandments actually are, he 00:25:10.040 --> 00:25:13.120 doesn't list the things the modern church spends most of its 00:25:13.120 --> 00:25:18.040 energy on. He doesn't mention sexual ethics. He doesn't 00:25:18.040 --> 00:25:25.640 mention dietary purity. He mentions hunger. First, homelessness, 00:25:25.920 --> 00:25:31.120 sickness, being a stranger and experiencing the relationship, 00:25:31.120 --> 00:25:34.800 being in prison and experiencing someone visiting the 00:25:34.800 --> 00:25:39.200 commandments Jesus is asking us to keep are about how we treat 00:25:39.200 --> 00:25:48.800 each other. And the part that I think should sit with us is in 00:25:48.800 --> 00:25:53.760 this, the context of it, Jesus is not talking to like 00:25:53.760 --> 00:25:58.600 outsiders. He's not warning outsiders about what it looks 00:25:58.600 --> 00:26:01.880 like and how they're going to get kicked out or he's standing 00:26:01.880 --> 00:26:05.000 in front of his own religious community, the people who 00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:10.320 consider themselves God's people and telling them that on the 00:26:10.320 --> 00:26:14.120 day of judgment, the question is how they treated the hungry, 00:26:14.120 --> 00:26:19.280 the sick, the imprisoned, the stranger. Look at what some of 00:26:19.280 --> 00:26:25.680 the early church fathers said about this. Not to share your 00:26:25.680 --> 00:26:29.840 own wealth with the poor is theft from the poor and 00:26:29.840 --> 00:26:33.440 deprivation of their means of life. We do not possess our own 00:26:33.440 --> 00:26:41.320 wealth, but theirs. Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, 13th century 00:26:41.320 --> 00:26:45.960 theologian, probably like the greatest Catholic philosopher. 00:26:49.160 --> 00:26:53.600 Aquinas says this when talking about this, in cases of need, 00:26:54.400 --> 00:26:59.400 all things are common property. If the need be so manifest and 00:26:59.400 --> 00:27:04.480 urgent that the present need must be remedy, then it is lawful for 00:27:04.480 --> 00:27:09.400 a man to succor, succor, his own need by means of another's 00:27:09.400 --> 00:27:13.800 property, nor is this prop properly speaking theft or 00:27:13.800 --> 00:27:18.800 robbery. So if someone needs something and you have it and 00:27:18.800 --> 00:27:23.320 they take it, that's not theft because they needed it. This 00:27:23.320 --> 00:27:25.680 is how far Aquinas goes with this. 00:27:29.960 --> 00:27:35.480 So when the pushback happened, and Aquinas was responding, when 00:27:35.480 --> 00:27:38.600 they say, but isn't sharing supposed to be voluntary? 00:27:39.960 --> 00:27:45.320 Aquinas says no. In cases of genuine need, sharing isn't 00:27:45.320 --> 00:27:48.360 voluntary, withholding is the violation. 00:27:53.600 --> 00:27:56.800 In Matthew 25, the people being told depart for me, I never knew 00:27:56.800 --> 00:28:00.240 you are not pagans, they are religious people, church 00:28:00.240 --> 00:28:03.440 people, they thought they were on the right side. This was an 00:28:03.440 --> 00:28:05.880 indictment on his own faith community. 00:28:08.760 --> 00:28:13.080 And so we have to ask questions about ours. Because again, the 00:28:13.080 --> 00:28:17.400 fruit testifies to what we believe or we're teaching and how 00:28:17.400 --> 00:28:22.000 we see God and experience Jesus. I'm not saying let everybody 00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:27.600 steal your stuff. But we have to be honest about this. 00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:35.880 It's a hard time right now financially. We are still in 00:28:35.880 --> 00:28:42.040 the greatest, like place we could be ourselves, comparatively 00:28:42.040 --> 00:28:46.000 speaking. There's a guy that sleeps in the back corner of our 00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:49.560 church every single night. He's been there for five years, 00:28:49.560 --> 00:28:56.680 probably. Buddy, Buddy and I have had so many conversations 00:28:56.680 --> 00:28:59.280 over five years. He calls me Pops, which is weird because he's 00:28:59.280 --> 00:29:09.800 older than me. I've tried to get Buddy into housing and 00:29:09.800 --> 00:29:15.080 apartments and just different types of like programs and 00:29:15.080 --> 00:29:17.720 help. And he's always like, I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready, 00:29:17.720 --> 00:29:22.240 and then we'll try. And then he fights with someone. And I've 00:29:22.240 --> 00:29:28.680 heard Buddy's story. I love Buddy. But if we're not taking 00:29:28.680 --> 00:29:36.360 care of Buddy, then we're not taking care of Jesus. And we 00:29:36.360 --> 00:29:45.120 have to ask, what is the fruit of what we believe? In the same 00:29:45.120 --> 00:29:49.880 move, the same idea, Jesus is talking again to religious 00:29:49.880 --> 00:29:52.680 people. He's talking to the religious lawyer. And the 00:29:52.680 --> 00:29:55.120 religious lawyer asking him a question, who is my neighbor? 00:29:55.440 --> 00:29:58.880 Because he's trying to figure out who am I supposed like they 00:29:58.880 --> 00:30:00.960 were talking about the commandments, keep my commands, 00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:04.520 love God, love your neighbor as yourself. And this guy's like, 00:30:04.560 --> 00:30:08.400 cool, who's my neighbor? Just so I know who I have to love. 00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:12.000 Which if we're honest, that's the question we ask in the 00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:16.840 church, in the modern church, like, okay, who really is my who 00:30:16.840 --> 00:30:23.720 do I really have to take care of? Not long ago, J.D. Vance 00:30:23.720 --> 00:30:27.360 gave a talk about this like belief, this Catholic belief 00:30:27.360 --> 00:30:30.600 that like, I'm supposed to take care of myself, my family, and 00:30:30.600 --> 00:30:34.560 then others, it was this list. And the pope was like, you got 00:30:34.560 --> 00:30:40.680 that all wrong. Which the pope he's he's ready, he's ready, he's 00:30:40.680 --> 00:30:44.360 ready to go. So who's my neighbor? The question, it's a 00:30:44.360 --> 00:30:48.680 boundary question. Who do I have to love? Who's in my circle? 00:30:48.720 --> 00:30:52.440 Who's out? Jesus doesn't answer the question. He tells the 00:30:52.440 --> 00:30:56.240 story, right? The story of the Good Samaritan. He, a man is 00:30:56.240 --> 00:30:59.840 beaten and left for dead. A priest walks up and walks past 00:30:59.840 --> 00:31:05.960 him. He can't get dirty. The rules say he can't get dirty. 00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:12.600 Believe I another religious walk worker walks past, both are 00:31:12.600 --> 00:31:16.960 busy, both have rules that they have to follow in order to stay 00:31:16.960 --> 00:31:23.440 pure and clean and religiously holy. They walk past him. Then a 00:31:23.440 --> 00:31:31.280 Samaritan, the cultural enemy of the Jews, a heretic, the wrong 00:31:31.280 --> 00:31:37.040 kind of person gets down in the dirt with him, cleans his wounds, 00:31:37.360 --> 00:31:41.560 carries him to an end, and pays for his care. And says, if 00:31:41.560 --> 00:31:46.520 there's anything left, I'll pay the balance. I'll be back. And 00:31:46.520 --> 00:31:52.360 Jesus in this story flips that question. He doesn't answer who 00:31:52.360 --> 00:31:57.520 is my neighbor. He asked the lawyer, which of these three 00:31:57.560 --> 00:32:04.600 prove to be a neighbor? Do you hear the move there? The lawyer 00:32:04.680 --> 00:32:09.600 asked who counts, who's in? And Jesus says wrong question. The 00:32:09.600 --> 00:32:15.200 right question is, who acted like a neighbor? Who is loving 00:32:15.240 --> 00:32:20.880 others? The priest and the Levite, they probably gave the 00:32:20.880 --> 00:32:28.760 charity, their compassion, but they didn't have empathy. They 00:32:28.760 --> 00:32:35.080 didn't enter the man's suffering. The Samaritan did. And 00:32:35.080 --> 00:32:39.720 honestly, like by that test, a lot of what gets called Christian 00:32:39.720 --> 00:32:44.280 in this country today fails miserably. We've built an 00:32:44.280 --> 00:32:49.600 industry around policing who people sleep with while ignoring 00:32:49.600 --> 00:32:58.040 the people sleeping outside. We've built movements around 00:32:58.040 --> 00:33:01.520 protecting our preferences while abandoning the prisoner, the 00:33:01.520 --> 00:33:08.480 immigrant, the poor. Jesus told us the test. We just didn't 00:33:08.480 --> 00:33:15.800 want to take it. Now, someone here is already thinking, okay, 00:33:15.800 --> 00:33:20.840 what about Paul? Because we're Christians and Paul's kind of 00:33:20.840 --> 00:33:26.320 our guy, right? Because Paul has lists. He gives us some list. 00:33:26.680 --> 00:33:30.320 Galatians five, First Corinthians six, Romans one, their 00:33:30.320 --> 00:33:35.520 behaviors, things that keep you out of the kingdom. And the 00:33:35.520 --> 00:33:38.640 modern church has built theological systems around those 00:33:38.640 --> 00:33:43.080 lists, made them into like rule codes, use them as ammunition. 00:33:44.120 --> 00:33:49.280 But Paul himself told us what happens when you turn his 00:33:49.280 --> 00:33:53.960 teachings into a rule code. Listen to Romans seven says this, 00:33:53.960 --> 00:33:58.520 but I need something more for if I know the law, but still can't 00:33:58.520 --> 00:34:02.080 keep it. And if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my 00:34:02.080 --> 00:34:06.480 best intentions, I obviously need help. I realize that I don't 00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:10.920 have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I 00:34:10.920 --> 00:34:14.720 decide to do good, but I don't really do it. I decide not to do 00:34:14.720 --> 00:34:18.960 bad. But then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, 00:34:19.040 --> 00:34:23.640 don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within 00:34:23.640 --> 00:34:28.960 me and gets the better of me every time. Paul's describing 00:34:28.960 --> 00:34:33.920 exactly what we saw earlier in this like fear based rule based 00:34:33.920 --> 00:34:37.800 self monitoring, monitoring obedience. And he's telling us 00:34:37.800 --> 00:34:43.800 it doesn't work. He actually says that the law where the rule 00:34:43.800 --> 00:34:49.320 code is that increases sin. When you have these rules that 00:34:49.320 --> 00:34:50.680 you're trying to follow and you're trying to follow them 00:34:50.680 --> 00:34:52.880 because they're the rules, it increases sin. That was the 00:34:52.880 --> 00:34:56.600 point of it. So that grace can abound. And then when he's 00:34:56.600 --> 00:34:59.160 asked the question like, okay, so we have grace like we can 00:34:59.160 --> 00:35:01.440 just keep on sending he's like, man, you got it wrong. Like 00:35:01.440 --> 00:35:05.840 you're still trying to put it in the rule book. We don't play 00:35:05.840 --> 00:35:15.560 that game. There's a school story. William Paul Young, I 00:35:15.560 --> 00:35:18.080 think it's his name, together with the shack. I heard you tell 00:35:18.080 --> 00:35:23.960 the story about this guy dies. He was a pastor, most his life 00:35:23.960 --> 00:35:26.240 like didn't ministry for 30 years gave the charity did 00:35:26.240 --> 00:35:28.960 everything right. He dies. He goes to the pearly gates. He 00:35:28.960 --> 00:35:32.920 stand there talking to Peter and Peter's like, Hey, welcome. And 00:35:32.920 --> 00:35:35.320 he goes, Okay, so what do I got to do like, like is it like a 00:35:35.320 --> 00:35:38.080 hundred points like I got to prove myself and Peter's like, 00:35:38.520 --> 00:35:43.480 sure, go ahead. So I've been a pastor for 30 years. I've been 00:35:43.480 --> 00:35:45.920 ministering like most of my life and Peter's like, all right, 00:35:45.920 --> 00:35:48.880 I'll give you two points and he's like two points. But okay, I 00:35:48.880 --> 00:35:50.880 get to charity and I did this. Okay, I'll give you another 00:35:50.880 --> 00:35:52.800 point. You guys like how am I going to get to a hundred 00:35:52.800 --> 00:35:55.960 points? And while he's doing this, a guy from his town, who he 00:35:55.960 --> 00:36:00.280 knew was kind of sketchy, but he was there and like, everyone's 00:36:00.280 --> 00:36:02.440 in a while. He would see him. He'd be nice. But he'd spent some 00:36:02.440 --> 00:36:06.120 time at the bar. Like, this wasn't the guy that you would 00:36:06.120 --> 00:36:08.920 say. This is the best Christian in the world. And the guy comes 00:36:08.960 --> 00:36:11.840 walking and he's like, Hey, Peter, Peter says, what's up? And he 00:36:11.840 --> 00:36:14.960 walks into the to the pearly gates. And he's like, wait, that 00:36:14.960 --> 00:36:18.920 guy had a hundred points. And Peter goes, no, he just doesn't 00:36:18.920 --> 00:36:25.080 play that game. But keep going. And I think this is what Paul 00:36:25.080 --> 00:36:32.120 saying, the rules aren't what this is about. He's describing and 00:36:32.120 --> 00:36:35.320 saying that this doesn't work. When you really look at Paul's 00:36:35.320 --> 00:36:41.640 letters, he is, he is putting the law and grace and freedom next 00:36:41.640 --> 00:36:44.800 to each other and saying, this is what we're in. We are no 00:36:44.800 --> 00:36:49.160 longer under the law. We're in grace and freedom. And it leads 00:36:49.160 --> 00:36:54.920 to loving others. Like, the more you focus on not doing the 00:36:54.920 --> 00:36:58.560 bad thing, the more the bad thing becomes all you can see. 00:37:00.160 --> 00:37:03.920 Right? We've all say we were all kids, but we're all adults 00:37:03.920 --> 00:37:09.680 like we know this like, this is the pastor saying, well, what 00:37:09.680 --> 00:37:14.560 if I cheat on my wife? You're focused on something. And it's 00:37:14.560 --> 00:37:21.880 not the right thing. A corrupted mindset, it finds validation 00:37:21.880 --> 00:37:28.400 easily. Tell someone they are fundamentally sexual beings 00:37:28.400 --> 00:37:34.440 who desire whose desires must be suppressed. And that's all they 00:37:34.440 --> 00:37:40.960 will think about. Tell them they are inherently selfish. They will 00:37:40.960 --> 00:37:47.600 only see their own selfishness. The framework reinforces what it 00:37:47.600 --> 00:37:54.560 claims to fight. So how do we read Paul's list then? Realistically, 00:37:54.760 --> 00:37:59.400 what does this look like? We read them relationally, not as a 00:37:59.400 --> 00:38:05.520 rule code, as relational diagnostic tools. Here's his 00:38:05.520 --> 00:38:09.600 vise list in Galatians five is obvious, what kind of life 00:38:09.600 --> 00:38:12.280 develops out of trying to get your own way all the time, 00:38:12.840 --> 00:38:16.360 repetitive, loveless, cheap sex, stinking accumulation of mental 00:38:16.360 --> 00:38:20.120 and emotional garbage, frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness, 00:38:20.200 --> 00:38:23.880 trinket gods, magic show religion, paranoid loneliness, cut 00:38:23.880 --> 00:38:27.720 throat competition, all consuming yet never satisfied once, a 00:38:27.720 --> 00:38:32.400 brutal temper, an impotence to love or to be loved, divided homes 00:38:32.400 --> 00:38:36.360 and divided lives, small minded and lopsided pursuits, the vicious 00:38:36.360 --> 00:38:41.960 habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival, uncontrolled and 00:38:41.960 --> 00:38:46.920 uncontrollable addictions, ugly parodies of community. Every 00:38:46.920 --> 00:38:51.280 item on that list is a description of harm to somebody, 00:38:52.880 --> 00:38:56.720 harm to another person, or a corrupted self view that is 00:38:56.720 --> 00:39:02.520 spilling out onto others, loveless sex, harm, brutal temper, 00:39:02.520 --> 00:39:07.280 harm, depersonalizing others, harm, addictions that consume the 00:39:07.280 --> 00:39:11.240 people around you harm, like these are all harmful things in 00:39:11.240 --> 00:39:16.920 relationships. Paul isn't handing us a checklist of things God 00:39:16.920 --> 00:39:21.840 doesn't like. He's describing what corrupted self perception 00:39:21.840 --> 00:39:27.280 produces when it leaks into relationships. Then the fruit 00:39:27.280 --> 00:39:32.360 list from last week, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, 00:39:32.360 --> 00:39:35.640 goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control, also 00:39:35.640 --> 00:39:43.480 relational. Every item is a way of treating others well. He isn't 00:39:43.480 --> 00:39:47.160 handing us to opposing rule books. He's describing what comes 00:39:47.160 --> 00:39:52.160 out of a corrupted body versus a regulated one. The vice 00:39:52.160 --> 00:39:56.320 list is what flows from shame driven self. And the fruit list 00:39:56.320 --> 00:40:02.680 is what flows from a body that knows it is loved. You can't 00:40:03.120 --> 00:40:08.560 white knuckle your way from one list to the other. You can 00:40:08.560 --> 00:40:15.560 only, as Jesus said, change your mind. Metanoia, receive love 00:40:15.560 --> 00:40:19.200 at a level deep enough that your body starts producing different 00:40:19.200 --> 00:40:27.680 fruit. There's so much like psychology on it, like how 00:40:28.360 --> 00:40:32.640 motivations extrinsic extrinsic and intrinsic and what what 00:40:32.640 --> 00:40:35.440 actually motivates us and what doesn't. And you guys can look 00:40:35.440 --> 00:40:40.960 that up. Or even developmental research with kids, like if you 00:40:40.960 --> 00:40:45.200 tell a child for 10 years that they're fundamentally corrupt 00:40:45.200 --> 00:40:48.000 that their desires are dangerous, their bodies are sinful, 00:40:48.000 --> 00:40:50.720 their natural impulses must be suppressed to be acceptable. 00:40:50.800 --> 00:40:54.000 You produce exactly what the headlines show every single 00:40:54.000 --> 00:41:01.960 week. Hidden lives repressed shame, eventual collapse. Because 00:41:01.960 --> 00:41:07.000 shame based formation does not produce holiness. It produces 00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:11.240 hiding. It produces double lives. It produces the very thing it 00:41:11.240 --> 00:41:19.520 claims to prevent the fruit testifies. So what is love based 00:41:20.280 --> 00:41:22.680 or love sourced obedience actually look like on a Monday 00:41:22.680 --> 00:41:27.280 morning? It looks like honesty. Now, not because lying is on a 00:41:27.280 --> 00:41:31.840 prohibited list. But because deception fractures the 00:41:31.840 --> 00:41:38.400 relationship you care about, or generosity, not because the tie 00:41:38.400 --> 00:41:42.640 this 10%, this is the this is the moment you guys ready? But 00:41:42.640 --> 00:41:45.360 because a person who knows they're provided for finds it easy 00:41:45.360 --> 00:41:51.880 to give. And they give to things that they believe are doing 00:41:51.880 --> 00:42:00.520 good work, or fidelity, not because of the consequences of 00:42:00.520 --> 00:42:02.680 failure, but because the relationship itself is worth 00:42:02.680 --> 00:42:11.800 protecting. Welcoming up with a stranger, not because Jesus 00:42:11.800 --> 00:42:15.560 said to, but because you know what it feels like to be welcomed 00:42:15.560 --> 00:42:21.840 and you can't stop extending that care for the poor, the sick, 00:42:21.880 --> 00:42:27.360 imprisoned, not because Matthew 25 commands it. But because 00:42:27.360 --> 00:42:31.000 once you've been seen, you can't look away from someone the 00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:37.080 world has stopped seeing love sourced obedience doesn't look 00:42:37.080 --> 00:42:40.600 like fear based obedience like with the volume turned down. It's 00:42:40.600 --> 00:42:43.720 a completely different thing sourced from somewhere else 00:42:43.720 --> 00:42:48.200 entirely. And here's the thing that nobody told me when I was 00:42:48.200 --> 00:42:54.880 younger. You are never going to figure this out. Nobody in this 00:42:54.880 --> 00:42:59.000 room has this figured out. I've literally been studying this 00:42:59.000 --> 00:43:04.880 stuff for like 20 years now. And I still can't figure it out. And 00:43:04.880 --> 00:43:09.720 I mean, this is good news. We think the goal of the Christian 00:43:09.720 --> 00:43:12.680 life is to eventually arrive somewhere to get to a point 00:43:12.680 --> 00:43:14.840 where we're mature enough, holy enough, sanctified enough to 00:43:14.840 --> 00:43:19.480 finally have the answers. But if the goal is to experience God's 00:43:19.480 --> 00:43:24.080 love and to love others, well, you can't arrive. There's no 00:43:24.080 --> 00:43:28.840 figuring it out. There's no destination where we suddenly 00:43:28.840 --> 00:43:35.160 have it worked out. Paul tells us in Ephesians 3, we've read 00:43:35.160 --> 00:43:42.760 this verse throughout this series. Like the love of God is so 00:43:42.760 --> 00:43:46.960 vast that his prayer is that you would just continue to find 00:43:46.960 --> 00:43:52.160 it, just continue to find the edges of it, chase it. Paul says 00:43:52.160 --> 00:43:55.440 God's love is so vast, wide, long, high, deep that it will 00:43:55.440 --> 00:43:58.960 never find the edges of it. Not in this lifetime. Not in the 00:43:58.960 --> 00:44:03.760 next. There is always more. We don't arrive. We don't graduate. 00:44:03.760 --> 00:44:07.440 We keep going. Hebrews puts it like this, let us run with 00:44:07.440 --> 00:44:10.120 perseverance. The race marked out for us fixing our eyes on 00:44:10.120 --> 00:44:14.840 Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. Notice what it 00:44:14.840 --> 00:44:20.440 doesn't say. It doesn't say finish the race. It doesn't say 00:44:20.440 --> 00:44:24.400 win the race. It doesn't say it just says run it. Keep running. 00:44:24.400 --> 00:44:29.200 Eyes on Jesus marked out for you. What are we running toward? 00:44:29.200 --> 00:44:32.440 Paul tells us in earlier in Ephesians, for we are God's 00:44:32.440 --> 00:44:36.680 handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God 00:44:36.680 --> 00:44:40.920 prepared in advance for us to do? Good works prepared in 00:44:40.920 --> 00:44:43.640 advance. What good works? I would argue the ones Jesus 00:44:43.640 --> 00:44:48.840 described in Matthew 25, seeing people, loving the person God 00:44:48.840 --> 00:44:53.400 puts in front of you in this moment. There's like 8 billion 00:44:53.400 --> 00:44:56.840 people on this earth. 8 billion good works. God is prepared. 00:44:56.840 --> 00:45:02.440 8 billion opportunities to show love, to show up. We keep 00:45:02.440 --> 00:45:05.640 learning. We keep growing. We keep finding new ways to love 00:45:05.640 --> 00:45:08.360 every day, a new adventure. Every day someone new to love 00:45:08.360 --> 00:45:11.480 well. Every day a creative challenge to figure it out. How 00:45:11.480 --> 00:45:14.600 do I love this person in front of me in this moment in this 00:45:14.600 --> 00:45:18.280 season? What can I do that is loving them? You can't find the 00:45:18.280 --> 00:45:21.640 edge of that because there's always more people and there's 00:45:21.640 --> 00:45:25.080 always more ways to love. The journey of this life is the 00:45:25.080 --> 00:45:30.840 adventure. Like that's it. The journey is it. The 00:45:30.840 --> 00:45:33.240 destination is just the moment we get to look back at where we've 00:45:33.240 --> 00:45:39.240 been. So here's a question I'm going to leave you with. Sit 00:45:39.240 --> 00:45:43.240 with it. Don't answer it today. What would it look like to 00:45:43.240 --> 00:45:48.760 approach that same area of your life that maybe you've been 00:45:48.760 --> 00:45:52.200 living from fear? You've been trying to white knuckle your 00:45:52.200 --> 00:45:56.600 way through it? What would it look like to approach that same 00:45:56.600 --> 00:46:00.440 area from a place of love instead? 00:46:03.560 --> 00:46:07.240 Think about the area of your life where you're still trying to obey 00:46:07.240 --> 00:46:11.480 out of fear. Still managing, performing, white knuckling it, 00:46:11.480 --> 00:46:15.960 behaving when you feel watched and falling apart when you're not. 00:46:15.960 --> 00:46:18.600 What would it look like to approach that same area from a place of 00:46:18.600 --> 00:46:23.480 love instead? Because this is the only kind of change Jesus 00:46:23.480 --> 00:46:29.000 ever asked for. Not effort, reorientation. Not working 00:46:29.000 --> 00:46:36.120 harder, a new desire. Fear can make you comply. Love can make you 00:46:36.120 --> 00:46:42.040 want to. And Jesus was always after the one. It's a different kind of 00:46:42.040 --> 00:46:47.320 obedience sourced not from fear but from love made 00:46:47.320 --> 00:46:51.720 complete. And the way that love is made complete is what we say 00:46:51.720 --> 00:47:00.760 every single week. Arsenal, go love well. It's who you're made to be. 00:47:00.760 --> 00:47:05.640 I love you guys. Go do that. We'll see you next week.