God and Love

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0:00 So, coming out of Pentecost, we've been thinking about what it means that we get to live in this age of the church, in this season of the church, where God has imbibed His people with that original spirit at Pentecost. And the spirit of God goes out indiscriminately, men and women, young and old, everybody gets the spirit of God. And immediately the spirit starts accomplishing the will of the Father, empowered by the Word, the Son, to create faith in people, to give them the capacity to look like humans were supposed to look from the inside out.

0:46 And, I mean, they begin to have lives that have glimpses of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. They begin to be different people from the inside out, rather than the outside in. And that starts to form into these communities, and the communities begin to follow the pattern that they had had at synagogues and gather weekly in churches, where they remind each other of the gospel of Jesus. And await His return.

1:17 And those little churches gathered in homes, in public places, at different times in catacombs or secret places, the church begins to develop its own culture. Now with Jesus as the King, the scriptures call, maybe the King of all the kings, the one who sits on the throne and never ends. With Jesus as the supreme authority in their life, there are core culture. There is a core culture built on core values that develop uniquely among the people of God.

1:52 And at times that clashes with the culture of the world that they live in. And we've been thinking about what is the culture of the reign of God in our midst? And how does that jive with and conflict with the culture that we find in Orlando or Florida or America or the western world? And last week we were talking about that the reign of God is marked throughout space and time and in every iteration, the reign of God is marked by a core value of justice.

2:29 We went back to the very beginning story where there are the first ones and they're put in this garden beautifully. But there is a circumscribed behavior. I mean there is a right behavior and a wrong behavior. And I worked hard last week, I don't know how effective it was, to help us understand that right and wrong in the reign of God is not arbitrary.

2:59 It's not like we are trying to act right in order to meet some arbitrary standard or just to be right in order that everybody else could be wrong. But right and wrong behavior in the reign of God is built on this original premise that humanity are the image bearers of God. That means that one man humanity is not God, there is a God, that made in his image humanity mirrors back to God his behavior and honors and supports the dignity in all of God.

3:40 So that justice, just behavior in the reign of God looks like loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and loving your neighbor as yourself. Just behavior looks like acknowledging the glory of God. By that I mean acknowledging God for who God is, the source and end of beauty, the source and end of justice, of creativity, of truth, acknowledging the glory of God, God for who God is, and supporting and blessing the image of God in all the rest of humanity.

4:21 This is just behavior. We saw in the very beginning that that's how God circumscribed behavior. He says, hey go mirror my acts of creativity, name all of creation, rule over it and subdue it as the people of God. And acknowledge that I'm God by not eating of this one tree, by following my prescription on living. That means I'll be in charge of your future and then you mirror in your own areas of charge my behavior.

4:52 And then when they break that, when they act in unjust, unrighteous, unholy, evil ways, all of these are can be synonymous, right? When they act in these behaviors that are not good, wrong, there are consequences. And we could spend a lot of time trying to meet out are these consequences of an active work of God or a passive response of creation to unjust behavior.

5:25 That's less important. What is important is that wrong behavior merits consequences. It just does. Adam, I could say in the same conversation that God promises deliverance to Adam, he also announces a judgment, a consequence for his action. He says, your relationship will be broken, your work will be a burden, and I will deliver you and set it right.

5:58 And so last week we talked about the capacity for us as people living under the reign of God to live justly. Because we live in the season of the church, this side of Pentecost, carrying the great spirit of God, we have the capacity to be just people. To acknowledge the glory of God, acknowledge God for who God is, and to affirm the dignity, the image of God in all humanity.

6:31 You have the capacity to be just people in the world. Now, America might have a notion of justice. I'm less concerned with what that is. It is not my mission to make America's notion of justice match the notion of justice of the church. The cultures of the world will always be making equivocations, hopefully pragmatically and fairly, but I live under the reign of God.

7:08 And I hold myself to the culture and standard of the reign of God, and I am invited to embody the justice of the reign of God that extends way before this country that we are living in, and is rooted and founded in creation, affirmed and supported at the cross, and empowered with the spirit at Pentecost. You and I can build a culture of justice among ourselves. That means that we are not afraid to look at our failures.

7:43 Because we know, we said last week, that there is none just. We all fail. So we can look at our justice because in the same time that we endure the suffering of our failures, we endure the consequences of our failures. We will. We read the text in Romans, from Paul, that said suffering ends up with perseverance, character, and then hope. We endure the sufferings of our failures, and we embrace the forgiveness and the new start of Jesus.

8:17 And that's what I want to talk about now, that we understand and embody the justice of the reign of God. How do we move toward each other and toward the world? So just action acknowledges the glory of God and God's image in humanity. Unjust action has real consequences. And my thing is that love, as understood in the reign of God, restores what's broken by unjust action.

8:57 Love is deeper and more substantial than an emotion or a feeling. Love is supported by action. And I want to look at the Psalm that we use for our call to worship, to get us into that idea of love. It's Psalm 51, if you want to look there with me, that would be great. Psalm 51, now you know the Psalms are that ancient hymnbook of our people. There's 150 of them, which is a specific number.

9:31 There's not like 123 or something. There's 150. They're divided into books. They seem to be arranged thematically, not chronologically. We don't have a lot of information about their authors. Some of them have some context in the superscripts, but really this is a hymnbook. A hymnbook of our people that is some of the oldest texts that we have is in Psalms. It looks like in the first century, Jewish kids were memorizing these on a regular basis. Their first level of school was to memorize this hymnbook.

10:02 They are formative. Psalm 51, in my text, has a little context ahead of it that says that best scholarship is telling us, we believe that King David wrote this after his failure with Uriah and Bathsheba. That's a longer story, but suffice to say, David acted unjustly by abusing his power

10:36 and disrespecting the image of God in both Uriah and Bathsheba to accomplish what he wanted. It's almost a very clear parallel to Adam taking the fruit that God told him not to take, abusing his position of authority and creation to take the thing he wanted that God told him was not his. He disrespects the fruit for what it is and he disrespects God for who God is and acts unjustly.

11:09 There are consequences. Same for David. David kills Uriah, takes Bathsheba, and God comes to him and tells him, there will be consequences. The Lord will never leave your family and you'll lose your son. And I forgive you. And we think that Psalm 51 is David's response. And I want to look at it because there's one thing here at the very beginning. David says, have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy.

11:42 Steadfast love, there's the first thing I want us to look at. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love. It's a key word, steadfast love, in the story of Scripture, especially in the Old Testament. It comes from the Hebrew word, Kessed, that's used in several places throughout the Old Testament. And they translate the singular word as steadfast love. Another translation might be covenant faithfulness. It's this action of God that is deeply rooted in his own promises and moves him in faithfulness

12:19 and at hope, admiration, support, care for his people. So that when David is in the place of undest this, recognizing he's bearing the consequences of his undest actions, he appeals to the love of God. And said, according to your steadfast love, what? He doesn't say, according to your steadfast love, feel a certain way for me. Because of course God feels a certain way for him. David is the image bearer of God in the world.

12:51 This is what I want you to know first for yourself. You have acted and will act with deep injustice. You use people, you exploit people. You misrepresent the truth. You usurp God's authority. And though God tells you a certain way to live, you feel like you know better. You have acted and will act unjustly. In no way or circumstance is God's feeling for you ever in doubt.

13:25 You are his image bearer in the world. Your existence, your breathing in and out is tangible evidence of the way God feels about you. He put his image in you. And though you mar it, it will not go away. David, sitting in the place of injustice, appeals to the tested of God, the steadfast faceless of God,

13:59 in order to what? To get God to act on behalf of the steadfast facelessness. He does not need to appeal for God to feel a certain way. He needs to appeal to God because you feel a certain way. Love me. Move towards me. Work to undo, to restore what is broken because of the choices I have made.

14:29 Love me. Because you feel a certain way about me, love me. According to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Work. Do. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. You see these verbs? Because you feel a certain way about me, love me. And love means, uh, blot out, wash, cleanse. For I know my transgressions, my unjust action, and my sin is ever before me.

15:00 Against you, and you only have I sinned and done with his evil in your sight, that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth. He says, I, I, I, I know Lord, I have been sinful the whole time. He acknowledges holy, his unjustness. He's not afraid to stare the, the, the immensity of his failure, holy in the face. He owns up to all of it. We use this as an example, sometimes the trepidation we might feel in owning up to the, the racist practices, thinking that we've been involved in, that we were raised in, that, that our families were a part of.

15:37 We might have some trepidation in acknowledging that, but, but the justice that reigns in the church, because we are not afraid to look wholeheartedly at our failure, because no matter how much we have failed, it does not change the way God feels about us. And because he feels a certain way about us, we can ask him to love us, to move towards us. And so David says, I, I know I was brought forth in the Nickly. I have been sinful my whole life. I've been unjust my whole life, but after a certain way anyway.

16:07 Verse 7, purge me with hist up and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be wider than snow. What I want you to see is David is asking that what has been broken since he was born, the love of God can restore and bring back. Fully. So that the love, the action of God, motivated by that, that feeling because of the image has restored his even creative power. The love of God can create things that weren't there before.

16:44 So that when David says purge me with hist up and my soul shall be clean, he just previously said, I was brought forth in the Nickly. Since I was born, I've been sinful. But if you clean me, I'll be clean all the way through. Create in me a clean heart, he's about to set. Do something new in me. The love of God has the creative power. Okay, this is going to be good for us. It's good for us, right? Just for us. But remember what the image of God means, that we mirror back to him, his creative, let's look further.

17:20 Let me hear the joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence. Take not your Holy Spirit. Restore to me the joy of my salvation. And uphold me with the willing spirit. And then I will move out. I will teach transgressors your ways.

17:50 And sinners, I will return to you. I'll bring people, I'll bring others back and tell them, God feels a certain way about you. And because of that, you can ask him to love you. And the love of God is creative energy. It makes things out of nothing. And it can make you a fuller representation of the image of God in the world.

18:20 It can make a clean heart in you. Restore the right salvation. In you, that is good news. It's good news for you because now that you understand that you have been unjust, but that your unjustness doesn't mar the image of God, you can move in love. And God's love is action.

18:53 I was thinking about how might I define that action of God, that covenant faithfulness of God. You know, in the scriptures, in the Old Testament, there are several times where God comes and intervenes in the mechanism of history in order to restore and create new things for his people.

19:25 Like Joshua's battling and he stops the sun. So they might have more time to win the battle. They're taking Jericho and he's like, let me handle this one for you. And he just knocks down the walls and they take the city without any bloodshed. There are times when his faithfulness, Hezekiah has failed and he's so heartbroken at his unjustness and failure that he comes to God and says, God, let me, would you act in love towards me?

19:58 Don't take my life yet. Forst all the consequences of my actions. And so God does. He gives him 15 more years. But of course, the pinnacle of the action of love is incarnation, right? John in that famous phrase says, for God so loved the world that he sent his only son or that whoever should be leaving him would not perish the habit in all life. Right?

20:28 So if I were going to define, if I were to pick two words, of course, two words are not enough to define the love of God. Let's look first at how before we pick my words. Let's listen to Paul's words, Terry. Look at 1 Corinthians with me. It's famous. Famous verse here. 1 Corinthians, so if you go Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, if you're in a paper copy, we're looking at 1 Corinthians chapter 13.

21:10 God's demonstrations of love exemplified in the incarnation, the crucifixion, and the resurrection. To me, are always characterized by solidarity and sacrifice. The action of love from God's we have seemed to be always characterized by solidarity and sacrifice.

21:41 Moving in to stand with the broken at his own expense, at God's own expense. And now look at how this supports that in Paul. He says, if I speak in tongues of men and have not angels, and end of angels, but have not love, I'm a noisy goner, clingy symbol. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. Love is the action.

22:12 So he's saying it's not merely the behavior. It is the will and intent. It is based in not, I mean, right behavior is not right for its own sake. It's right because it comes from the deep-seated conviction that all glory goes to God and that all humanity are image-bearers of that God. So moving mountains is a good enough itself, but if we move mountains because we recognize that all glory goes to God, now this is love, Paul is saying.

22:45 But if I do these things without that deep-seated knowledge, that bedrock that it's all built on, then it's nothing. And this is love, the action motivated by that conviction that there is a God and all humanity is made in God's image. And if I have prophetic powers, I believe in verse 3, if I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body up to be burned, but I have not love, I gain nothing.

23:15 This is important for us as we start to think about how do we engage the culture of Orlando, Florida, of America with a sense of justice? I think it is very important that the people of God, the church of God, the people called out of the world to live under the reign of God are known for justice.

23:45 I think we have been throughout the history of the world. Those who are just, and justice is, there is a God, we are made in his image, and all people carry his image. And it's important that we move out there. But what Paul says is that we move out in acts of justice in order to be right. It's nothing. If we move out in justice in order to prove everyone else wrong, worthless.

24:15 If we move out in acts of justice, acknowledging the image of God, the innate dignity in all humanity, as an echo and mirror of the glory of God found and emerging in his creation, now we move in love in the love of God is creative power. God moves in love, solidarity and sacrifice towards humanity and humanity as his image bears mirror back his behavior to him.

24:54 Move out in love, solidarity and sacrifice. Always love coming down to us from God, love going out from us to the world. And back to God. Love is patient, he says, and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

25:28 The acts of justice you might do in the world look like this. And are critical. You have the capacity to create new things in the world because you can mirror back to the world. God's love. Moving out, solidarity. Go where there are the consequences of injustice.

26:00 Stand with those who are experiencing the brokenness at your own expense. Acknowledge the image of God in all people, point them to the one who is the God, and then wait. And see what God will do. I feel like these things that we've been talking through, this approach to the economy, the approach to money, the approach to work, the approach to justice, the approach to love.

26:40 These are non-negotiables. If we will be the church, we will embody this notion of justice. If we will be the church, we will embody this notion of love, this action of solidarity and sacrifice, affirming the image of God in humanity, and affirming the glory of God for who He is.

27:10 I don't know about you. That really energizes me. That gives me direction and purpose in life. I can see the consequences of unjust action. In the system like there are systems, we talked a little bit about supply, supply chains, laughter. There are even democratic systems that are built on unjust things.

27:44 And it is not our job to solve them, but to move in love towards those broken by the injustice. Love means solidarity at our own expense. Solidarity and sacrifice. And then when we move with that kind of love, marrying the love we have received from God, we can expect God to do things. That is exciting because it animates me. It gives me. I can see injustice, and now I know to the extent that I have the energy and the capacity I move towards injustice with love from God to people.

28:26 Let me pray that we could be those kind of people today. Hey Lord, thank you that you love us. That the way you feel about us cannot be changed by our action. And because you have put your image in us, we can call you to love us, to purge us, clean, to create in us new hearts. Lord, create in us new hearts today.

28:57 That with these new hearts, we might love the world like you love us. Move out into places of injustice with solidarity and sacrifice. And watch your love restore and create new ways. Or teach us how to live with your justice today.

29:28 In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.