288: Nick Parino - Exhortation: God is Love

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:13

   Welcome to good Chris Elfion talks. I’m Levi. And I’m Chris. And I’m Brian. Thank you for joining us this. Week On This podcast We select one Talk a week to help us get the Bible in our Daily News feed. We post a new episode at the start of each week. With the short intro beforehand to kind of set.

2. 0:30

   The stage for the talk you’re about to listen to. And now, let’s talk more about this week’s talk. Hello, this is Brother Chris back with another talk to brighten your day through the coming week. For our talk this week we are listening to an exhortation that was given at the San Diego Ecclesia in February of 2021 by Brother Nick Perino. This talk was given over zoom cause about a year prior Brother Nick and his wife had moved to Florida but they still had fond memories that he mentions at the beginning of his exhort for the San Diego Ecclesia where they were members for many many years.

3. 1:21

   And the title of his exhortation is God is Love and Brother Nick is going Through 3 instances in the scriptures that he uses to make the point of the love that God has for us and the blessing that we have to be able to show our love back to God. This exhortation was from, as I mentioned before, from the San Diego. Ecclesia that we.

4. 1:43

   Recently, probably in the last year or so, were able to get access to after a revamp of their Ecclesia website where some of the older exhorts that they had recorded were able to be captured. This one in particular was recommended to us. And was. Especially powerful to listen to, because about 10 months after this exhortation was given, Brother Nick fell asleep and is now awaiting the return of Christ and the resurrection.

5. 2:07

   So it made it especially powerful because this may have been the last exhortation that he gave before his health declined and he passed away. And this exhortation, I feel like, is a perfect encapsulation of who I knew Brother Nick to be. He was always passionate about the blessing that we have and the love that we are shown through God and through the sacrifice of his Son.

6. 2:27

   And you could feel that love from him anytime that you interacted with him and the genuineness of that affection that he had for his brothers and sisters. So I hope that this exhortation is encouraging to you and reminds you of the love that we have in the hope that we share, and that it will strengthen you as we wait for the return of our absent Lord and Master and the establishment of God’s Kingdom.

7. 2:53

   So with that, I will turn it over to Brother Nick Perino for his exhortation entitled God is Love. Good morning, everyone. It’s been a long time, about a little over a year since I’ve been there. But it’s good to see your faces. And I. We do miss you, Rhea, and I do miss you.

8. 3:11

   And we do love you. And my exhortation this morning is the title 4. Be God is Love. How do we know that God is love? Read a question. God has made it clear unto us and that when we were sinners Christ gave his life for us. Do we understand the love of God and the love we have for each that we have to have for each other? We’re going to look at 3 short accounts. I have three accounts and their understanding of love and this account and also the love of God for us and the power given to Jesus by him and his love.

9. 3:54

   And the first account is in Mark 12. You don’t have to turn to it because I’m going to go through these accounts pretty quick. But it’s it’s the one of the scribe that comes in questions Christ. And he says having heard them reasoning, he heard them talking and Jesus talking to them and he’s perceived that he had answered them well asked him, which is the first commandment of all. And normally you would think, why is he doing this? Why is he asking Jesus?

10. 4:24

    Is he trying to find out where Jesus stands? And I think that’s part of his reasoning. But he also wants to know the answer to it and says that. And it said, Jesus answered him. The first of all the commandments is hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is 1. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, with thy strength.

11. 4:49

    This is the first commandment. And the 2nd is like namely, this. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandments greater than me. So it wasn’t something that I think that he was. He didn’t know, but he didn’t know that Jesus knew it. I think that’s why he asked this, because then he goes on to say the scribe says to him, well Mass. Adele has said the truth.

12. 5:15

    For there is one God and there is none other but he. And to love him. This is the other thing. He’s explaining to Jesus back what Jesus just quoted to him, and to love him with all the heart and with all understanding, and with all with all the soul and with all the strength. And to love his neighbor as himself is more than all the burnt offerings and sacrifice.

13. 5:39

    And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, or in other translations, he answered with understanding or intelligently. He said to him, Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God, thou art not far from the Kingdom of God. And all he did was explain back to Christ what was more important at a time when sacrifice and the mosaic glow was in his height. I mean, they were sacrificing for every little thing. And yet here he doesn’t say any of that. He just goes by the two commandments, which is still held to this day.

14. 6:16

    The Mosaic law passed away, but this was something new. And Christ, there’s another thing that I marveled when I you read this. Sometimes we’d reach him too fast. And one of the things is that, you know, it always says he spoke in parables to them, but not here. The accounts we’re going to cover. He doesn’t speak in parables.

15. 6:34

    These these men are speaking intelligently to him and have the belief that was just true. And so he’s saying it’s straight back to them. You’re not far from the Kingdom of God if you can live this way. That is the point.

16. 6:49

    The next account would be the lawyer, and that’s found in Luke. A certain lawyer stood up and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to the inherited eternal life? Isn’t this? If you were to see Jesus, wouldn’t it be one of the questions that you might want to ask, if especially if you weren’t sure at that, especially at this time?

17. 7:09

    How do I inherit eternal life? What do I have to do? And he said unto him, What? He’s questioning him now What is written in the law? Because he’s supposed to be a lawyer. How readest thou? And he answered and said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself.

18. 7:29

    And he said unto him, Christ says unto him, Thou has answered right this do, and thou shalt live. Was he talking about live? And then or his question was how do I get eternal life? If you can live this divide these two laws, you can get eternal life.

19. 7:48

    And one more that I wanted to cover was found in Mark also. And this is about the rich man. We all know all these things but I wanted to put him in order so that you can see that about the questioning. The rich man is the one that comes running up to him, the young rich man, and falls at his knees. And he asks him, how can I inherit eternal life? That’s his question to Christ.

20. 8:13

    And Jesus said unto him, Why call? He said he called him good master. I think this is just something he puts in answers very quickly, and that’s not what he the question was. And he said back to him, no one is good but God, that even himself had been considered good. But that wasn’t the point. But he was asking the question was so he said to him, Thou knowest the commandments, and he goes through the commandments. Do not kill, do not commit adultery. Do not steal.

21. 8:38

    Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor thy father and mother. You notice he didn’t ask that of the of the lawyer or the scribe when or when they would question him. He didn’t ask them do they did they know the commandments? He knew they knew. But this young person he didn’t know.

22. 8:55

    And he says, And to honor thy mother and father and mother. And he said unto master all these things I have observed from my youth. And Jesus, looking on him, loved him, and said, I stopped there. Jesus looked at it at him and loved him for what he came up and said, and what he was doing And he was remember, his question was, how do I inherit eternal life? Again, he’s not beating around the Bush. He’s going to tell him straight out and he says one thing Thou lackest go and sell with thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven and come follow me. He had the the ability right now to go with Christ, to give up what he had his belongings or whatever his wealth was. I mean, it wasn’t something that was not asked. Look at Moses.

23. 9:48

    Moses lived in high luxury with Pharaoh’s court and just walked out on it. That wasn’t important to him. And yet if this man would have think of what he was saying to him, if he would have said to him, no, take all your money and you can buy this, he couldn’t buy it.

24. 10:04

    He couldn’t buy the eternal life. And yet Christ wasn’t telling him to buy it. He was saying give up on this. He had to explain it. Actually when you read down, he had to explain it to his apostles, because it says OK his his countenance fails saying And he went away sorrowful, for he was one of great possessions.

25. 10:24

    And Jesus looked around about and said, saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God? And the expression from the apostles was that they were amazed at his words. They were like what? But Jesus answered again, and said unto them, children, how hard is it for them that trust in the riches to enter into the Kingdom of God?

26. 10:47

    He made a clarification that this man was trusting in his riches. That was the problem. And here he had it was being answered for him. He he was given, He had the opportunity. He was being loved by Jesus. He could follow Jesus with the apostles and have eternal life. His questions were, you know, it was answered, but it wasn’t something he was ready to do.

27. 11:12

    He wanted to do it, I guess in his own way. And now when you look at these three different individuals, it makes me wonder, did they do something later in life? Did they begin to realize or seen what Christ went through, or did they follow him in some way off? We were never given that answer. We just told these stories up front, and that’s what the apostles learned from and that’s what we had to learn from. But here it was said at three different times. Here is some way you can get eternal life. And they didn’t accept it.

28. 11:45

    Now there’s another occasion that wanted us to look at real quick, and this is about when they asked Jesus, they went up to Jesus and they said teach us to pray. And we all know the Lord’s Prayer. And yet I think when we when we look at the Lord’s Prayer, a lot of times we go into what he said in the prayer itself and try to figure out maybe this is how we should pray about things.

29. 12:12

    But I think we kind of miss in the beginning, and maybe we don’t, but I I didn’t pay as much attention to it. Was that the first thing he did, he addressed, he had said to address him as our father, Our father, which remember the Jews were afraid even to say Yahweh his name.

30. 12:33

    And here you’re going to call the most powerful being almighty godfather. First of all, he was giving him a privilege and he was also giving him a love. Isn’t there somewhere that it attracts you and you address someone this way that shows some kind of love? We’re going to look at that in a way.

31. 12:55

    But remember when Christ had said to him, when he had said to the others that he says my father, right away he accused him of being. You’re making yourself equal with God and that you could find in this you can turn to in John 5/18. They then because of this the Jews sought more to kill him because he’s not only had broken the Sabbath, but also that God was his father, making him equal with God. But Jesus gives his answer to them right then and there and his answer follows in the rest of the verses here. Then Jesus answered and said unto them, Truly, truly, I say to you, The Son can do nothing of himself but what he sees the Father do.

32. 13:45

    For whatever things he does these also the Son does likewise. For the Father loves his Son, and shows him all things that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these, so that you may marvel, for as a father, raise the dead, and make it alive. Even so, the Son of Man makes alive whomever he wills.

33. 14:08

    For the Father judges no man, but has committed all judging to the Son, so that all should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who bears my word and believes on him who sent Me, has everlasting life, and shall not come under condemnation, but has passed from death to life.

34. 14:36

    Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming. Now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they shall and and they who hear shall live. For as a father has life in himself, so he has also given the Son to have life within himself, and has given authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of Man.

35. 14:59

    Do not marvel at this for the hours coming in which all who are in the grave shall hear his voice, and it shall come forth those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have practiced evil to the resurrection of condemnation.

36. 15:16

    So now explain to us how he and his Father are related and how God loves his love for Jesus and has shown him as he had read in these verses. But getting back to the Lord’s Prayer again, Jesus has given us a a privilege to call our Father, to call God our Father. When we look at, when we look at this here, sometimes we we Passover, I think kind of quick.

37. 15:50

    Isn’t God showing us a love that we can call him Father, that we can actually say this to him? You know, sometimes when we say our prayers, we address him with all these titles and and it could be, I mean, we’re trying to be respectful and everything, but maybe it’s something petty that I look at that when you address God and you were told to call him father, it’s just like that when I look at like my natural father, I called him Dad or I called him, you know, he’s my father.

38. 16:23

    I didn’t call him by Mr. Perino. Didn’t it lack something? Isn’t there a lack of love or or something there? So here you’re being told by God to call him father and you start saying most holiest, glorious being. I mean, you’re addressing him to give him honor, but isn’t there more honor that you have this love between you and God, that you’re actually allowed to call him father and accept you as a son? So that was my point in trying to bring about that. God has a love for us, and I’m going to address him. And maybe it’s maybe it’s just me being wrong about this whole thing, maybe I’m just not.

39. 17:04

    But I I think of it more on that level. Showing our love to God is He’s allowing me to call him Father. That I think is is the most love that I could actually give to him in a way, and he can give to me. There’s not this big division between us. Even though He’s high up in the heavens, I have this closeness to him. It’s it’s something that I think that each of each of us would have to look at, that God loves us, He is love to us. And this is one way of us showing love back to you know when you read about this, you can turn to to This is well before I go to John 1334, a new command that I give you, that you love one another even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

40. 17:54

    But then I wanted this to go to the first John 47. These are a few verses I wanted to read as a closing for us to the grasp the love that God has for us and his Son and that we should have for each other. Behold and start in verse 7. Behold, let us love one another. For love is of God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

41. 18:20

    The one who does not love has not known God. For God is love. You know it’s one of the gifts that one of his You know when he gave his Son and he gave him all this power, we think about all the power. He could do all these different things, but he also gave Christ love so that God Christ can give love also, and He expected us to give it back. In this the love of God was revealed in us, because God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him.

42. 18:54

    And this is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be a propitiation concerning our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwells in US, and His love is perfect perfected in US. And by this we know that we dwell in Him and He and us because we have given, He has given us of His Spirit. If God is love, He’s given us this spirit that we can use to love one another.

43. 19:31

    And this is one of our ways of showing love. And we have seen and testified that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God? God dwells in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has in US. God is love, and he who abides in love, abides in God, and God in Him.

44. 19:55

    In this is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the Day of Judgement. That as he is so also we are in this world. We have boldness. Who said that? Paul. Eric. Paul says I will go there with boldness. And we always said, well, I can’t go with boldness like Paul did. But he’s saying you can if you have this love. Because in the next verse there is No Fear in love that’s supposed to be fearful that the judgement. But perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment. He who fears has not perfected perfected his love to something lacking.

45. 20:34

    Then in you in us we love him because he first loved us. If anyone says I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For if he does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God who he has not seen? And we have this commandment from him that he who loves God should love his brother also. And this is how we are to enact our love to one another. Not only was it a commandment, but it was something that we have to develop and one another to. There’s always a love flowing.

46. 21:10

    And I think it bothered Christ when, you know, when Judas and he said he’s the son of perdition and he was lost from the beginning, there was nothing he can do. But Christ showed his love to his brethren and they always wanted them to practice that. You know, when they argued amongst themselves and said, oh, who’s the greatest?

47. 21:31

    No, I don’t want you being that way. You want to be for each other and wish the better for the other. And this is how I feel that God is love. Thank you.

48. 21:56

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49. 22:14

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50. 22:35

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