Jim Styles - Living as a Member of God's Family - Class 3 - Living by Love and not by Law

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

1. 0:00

   Everyone. All right. A couple of people have asked me some things about things that I talked to you about. I’ve tried to share with you this week. Things that have taken me a long time to learn soon. I grew up in an ecclesia that was had a culture to it of one way.

2. 0:18

   And there are topics that I discovered over time that I didn’t really find out, that our ecclesial culture had actually matched up exactly what I would say the Bible teaches. And so those are things that, as I’ve grown up, I’ve decided that those are things I’d like to talk about with people because it took me a long time to appreciate them.

3. 0:37

   And one of them was the love of God, living by love and not by law. That’s one of the that’s our topic for this morning. One of the other ones was God’s election, and our collegiate didn’t talk about God’s election. Most people in North America didn’t talk about God’s election and we just sort of assumed that we had it all right and and going through Romans chapter 91 time and John was listening to John Martin’s classes.

4. 0:59

   He gave like 40 some classes on Romans and that was great. But it opened my eyes to the fact that I’d read Old Testament stories for years without really understanding a a second level to those stories. And so that’s that’s where the my background has come from on God’s election. So I thought, maybe tomorrow if the company minds on the committee, I’ll probably take about half the class tomorrow, maybe 20 minutes and we’ll have a look at Romans Chapter 9 and see where that teaching actually comes from.

5. 1:27

   But today we are going to look at God’s love. Now somebody also mentioned to me yesterday that they thought when I said God is our couch, that it sounded like to you that God was our, how do you pronounce it? Couch. Couch.

6. 1:43

   They said what is he talking about? God is our coach, but it was actually coach. I don’t know how you say it, coach. Anyways, all those all those teens out there, they know about coaches. So yeah, it was actually, if you missed that, it was supposed to be God is our coach, not our coach. Just wanted to make sure that was straight. All right, so this is one of the topics that when I was growing up, when Sue and I grew up in our our local cultural area of Detroit, people didn’t talk much about the love of God. It wasn’t a topic you could hear exhortations on or Bible classes or anything.

7. 2:15

   It was just sort of treated as an evangelical concept. If you started talking about, well, God loves us, it was like, oh, you’re evangelical. And it’s like, whoa. It’s like that was the kind of reaction we got. And yet you find out in the Scriptures, this is all over the Bible. This was what to me, it’s like the foundation principle. The number one thing we should have had in the BASF is it starts out with God loves us, God is love. And I really find it.

8. 2:41

   It really has changed the way we approach people in life. And the way we approach collegial problems and decisions is to remember that we want to try to do them like God. God loves us. He loves us like a father and as a father does as children. So we ought to look today at what in the world does that actually mean.

9. 3:01

   I think it’s it’s important to realize that God is the one who defines love. This is not like humanism, where you just, like, decide, well, what do you think the love of God is, and what do you think God’s love is? And what do you think now? We’re told in the scriptures what love is, the way God defines it and the way it plays out, and how he treats people. The love of God.

10. 3:22

    He’s the one who took the initiative and he is the one who loved us first. It all comes from God. Everything does. It’s all coming down from God. And I really think this helps us to like, fine tune our understanding of how is God connected with Jesus today? Who’s connected with us? What does this actually mean?

11. 3:44

    Does God really need somebody to stand in between US and him and and plead with us to please forgive these humans? I know what it’s like for them. That’s what the Christian churches teach. That’s not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that God was the one who in the beginning first loved and He’s the one in set in motion all of the things necessary and and all the things we talk about in the atonement. He’s the one who initiated it all because he loved us more than anyone and wanted to save us. He loves us.

12. 4:17

    In a sense I think he loves us more than Jesus ever did because he was willing to go through all of that for us. And Christ, what he did is he worked with God. He accepted as as Jack would call it, God’s righteous way of doing it. He accepted God’s righteousness. So look how first John puts it and I think this helped me understand. And going through first John you might wonder like why does John keep talking about love?

13. 4:45

    You ever read that as sometimes the younger people. You read first John and you think all he does is rank on about love and love and love and love and what are like what? What is this all about? It’s it. It’s hard. It’s like going through the Psalms. Sometimes you wonder like what?

14. 4:57

    What are you getting at all the Psalms. But as you go through first John carefully, you start realizing he’s building a case for the fact that this changes your behavior, changes how you live. And he spirals around this idea as he’s working his way up that God is love. Some people have described as like a spiral staircase and he says he’s winding around. This idea of God is love, looking at all the different ways that it affects how we live and how we we view our God. So he says it in in chapter 4 at verse 7. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God. See, this is what God’s children do. When we are born from above, we understand God’s love and we know how to show it to others.

15. 5:43

    We reveal it to others. It’s God manifestation at its best. And who knows God? He who does not love does not know God. We we better get this right because if we don’t treat other people the way God loves us, we really in a sense, he says you really don’t know God. You might think you do, but when you treat other people in a different way than God treats them, we don’t really know God. And that’s why we we do become like the God who we worship. So and this was the love of God manifested toward us and that he sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.

16. 6:25

    And this is love, not that we love God. Let’s get it right. It’s not about us coming up towards God. No, it’s all about top down. It’s that he he loved us. That’s why when when Paul’s going through his argument in Romans, do you ever notice how he develops that his Old Testament background?

17. 6:44

    He’s the failure of the Gentiles, the failure of the Jews. In chapter three he finally gets in. He’s God stepped in and he sent his son to save us. And finally, when you get to chapter five, he finally tells us why. Because God loved us. Even though we were sinners, even though he says we were ungodly and we didn’t deserve it, God still loved us and He sent His Son to save us.

18. 7:11

    So it’s all about God having loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation. Well, that’s one of those big words you can use. Just like the righteousness of God. We can throw the phrase out all the time. But do you really know what it means when he is the propitiation? It’s a word that’s used in the Old Testament, in the Greek Old Testament substituism for the mercy seat.

19. 7:33

    It’s the place of mercy. He He sent his Son to be the place of mercy for our sins. That’s what our God did because he loved us and beloved. If God so loved us, we ought to love epics we look at and going through the God. What does it really mean? How does he balance justice and mercy? And how does it all play out?

20. 7:59

    Because he’s hoping we’ll do that with our spouses, with our children, with our grandparents, with our collegial members. It’s all about the love of God. It’s a motivator. It should be driving us to treat people the right way. So it’s all about God having first loved us and now we have to practice showing that love. And if we do, John would say, well, we’ll know that God abides in US and his love is perfected in US. Perfected.

21. 8:28

    So in first John three look what he says will happen and that we by this we know love because he laid down his life for us. So now he’s talking about Jesus. We ought also to lay down our lives for the brethren. This is what Jesus was showing us in his way of life, right Right to the end.

22. 8:44

    Look at how he functioned all the way through the day before the crucifixion. The day of the crucifixion. He’s always He gets down on his feet, he’s washes their on his knees, he washes their feet. You know, he’s, he’s weeping for the the. He says don’t weep for me, weep for yourselves. He’s thinking about the daughters of Jerusalem. He’s talking to John, about his mother on the cross. And take care of the thief on the cross. He’s always trying to help other people because he loved them and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?

23. 9:19

    See, it’s very similar to what James lays out in James chapter 2. This idea that you can claim to have faith, you can claim to know the love of God. But when you see your brothers and sisters or young people in need, when we see that they have needs and we don’t help out, but as James says, we give them a pat on the back and say, oh, have a good day, good day, mate, and send them off.

24. 9:40

    You know, how does the love of God live in us? That’s not understanding God’s love or understanding faith. James would say, well, if you really had faith, you would help somebody else. You, you help them because we love them and that’s what the love of God does for us. We’ve got to learn to appreciate that and express God’s love to others because God is love and everything He’s done in our creation. Paul would say in Romans chapter 5, it really was motivated by love.

25. 10:11

    Love was the driving force, force for working in our world for having created that whole creation in the 1st place. He loves to have children, He loves that of bringing more people into his family. That’s what God likes. And even when we are ungodly sinners and enemies, enemies, he still was willing to send his Son so understanding the love of God and the love of Jesus and his struggle with sin, These are concepts that should motivate us, brothers and sisters and young people, to get involved with other people’s lives and help them when they’re going through troubles.

26. 10:46

    And it it shows you how these kinds of teachings really do affect your way of life. It’s not just a bunch of and and rattle off at a baptismal interview. These are things that are supposed to change the way we live. So Paul would say the same kind of idea in 2nd Corinthians 3 at verse 17, that now the Lord is spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Freedom because we’re free to do what the law had just said. Well, you only have to do this and do this and do now. We’re free to to live like God and and to treat people the way God would.

27. 11:20

    And we’re all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord. We’re being transformed into the same image from 1° of glory to another. And for all of this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. And what God’s doing is sending out his angels to work in our lives. And he’s patiently, through years and years of training and training, He’s turning us into different people, people that learn to live like him. So the test, you might say, well, I, you know, I know God. I I know him.

28. 11:50

    I I love him and I know love and I know the love of God. So the test is in first John in two and verse 3. By this we know that we know him. And it’s easy to say that we know God. We we read about him all the time. But here’s the test. If we keep his commandments, do we obey him? That’s what he’s always wanted, was obedience to his family values.

29. 12:13

    That’s all he really wanted was obedience. Look at how Jeremiah took the rechabites in. And he said, all right, rechabites, all of you guys, here’s some wine. Drink it. And they put it out in front of them and they refused to drink it. All right? And and God says, look at look at these people.

30. 12:29

    They’re obeying their dead ancestor who wrote this rule, not even around anymore. And they’re still obeying him. Why can’t my children alive today obey me? It it’s what he was after all along. Obedience to him. But whoever keeps his word truly, the love of God is perfected in him. And by this we know that we are in Him.

31. 12:50

    He who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked. And that’s I guess our question for today is in what ways are we perfecting the love of God in US? What’s actually happening in our lives? So again in first John four and verse 12, no one has seen God at any time.

32. 13:10

    If we love one another, God abides in US and his love has been perfected in US. See how John builds on this? And he talks about the love being perfected in US and now he says, OK, he’s going up the list. Well here’s how it really works. It’s not just knowing God and loving God, it’s about loving one another.

33. 13:27

    If we love one another, God abides in US and his love has been perfected in US. And by this we know that we abide in him and he and us because He’s given us a this spirit. He’s helped us to understand those spiritual things and he’s working in our minds to help us understand these spiritual principles so that we can know God and and we John says we have seen and testified that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world.

34. 13:54

    See, that was the motive of the Father. Love is motivation. It forces us to do things for people, not because we have to, but because we want to. That’s what God’s looking for, his family. He’s not looking for people who came here today because they had to come or because they work in their ecclesia because they have to. He’s looking for people who love one another and who want to help one another.

35. 14:22

    Then he can afford to give us immortality, not because we’ve been forced, but because we really love his eternal way of life. We love his eternal life and that’s what we really want and that that’s what he’s after. Whereas he says in verse 16 and we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in Him because it affects how we live, how we view God, how we treat one another.

36. 14:50

    So if we misunderstand the nature of Jesus and what he endured to save us, we won’t really ever understand the love of God and that we lose our motivation to loving one another is it? Jesus came and and the nature that he had we we know as Chrysadelphians he had the same sinful nature that we do that he’s got the diabolis in him and he wants to serve himself but he chooses to serve.

37. 15:17

    And how did he keep getting through life like that? How did he keep making the right decisions all the time? How did he come through for his people and and and the IT was because he he loved them. He wanted to give his life for them and try to save them. That was the motivation that drove our Lord Jesus Christ. So no one has seen God, right?

38. 15:38

    We haven’t seen him, but we can manifest his character to others and let them see God’s loving us by the way we live. How we live in our families, how we treat our spouses. How we take care of one another in in in marriage. We can do it by, you know as we get older and hopefully as we get older. We don’t draw apart.

39. 15:56

    We grow together because the love of God is being manifested in US. And what God was hoping by putting us in families where you could, you could understand his love for for us by having you have children or having you work with the children in an ecclesial life. He was hoping that we would realize that’s that’s the love that we have to expand out to the community.

40. 16:18

    We have to treat other people with that love. It expands to the whole Ecclesia and to the community at at large and to our neighbors that this is what we do. We talk to our friends and we try to help them understand how God has changed our life, the love efforts and it can motivate them. It can turn them into better people that follow God’s ways. Or as first John, what John says there and 1st John, what ends up happening with all of this is that when we develop a a love based relationship with our God instead of fear, instead of being afraid that when things go wrong that God’s out to get us or that he’s sitting there watching all the things that we do.

41. 16:58

    Like Job’s three friends thought. They thought he’s just watching you all day long. What did you say out there during break? What did you do after all afternoon yesterday and and he’s just watching to see us stumble and make mistake and then he brings something into your life to get you to make you pay for it. This whole idea of God punishing us brothers and sisters like that, that’s what the three friends had. That’s what they thought.

42. 17:19

    And and this book of job was written so early on to try to help us understand that isn’t the way it works. It isn’t like that. God doesn’t work that way. He wants you to love him and to respond in love. Not because you’re you’re sitting there thinking that he’s going to give you a spanking or something like little children would, that that’s what he really wants.

43. 17:40

    And so he says in in verse 17 of chapter 4 by this love is perfected in us so that we may have confidence for the Day of Judgement. He ever wondered, like, how do you get confidence for the Day of Judgement? A lot of Christadelphians still live in fear of the Judgement Day. They’re afraid if Jesus walked in the door back there, I know there are people that would be afraid to face him. They’re afraid because they think God’s out to get them. That isn’t the God who we worship. He isn’t like that.

44. 18:09

    He loves you. He’s training you like a father with his child, you know? Imagine that kind of relationship with a dad. Did you have a dad that when he walked in the door you were afraid to see him? Or did you run up and give him a hug. God was hoping that if we if we experience this in our families that then we would understand how he feels about us, that that’s the God that we have. It’s it’s like the father of the prodigal son. When the prodigal son comes back in, in the parable, he doesn’t he hasn’t grabbed the son.

45. 18:38

    And they’ll say, well you did this wrong and this wrong and this wrong and I’m not sure we can actually bring you into the Ecclesia you let until all these things up. No, he grabs them and hugs them. Says I’m glad you finally learned and you’re back. That’s what he does. That’s our God. He just can’t wait for us to come back. So look at how he he words this in first John 4. You know, because he’s been perfected in us as we are in this world.

46. 19:02

    So in verse 18 I I can still remember looking at this when I was probably a teenager and giving a Bible class in Detroit in first John Four. And I said there’s No Fear in love. But perfect love casts out fear. Fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not been in love. And I remember in the class that the a lot of the older brother, you know, that commented, they all just said, well, John’s just talking about a theoretical idea. You can’t really apply that in life. That wouldn’t work because we didn’t fear God. If we weren’t afraid of the punishments and the torment that we might get, then we would probably get off track. I remembered that for a long time. It’s not right.

47. 19:43

    That was the culture that we had in our ecclesia. That was the culture of the times back then. But it’s not right. Brothers and sisters, I’d encourage the young people we have to always be challenging our culture. Just because everybody teaches it doesn’t mean it’s right. Our our doctrinal principles are right, but how we apply them in life, how they work out.

48. 20:04

    A lot of us have just grown up in a Christadelphian culture and accepted it without really challenging it with the Bible. John’s not talking about theory here. The entire letter isn’t about theory, it’s about practical way of life. You really can get to a point with your relationship with God where you love him like your father, and there is No Fear in that love.

49. 20:28

    That perfect love casts out fear because fear has to do with punishment. And I really warn you as parents and grandparents, don’t talk to your children and say you’re going to punish them for what they’ve done. They’ll end up thinking as they grow older that that’s what God does to them. And it isn’t true.

50. 20:46

    You look through the New Testament, you won’t find that. You’ll find this, instead that God loves you and there is No Fear in love and perfect love. Really. Well, cast out fear. And what God’s looking for is not people who are motivated by being afraid of the judgment seat. He’s looking for children who love his eternal way of life. And you do it no matter what happens, like Job you can. You continue and believe he’s right and you trust him in everything.

51. 21:14

    That’s faith. That’s what he’s looking for, not fear based people. He he can’t really afford to give eternal life to people who live in a fear based relationship. Because once you get eternal life, the fear is gone and where’s the motivation anymore to serve your God? You’ve lost it because you were motivated by fear. And that’s not what you’ll see in our New Testament writings. So anyone who says that I love God and hates his brother, he’s a liar.

52. 21:43

    See, that’s the kind of thing James would say. It’s it’s so clear. They bring up these examples, practical examples, of how we can monitor. Do we really love God? It’s easy to sit there in our chairs today and say, well, I love God. I’ll look at all the things I do for God.

53. 21:57

    I love God. But how do you treat your brothers and sisters? How do you treat your children? How do you treat other people’s children? Do you treat them with the love of God? This is challenging to us brothers and sisters. It’s it’s very challenging. If you hate your brother, you’re a liar. You’re a liar to say that you really love God because it’s not playing out in your life.

54. 22:20

    If you love God, you would love your brothers and sisters. For he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, can not God, whom he has not seen. And I know some of us are sitting there thinking, well, yeah, why would God expecting one of my brother and sister when they’ve done this to me and they’ve done that to me and they’ve done this and we make up all these excuses. That’s why Paul said in Romans 5 when we were sinners, when we were ungodly.

55. 22:47

    That’s why Joseph said to his brothers, I know you meant it for evil. I know your motive wasn’t good, but God meant it for good. To save many as they’re alive today, you know? You know, God’s in control of this. That’s why Joseph loved his brothers. That’s why he forgave them. See this. This leads into forgiveness as to why we forgive one another for our mistakes.

56. 23:09

    This is what the way our God lives. This is him. And he’s asking us to take his eternal way of life and incorporate it into us. That’s what he wants. So you can’t claim to love God and mistreat your brothers and sisters. That’s really challenging, I think for all of us. That’s very challenging. And this is the commandment that we have from him that whoever loves God must also love his brother must also. Now see, that’s a commandment.

57. 23:36

    And and the problem with law and commandments is we can do that. We can say all right, John said it’s a commandment or Jesus said we must love one another. So I’ll do it because he said it, but I don’t really feel it. And that’s that’s the problem we run into as people. And thankfully God gives us years to grow in the truth. But what we got, we got to know what the goal is. What’s the bar that we’re aiming for? The bar is that we don’t do it because it’s a commandment. We don’t do it by law.

58. 24:09

    We do it by love, like God does, like Jesus did, like Paul did, like all these Bible characters, Joseph, you you look at how they live like the angels do when they grabbed Lot and walk them hand in hand out out of Sodom. They loved these people and it motivated them. Look at the the Angel with Abraham when they said to one another, you know, are we going to tell Abraham we’re going to destroy Sodom or shouldn’t we?

59. 24:33

    Well, we got to tell him we know him, We love him as an intimate friend. We got it. We got to take care of Abraham. That’s what changes your life, brothers and sisters, when love motivates us to to affect the way we treat one another, not because we have to, but because we want to. We want to live God’s eternal way of life. And what that will do to you is it casts out all the fear of judgement.

60. 25:00

    It really does. You’re not afraid of of Christ coming back. You’re not afraid of what’s going to happen at the judgement seat because you know your loving father, the judge of all the earth, will do right. He will. He’ll do right. Whatever happens, he will do right. And you trust that that that’s the way it will happen in the end. So we we lose that fear because we trust that he’s in control and we have confidence in in God’s love for us and we don’t have to fear as as Paul would end. I love the way Paul ends his whole section in in Romans one and one to seven, that whole section about dealing with the atonement he gets to chapter 8 deals with the battle between the mind of the Spirit and the mind of the flesh. And then he ends up saying at the end of the chapter like who? Who’s going to get in the way of of God’s love for you? Who’s who’s going to get there and stop it. You know if you really think God’s going to go after you. God loved you so much he gave his son. Do you think Jesus is going to condemn you with the judgment seat of Christ?

61. 25:58

    Christ loved you so much He gave his life for you every day of his life. He did. So who’s going to separate us from the love of God and the love of Christ? Nobody can do that, brothers and sisters, but ourselves. We’re the ones that have to get it right and we’ve got to put it into practice.

62. 26:17

    So as John says there, really love. But perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment. We got to get this punishment out of our heads. They may punish our children at school or somewhere else to punish criminals. And what did they do? They put them in a jail. And you deserve to be in jail. They use words like deserve and punish and all this stuff. The New Testament doesn’t use those words. It’s not what you deserve.

63. 26:47

    No, God doesn’t give us what we deserve. He gives us grace. He gives more grace. That’s the God who we worship. And when you get it right, brothers and sisters, your confidence becomes in God, not in me or not in you. We’re not confident in ourselves to save ourselves. We are confident that if we cooperate with all the experiences God brings into our life and we try to react like God would, we try to, to reveal the love of God to other people. We are confident that that training program will bring us to the Kingdom and it will allow us to join the family of God. It’s a confidence in God, not a confidence in ourselves because love has more power to change your life than fear. I don’t know whether you’ve ever thought of that idea before, but when you look at little children, those of you that are raising little guys over there, you know that when children are young and they’re they’re just growing up and getting started, we have to have a bit of a fear based relationship. They’ve got to at least respect that or or fear what might come on them if they do something wrong. But when your children get to teenage years, if you’re still doing that, you’re going to lose them that that isn’t what holds a family together.

64. 27:56

    Love is what holds a family together. I mean, honestly, I used to talk to people at my school and when my kids were getting older and they used to talk about how bad the teenage years were going to be and you know what it’s like to raise teenage children. And soon I would we’d look at it and it’s like, I I don’t know what you’re talking about.

65. 28:12

    Our kids loved us. We had wonderful teenage years because the the family got along when we chose to live to to move to California. We asked the family where do you guys want to all live? They said Hawaii, ’cause they all like the warm weather and the beaches and all that stuff. And of course Sue had her vote and she has the power of veto and and Sue said Nope, won’t be Hawaii, there’s no ecclesia there and but all our kids thought, well, if we move to Hawaii and we let everybody know we’re here, they’ll all come and visit us. We’ll have a big Sunday morning meeting every week, but that that’s the kind of relationship you can have with your children if it’s loved based.

66. 28:53

    It doesn’t have to be bad years. It doesn’t have to be living by a bunch of rules. It can be living by love and not by law. But that transition has to take place from the time the children are two and three and four years old to by the time they get to be teenagers.

67. 29:08

    It has to be a transition. And then what happens when they’re studying for baptism, they realize, wow, that same relationship you got with mom and dad. That’s the God that we worship. All I got to do is transfer it over to God. That’s what he hoped would happen in families. And it can happen brother than sisters. So look at Joseph when, when they, when they, when the brothers sold him into Egypt.

68. 29:29

    You remember the whole issue that they made-up this whole story about how, well Joseph was killed by a wild animal because they were afraid to tell Jacob the truth. They couldn’t tell them what they really did. It was all based off of fear. That’s the relationship they had with their dad. And because it’s fearful, you don’t even tell the truth. That’s what happens.

69. 29:52

    But then when Judah pleaded with Joseph and you watch the change in the character of Judah over those years, he pleaded with Joseph to take Benjamin’s place. It’s because Judah finally loved his dad. You ever noticed that as you’re reading through the story? It’s why it’s one of the emotional, most emotional stories I find in the Bible.

70. 30:14

    You can hardly read it without crying about it. But finally, Joseph saw that the love for their father outweighed their own personal interest. And Judah says, let me take his place because I I can’t bear to see what this is going to do to Dad. I can’t disappoint Dad. I can’t let him go through this again.

71. 30:36

    He already saw what happened when it went through the first time. That’s the motivation of love opposed to fear. And like Paul says, that love is a fulfilling of the law. This is what the driving force of the law was all about. And Jesus said that you know you shall love the Lord your God. And what’s the second greatest commandment? You shall love your neighbor as yourself. So Paul says in Romans 13, oh, no man, anything except to love one another.

72. 31:05

    For he who loves one another has fulfilled the law and he lifts off all those commandments. You know, you’ve heard those commandments. You shall not commit adultery, not murder, not steal. I think Stephen’s probably telling you about all those things and bear false witness and covenant all that. But if there’s any other commandment, they’re all summed up in this saying, namely, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, because love won’t do any harm to your neighbor and therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. So it’s it’s hard to, but we can, brothers and sisters, get out of the mode of reacting against problems in families and ecclesias by thinking right away what we’re going to have to do to bring consequences into somebody’s life. What do you do when a when a young person comes to you, you find out that they’ve had premarital sex? What are you what are you going to do? How are you going to react to that You does your mind go to the fact that right away you think about, well we’re going to have to do this and this and this and this because of what you’ve done?

73. 32:03

    Is that is that where our minds go? I I hope as parents it isn’t what you think. I I think as parents we’ve we’re all being trained to realize when you love your children, we ask them, well, I’m glad you told me but what can we do now? How how are we going to go ahead? How are we going to move forward with this within the framework of of God’s principles.

74. 32:26

    But you don’t come after them with punishment. We come after them with how are we going to solve this how are we going to deal with that. And and I’ve watched so many people do this in a collegial life with their own children. But then when it comes to somebody else’s child and Eurangi Board’s making decision, it’s very difficult to treat somebody else’s children like you would treat your own.

75. 32:49

    And I would suggest that that’s one of the greatest things we can do is to try to put ourselves in the position of those parents or that young person and think like, what do I really need right now? What am I really looking for from the Ecclesia? I need help. Who’s willing to help me. We don’t need people to condemn us. We already condemn ourselves.

76. 33:10

    What we need is people that are willing to help us move forward. Now I I really think you see that in Jesus with the woman caught in adultery. In John 8, you know, he gets all the way to the end. And he says, well, neither do I condemn you, but go and sin no more.

77. 33:23

    Let’s change, Let’s learn from this and let’s move forward. That’s what God’s looking for in all of us, because that’s how God treats us. It’s great. And so love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. It’s it’s much more important than just going through a bunch of legalistic rules. So parents, as our children are young, we do lay down the law because we want to protect them.

78. 33:49

    I can remember with my autistic daughter she used to like, want to walk right out the door, right down the sidewalk right out into the street in front of the cars, had no awareness of cars going down the road. And and we had to treat her in a different way than we treated the other kids because it was for safety reasons. But as they get older, as our kids get older, we have to turn our our our course and direction around culture. They’re going to do that.

79. 34:16

    And what do we do and and punish them? Or do we try to talk through these things and explain why we do that, Open the door to the fact well, maybe you guys have a good idea that we hadn’t even thought about before. Maybe there is a different way to do this and we don’t have to wait that we don’t have to do it the way we always did, but that might be a better way to do it Today.

80. 34:34

    That’s a possibility. But we don’t get angry at people and yell at them and scream and those kind of things, you know, our obedience to our parents and God, it has to come from love. That’s our goal for them. You know you look at Deuteronomy 25. That whole section there in Deuteronomy 25, in the 1st 10 verses or so it it’s all problems that people get into. So he starts out as there’s there’s a speak to men and they come to court and the judge may judge them and they justify the righteous condemn them.

81. 35:05

    We’re not going to do things that humiliate people like that. That’s not what we’re going to do. And then he throws in there. Oh yeah. By the way don’t muzzle an ox when it. Some of you know Paul’s comment on it and Corinthians, you know, But but when we’re first going through the law, our natural reaction is just to go. Here’s another law at home Muzzle docks when it turns out the grave.

82. 35:26

    Paul gives the New Testament exposition of that which is so great to have the New Testament writers tell us what these Old Testament things really meant. He says in First Corinthians 9, he tells us how to read the law. Here’s really what that meant. So my defense to those who examine me, he says, do we have no right to eat and drink? Do we have no right to take along a bleeding wife, wife, or and do also as the other apostles and brothers of the Lord or Cephas?

83. 35:52

    Or is it only Barnabas and I who had no right from to refrain from working? And so he goes on in verse 8 and he says, do I say these things as a mere man, Not the law. Say the same thing, or it is written in the law of Moses. You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.

84. 36:08

    See, now he goes back. He quotes that phrase out of Deuteronomy 25. And then he says to people, what do you really think? Do you think God really just cared about the oxen? Is that how you take the law and you take it word for word and you read it and you just say, well, it’s just this, it’s just this and it’s just that.

85. 36:27

    And you limit, you limit its application. Is it really oxen that God was concerned about? Or does he say it all together for our sakes, and then he answers his own question for our sakes. No doubt this is written that he who ploughs should plough with hope, and he who threshes in hope should be partakers of the and be partakers of this hope. It was all written there so that we would not mistreat people, people.

86. 36:54

    It’s about how we treat one another. Paul brings it up again in in First Timothy 5 and again he shows you about how we should be reading the law. So families, what God designed the family for and that large extent was to teach us how to show mercy, how to deal with people that make mistakes. You know, our kids make a lot of mistakes. I’m sure yours, dude.

87. 37:16

    Ours make a lot of they did. They made a lot of mistakes in life. Look at ourselves like, you know, James says in Chapter 3. For we all make many mistakes in the RSV. That’s the way he words that. So that’s why we don’t judge one another so harshly. We all make many mistakes. But what God is hoping for, and the wonderful thing about our God is, is that he can watch our mistakes and he doesn’t get near as upset about them as we do with one another. You ever thought about that?

88. 37:42

    And then you think about, like, what? What is it like from the angel’s perspective is if somebody makes some mistake, take some big mistake in the community. If somebody commits adultery or somebody commits divorce, and then they get remarried. And these things that we elevate up there is like the biggest things in the world.

89. 37:57

    What the way God looks at this is really different than we do. He sees them as learning experiences for people. He’s waiting to see how is that person going to respond with that mistake. And if, if we understand the way God’s looking at it, we will help those people respond the way God is hoping they will respond, and that they will learn from those mistakes instead of condemning them all the time for the mistakes. You ever thought of that before that? That’s what God does.

90. 38:30

    It’s a learning program. It’s it’s a a training program. So those have been trained, as Paul says in Hebrews 13, Hebrews 12. The the the fruit of righteousness comes out of that. We’re going through a training program. We don’t want a coach who just sits there for every mistake and just beats us on the on the head for the fact he made another mistake, made another mistake.

91. 38:49

    Now our coach watches our mistakes, and what he’s hoping for is the end product is someone who has learned to live his eternal way of life. That’s different than the way I grew up. That’s very different than the way I used to think. And I really found it helped me help other people who had made mistakes so they can go to young people and other brothers and sisters that have done things that the rest of the ecclesia might just totally show up again. And you can go to them and find out, well, how can we help you, what can we do to help and move forward. That’s what God does.

92. 39:27

    He helps us move forward and He extends mercy to us, hoping that we will respond and that we’ll learn that all these things, all these mistakes we made, and let’s be honest, friend and sisters, we all make these mistakes. Everybody, just. Some are more public than others, but everybody is failing. We all are. And why do you come to meeting on Sunday and take the bread and wine?

93. 39:49

    You ask most people? What they’re hoping for is forgiveness and mercy and and if that’s what we’re hoping for, don’t you think the rest they’re hoping for that? I’m not talking about people that walk away from the truth. I’m talking about people who have made mistakes. They’re looking for someone to respond to them like God responds to them and he’s willing to forgive.

94. 40:08

    So family life and a collegial life, they’re they’re not going to be perfect and don’t ever expect them to be. You don’t develop in a perfect situation. Some people get very discouraged. Amongst the Christadelphians, I think some of the young people, you might get discouraged when you realize, hey us older guys, we we are always perfect. We make a lot of mistakes and we’re we’re not the perfect people that we sometimes present ourselves to be. But that’s OK because God wants you to work through those mistakes, to learn from the mistakes of others and try to figure out how can we all get along, how can we help each other.

95. 40:41

    So you consider look at Jesus’s family and how they treated him and and the ecclesia itself. Think of David’s or or Jonathan’s families. They weren’t perfect. No way they weren’t perfect. And yet still God developed his, his, his gems, his goal. Joseph’s family were were terrible for years. For years all they cared about were themselves. But through the experiences the angels brought into their life and that Joseph built on when they came to Egypt, because he understood how the angels worked and he and he put his, his brothers into situations, not really just to test them, but to find out if they would spiritually grow. Are they ready now to, like, do something for somebody else when before they weren’t?

96. 41:24

    They didn’t care about Dad. Before they didn’t care about Joseph. And now Judah comes forward and, oh, I can’t do this to Dad. I love him. I’m not going to put him to it again. See, that’s how Joseph thought. He comes about as close as any Bible character I’ve ever seen who operates like an Angel.

97. 41:43

    Not not trying to get people, but trying to develop their spiritual character. And there’s a whole list of them that, as you can see them through the Scriptures. So that’s what God does. He develops strength through our weaknesses, but all the glory goes to God. See how this works? Nobody’s going to walk into the Kingdom saying look at what I did.

98. 42:01

    Look at all the rest of my ecclesia did this or that, or my family did, but look at me, I I didn’t do those things. I think maybe Job’s friends would have been like that at the beginning. They were very much into thinking they were pretty good. But in the end, what God was hoping for is they would all realize we all make many mistakes. And the only thing that’s different is that God’s working in our life, He’s extending mercy to us, allowing us the opportunity tomorrow to start again and to grow again. It’s it’s it’s great.

99. 42:29

    It’s it’s a wonderful way to treat people. So you look at how Jesus reacted in John 8 with the adultery case. I already mentioned it, but, you know, he knew this woman was guilty. He knew it. And according to the law, if you read the law legally, he would say we should stone her.

100. 42:46

     She’s guilty of adultery and and a lot of Christadelphians would would like this. I mean, let’s be honest, brothers and sisters, we are like as people, we tend to be very judgmental. We tend to make bad decisions about how we treat other people. It’s hard to get into the mind of God. It’s hard, but when you appreciate how God treats you, it should motivate us to treat other people in a better way. And look at things like this.

101. 43:12

     These kind of stories just stuck in my head as like, this is so against the way I grew up. Jesus, say to all the other guys, you’re right, she committed adultery. The law says we just need two or three witnesses. Let’s stone her. He doesn’t do that and he’s keeping the law perfectly. That’s why these are great examples. If it’s somebody else, it would be a different story. But in the end, all he really cared about is that the woman learned from this and she walked away. And he says in verse 11, neither do I condemn you. He didn’t condemn her.

102. 43:46

     He wasn’t going to witness against her. But go and sin no more. Learn from this. Change your life and go and sin no more. And he goes on and says to them right away. He says, I am the light of the world. This was the light, a new way to treat people different than the Pharisees that taught those people of that generation.

103. 44:04

     But whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but have the light of life, the light of God’s eternal life. That life that John one talks about that was in his Son, manifested from the Father. That’s that’s our God. I mentioned to you the other day, look in Matthew one of how Joseph reacted. You know God put this in the Bible record for a reason, that even though he’s betrothed to Mary, she’s now having the child and she should by law she should be stoned. Bible goes out of its way to tell us. Matthew says then Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man, a just man, and not wanting to make a public example of her, he was minded to put her away secretly. See, I bet not many of us would have read the law that way. I I know I wouldn’t have.

104. 44:53

     As a young person, I used to read the law and say, well, if it says that she should, she should be stoned for, for being pregnant now and being patrolled to him and she’s gone and faithful to him. The law said we should all pick up stones and stone her. That’s the way I read the law and I I wrong. It’s wrong to read it that way.

105. 45:11

     That isn’t really what it meant it. It may be that that’s what we deserve, yes, But mercy was always there to be extended God, hoping that people would learn from their mistakes. And in this case, wasn’t even Mary’s fault. Look at how Jesus deals with this in Matthew chapter 12. And again, these stories are here for us so that we should understand how to read this law.

106. 45:33

     At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields, right? And the disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck the heads of grain. When the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, look, your disciples aren’t doing what is lawful. They’re not doing what they’re doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.

107. 45:47

     They’re breaking this rule. They’re not following the rules, right? We’re all good at that. We watch people and we can so easily say they’re not following the rules. And then Jesus, what does he say back to them? Haven’t you read? Didn’t you read your Bibles? And didn’t you notice what David did when he was hungry and and he and those that were with him, how he entered the House of God and ate the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat. David broke the law and wasn’t lawful for him to do it and and God accepted that and and what is what do you learn from that? Is that just like a special exception that David could get away?

108. 46:27

     Is that how you read that that God just made an exception in his case or or do you start to understand that What do you do with the Sabbath, as Jesus says in the end that the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath. So when you go to rank God’s laws which one are you going to put on the higher scale? The fact that we love our neighbor as ourselves or that we got to keep the Sabbath.

109. 46:49

     So I’m pure. Which one are you going to hold up? Which one do you give the greater weight to? And and if you’re like me growing up, it would be we got to keep the Sabbath. We shouldn’t break this law. Can’t do this. But then whatever happened to love your neighbor as yourself And these people are hungry and they need to be fed.

110. 47:06

     Where? Where’s that? Well, you just conveniently forget about that one. But Jesus is always ranking rules, and what what comes out on top is treating people with the love of God. I don’t know whether you’ve ever noticed that, but that is the number one rule that got us after. He cares about people. He cares about the widows and the orphans, He cares about all of the people and how we treat them. And it’s just so clear.

111. 47:34

     Like look at the other case. He brings up the priests in the temple. They profane the Sabbath and are blameless. They broke the rules and they’re blameless. That’s OK, because they’re doing something on the Sabbath day and and keeping all of the things that were going on within the temple. And so look at how he ends that section.

112. 47:51

     But if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. I want mercy, not some legal law that you’re keeping. I want mercy. Then you would not have condemned the guiltless. Well, that’s serious, brother and sisters, because for all of us, I hope we go home challenged this week. You got to think about decisions you’ve made in a collegial life about other people. You got to think about these things that are the decisions that we make about people that that commit sins or things that the that our children and other people have done. You may be careful because you could be condemning what God would consider the guiltless and you feel totally justified because you have your rules.

113. 48:35

     The rules all said they couldn’t do this, they’re not supposed to do this. And we put those rules so high up there, we’ve lost track of loving our neighbor as our self. I really think those, those are some of the guiding principles I found for my life that wow, that’s made a huge difference in how I approach people today. So I’ll leave it at that for today and thanks very much and give you a few things to think about. Enjoy that much?