Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello. Wonderful. Well, we are in week two of a miniseries looking at the values of the DNA, the culture of the Church. And I know you've already had a few videos, but some time ago we produced some videos for our life groups to introduce these values, and we're just going to watch part of one of those videos as an introduction into this week's topic of looking at love extravagantly. So please put your attention, attention to the screen. A momentum.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Value.
Everything has a value.
We are used to browsing the shelves of shops or websites and seeing products given an associated value. And this value represents the cost of the raw materials, the royalties for its design, the manufacturer process, the shipping cost, the warehouse storage cost, the retail profit, the markup, and so on.
Retailers often reduce this price in order to get the stock out of their stores. To make way for new stock.
Consumers will enjoy their purchase, use their purchase, but more than likely eventually discard their purchase. For a new and a better product.
Something that may have cost thousands of pounds to buy can end up in a landfill refuge site now carrying the title rubbish.
But what about us? What's our value?
What price has been put on our lives?
Does our value depreciate over time?
Well, we weren't manufactured. We have been created. The most genius of designs cannot be replicated, even by the best of today's science.
Science can tinker with the elements of life, but science still cannot create life.
We are created in God's image.
The design template has eternal, otherworldly origins.
There are not royalties on our life for design, but there is royalty in our life. The image of the King of kings is within each one of us.
The most expensive price tag in the history of the world has been paid to redeem us.
The blood of God's own Son was required to purchase our lives.
If this is what it costs God, then that is what you and I are worth.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: That is what you and I are worth.
Lord Jesus, we thank you for the value on our lives.
And there are so many strategies. Try to get us to cheapen our lives, cause us to disbelieve the value on our lives. And I pray in these next few moments that there will be an awakening to the Spirit's revelation of the value that you place on us and how it calls us to live in this world. In Jesus name, amen.
Last week we looked at live courageously, and this week we're looking at love extravagantly. And as you've just seen there, the reason for that loving extravagantly is because you and I have been loved so extravagantly, we have been loved in a way that goes beyond anything we ever deserve, anything that we've ever earned. In fact, quite the opposite. If we were treated as our sins deserve, there is no way we would be experiencing the love and the value of Christ. He lavishes himself upon us despite our failures, despite our weakness. And is anyone grateful for that in the room this morning? Hallelujah. And as a result of this extravagant love on our life, it would be dissident of us to be recipients of extravagant love, but to not be channels of it. It would be selfish for us to be the people that receive this incredible grace and not pour it out. It would be enormously mean of us. We always teach our kids when they're younger that if you buy them some sweets and they got some friends around them who have no sweets, is, come on, kids, share. No, they're mine. And church for years has been going, no, it's mine. We're not sharing. But it's so dissident and it's so out of the culture and the value of the kingdom. Freely, you have received, therefore, freely give. And God calls us to give. And on our values or our DNA, these are things that we believe are intrinsic into the life of rediscover that these leaflets are available on both sides on your way out under week two, or section two, of love extravagantly. It has a number of points, and those are going to be what we are about to look at this morning. So, as part of this desire to be expressions as well as recipients of his extravagant love, let's look together at some of these points. First of all, it says, love God with everything.
Not most things, not the majority, not the 51%. Not to give him the majority vote, but to give him everything, to love him with everything.
And if there is a reality of what God has done for us, I think a watching world will say, how can you believe that Jesus has transformed your life and yet not give him everything? In fact, one of the pictures that's really helped me over the years is somebody may not understand how I live because I've experienced Jesus. They may have dispute with the values or the culture or the actions of someone who's a Jesus follower, but it's a little bit like when you go to one of these silent discos. Anybody ever been to a silent disco? I know Don is a regular raver at these things. And you put the headphones on. There's no speakers at the front, there's two DJs. And you can choose on the headphones which DJ you're listening to. And so you got all these people, sometimes hundreds of people, in the same room, listening to different rhythms. And so you might be dancing with someone, but they're on a different beat to you because they're listening to the other DJ. That's a silent disco. The weirdest moment is if you've got no headphones on and you walk into the room and you just see people dancing away and bopping away and you can't hear anything. You think, what are they dancing to? That's how it looks sometimes to people who don't know Jesus. They see you and I dancing to a tune that they can't hear. They see us doing things and living in a certain way that they can't understand. But of course, you and I, if we've got those headphones on, if we're listening to the voice of God, it causes us to live in a way that's in step and in beat with heaven. And part of that is that we love God with everything, says as we increasingly discover his benchmark of extravagant love, to pursue Jesus, to be a follower of Jesus, should mean that every week we are getting closer to being like him, that we are allowing his standards to set the Pace of our life. And I find that there's not just one voice that's resounding in our lives, but this world is really loud as well. Sometimes when you've got those headphones on, sometimes it feels like there's still an ability to hear the sounds around you in the room, and it feels like living in this world. The Bible says we're in the world, but not of the world. But that world is loud. That world is making its own tune. It's creating its own rhythms. It's creating its own set of pace that it's trying to get everybody to conform and live to. I remember there was a drama I used to do years ago. You remember drama in church and those days, but we called it drama. It was just people stand at the front saying things. It wasn't always very well acted. Sometimes it was, but it wasn't. When I did it, it was just really poor, just learning lines. But there was one that talked about sort of how everyone rebels the same. It was just, I'm going to be unique. I'm going to do sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I'm going to be unique. And in the end, this line of people trying to sort of do this representation of what rebellion looked like, they all looked the same. They were all doing the same thing. They were all rebelling the same way. It wasn't individuality, it wasn't independence, it wasn't freedom. It was just conformity to a different way of living. And the world is really noisy. But the kingdom, if we will listen to the kingdom, there is a clear sound. And that sound calls us to trust God, to live like him, to follow him, to grow in maturity, not by learning how to recite Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers, Deuteronomy. It's not about how you can recite the books of the Bible. It's not even about how many scripture verses you can quote. It's not about how many stamps you've got on your church attendance card. It's not about whether you have increased your giving from ten to eleven to twelve to 13%. It's not about those things. Although those things might have an implication in terms of the things the spirit is stirring in our hearts, that's not where maturity comes from. Maturity comes from becoming more like Christ, growing in him.
And I'm amazed how many sermons we listen to in our life that don't impact us, don't change us. I wonder if you counted how many sermons you've listened to in your life.
I probably struggle to count how many I preach, never mind listened to. And yet sometimes I sit and think, what did I speak on last week? I can't even remember that. If I can't remember it, what chance have you got?
And yet, it's not about just being in proximity. It's not just about hearing, it's not just about reading, it's about becoming like Christ.
And Jesus gave up everything to love. And he calls us to give up everything to love him back.
That we extravagantly love God with everything we see. This affirmed in the words of Jesus, Matthew 22, quoting some Old Testament verses, said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.
One John three, verse one in the message paraphrase says this. What marvelous love the Father has extended to us. Just look at it. We're called Children of God.
Just look at it. We're called Children of God. Pinch yourself for a moment.
I'm a child of God.
Come on. This is a great reality. This is a great truth.
Been reading biography of Eugene Peterson recently who wrote the message paraphrase. And there was a moment when the famous band, you two, if you don't know who they are, just Google it. They are famous rock band around the world, been around for a long time. And you two got a hold of Eugene Peterson's translation of the Psalms and they loved it. In fact, before every concert they would go in the back green room area and they would read the Psalms together.
And so one day Bono's manager, who's the lead singer of you two, contacted Eugene Peterson and said, bono would like to meet you.
Well, Eugene's response was, who's Bono?
Who's. You two? Never heard of them.
And so he did a bit of research and realized how big a band they were and he said, I'm really sorry, but at the moment I'm working on a translation of the Old Testament into the message and I can't make it.
Well, the manager of you too wrote back and said, in all the years, there has never been anybody that has ever turned down meeting the band because they've had a deadline of something else to said. And Eugene wrote back, he, you know, I do realize Bono is pretty well known, but I'm in the middle of Isaiah at the moment and Isaiah is pretty gripping stuff. I want to be with Isaiah.
You talk about wearing those headphones and about being exposed to different sounds. There's a value system. We don't realize just how significant what we have in God is. We're children of God. We've got his word, we've got his text messages to us. He speaks love over our life. He has extravagantly lavished himself upon us.
And there are moments when it just clicks and we, wow, I am a child. Don't pinch the person next to you, just pinch yourself.
We are sons and daughters of God. Just look. We're called children of God. That's who we really are. But that's also why the world doesn't recognize us or take us seriously, because it has no idea who he is or what he is up to. So we love God with everything. Secondly, we welcome everyone showing God's love, care and compassion to everybody, irrespective of their background, culture or identity.
In today's world, there's lots of talk about identity, there's lots of talk about self identification and all those sort of things. I want you to know that there's not a single person on this planet that God is not absolutely in love with.
And you say, well, he loves the sin, but he doesn't love the sin. Yeah, that's true for me as well. Eh? I'm a sinner saved by grace. That's not a saying that's kept for a few people in society. Jesus, in fact, was attracted to sinners. And I'm so glad of that.
I'm so absolutely amazed and grateful that he's a friend of sinners.
There was a period of time, a number of years ago when there was something going on in the life of the church. And it's always difficult to talk about things in the life of the church and to quote stories and so on. And I don't do that about individuals without permission. So I'm going to make this a generalization. But there was some people who contacted me and said they felt that there were certain people that should not be welcomed into the life of the church.
And I listened to them and I heard them, and then I got back to them and I said these words. In fact, I remember saying these words from the stage one Sunday. And that is, some people in this room think that there are people who shouldn't be welcomed into our gatherings. And as I've thought about this, I've agreed that there's certain circumstances where I would agree to this. Let me tell you the circumstances. If we're going to exclude some, this is the only basis on which I would consider it. This is how it's going to work. I'm going to stand at the door every Sunday, not the welcome tea giving you nice smiles and big welcomes and hugs. I'm going to stand at the door every Sunday and I'm going to have a clipboard. And on the clipboard there's going to be a series of questions about your life, about your thoughts, your attitudes and your actions over the past week. If you even hint as sin in one of those areas, I'm going to have to say, I'm really sorry, but you need to turn around and leave.
And then it gets even more complex because I am going to have to do the survey on myself.
And I'm going to be leaving as well.
Because we are saved by grace.
We are sinners. This is a group of redeemed sinners, not righteous people who've earned their way into the love of God.
We have been lavished the extravagant love of God. And I love what street pastors are doing. I love that they're not out on the street with their soapbox preaching against the evils of alcohol or drug taking. Of course, we know that there are those problems in our society and we don't close our eyes to them. And we try to help people, but to love them.
To love them, not judge.
That's the call of the church. That'S what Jesus did. We read that Jesus was criticized for the people he hung out with in Matthew eleven. He says he was the friend of tax collectors. Whoa. If there's a ranking of sin that's right up there, eh?
Tax collectors and sinners. It's not a tax collection, but if you work for the Inland Revenue, please don't feel that you're the worst. This is about. In those days, they were some of the most duplicitous people in society. They were neither loved by the Romans, who they were collecting taxes for. They were neither loved by those they were collecting the taxes from. They were people who were out for themselves. And yet Jesus hung out with them. Jesus hung out with drunkards and sinners and prostitutes, and he spent time. Why? Because he loved them.
That's what extravagant love does.
I love that he looked at Zacchaeus in the tree and said, I'm coming to your house. I'm not going to just preach a sermon, I'm just going to come and I'm going to love on you. And I love the result of this, that we read that Zacchaeus, after Jesus had spent some time with him, he said, look, Lord, here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor. Whoa. This guy was out for himself just a few hours ago, and now, one meeting with Jesus, he's given away half of his belongings.
That's what happens when we get a true taste of the extravagant love of God. It changes us to the very core. It doesn't just change our Sunday habits, doesn't just change our belief system, it changes our lives, because I've never experienced anything extravagant like this in my life that compares even a little bit compared to the love of God.
He said, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.
That's the extravagant love of God. Thirdly, we demonstrate grace redemptively, prophetically, and practically through word, indeed, to everyone we come in contact with.
Let's not be commentators about grace. Let's not be eloquent speakers about grace. Let's be demonstrators of grace.
I had a little look online to see what the definition of a job that was a demonstrator. There are some industries you can get demonstration jobs, and it said this on this job's website. A demonstrator is a person that shows potential customers how a product works in a showroom or other commercial space. As a demonstrator, your duties revolve around giving a presentation to an audience and then showing them how the feature of a given product can help them. We are demonstrators of grace.
We are not just merely preachers of grace. We are not just merely talkers and evangelists. We are demonstrators Jesus came demonstrating the truth and the power of the kingdom of God.
I love that he has entrusted this to us.
In two Timothy two two, it says, you have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others.
Pass them on the realities of what God has done in your life.
I love that the realities of being a forgiven sinner, saved by grace, that we can pass on that good news to other people.
Sometimes when I'm around swearing non Christians and they find out what I do, they stop and they say, oh, sorry, vicar.
And they think that sort of my presence means that they have to be better.
And I want them to know primarily, not that they need to try hard to be better, but I want to introduce them through a demonstration of the radical, sheer, extravagant love of God.
And that's what God's called us to be as a church, to be demonstrators. Fourthly, be generous, giving all we have and all we are to bless what God is desiring to do in the earth, in all the expressions of his one church.
I love that there is an opportunity to be lavish with God.
I'm always stirred by these words in two chronicles two.
The temple I am going to build, it says will be great because our God is greater than all other gods.
But who is able to build a temple for him? Since the heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain him, who then am I to build a temple for him except As a place to burn sacrifices before him?
Mark, what's the link there? Well, the link is that we can never be over generous with God.
He always outgives, he always outblosses, he's always far loftier than anything we're able to create.
We take on these big buildings down at the key and we can't say, God, this is now big enough for you. It's not big enough for God.
He can't dwell in anything that we create in our hands, but our attitude and our heart can be God. We want to give the best. I want to create the best in my life, the best in my day, the best in my home, the best in our gatherings, the best in our buildings. God, I want you to have the best.
Extravagant Love calls that generosity to flow out of our lives.
I'm always amazed and blessed by those who posture and position their lives to be generous to the purposes of God.
I mentioned earlier on that I'm part of this board, that looking at Bible translation over last year there were 44 million pounds given just to this one organization for translating and distributing the Bible across the world.
There are people that are so captivated by the extravagant love of God that they say, we are going to not hold, that, we're going to pass it through.
And there's something beautiful. There's a beautiful. And this isn't just about finance. This is about your time. This is about our energies. You know those moments when you feel exhausted and somebody phones you or you're just about to leave a room and they say, hey, just before you go, and you feel spent? Anybody relate to that?
If you're an introvert, these environments are probably among some of the toughest, because one of those, there's lots of memes online that sort of show some pictures of those who are introverts and how they respond in settings of church where they say, please turn around and greet someone. And oh, no.
But there's a lot of sound in this world that says, if you are that person, then you need to protect, and you need to be true to who you are and don't turn around and speak to people. But actUally, there's a generosity in God that says, if there is someone in need, and, you know, your encouragement can be the thing that pours out the generosity of God to someone else. Your kind words, your prayers, your time, your attention, look at people in the eyes and just listen. Well, sometimes listening can be incredibly generous if you've got lots of noise in your head and there's lots of things going on in your life, and someone says, hey, can I chat to you? And you think, oh, I've got a lot already in my head.
And your listening can be incredibly generous.
Why would we do that?
Because he is generous to us.
And then finally, the last on love, extravagantly on our bullet points is we scatter and we gather that we are expressions of God's radical love in every sphere of influence, which opens up to us daily in our lives. We read in the New Testament Church, read in Acts 246, that every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. Every day they broke bread in their homes, and they ate together with glad and sincere hearts. I want to encourage you to see the significance and the importance of gathering together. We have two dynamics in the church. We recommend people to be a part of both the large and the small.
The larger setting has some values of environments, of faith. You get to move outside of your bubble or your circle of influence, and you begin to meet other people, and they're really important times.
Do you know one of the responses to COVID has been that people have reviewed and sort of thought, do I need to go to church regularly? No, you don't.
You can follow Jesus and never, ever go into a church service ever again. I believe you can because you've got the word of God, you've got the Holy Spirit. And we know there are brothers and sisters around the world that are in solitary confinement, in prison, and they grow in their faith. So no, you don't need to go to church in order to follow Jesus, but you're not in another nation where you've been locked up in solitary confinement. You have an opportunity and a privilege to hang out with other people that have had a similar journey to you.
And you might, you know, I find it so difficult at getting ready in the mornings. Do you have that? What am I going to dress? What am I going to wear to church today? Do you have those moments on a Sunday morning? Do you think, where am I going to park? All of those things? It is easier just to stay at home. It's easier.
And you might say, well, that's okay, it's enough for me.
What about the person who would have been sat next to you if you were here?
What about the encouragement you would have given to them if you were here?
What about that arm around their shoulder that they're not going to get because you're not here?
Church, I want to encourage you, be present, gather together.
Hebrews says, do not forsake meeting together a summer in the habit of doing. And this is not about numbers on seats on a Sunday. This is about being positioned in a way that we can be extravagant lovers, that we can be people that communicate the generosity of God.
But they didn't just gather. They also were scattered because Jesus'commission was to go into all the world. And it's difficult to go into all the world when we sat in the same building for the rest of our lives. And of course, some are called to travel and become missionaries and Pran churches. Not everybody might be called to that, but we can send people, we can encourage people, we can invest in others.
But God's call is to go, is to take.
And there were times in the New Testament where they went not because they chose to, but because they were persecuted and they scattered. And sometimes the changes that happen in the world, I think they fan out the gospel. When I see the refugee crisis that's taking place, and careful what you read about in the Daily Mail or whatever other sort of editorially biased news you absorb, be careful which channels you listen to. Do you know they're not just reporting facts, they're reporting their view on the facts. And every channel you can shop around and you can find someone who resonates with your message. Be really careful. Ask the Holy Spirit behind every news headline. God, what are you seeing?
We should have the Bibles and the news channels together and analyze what God is saying and what God is doing. But when I look at all these headlines about refugee crisis, I believe that we have an opportunity.
There are people coming to these shores that would never have had an opportunity to hear the Gospel of Jesus if they weren't here.
I love the teams of people that we got going out and working with those in this city that they never chose to come to Exeter. They've just been brought here through the process of their being homeless and being refugees in the world. And I love there are people loving on them, serving them, and they are extravagantly loving them. Well done, church.
These are opportunities for us to love extravagantly. So as we close, maybe just take a moment now to review what areas we need God's help on. Loving God with everything welcoming everyone, have we become a bit judgmental?
Is our first reaction to people around their sin and not their beauty?
Do we need to demonstrate grace, not just talk about it?
Do we need to be generous, more generous in our lives?
Are we living scattered and gathered?
Have we got those rhythms in our life?
Holy Spirit, help us.
Help us as people this morning who pinch ourselves and say we're children of God, as people who put on the headphones of the kingdom and we listen to a sound that this world does not understand. Help us, Lord, to live out that rhythm, to demonstrate it, to manifest it, to communicate it.
Holy Spirit, we need your help because this is not a to do list, this is a B list.
We need to be like our Savior, so help us.
