Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Especially true, because I had to drive the church van from Illinois to here this morning, and I made it so, you know, the Holy Spirit has something in mind for us today. He caused that van to persevere at highway speeds for more than an hour. And that takes supernatural intervention of the spirit.
[00:00:17] So some of you haven't seen our church van. You're going, what's so bad about the church van? Walk out there and look at it and you'll know. You're going to go, wow, God is real. Yeah, the atheists were wrong.
[00:00:29] No, the. The guys just got back from archery. It was a wonderful, refreshing weekend. We hung out in the woods. We threw axes. We sang loud to Jesus. We ate way too much junk food because our wives weren't around.
[00:00:42] It was great. It was great. It was a wonderful time.
[00:00:46] Our theme, and really my job this morning is to do this.
[00:00:50] So I have to land out the men's retreat. We didn't finish it. We came back. So I have to lend that out, but I have to do it in such a way that it makes sense for the rest of you guys.
[00:00:59] So that's. That's my goal today. I want to invite our whole church into just a little bit of what we spent time as men considering this weekend and really kind of bring that home with a challenge that I think will be beneficial for all of us. And so our theme this weekend was called Bloody Tales, which is. I know that's weird, but look, guys, it's a retreat, and retreats, if there's ever a time for cheese, it's retreats. That's the time. And so this is functionally the analogy. Most of you guys know my dad, and my dad is an outdoorsman. I'm so grateful that I grew up with a dad who encouraged me and my brothers to use our hands to get outside. Like, seriously, like, my dad's one of my favorite people. I love you, dad. You just sit out front very often.
[00:01:45] I love my dad. And my dad is a hunter.
[00:01:49] And so as a kid growing up, one of the things that I looked forward to most, that I was most excited about, seriously, was the idea of getting to go hunting with my dad. I remember eagerly expecting that, like, looking forward to that as a young kid. And as a result, the first time I got to go hunting with my dad, it's, like, burned into my memory. And it was a rabbit hunt. My dad got me my first dog from a hunting buddy. She was a scrawny little beagle that we named Belle. And she was, like, a great Dog. I loved her. She was a great first dog for a little kid. But she was gotten for the purpose of being a hunting dog, of which she failed miserably. She wasn't wired by God to be a hunting dog. But my first hunting experience with my dad was my dad taking me and Belle out with a friend and some beagles to hunt rabbits. And if you've never been rabbit hunting, I need to tell you about it. Rabbit hunting essentially involves this. You get a whole bunch of beagles. Anyone here ever owned a beagle, like, or a pet as a kid? You get a whole bunch of beagles and you let them loose in the wilderness.
[00:02:52] That's 90% of rabbit hunting. You let them loose and you've got some guys with shotguns, and they mostly just stand there while the beagles run around and look for rabbits. You may vaguely like walk in the direction of the beagles barking, but in general, you just kind of stand there and wait for beagles to scare up rabbits. It's actually a blast in a literal way too, because there are shotguns involved. But it's.
[00:03:20] It's a great thing. And the thing about it is beagles love chasing rabbits.
[00:03:27] Like, if you've ever owned a beagle, they're high energy.
[00:03:30] They're very wiggly dogs.
[00:03:32] You've never seen a beagle until you've seen a beagle in a field with its pack looking for rabbits. That's what they are wired to do. Chasing small game is literally why they were bred, right? They love it. They will wag their tails with joy while sprinting at full speed through briar patches, chasing rabbits. So much so. But the sign of a good rabbit dog is that it comes back from the hunt with a bloody tail, because they run through the briars at full speed, wagging their tails with joy and excitement, in spite of the price they're paying in getting scratched up and cut. And that's where we got the name for our weekend, bloody Tales. We talked about the truth that God the Father has hardwired us into our very DNA for the purpose of seeking him out with our whole person.
[00:04:28] That all of us were made to chase after God. And when you do so, when you actually pour your life into the pursuit of Christ, you break into a new way of living that is so fully alive, so fulfilling, so wonderful, that you will gladly pay the price of that life.
[00:04:50] But that's the problem, is that there is a price.
[00:04:54] There's a lot stacked against these sweet little beagles being good hunting dogs.
[00:04:59] In order for them to hunt, the dog has to first be let loose, off the leash, right? And I don't know if you've ever had a beagle. They don't do good with being let loose, but you got to let them loose.
[00:05:11] They have immense freedom. They can run however the heck they want. They can choose to engage the hunt or not. And they have to choose to engage it, and then they have to stay on the trail.
[00:05:22] The minute that beagle gets out into the field, their little hound dog noses and ears and eyes are subjected to every possible distraction, every sight, every sound, every scent they can imagine.
[00:05:34] There's squirrels, pigeons, turkeys, cows, fields cars, groundhogs. So much to explore, so much to distract. They have to zone in on the rabbit trail in the middle of the chaos, and then they have to push through their exhaustion and their pain. Rabbits run hard and hear this faster than beagles.
[00:05:55] They have to chase it to ground over and over and over, jumping it up, chasing it, finding it, jumping it up, chasing and finding it. And rabbits love to hide in briar patches and thorns and thistles. And so beagles have to get scratched and slipped, sliced in order for them to pursue the quarry.
[00:06:14] And they have to not give into fear. I don't know if you consider this part, but when you hunt rabbits, you hunt them with shotguns, which means the hunter is shooting 10, 15, 20ft in front of the beagles while they're running at full speed.
[00:06:29] So they're not just chasing the rabbit. They then hear a thundercloud and watch the rabbit explode in a little cloud of fine mist right, right in front of them. They have to stay zoned into the task in spite of the fear.
[00:06:44] There is a lot that can scare a beagle out of being a good hunting dog. My poor beagle Belle never had a chance.
[00:06:52] She liked to be at home and snuggle on the couch and eat treats. That's what she liked. And she decided hunting wasn't for her.
[00:06:58] She couldn't push through with all those distractions on. Why is it that most beagles.
[00:07:06] Most beagles figure it out with very little training. For the most part, they figure it out. The reason is simple, guys.
[00:07:14] This is what they were born for.
[00:07:16] This is why they exist.
[00:07:19] They're tapping into their very design, and it lights them up with life and joy. Guys, my. My favorite part, and I'm dead serious when I say this, you should go home today and YouTube, search rabbit beagles and just watch a couple videos. My favorite part of rabbit hunting is watching the dogs. There's something really beautiful about when them. They all get out and they sync up and they just. They know what they're supposed to do, and they just do it. And there's this very specific moment that shifts the beagles from running and playing and hanging out with their pack brothers to trailing a rabbit. And if you've ever owned a beagle, you know the moment I'm talking about.
[00:07:57] Even if they've never hunted a day in their life, you've heard them do this. You see, beagles don't bark. They also don't howl.
[00:08:05] They bay. And it is the most obnoxious noise a dog can make. It's not a wolf. It's not a. It's a.
[00:08:16] It's just awful. It's just awful.
[00:08:19] And what they do as they're running to the field playing is they kind of just yip and bark to each other as a way of keeping track of each other.
[00:08:26] So as the hunter, you're standing there and you just kind of hear like they're echolocating the pack as they run through the field, you know? But the minute one of them catches a scent, they lock in and they can't control it. It's instinct.
[00:08:41] They start baying after the rabbit, and all the other beagles zone in and go, rabbit. And they run to that one, and they all catch the scent. And as soon as they get it, they start baying. And then the next thing you know, the whole package is running together in unison, just moaning as they go after the quarry. And as silly as it is, it's actually a really beautiful moment.
[00:09:05] Beagles were born to bay, right? That moment. It's why. It's why they exist. You will never see a beagle happier than in the middle of the thicket, paying with its pack brothers as it chases a rat.
[00:09:19] Guys, we.
[00:09:20] And I mean all of us, men, women, children, those of us with a beat in our hearts and breath and our lungs, we were made by God to pursue relationship with him.
[00:09:33] And you can laugh at the metaphor. It's cheesy. It was a guy's weekend. We talked about hunting. Okay, yeah, you can laugh at it because it's silly.
[00:09:40] But, man, it's true.
[00:09:43] You were born to pursue the Lord.
[00:09:46] You were made for it. It taps in to who you were meant to be.
[00:09:52] And so, as our men land out their weekend, and as we seek to invite our whole church body into what God has been doing in our hearts, I want to take a sharp turn. You see, as much as we were made to pursue God, Sin makes that really hard.
[00:10:10] It's really stacked against us. It's beautiful and easy. In the context of church, after we just heard the harmonies, we just sang the songs and our hands were raised to go, yes, I was made for this. I was made to pursue Christ. Absolutely. That's tapping into who I am. And it's beautiful and it's wonderful and it's true. But we know that tomorrow, somewhere around, oh, I don't know, 2pm when you're back in the middle of the throes of your week and all the stresses that didn't actually leave you last week are all sitting on your shoulders again, it'll be really easy to forget that you were built in your DNA and bones to pursue God, Right?
[00:10:46] Because all the things of life, all the busyness of the world, all the stresses you carry will all be right there again hanging out with you.
[00:10:55] And it's so easy to forget that we were actually built to pursue the Lord.
[00:11:02] But here's what's so wonderful.
[00:11:06] See, God is not content with that.
[00:11:10] God knows our weakness. He knows the way sin and the curse has affected us.
[00:11:16] And so today, as much as the guys have spent the last 36 hours talking about the necessity of us pursuing God, I want to take a few minutes and talk about how God pursues us.
[00:11:27] You see, if we are the Beagles, then God is a heavenly hound dog and he has caught our scent and he is willing to go to extreme ends to have us.
[00:11:41] And so what I'd love for us to consider today as a church family is this simple truth.
[00:11:46] Because God pursues us.
[00:11:51] We can pursue God because the Lord chases after us, because he's zoned in on us, because we matter to him enough to pursue, to seek.
[00:12:04] Because of that, at that foundation, we can then actually live a life where we pursue after God.
[00:12:13] But, guys, once again, God pursuing us is an easy, beautiful thing to say in church.
[00:12:22] It's one of the hardest things we run into as church people is there are these spiritual truths that in these moments, they just sync up. They seem natural. We lock into them.
[00:12:33] But I think oftentimes, if we actually were to sit and consider the idea that the God of the universe is pursuing us, is chasing after us, it probably wouldn't be just exaltation and joy that we respond with. Right, there is a piece of going, well, shoot, because he is perfect and holy and a judge, and I enjoy sinning, right?
[00:12:57] Or what's he going to do when he gets me?
[00:13:02] What's he going to demand of me?
[00:13:05] What Will it cost to be caught by the Lord? Because I'm pretty sure I haven't read this whole thing, but I'm pretty sure what I read of it says you can't do a whole bunch of stuff that I like doing.
[00:13:17] So what happens if he catches one?
[00:13:19] I think oftentimes the idea that God actually sees you and is zoned in on you and is pursuing you as much as that can be a beautiful worshipful thing, that can be a really intimidating thing. It can be a really scary thing.
[00:13:36] But guys, it's a, it's a worthy question to stop and to ask yourself, is it truly worth it to pursue God? If that means giving up the treasures of this world?
[00:13:50] That's a worthy question. It might be embarrassing to admit, like in a church context, that you need to ask it, but you do.
[00:13:58] Is it truly worth it to pursue God if it means opening your hands to the treasures of this world?
[00:14:07] Pray with me and let's look at a text together.
[00:14:10] Jesus, we need you this morning to be our discipler.
[00:14:13] We need you to be the one who teaches us, who seeks us out, who reminds us of truth. Holy Spirit, I pray that you would speak through your word today, that you would remind us of truths we know but have forgotten. That you would challenge us in areas of our life where we are hard hearted and callous. That you would encourage us where we need to be lifted up and drawn back to truth. And above all, Lord, we pray that you would be the one who draws us to life through your Word.
[00:14:41] Spirit. This is your ministry.
[00:14:44] So Father, we need your power, your presence in our lives today. And that's why we pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen.
[00:14:52] We're going to be in First John chapter four today. If you want to go ahead and turn there in your Bibles. If you don't have a Bible with you today, we have house Bibles around the room. Look underneath the chairs in front of you. If you are in this space today and you don't own a physical copy of God's Word, I'd strongly encourage you either just take one of the pew Bibles or talk to one of the pastors and we'll get you one with slightly larger print. Notice I said slightly because Bibles are expensive, but we will get you one nicer than the pew Bibles if you don't have a Bible. Seriously, we really believe in the importance of access to God's Word here at Emmanuel. So First John, First John is a letter written by the Apostle John. It's part of A little group for second, third John, right? This is the same Apostle John who wrote the Gospel of John. This is the same Apostle John who penned the Revelation. He wrote a good chunk of. Of the New Testament. This is the same Apostle John who was the youngest of the 12 disciples, who was close to Jesus as a friend, who sat next to him at the Last Supper, who remained at the cross during the crucifixion. Right. This, this is a guy who is deeply connected to the Lord. And later in life, as the. As the last surviving apostle, the only one who wasn't martyred actively, he ended up bearing a leadership position in the church at Ephesus.
[00:16:10] First, second, and third John are letters he wrote to kind of surrounding Christian communities.
[00:16:16] And if you look at them, they're interesting because they start off as a general letter and they get specific to specific people and leaders in that church. We don't know for certain, but it seems likely that all three letters were written to the same community.
[00:16:31] And when you get into them, there's this part that you're not supposed to say as a Christian, but it's just true. John is weird because John is a bad writer. And that's just what it is. John's really important. That's Bible. The Holy Spirit authored it. You should read it. It's wonderful. But John.
[00:16:50] John writes in a way that is just genuinely hard to read for most people.
[00:16:55] That's John.
[00:16:56] His writing is beautiful and emotive. It's full of metaphor and imagery. Like, he's really good at that piece of. But John is a guy, and we probably all have known people like this who basically. See, he basically writes how he speaks.
[00:17:11] And you know what I'm saying here, There's a difference between a speaking voice and a writing voice. You speak out loud in one way, in a way that people can understand and hear. But if you wrote down exactly how you said it, it would be significantly harder to read. You rewrite it for reading. John had no interest in that.
[00:17:26] He wrote stuff down, how he said it. So you get the beauty, the emotion, the. The metaphors, but you also get him wandering around from idea to idea without doing much work to interconnect them. Almost like it's just stream of consciousness. And so when you read the Gospel of John and he recounts Jesus's preaching, have you ever noticed that Jesus seems really succinct in the other three gospels? And in John, it just seems like he wanders around ideas for long amounts of time? Because that's probably how John remembered those sermons. Because that's how John thought and that's how John spoke. You get the same thing in First John.
[00:18:01] The section of First John that we're looking into in chapter four is this large chunk where he's functionally taking this whole chunk of the letter and just saying these are the visible outward signs of a faithful Holy Spirit filled church. If you're wanting to know is a church a genuine church, it's going to look like this. And that's most of this letter.
[00:18:23] But instead of saying that here's what a church looks like, let me list out five things he just wanders through, like 10 ideas going in circles. And it can be kind of hard to get because he makes a point, then makes a point, then makes a point, then remember something about the first point. So he circles back and makes that point again. But then he comes back down. And that's just kind of. It's just kind of job. You have to have to just let it be what it is. Which is why we're going to go through it. We're going to start in verse seven here. And what we're going to see is that he's talking about the importance of love, love of brothers and sisters, the way the church treats each other and how that shows the truth of the Gospel and shows the presence of the Spirit in that church. So first John 4, we're going to start in verse 7 and we read this.
[00:19:07] Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God. And everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God because God is love. God's love was revealed among us in this way. God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. Love consists in this. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
[00:19:34] So this section of the letter is John continuing this thought that he's been building. This is all part of his section where he talks about what it means to be a believer. What are the markers, the outward signs of true faith. And one of them, says John, is love for one another.
[00:19:53] Christians are supposed to love each other. I know. A shocking teaching, but look how John builds up his case here.
[00:20:01] We love each other as Christians because love comes from God.
[00:20:05] Loving each other shows that we've been born of God and that we know God. In fact, says John, not loving one another is evidence that we don't know God because love is so wrapped up in who God is you can't just know him and not love others.
[00:20:24] He actually goes so far in this to say that God is love.
[00:20:29] It's a pretty radical statement.
[00:20:31] God is love.
[00:20:33] Fundamentally, love is a part of how we understand the very identity of our God.
[00:20:40] But John, he knows this large and pretty intense claim needs to be backed up. How do we know God is love?
[00:20:46] Well, we know because of Jesus.
[00:20:48] Because God sent Christ into the world to save us from sin. I mean, is that not the gospel message itself? Right? God loves us so much that he secures our salvation by sending His Son to live a perfect life and suffer an unjust sinner's death. In this, Jesus pays for our sin and we're able to receive the reward of his righteousness, right? The gospel is an expression, the love that God bears for us.
[00:21:17] But look what John really nails home for.
[00:21:23] We know this facet of the gospel, right?
[00:21:26] We know this facet of the gospel. It's an expression of God's love. But look what he nails down here. He defines love for us.
[00:21:35] What is love? Baby, don't hurt me. Sorry, I right age. I can't not do that.
[00:21:44] Okay, we all thought it all right? Now we're moving on. What is love?
[00:21:50] John basically asks, how can we know what love actually means?
[00:21:55] Well, it's not that we love God.
[00:21:57] It's not that that we have affection for Him.
[00:22:01] Guys, you have to know something.
[00:22:03] Of course you're going to love God.
[00:22:05] If you meet him, you will love Him.
[00:22:09] Look what he's done for us in Jesus. You can't experience that and not love Him.
[00:22:15] No, no, no, no. That's not a good way of defining love.
[00:22:19] You can't help but love God if you meet Him.
[00:22:22] The love is seen in the reality that God loves us, that he moved first, that he cared for us, that he sent His Son while we were still sinners. God proves and defines the character of his love with the cross itself.
[00:22:40] He is the sacrificial lamb of our sins. That is love.
[00:22:46] And by the way, as annoying as it may be, that's why I call you beloved when I preach as a church. You are the beloved of Christ.
[00:22:57] He has loved you and shown and proven his love as a cross.
[00:23:02] Read on with me. Verse 11.
[00:23:05] Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we must also love one another.
[00:23:10] No one has ever seen God. But if we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us.
[00:23:17] This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us. He has given us His Spirit. And we have seen and we testify the Father has sent his Son as the world's Savior. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God. And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love. And the one who remains in love remains in God. And God remains in him. In this love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment. Because as he is, so also are we in this world.
[00:23:53] And here's where John gets a little Johnish in his writing.
[00:23:57] He basically repeats himself here, but slightly more complexly. He says that God's love moves us to love one another. And that makes sense. Right?
[00:24:07] Like, if you've received the seemingly insane love of God through the person and work of Jesus. If you've been treated like you matter so much in spite of your sin, ought you not seek to love others as well?
[00:24:24] Right. Like. Like, shouldn't we give the love that we have received, the wonderful love we've received?
[00:24:34] And how does God love us?
[00:24:36] He seeks us out. He serves us. He sacrifices himself for our benefit. This is the kind of love God has given us.
[00:24:45] Radical intimacy, seeking out, putting value on, serving, sacrificing. That's the way God has loved us. And it is the model for how we love others.
[00:24:57] But let's be honest enough to admit that, as true as that should be, God has loved me so well, so I love others so well.
[00:25:07] It often doesn't turn out that way, right?
[00:25:10] Right.
[00:25:11] We want to be the sort of people who love sacrificially, who see people and seek them out, who continually seek them and don't give up.
[00:25:22] But often we are as selfish as everyone else.
[00:25:27] Probably more often.
[00:25:29] Fortunately, says John, God's love keeps us, keeps us in spite of ourselves. The wonderful love God gives us as he seeks us out and serves us and elevates us above our station. That love is able to keep us in.
[00:25:47] The very Holy Spirit of God empowers us. And because of this, we can love like Jesus does.
[00:25:55] And we know that we can be secure in the Lord and in his love.
[00:26:00] John says that because of the love of God, you can rest easy in this world.
[00:26:05] You can have confidence that when Christ returns and the judgment of all things happens, you'll be regarded through the lens of the love of God.
[00:26:14] And listen, guys, this isn't just flowery theological talk like John wants you to see this as a real and and present truth in your life because of the love of God, your anxiety about the judgment of your sin is eased.
[00:26:32] You can live and rest in the reality that the love of God means your sin was paid for and will not be held against you.
[00:26:43] That is a real thing.
[00:26:45] That is a right now thing.
[00:26:47] It's a powerful thing.
[00:26:50] Look how the text continues, verse 18.
[00:26:54] There is no fear in love.
[00:26:56] Instead, perfect love drives out fear because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not completed. In love, we love because he first loves us.
[00:27:06] If anyone says, I love God and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
[00:27:15] And we have this command from him. The one who loves God must love his brother and sister.
[00:27:22] A couple of these verses are relatively well known, but let's consider this for a moment, kind of in its larger context. Here.
[00:27:31] God's love secures our hearts against fear.
[00:27:36] Because that is such a simple and profound truth, is it not?
[00:27:41] God's love secures your heart against fear, especially fear of the end times, fear of judgment, because fear has to do with punishment.
[00:27:50] But consider the love of Jesus for us.
[00:27:53] He already took the punishment, right?
[00:27:58] Those sins that you've committed, those sins you haven't committed yet, those sins you committed this morning in Christ, those are already paid for.
[00:28:06] Jesus already took them.
[00:28:08] They've already been accounted for.
[00:28:12] That really does man, that love surpasses fear.
[00:28:19] He absorbs it, forgives it. Remembering and experiencing the love of God really genuinely does guard your heart against fear. Fear loses its power because of the love God has for his children. His love is so good that it forms security in our lives, that it shifts our experience of day to day. It has real impact on how you leave this space, how you consider yourself, how you consider your family, how you think about your day this week.
[00:28:52] But look how this text wraps up.
[00:28:54] This is one of, if not the most famous texts in First John. But look how he brings this together. The love of God doesn't just secure our future and decrease our fear and anxiety. It definitely does that.
[00:29:06] It's not doing that. You should step back and consider whether you fully experience or consider the love God has for you, right?
[00:29:13] But more than that, more than the love of God simply giving you relief from fear and anxiety in this coming judgment. More than that, John says that loving God means loving what God loves.
[00:29:29] That the love of God that you experience doesn't terminate or on you.
[00:29:34] It moves beyond you, moves through you and out of you.
[00:29:40] But to love God means Fundamentally, you begin to love what he loves.
[00:29:47] So what does God love?
[00:29:50] We know that he loves sinners like you and me.
[00:29:53] Come on, church.
[00:29:55] Loving God means a life given to loving others, seeking them, pursuing them, serving them, elevating them.
[00:30:06] Guys, that's the amazing cycle of the Christian life.
[00:30:10] We're called and commanded to live our lives loving and serving others. We're called and commanded to live a life built around serving and building others up. But it's costly and it's sacrificial and it's painful and we don't want to do it because it's hard and we're selfish.
[00:30:30] But whatever you lose to gain Christ, Hear this, beloved. It's a loss of nothing.
[00:30:38] Our God is genuinely that good that whatever it might cost us to pursue God, to live as he's designed us, but as we actually live that life, we find the cost is nothing.
[00:30:52] Because he's so good to have.
[00:30:55] Craig talked about this over the retreat. But rabbit dogs have a hard task.
[00:30:59] Rabbits are fast. They hide in briars. Chasing them means scratches and cuts. That means blood. There is real cost to following after Jesus.
[00:31:09] There's real cost.
[00:31:12] But counterintuitively, it is actually in this sacrifice.
[00:31:18] It is in the life of sacrifice and loss and suffering and hardship and trial that we find this fulfilling, amazing life that God has for us.
[00:31:30] That when we live the sacrificial and loving life like Christ did for us, we're tapping in to the love that God has given us. And it does cost you. Don't mishear me. It costs you. But it's wonderful.
[00:31:45] The life given to pursuing God is a fulfilling life because it's about love and sacrifice and making the world more in the image and will of God.
[00:31:56] It's the work of making the world more like the kind of world you actually want to live in.
[00:32:02] A world where people experience and feel the love of God day by day.
[00:32:08] And here's the reason why.
[00:32:10] The reason why the cost is worth it, even though there's a real cost, is because the prize of living a life chasing after God is not some comfortable, easy life with all the amenities and all the wealth and all the comforts. The prize is God himself.
[00:32:27] Christ is the prize. He's the chase.
[00:32:31] He's what you get when you live this life. You get God and the amazing love that he pours out of his person.
[00:32:40] It's a wonderful prize.
[00:32:42] It's not just a life worth living, beloved. It is the life you want to live.
[00:32:49] It's genuinely what you're made for.
[00:32:53] But the story doesn't end there.
[00:32:55] And you need to know something. It could end there, and that would be enough.
[00:33:01] You were made to live your life pursuing God, which means receiving his love and giving it to others. The Bible could just tell you to do that, hey, you were made for this. Go do it. It's awesome. And that would be enough, because it really is that good a life.
[00:33:15] But hear this.
[00:33:16] That's not even the best part.
[00:33:19] It's genuinely better than that. Like the truth that God has made you for an amazing, wonderful, fulfilling life and that you can actually pursue it. Like, that's already great news, but it's better.
[00:33:33] There's an extra step Beloved, there's a truth in the closing part of this text that is so important for us today. It's wrapped into the details of all this progression of thought about God's love and our relationship. Relationship to his love. Look what John says here in the text.
[00:33:49] We love because he first loved us.
[00:33:57] Beloved, God is the one who moves first for us.
[00:34:04] He is the one who moves first all the life that we live. Of faith. We live because we worship a God who's not too big and too grand and too holy to get himself down in the mud and chase after us.
[00:34:20] That's a wild thing to say, because our God is grand and is big and is holy and is powerful.
[00:34:29] He's the God of reality yet.
[00:34:34] And yet he crawls down into the muck and mire.
[00:34:39] He chases after us.
[00:34:41] Chases after us.
[00:34:43] The Father of the prodigal Son who lifts up his robe and runs out to get his son. Our God is not too proud to seek us when he has every right to be.
[00:34:57] Your God could be away on his throne, he could be distant, but instead he has stepped down into your life, beloved, and chase after you.
[00:35:09] We can put our beagle noses down, let our ears fold forward and push out the distractions.
[00:35:16] We can chase after God, but we can do it because God first stepped down and chased after us.
[00:35:24] One of the most famous passages in all scripture is Psalm 23.
[00:35:27] You guys have all heard it a million times, probably at every funeral you've ever been to, and you can probably quote most of it without thinking about it. But let me point you to one specific line at the end of that psalm that I think is telling in a time like this how it closes out.
[00:35:42] Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I live.
[00:35:51] Goodness, faithful love.
[00:35:54] Hear in that church the heart of your God. For you, goodness and faithful love pursues you.
[00:36:04] And it pursues you all of your days.
[00:36:07] Why?
[00:36:09] Because you are the beloved of God.
[00:36:13] He pursues you.
[00:36:15] It's his work in his pursuit that even makes it possible for you to live the life you were made for.
[00:36:23] God had to intervene for you for it to happen. And hear this, beloved. He does.
[00:36:28] He does.
[00:36:30] He chases after you. He pursues you. And he is as locked in as. As any hound dog. He is dogged in his determination to have you, to have you restored and to have you full of life and full of his love. This is God's heart for you. He chases you.
[00:36:51] I have a silly little gift for you guys today. We're going to have them at the back of the room as you leave. I gave these to the guys at the retreat, and I wanted everyone to have one. It's a bookmark.
[00:37:00] And it's a bookmark that has a little summary on it of a poem that I love.
[00:37:05] It's called the Hound of Heaven. It's by an English poet named Francis Thompson. And the short version of a powerful story is that this guy was functionally a rock star.
[00:37:14] He was really, really successful at a really young age. And it led him to what a lot of young men who get too successful too young do is he destroyed his life.
[00:37:23] Destroyed his life with all the. All the vices. So much so that he. He actually.
[00:37:29] He got so deep into opium, and he actually destroyed his body.
[00:37:33] And he was passed out in a gutter, dying, and a couple taking a walk found him and took him home and nursed him back to a semblance of health. I say a semblance of health because he never left their house again. He died there, I mean, a few short months later.
[00:37:49] But this couple knew Jesus, and they preached the gospel to this young man. And in the context of his deathbed, even though it was stretched out over a long period of time, he met the Lord and had a radical conversion, and he wrote poetry until his death.
[00:38:05] And it's beautiful. It's powerful. It's worship poetry. And my favorite one is titled the Hound of Heaven. And it's too long to put on a bookmark because it's a standalone little book.
[00:38:16] But I took some key passages of it and put it on this bookmark because the image of it is so powerful.
[00:38:23] The analogy of the poem is that he describes God as a bloodhound on the scent of an escaped criminal.
[00:38:31] He is the criminal running from God as hard as he can, seeking out all the Pleasures of this life, in this world, only to find that no matter where he runs, he can't escape the tracking of this heavenly hound.
[00:38:44] Everywhere he hides, every pleasure he seeks. He hears the thumping of paw pads and the sniff of the hound dog right behind him. And he runs from thing to thing to thing. It's a long poem.
[00:38:58] You should look it up and read the whole thing. And it's. It's hard to read because it's like 100-year-old English, right? But it's beautiful.
[00:39:05] Helps us remember this truth, the truth that God has chased you.
[00:39:11] And God will continue to chase you.
[00:39:15] He loves you.
[00:39:17] He'll never give up on you.
[00:39:20] What he says at the end of the poem, as he gets to this point of surrender, is. He goes, I know you love me. I know that's why you're chasing me. I know it's out of your love.
[00:39:31] But my fear is that if I receive your love, I'll have to give all these things up.
[00:39:36] I have to give up all these things I've chased, and I don't know if I'm ready to do that.
[00:39:41] So he runs.
[00:39:43] He pours his life into all these things, and eventually he comes to the point in the poem and in real life where he realizes none of them worked.
[00:39:54] None of them worked. The best this world had to offer. The best pleasures, the best comforts, the most thrills this world had to offer didn't get him where he needed to be.
[00:40:07] But to have Christ was to have the life he wanted.
[00:40:11] Beloved, that is the truth of the gospel for you today.
[00:40:17] Banda, if you want to come back up, the reminder for us today is that God is still chasing you and he will not relent.
[00:40:28] So the best idea is for you to stop running.
[00:40:30] Stop.
[00:40:32] Stop running away.
[00:40:34] Embrace Him.
[00:40:36] And in this, in receiving his love and receiving his ministry to you, you can actually put your own hound dog nose down to the ground and you can seek him out in return.
[00:40:50] I have only one point for you today in this text, and it's where we started. You were made to pursue God.
[00:40:56] It's the life you were built for.
[00:40:59] And you can do it, beloved.
[00:41:01] You can see God with your whole life, with your whole heart.
[00:41:05] You can live a life of loving God and loving others.
[00:41:09] And the reason you can do it is because God is so good. He chased after you first.
[00:41:15] He's still doing so.
[00:41:18] Never gives up on you, never leaves you behind.
[00:41:22] Beloved, I would encourage you as we end out today, to take just a moment, consider what that would look like.
