Pastor Josh Massaro delivers a powerful message centered on the theme of love and its role in our faithfulness as ambassadors for Christ. He emphasizes that true love for God compels us to endure through life's challenges and to serve others selflessly. As he explores the teachings in 2 Corinthians, he highlights the importance of setting our affections on eternal truths rather than temporary worldly desires. The episode calls listeners to reflect on their priorities, urging them to examine who and what they truly love. Ultimately, the sermon encourages embracing authentic love that stems from understanding God's unwavering love for us, leading to a more meaningful and committed life of service.

Pastor Josh Massaro delivers a profound message aimed at encouraging believers to examine their hearts and the authenticity of their love for God. He begins by discussing the struggles and contradictions inherent in Christian ministry, emphasizing that the love of Christ should be the driving force behind a believer's service. Drawing from 2 Corinthians, he highlights the importance of being faithful ambassadors for Christ, particularly during times of difficulty. Pastor Josh emphasizes that while the ups and downs of life can challenge our faith, it is our steadfast commitment to God's truth and love that enables us to endure. He challenges listeners to reflect on what they love most, urging them to prioritize their affection for God above worldly distractions. The message serves as a reminder that true love for God manifests in our actions, particularly in how we respond to challenges and how we serve others. This call to action not only encourages self-reflection but also invites believers to embrace the transformative power of God's love in their lives.

The sermon unfolds with a careful exposition of 2 Corinthians 5 and 6, where Pastor Josh explores the concept of being a new creation in Christ. He articulates how the love of God compels believers to live a life of service, characterized by endurance and authenticity. He highlights the struggles faced by Paul in his ministry, illustrating that even in the face of dishonor or persecution, a true ambassador for Christ remains anchored in the love of God. This theme of love resonates throughout the message, as Pastor Josh calls upon the congregation to evaluate their own affections and commitments. He articulates that misplaced love leads to instability, while authentic love for God fosters resilience and purpose. The discussion culminates in an appeal for believers to not only accept God's love but to actively express it through their lives, demonstrating that faithfulness is not merely about enduring hardship but flourishing in the richness of God's grace.

The message culminates in a powerful invitation for personal reflection and prayer, encouraging attendees to open their hearts to God's love and to consider how that love should shape their actions and relationships. Pastor Josh closes with a heartfelt reminder of the hope and strength found in Christ, urging listeners to fix their eyes on eternal truths rather than the fleeting pleasures of the world. This sermon not only serves as a theological exploration of love and endurance but also offers a practical framework for living out one's faith authentically in a complex world. As the congregation leaves, they are left with a renewed sense of purpose and a challenge to embody the love of Christ in all their interactions, ultimately fostering a community that reflects the heart of God.

Takeaways:

• The love of Christ compels us to serve and endure through life's challenges.
• We must focus our affections on God rather than the distractions of the world.
• True love for God is demonstrated through our obedience and commitment to His word.
• In ministry, there will be ups and downs, requiring us to maintain our faithfulness.
• Authentic love involves telling the truth, even when it’s difficult or uncomfortable.
• Our stability in faith comes from trusting in God’s truth, not our circumstances.

Links referenced in this episode:

• middletownbaptistchurch.org
• joshmissaro@middletownbaptistchurch.com

Thank you for joining our podcast. Visit our website at https://middletownbaptistchurch.org/

Subscribe to our YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@middletownbaptistchurchde5091

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This podcast is produced by Ralph Estep, Jr., host of the Ask Ralph Podcast, a daily podcast on Christian Finance you can find it at https://www.askralphpodcast.com/

Pastor Josh: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast, where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:06

My name is Pastor Josh and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:10

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:16

Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:23

I'd like you to turn with me, if you can, with your bibles, to two corinthians, chapter six.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:28

Second Corinthians, chapter six.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:30

Last week we looked at what it means to be a faithful servant of the Lord, an ambassador, as the Bible calls here in two corinthians.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:40

And we looked at what it means to be characterized by faith and endurance.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:45

How can we be servants of God, characterized by faith and endurance as ambassadors of God, we're called to be faithful to him in the ups and in the downs, in the easy and in the difficult.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:59

Sometimes it is very convenient for us to be ambassadors for Christ when everything's going our way, when everything's going well.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:05

But the true test for us as christians is to stay faithful, as the Bible says here, patient with endurance when the difficulties come.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:14

Now, I want you to be there in two corinthians, chapter six, and probably just look back a few verses.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:20

Maybe for you it's one page back, maybe for you it's on the same page, but two Corinthians, chapter five, verse 14.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:26

Paul explains his motivation behind all of this.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:30

He explains his motivation as being an ambassador for Christ.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:33

He explains his motivation for faithful servant, for service.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:37

He explains his motivation to be patient in endurance.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:42

He says it here in verse 14.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:44

He says, for the love of Christ, constraineth us.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:49

What that means is this.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:50

He says, it's the love of Christ that compels me to do this.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:54

It's not necessarily a fear of missing out.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:56

It's not necessarily a fear of judgment.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:59

But it is God's love that he has demonstrated for me that causes me to be compelled to do this for the Lord.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:06

And so as he lays out that new thought about being an ambassador, he says, it's because of the love of Christ.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:12

And then he goes through what that means to experience the love of Christ.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:15

In verse 17, he says, therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:20

Old things are passed away.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:21

Behold, all things are become new.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:24

And so he says, hey, this is what it looks like to experience the love of God, to be a new creation, to put your faith in the Lord and for him to forgive you for him to free you from the bondage of sin and for him to give you the opportunity to serve.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:36

And then he says in verse number 20 of chapter five, now then, we are ambassadors for Christ.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:42

As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead be reconciled to God.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:47

So he says, hey, now that you have experienced what it means to be an ambassador for Christ and your salvation, it's your job now to represent him so that others can become ambassadors.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:57

And then he gets into chapter six and he starts talking about what it means to be a faithful servant.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:01

It means to have endurance.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:03

It means to go through the ups and downs.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:04

And last week we looked at, he explained some difficulties.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:07

He says in verse five of chapter six, in stripes and imprisonments, and even before in verse four, he says, in afflictions and necessities and distresses.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:17

And so he says, there's going to be some difficulties.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:20

Remember, he gave the three groups of three.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:22

He said, the struggles that you're going to face, that we all face, the struggles that other people are going to bring to you, the struggles that you bring to yourself.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:29

But then he says, hey, there's also blessings in the difficulties.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:33

And he says in verse six, by pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, so he says, by authentic love.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:43

Then he says in verse seven, by the word of truth.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:47

Now we're going to refer back to verse seven quite frequently in this sermon this morning, because we have to go back to the word of truth to trust in what God has told us in our lives when we don't see it in front of us.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:58

So there's going to be times in our life where we are tempted to start to think that, hey, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:04:04

Maybe God doesn't love me.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:05

Maybe God has forgotten about me.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:07

Maybe it's not worth it to sacrifice.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:09

Maybe it's not worth it to preach the truth.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:11

Maybe it's not worth it to proclaim our thanksgiving to God.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:15

He says, no, you have to go back to the word of truth.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:17

It's by the word of truth that you can know these things.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:20

He says, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:26

And so we left off last week.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:28

In verse seven, he says, it must be by the word of truth.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:31

It must be by the power of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:33

It must be by the armor of righteousness that we have in our lives, that we are able to stay faithful to the Lord.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:39

And so in the passage we will look at this morning, we'll see how Paul ministered with differing results, but still kept his eyes on the truth.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:49

He's going to say, there's going to be times where people are going to praise you, but there's also going to be times where people condemn you.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:55

There's going to be times where people accept you, and there's gonna be times where people reject you.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:59

It doesn't mean that we quit in the difficult.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:01

It says here that we stay faithful in all of these things.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:04

And so Paul explains that this type of inner peace is found in what verse seven says, by the word of truth, by the power of God, and by the armor of righteousness.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:17

And so Paul keeps ministering in faithfulness because he keeps his eyes fixed on the truth, the truth of the love of goddess.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:24

And so Paul explains that this type of satisfaction can come in our lives when we open our hearts to the message of God and the move of God in our lives.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:33

And so the question is this morning, as you are serving God, and that's the assumption, that you're serving God as an ambassador for Christ.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:41

The first question that I want to ask you this morning is, who do we love the most?

Pastor Josh: 00:05:46

The second question is, what do we love the most?

Pastor Josh: 00:05:49

These are questions that matter.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:51

Why?

Pastor Josh: 00:05:51

Because the Bible says is what we love, is what we're gonna spend time on.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:55

What we treasure in our life is gonna be manifested by what we do, by what we invest, by where we struggle.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:03

Folks, if you love something, you're gonna struggle for it.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:06

If you love something, you're willing to endure.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:09

I love my children with all of my heart, and I know that some of you that are parents can attest to that.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:17

And there are days when I want to look at my children and say, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:06:20

Oh, I just don't want to be dad today.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:23

I don't want to discipline today.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:25

I don't want to go through this struggle today.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:27

But it's my love for them that trumps my struggle, because I say, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:06:32

I love them so much.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:32

I want them to be the adults that God wants them to be.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:35

So I'm going to invest.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:36

It's not because I feel good that day.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:39

It's not because everything's going well.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:40

It's because of my love for them overwhelmingly overpowers the struggle and the distress that I face in my life.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:48

It's the same thing when it comes to the purpose of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:50

If we love God more than whatever is in the blank here, we will be willing to go through the stresses and the struggles.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:57

There's a passage of scripture in the book of Matthew.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:59

Actually, it's Jesus teaching.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:00

In Matthew, chapter six, he teaches this very same principle.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:04

It matters what we love.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:07

It matters what we put our affections in.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:11

He says in Matthew, chapter six, verse 19, lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:25

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:29

So these are things that are going to last for eternity, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:38

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:43

The Bible says that what we treasure, what we love, what we desire for in our lives, that's where we're going to spend our time.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:50

That's where we're going to spend our affections.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:53

And so the truth is that as we minister in the message of the gospel, as we minister as Christians, as ambassadors for Christ, there are going to be some really, really good times, times where we feel comfortable, times where we feel exalted, times where we feel strengthened in the truth.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:10

But then there's also going to be times where we're tempted to fall into the trap of thinking that, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:08:15

It's not worth it.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:16

And Paul is going to list a few of those things here.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:18

He's going to list the paradox or the contradictions of ministry.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:24

And so I want you to look at verse number eight with me.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:26

This is our main text here this morning.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:31

And what Paul is going to describe for us this morning in this passage is if our heart is not set on the love of God, the difficulties that we face in our lives will outweigh the blessings that God gives us in service.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:46

So it goes back to the love, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:08:48

If I love God enough, the difficulties are nothing.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:50

If I don't love God, and I love the things of this world, I love my ego, I love my flesh, I love my praise, I love my position.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:57

When the struggles come, it's easy to say, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:09:00

These struggles outweigh the blessings, and I'm going to quit.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:03

I'm going to lose my patience.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:04

I'm going to lose my endurance.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:07

And so you have to remember the context of what Paul is dealing with here.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:11

If you go all the way back to the beginning of two corinthians, the corinthian church was accusing Paul of not loving them.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:18

That's where this all started.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:20

They said, paul, you don't love us.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:21

You say one thing and you do another.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:23

Your ministry doesn't match your heart.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:25

You are not the type of person that you told us you would be.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:29

You are not a faithful minister.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:31

And so he's facing accusations.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:33

He's actually facing the accusation of not loving them enough to not love them in a proper way.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:40

And so the corinthian Christians loved themselves and the things of this world more than the love of God and his word.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:49

I.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:49

And so they blame the flaws that they find in their own life on Paul and other ministers as an excuse for the problems.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:57

So they have some issues in their life, and they go, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:10:01

It's your fault, Paul, that we're not who we're supposed to be because you don't love us enough.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:05

You weren't the type of pastor that we expected you to be.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:08

So therefore, we're in these struggles.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:11

And so they're blaming, they're deflecting their problems on the issues of another instead of looking into their own hearts to see if they've received the love of God in their lives.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:20

And so Paul is going to address their love problem in this passage.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:25

Paul had no expectation of smoothness within ministry, and he doesn't portray that to them.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:30

And though there are blessings in ministry, there will be difficulties.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:34

But in the end, the source of Paul's faithfulness and the source of our faithfulness is in the truth of God and in his love.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:43

And so let's look at verse number eight.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:44

He says, by honor and dishonor.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:47

He says, sometimes in ministry, you will have honor.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:49

People will honor you.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:50

But there will also be times where people dishonor you.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:53

He says, by honor and dishonor by evil report and good report.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:58

There's gonna be people that give evil news about you, news that isn't true.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:02

But there's also gonna be people that give the truth, he says, as deceivers and yet true.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:09

Some people are gonna call you a liar.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:10

Some people are gonna call you a deceiver.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:11

Other people are gonna call you true as unknown and yet well known, meaning some people are going to act like you're an unknown person, and they're going to treat you that way.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:19

Other people are going to give you the respect of being a known speaker or a known pastor or a known christian, he says, as dying.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:26

And behold, we live.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:29

And that idea of dying is always being in threat of death, meaning there's going to be persecution around us in the threat of death, but in the same vein, always living as chastened and not killed as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing as poor, yet making many rich as having nothing and yet possessing all things.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:49

He says there's gonna be times in ministry where there's ups and downs.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:52

That's what he's explaining here.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:53

He's saying, hey, there's gonna be times where people praise you and give you honor.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:56

There's gonna be times where they dishonor you.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:59

There's gonna be times where you have all the things that you ever thought you needed, and there's gonna be times where you feel like you have nothing.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:04

It's gonna be up and down.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:05

There's gonna be a time where you feel like you're about to die.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:07

There's also gonna be a time where you feel like you're living.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:09

And there's all of this, in this contradiction of ministry.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:12

Folks, I wanna tell you here this morning that as you serve God, there will be difficulties.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:17

It will not be easy.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:18

There will be high, high blessings, but there will also be low times.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:22

I'm not here to tell you today that you should be like this all the time and emotionless throughout your life.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:26

There's gonna be shadows, and there's gonna be valleys, and there's gonna be difficulties.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:31

But what Paul says is that we can stay faithful to the truth of God and we can be faithful to his love in our life, so that those struggles and those difficulties don't define us.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:41

We see here that there were the descriptions of how the world defined him, and there's the descriptions of how God defined him.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:48

You know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:12:48

If someone comes and tells you something about yourself, it may be true or it may not be true, but they're not the ones that are going to be defining you.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:55

They're not the ones that are judging you.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:57

Ultimately, my concern is, how does God see me?

Pastor Josh: 00:13:00

So if someone comes up to me and they're mad, then I'm preaching the truth to them.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:03

At the end of the day, am I concerned about their opinion of me, or am I concerned about the opinion that God has of me?

Pastor Josh: 00:13:08

Have I been faithful to him?

Pastor Josh: 00:13:10

Folks, my goal is to be faithful to the church.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:12

My goal is to be faithful to my family.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:14

My goal is to be faithful to those around me.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:16

But ultimately, my faithfulness should be to the one who saved me.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:21

And that's hard because so many times we set our affections on the things of this world, because this is what we know.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:27

We set our affections on the things that we can taste and we can smell, and that we can touch and that we can see.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:33

But what the Bible says back in two corinthians is.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:36

That's not what we're living for.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:38

We're not living for the things of this world.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:42

We're living for the things that we don't see.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:44

If you go back to second Corinthians 418, Paul has been prepping them for this.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:49

Paul has been explaining to them that you don't live for what you see.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:53

Second Corinthians, chapter four, verse 18.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:55

He says, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:02

That's what Jesus was talking about in Matthew six.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:04

Those things that you're living for in this world, they're going to be corrupted.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:07

They're going to be gone one day.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:08

He says, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:12

So Paul says, in your service as an ambassador for Christ, focus on the things that are eternal.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:18

Focus on the souls of Mendez.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:20

Focus on the eternal investments that are gonna last forever, instead of the things that don't matter here on this earth, in this world.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:28

So he says, this is the contradiction of ministry.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:32

Honor, dishonest, dishonor, honesty, dishonesty, evil.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:37

Report good.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:38

Report, deceivers yet true, unknown, yet well known.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:41

Then he gets down to verse number eleven.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:45

We're gonna pause here right now, because I want you to see, number one, as a Christian, as an ambassador, you can have stability and instability.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:54

Stability and instability.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:56

What do I mean by that?

Pastor Josh: 00:14:57

There's gonna be times in your life where you have instability.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:02

There's gonna be unforeseen circumstances.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:06

We cannot control the circumstances that are around us.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:08

So around us, there can be instability.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:12

But the Bible says that as believers, as ambassadors for Christ, in the midst of instability, we can have stability.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:20

And that's all of what he's talking about there in verses eight through ten.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:24

It's the stability and instability.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:27

Sometimes in the christian life, we will be accepted and loved, but other times, we will be rejected and despised.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:34

And so Paul explains that no matter how we are treated, we find our stability in Christ, not in our surroundings.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:43

Where do you find your stability?

Pastor Josh: 00:15:45

Where do you find your foundation?

Pastor Josh: 00:15:47

Where do you find that center point in your life where you say, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:15:50

Whatever happens to me, I know this to be true?

Pastor Josh: 00:15:53

Well, if we use our circumstances for that stability, guess what?

Pastor Josh: 00:15:57

Our circumstances are going to be up and down.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:59

By honor and dishonor, by the truth and by lies.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:03

Folks, I could tell you that there are Sundays that I leave the service, and I'm like, wow, man, that was great.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:09

People came to Christ.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:10

People joined the church.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:11

People were baptized.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:12

And I'm, you know, running out on, you know, not even touching the ground.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:17

Like, I'm so excited.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:18

But there are also some days that things are difficult.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:21

Maybe some people, you know, didn't like what I said.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:25

Maybe there were times that, you know, the Sunday morning service didn't go the way that I expected it to go.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:30

Maybe I couldn't preach myself out of a wet paper bag that morning.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:33

And I'm like, I don't know where I'm at today.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:35

Okay?

Pastor Josh: 00:16:36

The truth is, is that sometimes as a minister of the gospel, I would find my satisfaction, I would find my stability.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:43

I would find my confidence in what was going on around me, how people reacted to my preaching.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:49

Well, if they all said, amen, I must feel good.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:51

And so it's a good day.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:52

If no one said anything, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:16:53

Then it's like, oh, I failed.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:55

Do you know how much of a rollercoaster that is?

Pastor Josh: 00:16:59

And you know how much you can be so devastated when things don't go your way?

Pastor Josh: 00:17:03

I think some of you know that.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:04

I think some of you understand that in your life.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:06

The Bible says that our stability cannot be found in our surroundings.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:10

Our stability has to be found in our savior Jesus Christ.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:13

If you look at Philippians chapter four with me, Philippians chapter four, Paul speaks to this very same principle.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:21

He's talking in Philippians chapter four about having joyous and rejoicing in the Lord.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:28

And we would expect Paul to say, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:17:30

Rejoice in the Lord when everything's going well.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:33

Well, yes, but he also says, rejoice in the Lord when everything is going on a more difficult path.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:42

And so Paul in Philippians chapter four is explaining to us that we should be rejoicing, that we should have joy.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:47

Rejoice in the Lord always.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:48

And again I say, rejoice.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:49

That's Philippians chapter four, verse four.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:51

But then we get down to verse number ten, and he says, but I rejoice in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me have flourished.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:58

So he says, hey, you guys have taken care of me, wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:04

Not that I speak of respect, of want.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:07

Verse eleven.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:07

For I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:13

Folks, that's what it means to be a faithful minister.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:16

I don't care.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:17

I'm what my surroundings are.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:19

I have learned that whatever situation that I have, I am content in Christ.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:23

He goes on to say in verse twelve, I know both how to be abased that means to be brought low.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:27

I know how to abound.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:29

That means I know what it means to be lifted up everywhere.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:32

And in all things, I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:35

So he says, I face having a lot.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:37

I face being hungry both to abound and to suffer need.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:41

And then he says, verse 13, you guys are all familiar with this verse.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:44

I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:47

Now, he's not saying I can do whatever I want to do.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:49

He's saying I can do anything that God has brought me to in my life because he's equipped me to do so.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:55

So Paul isn't talking here in verse 13 of Philippians four about, hey, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:18:59

I want to go do that.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:00

So I'm just going to go do it and God's going to bless me.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:01

That's not what he's saying.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:02

He's saying God has brought this into your life in the ministry, and therefore he's going to get you through it.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:08

You can do all those difficulties in Christ because he strengthens you.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:12

That's what he's talking about here.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:14

Now, it doesn't mean that we're hopeless and that we're helpless.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:17

It just means that if God has brought us to a place of victory, he's going to get us through that.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:21

If he's brought us to a place of difficulty, he's going to get us through that.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:25

And so stability in our service comes from inner peace that we find in a relationship with Christ and his word.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:33

And so go back to second corinthians with me.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:35

What does he say in second corinthians, chapter six, verse seven?

Pastor Josh: 00:19:38

It's by the word of truth.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:40

That is where we find our stability and service by the word of truth and by the power of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:47

That is where we go back to, folks.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:50

We have to think about our life as an ambassador, as a life based in the word.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:57

Therefore difficulties come.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:58

We think about it biblically.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:01

Conflict comes.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:02

We think about it biblically.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:04

Loss comes.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:05

We think about it biblically.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:06

Folks, the greatest advice that I've ever had from a person who was mentoring me in my life, he says, are you thinking?

Pastor Josh: 00:20:13

He asked me this question before and after I bring them all my struggles.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:17

Okay, I'll call them on the phone.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:18

I'll say, I won't say who it is, but I'll say, brother so and so.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:21

I'm going through this and this problem and he goes, are you thinking about it biblically?

Pastor Josh: 00:20:25

And I'm like, that's so mean.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:26

Why did he say that?

Pastor Josh: 00:20:27

He's supposed to tell me, yeah, those people are mean to me and that this is a bad.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:30

He doesn't say that, though.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:31

He says, I'm sorry that you're going through that, but are you thinking about this biblically?

Pastor Josh: 00:20:35

And that's a question that we all have to ask ourselves, because the truth is, is that many times we don't think about struggles biblically.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:41

We think about it in our flesh.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:43

Well, that person hurt me.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:44

That person was mean to me.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:46

So you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:20:47

I just.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:47

I'm.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:47

Woe is me, and I can't get through this.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:49

The bible says that thinking biblically about it doesn't mean that I think about it in my flesh.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:53

It doesn't mean that I think about it from the perspective of humanity.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:56

I think about it from the perspective of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:58

And what does the word of God have to say about this?

Pastor Josh: 00:21:00

And it could be different in different situations.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:03

Speaking of loss, you know, what does this loss mean for me?

Pastor Josh: 00:21:05

Well, biblically speaking, it means that ultimately God is never gonna leave me with something that I can't handle.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:12

You say, what does that mean?

Pastor Josh: 00:21:13

It means this.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:15

If God has allowed something to happen in my life, he's given me.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:17

This is one corinthians, chapter ten.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:20

He's given me an opportunity to overcome this in his power and in his grace.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:24

And so stability in our service comes from the inner peace that we have with a relationship with Christ and his word.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:30

I want you to think about that.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:31

So how can I have stability and instability to have a deeper relationship with Christ and his word?

Pastor Josh: 00:21:37

And then when struggles come, we begin to think about things biblically and believe in those things biblically.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:45

So we have here what it means to have stability and instability.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:49

But then I want you to see, number two, misplaced love.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:52

Because one of the reasons why we can have instability in our life is having our love appropriated to the wrong place.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:59

And that's what Paul talks about here in verse number eleven.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:02

He says, o ye corinthians.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:05

He's pleading with them.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:08

We're going to see later on in the next few verses that he's treating them as his spiritual children.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:12

It's how you speak to your child.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:13

Come on, oh, Corinthians.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:15

Come on, o ye Corinthians.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:17

Our mouth is open unto you.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:20

He says, we've preached to you the truth.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:22

We've given you the truth, because, remember, what are they accusing him of?

Pastor Josh: 00:22:25

They're accusing him of not loving them.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:28

And he says, I've told you the truth.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:30

I'm speaking the truth in love to you.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:32

He says, we've opened our mouth unto you.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:35

Our heart is enlarged.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:37

Now, that's a phrase that we don't use very frequently, but what he's saying here is, he says, I've opened my heart to you.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:42

Okay.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:43

I've opened my mouth in the truth, but I've opened my heart in love to you.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:47

What he's saying here is, I've given you the truth in love.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:52

I love you enough to tell you the truth.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:55

I've opened my heart to you.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:56

And the Bible speaks very clearly that the type of love that God calls us to have for other believers is agape love.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:04

A love that demonstrates.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:06

A love that proves.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:08

Now we know the greatest example of that is Jesus Christ.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:10

Jesus died on the cross for our sins.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:12

He proved his love for us.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:14

God proved his love for us.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:15

And so, therefore, what Paul is saying here is this, I don't care what you feel.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:20

I've already proven my love for you.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:22

I've opened my heart to you.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:24

I've enlarged my heart to you.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:27

And that's the thought that he's giving here.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:28

And so then he says, ye are not straitened in us.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:32

Now, you would say, what is he talking about here?

Pastor Josh: 00:23:34

They're telling him that they're constricted in their love because of what Paul has done.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:39

And so he says here, that's a word, straighten.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:42

It means to constrict or to squeeze or to stomp out.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:46

You're not strained in us, meaning we are not the ones holding you back for your love.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:51

We are not the ones that have stopped your love for God and for others.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:55

And for us, he says, but ye are straitened or constricted or squeezed in your own bowels, you would say, okay, what are we talking about here?

Pastor Josh: 00:24:07

Bowels was a common reference to their affections, their love, okay.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:12

In that culture, they didn't always see the heart as the seat of their love.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:16

It was their bowels that, you know, you feel it in your gut, is what they would say.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:20

A lot of times, the reference to heart was their mind actually different than our culture today.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:26

Now, when people say, trust your heart, we mean trust your emotions.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:29

But back then, when they were talking about their heart, they were talking about their intellect.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:33

But in this case, they're talking about the.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:36

The affections.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:37

And so what does he say here?

Pastor Josh: 00:24:38

So you could say that word bowels could be affections.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:41

And so what he's saying here is this.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:42

Okay, in everyday English, what Paul is explaining to them is this.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:47

It's not our fault that you're not loving.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:49

It's your fault that you're not loving properly because of your own affections.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:53

Your love has changed from a healthy love to an unhealthy love, an unhealthy love for the wrong things.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:01

And so what he's saying here, he's saying this, you've misplaced your affections.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:05

You've misplaced your love.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:08

Your love for God has been changed to a love for this world.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:14

Your love for others has been changed for a love for yourself.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:19

It's misplaced love.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:22

And so the corinthian Christians accuse Paul of not loving them, but Paul tells them that they can't blame him for the lack of love that they have for the Lord.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:31

It's their own struggle, it's their own affections that have been changed from the appropriate to the inappropriate.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:38

Now, you would say, what did the corinthian church love?

Pastor Josh: 00:25:41

Well, by context, we're gonna talk about it next week, they love the world too much.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:46

We're gonna talk next week about what it means to be unequally yoked with the world.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:50

And so we know by context, the corinthian church loved the world too much.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:53

They loved the things of this world too much.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:55

They love themselves too much.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:58

And so what we see here is the reason why many christians are not where we need to be when it comes to our faithfulness to God and our service to God is because our love has been misappropriated away from him and to the others that he calls us to love to ourselves and to this world.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:13

We love ourselves too much to love others.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:16

We love the world too much to love God.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:19

You say, well, I don't love the world.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:21

I love God with all my heart.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:23

Go back to that first question that I asked you.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:26

What do you love in this world?

Pastor Josh: 00:26:28

What you love is what you spend time with.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:30

What you love is what you sacrifice for.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:33

What you love is what you're willing to suffer for.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:35

The true test is not what you say.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:38

The true test is what you do.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:41

So if you want to really take an account of what you love in your life, look into your life, inspect your life.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:47

Well, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:26:47

The first time someone comes against me, when it comes to ministry, I'm gone.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:51

Forget it.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:52

They don't deserve my love.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:54

You don't love God?

Pastor Josh: 00:26:55

Then what if my wife came up to me and she said, you know, honey, I think that, you know, you should wash the dishes.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:01

You're not really helping me with anything.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:02

Well, come on, you don't love me I'm gone.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:04

See you later.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:06

Do I really love her?

Pastor Josh: 00:27:07

No.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:07

I'm just looking for an excuse to go.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:09

First thing comes up, problem.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:10

All right, I'm gone.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:11

I don't love her.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:12

I'm not willing to do anything for her if I'm not willing to do that same thing with God.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:16

If we truly love him, we're willing to go through the ups and the downs and the struggles and say, no, I'm pushing forward for the bigger picture.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:23

That's love.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:25

So the reason why we love God is because of what he has done for us.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:30

The Bible says in one john, chapter four, we love him because he first loved us.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:35

We don't start loving him and then receive his love and go, wow, that love's pretty good.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:39

No, it's because of his love for us that we even have an opportunity to love him and to love love others.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:45

And so we are designed as human beings to love.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:49

But sometimes we love the wrong things and therefore miss the opportunity to experience the overwhelming love of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:56

So go back to second corinthians, chapter six.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:59

He says, you are not straitened in us, but ye are strained in your own bowels or your own affections.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:05

Now for a recompense in the same I speak as unto my children, be ye also enlarged.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:11

He says, open your hearts to the love of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:14

And when you open your hearts to the love of God and live in the love of God, you're able to reciprocate that love to him and then ultimately love those around you.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:24

And so Paul is explaining to them that your love is in the wrong place, and Paul is showing them love by telling them the truth.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:34

That's one of the best things that we can do to someone that we love, is to tell them the truth.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:38

And so Paul is right here proving his love for the corinthian church, whether they like it or not.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:42

Because when we do things in love, a lot of times people expect it to be like we talked about, I think, last week.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:50

Oh, well, it's condoning everything.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:52

It's accepting everything.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:53

No, the Bible says that that is not the true test of love.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:56

The true test of love is, are we willing to tell someone the truth.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:59

Now, sometimes we can tell people the truth without love, but when we've proven our faithfulness to somebody, then we can tell them the truth.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:07

We do it in grace, we do it in patience, we do it in sacrifice.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:12

And so he says, it is now time for you to open your hearts.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:16

And so they blame Paul.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:18

But the truth was, it was their responsibility to rest in the love of God that drives us forward in our service.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:25

And so the real problem was that the corinthian church was restricted by their own affections.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:31

They were held back by their own affections.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:34

And so it wasn't that Paul, like, didn't love them or didn't love them enough, which was the claim that they had.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:41

It was that they loved themselves too much, that they loved the world too much.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:47

It was their own affections that restricted them.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:50

I want you to see in one John, and obviously one John has a lot to say about love, but if you go to one John, chapter two, I want you to see something about what the Bible says about loving the world.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:01

The Bible says that as christians, one of the temptations that we will have is to love the world too much.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:07

We're in the world, but we're not of the world.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:09

That's what should be our testimony.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:12

Hey, I'm living in this world, but I don't love it enough.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:14

I don't love it at all.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:16

I shouldn't love it.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:17

One John 215.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:21

This is God's call for us as christians when it comes to loving the world.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:26

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:30

If any man loved the world, the love of the father is not in him.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:33

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the father, but is of the world.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:39

And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:42

But he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:46

The Bible says here that all that is in the world is this.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:52

The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:58

What feels good, what looks good, and what lifts you up, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:31:04

Lust of the flesh, what feels good, lust of the eyes, what I want, what I desire, and the pride of life, what lifts me up.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:10

And so to be opposite of that would be to not go after the things that feel good, to not seek after those things that catch my eye in selfishness, in covetousness, and then ultimately not what lifts me up, but what lifts the Lord up.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:24

So what Satan does, Satan always tries to twist what God has already created to be good.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:30

You see that, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:31:31

God defines something.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:33

Satan twists it.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:34

Satan is not a creator.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:35

The enemy is not a creator.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:36

He doesn't create something new.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:38

All he tries to do is twist what has already been created.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:41

See it from the very beginning in the garden, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:31:43

He was just trying to twist already what was there.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:45

Satan tries to redefine marriage.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:47

He tries to redefine truth, he tries to redefine sexuality, he tries to redefine all these different things, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:31:53

He tries to redefine what the word of God says.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:56

You see that back with Jesus in Matthew, chapter four.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:59

Satan comes and tries to twist the word to Jesus, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:32:02

He tries just to move it just a little bit away from the truth so that there can be sin.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:06

And so what we can see here in this case is that there is the opposite of the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:13

And that is to exalt Christ, to worship him, to die to our flesh, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:32:18

What does the New Testament say that a Christian should do to our flesh?

Pastor Josh: 00:32:21

Die to it, mortify our members, put it on a cross, kill it.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:25

It's not our desires that we should follow.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:28

The Bible says the love of money, the love of covetousness, is the root of all evil, all kind of evil.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:36

And so we see over and over again the opposite that the world preaches is what God preaches.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:41

The pride of life.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:42

The pride of life is essentially this, worshiping yourself.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:46

We are beings created to worship.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:49

All of us worship something.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:50

Some of us worship a celebrity.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:53

Some of us worship ourselves.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:54

Some of us worship a sports figure.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:56

Some of us worship money.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:57

Some of us worship whatever it is.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:00

But the truth is, is that all of us are created to worship.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:03

Really.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:03

There's only one person to worship, and that is God.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:05

That's the only person, as we sang this morning, that's worthy of our worship and worthy of our praise.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:10

Why do we worship him?

Pastor Josh: 00:33:12

Well, I'll give you an analogy that I think is the case.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:15

And I think this is something that we can say is point number three.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:19

We had misappropriated love, and now we see authentic love.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:23

How do we prove our love?

Pastor Josh: 00:33:25

Why should we prove our love to God?

Pastor Josh: 00:33:27

Well, because the Bible calls us to have authentic love.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:30

If you go back and look with me to verse number six, what was one of the character traits of being a faithful servant?

Pastor Josh: 00:33:36

At the end of verse number six, in two corinthians, it says, love unfeigned, authentic love.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:42

And so instead of misappropriated love, there's authentic love that we are supposed to have in our lives for God.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:49

Now let me give you a little bit of an example about this.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:55

I go to my son's flag football games, okay?

Pastor Josh: 00:33:58

And Mike is out there playing flag football, and I'm sitting on the front row.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:03

I'm so invested, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:34:04

Come on, Micah, get in the play, run the ball, you know, catch the ball, tag this guy, pull the flag.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:10

Now if Micah did not play flag football, do you think I would be showing up on a Saturday morning and being like, I want to watch third and fourth grade flag football?

Pastor Josh: 00:34:22

Okay, no.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:23

So let me give you a hint.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:24

Third and fourth grade flag football means nothing to me.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:28

But it's because my son, who I love, is playing.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:34

And so I get excited at a third and fourth grade flag football game when someone scores a touchdown because my son's involved.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:41

It's my love for him that drives my excitement.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:45

It's not the actual event itself that drives the excitement.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:48

So you say, why do we worship God?

Pastor Josh: 00:34:50

We worship God because we love him.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:54

Everything that we do in our lives should be an excitement because of what Jesus Christ has done for us.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:59

We worship him because of our love for him.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:03

We get excited for our children because of our love for them.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:06

We get excited for t ball games because of our love for the person in the tee ball game.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:11

Now, if some of you guys were like, I like to go out and watch five year old t ball games, they're just so intrigued.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:15

No, come on.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:17

We do it because we love them.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:18

And so why do we worship?

Pastor Josh: 00:35:20

Well, we worship because we get together on Sunday mornings and God commands us to worship.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:26

Does God command us to worship?

Pastor Josh: 00:35:27

Yes, but if the reason why we come in and worship is because God commands us to worship the heart of it's not there, I guess I gotta get up on Sunday morning and worship.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:37

This is my 1 hour of worship today, folks.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:41

The Bible says that we are to live lives characterized by worship.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:44

Whatsoever you do in your life, whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all the glory of God, we're to worship him all the time.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:51

Well, I gotta go ahead and pry myself out of bed, get my coffee, get to church.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:55

And how long is that preacher gonna preach today?

Pastor Josh: 00:35:57

We got things we gotta get to today.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:59

I get it.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:59

I understand, I understand that.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:02

But the truth is, is that if we are needing exterior motivation to worship our God, we have an issue with our love.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:10

We need to worship him out of a love that God has already given us in one John, chapter four.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:16

We love him because he first loved us.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:18

And so Paul's call to action for these people was to open their hearts to the love of God, to really understand the love of God, so that we can love him by our worship and so that we can love others as he's called us to worship.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:33

So how do we genuinely display the love of goddess.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:36

Well, it's ultimately this keeping our eyes fixed on him.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:39

And the Bible says in scripture, this is not Pastor Josh's opinion.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:43

You can check me on this, but in many passages of scripture, it says that loving God is proven by how we obey him.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:51

Okay, the Bible says there's a lot of things that we can do as christians, but the thing that shows our love for him is to hear his word, heed his word and obey his word.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:05

Right?

Pastor Josh: 00:37:06

That's the true test.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:07

Do I love God enough to be changed?

Pastor Josh: 00:37:12

Do I love God enough to say this is what his word says?

Pastor Josh: 00:37:14

And I'm willing, even though it's not something that I want to do, I will do it because I love him?

Pastor Josh: 00:37:19

That's the true test.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:21

The true test is not.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:21

Well, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:37:22

I come every Sunday, pastor.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:24

What else do you ask from me?

Pastor Josh: 00:37:26

I could be out at the beach.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:28

I could be at the ball game.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:29

Well, yeah, this is one step of being here.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:32

But we all know that we can be in our place on Sunday morning and have zero love.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:37

Just like we know that there can be marriages that a husband and wife can be in the same room.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:42

But there could be issues.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:45

We know that there could be instances where, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:37:47

I go to work.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:48

Every Monday morning, I'm here at work.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:51

But how many of us could say, hey, I can be at a job that I don't love, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:37:55

So we can actually, at some point in time see our christian faith as a job that I come in and I punch my ticket and I do my stuff and I go home and I'm not, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:38:08

I got this problem and this problem and this problem, and you know, it's that person's Fault or it's that person's fault.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:13

Paul says it's not anybody else's fault except for you and the fact that you have constricted your love for God because of your own affections.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:22

And so there must be this authentic love.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:24

Colossians chapter three says for us to keep our eyes fixed on the Lord, our eyes fixed on the things which are above.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:32

I want you to go see that.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:33

Colossians chapter three.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:34

Colossians chapter three is talking about setting our affections in the right place.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:39

Now, there is going to be times in our life where we are tempted to lose sight of this.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:46

Like so.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:47

For example, when I wake up in the morning as a husband, I wish I could tell you that every morning that I wake up as a husband, I'm like, wow, this is like sunshine and rainbows.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:56

It's a movie.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:57

It's a love movie every single day.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:59

And my wife and I just get up and.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:00

Good morning, honey.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:01

And everything's just great.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:02

No, there is going to be times where I wake up and because of whatever happened this time or whatever's happening in my own life, that there could be a strain on the love that I have with my wife.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:12

And some of you that are perfect in your marriage go.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:14

We've never had that problem.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:15

Okay, well, come on out to the next marriage conference and you could be the speaker.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:20

Okay, but here's the thing.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:22

As a husband and wife, because many of us know that analogy, it doesn't mean that our love is gone.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:27

It just means that our love can be strained for whatever reason.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:31

And so there's things in our life as a Christian that even though we know that God loves us and even though we have a desire to love our lord, there can be things that strain that love.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:40

And we could say, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:39:41

My eyes are not on the right.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:42

My eyes are on the fact that, hey, hey, that stuff in the kit, you know, I don't know if any of you guys have ever played this game before.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:49

Okay, there's dirty dishes in the sink and who's going to touch it first?

Pastor Josh: 00:39:54

Okay, we're just going to keep walking by and go, okay.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:56

Hopefully she saw that and we're going to do a stalemate.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:59

We're going to see how long it's going to go.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:00

Right now.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:01

Some of you go, no, we never have that problem.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:03

Okay, well, for you it might be something else, but the truth is that there's times in our life where we can say, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:40:08

I'm not going to look to the vow that I made to my spouse.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:11

I'm not going to look to what they have done over and over and over again by proving their love to me.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:15

All I'm going to do is look at that very moment.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:17

They hate me because they're not doing that.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:20

And the truth is that there's some times in our christian life that we don't go back to the word of truth.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:24

We don't go back to everything that we know about God and his covenant to us and his love for us.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:29

We go to that very instance of that circumstance and go, no, he must not love me because that's not what he would do if he loves me and therefore, I'm not going to love him.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:37

But what does colossians chapter three, verse one says?

Pastor Josh: 00:40:39

It says, if ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, that's the eternal, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:48

And then here it is, verse two.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:49

Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth, for ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:57

When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:02

So he says this, he says, don't set your affections on the things of this world that are pulling your attention away from God, your affections away from God.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:09

Set your affections, set your eyes on the things of God and the things that are eternal.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:13

Because you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:41:14

It's not going to matter what happens on the day to day.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:16

It's not going to matter what happens in the case of the ups and downs of life, because you're going to stay faithful to him.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:22

And that's endurance, keeping your eyes fixed on what God has done for you, what he's already proven to you in his love.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:28

God has proven his love towards you.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:30

First, John, chapter four, verse 16.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:35

And we have known and believed the love of God hath to us.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:38

God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:44

I can say that that's maybe the summary verse here this morning.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:47

And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:53

At some point in your life, if you're a believer this morning, you have known and believed in the love of goddesse.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:01

And we have to know and believe that God is love and that he dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:10

He that dwelleth in love, he that is known by love, he that rests in the love of God, is resting and dwelling in God.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:16

And so to rest in God is to rest in love, love for God and love for others.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:22

And so I would tell you here this morning, the fix is not just try really, really hard to keep loving other people and loving God.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:28

It's dwelling in Christ, it's dwelling in him.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:31

It's living in that love.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:32

It's being bathed by that love every single day.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:35

Lord, I know that you love me.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:37

I know what your word says.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:38

I know what you've shown me in my life.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:40

And so therefore, I'm not going to allow these affections of my own flesh to pull me away from the affections that I have for you.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:47

I go back to the marriage situation because I know that's applicable for many of us.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:54

Even if it's not applicable to you, you can understand the marriage love.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:59

If my wife, if I go to my wife and I say, hey, I love you so much, but all I do is spend time with other people.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:06

I go spend time with other women.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:08

And she goes, well, he says he loves me, but he's showing those people love all the time.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:13

What I'm doing is I'm loving, but I'm misappropriating that love.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:17

That should go to her, to somebody else, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:43:21

I'm taking the love that I should give to her, and I say, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:43:24

I'm going to give it to someone else, someone who does not deserve that type of love.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:28

That's the exact same thing we do to God.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:31

The love that we are to have in worship, the love that we are to have in devotion and sacrifice and service should all go to him.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:39

But what do we do?

Pastor Josh: 00:43:40

We take little parts of that love.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:41

We might not take all of it, but we might take portions of that love and appropriate it to someone else or something else in our lives.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:47

So what do we say?

Pastor Josh: 00:43:48

We say, well, God, I love you.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:49

I give you this much.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:50

You should be thankful with this much.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:52

He doesn't want part of us.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:53

He doesn't want a little bit.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:55

He wants everything.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:57

He wants us all.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:58

He wants us to be completely committed to him in every way.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:01

And that is what it means to dwell in him.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:04

And so Paul says, that is endurance.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:08

That is patience, that is sacrifice.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:12

That is what it means to be an ambassador for Jesus Christ, to love him completely and to dwell in him and allow the love of God to compel us to service and to sacrifice.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:23

Folks, I'm gonna tell you here this morning, you can set your affections on other things.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:30

You have the freedom to do that.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:31

God's not gonna strike you dead here this morning.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:33

If you love something else, it doesn't make him happy.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:37

It doesn't give him joy in your life, but you have the freedom to love whatever you wanna love.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:41

But why would we set our affections on anything else outside of the truth of Jesus Christ?

Pastor Josh: 00:44:46

That's what Paul was telling the corinthian church.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:48

You guys are constricting yourselves because of your affections.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:51

Now we're gonna look next week at what their affections really were.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:54

It was essentially they were yoking up with the things of this world too much.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:58

They were loving the things of this world too much, and they were trying to meld together the world and their faith, and they wanted the best of both worlds.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:10

And what the Lord's going to tell us in this passage is that you can't love the world and love God at the same time.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:15

It's not going to work.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:17

And so next week, I want you to come back because we're going to talk about what it means to be unequally yoked.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:22

Some of you might say, well, I know what that means.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:23

That means when a husband and wife are not christians, like one is a believer and one's not a believer.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:29

That's one instance of that.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:30

Yes, we will talk about that, but we're also going to talk about the deeper understanding of what it means to be unequally yoked with this world.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:37

And it ties right together with that last phrase that Paul gave.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:40

Your affections.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:40

You're constricted by your own affections, the love for this world.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:44

Now, you would say, well, pastor, do you completely love God and never love this world?

Pastor Josh: 00:45:49

No, folks, these are things that we're going to struggle with for the rest of our lives.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:52

Why?

Pastor Josh: 00:45:52

Because the world is attractive.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:54

The world is what we see.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:55

The world is what we know.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:57

And therefore, that is why we as christians are so attached to this world.

Pastor Josh: 00:46:00

But the more we love God and the more we spend time with him and the more we appreciate his love for us, our grip on this world becomes less and less.

Pastor Josh: 00:46:09

And eventually that grip hopefully is released, and hopefully we can cling on to him more and more, and those things of earth will go strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

Pastor Josh: 00:46:19

And so I want you to think about those three things here this morning, starting out with that idea of stability and instability, and then what missed a place love looks like.

Pastor Josh: 00:46:31

And ultimately God's call for us to have authentic love for him and for others.

Pastor Josh: 00:46:36

I'm gonna ask if you're able to stand with me, every head bowed, every eye closed, as the music plays.

Pastor Josh: 00:46:40

This morning, we're gonna have an opportunity to respond to him.

Pastor Josh: 00:46:44

I hope that that very first question that I asked you this morning is something you've been thinking about.

Pastor Josh: 00:46:50

Who or what are you setting your affections on?

Pastor Josh: 00:46:54

Who do you love the most in this world?

Pastor Josh: 00:46:59

Many of us, if we were honest, at some point in our lives, we would say, man, I love me more than anything else.

Pastor Josh: 00:47:06

I'm willing to do anything to protect me.

Pastor Josh: 00:47:09

The truth is, the Bible says that's the pride of life.

Pastor Josh: 00:47:13

So I would ask you this morning, who do you love?

Pastor Josh: 00:47:16

Who do you love most?

Pastor Josh: 00:47:18

The second question is, what do you love most?

Pastor Josh: 00:47:20

What things are you loving in your life?

Pastor Josh: 00:47:22

What are you spending the most time on?

Pastor Josh: 00:47:24

The Bible says it is the word of God that we should base our faith off of, not circumstances.

Pastor Josh: 00:47:32

I know it's easy to love those things.

Pastor Josh: 00:47:34

But the Bible says that we have to have that stability and instability by having authentic love instead of misplaced love.

Pastor Josh: 00:47:40

Maybe you've been misplacing your love here today.

Pastor Josh: 00:47:43

Maybe you've been misplacing your love when it comes to your family, when it comes to the Lord, when it comes to your service.

Pastor Josh: 00:47:49

Maybe you've been so focused on the things of this world that it's been stealing your love from the things that it should be going to.

Pastor Josh: 00:47:54

Maybe you're allowing the world to steal your love from your spouse.

Pastor Josh: 00:48:00

Maybe you're allowing the world to steal your love for your children.

Pastor Josh: 00:48:03

Maybe you're allowing, most importantly, the love of this world to steal your love away from God and his word.

Pastor Josh: 00:48:10

There's no shame in that other than the fact that, hey, I need to get that right.

Pastor Josh: 00:48:14

I need to respond right now.

Pastor Josh: 00:48:16

I don't want to be like the corinthian christians who have been so constricted by my own affections that I'm not able to open and enlarge my heart to the truth of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:48:24

The title of the sermon this morning was essentially this, open your hearts to the love of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:48:29

Open your hearts.

Pastor Josh: 00:48:30

Be willing to be used by God and allow his love to compel you.

Pastor Josh: 00:48:34

Maybe you need to go back to say, Lord, it is your love that drives me to serve.

Pastor Josh: 00:48:38

It is your love that drives me to study.

Pastor Josh: 00:48:40

It is your love that drives me to sacrifice.

Pastor Josh: 00:48:43

It is your love that drives me to a place of submission.

Pastor Josh: 00:48:46

To you.

Pastor Josh: 00:48:49

Lord, I pray that you be in this time of invitation.

Pastor Josh: 00:48:52

Pray that you work in hearts and lives.

Pastor Josh: 00:48:54

Pray if there's someone here this morning who does not know you as savior, maybe they have not tasted the love of forgiveness and truth, that today can be the day of salvation, that today can be the day of forgiveness.

Pastor Josh: 00:49:06

We thank you for loving us so much that you sent your only begotten son.

Pastor Josh: 00:49:09

We thank you for the hope that we can have that when we trust in you, in faith, that we can know you and to live and dwell in you and ultimately know that we have eternal life with you in heaven forever.

Pastor Josh: 00:49:20

Because of your forgiveness of our sins and because of your sacrifice.

Pastor Josh: 00:49:24

We thank you for conquering death and giving us hope in life.

Pastor Josh: 00:49:27

Pray that you be in this time of invitation.

Pastor Josh: 00:49:29

Pray that you work in hearts and lives in Jesus name.

Pastor Josh: 00:49:31

Amen.

Pastor Josh: 00:49:32

As the music plays, come here, the altar this morning set your affections on the things above, not the things which are of this earth.

Pastor Josh: 00:49:40

If you need Jesus Christ as your savior this morning, we have some folks standing up here.

Pastor Josh: 00:49:44

We can show you in the word of God, what it means to know him and to trust in him.

Pastor Josh: 00:49:48

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast.

Pastor Josh: 00:49:52

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

Pastor Josh: 00:49:54

If you would like to find out more information about our church or this sermon, you can find us@middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

Pastor Josh: 00:50:04

You can also email me directly at joshmissaro@middletownbaptistchurch.com.

Pastor Josh: 00:50:09

if you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and follow along for future podcasts and updates.

Pastor Josh: 00:50:16

Thank you so much.

Pastor Josh: 00:50:17

God bless.

Pastor Josh: 00:50:18

Have a wonderful day.