We can often think of what God commands but miss out on the heart of what God desires. Martin Chairez helps us see several of God's desires that are simply beautiful.

Click here to donate to the program

Click here for more sermons

OC Church of Christ

Today.

Uh, it's such a special day.

We get to be together as a north to celebrate God, to celebrate

the faithfulness of God.

I love when we're together.

I love hearing us sing to God in both languages.

It's such an important thing to God for people to hear the good

news in their native language.

In Acts chapter two, as the first message of the resurrected Lord is preached,

it was important for the Holy Spirit to communicate that message in all languages.

In fact, the reason the people run to the apostles, it says there, we hear

you declaring the wonders of God.

In our native language.

And so today we participate in those values of God.

Not to communicate language through a translation device.

Though there's time in a season for that.

But to instead to celebrate language publicly as God does.

Amen.

It's a special day because we can celebrate the values of God, the values

of language, the importance of being able to transmit the language to God.

Most of us are bilingual, whether we accept it or not.

But it's different when you have to speak things from the heart and deep down.

You get the Spanish, right?

Today we're going to be talking about God's

God's desires in the Spanish ministry.

We've been in the Gospel of John, uh, for the last six months.

You know, one of the themes in the gospel of John is for

us to be able to fully grasp.

The desires of God and the gospel of John desires are very important,

maybe more than actions because if you have the right desires,

the actions fall into place.

And so we, we're going to see today the desires of God in the gospel of John.

a sales that he owes.

In Ellio,

the gospel of John is full of all of this beautiful imagery and it's very

different than all the other gospels.

Can we dive deep for here for a little bit?

In the other gut three gospels, it is revealed who Jesus is towards

the end of the gospel at the cross.

There's aha moments.

Surely this is the son of God.

In resurrection, eyes are opened, minds are open.

It's revealed who Jesus was all along.

But in the gospel of John, there is no mystery to who Jesus is.

Because in chapter 1, it tells us explicitly who Jesus is.

The work of the gospel of John for us as readers, as an audience, as

followers, as believers, is for us to walk with Jesus, us knowing who Jesus is.

And as people interact with Jesus, they'll either respond to Jesus or reject Jesus.

And they become examples for us, models.

Are we rejecting?

Jesus, the way this person rejected Jesus, am I recognizing and accepting Jesus

the way this person is accepting Jesus?

And so we have this beautiful journey that helps us tune into God's desires.

Amen.

Como hemos hablado en el mundo de Juan, vemos como los deseos son tan importantes.

Desde el principio sabemos quien es Jesus.

He thought of DC.

Como responde, uh, another thing that is really obvious in the

gospel of John is that every time a person or a group interact with

Jesus, two things are revealed.

One, that person in that group already has faith and Jesus

doesn't condemn that faith.

Jesus meets them where they're at and then calls them to the faith that God desires.

So we see a Jesus that's not walking around just proving people wrong.

We see a Jesus who's walking around meeting people where they're at.

Explaining, teaching, persuading, demonstrating that the faith they

have is good but not complete.

And so they have to choose.

Do I keep the faith that I have my values, my traditions, or do I

take the faith that Jesus desires?

Are you with me right here?

Can you think of an examples?

Like the Samaritan woman doesn't condemn her faith.

As you guys believe in this mountain worship really is coming from this

mountain, but there's a third mountain.

And so he's constantly moving people into the faith that God desires.

Is that not true about us?

Is God not constantly at work in our lives, trying to move us from

assumptions and labels, from numbness and religiosity, into a living

relationship with the living, present God?

So in many ways, we're living out the Gospel of John.

Jesus.

So what we're gonna do right now is gonna do a quick run through of.

Some themes of God's desires in the Gospel of John

I, Juan,

sorry, this should be John one verse, uh, 38.

Jesus.

It's actually John chapter one.

The first question that Jesus asked in the gospel of John is, what do you want?

In Spanish is que buscas?

What do you want?

The literal translation is que quieres?

Sounds rude in Spanish.

The literal translation of que buscas in English is, what are you looking for?

So, what do you want can sound rude.

There's a lot of negative association with that question.

What do you want?

Can

you try to make that sound nice?

What do you want?

What do you want?

It just sounds rude and cold, right?

We can ask it in Spanish, que buscas, que buscas, what are you looking for?

Another theme in the Gospel of John.

Is the tone of Jesus's words.

You see, all of our life growing up in church.

And I'm at fault as a preacher.

We have projected our tone to Jesus.

And so we at sometimes can have an irritated, impatient

tone that we give to the Lord.

But if we're able to erase all of that and allow ourselves to

read and wonder, I wonder what was the tone when he said this.

Because we hear Gospel of John quoted, I am the truth, the, in kind of a prideful,

arrogant, debate mode sort of tone.

But when you read it in the context, it was a different kind of tone.

It was a tone of invitation.

It was a tone of compassion.

It was a tone of connection,

and so the gospel of John should, if we read it, well, recover for us.

God's desires and God's tone.

Jesus.

Jesus.

Jesus.

And this is important because sometimes we can pass that on to our children.

A God that just wants you to obey, submit, trust, surrender,

behave, , and yet we see.

Jesus being okay with people not getting it, but he's going

to come back around again.

Vemos al Jesús que cuando la gente no lo entiende, él se va.

No rechazando, pero dándole un espacio porque va a regresar otra vez.

Let's go to the next slide.

So that was

the first question.

Esa fue la primera pregunta que buscas.

What are you looking for?

And if we go to the end of the gospel of John,

there's another question, and the question is, do you love me?

There's over 52 questions that Jesus asked in the gospel that

is asking in the Gospel of John.

Those are all intentional questions written in order.

To communicate something.

All these questions are intentional.

In order, in consequence.

To communicate something.

Can we go to the next slide?

We see from first creation.

What are you looking for?

The first creation.

What are you looking for?

Post resurrection.

New creation.

Do you love me?

So in some ways, Jesus is asking in the first question.

Do you love me?

Or what do you love?

Because what you love is who you are.

What you desire is who you are.

Now, the great thing, if the desires aren't lined up with

God, the Gospel of John should be forming and lining up your desires.

So what are you looking for?

Do you love me?

But in between those two questions, there's a consistent encounter

with people and groups to help us have the desires that God has.

So right now you and I we're in between these two questions,

and so the first question sh displays that God actually cares what we desire.

He's interested in what we desire.

And so there's a posture here where Jesus says, Hey, they're

like, where are you staying?

They're like, come to my place.

And they stayed there the whole day.

And they probably sat down and just connected.

Probably symbolic that it says that day they stayed with him.

Probably means that's the beginning of their belief.

So God is interested.

What do you want?

What are you feeling?

What do you care for?

What do you desire?

So whether we believe or not fully yet, we can all understand and agree.

There's a God who meets us where we're at and invites us

to be part of the relationship.

He doesn't say you need to believe this or else better think about it.

Life ain't forever.

That's not his tone.

You want is such a profound quote.

What do you desire?

Jesus asks what

do you desire?

Take your time.

Show us the respect that God has for us.

That he includes us in the

And then he walks with these guys.

Once he's raised from the dead, he sits with them again, talks to Peter

specifically, but they're all listening.

Do you love me?

There wasn't a command.

There was a question.

He didn't give them a commission.

He gave them an invitation.

Are you, are we going to have a relationship for

the rest of our time here?

And I find that beautiful because now Peter can answer that question,

not based on some abstract belief, but on the actual encounters and

relationships and teachings and life.

An example of Jesus.

Pedro can now answer that question, not based on a doctrine, but based on the

interactions, teachings, examples, and relationships he has had with Jesus.

So we find in John the intentional, the intentionality

of God, who, pre resurrection, is asking profound questions.

Post resurrection.

Is asking profound questions, and so now they have all the information they need

to, to be able to answer that question.

El Dios que nos pregunta

antes de resurrección, una pregunta de muy, profunda.

And that's beautiful.

Now we're in John chapter 3, let's, let's run through some of these things.

For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world,

but to save the world through him.

Em.

One of the most quoted scriptures in the world, but often quoted

with a condemnation tone with a, with a threat kind of tone.

There's no threat here.

There's an invitation.

And so from the beginning, Gospel of John is clearly showing us that God

desires salvation, not condemnation.

Desde el principio vemos el deseo de Dios, que desea salvación, no condenación.

We go to the next slide in John chapter 10, Jesus says this, the reason the

father loves me is that I laid down my life only to take it up again.

No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own accord.

I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.

This command I receive from my father.

What desires?

Are displayed here.

What desires are communicated here?

Jesus.

Another unique thing focused in the Gospel of John that's connected to

desires is that in the Gospel of John, no one, as Jesus says, takes his life.

So the dominant image for us of Jesus taking the cross is Matthew 26.

Beautiful passage has meant so much to so many of us, and the Bible is

not comparing which one's better.

It's just giving us different angles of the cross.

You with me right here?

That's hard for us to think, because we think this is right, this is wrong.

There's only two.

There's four Gospels for a reason.

There's different, beautiful dynamics of the cross.

But this is important, because we're going to need the Garnered Gethsemane

image, but we also need this image.

Where the desire of Jesus is to take the cross is to give of God's

self for the salvation of the world in the gospel of John, there's no

obligation of you guys messed up.

All right, I got it.

I guess I got to go there to save you.

How can we feel that about God?

Sometimes he came out of irritation and necessity.

But John is saying, I came because I desire connection and salvation.

He came to that which was his own, but his own did not recognize him.

Yet God does not give up.

He keeps going.

Vemos

aquí una imagen de un Dios que desea salvación.

La imagen dominante de la cruz es el garden de Getsenami nos ha

conmovido, que lo necesitamos, pero también tenemos que hacer espacio

para esta imagen.

Del Jesús obligado o forzado, pero que desea tomar la cruz para salvar el mundo.

Another image.

Spanish

Ismo, Ernesto,

Jesus.

So he says, here's when I am lifted up from the earth.

I will draw all people to myself.

He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.

You see the desires of God here.

God is contrasting the desires of the prince of this world.

With God's own desires, the desires of the prince, Los deseos del príncipe

de este mundo es que consumir.

The desires of the prince of this world is to consume, to steal, kill, destroy.

No grace, no mercy, all condemnation.

So

the prince is driven out.

Not by being condemned, but by God's love.

So now we have the prince who consumes and the God who gives of God's self.

We have the selfishness and greed of the prince and the generosity, the

sacrifice, the sacrificial love of God.

We see this contrast of the prince who consumes, and rob.

And so this is important for us, because I think our Christianity, I

think God's doing something all over the world, all over Christian churches.

I think one of those things is that he is healing for us incomplete images of God

out of two tones.

With a healthier image of God, with a clear voice and tone of God.

And so we see here, we hear the desire of Jesus.

That's not upset because of your sin.

We don't hear the father upset because of your sin.

We hear the father desiring salvation, drawing people to a

new way of self emptying love

and you're asking us to beat that not consume me, but I'll

participate in my VEDA, the US.

Let's go to the next slide.

So we come to the cross La Cruz, and we'll take commun in a second.

And so Jesus is here at the cross.

Jesus La Cruz.

Yes.

He's in pain.

Yes, he's in agony.

John doesn't get into that context cuz he's telling you something that he

wants you to hear in a very clear way.

And so, as Jesus is on the cross, Jesus is described fully aware,

fully in control, because no one takes his life, he gives it up.

Jesus is described fully aware, fully in control, because no one

takes his life, he gives it up.

And so, it says, later, knowing that everything had now been

finished, and so that scripture will be fulfilled, Jesus said, I am.

Thirsty.

Después de esto, como Jesús sabía que ya todo había terminado

y para que se cumplieran las escrituras, dijo, Tengo sed.

So we've said God's desires and then our desires.

Hemos dicho los deseos de Dios y nuestros deseos.

It's easy to say, well, that's our God's desires, I mean, I'm just human.

Es fácil decir, deseos de Dios, yo solo soy humano.

But we also see the humanity of Jesus.

Jesus, which tells us something more about God's desires, that He desires so much.

There's an incarnation.

There's becoming one of us,

and so here at the cross in the weakness point, we are described the human

parts, the human qualities of Jesus.

What does he say?

That's human.

I'm thirsty.

Tengo sed.

Some of us are thirsty right now because we just had too much coffee.

Time for water.

Earlier in John chapter four, he says, I am the living water.

I'll be a dictionary.

Juan Cuatro.

Yo soy el Agua Viva.

Y ahora, and now he's saying, I am thirsty.

Now he's out.

I stay saying that they go said, so which is it?

Are you living water?

The living God, or are you thirsty?

A human being.

And those is quite a list.

It is a new model.

Okay.

Tina said, what is the deals that were Viva?

The answer?

Yes.

Yes.

Which displays the desire of God to say.

To be like you, to relate to you, to connect with you at a human level.

What's the deep, one of the deepest forms of human level, your desires.

So God humbles himself, comes to us human, fully human, fully, fully God.

Talk about our desires, our drives, that beautiful.

Those the sales of the OS, says the humano tan humano como que los deseos.

And all of us will make decisions this week based on our desires.

We've made decisions up to this point in our lives based on our desires.

And sometimes desires have just kind of been played with evil desires.

There is that.

Those are explicit, those are clear.

Take those serious for sure.

Those are the prince desires, but then there's godly desires.

You

bueno

all of you.

Desire God all the time.

Todos ustedes desean a Dios todo el tiempo.

All of us desire God all the time.

Todos deseamos el tiempo.

The challenge is we don't always have practices that strengthen those desires.

Sometimes we have practices that weaken the God desires.

What do you think those are for you?

What are practices that would strengthen your God desires?

And what are practices that would weaken your God desires?

Those the most practical skin was for man, which was the sales of the O's or the

ability to Nuestro the sail port of the O's, but all those in Vito, uh, Annalisa,

reflection, uh, qualis son las practicas que fortalecen to the sales of the O's.

Can you do me a favor?

Can you identify one practice that forms godly desires and one practice in your

life that weakens your godly desires?

Can you do that for me?

Can you think about that?

Can you hold onto those?

I'll go gases, you know, practically debilita to the sales.

Put it in, put it in to be carlo por favor, because it'd be easy for me

to say, here's what you need to do, but you know, you, God knows you,

you know, God, what's one desire, one practice that would form spirituality.

One practice that would weaken.

Yo les puedo decir ustedes se conocen a si mismos, ustedes

conocen a Dios y desean a Dios.

dejarla.

So Jesus, fully God, fully human, can we go back?

He then says, it is finished.

Jesus, totalmente Dios, totalmente humano, dice, todo se ha cumplido.

And because no one takes his life, the God who desires salvation gives of God's self.

It says with that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

No one takes it from him, but he has the authority to give it up

and to raise it back up all with the desire to save, not to condemn.

So the cross.

And John, it's the intersection of our needs and our weaknesses

and the desires of God.

And so we look to the cross not to feel guilt, but to feel

invited into the life of God.

This is like Cruz.

No, it's a lugar

para condenaciones, la interseccion de nuestras de Dios.

Entonces vemos a la Cruz, no para sentir culpa, pero para sentir inspiración,

Dios, the SEA, una relación con nosotros.

Can we go to the next slide?

And so we conclude here, first creation, the God who comes to us and sits with us.

He cares for us and says, what are you looking for?

And that's just not pre Christian life.

That's right now.

That's a question for you right now.

What do you desire?

Deep down,

because we all complain, but deep down, there's a root of why you're complaining.

We all blame, but deep down, there's a root why you blame.

We all filter what we say.

But deep down there's a rude why.

And I don't think that's a desire to do something evil.

I think that's a good desire.

We just have bad practices.

You're here cuz you desire God.

So let yourselves be invited, déjense ser invitados, to put into practice,

practices that get you close to God.

Déjense aquí, a poner prácticas que forman tus deseos.

I believe all of us, deep down, desire, sitting

with Jesus, answering this question.

I think all of us have the same answer.

He says, do you love me?

Yes, Lord, I love you.

Now, there's room there in our humanity to be like, well, what happened

was, but it's a little complicated.

You ever, some of you are in that relationship.

It's complicated.

But we all have that humanity sometimes.

But honestly, I think we can all give the answer, give that answer to the question.

Do you love me?

And we would all say, yes, Lord.

So if we have that desire, let's imitate Jesus, who isn't taking what he gives.

Hay que imitar So today, we can choose.

I'm going to give my day to God.

I'm going to give my attitude.

God, I'm going to give my pain to God.

I'm going to give my relationships to God.

As we come back from team camp, I want to give God a full chance

to have a relationship with God.

Todos podemos a Dios.

God desires you, meets you where you're at and invites you deep into your being.

So that you can have confidence in answering the question.

I do love you.

Let's go ahead and take communion together as we open up that little cup, as we

get out that wafer as we take the juice.

And the bread.

Let's please remember that you are desired by God.

And you are invited to desire God like he desires you.

What practice do you need to get rid of?

What practice do you need to implement?

Mientras los desea.

God, we are so grateful that you constantly meet us where we're at.

I pray we can identify our desires, that we can recognize your desires

and choose practices that would lead us to answering that question with

great joy, confidence that we do love.