The Economics of Love

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Today, we're going to start a sermon series on the economy of Jesus, the economy of Jesus. It's going to be a walk through the book of 1 Timothy. So if you want to turn there, we're going to be in 1 Timothy 1 today. And in fact, I'm turning there, too. And in 1 Timothy, there's kind of a lot going on, but there is this idea of an economy. We're going to look at that in a second. But first, let's kind of understand the word economy, just kind of as we use it in everyday vernacular. Anytime you're discussing an economy, you are simply talking about investing. So you can have an economy, you can have a large scale investment. So maybe you're talking about business sectors that are investing in employee retention or profit share, right? That would be called macroeconomics. And it's really just talking about how you're investing. You want to talk about it on a more personal level.

Maybe you're talking about individual investments. So how your family, am I going to invest this $3.78 for a gallon of milk or a gallon of gas? Which one am I going to do? What's my $3.78 going to pay for here? Maybe neither. It depends on the week. But that would be, when you're talking about individual investments, you're talking about microeconomics. So when people talk about macro, micro, that's really kind of what they're talking about in a nutshell. And when we see economics on an individual level, we understand, when it talks about just personal investments, the kind of investments I'm going to make personally, then really we need to understand that everybody is an economist. Everybody is an economist. You're either a good one or a bad one. And if you don't know which one you are, you're probably a bad one. either a good economist or a bad one. What would make someone a good economist is

that they can invest well because they know how things run. For example, my wife sent me to the grocery store, this was this past weekend, she sent me to the grocery store and she said I need you to buy this particular bread, okay, and I accidentally bought the more expensive version of that bread and she said no I don't know, it needed to be great value. You bought this other thing, you know? And so you spent three times as much on bread as I would have spent. So we could have got three loaves of bread for what you paid, or six loaves for what you paid for two loaves. And so I groveled and completely apologized, just so you guys know, for my error. But in our family, I am not the good economist, okay? My wife is, she's a great economist. And it's not just because she can identify Which is cheaper great value or the other brand right like that's not that's all makes her a good economist

What makes her a good economist and what makes anybody a good economist is that they know how things run? So she knows how supermarkets run she knows what's going to go on sale win She knows where the cheapest place to buy milk is she knows where the cheapest place to buy bread is She even can calculate like it's gonna take me too long to get there I'm gonna pay too much in gas for all of that discount so I can only do that every once in a while She's an amazing woman, my wife, and that's the way she thinks. She knows how those things run, and that helps her invest well. You think about your own life and where you invest your time, where you invest your energy, where you invest your talent, your resources, and it's because you know how things run. You know how things go, and it helps you invest well, and that goes for the stock market or the supermarket.

If you know how it runs, then you can invest well. In the Bible, it might surprise you that we see another kind of economy. It's a special kind of economy, and it's what we're going to call the economy of Jesus. And really, it's the way that Jesus made things to run. It's the way that the world works. the way that Jesus has created something to grow, to thrive, to be healthy. So when we talk about the economy of Jesus, that's what we're talking about, the way that he made things to run. And really, what you find when you look in the economy of Jesus, that it's much less about do's and don'ts, and it's much more about planting seeds and watching things grow. I got a couple of scriptures on the board up here for you. I'll just kind of pop them off real fast, Mark 4:25 Jesus saying, to the one who has, moral be given. And from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

That's how his economy works. Galatians 6:9, let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. That's Jesus talking about his economy. James 3:18, and a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. Again, we're talking about planting and growing and reaping. Second Corinthians 9-6, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. This is the New Testament talking about the economy of Jesus, talking about the way things go. Whenever Jesus spoke a parable, he would often say, what is the kingdom of heaven like? And then he would tell this parable about what the kingdom of heaven is like. Another way that we could describe that would be the economy of Jesus. how things run. And so,

essentially, whenever we're talking about the economy of Jesus, it says like, when you invest your time this way, this is what the economy of Jesus tells us, when you invest your time this way, when you demonstrate this truth, when you conduct your relationships in this manner, when you plant those particular gospel seeds in tune with the economy of Jesus, then your life, and not just yours, but your community's life, your family's life will flourish and grow. It doesn't mean you're gonna make a lot of money and you're gonna accomplish the American dream. That's not what it's about. But it's about flourishing and growing. It's about health, it's about wholeness, it's about becoming what the Lord has made you to be. It's about finding true joy, true happiness.

It's not anything cheap. And so this economy is named and examined and examined throughout the book of 1 Timothy. Okay, and that's, you guys are gonna be there, we're gonna be going through 1 Timothy chapter one today. And it is a letter, we can see from the first couple of verses, it is a letter from a mentor pastor to a trainee pastor, or a training pastor, okay? So it says, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by command of God our savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, to Timothy, my true child in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. Paul and Timothy had this mentor-mentee relationship, parent-child relationship. He refers to Timothy often, not just here, but several other places in the New Testament as his child in the faith. He has several of those. And Paul, in particular, with this letter, the letter is actually named First Timothy

because it's written to Timothy, but it is not about, it is concerning the Ephesian church. So Timothy is an elder in the Ephesian church, and that is the occasion that Paul is writing to Timothy on. And Paul started the Ephesian church. We read about that in Acts 18 through 20. He started the Ephesian church, and he is training a younger protege, Timothy, on how to pastor them, on how to lead them. And this is why you go to most churches in America, and they're gonna do a sermon series on 1 Timothy, I mean, I would bet you my bottom dollar that one of them is gonna say something about blueprint of a healthy church, or how a church works, or something like that. And look, certainly a healthy church is a byproduct of going through 1 Timothy, that's true. But what we see in 1 Timothy is that Paul in writing this letter has deeper concerns with just being a healthy church.

And we see that in verses three and four of 1 Timothy chapter one, and they're going to be up here too. All the verses that I'm going to be citing are going to be up here too. So if you want to read in your Bible as you can, if you want to just trust that we've copied and pasted onto a screen, you can too. OK, you can do that too. So here's where he starts talking about the economy. He says, verse three, as I urge you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus. He's telling Timothy, remain at Ephesus. Why? So that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations, rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. Okay, so what he's saying, what's his urge here? He's saying, remain at Ephesus. Why? To promote the stewardship from God. So there's a lot in between, but he's saying remain in

Ephesus so that you can promote the stewardship of God that is by faith. Paul is pointing to, excuse me, so other people are promoting other things, right? So he's saying, you know, people are going to be promoting different doctrines. They're promoting myths. They're promoting genealogies. They're promoting speculation. These things distract from what is central. What is central? The stewardship of God that is by faith now the word stewardship is weird I don't remember the last time I used the word stewardship in a sentence like a normal conversation But the word here in Greek is a oikana Mia everybody say oikana Mia

Congratulations you can speak First century Greek now, okay Oikana Mia you might have heard of oikos yogurt That whole idea of oikos is a household. That's what oikos means. Oikonomia is something larger than a household, and so for us, that word is economy. So you can see it, you can read it as stewardship, and it's not a terrible translation. But as far as everyday vernacular, we don't really talk about stewardship. And you can even see the word oikonomia sounds like economy. It's where we get the word from. So I thought for a sermon series, it would be much easier for us to grasp the fact that Paul is telling Timothy about an economy rather than a stewardship. Just to use a different word, stewardship is not always, it's a little more opaque than an economy. And so what Paul is doing for Timothy, he's saying to him, he's saying, Look, look at this economy of Jesus.

I have trained you in this economy. I have described this economy to you. I've shown you how this should play out. The church that you pastor, this church in Ephesus, Timothy, the church that you pastor should work according to this economy. The church that you pastor should thrive because it is swimming in this economy. It is investing its time in things that it needs to invest in. It is investing its energy in a way that is acceptable to the Lord. It is doing the work of ministry actually. It is making disciples actually. And when you do that, when you do that with a church, it will thrive. It will grow. It will be healthy. And it doesn't mean, you know, Paul is not writing to Timothy and the Ephesian church and say okay here's how you get a big church okay first you Bible II of all you yeah that that's not what his aim is he's talking about health he's talking about what a church should be and he points to this economy

the economy of Jesus this economy is going to go by several different names and we're going to point him out as we as we preach through but when when we do that, when we promote the economy of Jesus in this church, whenever we do that as a church, as South Burleson Baptist Church, when we do that, it's going to cause us to thrive. It's going to cause us to become healthy. Now it's not always going to feel good or be fun, and that's okay. Getting healthy sometimes requires, you know, rehabilitation, sometimes require exercising in a different way. Getting healthy is not always fun, but the effects are always good. As we go through this series, we're going to touch on, it's a five week series, we're going to touch on five different kinds of economics. We're going to be covering next week, we're going to be covering the economics of gender. We're following the economics

of authority. Then the economics of godliness and eternal life. The last week is eternal life. As we go through these things, we're going to be bringing ourselves and our church into alignment with these things. And not just our hearts, but actually the way our church runs, right? Roles, offices, procedures, all these things that shape the life of our church, they need to run on the economy of Jesus, not the economy of a successful business model. Does that make sense? Right. We're talking about conducting not just our lives, but also our church life in a way that is, that is honoring to Jesus in a way that, that Jesus is kind of laying it out for us and that when we do that, we can thrive. When we do that, we can grow. And so today we're not going to start with any of those other economics. Today, we're going to start with more of a basic economic in Jesus's economy.

And we're going to start with verse five. Verse five is going to be kind of our paradigm for the day. First Timothy one five, the aim of our charge is love. That issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. So I'd said that Jesus economy sometimes goes by different names than just stewardship and charge is another one in first Timothy five. First Timothy one five, the aim of our charge is love. So that charge is the stewardship, right? Is the economy. In other words, Jesus' economy has a goal of love.

Jesus' economy has a goal of love. The aim of our charge is love. And simply, simply saying, as a Christian and as a church, love should be our banner. It should mark everything we do. It should be our reputation, what we're known for. It should be our language. It should be how we speak to one another. And not some cheap, generic love, not some love in general. Like not this, you know, it's really easy today for churches, Christians, people to leave it as something like kindness matters or do better. or love is love, right? All of these things that kind of talk about love in general or being good in general or just kind of this super generic non-offensive way to talk about love. And that's not really what we have. John 13, 34, whenever Jesus is talking to his disciples, and it's the only time he does this, he issues a new commandment. He says, a new commandment I give to you

that you love one another. Just as I love you, you are also to love one another. And so when at South Burleson, when our church is in tune with Jesus' economy, it's a love that looks like Jesus. It is a love that is sacrificial. It is a love that extends itself for others. It is a love that loses for the sake of others winning. That's the kind of love that we are talking about. And really an overview, a description, a list of descriptions, not really enough. We need to go into detail because that's what the rest of 1 Timothy 1 does. It goes into detail on this kind of love. We must apply the economics of love in our lives, in our church. We must apply the economics of love. And the rest of 1 Timothy 1, like I said, is an elaboration of that. It's an elaboration of loving, love that issues from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. And it's good to say, it is good,

it is good for us to say, yes, we need to love like Jesus. Yes, we need to push past these chief slogans, yes. But really, it's going to require us to dig down. It's gonna require us to look at ourselves personally and discover or rediscover this kind of love. It is not an easy kind of love. So let's start, let's look at it. Let's start talking about loving with a pure heart. Love that issues from a pure heart, what is that? If we're gonna love from a pure heart, we're gonna look at verses 12 and 14 to really cover that for us, okay? If we're gonna love from a pure heart, 1 Timothy 1, 12 through 14, it says, I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service. So formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the

faith and love that are in Christ Jesus." Jesus' economy runs primarily on a love that Jesus himself initiates. Let me say that again. is economy, almost the fundamental building block of Jesus' economy is that it runs on a love that Jesus initiates. Jesus himself initiates this. That we love from, in other words, we love from a heart that Jesus has made pure. When we talk about love that issues from a pure heart, we're not talking about a purity that we've somehow maintained ourselves. We're not talking about some kind of moralistic purity. We're not talking about like, I haven't sinned that bad in the last X amount of weeks. Purity, we're not talking about that kind of purity. We're talking about a purity that Jesus himself gives to people, an alien purity, if you will. It's not a purity that comes from you. It's a purity that is given to you. And this is the basic message of the gospel.

In fact, when you look at verse 13, 13b, in fact, it's right there, it says right at the top, it says, but I received mercy. But I received mercy. That when you realize that you have received mercy and grace, it is then and only then that you can become merciful and gracious. It's only when you understand that your core, in your bones, that you have received grace and mercy. That it's only then that you can become merciful and gracious. The primary identity of our church should be that four-word phrase, but I received mercy. That's us. Our basic identity is recipients of mercy. We were enemies who received grace. In the economics of love, Jesus is the fountainhead. He's the beginning of all of it. He's the eternal spring from which every kind of love flows.

That is truly love. If you were going to kind of participate in that kind of love, the first thing that you need to do is to connect to Jesus. You need to connect to Jesus first and love out of that connection. So John 15, five Jesus talks about this, he says, I'm the vine, you are the branches. Unless you abide in me, unless the branches are connected to the vine, Jesus says, then you can't do anything of significance. And I say this to you, and maybe you've never connected to Jesus' love in the first place. Maybe, you know, when I talk about a purity that comes from Jesus, that's blowing your mind and that's great. And we're going to have a time response later. If you want to find out more about that, that's great. There's going to be a time at the end. But even if you have already tasted that grace and mercy, even if you are already in relationship with Jesus, sometimes there is a way for you to live your life where you are still on,

you're still running, trying to run on your own power. You're still trying to be gracious, but not believing that you've received grace. You're still trying to be merciful without believing that you've received mercy. And it won't work. When you try to love people in your own power, you're going to fail miserably. You're going to crash and burn. And your life will look like this. On a good week, you're feeling it. is going right and you're able to be really nice to people. When things aren't going right, you're a train wreck. You have no capacity to love anybody, even yourself. Don't try to do it on your own power. This is why our church has life groups. Now, I'm not just selling you life groups. I don't get more. I don't get paid more if we have more people in life groups. It's not. But what I'm talking about with life groups, I want to just tell you about them real quick because it's really helpful to understand how you can take the

time to connect to Jesus personally and then be able to just stay connected so that you can in that power be merciful and gracious to other people. But unless you believe, unless you really understand that you've received mercy and received grace, then you can't do it. There's one more thing before we get into life groups. The reason that happens, the reason that we forget that we have received mercy, because either we are delusional about ourselves or we are delusional about God. If we're delusional about ourselves, then we bought the lie that we don't really need mercy and grace, that we're kind of good enough on our own. And those other people, those trashy people over there, they definitely need mercy and grace, but not us. That's a delusion. That's a delusion. Wrong. It's a lie. It'll erode your soul. It'll kill you. Okay. The other delusion is delusion about God and his grace.

Like I, and it's the opposite of that. It's like, there's no way I could ever receive God's love. There's no way I could ever, you know, and your delusion about God is that somehow, some way, God has like some limit on the person that he's going to show love to or show mercy to. That when he looks at all humanity, There's like this small percentage of people that are worth it and those are the people that he gives grace and mercy to. But here, that's delusional. That's not true. That's not reality. The reality is God looks at mankind and doesn't find anybody. That's the whole point. We're not here worshiping as a church together because we think we're great. Or because we think we're, you know, we're somehow just totally worth Jesus' mercy and grace. We're in here together as a church because we know exactly that without Jesus' mercy and grace, we would be the worst.

I mean, just personally, let me just say, I would be the worst. The worst. I'd be off the rails in so many ways, it wouldn't be funny. I'd probably be in jail. I'm not a good person that Jesus helped upgrade from level 9 to level 10. I was a dead person that Jesus raised to life. Do you understand the difference? That's what we're talking about. That love that issues from a pure heart is a purity that you have been given. Okay, so practically, how do we do this? Our church does this through life groups. Life groups are closed groups, meaning like you don't just kinda come and go. They're two to four people. They meet every other week. They run for five months, and they are focused on the journey, okay? They are specifically designed to invest in each other's spiritual journeys. It's not a Bible study. It's focused on direction, confession, and mission. These life groups, if we are going to apply the love that Jesus initiates,

right, cuz it's love that all comes from Jesus. If we're going to apply the love that Jesus initiates, we need to have people around us that remind us that that's true. Because my, you and me, our default is to slowly believe that we're worth it. Or to slowly believe that God could never give us mercy and great. We need people on the outside of us. We need people that are in community with us that have permission to say, listen Drew, look I know you're having a tough week, but you're starting to believe that lie again, that you can handle everything in your own power. You gotta stop doing that. You can't let that record play in your head. And for those of you under the age of 20, a record is a vinyl, so just teasing. Just teasing.

You need to have people around you, right, that remind you of truth that encourage you through the bad days, that keep you focused on what you need to stay focused on. We need people to do that. Nobody's above that. That is a need, that is a basic thing. That's why our church has life groups. You need people around you. So love that issues from a pure heart. The economics of love, the way that works is that we have to understand that love comes from Jesus, that purity comes from Jesus, okay? There's two more ways that we can apply the economics of love. We're gonna look again at verse five.

So it says, the aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. good conscience, a love that marks our church, the love that should mark our church, begins with a good conscience. But what does that mean? We think about a clean conscience all the time. Clean conscience would be like just that you haven't done anything wrong or that you're not just walking around feeling guilty of something, you have a clean conscience. What does that mean? So we have negative examples that cascade in the verses that follow verse five. So six and seven, these are negative examples. These are, in other words, these are bad consciences. Certain persons, these are kind of false teachers out in the Church of Ephesus, certain persons, by swerving from these, these love, right, have wandered into vain discussion, desire to be teachers of the law,

without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions. It's kind of this parade of foolishness, right? I'll say it this way, stated positively and you can see with the negative effects, a good conscience means that the way that you conduct your life, that your actions match your words. Your actions match your words. What you and I would probably call integrity or some version of that, right?

It doesn't have integrity in here. It talks about a good conscience. In verse six and seven, the opposite of a good conscience is there because the words, those confident assertions that they are making don't match the action. The action is just ignorance and vain discussion. Okay, vanity and ignorance is the action and the words don't match that. Verses eight through 10, it gives us another list of opposites. And that list is full, there's a ton of them And it includes everything from abuse to homosexual sex to enslavement to just all kinds of things. And it says that list, honestly, is another sermon, probably another three sermons that I'm not going to get into right this second, but would be more than happy to talk about.

But I really want to call attention to how it ends. In 1 Timothy 1, and it's the end of 10 into 11. So it gives this whole big list of like sins, of like things that aren't good. There are examples of the bad conscience. And it says, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine. So it's saying, you know, like sin, sin, sin, sin. And then instead of saying et cetera, it says, oh yeah, and just really whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine. Sound doctrine is not a common phrase and it carries the same idea as a good conscience with words and actions matching up. Whenever you have sound doctrine, if something is sound it is kind of not able to be shaken easily. It is sturdy. It does what it says it's going to do. When what you say you believe leads to acting on that belief, you now are talking about sound doctrine. You now are talking about a good conscience.

When what you say you believe leads to action. So when you say that you love someone, when you say, I love Jesus, when you say, I love these people, a good conscience means you act on that. It means that you show it. It means it comes out in real decisions and choices that you make. It affects how you spend your time. It affects the words you say when you say it. If somebody is, we'll pick on husbands. Husbands, you're welcome. If somebody is verbally abusive to their family, I mean, it just absolutely berates them verbally. But then they say, well, you know I love you.

Well, part of the reason that grates on all of our nerves is because those actions don't match that love. If somebody says they love you, but then they abuse you, that's not loving in a good conscience, right? When somebody says, like, I care about this person, I desire this person's good above my own, but then every decision they make after that just puts, it's selfish, then they are not loving from a good conscience. So how do we put it positively? So the way we say it at South Burleson, the way other places in the Bible talk about it is that it's love that sows seeds. Love that sows seeds. If you have a love, if you have a conviction, Like I love these people. I love, you know, at South Burleson, we'll say something like, hey, we love our Burleson community. Like we love the people that are across the street. We love, we wanna do things for the benefit of the city.

We wanna do things for the benefit of the people that need help. Okay, all that's great. That's cute and looks great on the vision statement. Okay, that's adorable. However, if you are not following that up with action, with real time action with the ways that not only like major ministry initiatives, but if the people of our church treat people who are outsiders like trash, then we don't love them.

We can say anything we want to, but the action doesn't match that. If we say we really love people that are disconnected from Jesus, but then we don't actually make the time to have a conversation with them, to include ourselves in their lives or anything like that, then it's just talk. And it's better if we don't say it. It's actually more true if we just say, listen, we're trying to figure out how to love people, we're just really bad at it right now. Okay, at least we're dealing with some honesty at that point. Loving from a good conscience means that it's loving, it's that sows seeds. It's loving that puts you in the lives of people that are disconnected from Jesus, and you sow gospel seeds there. You have conversation, you get to know them, you love them in the moment, you pray for them, you talk to them.

A love that sows seeds. The way we do that, the way we sow seeds, is in connect groups. So connect groups are a little bit different, and look, I'm gonna say this song, I'm blue in the face. Our church does not do, We don't have a ton of programs, right? We're not trying to make everybody super busy. That's not really what we're about. We really wanna do a few things well. One thing we wanna do well is life groups. The other thing we wanna do well is connect groups. Let me explain. A connect group, you can see it in contrast to a life group. A connect group is open, so people kinda come and go. Connect group is lots of people, so more than six, right? Connect groups meet weekly, but they run for maybe two or three months, and they're focused on connection. Okay, so another way to say that is that connect groups help people meet over common interests so that they can connect to disconnected people.

Let me say that again. Connect groups work to build connections with disconnected people. People that are disconnected from the Lord, people that are disconnected from church, people that are disconnected in some capacity, connect groups are a great way to meet in a place that it's kind of like a neutral territory, right? It's telling people that Jesus loves them without them having to go to a church service to hear it. Does that make sense? This is what connect groups are. Connect groups help us do that. If we are going to, let me just put it a different way. If we, South Burleson, are going to love people with a good conscience, if we are going to act in a way that sows gospel seeds and people that are disconnected from Jesus, then we need to be around people that are disconnected from Jesus. I realize that sounds very elemental, but it's very difficult to do.

Oftentimes, whenever Christians wanna get around people that don't know the Lord, there's the strong temptation to change their behavior first. Oh hey, don't, essentially, if you're gonna be around me, you have to act like a Christian. And let me just tell you, for you, somebody who's been saved by grace and received mercy and has a certain understanding, to expect somebody who has not received grace and mercy yet to have that exact same understanding, to live the same way that you're living is, I'll use a word I used before, it's delusional. It doesn't correspond with reality. We don't, Jesus doesn't take people and make them, make them behave and then, then change their heart. Jesus takes people that are enemies of him and changes their heart and that eventually leads into their actions. We need to get that order right. Now you might, you might say like, hey, I don't know, you know, connect groups.

I don't know enough about them. I don't know if they're for me or not or whatever. Well, in three weeks, we are going to have an in-house launch for Connect Groups. You've been hearing it announced. And in three weeks, the in-house launch for Connect Groups, really what we're going to do as a church, we're just going to take some time to hear about the Connect Groups that are starting and how we can be a part of them if we need to. Now, that brings up a question. Do I need to be in a Connect Group? Yeah, so Connect Groups help us connect to disconnected people. Do I need to be in a Connect Group? The first thing that you should ask yourself is, are you around disconnected people? Are you around people that don't know the Lord? Period. Okay, if the answer is yes, or if the answer is no, excuse me, that's the next slide, is no. If the answer is no, I'm not around disconnected people at all.

Like for instance, me, okay? If I just go throughout my normal day, if I just go to work and go home, I will be around Christian people all day long. And look, y'all are great in everything, but man, just kidding. I need to consider a connect group, okay? I need to do that. I need to connect the disconnected people. Personally, just me, because I'm not around a lot of disconnected people. I'm not around a lot of people that don't know the Lord, just not. If the answer is yes, though, I am around... There's another question that you should ask yourself. Can you develop connections there? For example, if, let's just say at work, you're around a ton of disconnected people, a ton of people that don't know the Lord, they're disconnected from Jesus, disconnected from church. If you say, okay, yeah, I'm around disconnected people, you need to ask, like, what kind of

conversations can you have at work? Or what kind of conversations can you have in that context? And if you can't really get into, you know, if the answer is, can you develop connections at work, no, then you should still consider a connect group. A Connect Group is a great way to meet people in New Year's Year's territory, and you have opportunity just to have long discussion, and that's good. If the answer is yes, I would tell you, a Connect Group, not for you. Embrace the disconnected people that you are already around. Develop conversation, develop relationships, share your story, hear their story, pray for them, love them.

I don't think everybody needs to be in a Connect Group, But I do know that whenever Jesus came, he came to seek and to say what was lost and We're on the exact same mission to seek and to say what was lost and if you're if you're not around people that Don't know the Lord then what are you doing? You're living kind of this insulated echo chamber life Because with our church and not just you personally but our church generally it's not enough for us to just say love God love people It's not enough.

It's not enough for us to align with the economy of Jesus. If we're gonna do that, we need to understand how difficult it is to invest in the lives of other people. It's not something where it's like, oh, I'm just gonna go, I'm just gonna go be a missionary today. Oh, well, great, Pollyanna, tell me how that goes. Like, that's gonna be really hard. You're gonna get people that are gonna totally challenge your thinking, Think that you're a moron. Make all kinds of assumptions about you and treat you that way. You're gonna just hit all kinds of walls.

It's not something that is great or that is super easy to do on your own. You need to do it with people. That's why we have connect groups, to do it with other people. Look, we need, so let's keep it straight, we need life groups to help us find and discover and rediscover a love that Jesus initiates. We need that. We need other people that are close with us, that know us, that know our story, that tell us what's up. But we also need connect groups to help us sow gospel seeds, to help us invest in the lives of the people that are disconnected, that are around us. So we need those two things. We need a love that Jesus initiates, that's in Jesus' economy, and we need to sow gospel seeds, that's also in Jesus' economy. Here's the last way that we can apply this love.

And we can look in 1 Timothy 1:15 and 16, but it's love that issues from a sincere faith. And here's a description of that, 1 Timothy 1:15 and 16, it says, this saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came to the world of safe sinners, of which I am the foremost. But I received mercy. Remember hearing that? It's there again, it's in verse 13, it's also in verse 16. But I received mercy. Why, for this reason, that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. We need to have a love that comes from a sincere faith. We need a love that is for real, for real. Okay, I don't know if you're familiar with this phrase, but if something is for real, it's serious, but if it's for real, for real, it's really serious. We need a love that is for real, for real.

And really, this has less to do with the actual content of our faith, so the content of our faith is very important. But whenever we're talking about sincerity, talking about sincerity, we're talking less about content, the actual truths that we believe, and we're talking way more about how we handle those truths. We can handle them in a sincere or insincere way. Because it is one thing to say, I was a sinner, but I received mercy. It's one thing to say it, and it's another thing to be candid about your own addiction to pornography. It's one thing to say, hey, I've received mercy. It's another thing to spell out how you battle body image issues. Do you feel me? Do you understand what I'm saying here? It is one thing to say I'm a sinner, but it's another thing to act and and share your life as that, as a reality.

How you mess up today, still. And let me just say this too. When we are candid, when we are open and honest appropriately, I'm not asking for anybody to stand up and start sharing here, okay? Don't. You may want to, don't, don't do that. We're gonna have a time response later. It is so healing. It is so relieving, it's such a relief. When you're struggling in your marriage and you see people that you admire and they say to you, our marriage is a fight, is a struggle. We have to, me and my wife, we have to fight to make it work. Like we have to struggle, not fight each other, but it's a struggle to make it work. And sometimes we do fight each other.

But it is hard. And you know, honestly, I hope that you guys see in my own life. Like my relationship with my children is not perfect. I'm a really bad dad occasionally often. I'm a really selfish husband. I'm a jerk sometimes because I'm human. And if you can't admit that, if you're uncomfortable with me admitting that, then you might lack a sincerity in your own faith. We need love that issues from a sincere faith, a candid faith, where we are not ashamed of what we used to be, and we're not ashamed of how we still mess up. We understand that both of those things are covered by the blood of Jesus, and we can wear it. We can wear Jesus's grace. We need to be candid about those things, and we need to be able to say, look, I'm just, in verse 16, I'm just an example of Jesus's mercy. I'm just an example, my life is an example. But if there's no cracks in your life,

if there's no bad history, if there's no addiction that you struggle with, if there's nothing wrong with you, then you aren't an example of anything but your own power. You need to be an example of Jesus's mercy. I have some things, I have some questions for you, and I want you to think about it. In answering these questions, if you answer them a certain way, it could be that you lack sincerity and maybe don't know it. So let me just ask a few. When you tell a story about yourself, maybe not your story, but when you tell any story about yourself, are you always or often the hero of those stories? How often, and I mean particular times with people that you trust, how often do you discuss your weaknesses and sins? How often? Just ballpark it. Five times a week? One time a week? Another question, what story, the story that you tell, your story, your testimony,

right, how you came to faith, how you're walking with Jesus now, what does your story say about you? Did Jesus kind of do you a favor? Did he level you up from nine to ten? Or were you brought from death to life? It's easy to become a hypocrite by what you don't say. It's easy to become a hypocrite by what you don't say. If we're going to really apply this for real sincerity, if we're really going to do that, then it's going to go all the way down to our conversations. So, yes, let's connect to disconnected people. The people that are disconnected from Jesus, let's connect to them. Let's share our story. Let our conversation be seasoned with salt. Colossians 4-6, yes and amen. Let's do it. So let's also be quick to credit Jesus for how he saved us. Everybody that walks with Jesus has been saved. We talk about that all the time. I got saved. I've been saved, saved, saved, saved.

What were you saved from? And I don't mean sin in general. I mean answering, asking to answer the question of yourself, what were you saved from? particular addiction, what particular sins, what particular predicament, what trouble did you get yourself in? How much of a mess of your own life did you make? And sometimes that's a public mess and sometimes that's a private mess, but it's a mess nonetheless. Are you quick to do that? For me, for me, Drew Caperton, Jesus He saved me from lying and living a double life. And I'm so glad he did. And it is something that I will never forget. And it's always going to be a part of my story. And it's not like I'm still worried about falling in back to that or anything like that. I don't live in fear of becoming that again, but I live in the acknowledgement that I was saved fully and finally from that life. I don't need to do those things anymore.

I don't need to lie to save people's feelings. I don't need to live a double life so that it can meet everybody's expectations except my own. I don't need to do those things, I'm free. I still sin, but I'm free. Coming clean from all of that is part of your salvation story. It's part of mine. And really, I wanna ask you, what's yours? What's your story? I wanna quickly cover the last part. I know we're running late. You're getting hungry. I can feel it took a seminary class on how to feel that

First 71 18 through 19 were almost done Says this charge I entrust to you. So again, we're going back to the economy of Jesus, right? It's not we're not calling it the stewardship of God by faith, but we are calling it this charge This charge I entrust to you Timothy my child in accordance with the prophecies that previously made about you that by them you would you may wage the good warfare holding faith and a good conscience this charge again is the economy of Jesus Paul is helping Timothy who is helping the Ephesian church live by this economy this charge given to you Timothy hold it tightly he says hold it with both hands fight for it and do it all in love. May we do the same. We're gonna have our time of response. I'm gonna call Dan Hay up here and he's just gonna lead us in another song and as we sing that song I'm gonna be right up here and just

able to receive you. You know if you have something you want to work through if there's something you need prayer for that's cool. We can do that. We're not gonna you know like we're not gonna parade you in front of everybody. It's It's just, you know, you can receive prayer and then go sit back down. It's fine. If you want to join the church, it's a different matter. We totally parade you up here. But you know, if you're not joining the church, we're not parading you. But I just want to encourage you, you know, our time response is for response. It's not show and tell. It's an actual response where you receive prayer. You receive help in your moment. Maybe you just realized that you need something. We want to help. Even if you don't come forward and talk to me, talk to somebody and pray. Receive healing, receive prayer. Let's stand and let's sing. Are you hurting and broken within?

Overwhelmed by the weight of your sin? Jesus is calling. Have you come to the end of yourself? you thirst for a drink from the well Jesus is coming Oh come to the altar the Father's arms are open wide Forgiveness was bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Be behind your regrets and mistakes. Come today there's no reason to wait. Jesus is calling. Bring your sorrows and trade them for joy From the ashes a new life is born Jesus is calling O come to the altar The Father's arms are open wide Forgiveness was bought with The precious blood of Jesus Christ O come to the altar The Father's arms are open wide Forgiveness was bought with The precious blood of Jesus Christ No, what a Savior Isn't he wonderful? Sing hallelujah Christ is risen Bow down before Him, for He is Lord of all. Sing hallelujah, Christ is risen. And oh, what a Savior! Isn't He wonderful?

Sing hallelujah Christ is risen Bow down before Him For He is Lord of all Sing hallelujah Christ is risen Oh come to the altar, the Father's arms are open wide. Forgiveness was bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Before we leave, I want to close this with a piece of Scripture. And afterwards, especially if you're new, I'd love for you to hang out and meet you. But let me end with this in 1 Timothy 1:17. We read it whenever Wes read scripture. Read it again. To the king of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.