Great. It's good to see you this morning. The sun is out. It's beautiful.
And it's an amazing day to be worshipping God together collectively.
And last week we talked about older men and women.
And this week, after this sermon, I may be looking for a job somewhere else in a distant country
because this passage raises all kinds of sensitive issues.
And I'm aware as a guy that I'm speaking about a lot of things which I can't answer every question in 30 minutes here,
which you may have.
And I'm not even going to try to answer every question that this passage raises.
But my hope is that as we're kind of talking and we're going on this journey together as a family,
that this is kind of the beginning of a conversation that we're talking about,
what it means to be a family together, and in specifically the specific areas of our lives.
So I pray that this would ignite conversations in your CGs, in your marriages,
in all the different things that you're going on in your life this week.
And the problem with passages which deal with very much the nitty-gritty of life and like this
is that we often get wrapped up in certain controversial words,
but we miss actually what Paul is trying to say in the context of what he's writing.
And what he's trying to say is that the Christian community,
and this is what we've been looking at over the last few weeks,
the Christian community is meant to be a counter-cultural community,
which is shaped by the gospel of Christ's love for us in a way which influences
and attracts the culture to see how beautiful Jesus is.
And near where I lived before in the UK, there's a little village called Eam.
You've probably not heard of it, but in British history,
this place Eam is very, very significant.
Because in 1665, there was a huge plague that was spreading throughout the whole of the UK.
And it was spread by fleas on rats.
And at one point, a parcel of cloth arrived in the village to a tailor
who opened it, and unknown to him,
this cloth was infected with the fleas of this plague, who carried this plague.
A week later, the tailor was dead.
23 other villagers were dead.
And at that point, all the other villagers were like,
let's get out of here.
Let's run, because this place is dangerous.
But the minister of the town,
he persuaded them.
He said, no, we have to quarantine ourselves.
We have to isolate ourselves together from the rest of the country,
so that this plague does not spread.
And do you know what they did?
One year later, 260 out of 350 villagers had died,
including the minister's wife,
who had lovingly tended the sick.
But do you know why it's famous?
It's because the actions of those villagers stopped the plague spreading
in the whole of the rest of Britain.
Countless thousands of lives were saved by the heroic actions of that group.
Now, there's something which I think is inspiring,
is beautiful,
about people willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of others,
even for them, for complete strangers.
And the call for Christians is that our lives are to visibly display
and represent the gospel of a God who does exactly the same,
who lays down his life for us,
who give himself for us on a cross.
Jesus, when you and I were at our worst,
he came and died for us.
That's the gospel.
We know that.
We say that week in, week out.
And Jesus, when he came,
he did not say kind of grudgingly,
well, after all I've done for you,
you know, created the world,
given you life,
after all these things,
and now all I get is rejection on the cross.
I deserve a little bit of respect around here from you guys,
so please give me some respect.
Jesus doesn't say that.
He keeps pouring his love and his grace out for people who don't deserve it.
It's the picture of the cross that we put up here.
It's what shapes the whole of Christianity.
And Jesus says,
the reason I call you to be my people
is because I'm going to shape you and your lives,
individually and as a community,
to look increasingly more like that.
But, you know,
the culture sends us other messages
about what love really means,
because that sounds very painful.
Piglet, when talking to Winnie the Pooh,
asks,
how do you spell love?
And Winnie the Pooh says,
you don't spell love,
you feel it.
And we kind of,
we have these messages coming to us all the time.
We think that love should kind of come naturally.
It's kind of this feeling which comes up.
It's not gritty, hard, painful work.
And as Justin Bieber says,
all you've got to do is listen to your deepest feelings.
They don't ever lie.
And that's what everyone tells us what love is.
That's what the people in Crete,
who Paul is writing to Titus, thought.
They thought love was all about self-performing.
It's whether you get sex, money, pleasure.
Love was all about satisfying my desire,
my feelings,
making me feel good to get what I want.
And I'll give you back, love,
as long as you give to me.
But if in any way I don't get back from you,
then I'm going to withdraw from you.
And that's the way the Cretan culture worked.
It was fundamentally all about getting what I want.
And people were throwing off the restrictions of saying,
men and women were saying,
hey, I want to be able to get sexually fulfilled
so I can do it any way I want.
I can get what I want.
And Jesus comes,
and Paul comes with this counter-cultural message
which says,
if you want to gain your life,
gain fulfillment,
you've got to lose your life.
C.S. Lewis wrote,
the more we get what we now call ourselves
out of the way
and let God take over,
the more truly ourselves we become.
And we become these beautiful,
attractive, inspiring people
who attract people not to ourselves,
but to a God who is amazing,
a sacrifice for us.
And so we're going to look at this idea of love
and the community
because that's what Paul is really talking about.
And I want to talk about a few things.
I want to say that love is hard.
Love, sacrificially love, is hard.
I then want to talk about how love works out
in relationships with the young women
and the young men.
And then I want to talk about the power to love.
So here's, love is hard.
You know, if I'm honest,
I just don't think I'm actually very good at this.
I can do a nice talk,
but I'm not actually in practice
very good at sacrificial love.
Because, here's a stupid example.
A while ago, a friend of mine,
I had to give something back to a friend of mine.
And I needed a bag to put it in.
Okay?
And I'm going through our selection of bags.
And there's one cloth bag that I really like
because it's just the right size
for a lot of things that I like to carry.
And I'm going through,
and I see this bag,
and then I see another bag
which is kind of tattered and old and this.
And I think, okay, which bag shall I give him?
And I'm going, nice bag, ugly bag.
Nice bag, ugly gag.
And then I think,
Chris, you work in a church.
So I gave him the ugly bag.
And it's just a bag.
It's not a Rolex.
It's a bag.
But even in the most mundane things in life,
which is so stupid,
I struggle to even think about
what it means to sacrifice.
And Paul knows that as well
because what he says is,
he says in verse 3,
he says,
older women are to teach what is good,
and verse 4,
and to train the young women
to love their husbands and children.
Did you get that?
He said,
you have to train the younger women
to love their husbands and children.
What that means is,
love doesn't come naturally.
You have to be trained how to love.
Right?
And remember,
most of the young women here
were probably 15 to 20,
and most of them were,
sorry,
over 15 to 20,
were probably married in the culture.
And so he's saying,
love is the hardest thing in the world to do.
It's the hardest thing in the world to do.
And you need people to help you how to love
because it doesn't come naturally.
You know,
especially if you are married,
when your husband leaves the toilet seat up
for the 15th time
and forgets to tell you
that he booked an evening out
with his friends on your wedding anniversary,
love doesn't come naturally at those points.
Plenty of other things come naturally at those points.
You see,
professional athletes hire coaches
to train them to become better sportsmen and women.
Students have teachers
to help them to grow academically.
But why do we think
with something that is infinitely more difficult
than either sport or academics
that we can kind of,
and if you're single,
any relationship of loving people,
why do we think we can do it simply by ourselves
without others to help us along the way?
Because do you know the phrase,
it says,
it takes a village to raise a child,
right?
Well, it actually takes a church
to help us love people.
Because you see,
before in the past,
you used to have a village
of everyone would be around
to help support you,
but now with globalization
and individualism,
we're so private
that we try and bear the weight
of the responsibilities
God has given us by ourselves.
And statistics show us
we don't do a very good job at it.
We're here,
and it's not just the young men,
it's the young,
it's the,
sorry,
the young women,
it's the men too,
because Titus is there
to be a model to them
of what it looks like
to love people.
There's no room
for privatized Christian faith
in the Bible.
You know,
it's just me and Jesus
by ourselves.
There's no room for that.
Because he says,
each one of us
has a responsibility
as part of the family
to help each other
to love
in whatever situation
God has placed you in.
Because it's hard.
You see,
a sermon is not enough
to shape you.
If you're single,
if you're married,
you need a community
of older and younger people
around you
who are walking
alongside each other.
And if you've been a Christian
for longer than a couple of years,
the challenge of the gospel
would be,
who are you walking alongside?
Who are you walking alongside
to help them
to love whoever it is
who's around them?
That's the call of the gospel.
Because it's too hard
to do it by ourselves.
Love's hard.
Secondly,
how sacrificial love
works out in relationships.
The older women
are to train the younger women
to be self-controlled,
pure,
working at home,
kind,
submissive to their own husband
so that in everything
the word of God
is not reviled.
God.
So there's meant
to be something
which demonstrates
the beauty of the gospel
to other people.
But did you notice
some of the words
that you said?
And some of you
may be thinking,
well, Paul,
I can't believe
you said the S word.
And why is he only
talking to young women
here about marriage?
Where are the husbands?
Did you?
And I don't know if you notice
there's five things
for the younger women
in verse four,
verse five,
sorry,
but there's only one thing
for the younger men
in verse six.
It seems a little bit unfair
in here.
But in the context,
what Paul is focusing on,
he's focusing on the young women
because he's most concerned
about the pressure
that's being put on them
to conform to the rest
of Cretan cultural standards.
This is not his final word
on marriage.
We know that
because you look in Ephesians
and Colossians,
other letters that he writes,
he gives a much fuller picture
of what marriage is like.
And we know from these passages,
this is what Paul is saying.
Paul says,
the gospel says,
marriage is a dance of love.
Okay?
It's a dance of love.
It's a living picture
of how Christ and the church
are meant to relate to each other.
It's meant to be beautiful.
And at the heart of marriage
is not self-centeredness.
It's not self-fulfillment.
It's not getting what I want,
but it's loving and sacrificing
for what the other
will help the other to flourish.
So Paul says in Ephesians five,
he says,
the husbands are the head of the wife,
but then he says this,
husbands,
love your wives
as Christ loved the church
and gave himself up for her
to make her holy,
to present her to himself
as a radiant church
without stain or wrinkle
or any other blemish,
but holy and blameless.
Now, I don't even get
what he's saying.
He's saying,
just as Jesus used his headship
of the church
to lay down his life
to serve her,
to make her radiant,
flourishing.
So God has given husbands
the responsibility before him
to lead our wives
to be radiant and flourishing.
That means with all their gifts,
with all their talents,
we are to lay down what we want
so that they emotionally,
physically,
spiritually can flourish.
Now,
there are many things
we could talk about
and I've only got a brief time,
but here's just a couple of things
because this actually
really challenges me.
Here's a question.
Is it costing,
if you're a husband,
is it costing you daily,
is it costing you daily
to love your wife?
Is there a cost to it?
You see,
not just we're dutifully doing it
because we don't want to get in trouble,
but is there a joyful cost,
which means maybe
that I'm willing to lose
nine arguments out of ten
for her sake.
Is it
that I'll study my wife
so that I see
how she experiences love,
not how I think
she should experience love,
so I don't just assume
that because I don't mind
a lack of communication
that she doesn't mind either.
and we need to be asking our wives,
how can I love you better?
It means if she's not giving you
as much sex as you want right now,
you're not going to withhold
your emotional affection
and your time as payback.
No, because you are called
to lay down your life
for your wife.
It's hard.
It's costly.
Jesus didn't die for us
when we were most attractive,
but you know,
we can spend a fortune
as guys
on our kids' education,
but you know,
all the research showed us
that by far
the greatest educational experience
your children will ever see
is not taught in school,
is not taught in kids' ministry,
it's learned from seeing
how you love your wife.
Do you know that?
And our relationship with God,
we need to invest
in our relationship with God
so that we can invest
in our relationship
with our wives.
So how are we doing with that?
If you're a husband here,
how are you doing with that?
For the young women,
it says,
the way women are
to play out this dance,
this gospel dance,
is in submission.
Now what does that mean?
Here's what it doesn't mean,
okay?
Because we have so many loaded
connotations of what this means.
It doesn't mean
women have to be a doormat
and you can't confront
your husband.
It doesn't mean
you can't initiate anything
and the man makes
all the decisions.
It doesn't mean
you have to put up
with an abusive husband.
If you have an abusive husband,
you need to get out of there
and seek help.
It doesn't mean
that women are inferior
to the husband.
He's not saying
that there are some jobs
in the home
that only women do.
The Bible says nothing
about who cooks,
who cleans,
who changes the kid's nappy
or diaper.
There is nothing
in the Bible about that.
That's cultural context.
That's not what the Bible
is talking about.
What he does mean is this.
Marriage is so often
a power play
between who can get control
and nobody is willing
to back down at any stage.
And the gospel
of self-sacrificing love
calls first of all
everyone to submit to God
but then it calls wives
to have a heart attitude
that seeks to help
your husband
in his role of leading
the family
to flourish in Christ
rather than undermining
his role.
Okay?
So we don't,
it seeks to help him
to be the person
that he should be
in Christ
not by constantly
criticizing,
not by trying
to force your way
but by creating
an environment
where he can flourish
and love and serve
the family
as he's supposed to.
Sometimes that means
you're going to have
to confront him.
Sometimes that means
you're going to have
to be patient with him,
with his faults,
not nag him
because you know
what happens?
Nagging never helps
a husband to love,
it causes a husband
to withdraw.
You see,
it's not expecting
our husbands to be
kind of a pre-packaged,
already sculpted sculpture,
perfect in every way
to fulfill my wishes,
but rather seeing him
as a block of marble
who needs sculpting
and shaping
to be the man
God has called him to be.
You see,
it's all about
the other person.
The husband is to be
about the wife.
The wife is to be
about the husband.
Kathy Keller,
who was the wife
of Pastor Tim Keller,
said this.
He said,
I discovered that
my submission in marriage
was a gift I offered,
not a duty coerced.
If a husband tells you
to submit,
he's missed the whole point
of the picture.
His love should woo you
to submit.
He does not call you
to submit.
And she tells a story
of Tim Keller
who,
when they were going
to plant a church
in New York,
Tim Keller wanted to go.
She disagreed.
And then finally,
Tim says,
okay,
if you don't want to go,
we won't go.
And Kathy Keller
at that point said,
no.
You're letting me
make the decision here.
You have to make it.
Submission means
you have to make
the best decision,
the decision
in the best interest
of the family,
and you have to bear
the responsibility
before God.
Don't put that one
on me.
Because she knows
her husband,
and she knows
what needs to help
sculpt him
is that he's passive
in that time,
and he's avoiding
responsibility.
Now,
every situation
will look different.
Every marriage,
it will look different.
And the thing is,
if you struggle
with that idea,
and a lot of people do,
I ask you just to look
at the Christian marriages
around you
who are living this out,
and you'll see
a picture
which is not
an oppressive picture,
but it's an attractive picture,
because that's what
the gospel is about.
Your marriages
should show people
how attractive
God is
in our lives.
And I know
for some of us
that is a very difficult,
a marriage is often
not ideal.
If you have
a stubborn,
selfish husband,
Keller says,
you can respond
in one or two ways.
You can confront him,
but if he still
doesn't change,
you can say,
okay,
I'm going to be
selfish back.
Or you can say,
even if he isn't
the husband
he should be,
I'm going to be
the wife that I should be.
And that's the same
the other way around.
If the same
for men as well,
that if your wife
is,
you're struggling
in your marriage
with your wife,
well,
as a husband,
you be the husband
you are called to be.
Because it's about
self-sacrificing love
which reflects
the gospel.
And I know
that there are
some very difficult
situations
in the church
and I can't speak
into all of them,
but I don't want
to minimize
the difficulty
it is
in relationships.
And if you're
struggling,
the Bible says
don't do it alone.
Come and talk
to your CG leader,
open up to other
women,
other men,
because there is
grace that is
sufficient for you.
We walk alongside
each other.
That's
the beauty
of the marriage
picture.
But he also says
to women,
young women,
they'll be working
at home.
And again,
he's not saying
women can't work
outside the home.
We know that's
not true because
in Proverbs 31,
he says,
the picture of an
ideal woman is
someone who's
running her own
business.
And secondly,
we know that
only rich women
in Paul's time
could afford not
to work.
Everyone else
had to work.
So actually,
this church
would have not
been a church
filled with rich
people,
so they would
have been working.
What is he saying?
He's saying,
if God has given
you a husband
and children,
or if you are
single,
God has given
you other
responsibilities in
your life,
whether it's
towards your family,
your parents,
or other things,
don't neglect
them.
Don't neglect
them because
you feel that
pursuing your
career,
pursuing your
other interests,
is more
fulfilling.
Don't neglect
what God has
called you
to do.
And that may
mean that some
of us have to
face real
sacrifices for
the sake of
our family.
And many of
us, I know,
in the congregation
have done that.
But the primary
goal for both
women and for
men is not
about fulfilling
ourselves.
So as a guy,
we're not just
about pursuing
our career to
the neglect
of our families.
Sometimes you
may have to
lay aside a
promotion for
the sake of
spending time
with your
family.
But here,
the call is
very much,
don't find
your identity
in what
you do.
Find your
identity in
who you are
in Christ.
Because the
thing is this,
our culture
tells us,
it tells women,
young women,
older women,
it tells you,
your identity
and fulfillment
is found in
being a wife
and a mother.
Okay?
You look at
all the blogs
and everything,
your identity
is found in
being a wife
and a mother.
So if you
are not a
wife and a
mother,
and you are
single,
and you're
over 30,
you're often
told that
you're somehow
less.
That's what
people say
in this
culture.
That somehow
you're missing
something.
But it also
tells us,
that's on the
one hand,
so if you're
single and
you're a working
woman and you're
doing amazingly
in career,
sometimes so many
women feel like
I'm still missing
out because I
don't have the
other thing.
I don't have
the family,
the husband
and the kids.
But on the
other hand,
it also tells us
our society that
your identity and
fulfillment is found
in career success.
So if you don't
have the successful
career, so if
you've actually
given that up and
you're a homemaker
and you're spending
time with your
family, it tells
you that you're
missing out.
You're somehow
less.
And the gospel
says both of
those are wrong.
Your identity and
fulfillment is
neither found in
career success nor
is it found in
motherhood or
being a wife.
Your identity is
found in the fact
that you're a
child of God.
You are loved by
God who has
called you to
himself.
You're his
child.
And whatever
he has called
you into,
whatever he has
given you, be
faithful with what
he is and find
your pleasure in
serving him.
That doesn't
mean you can't
have kids and
work.
No, you can.
But just be
faithful with what
he's given you.
Be faithful.
faithful because,
and this is for
guys as well, if
we try and find
our self-fulfillment
in anything other
than serving God
and what he's
given us, do you
know what happens?
What happens is you
pursue your own
self-fulfillment,
other people who get
in the way of that
will just become
objects to get out.
Your kids can
become annoyances
because they're
stopping you getting
on and doing what
you want.
Your friends, if
they don't help you
become more
ambitious, you will
remove them, you'll
get rid of them
because you just
have to get
fulfillment through
your career, through
these other things.
And the gospel says
if you neglect other
things because you
just want to get
fulfilled by yourself,
you're going to end
up empty and lacking
those things that you
chase most.
But be faithful.
Guys, women,
whatever God has
called you to at this
season of life, be
faithful and know
his pleasure on your
life.
Because joy comes
from serving him.
Whatever he has
called you to, joy
comes from serving
and knowing him.
That's tough for us
because we actually
live in a culture
which tells us
totally different
things.
But it's beautiful.
people.
And he goes on to
talk about young
men now.
And young men, and
he says one thing to
the young men.
One thing.
Okay?
He says, be self-
controlled.
Why does he only say
one thing to the young
men?
Because basically that
summarizes pretty much
every challenge that a
young man faces.
If he gets this one
right, you know,
everything else falls
into place.
And actually it's the
same call he gives to
everybody actually, but
the young men
particularly.
He's saying be
self-controlled.
He's not saying have a
British kind of stiff
upper lip.
He's not saying repress
your feelings.
He's saying don't let
your desires rule over
you.
It's not instant
gratification above
long-term character.
You see, what destroys
men and consequently
damages the people
around them, what locks
us up in shame, so
many of us, and I
know this for myself,
what stops us doing
mighty things for God
is a lack of self-control.
You see, I tend to
think that we're
actually a little bit
like the cookie
monster.
If you've seen the
cookie monster out of
Sesame Street, he
goes, me want cookie,
me eat cookie now.
Right?
And so, sex, arguments,
shopping, beer, food, you
name it, me want, me
have, now.
And we click on porn
sites at will.
We say whatever we want,
whatever we feel at the
moment, we let anger come
out of our mouths rather
than holding our tongues.
We neglect to communicate
with those we love because
we just have to finish this
last email.
And we fail to display
the sacrificial love of
Christ because we just
want to get what we want
now.
But that's not how Christ
does it.
You see, there's this
amazing experiment.
I don't know if you've
seen it.
Have you heard of the
marshmallow test?
About 50 years ago in
Stanford University,
researchers did this
test where basically
they got kids in a room
and they said, they gave
them a marshmallow and
they said, you can either
eat this marshmallow now
or you can wait 15
minutes and then we'll
give you two.
Okay?
And you can watch some
of the YouTube videos.
It's fascinating.
Because what you get is
you get some kids who
are just like, oh.
And then like 15 minutes
later they're kind of
regretting it.
You get then other kids
who are kind of, who are
looking at it.
And some of them are
like, ah, like this.
And some of them, they're
kind of like banging on
the table.
And some of them are
kind of walking around
trying to distract
themselves.
And the best one is
there's this kid who's
like, who starts kind of
licking the, not just the
marshmallow, but the table
next to it.
And they do anything to
try and control
themselves.
Because, and what they
discovered was they kind
of looked later on in
life at the kids who
actually had self-control
and were able to just
hold themselves for 15
minutes.
And they found that
those kids were actually
the most successful
people in all of the
rest of their lives.
Whether in family, in
job, in all the other
things.
The ones who couldn't
control themselves were
the ones who later on
in their lives, actually
made a mess of their
lives.
Fascinating.
And some of us know
that we right now, like
the kids who have to eat
the marshmallow straight
away, we have to get
what we want straight
away.
And you know what it
does?
It often leads you, you
see the consequences of
that lived out in your
life.
John Piper, pastor, he
says, there are many
young men who are
who are not sharing
their faith with other
people because they
have a pornography
problem that grips
them.
And there's so much
shame that comes along
with that, you feel
like, how can I ever
share with anybody
else?
And he says, what we
need to do is to learn
gutsy guilt.
We need to learn that
when we fail in self-
control, we don't say
that's me and then we
just keep kind of eating
the marshmallow.
We keep doing whatever
we've been doing as a
habit and just in this
cycle of destructiveness.
He says, Christ died to
bring us more
satisfaction than what
this is offering me
right now.
I don't know what your
marshmallow is right
now, but Christ died to
give you more satisfaction
than that.
It's not just so that I
should keep gratifying
myself.
It's not that I should
not do this because it's
wrong.
It's I need not do this
because in Christ there is
more satisfaction, more
long-term gain, more joy,
more freedom, and I can
be the man God has called
me to be.
You see, whether it's in
our relationships, and by
the way, this doesn't just
refer to men as well.
It refers to all of us,
right?
Hands up, you know, and we
all struggle with that.
And the gospel says if you
want to begin to look more
like this, it's going to
impact those relationships.
It's going to impact the
way you view your desires
because God wants to do
something which is going to
change us to look beautiful
in a world which is all
about just getting what I
want when I want it.
And finally, the final thing
is how do we then have the
power to love?
How do we love the power to
love?
You see, you can't just be,
you can't just try harder to
love people.
Like, try loving a selfish
spouse day in, day out, and
man, after a while, you're
going to grow hard.
Try being self-controlled day
in, day out, and you may
manage in one area, but in
other areas, you're going to
drop the ball.
Paul says to Titus, show
yourself in all respects, in
all respects, to be a model
of good works.
He says, show yourself.
That means other people need
to see something which helps
them to see that there's a
different way to live.
You know when Jesus called
his disciples, do you know
what he said?
He said, come follow me,
right?
Be with me.
Follow me.
Look at me.
See what I do.
Hear what I teach.
Look at me, right?
That's what Jesus does.
And then afterwards, he sends
out his disciples and says,
now, the world is going to
look at you, right?
If we're going to be a
Christian community of love,
you cannot be the husband
you're called to be by
yourself.
You cannot be the wife you're
called to be by yourself.
You cannot be the single you
are called to be by yourself.
You cannot be because it's too
hard by ourselves.
The only way that you can be
who God is calling you to be,
begin to be sculpted in who he
wants you to be, is when you
see that there is a love that
is greater than the love that
you've ever had.
When you see the love and the
forgiveness of a God for you
when you were at your worst
and most unlovely, and he died
for you at that point, whether
you struggle with self-control,
whether you're struggling in
marriage, you see, pornography
can't satisfy you.
Your spouse can't fulfill that
craving for love.
Everyone is always going to
disappoint you at some point,
but only Christ loves perfectly.
And you need to watch him.
You need to see him.
You need to look at him.
And as you look at what he does,
day in, day out, you think
about the cross.
As you see that, what you see
happens is this.
You begin to see how then you
treat your spouse, you treat
your friends, you treat the
people around you, and you see
the gap.
You see there's this gap.
And it causes you to come into
confession and repentance, and
you see, wow, if he could love
me that much, wow, I don't love
the people around me that much.
But then you see that when he
shows you your worst, you see,
he loves you to the stars.
And we say this every week because
it's what we need to hear every
week.
And here's the thing.
When you begin to see him, truly
see him and his love for you right
now, whatever you're going through,
then that propels you to go out and
to love the people around you you
find most difficult to love.
And you can then call other people
to look at you and say, I'm not
perfect, but here is what God is
doing in me.
Don Carson, who's a Christian
theologian, tells a story of when
he's leading a Bible study, and he
didn't know how to answer some
questions, and he had a skeptical
friend with him.
So he takes his skeptical friend with
him to see his friend Dave.
And his skeptical friend says to
him, I go to church, but I don't
believe Jesus is God.
I don't believe he really rose from
the dead.
Give me a break.
But my home is a good home.
My parents love me.
We worship God.
We do good in the community.
What do you think you have that I
don't have?
And Dave looks at him for two
minutes and says, watch me.
The guy says, what?
He says, watch me.
Watch me, Dave says.
I've got an extra bed.
Move in with me.
Be my guest.
I don't advise this necessarily, but
I'll pay for the food.
You go to your classes.
Do whatever you have to do, but
watch me.
You watch me when I get up, when I
interact with people, what I say,
what moves me, what I live for, what
I want in life.
You watch me for the rest of the
semester, and then you tell me at
the end of it whether or not there's
a difference.
The friend didn't take him up on
the offer, but he did watch him.
And you know that friend has now
become a medical missionary in
Africa because God touched his
heart through seeing the example.
Not a perfect example.
He's a messed up guy.
And that's the call if you're an
older person or if you're a younger
person.
The call is, watch me.
You and I need to be involved in
relationships with each other where
we can say to each other, watch me.
And that's scary.
Because when I think about that, I
suddenly think of all the things that I
don't want you to see in my marriage, in
my self-control, in all the other
areas.
And that's precisely the point.
Because if you want to grow, if you want
to grow, God wants to show you where
you need to grow.
And God wants us to see that he is not
looking.
See, if you think that by being a perfect
Christian, here's the thing.
We live looking as if we're good on the
outside.
We come to church.
We want everyone to see that our
marriages are fine, that our single
relationships are fine, that we're all
doing fine.
And we don't want to invite people to
see what we're really like.
Because when people see what we're
really like, what they see is actually
we're a bit of a mess.
All of us, right?
And so we keep up these pretenses.
But then what does that do, say to
everybody else?
Because everybody is watching you.
It doesn't matter whether you want them
to watch you or not.
They are.
And if all they see is somebody who's
nice and perfect and doesn't let you in
to see their lives, then all they're
going to go away thinking is Christianity
is just for people who are already
perfect.
And so if you're not a Christian and
you're struggling, you're going to say,
well, I can't go with them because how
can I?
I'm not as good as them.
But the call for us as a church is,
listen, if you've been a Christian for a while,
invite, if you're married, invite a single out for lunch.
Right?
Invite a single.
How do you think singles are going to learn about marriage?
How do you think they're not going to think Winnie the Pooh
is correct about love?
By seeing the reality of just the fact that,
you know, we're broken.
But we don't point them to ourselves.
We say, hey, I'm broken, but you know,
there's a Savior who is great.
And you know, we're working through a whole lot of stuff.
Just come and be involved in our lives.
If you're in your early 20s or your 30s,
be involved with other people who are younger than you
or who are younger spiritually than you.
Get involved in their lives.
Just let them hang out with you.
Let them see your life.
And just involve them.
We're so scared to be the people God has called us to be
because we think that we have to live up to the standard
but we fail to see that we are loved by a God
who loves us to the skies.
We don't have to pretend.
We can help each other to love
because some of us are more experienced
and we can walk along this journey together.
Let's pray.
Father, I pray that you'd help us
to see that we don't have to be perfect in our lives
but you call us to watch you first
and then to be people who others can watch
and see how confession and repentance works
and to see how our lives are called to be like you.
Please help us to be those people.
In your name.
Amen.