{"id":518,"date":"2013-06-30T20:07:10","date_gmt":"2013-07-01T01:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.messy-spirituality.com\/wordpress\/?p=518"},"modified":"2014-11-25T10:17:57","modified_gmt":"2014-11-25T16:17:57","slug":"love-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.messy-spirituality.com\/wordpress\/2013\/06\/30\/love-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Love of God"},"content":{"rendered":"

Link to Audio Sermon<\/a><\/p>\n

Galatians 5:1
\nGalatians 5:13-25<\/p>\n

1 <\/sup>It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.\u00a0 13 <\/sup>You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. 14 <\/sup>The entire law is summed up in a single command: \u201cLove your neighbor as yourself.\u201d 15 <\/sup>If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.<\/p>\n

16 <\/sup>So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17 <\/sup>For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18 <\/sup>But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.<\/p>\n

19 <\/sup>The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 <\/sup>idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 <\/sup>and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.<\/p>\n

22 <\/sup>But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 <\/sup>gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 <\/sup>Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 <\/sup>Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. [1]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When I took diakonia classes, one of the instructors there set a tone that lasted throughout the two years for new students.\u00a0 There were two things that he had said that we used often in class and for many of us, well beyond graduation, which was in 2006.\u00a0 These things that he said have carried me through many tough times and many wonderful times.\u00a0 I remember the first time I had to do a visitation for my diakonia class, when I was scared, feeling like I could not do this, not on my own, no way.\u00a0 June, what a blessing you have been to me.\u00a0 June Smith has been so wonderful from day one to me when I first visited her.\u00a0 She took me from \u201chaving to\u201d do a visitation for class to wanting to be part of visitation with June, Bill and now others. Visitations are no longer a \u201chave to\u201d but a \u201cwant to\u201d.<\/p>\n

It was in 2007 that I first became your deacon.\u00a0 Many of you were here when I did my first sermon, Mother\u2019s day of 2007.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if you recall that day but I recall it as if it were yesterday.\u00a0 My knees were shaking, my stomach was turning and my mouth was so dry.\u00a0 I think I sweat as much that day as I would have walking through death valley in August.\u00a0 The sweat really started after I said, \u201cI would tell my kids to suck it up\u201d.\u00a0 It was at that point I looked at my wife and saw the look of surprise in her face. \u00a0Pastor Ben had told me that he tries not to use that word in the pulpit.\u00a0 Sorry Pastor, I did it again.<\/p>\n

What has held me through?\u00a0 What is the common thread here between what has held me through family issues, spiritual issues, first sermon, being part of this wonderfully loving community, seminary and now my upcoming internship with First English Lutheran Church, Platteville WI?\u00a0 What is the common thread between all of this and the Galatians text?……<\/p>\n

Love, Love, Love, it is all about the Love, the love of God and the love of Christ.\u00a0 God’s love is so extravagant for us that God, after sending the Son, sent the Spirit to be with us always.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

God the Father, the Son and the Spirit<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pastor Ben when he was my instructor said often, \u201cIt is all about the Love.\u201d\u00a0 We are to love our neighbor as ourselves.\u00a0 This is not simply loving them, loving you or me, this is not simply loving as a sacrificial love in something we give but it is also something we receive.\u00a0 If we love our neighbor as ourselves, we learn the love God has for us, we learn to respect and love ourselves.\u00a0 By becoming truly aware of the love God has for us,\u00a0 we learn to love ourselves and from that we experience the fruits of the Spirit that Paul tells us about.\u00a0 What was the first fruit that Paul\u2019s tells us?\u00a0 Yes, you got it!\u00a0 Love, Love and with that we experience; \u201c\u2026 joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 <\/sup>gentleness and self-control.\u201d[2]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Let me tell you a story about peace, patience, self-control all coming out of the Love of God.\u00a0 There was seminary student on his way to preach one Sunday at Chancy Lutheran Church. \u00a0When they left the seminary lot, the car had a low tire pressure light on. \u00a0Thinking nothing much of it, he stopped at a gas station to fill up. \u00a0About five miles down the road, the light came on again. \u00a0Knowing that this was not a good sign, he stopped and looked at the tire, only to find it was almost\u00a0completely\u00a0flat. \u00a0He was dressed in his suit and now about to change the tire on the side of the road, all along not wanting to be late to service or get dirty before service began.<\/p>\n

After removing everything from the back of the car to get to the spare tire, he jacked up the car. \u00a0Then all of a sudden the car fell off the jack. \u00a0Being frustrated, what he wanted to do was throw the jack, the lug wrench and spare tire into the grass. \u00a0However, patience and self-control won out. \u00a0Next he had to get the tire off but….I could not find the lug lock. \u00a0Again, you know what I really wanted to do? \u00a0However, eventually I found the lock and was able to change the tire. \u00a0After the event I realized that I was peaceful, had not lost control and maintained\u00a0patience\u00a0during the event. \u00a0In the end, I arrived thirty minutes later than I had planned but still fifteen minutes before the person who was to open up the church.<\/p>\n

The people of Chancy were as loving to me the day I preached there, as you all have been from day one here.\u00a0 You all have been the embodiment of the Holy Spirit to me from day one.\u00a0 Your love, your support and prayers for my family and myself have been the fruits of the Spirit.\u00a0 These have carried us through and will continue to do so.<\/p>\n

When we truly love one another, truly do this, when we can see ourselves in the eyes of the stranger, be with them and part of their lives, in the good times and the bad times.\u00a0 When this happens we can say that we experience God breaking through to the here and now, the kingdom of God now on earth. \u00a0It is then that the fruits come flowing in an the sinful nature is stifled by the Spirit.<\/p>\n

Caution here, DO NOT THINK, for a single minute that we do not participate in this process.\u00a0 We cannot do this on our own but neither does the Spirit.\u00a0 What I am speaking of here is cooperation with the Spirit.\u00a0 God will not interfere with us in anyway.\u00a0 We have been given free choice.\u00a0 Are you willing to accept that responsibility?\u00a0 Are we willing to accept this awesome responsibility to cooperate with the will of God for us in the Spirit?\u00a0 This is not to be confused with works in anyway.\u00a0 We, yes, you me and each and every human being has a responsibility with our free will.\u00a0 Do we want to be part of the kingdom of God or not?<\/p>\n

Although I do not have a brother through blood, God has given me many brothers and sisters.\u00a0 One in particular, who I love very much, I always have this type of conversation with when it comes to works and the grace of God.\u00a0 The grace of God, not a thing of God but how God chooses to see us, sees us as justified, not by our own doing through following the law but because of what God does for us in God\u2019s Son, Jesus the Christ.\u00a0 This new perspective, this grace filled way in which God sees us and we are grafted into the vine of Jesus as His brothers and sisters is free for the taking.<\/p>\n

God has sent God\u2019s Spirit to be with us always.\u00a0 It is in the Spirit, if we cooperate, if we choose to be benefactors of the Spirit that we receive the fruits of the Spirit, those things that God wants for God\u2019s children.\u00a0 What of the law then?\u00a0 The law reveals the need for God\u2019s Spirit.\u00a0 What do we do to deserve this?\u00a0 Not a darn thing and it is in our change of heart, molded by the Spirit, that the old self is removed and a new self is built up by the Spirit and we respond to God\u2026We respond in the ways that God wants us to.\u00a0 We love God with all our heart, mind and sole.\u00a0 We love our neighbor as ourselves and benefit from the fruits of the Spirit.<\/p>\n

Will we fail?\u00a0 Boy, will we fail.\u00a0 I do often and it hurts me each and every time.\u00a0 God does not punish me for my failures.\u00a0 I have punished myself because each time I have failed, I pull myself further away from God and I don\u2019t get to experience the kingdom in the here and now.\u00a0 Often I do not always understand, I don\u2019t understand and I allow my old self, my sinful nature to creep back.\u00a0 I cannot fight my sinful nature, only God can do that but I can let it come back in, that is what my free will does to me, to you, to each and everyone one of us.\u00a0 Careful of the free will and what we think \u201cWE\u201d can do on our own.<\/p>\n

So near the beginning of this, I said there were two things that this instructor in diakonia said to us.\u00a0 As you now know, that instructor was and still is, Pastor Ben.\u00a0 He said another thing to us that bookends the Old Testament and the New Testament with his sayings.\u00a0 He has often pointed out a verse from Deuteronomy that allows me to rely upon God\u2019s unfailing love when I become confused, unaware, lost and fail because when we often just don\u2019t get it.\u00a0 The verse is Deuteronomy 29:29, which says;<\/p>\n

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. [3]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Let us all not get hung up on what God has left secret and instead focus upon what God has revealed.\u00a0 God has always revealed God\u2019s love for God\u2019s people.\u00a0 It was in God\u2019s Son that God revealed God\u2019s face for the entire world to see and it was in God\u2019s Son that God continues to reveal the Love of God for all of humanity for all eternity and it is in the Holy Spirit that God\u2019s love is showered upon us so that we may benefit in all that God offers to us daily.<\/p>\n

Go out today knowing that God loves you, God\u2019s face shines upon you and that God\u2019s love is available to you through the Spirit and you shall experience; \u201c\u2026love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 <\/sup>gentleness and self-control.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

[1]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> The Holy Bible: New International Version<\/i> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), Ga 5:13\u201325.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[2]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> The Holy Bible: New International Version<\/i> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), Ga 5:22\u201323.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[3]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> The Holy Bible: New International Version<\/i> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), Dt 29:29.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[4]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> The Holy Bible: New International Version<\/i> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), Ga 5:22\u201323.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Link to Audio Sermon Galatians 5:1 Galatians 5:13-25 1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.\u00a0 13 You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; … [Read 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12-14 (NIV) https:\/\/vimeo.com\/504595546","rel":"","context":"In "Baptism"","block_context":{"text":"Baptism","link":"https:\/\/www.messy-spirituality.com\/wordpress\/category\/baptism\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2517,"url":"https:\/\/www.messy-spirituality.com\/wordpress\/2021\/01\/25\/justification-part-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":518,"position":2},"title":"Justification Part 1","author":"Douglas Dill","date":"January 25, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Galatians Sermon Series 2 of 41-17-2021 Genesis 15:1-6 (NIV)Romans 4:1-3 (NIV)Galatians 3:1-3, 6-11, 13-16, 19, 23-29 (NIV) https:\/\/vimeo.com\/504524688 \u00a0","rel":"","context":"In 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