Tour 3: Redemption - The Heart of God

First Ask, "What did you see? lets list them…​"

  • This was the third epoch of God’s Meta-Narrative: Redemption

  • We looked at the crime scene in the garden of Eden where God breathed out a promise instead of wiping everything out and starting over again

  • The Proto-evangel, the 1st instance of the Gospel proclaimed (Woman’s seed will crush Satan’s seed)

  • We talked about the woman’s seed

  • Satan’s seed? (John 8:44) Jesus speaking to the Jews, "You are of your father the devil…​"

  • We saw there would be a war between Satan’s seed line and the seed line of the Messiah

  • The promise was in the seed and God nurtured that seed line until Christ came

  • We saw the crown jewel: love — John 3:16

  • The greatest send of all time

  • Why are we disappointed? Maybe the word "love" doesn’t mean anything anymore

  • We talked about that word being broken and twisted; that we use it to speak of things that enhance our own scripts

  • We talked about the importance of words and the Scripture says words are important and that we are in a battle over words today

  • God speaks words of life; Satan turns them into words of death

  • Truth and love go together, inseparable; if you try to tear them apart you lose them both

  • We talked about what it looks like when we try to have love without truth and truth without love

  • We looked at the word: agape - Greek word for Love

  • We defined true agape love as “the sacrificial zeal that seeks the true good, the shalom (peace, well-being), of another”

  • We saw that true agape love was focused on the other and not selfish nor holds back truth

  • Love is not a handout, nor is it feigned love, like Judas

  • We talked about true agape love not being for whimps; it will cost us something; Jesus being the great example

  • Love is not a minor theme

  • agape love is a big deal in the scriptures

    • If we don’t "love" each other then we don’t love God (1John 4:20)

    • If we don’t "love" then we abide in death (1 John 3:14)

    • If we don’t "love" then we don’t know God (1 John 4:8)

  • We looked at 1 Cor 13 (1 Corinthians 13:4-8) and rang the gong

    • True agape love is patient, kind, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, never ends, rejoices with the truth, greater than hope and faith

    • True agape love is not jealous, a braggart, arrogant, rude, selfish, irritable, resentful, rejoicing in wrongdoing

  • We talked about our three questions (Why did Jesus leave? Why does God send? What is God’s endgame?) all answered in the crown jewel of God (true agape love) — John 3:16

  • But now something deeper:

    • It’s not just any “other” for whom God has a sacrificial zeal for…

    • His agape love is not extended just to those who are good, or righteous or favorably inclined toward God

    • Agape love is the sacrificial zeal that seeks the true good of an enemy”

    • Who has heard of such a thing? Grace

    • We talked about grace and defined it as: true agape love directed toward an enemy

  • Who is this God?

    • …​Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:6)

    • …​God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. -(Romans 5:8)

    • …​while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son… -(Romans 5:10)

    • And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him… -(Colossians 1:21-22)

    • ..because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—​by grace you have been saved…​and seated us with him in the heavenly places… -(Ephesians 2:4-6)

  • But there is something even deeper still, Who is this God?

    • chesed - Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for His steadfast love [chesed] endures forever. -(Psalms 136:1-2)

    • Translated: “love” - (NIV), “mercy” - (KJ/ NKJV/ GB), “loving kindness” - (NASB), “loyal love” - (NET), “grace” - (CJB/ Luther), “steadfast love” - (ESV), “goodness,” “favor,” “great kindness,” “friendly,” “unfailing love”

    • chesed - it never gives up; never quits; never stops its pursuit of its intended purpose, even when its love is not returned or is spurned.

    • But…​ it is extended, steadfastly, not just to the ‘lovable’, not just to those who ‘deserve’ it, but it is a sacrificial zeal that steadfastly seeks the true good, the shalom, of those who were ‘ungodly’, ‘sinners’, ‘dead in their trespasses’, ‘doing evil deeds’, ‘hostile to God’… His enemies

  • Even when it appears all is lost and we talked about Isaiah 6:13, “The holy seed is in the stump”

  • We talked again about us being a Remnant living in a Land of Nought, but the spirit of God dwells within us

  • We listened to the song, The Love of God

  • We ended with the reading of Romans 8:31-39

    Romans 8:31-39 (NIV)

    What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died —more than that, who was raised to life —is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

    “For your sake we face death all day long;
    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

    37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

What else did you see?

Then Ask, "What struck you?"