Living From Love

Father Heart Weekend Recap

Living from love. That’s what he’s going to talk about. So, Father, thank you for John. Thank you for the most amazing time yesterday. Thank you for each person who served yesterday. And thank you most of all that you touched hearts. We are counting on you to do the same this morning through John. So would you bless them, Father, in the powerful name of Jesus. Amen.

It was such a great time. We pulled it together really quickly. God had told us in August, in a leadership meeting where we were talking about what God wanted us to do in the fall, and he spoke to each one of the leaders who was there at the same time that he wanted us to do a Father Heart Weekend. We said, “Okay, when?” And he said, “September.” That’s really quick. So we put together a schedule and divided up the labor and who was going to talk on what. There were last minute changes on who was speaking on things, and we didn’t have time to coordinate what any of the words were going to be. We guessed at what a schedule would be and how well it would work out. It was mind-boggling at the end of the night to look back and see that we started every session exactly on time and finished every session exactly on time. Every word lined up perfectly with the next, even when we had two people sharing on the same topic. And Jonathan Boettcher’s word at the end was the perfect capstone to the whole thing. We’re going to edit the video and publish it on our YouTube channel, and his word at the end is just amazing. It was an amazing day.

We walked through the biblical foundations: how Jesus set up, displayed and perfectly represented the Father, and how everything he did perfectly represented the Father. He set us up to understand God as a loving and kind and involved and wise and aware and forgiving Father. That is what a lot of people are not introduced to when they first come to understand God. He’s not condemning his children.

So today I want to build on that for those who were at the meeting yesterday, but at the same time I want to speak in a way that anybody who wasn’t there yesterday can still feel that this makes sense and is all compatible. I’m going to pick a couple of things that came up in small parts yesterday and put them all together today. I just pray that God speaks to our hearts.

We Were Made for Relationship

We were made for relationship. Genesis 2:7-9: “Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person. Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made. The Lord God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground, trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit. In the middle of the garden he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

This is just a little side note, but I always geek out about it now that I’ve seen it. In the creation story, God created the sun and the moon and the stars with his spoken word. He created the animals and the fish, and he divided the land and the sea, with his spoken word. Everything he created, he created with his spoken word except man. He formed man and breathed into him. All of creation resounds with the voice of God because it was created by the voice of God. Man was created without it, and desperately needing it. I just think that’s amazing.

What would life be like if you didn’t have the knowledge of good and evil? If your brain couldn’t discern those things, how would you interact with people differently? I try to think about that, but I fail, I’m sure.

In Genesis 3, there’s a picture painted of Adam and Eve walking and talking with the Father in the cool of the day. They were created for his voice, and he gave them his voice. They had this relationship together where they walked and talked together. There was no judgment. Before them was a choice. They could continue to walk in that and have eternal life, or they could eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For a while they went on the one way, but eventually they made the wrong choice, and then relationship was lost.

Relationship Lost

Genesis 3:22: “Then the Lord God said, ‘Look, the human beings have become like us, knowing both good and evil. What if they reach out, take fruit from the tree of life, and eat it? Then they will live forever.'” Eternal life is in the tree. “So the Lord God banished them from the Garden of Eden, and he sent Adam to cultivate the ground from which he had been made. After sending them out of the garden, the Lord God stationed mighty cherubim to the east of the garden of Eden. And he placed a flaming sword that flashed back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.”

See, you could walk and talk with God and have communion with him on a regular basis, and you had eternal life. But the moment that man chose to live under the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it became incompatible with eternal life and incompatible with life with God. He had to cut them off from the tree of life. They were incompatible, so he put a barrier between them. And so that relationship was lost, and eternal life was lost.

Apparently you didn’t eat from the tree once and then it was done. Otherwise they wouldn’t have needed to be cut off from the tree of life, because they had already eaten from it. They were encouraged to eat from it. It was part of their communion with God. So these trees that produce fruit are something you go back to and keep picking from. Does that make sense? All right, good.

A barrier was set up to stop that from happening, and it cut off the tree of life. It didn’t cut off the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In fact, I’m convinced that tree moved out with them.

The Tree of Life Is Back on the Menu

In this picture, relationship is restored. The benefit of the tree of life is eternal life, and the benefit of Jesus dying on the cross is that if we believe in him, we get eternal life. John 3:16: “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son.” In the Amplified version, verse 18 says, “Whoever believes and has decided to trust in him as personal Savior and Lord is not judged. For this one there is no judgment, no rejection, no condemnation.”

So God does not operate out of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He is not operating from a position of judgment. He is operating from the other tree.

Through Jesus, the tree of life is back on the menu. Jesus says we should eat of his body and drink of his blood, figuratively, in communion. Jesus is the tree of life. When we eat from him, the fruit of that in our lives is exactly the same as the fruit of eating from the tree of life in the garden.

When Jesus died on the cross, Matthew 27 says that at that moment the curtain of the sanctuary of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. That temple was a barrier stopping you from having access to that garden, to that tree, and to that relationship. In the Holy of Holies, where God’s presence dwelt, people weren’t allowed to go because they weren’t right with God. When Christ made us right with God, we got access to him again as a Father. We have access to Jesus, and we have the fruit of the tree of life.

Free From the Law

Galatians 5:1-6: “So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law. Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you. I’ll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses. For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ. You have fallen away from God’s grace. But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith the righteousness God has promised to us. For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love.”

There are two important things from this passage. The first is that it is possible to believe in Jesus and still get sucked back into a system of laws. The second is the opposite of that: faith expressing itself in love, which is eating from the tree of life.

The Other Tree Is Still on the Menu

So, number one, the other tree is still on the menu, the knowledge of good and evil. We focus on the idea that we shouldn’t be in judgment, condemning our brothers and sisters for the sins they’re caught in and making everybody feel guilty. We figured out that we shouldn’t do that. But a lot of people live under condemnation while sitting in church and trying to follow Christ, because of the expectations we put on people: a new set of layers of what is good, a chart that says if you do this, you’re a good Christian, and you need to have this discipline and this discipline and this discipline.

My wife was talking with somebody the other day who was beside herself. She had missed her time with God that day, and she was sure God was so disappointed in her that she didn’t have her daily devotional time. Patti said, “Okay, stop. Put yourself in this position. If you were the mom, and your daughter had something worked out where you were doing something together, and she slept in a little and had to run off to work, how would you treat her? Would you understand? Would you care?” And she said, “Oh, no. I wouldn’t.” Patti said, “Well, why do you think God would treat you any differently? God is so kind and compassionate, and he loves the relationship he has with you. He’s not sitting there looking for that. He doesn’t operate out of that tree.”

We say to people that Jesus is the standard we measure ourselves against. That’s a really bad plan, because you’re never going to measure up, and all you’re ever going to see is lack and how you’re failing. The other side of that is to live out of love. Let Christ be formed in you and you’re going to continually move towards measuring up because he’s being formed in you.

The Palm Pilot Story

I remember one time, when I was preparing this, thinking about how Christians can still be sucked into living out of the wrong tree. A number of years ago I was starting a business. Finances were really tight, and I had also recently been diagnosed with ADHD. I had used some of the precious resources I had to buy a Palm Pilot. Anybody remember Palm Pilots? Dating myself here. I was using it to organize my time, but I was also not making ends meet in the business I was starting. So I would go out in the evenings and do cash jobs, like pressure washing or landscaping.

One night I’m pressure washing off the top of a building right out on South Fraser Way. I’ve got my jacket off, and it’s down on the ground. People are walking by, and I see one homeless person, a really disheveled looking lady, who takes an interest in what we’re doing. She hangs out just a little bit and looks around. I didn’t really think anything about it at the time. Not too long after that, I climbed down off the ladder and went over to check my jacket, and my Palm Pilot was gone.

I’m in a mall parking lot, looking around to see if I can find her. I see a cop car and run over and describe the lady, and they say, “Oh yeah, we know her. She’s a frequent flyer.” They head off and track her down. About ten minutes later they come back and say, “We’ve got her back here. She doesn’t have anything on her, but we saw her throw something in the bush.” They’re trying to get her to confess or say something, and they’re giving her a really hard time. And I’m sitting there going, “Yeah, this is righteous.” Finally I get a minute to myself and call Patti at home and explain the problem, and she says, “John, your Palm Pilot’s on the counter here.”

This poor lady was having a bad day to start with, and she was doing nothing wrong. I lived out of the wrong tree in a bad way. My choices in that moment, on how I viewed that situation, without viewing it through the lens of the Father and his love, made her day a lot worse. I was devastated. I wish I could have gone and found her and given her some cash, bought her a meal, done something, and I couldn’t find her. I just felt God speak to me in that moment about not living in judgment. What’s a Palm Pilot to God? Even if she had taken it, isn’t her life worth more? That was hard. And it’s so easy for us to get caught up in that.

The Right Tree: Faith Expressed in Love

The second point is the right tree, faith expressed in love. The law and the teachings of Jesus reveal the Father’s heart and character. I talked about this yesterday: in the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus said not to resist an evil person, he was describing his own character. The entire law is God describing his own character, operating out of love. Don’t murder, because I am love, and love doesn’t murder. Don’t steal, because I am love, and love doesn’t take what doesn’t belong to you. Jesus says, “Don’t resist an evil person,” because he doesn’t resist an evil person. He is love. That’s amazing. And at the end, in Matthew 7:1, it says, “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.” We have that opportunity because he lives that way. He lives out of the tree of life. He doesn’t live out of the tree of judgment.

Matthew 22:36-40: “‘Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?’ Jesus replied, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

Operating out of love fulfills every command. Every single command is caught up in that. God doesn’t wake up in the morning and say, “Today I’m going to nail it. Today I’m not going to murder people. Today I’m not going to steal.” He wakes up and says, “What does love say to Patti? What does love say to Dwayne? What does love say to Alf?” And he lives out of that love. Love can’t do the wrong thing, so you don’t have to worry about what the rules are.

I was thinking about how to explain this with a different word picture. Imagine telling somebody, “I want you to take this sock and wash it. Now take this shirt and wash it. Now take this towel and wash it.” After a long time, you’ve listed a whole lot of things. But I could take the entire basket, hand it to you, and say, “Do the laundry.” In doing that one thing, you’ve done all of the things right, as long as you separate your whites. The point is that there’s a whole basket of rules and regulations and laws and all kinds of other things, and they all fit in one basket: love. God’s love. It’s all about relationship.

You Are God’s Favorite

You are God’s favorite son or daughter. Equal, completely equal, gender neutral. You are God’s favorite. I think quantum physics explains God. String theory. I’m not going to go into that because it’s a bit heady, but I believe that in your string, Alf, you are God’s favorite child. He loves you. He’s been thinking about you for a thousand years before you were born, preparing your life and the earth for you. He gives you undivided attention until you die. The same goes for you, Charlie. The same for you, Anamarie. And I am God’s favorite son. He loves me. He delights in me. I am God’s favorite. And we get to have that relationship.

Why do we get to have that relationship? Because Jesus died on a cross and gave us access to the Father, and the Father is in love.

Two Trees, One Choice

We have access to God through Jesus so that we can have this restored relationship, walking and talking with him in the cool of the morning and eating the fruit of that tree, which is eternal life, which is Christ, which is love. It’s back on the menu. But we have a choice today in this earthly predicament we find ourselves in.

Without Christ, you’re stuck way over here at the edge of the camera. We only have one tree to eat from: judgment, the knowledge of good and evil. What’s right? What’s wrong? You’ll get sick and die on that tree. It occurred to me just this morning that Jesus called the cross a tree. He died on that tree. That’s awesome.

On the other side, you have a place where you have both trees. That’s kind of inconvenient for us. We still have the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but we also have the tree of life.

I have a nephew who is having a really hard time right now, because everything he’s exposed to all day, every day, is doom and gloom. The earth is burning up and there’s nothing you can do about it. The birth rate is collapsing and there’s nothing you can do about it. The economy is tanking and there’s nothing you can do about it. This is the culmination of our society and its greatest technical advancement. I even work in this field, but I’m telling you, AI is fake. The greatest technological advancement we have has some really cool things, and it’s just fake. We had some amazing slides yesterday. There was one of dogs running around, supposed to be chasing each other’s tails, and one of them had a tail coming out of its nose. Oh, that’s AI. It’s good. But there’s no life in this fake. There’s nothing that counters the doom and gloom and awfulness. So my nephew says, “What’s the point? I just want to take up arms and rage against the machine, but I don’t even know what machine to rage against.”

On the other side, we have something real. We have life. We have the ability to receive from God’s love.

We don’t take away this whole standard of what’s right and wrong. The discipleship training that Christians get at the beginning comes from a good place. We want to teach people how they can relate and connect with God. Reading your Bible is good, praying on a regular basis is good, and going to home meetings is good. All those things are good, but we don’t want to measure them as being good. We don’t want to take a yardstick out and say, “Where do you line up today?” What we want is to receive from God’s love and let that fill us up. We want Christ to be formed in us so that we can live out of that space and engage with him in that space. All of a sudden, reading the Word isn’t a discipline you have to do to earn points. It becomes part of the way God talks to you, and it’s exciting and life-giving. Praying becomes something you do because it’s communion with God. It’s talking with him, and it’s visions and prophecy and all kinds of cool things coming out of that. It’s life that comes from eating from the tree of life, which is his love.

So today we have that choice: to eat from the tree of life, to eat from love, or to continue to connect with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It’s hard. It takes a long time to work that one out of your system. Sometimes it takes a while to flush things out, and we’re exposed to it every day. The answer, the antidote, is the tree of life. These two things are incompatible. You can’t continue operating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil if you’re eating from the tree of life. The tree of life is the antidote to that one.

So it is a choice. The choice is not to try to put down the judgment or walk away from it, but to pick up the tree of life and let God speak to you. If there’s anything blocking the relationship you have with the Father, it’s time to wash that away and push it down, to lower whatever the issues are. Get prayer, whatever it takes, because you can receive fully from his love, which will put you into the right mindset for dealing with the people in your life, with the doom and gloom that comes at you every day, and with the person who cuts you off in traffic. Welcome to my lane. It’s a good one. I hope you enjoy it. Bless you.

Invitation and Prayer

I’m going to close, and I’m going to invite everybody to stand. First of all, I want to acknowledge the phenomenal job the team did this last week. The leadership did such a good job. Every single person put their heart and soul into it and did everything they could to reveal the Father as best they could. I’m so proud of these people.

At the same time, I want to invite anybody here who wants to go a little deeper, or a little farther, or who wants to remove a little more of a barrier to receiving the perfect love of the Father in your life. If you recognize places in your life where you’re living from the wrong tree, come and ask for some prayer. I’m going to invite the prayer team to come forward, and we’re going to take some time to pray. We’ve got lots of time before lunch, so there’s no need to rush off yet. The kids are still doing their thing upstairs.

Father, we thank you for your Word today. We thank you that you’ve put before us a choice of light or dark, of truth, of judgment or of life and your love. Father, we choose you. We choose your life. We choose your love. We choose your kindness. We choose walking as a son and walking as a daughter to an amazing Father who wants to talk to us every day, and we want to receive that. Thank you, Father.