Children of God: Living In The Tension Between Love And Eternity - Patrick Montelongo

Hey guys, Pastor James Murray here, and I want to welcome you to the Abide Sydney podcast. This whole podcast is designed to help you on the journey of discipleship, and our mission is to make disciples of the people of Sydney. But maybe not from Sydney, we hope this blesses you, so sit back, relax, and enjoy this podcast. Alright, we're enjoying our one John series, Children of God, I hope you've been here for the last few weeks, or six weeks, really, this is our six week into it, and we have made it to first John chapter 2 verse 28, and so I'm going to read this morning from our text, and then we're going to get straight into it. So I'm reading from verse 28 in chapter 2, right through to chapter 3 verse 3, and it says this, "And now little children abide in him, so that when he appears, we may have confidence, and not shrink from him in shame in his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. See what kind of love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called Children of God, and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him, beloved we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is, and everyone who hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure." Let's pray this morning. Father God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for those who have gone before us to write such beautiful words, inspired by your spirit. We thank you that your word is living and active, and it does not return void in our life. We pray that it would do a transformational work in us this morning. We thank you for your spirit that is here with us. Moving in this space, we thank you for every moment we have had to worship you to lift up the name of Jesus. We thank you for this time to focus and look at your scripture in Jesus' name. Amen. Go ahead and grab your seats. Grab your seats, children of God. Well a few months ago, my parents, over in the U.S., they were moving house, and as you do when you move house is you start to clean out the areas in your house that you forgot existed. Various cupboards and closets, boxes and whatnot, and as they were doing this, I started getting sent photos of things that I forgot existed myself from when I was a little kid. Part of those things, part of that stuff was these old essays and old letters that I was writing back when I was in school, back when I was about 10 or 11 years old, and some of them were very funny and very interesting, and there was one that really stood out to me that I wanted to share just briefly with you this morning, and it was written in the year 2000 by yours truly beautiful handwriting as you can see. This is what 26 years ago now, I wrote this letter about moving to Australia, and it says I want to go to see the opera house, and I want to play with the kangaroo, and I'm going to great bury your reef, which I'm yet to do, and all these amazing things about Australia, and that's why I want to live there. When I read that, what makes it really interesting is that you can only write that kind of letter from the other side. I can't manufacture that feeling of like, "Wow, look at me writing this letter as a little kid, and then now in the future, and actually living here in this great country, me writing to my older self, and as I read through that, and as I looked at it, and I looked at the letter of first John, it made me think, "What would it be like if I could write a letter to my younger self? What if you could do that? What if we took time?" I said, "All right, 15 minutes, everybody's got to write a letter to your younger self." You would probably put a few different ideas and things on there rather than just day dreams or desires, right? A letter to your younger self. It's written by someone who already knows how things turned out. It's written by somebody who has confidence and not just optimism, right? You're not guessing. You've been there. You've been in the story. When we look at this letter that we just read out loud, this man, John, the apostle, he's this elderly man, he's in the city of Ephesus somewhere around 70 to 80 AD, it's a long time ago, and he is the last one left. He's the last of the apostles, the last of the disciples, every other man who ate with Jesus, who watched Jesus teach, who saw him die on the cross, they're all gone. Most of them were killed for their belief in following Jesus. And John is the only one left here to live this long, beautiful life. And so here's this older man sitting down to write and the first words he reaches for, little children, not brothers, not saints, not to the church at Ephesus, little children. It's affectionate, it's fatherly, it's like a grandfather writing to you. And he uses this phrase seven times in this short letter, just five chapters. He says little children seven times. What I think that's beautiful about this is that John is writing from the far end of his story, right? John's the one who saw, he saw the empty tomb, he saw the risen Christ, and later in scripture at the end of your Bible is a book of Revelation, and he shows us the end of everything. So that line that we read out loud in our text, what will be has not yet been made known. We start to understand who's saying it to us. It's not a man who's guessing about the future. It's a man who's been shown more of it than anyone else alive. And he's telling you there's still more. This apostle, this friend of Jesus, is telling you this morning that there is more. So where are we standing as we move from the end of chapter two into chapter three, where six weeks in, and where this passage sits. And the letter of first John, it has these three great words or these great movements holding it all together. And so we see in chapters one and two that God is light. We see in chapters three and four that God is love. And we see finally in chapter five that God is life. So light, love, and life. And John doesn't just bounce around from topic to topic, just trying to make a point. But he's moving through this, like he's telling this story and he's inviting us in. He's building the context for us to go deeper with him. And so our passage in verse 28 to verse three of chapter three, it's the hinge, right? Behind us are these chapters of light. And in front of us, these chapters of love and everything that we read and as we continue on, we're moving forward towards life. And each week over these last six weeks, I'm quite sure that we have touched on this question of why is he writing it at all? And if there's two things that you're going to remember from this series, it's probably children of God and then the word "nosticism." We've said it every single week. And why is he writing this at all because there was a problem in the church of wrong believing, of wrong living and it was called "nosticism?" And one of its central claims was this, that the universe is split, that there is light and there is darkness. But the problem is that it teaches that there are two equal powers, that they're just locked in the war, good and evil, matched forever, heads ahead. And the solution to this is what it offers is it teaches that we can only illuminate from the light within us, that that's how we protect ourselves from the darkness. Does this sound familiar to something you might have heard recently when you opened your phone or when you went on the internet or when you watched TV, right? This isn't a problem that's gone away, that the help comes from within, that the happiness comes from within, that my identity comes from within, that true love comes from within, that I make that choice, and John takes a sledgehammer to this idea. In the opening of his book he says, "God is light." In him there is no darkness at all. There is not two equal powers. There is only one great power. There's no other source of light, not in myself and not someone else out there in the universe. The source is from God. There is no darkness in him. And it might be confronting to us that idea, because maybe you've been sitting in that kind of belief for a little while. But I want to tell you that it's actually a relief for you. It's a relief that we can turn from that self-help, self-oriented search for truth and identity and security, and we can run to the source toward God. If you want to live an entirely different way, then we start to look at this light and darkness in a different way as well. We understand that there's a real war going on. John is not naive to this. He knows about this war. He just knows who's winning it. And so through this reflection of light and dark, he's really reaching all the way back to Genesis. Since the beginning, there have been these two families of light and darkness. The serpent tempting in the garden and then Adam and Eve falling to that temptation. And later on, we see Cain and his brother Abel who he killed. These two families, these two lineages and this one ongoing war. and John is telling us that it's still going on and you are in it. The Apostle Paul says the same thing to the church in his letter to the Thessalonians and summarizing the scripture in chapter 5 verse 4 through 8. You are sons of light, sons of the day, not of the night, not of the darkness, stay awake, stay sober, put on faith and love like armor. So we can understand this very plainly here today. You are not a spectator in this war. You've never been. I know you're sitting there this morning enjoying a nice comfortable seat, you're spectating me, you're preaching this message, but in this great battle of light and darkness you are not a spectator and if you are a Christian here this morning you have a family name as a Christian and it was given to you at a cost, the cost of the cross. And so this war that I'm talking about, for you maybe it's felt like kind of like background noise, you know it's been that little ache in your heart of finding purpose and significance, but it's the spiritual war taking place for your soul and for this world. And so John here in our verses he's about to tell you, he's about to tell us which family we belong to. It's a beautiful thing to find out. So our first verse, where do we start? Chapter 2 verses 28, verse 28 it says, "And now dear children abide in him so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming." And what a beautiful word abide. We're reminded of it every Sunday when we come into church, abide, remain, stay. It's the word of this letter that John uses 12 times throughout. And notice what kind of word it is, right? It's not a word about intensity. I can shout into the microphone and be really intense and everybody will be a little bit scared and your eardrums might hurt. It's not about intensity. It's not strive for him or burn for him or achieve in him. And all that we do those things as Christians, they are not the source of my identity. It's a word abide about staying put. And the verse goes on and John puts these two positions side by side, these great phrases. He says when he appears and that phrase is not a vague someday. In the ancient world this was a word for the arrival of the king. It was the day the ruler comes to the city in person, in the flesh. And the other word confident. It's boldness, it's honesty. It was something that a citizen could stand up and claim in the assembly that it was the civic right of that citizen to stand up and speak because he belonged there. That's the kind of confidence. That's the kind of boldness that this phrase is telling us. So then on that day when Christ returns, there's these two postures available to humanity, to all of us. The first one is standing with freedom. I'm someone who belongs. I'm a child of God. I'm confident. I'm unashamed. And then the other is to be shrinking back to feel ashamed. So John is not saying work harder so you'll be ready. He's saying abide, abide, stay in him. So I want you to know that the confidence you will have on that day standing before Jesus is not a reward for your striving, but it is the fruit of abiding in him. St. Augustine, about 1600 years ago, wrote an essay and a series on the Book of One, John. And it has a lot of amazing quotes which are going to hear this morning. And he put this point like this, he said, "Those who are watching for him in faith will be glad when he comes. Those without faith will be ashamed when the thing that they could not see finally arrives. That we would be people who see now is my prayer for us. And watch who the we is. It says, we may be confident. We may be confident." So this one thing in this verse we can just skip right past it, but I see that the grammar changes. John starts in this second person. He says, "You little children, you abide in him. It's a command aimed at them and aimed at us." But then he changes to this plural language halfway through the verse and he doesn't change back. He's showing that his confidence is somehow bound up with ours. It's somehow bound up with theirs. It says that we may be confident, that we may not shrink back. So he's not standing over the church like issuing instructions. He's actually invested in this. And again, the Apostle Paul, he puts it even more plainly, even more bluntly in Thessalonians again in chapter 2 with the same language, the same phrase, "For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed you are our glory and joy." And anyone who's ever put money into something, you understand this instinct, right? When you invest, maybe it's just like a high interest savings account. You're like, "Oh, thanks for the 2%. You're invested into something. You want to see how it turns out. You don't feel nothing about it. We hope for some kind of return. We want it to have been worth it. We would check on it. We care about it." And that's how John feels about the people he's writing to. And that's how you're meant to feel about the person you're sitting next to this morning. I'm invested in faith and seeing you grow in your relationship with Jesus. I'm invested in seeing you learn how to abide even more deeply. Our faith was never meant to be this private arrangement between me and God. It's just me and you. And then I just happen to be in this place in this room full of other people. That's great. You do your thing. You do you. I'll do what I need to do. No, no, no. That's not the arrangement. When John pictures that day, that day when Jesus returns, he's not picturing you just standing there by yourself. Congratulations, the ultimate Christian you won. Now, he pictures us all there together. We arrive together. And he digs even deeper in verse 29. He's showing us the family resemblance we have as Christians. He says, "If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him." It's so easy to read the direction of that sentence backwards, right? To think that of what it does not say, right? Do what is right, and then I will be born of him. Now, what he says is doing what is right is the evidence that you've been born again. Is the evidence that the revelation of Christ has already happened. So the righteousness isn't your ticket into the show. Your righteousness is the resemblance you have with your family in Christ. And again, we look back at St. Augustine and he's teaching on this. I told you there's going to be a few quotes here from him because it is just too good to not point out. And he points out the story of Job. Do we remember Job? Does anybody remember Job? Have you read that part in your Bible? If you're having a bad day, go and read Job. And you know, think, it's not that bad. It's not that bad. But he points out that how Job becomes this redemptive figure to Adam. And in what he points out, we can understand both our habit of falling to this lie of the darkness as well as understanding our collective redemption. And so here's what he says, "Adam being in paradise despise the commandment of God." And he lifted up the neck as if he desired to be his own master. So he fell from that immortality, from that blessedness. But there was a certain man, in Job, a man now well skilled, though human, he was of the same culture and the same lineage of Adam, who even as he sat on the Dung Hill, putrefrying with worms, overcame the devil. So Adam has paradise, actual paradise, perfect ground, perfect climate, perfect work, unbroken friendship with God and no shame anywhere to be seen. He had every single thing that you and I would spend our lives trying to build just a small imitation of. And he's in paradise and he lost it. And then we look at Job, the poor man sitting on an ash heap, sores on his body. He's in ruin, his dying children are there. A wife telling him to curse God and be done with it. And the story shows us that there in that depth of suffering Job did not sin. That Adam finally won because Job is Adam's son, the same culture, the same story, but this completely opposite ending that in the garden Adam representing us, representing humanity listened and fell to sin. And in this lowest place Job has found blameless and upright before God. Job becomes this kind of foreshadowing of Jesus, the suffering servant. And I want us to understand the insight from this is that paradise did not save Adam. Paradise is where he lost to sin. But there is hope. I won't just leave you there in the dung heap as the Bible describes it. the place of suffering. There is a hope and we'll discover it and as we move into chapter three into this next section of the letter and to this next movement of the letter, I think it's really important to take some time and look at the statement that John makes to us and we're going to go through kind of word by word or phrase by phrase and a bit of a biblical word study for you so if you know get your pen and note pad out, get your thinking kept on, we're going to do some teaching here for just a minute as we look at chapter three verse one. This new movement of God is love and so this is what the verse says. So what great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Our first word that starts off in this verse C or behold the Greek word edite. Behold look it's a command. John is reaching out of the text he's grabbing you by the neck and he's putting your face into it saying see look at what is happening don't look at anything else don't lose focus look at what I'm pointing you towards. The next phrase what kind where from put up in agapan and my most perfect Greek. A phrase meaning what kind of what sort of or from what country or foreign place it's used in the New Testament to signal astonishment. It's as if this love that's described is so unfamiliar it's so marvelous that it feels like it can't be from this world it's foreign to this world and I want to tell you that this love is not from here it's not produced here there's nothing on earth that manufactures this love every love that the world tries to sell us it has a condition on it right stay useful stay interesting stay winning stay engaging and then the day you stop earning that you see how quickly that love is love is withdrawn and John is is pushing our face into the same look at this love it's not of this world how marvelous it came from somewhere else and thank God it has and this next phrase has lavished deadokin in the Greek and it is in the perfect tense which means it is fully finished or complete so he gave it and it stands given it's not being reviewed it's not up for re-negotiation on the basis of your day or your week or how you're feeling or whether you cheated on your tax return okay it's not up for re-negotiation they're not going in and looking at it again it stands as it is and the fourth phrase we look at he adds these words to make sure we don't misunderstand right we are called children of God and that is what we are kai esmen it means to exist as to belong to it's not just a title mister or missus captain or sir it is a state of being it's not just a description but it's an identity that you can take on and so all this understanding of this identity it gives us this great confidence as we head into the rest of these verses as we make our way through the rest of this letter I can be assured that I am a child of God and his love has been lavished on me and I want to look at two words that we often use in church and one of them especially because it's one of our pillars which is kingdom and I want to look at the difference between kingdom and paradise what is kingdom kingdom is God's plan it's God's presence and God's people it's a condition or state that we get to be in and work in and work with and Jesus taught us to pray for it right to pray for the kingdom your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven so it is here and it is not yet it is genuinely broken in and genuinely unfinished you can seek it you can find it and I pray that through your week people see it in you as well and paradise we look at what paradise is true paradise true paradise is the outcome remember the end of the book in Revelation chapter 22 it's the renewed Eden it's the final renewal what happens when Christ returns and makes all things new and there's nothing left to fix it is real it is promised it is coming and it is not here yet but we see Jesus in Matthew chapter 6 and you've probably heard this phrase before that he's completely specific about the Christian assignment he says seek first the kingdom seek first the kingdom not seek first paradise but don't we constantly do the latter is it so much easier to seek paradise especially if I can seek my paradise especially we can seek our paradise and it makes sense because we have this limited human earthly view and perspective and it means that if I seek the kingdom first that actually requires submission that requires submitting to God to God's authority and an earthly paradise I get to control and design and configure and click and move and swipe so kingdom means his plan his presence his people his timing his terms laid out and paradise the version we build not the true paradise the version we build it means control it's mine it's my schedule my church my picture of what a good life should look like so this one thing that God has reserved for the end this great and perfect thing we try to build it now we're frantic about it aren't we with our own hands with with whatever is nearby with whatever we can grab and it's the counterfeit lie of the enemy this endless treasure hunt that keeps us searching for the keys to our own paradise in the year 2010 in the Rocky Mountains there was a man named forest fen he was this eccentric old collector of different antiques and Native American figures you can see him here with his collection behind him and he hid a treasure box and he thought it would be fun to put out a riddle and offer a public treasure hunt and this treasure box was potentially worth millions of dollars he publishes it in newspapers and magazines and it just goes off people people lose it they're they're dropping what they're doing thousands of thousands of people are searching for this treasure somewhere in the Rocky Mountains somewhere in Yellowstone National Park and people are getting in trouble people are going to prison people are getting fines and tickets from the the park rangers because they're doing illegal activities and they're going in places they shouldn't and play in times that they shouldn't because they're obsessed with this treasure and there is a great podcast about this that I listen to and it follows the story of a man named Darryl who he is he becomes obsessed with finding this treasure that he spends years and years of his life searching for it week after week driving in and out of Yellowstone National Park to try to find this treasure and kind of the crux of the story is this moment where he knows he knows without a doubt that treasure is in a rock on this this this short cliff that you can easily climb up it's right there I know it's there we're going to go get it today and you can listen to the audio of this interview and live as it's happening and he's with his friends and some strangers that he's offered to pay to go with him and they're there and they're climbing up the rock and he's looking down below and he's pointing up it's like right it's right there it's right there and these men are are feeling around this rock face and they're like there's nothing here man there's nothing here and you can hear it and the audio he's like no I see it I see it it's right there just moving there they're like we can't keep searching it's not here it's not here and that really stuck with me that he wasn't lying he genuinely saw it and I think that's what chasing our own paradise does to your vision it's not blindness it's worse than blindness it's confidence confidence in the counterfeit that you'll stand on the ledge with with one hand on this rock and you swear that you're touching the treasure and I know this this man is he's just a stranger in this strange story but don't we all have our our list of treasures that we're seeking you know the keys to our paradise the the next holiday that finally resets you you know the the next house the next goal the next relationship the one that settles the ache in my heart the next gig the one that makes my career makes sense the next version of your life the one you may have been scrolling past where your actual life sits in the room with you waiting for you to engage and all of those is just a rock on a cliff with nothing underneath it it's not because those things are evil most of them are good right a house is good a job is good a relationship is good but it's just they were never designed to carry the weight and expectation you've been putting on them and so when you seek these treasures when you seek these keys to your own paradise you are asking created things to do a creator's job and they will collapse every single time and you blame yourself and you go looking for a better rock I know I'm going to find it if I could just find that treasure we don't have to be trapped in this vicious cycle seeking and building our own paradises. We can build good things. We can build a good life all from a place that glorifies God. And that's what John is trying to help us see. He's trying to help us to learn to abide, to live in the true light. And it's kind of a funny thing that when we stop chasing the counterfeit treasures of this world, the world actually takes notice, right? We saw in verse one in chapter three, the second half. And of course it doesn't. If your love came from another place, right? A foreign place, not of this world. Don't be surprised when the locals can't pick up your accent, right? Like I'm from the US, you can kind of hear there's something going on. When I go there, people are like, where are you from? And when I'm here, people are like, where are you from? Like I can't win. Right? And it's the same with our love. The world doesn't know. They're like, where is this from? And we, as Christians, we get the privilege to exemplify it, to share it, to live out this love, to live distinctly different lives, to society's expectations, and all because we've discovered the true source of love and light. And it's not within, it's from God. Verse two, then now and then not yet. And John says this, dear friends, now we are children of God. And what will be has not yet been made known, but what we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. So the now is not one day, not pending, not under review. Now we are children of God. And then not yet, what will be has not yet been shown or revealed to us. Both of those are true in the same sentence. And if you only take one of those, you'll get your whole Christian life messed up. It'll all be out of shape. If you take only the now, you'll demand heaven from a world that cannot produce it. If you take only the not yet, you'll check out of this world that God actually placed you into. So when we look at this phrase, has not yet been made known or manifested in chapter three, while we're reading, we see the very same word used back in chapter one, verse two, stating the life appeared or manifested. And that life being Christ. So this life appeared in chapter one in a body being Jesus that John says he heard, and he saw, and he touched with his own hands, and he's saying, that life, that life will appear again. He's using what's called an inclusio to bring us insurance. What is an inclusio? It's a framing technique where a passage, a Psalm, or a book begins and ends with the same exact word. He's bringing us assurance that we can know that this is true. So back at the beginning of his letter, here, he's saying this life has manifested. And here in the middle are the same word. And John isn't just writing in a straight line. He's closing the loop. He's writing in a circle. He wants to emphasize the power of his return. And the hope of the scripture is that our perception, our reality changes when we include eternity in it. Many years ago, I saw this great illustration. And it came to mind when I was reading through the scripture from the pastor and preacher, Francis Chan. And he did this illustration on eternity. And it's an illustration that's so old that the picture-- this is the clearest picture I could find. This is as high death as it gets for us, I'm sorry. But he had this great message on eternity where the rest of the rope that you can't see it goes down the stage and around quite far. And at the end, he has this little red, waxy tip. And he says this in his message. The Bible teaches that what I do during this little red part determines how I'm going to exist for millions and millions of years in eternity forever. And so why would I spend this little red part trying to make myself as comfortable as possible enjoying myself as much as I can? Everything you've been calling real, everything you've weighed and ranked and lost sleep over. It's all been measured on a scale that is far too small. It's just a fraction of what's to come. The scripture says we will be like him because we shall see him as he is. It's not as I have made it in this little part that I have. It's not a better version of what I have. It's a new order altogether that I have eternity in mind. And I kind of asked, well, why the wait? Seems like it honest question. If the future is that good, why not now? Why leave us in this not yet? It feels so uncomfortable. The only faithful conclusion you can come to with the scripture is that God wants to use your not yet. He wants to use our not yet. That God defers this hope on purpose. It's not withholding his blessing, but it's actually stretching us. And again, St. Augustine here, he says, by making us wait, God stretches our desire, by desiring our capacity of stretch and a stretched vessel holds more than it could before. He compares it to widening a bag or a sack or something you are about to fill 'cause you know how much is about to be poured in. So God is not delaying the gift for you. He's enlarging you as a person to receive more of what he has. It means that this desire that we have, that nothing in this world can satisfy. It's not evidence that you're some kind of broken person although we are and we need Christ. But it's evidence that you're made for another world that the Christian life can be difficult and overwhelming, but that is the hope that we hold on to. So when we carry that revelation of what our capacity is for, we realize it's for kingdom over earthly paradise. For the sweetness of God's grace over the sour aftertaste of temporary pleasure. And we start to watch as God does a great work with that little bit that we can offer. I love that hope does something. We have this action to take in verse three, he says, "All who have this hope in him, purify themselves, just as he is pure." The language used there to purify or to sanctify. It's actually a temple word. And John uses it in his gospel in John chapter 11 and it's showing what the Jewish pilgrims did before they went for a feast, before they went into the temple. You purified yourself before you approached. Anybody took a shower this morning? No, you don't have to raise your hand, you don't have to raise your hand. Well, man, if you didn't, you don't have to raise your hand. But the hope in this verse, it's not a mood you're in, right? It's not whether you forgot to wash yourself this morning with some soap, right? But sometimes we can come to church in a certain kind of mood, I know we've all been there, a certain kind of mood, it's not really helpful for anyone. But the hope in this verse is not dependent on that. It's not just optimism. It's not like you're coming here and we're generating it on a Sunday and then by Tuesday, you're like, "Yeah, that was fun, I'm done." That's not the kind of hope it is. It's a hope that is inseparable to the purity. It's inseparable to the purifying. The person that genuinely believes the king is coming, he's coming back into the city, as the scripture says. They're gonna start cleaning their house up. So John, he's not taking away our free will. He's actually reminding us that it's God who purifies. You see, the Jewish pilgrims had to purify themselves out of obligation, but the Christian is purified by the blood of Jesus. So through our belonging and our abiding that we join our will to his will and in that joining we're cleansed through the blood and through forgiveness. It's not you doing it and it's not you just being passive but it's you being willing and God's spirit working in us. And as I made my way through this scripture and through these verses over the last few weeks, I was excited by what I was discovering and excited by what I was hearing and encouraged by the word. And then I looked in the mirror and I was like, how do I tell if I'm really abiding in that love? How do you tell? If you're really abiding in that love it's been lavished out, if it's been lavished out, if it's been given to us, how do I know? And it's genuinely easy for us and kind of maybe even normal for us to be entitled, right? Not from arrogance, but because of situation is so good. Life is very good here where we live and where we are. It's a life that God's blessed us with and that even some of our biggest problems are enviable to other people. So it becomes very easy to set expectations on everything around us and all the people around us and even ourselves. It's so accessible for us to be self-sufficient and we forget that deep need that we all have, that calling to the truth of abiding in Christ. And instead we turn to seeking out the counterfeit paradises. These little paradises start to build like seeds thrown into the wind, these ideas of expectation and perfection. Suddenly our mind, our heart, they're not dwelling on him any longer and I start straining towards those ideas. I build my hope on those ideas, what my paradise should be now. We gradually forget that eternity that the scripture is pointing to. And I think the end of the story is, answer is right in front of us. The now but not yet. John the Baptist quoted from John's gospel identifies this tension more directly. He says this, "He must increase, but I must decrease." So the tension of my temporary life decreasing in the revelation of his glory, of his goodness, of his greatness. The tension is the answer. The tension of the here and not yet. The tension of Job in his depth of suffering and yet he's praising God. The tension of building a good life with good things yet knowing it's also temporary. It's just this little part of what's ahead. I want you to know that that tension it gives you the power of abiding so that you can build your life, your relationships, your family, your goals, all on the truth that they're not the source of your identity. They're not the source of your purpose. It's a tension that that constantly pulls my focus toward recognizing God's love. Maybe you can imagine John's hand pulling you towards a scripture look at this love. We see the ultimate example lived out for us and displayed for us through Jesus Christ. The tension of the cross. This perfect human, human sinless and literally God himself, God with us and yet he's submitted to death on a cross. He's dying not for his own punishment but for ours and so my hope and my prayer for us here is that we learn to abide in his love more deeply that our lives will be shaped further by his kingdom. That we decrease and that it's Jesus that increases. That we see his plans increase, his words increase his love, his mercy, his grace, his servant heart, his humility, his power, his justice. All of that beauty I pray would increase in our lives as we learn to abide in him. Well, we hope this podcast has inspired you on your journey of discipleship to Jesus. If you want to know more about our church, just go to abide.cidney. We'd love to get to know you. If not, you're from another place. Hey, why don't you share this with someone else and hopefully it helps them as they continue to follow Jesus. Have a great week.