Dr. Ray Ortlund

Good morning and I thank your Pastor Jerry and dear Holt and everyone at the Theology Project and the Future Church Conference. It's just great to be with you and it is my sacred privilege now to serve you in the Gospel. Thank you. Let's open our Bibles to 1 John chapter three, 1 John chapter three, verse 16, 1 John 3:16. The Bible says, by this, we know love that He laid down His life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. Wow. By this, we know love that He laid down His life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. We're here in church today because we long to see all the churches represented here. We long to see our own hearts renewed and revived and reinvigorated as never before. But how do we get there? How does renewal get traction? Not by tweaking our status quo, but by dying to our status quo. Now I'm old enough to remember the Jesus movement of the late 1960s, early 1970s. These eyes saw the Holy Spirit change the subject on the streets of Los Angeles from drugs and revolution to Jesus and His Gospel. Nobody will ever persuade me that can't happen. I experienced it. Maybe you've seen the movie The Jesus Revolution, came out about two years ago and my wife Jenny and I were there at Calvary Chapel. So many people were getting saved and flocking into church. They literally leased a circus tent and put it up in the parking lot to accommodate the crowds. We were in that tent and you can't imagine the joy, the atmosphere in that tent and in that church in Southern California, it was like the cloud of God's glory that we read about in the Old Testament. It came down and rested on my wacko generation for two or three, four years. During that time. It was not Woodstock improved, it was heaven on earth. And here's how it got started. True story. I checked this out in a phone call with Chuck Smith, the pastor of Calvary Chapel about 25 years ago. I'd heard about it. I wanted to know if this was true. Calvary Chapel had just built a beautiful little Spanish chapel. It was perfect for California. They had worked hard to build this, this precious, faithful Pentecostal church. The Holy Spirit was moving, kids were getting saved, teenagers, collegians and so forth. They were literally coming off the beach into church. And they didn't have any church background, they didn't know church protocols and they were kind of making a mess in this lovely new church. For example, there are oil deposits off the coast of Southern California and little globs of oil float up on the beach. If you step on one, it sticks to the bottom of your foot, but it's so soft you don't feel it. But you go home and wherever you step, you leave a stain on mom's carpet and she yells at you. So these kids are coming to church that way, sand on their feet and so forth and it was a mess. So Chuck shows up for church one Sunday morning and he notices there's a sign out on the front sidewalk, shirts and shoes, please. Huh. Chuck takes the sign down after the morning ministry meets with the leaders and says, look, if our new carpets and pews keep one kid from Christ, let's just rip them all out. And very much to their credit, they all said yes, the church they'd worked so hard to build, they gave it back to the Lord. They in a sense held a funeral and I believe our Lord above looked upon them and said, they're ready. It was wonderful. What happened was not a church program. You can't program that. It was life exploding out of death. It was open hands before the Lord. We were there. There was no grandiosity. It was just simple, honest, open. Our Lord said John 12:24, unless a grain of we falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. We long for that. You do. I do. Trusting in the Lord, let's have the courage to go there and let's have the courage to stay there. That vision syncs perfectly with our verse here in first John chapter three. By this we know love that He laid down His life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. So there are two ways we can do church, so to speak. One way is what I call typical church. We just import the assumptions and patterns of the past that have just sort of rubbed off on us along the way. And we haven't really thought about it, we just do. Typical church. It isn't horrible. There's nothing heretical or unjust or crazy. There's a lot of good in typical church, but it isn't captivating. The other way we can do church is, let's call it beautiful church. And we're not talking about the architecture. What I mean is the beauty of human relationships, sacrificial love, dying that others may live. In this brutal, ugly, predatory world, that is magnificent. That kind of love makes it feel like Jesus has come to town. In this world, every one of us is at best, useful. Units in a voting block, prospects in a market niche and so forth. But when we walk into a church, we walk out of that social environment into a church which is a new social environment redefined by the Gospel, He gave His life for us. The relational implications for us, dominoes start falling over in every direction redirection. When we walk into a church redefined by that Gospel, both in its doctrine and in its culture, we're stepping into beauty because finally for once, we matter and we belong and we're safe. And in a world like this, that's beautiful. The Bible says in Psalm 90, may the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us. The Lord our God is not just obligatory, He is alluring. He is heart melting. May the beauty, the heart melting, alluring beauty of the Lord our God be upon us. How dare we settle for less. We have no right to, we are here for Him. So as we reach for renewal, I'm reminded of a talk I heard in Europe over 50 years ago by a teacher I very much respected, a wise man. He said, if we wanna see something profound happen in this generation and we do, we long for that. We pray for that. If we wanna see something profound happen in this generation, here's how we can go there. Our church is clearly, publicly obviously marked by two contents and two realities, two contents, two realities. We sweep lesser things aside. We put other things off to the margins, we put at the center, two contents, two realities, and we stay there. What are the two contents? First, strong biblical doctrine. We don't play fast and loose with the Bible. Not if we wanna see something profound happen. I know that there are those who say it doesn't really matter what we believe as long as we love each other. Excuse me, that is a belief and it is not biblical and it cannot sustain love. Let's open our Bibles, let's keep them open. Let's take it straight. This is good news for bad people through the finished work of Christ on the cross from cover to cover. So first of all, strong doctrine, second content, honest answers to honest questions. So we're listening to our generation. They have reservations, they have doubts. We respect their doubts, we answer their doubts. So we have a great message of God's grace in Christ coming down from above and we have this interactive, ongoing conversation of honest answers to honest questions with those around. Those are the two contents right at the center of church. Here are the two realities. First of all, real spirituality, not doing church by our own brilliance and sparkle and impressiveness and pizazz and so forth, but humbling ourselves before the Lord. Bowing in prayer as we did before this service. Bowing in prayer, asking for the power of the Holy Spirit. Real spirituality. That's the first reality. And then the second reality, the beauty of human relationships. The beauty of human relationships. Now if we look at those two contents and two realities and sort of rank them in our minds, how important are these things? Biblical doctrine, that really matters. Honest answers to honest questions, that really matters. Real spirituality, that really matters. The beauty of human relationships. I'm not opposed to it, I'm all for it. But for crying out loud, have you seen my to-do list for this day? I mean honestly, that's gonna take time. And all this stuff I'm doing, I'm doing it for the Lord for crying out loud. That's typical church. It's not beautiful, it is not captivating. What if we crazy Christians push other things to the side and re-Christianize our Christianity with the two contents and the two realities and go into a new place? The beauty of human relationships, that might be in some ways unexplored territory and we're not entirely sure what this is gonna cost us. We can't foresee all the outcomes, but the Lord has called us, so sign me up, right, here we go. Bam, beauty of human relationships. It's right here in our text. By this, we know love that He laid down His life for us so now we know how to live. We ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. I just noticed yesterday the English philosopher Roger Scruton in his little book about beauty wrote to speak of beauty is to enter another and more exalted realm. We know what it's like to do a drive-through at a fast food place. We know what it's like to walk into an art museum. Those are very different experiences. The beauty of human relationships is going there. He's taking us there so that the beauty of the Lord of God will be upon us and we in our generation can experience renewal. It's within reach, renewal and revival and awakening by the power of beauty. We all agree this is not something we just cook up because we're so smart. This comes down from above. It's a gift, it's a grace. God sends it down, but He's glad to. He's ready to. He's eager to. It's only an inch away. And the great thing is our churches don't need to go get a permit from the city. We don't need to add a line item to the budget. We don't need to hold a congregational meeting and take a vote. All we have to do to walk in the beauty of the Lord our God is go to the cross. Jesus is why we know that death, sacrifice, putting someone else first at cost to myself, that death, that way of life, ongoing moment by moment surrender clears the way for His beauty to rest upon us. Death outperforms glitz every day of the week. His cross is powerful because it's beautiful. It's what we see right here, by this we know love, that He laid down His life for us and we ought also to lay down our lives for the brothers. Is there anything so heart-meltingly beautiful in all this world than the dying love of Jesus for His enemies. We weren't there at the cross cheering Him on. We weren't even saying thank you, in that wonderful song, how deep the Father's love for us. There's a great line in there, ashamed I hear my mocking voice call out among the scoffers. Me. It's you and we are the ones He loved and He didn't hold back and He didn't set limits. He didn't count the cost to himself and He didn't resent us for the price He had to pay. He literally loved us all the way to death, His own death. He said to us, I am all in for you. By this, we know love that He laid down His life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. At Emanuel Church in Nashville, when we see a verse like this, and there are so many, the way we've tried to capture it is, is in this simple way, Gospel doctrine creates Gospel culture. The good news, the message we believe by God's grace for His glory. We want that to become. We don't want that to hang in midair as a bear abstraction, a mere datum. We want that beautiful truth to become embodied in how we roll as a church. We are very imperfect at this. I mean guys, we're a mess, but we're His mess. So it's gonna be okay. So when we allow the doctrine in all our churches, when we allow the doctrine, the teaching, the theology, when we allow that truth coming down from above to have its full and natural and intended authority and impact, beauty appears and it isn't a program, it's more atmospheric, more intangible. It's just a relational warmth in the air. It's me saying to you and you saying to me and there's this dynamic among us. I am so here for you. It's what we see right here in this magnificent verse. By the way, this verse, this is not like a verse that Baptists roll with, but Lutherans don't. This is just baseline, universal time-tested authentic apostolic Christianity. By this we know love that He laid down His life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. It's what we see right here in this magnificent verse. By the way, this verse, this is not like a verse that Baptists roll with, but Lutherans don't. This is just baseline, universal time-tested authentic apostolic Christianity. By this we know love that He laid down His life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. We can do that by God's grace, not perfectly but visibly that the only options we see before us are either perfection or nothing. We're gonna get nothing every time. But let's reach for the re-Christianization of our Christianity by going back to basics, Gospel doctrine, Gospel culture. Let's go there. Let's stay there. Let's see what God will do with that. So we think John 3:16, this is 1 John 3:16. John 3:16 is rightly famous. For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Wow, what a great verse. 1 John 3:16 deserves to be just as famous. John 3:16 declares the doctrine of the gospel. 1 John 3:16 declares that doctrine but includes the culture as well, the culture that that doctrine creates, sacrificial beauty for others. Jesus loved us by laying down His life for us and we love one another by laying down our lives for one another and that goes beyond. It is so wonderful to smile, to greet one another, to be personable and to be open. That is wonderful. There's just more. Laying down our lives as only Christians should. That's what love really looks like. That's the whole point. So let's just think it through briefly, two points. One, Gospel doctrine, His sacrificial love for us and two, Gospel culture, our sacrificial love for one another. By this we know love that He laid down His life for us. Man oh man, you have to be a Christian to be crazy enough to believe that. Because in this world, the social environment of this world is just obvious. What do you do with bad people? Punish them, shame them, cancel them. Stigmatize them. Exile them. That's what the world loves to do. God, the all holy God above who's actually there, He loves to forgive bad people and bring them in from exile. And His grace is how bad people start becoming good people. The Bible says He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree that we might die to sin and live for righteousness. New things open up and our verse points to that cross of Christ and says, by this, we know love. John Stott said it really well in his book, On the Cross of Christ, the English minister, I have entered many Buddhist temples and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha. His legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing around his mouth, a remote look on his face detached from the agony of the world. But each time after a while, I've had to turn away. And in my imagination, I've turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through his hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding, mouth dry, plunged in godforsaken darkness. That is the God for me. He laid aside His immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Jesus didn't hold back at all. His heart toward you could not be more sincere. Here's what I mean. I'm sorry to ask you to do this, but think of the most, think of the worst thing you've ever done. That moment you would most like to, if only you could get a do over, that moment. I've got mine, some betrayal, compromise, indulgence. It was wrong. You know it, you feel it. The cross is Jesus saying to you and to me, you don't have to bear that shame. I bore it for you. Will you let Me love you at that most horrible place inside you? I want to bathe that deepest shame in My compassion and My atonement. Would you let Me touch that place inside you with My cleansing blood? We don't have to be good enough for somebody like that. We only have to be bad enough and open. Right now. You can open up to Him right there, way down deep. Say, Lord, you know the mess I'm thinking about. Please take it. Touch me there. Wash me there. I just can't bear it any longer. And He says, yes, you are clean. Let His dying love redefine you. Let Him tell His story in you. He's great at it. There's the doctrine, the teaching, the theology, the belief. Isn't it wonderful. Gosh, is there anything greater in all this world? By this we know love. He laid down His life for us at our worst, but His love is even more than a sacrifice we receive. His love is also a sacrifice we copy. That's the culture. Second point, Gospel culture. Our sacrificial love for one another. Excuse me, I'm allergic to preaching, happens every time, by this we know love that we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, murdered by the Nazis. He said, when Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die. We are not merely available to Christ. We are expendable for Christ. And even if we don't die a sacrificial death, we can sure live a sacrificial life. Love does that. Love loves doing that. This is just basic Christianity, that sacrificial love. That is where beauty appears. The beauty of human relationships appears in an ugly, brutal world. From the beginning, the followers of Jesus have always been known for this. They were never impressive. They didn't have political muscle. They were outsiders. Very common people. But they were known for their love for one another. For example, a Christian teacher named Tertullian who died in 220 AD looked around at the Roman world and how they perceived these crazy Christians. And here's what he wrote. It is our Christian practice of love and kindness that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents only look, they say, look how they love one another. Look how they are prepared to die for one another. The Roman Empire did not admire the early Christians. They saw the early Christians as weaklings and losers. You just don't get it. That's not how life works. You gotta step on people to get ahead and so forth, just like our world today. But those crazy Christians had read 1 John 3:16. They did lay down their lives for one another. They were beautiful for it. And looking at Jesus and His cross and looking at those early Christians, we know love, those early Christians were even known for this. It was the word on the street about them. And they did win the Roman world, not by gaining power, but by displaying beauty. In more recent history, our own nation began with a small group of Christians called the pilgrims. We all know the story. Plymouth Rock, 1620, this little rickety ship, the Mayflower came over from Britain and they arrived too late in the year. They wanted to get there in time to build houses and plant crops and so forth, but they were delayed. They arrived too late, right in the winter and it was hard. That first year was horrible. William Bradford, their leader, described what happened next, eyewitness account. What was most sad was that in two or three months time, half of their company died, especially in January and February being the depth of winter and lacking houses and other comforts being infected with diseases which their long voyage and their difficult condition had brought upon them. So as there's sometimes died, two or three people per day of 100 or so persons, scarce 50 remained. And of these in the time of most distress, there were only six or seven healthy persons who spared no pains night or day, but with abundance of toil and hazard to their own health. Fetched them wood, made them fires, prepared them food, made their beds washed their filthy clothes, clothed and unclothed them in a word, performed all the homely and necessary services for them, which dainty and queasy stomachs cannot endure to hear named and all this willingly and cheerfully without any grudging in the least, showing their true love for their friends. A rare example and worthy to be remembered. We look at Jesus at the cross and we look at them and we know love. In more recent memory, some of us are old enough to remember the big Watergate scandal of the 1970s in Washington DC When Richard Nixon was president, there was a man on his staff in the White House. They called him the hatchet man. Charles Colson. Colson once boasted, he'd walk over his own grandmother to get Richard Nixon reelected. He was not a nice man. Colson in his pursuit of political power and support of an agenda, he broke the law. He committed crimes. He got caught, was convicted and went to prison in 1973. And and of course wouldn't you know, there in prison, Jesus saved him. So he went from the White House to a federal penitentiary and that's where Jesus was. He tells us about this in his wonderful book, Born Again, perfect title, right? During his prison term, not surprisingly, his family back home, especially his teenage son, they were suffering. They were in anguish. Their whole world had fallen apart. They needed help. So one of Colson's new Christian friends, Congressman Al Quie of Minnesota, reached out to Colson there in prison. Colson tells us what happened. A guard came to my cell and said, you've got a phone call. It was Al Quie on the line. He said to me, Chuck, your prayer group has been meeting and praying. We're trying to figure out some way we could go to the President and ask him whether I could come in and serve the rest of your sentence for you. A powerful congressman wants to go to prison so that the convicted felon can get out and go take care of his family. Colson later said, I never knew there was that kind of love that one man would really down his life for another. It's what the Bible says but Al Quie was ready to do that. We look at Jesus and we look at Al Quie, and we know love. We see beauty. We see our path into renewal by believing the truth of the Gospel and embodying the beauty of the Gospel. In other words, we go back and re-Christianize our Christianity, daring to follow Christ to His cross and His empty tomb, into newness of life. No. Maybe God would give some of us the actual privilege of literally laying down our lives. I mean it changes everything, but it changes how we pray. For example, this is just totally hypothetical. There are, I'm sure better responses, but let me just toss it out. Let's say a friend of yours gets cancer. They're younger than you are. They've got a family to care for, they've got years, they've gotta live. They've got responsibilities to fulfill. So maybe 1 John 3:16, maybe would get you down on your knees praying something like this. Lord, if someone has to have cancer, how about me? You can do anything, Lord, would you Lord, if it's all the same to You, would You move that tumor from my friend's body over into my body? Would you spare my friend? Take me instead. If someone has to have cancer, sign me up. Really. In Jesus' name, amen. Why not? He laid down His life for us. We should lay down our lives for one another. What a privilege. The call of Christ is not a lifestyle enhancement. The call of Christ is a death sentence, a beautiful powerful privilege that we gratefully accept. He died for us. We die for one another, by this, we know love. And there's no power in all this world that can defeat the love of Christ, crucified and risen again. Amen? In the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit. Let's pray. Now Lord, take these minutes we've had together and do through them with us whatever you wish. We're all in because You're all in. Thank you Lord. In Jesus' name. Amen.