Expect God’s Loyal Love | Jud Wilhite | Central Church

[Applause] all right good morning everybody good to have you guys with us today i wonder how many cat people are in the room today or watching online any cat people all right more than uh more than last night that's for sure there were like three you know cats are kind of cats are different right like they're a trip if i i'm not really i've never had a cat for since i was a kid but when i go and visit friends that are that are cat people i go in differently than if they're dog people you know like i go in their house and i know like their cats a lot of cats are just too cool man they're too cool to care so i just totally ignore them i go in and i'm like no cat here and then it you know if i'm lucky about 20 or 30 minutes later if you just totally ignore them eventually that cat will come up and kind of rub on your leg like hey you can touch me now you were cool you know i touch him of course other cats look at you the entire time like don't even think about it bro i will claw you you will not even see it coming man now dogs are a whole other thing right if you're if you're a dog person or you go to visit a friend that has dogs dogs are they're all like love and slobber and my dog used to just pee every time somebody new came over she gets so excited she couldn't control the bladder you know like like that's dogs and and um that's just kind of who they are so this video this past week went viral went all over the world and i thought it was great it was about a guy in turkey who went to the hospital and his dog followed the ambulance all the way to the hospital and then basically sat outside the door waiting and um when the daughter saw the dog she took it home she's like that's our dog took it home and he got out and went back to the hospital and sat by the door and she took him home again and he got out and went back to the hospital and for six days this dog sat by the door at the hospital waiting for his owner check him out here he is little photo uh look at that face let me tell you man cats don't do this but that's a face of of love and loyalty for for his owner and then here's a little video that went around the world when the owner finally gets out of the hospital six days this dog's been uh waiting for him and we'll roll this but the owner gets out the dog goes crazy you can see him here in a minute he's coming around he's like oh my gosh you know he's so excited and uh that's just a picture of loyalty it's a picture of love and i think we love these kinds of images when we see them and i think it's we can we can kill that now i think it's bigger than just uh you know seeing a dog and the love and loyalty there we see it in people like when when parents show that kind of love and loyalty to their kids or kids show that love and loyalty to their parents or when people show it to one another or when elderly couples are still taking care of each other after all these years and decades and we sort of see that we're drawn to that i think it's because there's something in us that recognizes this kind of loyal love as special and sacred and beautiful and i think it's because it's actually a characteristic of god himself he is a god who loves with a loyal a fiercely loyal love now we've been in exodus chapter 34 beginning in verse 6 over the last several weeks and it's this famous passage in the bible not really famous today but back then it was super famous in fact it's the most quoted passage in the old testament by old testament writers so if you read through the old testament the bible the first two-thirds of your bible you'll see that this verse is quoted or alluded to more than any other verse in the entire old testament it was like an anchor passage for them it was so key and important and it's the passage where god reveals who he is in his own words he passes in front of moses and he basically says moses this is who i am this is what you can count on and so we've been leaning into this because we've realized look we no i don't know what 2021 holds but i believe it can be a great year because we have a great god it's his character it's who he is that we can rely on in the midst of uncertainty and so exodus 34 god gives it to us in his own words and we're going to bring it up here on this slide you see on the left-hand side kind of this scripture and this is what god says it says yahweh the lord the god of compassion and mercy i am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness and we've been breaking this down god calls out five characteristics about who he is he says he's a god of compassion we looked at this week one we talked about how that's crazy that god in this culture in this time would introduce himself first as a god of compassion not a god of power not a god of strength not a god who's like more god than all the other gods no he comes out and he goes i'm a god of compassion i care i have empathy um then we talked about favor which uh is a way of translating this word mercy that god is a god of favor he blesses uh his people he loves to bless his people uh we said that god is slow to anger and this is one of my favorite messages i've given in years go back and watch it if you weren't here last weekend because i think it'll it'll tweak your perception of god a lot of times people think god's just an angry god or you read something in the old testament you're like wow god just went off and here god sort of frames up who he is his character it's slow to anger it's filled with unfailing love and we unpacked that to a great degree last week it was a lot of fun this week we're going to talk about this idea loyal love that god is a god of unfailing love or loyal love next week we'll look at faithfulness and when it comes to god's sort of loyal love for us in our lives i think there's a powerful story that we can lean into in the old testament where we see these words come up again and again that can help us understand the loyal love of god and so i want to turn with you to the life of joseph joseph was the second youngest son to a guy named jacob a very pretty important figure in the old testament and joseph um he was a dreamer uh he was uh shown extraordinary favoritism by his father which probably wasn't wise joseph's brothers already kind of hated him because you know dad loved him so much and he was the special one some of you got a sibling like that and joseph has a dream dreams were very important and this dream was very vivid and in his dream all of his brothers bow down to him and joseph probably in a moment that wasn't so wise tells his brothers about this dream like check it out had a dream had to be from god you were bowing down to me this is not gonna go well right and so what you read in the story of genesis is the brothers basically work up a plan they fake joseph's death and they sell him off as a slave to egypt so you know i don't know what your sibling rivalry is like but that's kind of like going nuclear they sell him off as a slave right he ends up in this this guy potiphar's house um as a slave and he earns more more and more trust and then eventually potiphar's wife falsely accuses him of attempting to rape her and he gets thrown into prison so here's joseph the dreamer and now he's found himself sold into slavery and now he's gone into prison i mean it goes from bad to worse it's like the year 2020 on steroids right and you kind of read through the story and here's what's sort of fascinating when joseph gets put in prison is precisely when we see this whole word come up again faithful love the unfailing faithful love of god it shows up in joseph's story when he goes to prison so check this out genesis chapter 39 beginning of verse 21 we get to the redwoods here let's say i'm out loud real loud this is how we kind of make sure everybody is awake re-engages all right it says but the lord was with joseph in the prison and showed him his what faithful love his faithful love and the lord made joseph a favorite with the prison warden now this idea this word faith faithful love these words this is the hebrew word that god uses to describe himself when he says he's filled with unfailing love it's a very important word we're going to do a little hebrew lesson i figure if we can go to starbucks and order a grande triple shot quad latte thing then we can handle a hebrew word this is the word hasset and the reason it's so important is because um it's very hard to translate into english and it's a very a key word of god and his love it can be translated mercy kindness loving kindness steadfast love faithful love abundant goodness great loyalty and much mercy doing loyal love this is the word that god uses to describe himself and his character for you as his child he has has said for you he has loyal faithful much mercy doing love for you it could be defined this way god's commitment to do a generous and surprising amount of good in another person's life over the long term somebody's like yeah i want that but it gets even better look at this not based on their performance but based on his own promise asset is a word that is usually sort of connected to god's covenant love his agreement love that he makes with us in our lives and so the good news today is even if you fail god's covenant love his has said his faithful love is still there with you even when you make mistakes god's love is with you even when you blow it god's love is with you listen god's love is going to go before you his love's going to go behind you his love is going to see you through 2021 his love is going to see you through this crazy pandemic it'll see you through a job downturn it'll see you through relationships ups and downs it'll see you through the mistakes that you made things that you wish you'd never done why because his love is faithful it's anchored in his character it is who he is who god is is a god who loves you in his own words come on that's good news we can go home now we're pretty much done but don't worry i'll keep talking so how do we lean into this loyal love in this season in our lives few thoughts for you one is to remember the god who remembers you remember the god each day who remembers you you know i don't know about you but but i often forget things in my life in fact i did a little research this week on things that people forget and some of the top things people forget surprise me for example one thing people forget is to close the garage door any of you like loop around when you're driving away to go back like oh my gosh did i close it did i shut it or for me the worst is when i get up in the morning come on somebody and i'm walking out to get in my car and i open that garage door or i open the door that leads to our garage and there's my garage door wide open all night long come on in y'all it's all here for the taking other thing is people forget why they walked into a room anybody forget why you walked in yeah a couple days ago i was standing there literally i was saying out loud to myself why am i here why am i here why am i here and it dawns on me like this is how you get committed right here standing in a room asking why you're there but i just forget like you know what why am i here one more is passwords people forget their passwords oh my goodness i have a whole file anybody else with all my passwords from all the years all listed there i can't ever remember which one goes where right and then my computer's always trying to get me to adopt its password which is like 700 characters long i'm like who uses these things what am i supposed to do what happens if it's not like linked up especially where it just automatically fills in or i get a new computer and it doesn't i'm like i'll be lost so we forget things sometimes when it's hard when we're going through difficulty when we find ourselves in the pit like joseph or even in our own version of prison like joseph we believe that god has forgot us sometimes i think we can get into this sort of mentality that god remembers us only when life is good it's like like if we were to put it into emojis it might look like this like like when things are good and the relationship's good and the money's good and man things are rocketed rolling in my life fitness is good health is good then god loves me god's with me god's blessing me i have favor but then things go bad covet happens you lose your job everything gets flipped upside down your income gets cut in half you got to be around your spouse all the time you can't even get away from your dog or your cat it's always there right you know your kids your kids that you love and you can start to think in the midst of the tension and the pressure like man maybe god's just angry with me right like i know i did some stuff y'all and maybe he's just had enough and i kind of got to the limit of his patience and and he's just done with me but here's what i think we see with god's faithful or or loyal love is that whether you're sad or whether you're happy whether things are good or whether they're bad whether covet you made money or like a whole lot of people you lost money whether things in your relational world right now are going well or going bad none of that indicates who god is god indicates who he is in his word and his true blue loyal love is there for you in the good times and the bad i don't like these times i want to hang out here right but i can tell you that i learn a lot more here than when i'm here and that i've seen over the years while i can't always see it in it sometimes i can look back and realize god actually blessed me more in the down times than he did in the good times [Applause] so if you're hurting today if you're struggling i want you to know god's loyal love is with you you may not be able to see what he's doing and that's okay it may not make any sense to you right now and i get that that's okay but just believe that god is working that he loves you that he's he's continuing to move in your life joseph would have been tempted to think that god forgot him right in the moment when now he's in prison now here's what happened when joseph gets in prison all of a sudden he starts doing well because the first time god's name shows up in the story of joseph is when he gets sold into slavery the second time god's name really shows up in the story of joseph is when he lands in prison see sometimes precisely when we don't feel god is when god is doing his best work sometimes precisely when we can't see god is when god is doing his best work so here's joseph in this situation and things are crazy now he gets more and more favor in prison god allows him to get more and more responsibility and he's basically the number two person of the warden in the prison right he's got a lot of freedom a lot of responsibility in that context and so a couple guys get put in prison that are from pharaoh's core like the egyptian pharaoh and one is the baker and one is the wine taster and they both have these super vivid dreams one night they get up the next morning they're really disturbed and god gives joseph the ability to interpret their dreams joseph says hey let me take a shot he says to the wine taster like tell me your dream i'll try to tell you what it means and the wine taster tells him his dream and he goes oh your dream means in three days you're going to be released and you're going to go back to your old job in the court as the wine taster he's like man that's amazing that's awesome and i think the baker's sitting there like yes i like this dude joseph he goes hey i had a dream too can you tell me the meaning of my dream and so the baker tells his dream to joseph and joseph goes well yeah in three days you're going to be executed so bummer for the baker but that's what happens the wine taster in three days gets released in three days the baker gets executed but here's what joseph says to the wine taster before he leaves prison um genesis chapter 40 verse 14. and i highlight this word remember we'll we'll get to it he says and please what remember me okay well here's interesting this word in the old testament hebrew language is the word has said please show me loyal love do me a solid bro and do me a favor when things go well for you mention me to pharaoh so he might let me out of his play of this place he says show me that kind of loyal love remember me now you know what happened in the story the wine taster he gets out he's free he goes back to pharaoh's court and check it out he forgets all about joseph and so joseph for two more years is in prison continuing to navigate the situation listen we forget we forget if we left a garage door open we forget our passwords we forget all kinds of things but god's loyal love will not forget you god was with joseph in prison in the pit in the lowest moments in his life and he is with you god's love will see you through whatever you're going through so you've got to remember the god who remembers you second thought is this trust god's good work trust god's good work in your in your life because he is working even in the down times i remember one night a few years ago i saw this advertisement come up for a documentary on the rock band twisted sister anybody remember twisted sister some of you are like no i have no idea which time i'm at you're emotionally and spiritually healthier because you don't know what i'm talking about the twisted sister was the first concert i ever went to in my life i was like 12 you know and it's like yo we're not gonna take it i'm 12. i'm done anyway i watched the documentary i was like ah twisted sister and it opens up twisted sisters playing this concert and and then it says that they got signed to the record deal it's like oh cool that's how it starts and then this is what surprised me the screen stops and a number comes up it says three thousand uh 3267 and then it it says 3267 shows earlier and it goes back yes it goes back 10 years did you know that twisted sister toured for 10 years before they got a record deal playing multiple nights a week dumpy little places anybody that would have them they did 3267 shows before they ever got signed dang how could they not be better well that's another i don't recommend the documentary but i did pause on that on that statistic i think sometimes when we see somebody's success we just see the success but but we don't realize the build up that happened before the breakthrough happened and even more spiritually in our lives we don't realize the build-up that has to happen before the breakthrough happens joseph's in prison joseph's life's flipped upside down but god's loyal love is teaching and training him and getting him ready for the next thing that he has for him there is a build up before the breakthrough there is god moving and working preparing us for what's coming next i know covet season has been a brutal hard season but don't miss this god often breaks people the most who he uses the greatest and some of you that have been in the breaking down time maybe you're just getting prepared for the blessing god has for you and through you in the next season in your life god's laying the groundwork romans 8 tells us that that god works all things together for good for those who love him and so he's working for good even in our lives when we don't understand it so my encouragement to you is this god is working while you are waiting you may feel trapped right you may feel like you're stuck you may feel like things are not changing but god is working you may feel like you're not getting the answers you need but god's working listen when you're jobless he's working when you're sick he's working when you're uncertain he's working but when you're ashamed he's working god is moving and he's working and he's doing what only he can do in your life you can't see it but it's still happening when you're humiliated he's working when you're afraid he's working when you're lost he's working listen when things are good he's working when things are bad he's working and even when nothing is working god is working trust his good work so here's joseph all of a sudden the wine taster remembers that well the way it goes down is the pharaoh has a dream the leader of egypt he calls together everybody to interpret his dream because he's really disturbed by this dream and nobody can figure out how to interpret it and all the people can't can't suss through it and then the wine taster standing there and he's like wait a minute i know a guy i remember that dude in prison a couple years ago and so all of a sudden joseph gets called up he gets brought to the royal court he gets cleaned up he gets brought in before the pharaoh craziest story right he interprets the pharaoh's dream first thing he says to the pharaoh is i cannot do it but god can do it through me and then he goes he hears the dream and he comes back and he interprets the dream and it just rings so powerfully true to the pharaoh he basically says listen pharaoh here's what's going to go down you're about to have some amazing years of prosperity but they're going to be followed by some pretty brutal years of famine and so the the pharaoh is pretty disturbed but here's what's cool joseph not only interprets his dream he goes here's what you need to do and tells the pharaoh here's the dude from prison telling the pharaoh look during the seven years of abundance you need to start putting things back so that when you get to the years of famine you've got enough to provide not only for yourself and he starts breaking out the plan don't you love people that show up with a solution more than just a problem i mean most valuable employees are not the employees that rock up with problems that's easy there's a million of them but come with a solution and you're hired that's where joseph is he brings the solution ferris goes barrel goes i like it you do that and basically promotes this guy from prison above all these political people which wouldn't be unlike our politics today all this maneuvering and all this power grabbing promotes them right over all those people and says you're going to be my right hand guy you do what you just said so joseph's now in this amazing power position of influence and as the famine eventually comes he's over the food distribution and guess who rocks up who needs food his family his brothers who sold him into slavery you know better part of 20 years before they don't recognize who he is but he recognizes them he knows who they are and the story i won't go into all of it but over time they eventually relocate to egypt there's a moment where jacob's father or jacob dies joseph's father and all the brothers are now concerned that because the father dies joseph is going to kill them like now he was playing nice for dad dad's out of the way and now we're going to die and so they fake a letter from their dad these guys never learn the brothers they fake a letter from their dad asking for joseph to have mercy on him they throw themselves at his feet they bow before him and they say we are your slaves basically please don't kill us which is the full circle of joseph's dream and joseph responds with this passage it's one of the most famous passages in the bible if you're newer on the faith journey remember this okay you're going to sound really smart but also it can anchor you spiritually there's a reason this passage has helped so many people over the centuries here it is genesis chapter 50 beginning in verse 19. it's joseph talking to his brothers and this is what he says don't be afraid of me am i god that i can punish you and then here's the sentence you intended to harm me but god what intended it all for good you intended to harm me some of you you've been through a divorce and you're like to your ex you intended to harm me and you didn't know there was more to the sentence right some of you right at work you've been through some stuff maybe you've been mistreated maybe been discriminated against maybe you feel like you've been passed over hey maybe you had somebody who just had it out for you you intended to harm me and you didn't know there was more to the sentence but god intended it all for good joseph says god brought me to this position so i could save the lives of many people you know you know what he is as he goes on in the context he says to his brothers you sold me sold him into slavery but he says god sent me god's work and behind the scenes and i don't think it means everything that happens in our lives is good i don't think that's the message i think it means that god can work good even from really bad things that happen in our lives the fascinating thing about that word intended is that it can be translated weave like uh like you'd weave a basket or a garment and god takes whatever strands that we have in our lives and he re-weaves them into something good he weaves the evil done to us and he weaves it into good that can be done for us by us and through us think about this he can weave your divorce into hope for somebody else going through a divorce he can weave your bankruptcy into financial counseling for others going through financial challenges he can weave your loneliness into compassion and empathy for others who are struggling with loneliness he can weave your doubts into answers for others whose faith is weak he can weave your darkness into hope and light for those who cannot see a way out he can weave your failures into coaching for others he can weave your breakup into encouragement for others he can weave your layoff into a new entrepreneurship he can weave your isolation into involvement for yourself and others in church he can weave your addiction into recovery for yourself and others god can take your story and listen it's still being written it's not done kovid's not the last chapter 2020 is not the final part of the story god's still writing the story and he's a god who works all things for good for those who love him i don't know what this next year holds but friends i just want to encourage you to sit in this god genuinely loves you i was reading a poem this week that um a guy named eugene peterson's son had shared about his father eugene peterson is a pastor a lot of people looked up to he wrote a lot of books he did the message translation of the bible that sold all over the world jillions of copies but his dad said something or his son said something about his dad that in this poem that was so powerful and i'm going to paraphrase it this is off the cuff but he said dad all these years you fooled him he said you fooled everybody he said you're a fraud i said every week you made people think you had a new message at church every week people thought it was fresh because but you didn't have a new message you only had one message one message your whole life one message that was it one simple message for like 40 years of preaching and he says i knew because at night when i was a kid you'd sleep in you'd slip into my room and you'd tell me good night and you'd pray over me and it was always the same message and he says the message is this god loves you god's relentless god's passionate god's coming for you somebody needs to sit in that today god loves you he's relentless he's passionate he's coming for that's it that's the message if we just get that his loyal unfailing love change how we see ourselves and how we see each other and how we see our future and how we see our problems how we see moments in the pit and moments in prison if you will in joseph's case and how we see god moving and working even behind the scenes let him weave it together trust him to do it god's love will get you through whatever you're going through maybe some of you are here today and maybe you just since god's been tapping you on the shoulder he's been calling you to come home to him and i just love to give you an opportunity to reach out to him and trust him in your life to peel back the barriers and whatever's in the way and to just realize that god's love is bigger than your barriers your mistakes your shame whatever habits you have in your life god's love is bigger it's bigger than how you see the world how you look how much money you have or don't have the color of your skin what city you were born in what country you were born in what planet you were born on listen god's love is bigger than all of that and if you'll open your heart who he is he will be true to who he is his unfailing love will make a huge impact and difference he'll forgive and restore and help and transform so would all of you please bow your heads and close your eyes and if you'd like to become a follower of jesus today you can begin that journey by just repeating this prayer after me either out loud or in your own heart and mine you say dear god i thank you for loving me thank you for sending jesus into the world i believe he died on the cross for my sins i believe he rose again forgive me for my sins give me the gift of eternal life and help me face the challenges that i'm up against god i surrender my life to you in christ's name and friends if that's your prayer request today i want to ask you with every head bowed and every eye closed will you just slip your hand in the air and just make eye contact with me if you're making that commitment just to acknowledge you're going to follow him in your life today bless you guys thank you thank you let's reach out to him today thank you guys thank you thank you thank you god we love you i thank you for each person reaching out to you i pray you'll fill them with your hope your peace your joy bless all of us as we follow you thank you for your faithful love in christ's name amen

Channel: Central Church

Views: 1,044

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: central church, central online, central live, drew bodine, it's okay to not be okay, pastor jud wilhite, jud wilhite, Sermons, online church, great expectations, series, covid-19, hope, faith, nick bodine, epect god's loyal love, loyal, love, God, jesus

Id: zm9Sfb9pRrc

Length: 34min 59sec (2099 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 31 2021