Spiritual PEMDAS

Well, brethren, the world around us is governed by laws, and not the kind of laws that impose fines or some form of incarceration upon one for breaking them, but rather natural rules, natural laws, kind of a certain order to the world around us, what we sometimes refer to as physical laws. For centuries, mankind has examined the natural world. They've studied it. They've tested it. They've retested it. And they've described the results to the best of their ability, spawned a whole discipline called science.

As they've studied, they've ultimately deciphered pieces of the puzzle of what has happened at creation. And because of mankind's God-given ability to think, to reason, to analyze the order by which God governed this creation, we've discovered the essence of things like how gravity works. We've figured out the laws that govern motion of objects, laws of reflectivity and refraction, thermodynamics, laws that govern how small, tiny particles of matter behave, and a whole host of other things. In a somewhat sad reality of mankind, however, much of what we have learned has been used to attempt to disprove the very creator that set into place the order which allowed us to discover it in the first place.

Part of this puzzle of creation was decoded late last year, and just recently was reproven by experimental replication at the CERN Laboratories in Switzerland. The discovery of what is known as the Higgs-Boson particle, nicknamed the God particle, much to the detriment of the scientist who studied it. They hate that nickname. But it supercharged the news in recent months, with many claiming they had finally unraveled the final pieces of the puzzle and the mystery of the Big Bang.

That we have essentially, in discovering this particle, disproved the need for God, and that with this final piece of this puzzle, we now can see how the randomness that existed following the Big Bang coalesced into the world that we see around us. The reality is, what they've discovered is yet another example of the credible order and the meticulous design of God's universe. And it's this characteristic of God, it's this very characteristic of God, that mankind openly displays.

We take perceived chaos in the world around us, and we attempt to make it orderly. We take, we fight back disorderly vegetation, we hack back the blackberries, and we establish nice lines in our gardens. We put down orderly brick and mortar, or we put down fences to hold that vegetation at bay. We build cities with orderly streets that have a certain pattern to them. We have squares, we have rectangles. We even, each of us, even goes silently a little bit insane when you walk into a house and that picture is hung just a little bit off kilter.

Our eyes of horror walls that are out of plumb, lines that are not straight, notes that are not part of the same cord. If they're off pitch, or they're too flat, or they're sharp, we notice that. And the list of things that we notice that are out of order goes on. Start today by going to 1 Corinthians 14. We'll pick it up in verse 33.

1 Corinthians 14 verse 33 for a very well-known scripture that describes one of these aspects of our God's character. 1 Corinthians 14 and verse 33. In the New King James Version, it says, The New Living Translation puts it, As such, in all that we do, we find rules to help ensure that things are the same everywhere.

We call it standardization. We want to make sure that everything is identical. When we go to McDonald's, we want the same experience regardless of where we go. You can get a Big Mac in China. You can pick up a Big Mac in Russia.

You can get a Big Mac in South Africa. And it's the same hamburger. Sort of. I've heard. I've heard the meat actually does taste a little bit different depending on where you are. So my friend is in Thailand right now. He's living in Bangkok, and he is having some difficulty getting a true, authentic Big Mac. He said the beef just tastes different. Maybe it's because it's actually free-range and delicious beef in other countries. But in science, we've agreed upon standardized measurement systems. It's the same regardless of your location.

In science, metric is the standard. Time is recorded in the same units in every country around the world. We carved out time zones so that time works the same way. We've agreed upon a set order of rules in mathematics to ensure that every mathematical equation that is done on this planet is solved in the exact same way.

Yields the same answer regardless of location on our planet. Now, math itself isn't like other subjects. There aren't gray areas in math. Math is one of those subjects that you're either right or you're wrong. And that's the beauty of math. I'm not a math fan. I will give you that. I don't like math. It's one of my favorite subjects in school.

But I can appreciate that you're either right or wrong when it comes to math. There's no area where you can argue one way or the other.

It's a discipline that's governed completely by rules. There's only ever one right answer. There's only ever one process that leads you to the correct solution every time. Interestingly, in math, and having some friends of mine at the school that I teach at that teach math as well, you can even get the question wrong even if you arrive at the right answer, but do the process incorrectly. The process is that crucial. For example, and I'm going to test you just a little bit today, so I apologize.

Daniela was saying we should not be doing math on the Sabbath, and I totally agree. But here you are. See if you can work this in your notebook. You might not be able to see it. I apologize. I wrote it as big as I could on the paper, with as dark of a pen as I could find at the time, and it turned out it was like a green highlighter. So, for those of you that are limited by eyesight, it is a 13 plus 4 inside of the parentheses, plus 14 divided by 7. I'm going to give you just a second to figure that out.

Some of you are furiously already writing in your notebooks. It's great. Look at you, good students. You guys remember this. 13 plus 4 inside of the parentheses, plus 14 divided by 7. I'll see if I can actually prop that up up here. I bet I can't, but I'm going to try. Haha. Pulled it off. I'll give you just a second or two to finish up. Uh-oh. There it goes. Well, it did work until gravity kicked in.

Thanks a lot, natural laws. Anyway, I'll just hold it. Alright, so what did we get? I hear 19. Anybody else get something different? Three? Anybody else? Different answers. Wow. Alright. If you had 19, you're absolutely correct. You're absolutely correct. And here's why. Because there's a correct way to solve this problem. There's a certain process that you go through to ensure that you get the right answer. And students of math today know it affectionately as PEMDAS, or by its little mnemonic, Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally, which helps us to remember the order of the things that we solve. So, PEMDAS stands for parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction.

So we start with our parentheses first. We go to the side of this particular problem. We do 13 plus 4, because that's inside the parentheses. That gives us 17. Then we move on to exponents. There are none. So we don't have to worry about the E part of our PEMDAS. Then we go on to multiplication and division from left to right. Multiplication first, however. So do we have any multiplication? No. So from left to right, division. Ooh, we do have division.

So we go through and we divide 14 by 7, which gives us 2. Then we go through and we do addition and subtraction from left to right. Again, addition first. So addition and subtraction from left to right, which gives us what we had here, 17 plus 2, which comes out to 19. And I can confirm that's correct, because I actually looked it up online.

So, obviously, the internet said it's right, so we're going to believe it. But I promise you, I promise you, that is the way that it's done. Based on PEMDAS, based on the way that it's set up, that is the way that this particular one comes out. And this was arrived at, this process, this PEMDAS, was arrived at through years of experimentation, through solving mathematical problems, and they found that there was one natural order to going through and solving a mathematical problem, that math itself was designed to be done in a certain way. One correct solution, every time.

And it also helps that those rules of order have now been mutually decided upon by all parties. Everybody around the world that conducts themselves in math says, yes, this is how we'll do this. Now it's called Different Things in Different Countries. United Kingdom, I can't remember the exact wording that they use, but they call parentheses brackets instead, so they have a B in there, so... But it's done the same everywhere. And it is the commonly accepted method in mathematics to solve a problem. It's step by step, one step in the process, leading to the next step in the process in order to arrive at the conclusion.

So is it possible, is it possible, that the same God of order, the same God that loves all things orderly, the one who has established all of our natural laws, the rules by which mankind governs science, mathematical endeavors, is it possible that God has an order of operations for our lives? Is it possible that there is an order of operations, kind of a spiritual pemdas, if you will? I believe that he does. And with the time that I have remaining, I'd like to explore this concept a little bit further. For those of you that enjoy titles, I've actually titled this sermon Spiritual Pemdas, parentheses, F-O-L-S.

So we're going to name it something else by the time we're done, but we're going to start out with Spiritual Pemdas. In parentheses, F-O-L-S, or FOLS. If you would turn with me, please, to the book of Deuteronomy. We're going to start, well, go into our second Scripture today. With a passage, it really was the inspiration for this entire message. So we'll start in Deuteronomy, pick it up in chapter 10 and verse 12. So Deuteronomy 10 and verse 12. And what we can see here is we can see the requirements from God being given to the Israelites through Moses.

So in Deuteronomy 10 and verse 12, we'll see Moses speaking to the Israelites here, giving them God's requirements for them as a people, as His people. Deuteronomy 10 and verse 12 says, And you can almost see this. I mean, I like to put personification into Biblical characters when I read these kinds of things. You can almost see Moses lining these things out, holding up his fingers as he lists them, telling the Israelites, Number one, God requires you to fear Him, to obey Him, to love Him, and to serve Him.

Now, you can look at these requirements in a couple of different ways. You could look at them as four separate things that God requires you to reach at some point in time in our spiritual lives. Or you can look at the relationship between the things that are listed. And I happen to prefer the latter. And I think that if you look at these things together, these things naturally lead from one to the next to the next to the next.

Fear leads to obedience, which leads to love, which leads to service. And as we go through our Spring Holy Day season, we examine our lives. And we're nearing the end of that Spring Holy Day season. We've got Pentecost coming up here next week. But we've gone through the days of Unleavened Bread. We've searched our lives. We've focused on the places in our lives that need work.

And it's possible in some cases, as we search through our lives, we found aspects that needed maybe a little bit of refinement. Or maybe we found places that needed a complete and total remodel. I mean, it's very possible that we came into parts of our lives as like we need to knock that wall down and just completely rebuild that section of our lives. In order to kind of refashion our life to the kind of life God wants us to lead. And inevitably, we come out of that Passover examination, finding those things that we need to do differently. And what I find happens, and I think I've mentioned this to you guys before, I find that sometimes people approach that time of year like a New Year's resolution.

Kind of say to ourselves, well, here's what I'm going to work on for the next go, and then it doesn't really get anywhere sometimes. We sometimes pull the dandelion, but we leave the root in the ground. And if we're not careful, eventually that dandelion just comes right back. And year after year, we can go through this process without making lasting change. Every year that dandelion can come back.

And as I've contemplated that concept and that idea, and as I examined my own life this Passover season, this passage in Deuteronomy just kept coming back to me. Just kept coming back to me. And as I began to meditate on it and chew on it, I've come to conclude that this passage represents an order of operations in our spiritual life, much like Pemnas is in math. The latter aspects of these four things cannot come about until the first aspects are in place. And if we find things in our life that are not in line with God's instructions as we go through our examination, and as we look at the change and all that goes along with that, if we find that we're disobedient year after year after year, we confront these same issues and no change is made, then we need to very starkly examine our lives and ask ourselves two very important questions.

One, do I truly fear the ultimate consequences of my actions? Or two, do I respect and revere God enough to make the necessary changes? It all begins with a proper fear of God. It all starts there. So today I'd like to examine the spiritual order of operations, where it begins, how to then work with this Pemdos process and this continued process of growth that God desires in us. So we'll take a look at these four main points as we continue today.

We'll be looking at fear, be looking at obedience, be looking at love, and we'll be looking at service. So we'll start with fear, and this process obviously has to start somewhere. The very first thing that Moses outlined in Deuteronomy 10-12 was fear, and it turns out the foundation of our relationship with God is fear. Let's turn over to the book of Proverbs. Many of you probably know exactly where we're heading here, but we're going to start in Proverbs 1. It'll be in Proverbs 1, and we're going to pick up Proverbs 1 in verse 7. So Proverbs 1, verse 7, one of those foundational scriptures, Proverbs 1, verse 7, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

So not only are we told here that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of the knowledge process, Scripture explicitly tells us that if we despise the wisdom and the instruction that comes from the fear of God, then we are fools. Fearing God brings wisdom. And we can corroborate that statement with Proverbs 9, verse 10. Let's turn over there real quickly. We'll take a look at a little bit of a parallel Scripture here.

Proverbs 9, verse 10, talking again about the fear of God. Proverbs 9, and verse 10, just a few pages over, says, Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. Fear is a beginning. Proper fear is a beginning. The word fear within the Bible is used interchangeably in two separate but related manners. The root of the word itself translated fear in these locations is the Hebrew word yare, Y-A-R-E, obviously without the vowels at one point in time, but it's pronounced yare, which is translated as we would think of fear, to be frightened.

But it's also translated a second way, which to me always kind of really messed with my head a little bit, because it can also be translated as to revere something or to be awestruck by something. And I've always thought that was strange. I always thought the duality of that word was strange. That you could have something in some context is translated to be afraid. In other contexts it's translated to revere. One of those places where it's translated to be afraid is in Genesis when God comes to find Adam, and Adam says, Oh, I heard you walking in the garden, and I was afraid.

I was yare because I was naked. The word afraid there comes from yare. But then the context of the word fear in other locations, Leviticus 19, verse 30, for example, it says, You will remember my Sabbaths and yare revere my sanctuaries. So it can be used in two different ways.

Two different ways, two different situations. Now, Jeff Benner, who is the person who runs the ancient Hebrew Research Center, some of you may be familiar with him, claims that in their original script, Hebrew words didn't have dual meanings. He claims there are not dual meanings. His claim is that the word has a singular meaning, which is applicable in different ways.

Now, when you look at the ancient Hebrew letters that make up the word yare, the concrete meaning for yare is a flowing within the gut, a visceral reaction. It's the idea of being so scared that you can feel it in your gut, or being so awestruck that you can feel it in your gut.

It's one word, same feeling, but it's used in two different ways. Of course, that's according to Jeff Benner. And I'm willing to yield to his interpretation in that he is certainly a greater authority on the Hebrew language than I am. And it's one of the better explanations I've heard as to how to kind of make the duality fit.

Be that as it may, the Bible clearly tells us that fear is the beginning of our walk with God, that a proper reverence for God is necessary. But Christ himself even tells us that a healthy fear, as we would think of fear, phobos, the Greek word phobos, isn't such a bad thing. Let's turn over to Matthew 10. Turn over to Matthew 10. We'll pick it up in verse 28. Matthew 10, verse 28 specifically uses the Greek word phobos, so it is talking about fear, like phobia, and being afraid of spiders, or some of the other weird phobias being afraid of the peanut butter.

The peanut butter being stuck to the roof of your mouth or something else. But Matthew 10, verse 28 says, And do not fear, phobos, those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Christ instructs his disciples as they're prepared to go out in the world.

Look, don't fear men. Don't fear men. Men can only kill you personally. He can't take eternal life from you. Who you need to truly fear is God, because not only can he kill you, he can also take eternal life. It says in Hebrews 10, 31, it's a fearful thing, phobos again, to fall into the hands of the living God. So it's therefore that much more important for us to be brutally honest with ourselves and to seek out the places in our lives that desperately need to be fixed.

Really, truly seeing our lives as God sees our lives. Turn over to Ecclesiastes 12. Turn over to Ecclesiastes 12. We can actually see an example of Solomon's self-examination. Ecclesiastes 12. Don't do what I just did and turn to Ezekiel. That's not going to help you. Ecclesiastes 12. Don't know where I was going. Ecclesiastes 12, and we'll pick it up in verse 8 so we can get some of the context here. Ecclesiastes 12 and verse 8.

There we go. Fingers aren't cooperating today. My apologies. Ecclesiastes 12 and verse 8 says, Remember your creator before the silver cord is loosed, or the golden bowl is broken, the pitcher shattered, at the fountain or the wheel broken at the well. Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gives it. That's 6 and 7. 12-8 says, Vanity of Vanities, says the preacher. All is vanities. And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge. Yes, he pondered and sought out and set in order many proverbs.

The preacher sought to find acceptable words in what was written was upright, words of truth. The next scripture is so evocative. The words of the wise, the words of the wise, again, those who have fear, are like goads, like goads, like prods. And the words of scholars are like well-driven nails given by one shepherd. We see verse 12. And further, my son, be admonished by these, of making many books there is no end, and much study is wearisome to the flesh.

He comes to the whole conclusion of the matter. Verse 13, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Saul and men with all of his fineries, his lavish lifestyle, the women, the food, the drink, the money, the power, everything that went along with being king of an extremely powerful civilization at that time, when he took all of that life into account, when he sat down and he mulled it all over, he arrived at the following conclusion.

Following conclusion, fear God and keep his commandments, for this is man's all. The conclusion that he arrived at was that lifestyle that he had, none of that mattered. Everything of that was vanity, but the conclusion of that entire process, his entire life boiled down to one single sentence statement, fear God and keep his commandments. That is the whole of man.

It goes on to say, for God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. That's somewhat connected to what we saw in Matthew a little bit. There's a reason to fear there.

God sees the things that we do. He's capable of then taking both physical and our eternal life. And Solomon knew it, and intuitively we know it as well. Proper fear leads to obedience. Proper fear leads to obedience. That's the starting point. So let's take a look at obedience, walking in all of God's ways.

Now, many of you know I'm a schoolteacher. I teach eighth grade science. And so eighth grade science, not so much the science part, but the eighth grade part, I deal with an interesting age level of kids. The kids that I have are 13 and 14. And if you can remember back to 13 and 14, I can. It's an interesting set of years. It really is. I deal with a lot of kids. I've got classes of anywhere between about 32 and 34 kids. So they're crammed in there, like cattle, really. And a good number of those kids can be a handful.

A good number of them can be a handful. Usually it's only about 5 or 10 percent, but that 5 or 10 percent feels like just about everybody by the end of the day. After about nine years of teaching, I think back to how many kids I've had in total. Probably up to a little over a thousand students that have been through my classroom over nine years. And you think about 5 to 10 percent. Well, that's only like 100 kids. And thinking about it, the number sounds a little bit low, actually, on the problem kids.

But every year when those kids come through the door, I have a couple of ways that I can operate my classroom. And reality is, in order to have a classroom where kids are going to learn something, you have to have an orderly classroom. You have to have kids that are going to respond to instruction. You cannot manage the students' behaviors. No learning is going to happen. Period. And so you can get there in one of two ways.

Either the students are afraid of the consequences that they'll receive for acting out, and so therefore they fall in line. Or you establish a good enough relationship with the students, based on mutual respect, that they're obedient in order to please you. Or at least not to make your day any worse, so to speak. And the reality is, is the year typically starts, we have to start with option one.

We kind of have to lay down the law and say, no, in this room, this is how this is going to work. And if you step across the line, you know, no personal issue here, but you're done. I mean, you can come back tomorrow and try it again, but this is the line, and this is how it works. As time goes on, though, I find that the second option tends to be where we ultimately end up.

We get enough of a relationship going between myself and the students that sometimes all it takes is a glance, looking at them, just going, really? All right, all right, all right, all right. And they're back to work, and everything's fine. Or, as I sometimes enjoy doing, the kids affectionately call it, in today's vernacular, clowning on a kid. Just where I kind of sarcastically make little jabs at them and stuff to get them back to work. And it's fun for all of us, but it reduces the amount of conflict that I have in my classroom, makes my job a lot more enjoyable when I can actually have a relationship with the kids that's respectful that we can get things done.

I have a student teacher, though, for the very first time ever this year. I've never had a student teacher before. This is the first year I've done it. And it's been really interesting to sit back and look at how I have dealt with the kids and how the relationship that I have with these students, and then see someone new come in and try to start this process.

And I can watch her ask the same students that I've already got solid relationships with, try to get those same kids on task, demanding they sit down to do this, to do that, and it often doesn't work. Because as far as I can tell, at this point, they're not afraid of her, and they're not afraid of the consequences. They don't have the relationship. They don't have enough respect for her at this point to do it out of respect. And, I mean, to put it very simply, they don't fear her at all. Either respectful fear, or afraid of fear. Now, what's really interesting is, I can sit at my desk while she's teaching, and I can have a kid in the back of the room going, doing whatever they're doing over here, and I can look at him and go, and back to where he goes.

But I'm supposed to stay out of the process, which has been really, really difficult. But spiritually, we're the same way. And realistically, again, it's the two components of the Hebrew word Yahreh we talked about. We can either obey God because we're afraid of the consequences of our actions, or we can obey God because we revere him, and we have a relationship with him that's important.

The immediate result is the same. Both of those will get you obedience. Both of you will get...or both of those methods will get you there. But it's the end result that's vastly different. The end result's vastly different. I grew up with an alcoholic father. Many of you know that from just the relationship that we have in talking about things.

And our relationship was very, very dysfunctional and strained for many, many, many years. When I was young, I obeyed him solely out of fear for my own skin. I mean, that was...it was kind of like, okay, I'll do whatever you say. Just don't, you know, don't smack me. And I'm sure at that point I looked up to him, but I wouldn't say that there was really a respect at that point in time.

And I don't know that I ever really got there once I hit my teenage years, either. In fact, I can think of my teenage years when I hit my rebellious phase, so to speak. And there really wasn't much respect and really wasn't much honoring of a father at that point in time that there should have been. But I can look back at that point in my life and see that's really where some of my students are right now with the student teacher.

I mean, there is no modicum of respect there. I don't know that I ever really got to the point where I personally transitioned out of obeying for fear of saving my skin to obeying because we had any kind of a respected relationship. And that's what I mean about the end result being different. When you obey only out of fear, you're going to have extreme difficulty getting to the stages of love and of service. You're going to have a lot of difficulty getting to those last two stages. You'll reach obedience. You'll get there.

And there's a good chance that that will be the farthest that you get, and you may not even stay there for long. You'll obey only because you're afraid of the consequences. If you cease to become afraid of the consequences, you'll then turn around and cease to obey. You'll also resent it as time goes on because you're not bought into the reasons why you need to obey.

However, if you can do both, if you can start in a place where you fear the consequences but transition to a reverence and a respect as time goes on, you'll not only obey because you desire to, but you'll be able to push past that into love and into service. Because, again, you're going to be bought into the reasons why. Paul in the book of Galatians discusses this concept. Let's go to Galatians 3. Galatians is an interesting, really interesting read. Galatians 3.

But Paul in this particular book discusses this concept a little bit. And to give you the basic context behind the book of Galatians, we'll do it in about 30 seconds. It's a lot of context, but we'll try to do it in 30 seconds. Paul is dealing in Galatia with a situation in that particular church where there were believers that were recent Gentile converts to Christianity, being led by converted Jews to believe that they essentially had to become Jewish first in order to reach some point in order to become Christian. And so, as a result, these Gentile converts are then being pushed to physical circumcision, much of that Pharisaical rule set that went along with Judaism at the time. And then additionally, those folks are being pulled by the world that they came out of, which was this Roman imperial cult that is telling them, no, no, no, you need to keep these civil holidays that we keep, and all these holidays to the emperor and everything else that goes along. So they're kind of being pulled in two different ways throughout the book of Galatians, and that's who Paul's writing to in that particular book. So it really helps to see that context as you read through Galatians. If we look at Galatians 3, though, we have Paul talking about the law, and it seems as though, it seems at first cursory glance, that Paul's saying it's not important. And a lot of people have used this to say, see, it's not important. Told ya. And so, Galatians 3 has been used time and time and time and time again for folks to argue that the law has been done away with, that it's been quote-unquote nailed to the tree, and that all you have to then do is love God, and therefore, that's all it takes. So we'll pick it up in verse 21 of Galatians 3, verse 21. It says, is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not. For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. Paul's point here is the law itself doesn't provide life. You can't obey yourself to eternal life, particularly if you're obeying purely for self-preservation.

Christ's coming anted up our spiritual lives. It's not a checklist. We don't go down the line and say, well, didn't kill anyone today. You know, I didn't steal, didn't commit adultery, didn't lie. Christ's coming came and said, okay, yeah, maybe you didn't do all those things, but how'd you treat your fellow man?

Did you treat him with contempt? Did you hate him? Did you lust after them? Did you take from them in some way? Christ took the requirements of the laws the Jews understood them and took them to a level by adding the spirit of the law to them as well. Paul goes on in verse 22, but the Scripture has confined all under sin that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe, but before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed.

Therefore, the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith, but after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. Paul's not saying that the law is done away with. What he's saying is that now as Christ has come, his teachings amplify the law. They add to it. That the law got the Jews to the point where they could accept Christ, but for the Gentiles that he's building towards, it doesn't make sense for you to go backwards.

It doesn't make sense for you to go backwards. You don't have to become Jewish in order to be Christian. You started here. You're not in need of the tutor. If you follow Christ's teachings, it will satisfy all of the requirements of the law, and then some. We see all those commandments and all that law boiled up into love God and love man.

Pick it up in verse 26. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ had put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs, to the promise. This continues on to the idea that the concept of Jew and Greek doesn't make sense.

You're all one in Christ now that Christ has come. So quit your bickering. Quit going back and forth. Stop eating at different tables. Physical circumcision to mark when it's Christian then doesn't make sense. Do what Christ taught you to do. Live in a manner that is godly. So does that mean that we can just skip to love without going through those foundational phases now that Christ has come?

No. No, it doesn't. What we're seeing here is a difference in the kind of fear and obedience like what we mentioned before. The Jews as a whole obeyed for fear of the consequence. They were hyper obedient. The law was a burden to a certain extent. It was a list of can't-do's. So much so that they built a fence around the Torah so that there was no way that they could break it. You couldn't take... there were only so many steps allowed on the Sabbath day because any more than that, and you would go more than a Sabbath day's journey.

To avoid eating something unclean, they washed their hands ritualistically, strained out small bugs. Things that got into the food. Avoided eating milk and meat together so they didn't accidentally boil a kid in its mother's milk. They built a fence around the Torah. And they did fear and obedience really, really well, but to what end? To what end? On the other hand, the Gentiles didn't have the law to begin with. They didn't have anything to fear or to be obedient to until Christ arrived. So did they get a pass? Do they get to start at love? No. The fear the Gentiles are to have is the fear that God desires us to develop. Reverence. Buy in.

That I'm going to respect and honor God and I'm going to obey Him because, yeah, I might be a little bit afraid of the consequences if I don't. And there's definitely healthy. You know, Matthew 10 told us that. But more so because I know that He loves me. That I know that He takes care of me and because I know that He wants me to be a part of His family.

And if we truly believe that, and if we want that, and we're bought into that, obedience will follow. Not just because we quote-unquote have to, but because we quote-unquote want to. And I won't ask a show of hands. I mean, I'm not going to put you on the spot like that. But ask yourself that question. How many of you feel like you're there? And how many of you feel like you're there? You've come out of the quote-unquote have to and are there because of the want to. I know when I asked myself that question, this past Passover, got some ways to go there. Got some ways to go there. And I think that's a part of my life that in particular this coming year, that's a big focus point for me. Is developing that relationship with God and that mutual love that we have there. So when we reach the point that we've transcended pure obedience for fear of consequences, and we've moved into obedience because we love God, we hit the next stage in our process. We get to the point where we love God. So we'll take a look at love now. What does it mean to love God? What kind of love do we actually show to God? We've all heard many, many, many, many sermons on the love of God. And I don't want to belabor the points. We know there are three specific words that denote love in the Greek language. We know that there is philios, there is eros, and there is agape. And philios is a brotherly love. It's a kind of friendship love, an outgoing care and concern for our fellow man. Eros is intimate love, kind of love that exists between a husband and wife. And then finally we have agape. And the first two of these aren't really the types of love that we have for God, even though they're subtle aspects of that within the relationship with God. But the love that we have to grow to show God is that final love, the agape. And it's the one that He shows to us. So agape love is that kind of selfless love that can only come from the Spirit of God. In fact, we see that in 1 John 4. Let's go ahead and go there. 1 John 4, we'll pick it up in verse 7.

1 John 4, verse 7.

Pardon me. 1 John 4 and verse 7. We see that God's very character is this love. This is the character of God. John 4, verse 7. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love, the word love here in all cases is agape, does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4, verse 8. In this, the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. Verse 12. No one has seen God at any time, if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. True love, agape, comes from the Spirit of God, from the indwelling of God in our lives. John says it himself. Agape is of God, and anyone who agape is born of God and knows God. It isn't possible to have agape apart from God. Agape is a side effect of the indwelling of the Spirit of God in our lives. It is something that you have for others because God's Spirit is within you. And we hear of all these incredible acts of service and heroism. We hear of situations in war where people have fallen on grenades and died for their platoon mates. And I would pose to you, that's done out of an extremely developed sense of filios, an extremely developed sense of care for their fellow man, but not agape. Agape love is a selfless love, a sacrificing love, that doesn't think of self and is there because God's Spirit is in you.

It is a self-surrendering, service-oriented love that was demonstrated by God, demonstrated by Christ, and is a part of his very nature. God is agape. This is the kind of love that God wants us to grow in and to show him, that we're willing to sacrifice our lives for him as Christ sacrificed his life for us. That we're willing to give up ourself, willing to surrender our life to him, and live in the way that he's instructed us to live. That we're willing to sacrifice our lives to others, and to esteem others greater than we esteem ourselves. The only way we can reach this kind of love is to have God's Spirit indwelling within us, to reach a point in our lives where we revere God, we obey him out of that reverence, and we receive his Holy Spirit. Then, through actively working that Holy Spirit, stoking that fire, so to speak, we reach a point where we can love God and love others in this manner. And only through this love can we reach the final stage of our operations. Once we've worked out fear, once we've figured out obedience, and once we truly love God, we reach the point of service. We reach the point of service. So that's our final point for today, that we serve God with all of our heart and all of our soul. And it's not just service, but bondage. Not just service, but bondage. The word actually translated service in Deuteronomy 10-12 is from the root word abad, which translates to to serve or to enslave. Sometimes translated till, believe it or not, like tilling the soil. Abad is sometimes translated till. Sometimes translated till. One of those locations is when God removed Adam from the garden. He was sent into the world to work the ground, to till the ground, to slave away and toil due to his mistake. The word itself implies servitude. The root is used to derive the word for servant, for bondage, bondservant, and slave.

God desires that we lay aside our life, our will, and become his bondservant. If you've ever done any reading into the system of Hebrew slavery, you know, sometimes we hear the word slavery and we instantly get this negative, ugh, ugh, ugh, kind of reaction. We instantly get this reaction of, you know, keep it away, let's not talk about that. But Hebrew slavery is really fascinating. If you've ever done any reading into it, it's a really fascinating system. We know that slavery occurred within the Hebrew system, and we know that it wasn't anything like the Roman system. In the Roman system, slaves had no rights whatsoever. The master could kill a slave at any point in time and serve absolutely no repercussions for what that person did. They were bought and sold. There were no rights to that person whatsoever. But in the Hebrew system, slaves had rights. They served for a seven-year time period. And because the Hebrew system at that time had an every-seven-years year of release built in, every seven years the slave would be freed by his master. And what's really interesting about the Hebrew system is he's not sent away empty-handed. Not sent away empty-handed. Let's turn to Deuteronomy 15. Deuteronomy 15. And we'll see why they were not sent away empty-handed. There's a very important reason why. Deuteronomy 15, not too far from where we started today. We'll pick up the account in verse 12. Deuteronomy 15 verse 12. We see that this system of slavery that the Hebrews had was a merciful system. It took into account of the fact that things will happen. People may make financial mistakes, and there was a way built into this system where those kinds of things could be fixed. Deuteronomy 15 and verse 12. If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall let them go free from you. And when you send them away free from you, you shall not let them go away empty-handed. You shall supply him liberally from your flock, from your threshing floor and from your winepress. From what the Lord has blessed you with, you shall give to him. And the reason why is in verse 15. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you. Therefore I command you this thing today. And if it happens, actually let's not go to verse 16 just yet. Let me hold off on that. God commands his people at this time. Look, you were slaves at some point in time. You were in Egypt, and it was not a good experience. It was not a good experience. If you allow this person to serve you for six years, in the seventh year you let him go. But notice, he doesn't say just kick him to the curb. You furnish them liberally from your flock. You don't just hand him one, you know, week or lame lamb and go, here you go! This one's a little messed up, you know, but good luck. You don't hand him something like that. You give to them your blessings. You give them liberally from your flock, from your threshing floor, and from your winepress. What you're really doing is you're giving him the blessings that you received while he worked for you.

You're setting him up for a better situation from that point forward, putting them back on the right track so they don't have to do this again. Now verse 16, come into a really interesting situation. If it happens that he says to you, I will not go away from you, here comes the year of release, you open the door and you say, well, you know what, the last six years have been great, you know, here's your flocks, here's your stuff. Have a great go of it. It's been fun. Thanks. He says, I don't want to go. I don't want to leave. Well, in that situation, he says, I don't want to go away from you because he loves you and your house since he prospered with you.

He says, I don't want to go. You're a good master. You're a good person. I wish to be your servant forever. This is very Ruth and Boaz to me. This is very, entreat me not to leave you. I don't want to go.

We see there's a process built in verse 17. Then you shall take an all, not an owl, but an all, and thrust it through his ear into the door. Basically, pierce the ear. And he shall be your servant forever. And to your female servant, you shall do likewise. So there's a system built in. If they didn't want to go anywhere, if they wanted to remain within your house, they could. We see in verse 18, It shall not seem hard to you when you send him away free from you, for he has been worth a double-hired servant in serving you six years. And then the Lord your God will bless you in all that you do. This is the kind of servitude that God wants us to agree to.

He desires that we reach a point in our relationship where we have feared him, we have obeyed him, we love him. So much so that when given the opportunity to walk away, we say, uh-uh. I'm not going anywhere. Not going anywhere. We've experienced what his love has to offer, and we make the conscious choice to set aside our aspirations, all the things that quote-unquote drive us, the things we want, and say very simply, not my will, Father, but yours. Reaching that point in our walk with God that we've just completely surrendered the self. We've decided that a life of servitude to God is more desirable than a life of walking our own path. And when we reach that point, we attain a level of service that allows us to then serve others in the church, and enjoy it. Not just serve, but enjoy it. To achieve that pure and undefiled religion that James talks about, where we visit orphans and widows, serving them and keeping ourselves unstained from the world. We can serve without hitting the other points. We can. We absolutely can serve without going through those other points. But the service may be for the wrong reasons. It may be, I'm serving, so look at me, look at me, look at me. It may be a serving because someone said I had to. It may be a serving where eventually it becomes a burden. It burns us out rather than invigorates us. True Christ-centered servitude is the goal, humbling ourselves, serving others, and esteeming others more than us. And that process creates a life that reflects the light of God's love to the world around us, creating a person that walks through this world of darkness like a million candle-power spotlight. People see that. They notice it.

People start to subtly change when they're around those people. You may have noticed that when you have people out in the world, somebody drops a cuss word or something and they go, oh, I'm really sorry. I'm sorry. You know, wouldn't have said that to someone else, necessarily. They know that that's not something that you're into. So, sorry. So people subtly change when they're around people like that. You know, as our Spring Holy Day season draws to a close, as we've got, you know, very little amount of time before Pentecost, we're down to a week now for the Spring Holy Day season, really ask yourselves, where are we in this process? Where are we in this process? Have we moved past the fear stage into obedience? Are we obeying only because of the fear of the consequences? Are we obeying for the right reasons? Have we reached a point where we truly love God, so much so that we're willing to sacrifice the self? Are we willing to become a bondservant to God, have that ear punch, so to speak, and to say, never send me away? I'm here for good. Are we willing to give up our desires and our wants for our own life to then live a life that God desires for us? The only way to get there is to follow the order of operations. Just like that math problem we gave you earlier, you know, there's only one way to solve this problem correctly. You've got to follow the order of operations. You've got to follow the order of operations. Same way in our spiritual lives, there's an order of operations. And if we solve that problem without the order of operations, we get the incorrect solution. We get the answer wrong. We arrive at the end, we find out the answer is wrong, or worse yet, we get to the end, we find out we got the right answer, but we got the process wrong. We got the process wrong. Or got stuck somewhere in the middle of the problem and just gave up. We mentioned earlier, sometimes in math, students can get to the end of the problem, they can get the right answer, but they get the process completely wrong. And in math today, you get the process wrong, and the answer's still wrong. It doesn't matter if you got the right answer or not. You're required to show your work, you're required to prove that you know how to do that particular problem. I don't know about you, but I sure don't want to get to the end of the problem and realize I got the process wrong. That I went about the process completely backwards, even though I found the right answer. I don't want to get to that point. God desires that we finish this particular math problem before our time on this planet is up.

We have to use God's order of operations. And instead of PEMDAS, I'm going to call it FOLS. F-O-L-S. Fear, obedience, love, and service.