The Object of the Game

Well hello everybody and welcome welcome to everybody joining us on the live stream and as Mark said welcome to everybody joining us live indoors in person here in church this weekend for the first time in many many months. You know we've been doing outdoor services in person for 10 months and if you want to check that out you can go to TLC.org/RSVP. If you don't want RSVP you can show up, bring a launch here, bring a blanket and if there's space you can just plop down and enjoy those outdoor services. It's awesome how many of you remember those days on the green. Are you my age when they used to do those big rock concert the days on the green? Anybody ever go to one of those? Well it's like the day on the green on Sunday morning only with Trent and Elizabeth instead of Aerosmith, so it's really really cool.

So we want to join you to invite you to check those out and enjoy those but now you also have the indoor service option. We're starting here on Saturday nights; we're gonna spread it to Sunday mornings eventually. I mentioned that because on the live stream on Sunday morning at 9 a.m. and 10:45 a.m. I usually preach that live in addition to preaching live at the outdoor service. But this weekend since this is our first indoor service in a long time, we're actually showing the video of this service in the live stream hours at 9 and at 10:45. So if you guys are watching the live stream, you're actually watching the video of Saturday night. Why? Because we wanted you to get the vibe and enjoy what is happening right now. Let's make some noise! There's light at the end of the tunnel. I feel the hope; it's fantastic.

In fact, wherever you are, whether you're here in person, outdoors, by yourself, with some friends, or with some enemies, let's just join together in a word of prayer right now. Would you bow your heads with me? Lord, thank you so much for the excitement and the hope that is in the air. And now as we talk about love today, God, I immediately think of places that need your love so desperately. Of course, I think of hot spots like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we give you thanks for the new truce and we pray for lasting peace. We think of our own country with continuing simmering tensions for various reasons. We pray for your love to heal us and to save us. And then, Lord, we pray that we as your followers would be agents of love and loving change to those around us. And man, start right now in these next few minutes transform each one of us listening and studying your word right now in however way we need to be transformed. You know, Lord, better than us; we're open to it. Lord, transform us with your inspired word of God. In Jesus' name, amen.

I want to start with a true story. A family therapist named Jim Roberts was volunteering at his son Daniel's school. It was recess and it was raining, and so the teacher did what teachers often do when it's recess and it's raining: they had to go inside to the gym and she had to come up with some games. So the game she came up with was the balloon stomp game. How many of you've ever played the balloon stomp game? Here's how you use the rules: you tie up a blown-up, inflated balloon with a string to every kid's ankle, right? And then the rules of the game are you have to go around and stomp everybody else's balloon, right? And the last person with an unpopped balloon wins.

So Jim watches—now he's a therapist, remember—he watches as all the kids are taking in the rules as the teacher tells them. These are fourth graders, and she says, “Ready, set, go!” He says instantly mayhem ensues and all these kids are running everywhere, screaming, trying to stomp on everybody's balloon. He says within seconds, really what happens is all the balloons are popped except for one kid who is triumphant, and he's going around strutting like a peacock. He can tell all the other kids do not think very highly of him, right? So recess is over, then the next group of kids comes in, and this is a special needs class. These are developmentally challenged children.

Jim says as they filed in, the teacher ties balloons to their ankles and they look around, and then she explains the rules to them. Jim says, “I could tell that they only had the foggiest notion of what this was all about.” And she's about to say, “Ready, set, go!” and Jim says, “I had a sinking feeling. I wanted to spare these kids from the mayhem.” The teacher blew her whistle to start the game, and he says after a few moments of confusion, one girl carefully held her own balloon in place so that a boy could stomp it, and then he did the same for her. That caught on, and these kids went about methodically getting their balloons popped. And then when all the balloons were gone, the entire class cheered in unison, “Yay! We did it!”

Now watch what Roberts writes: in normal balloon stomping, the participants are all alienated from one another. It's you against me. As these children played the game, it became an occasion for love. You have to ask yourself a question: who got the game right and who got the game wrong? Well, in the part of the Bible that we look at today in a book of the Bible called 1 John, the Apostle Paul says at the end of the day, are you sure you've got the game right? Grab your message notes that you were handed if you came in in person or you can download them at TLC.org/notes. Living in love is what we call our series through the book of 1 John of the Bible. Today let's talk about the object of the game.

Now when I think of games, you know, when we were kids, board games like these were huge. Anybody remember any of these board games? Operation, Monopoly, Battleship, Sorry, you know, the Game of Life? Raise your hand or type amen if you remember any of these games. I love these! Well, they all came with an all-important piece of paper: the rules of play. And the most important sentence in the rules of play was the object of the game. Because if you got the object of the game wrong, nothing else made sense. The game would just seem purposeless and confusing. But if you got the object of the game right, then everything else kind of ratcheted into focus and the game became fulfilling and fun.

Well, that is what John covers in this part of the Bible. What is the point of the Christian life and of life in general? What does God want from me? When I die, how will I know if my life has been a success? Because if the rules are the only one left with the balloon wins, I better get stomping. But if God's rules are different, I'd like to know. John talks about it in 1 John 2:3–17, and again you can download the message notes at TLC.org/notes. Starting in verse 3, here's the object of the game: he says we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, “I know him, I know the Lord, I know Jesus,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. Now this is how we know that we are in him: whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.

Now let me stop right there because many of you hear the word commands. He says you got to obey his commands, obey his command, obey his command, and then he says twice you got to obey, you got to obey. Many of you hear the words command and obey and you're thinking of all the many confusing religious rules that you were raised with, which probably felt impossible to keep. Not what John's talking about. Look at how he simplifies this: we just have to live as Jesus lived. In other words, if you call yourself a follower of Jesus, live like Jesus. Seems kind of like Captain Obvious, right? But I think a lot of us Christians really, really need to hear this these days.

And then in the next several verses, John teaches you and me exactly what this means, what our life looks like when we live like Jesus did. John says here's three essential truths about life, three components of the object of the game. These are very simple, but these can change your life. Jot these down. Number one is this: remember the goal is love. The goal is love. Verse 7: dear friends, I am NOT writing you a new command but an old one which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message that you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and in you because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.

Now stop just a second because that sounds kind of esoteric. What's he mean by I'm writing of an old command and it's a super old command you've already heard it, but it's also a new command? And you know what I'm talking about because it's also a new command. What could be old and new at the same time? Well, John is talking about one of the most famous things that Jesus ever said. It was already famous in John's lifetime. In fact, John had been there the moment that Jesus had said it. He witnessed this famous saying being spoken for the first time in world history, and it's this: one time Jesus was asked basically what's the object of the game? And Jesus says this: the first and greatest commandment is this: love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. Love God, love each other. This was an old command; this was already more than a thousand years old by the time Jesus quotes it.

John says it's an old command, but then he says, and it's a new one too. What's he talking about? Well, another time Jesus took that same old command and he put a new spin on it when he said to his disciples, “A new command I give you: love one another.” Now what if that wasn't a new command, that was the old command? Well, here's the new spin he's putting on it: as I have loved you, so you must love one another. As I have loved you. Who is Jesus talking to? This is the Last Supper; he's talking to his disciples. Think of how Jesus Christ loved those first disciples. Were they easy to love? Do you think Peter was easy to love, always boasting, hard to get along with, you know, reliably unreliable? You think James and John were easy to love? We saw that in the first week of the series: selfish, super ambitious, hot-tempered sons of thunder. You think Thomas was easy to love? Stubborn, doubting, always like, “I don’t think so.”

And it's so funny to me in the gospels there's even times that Jesus says to his own disciples, “How much longer must I put up with you?” Any parents ever say this about your children? Don't raise your hand if they're sitting right next to you. But he did love them so much. He loved every single one of them. So to love as he loved them means you don't just love people when they are lovable; you love them when they're hard to love. In fact, you love them when they're a mess. That's how he loved them. My wife Laurie and I saw a funny example of this when she was pregnant with our first child, Jonathan. She was almost two weeks overdue at the time the story happened. We were both just exhausted, especially her, but me too. We limped into a diner just like this one, kind of a classic American diner, and we slumped down into a booth. Crucial part of the story to have a tired dinner.

Laurie sees the ketchup bottle on the table in front of her and she slowly reaches over and starts to shake it, you know, so it's easier to pour. What she did not know was that the previous person who'd sat in the booth thought it would be a humorous prank to just place the bottle cap on top of the bottle, not screw it on. So she's sitting there, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, neither of us seeing that the people in the booth right behind us are just getting doused with ketchup. And they were so surprised; they were absolutely speechless. They couldn't tell us to stop. There was—well, the waitress finally sees it and she comes running over, “Stop! Stop! Stop!” And Laurie's like, “What?” “Put down the ketchup!” Finally, we get it; we look behind us. These middle-aged folks are just covered. It looked like they've been in some terrible road accident, just grisly. And then you know what they did? They laughed! I mean, like they were doubled over. They told us that it was the funniest thing that had ever happened to them at Denny's.

But it gets better because then when we went to pay the bill, the waitress told us that it had been covered by them. To this day, that is one of the classiest acts that I have ever witnessed. In fact, as you can tell, I've never forgotten it and it still kind of just gets me. But do you see? That was Jesus with his disciples. I think we're constantly creating messes, but he loves them and he pays the bill. He pays the bill. Now can you react that way and love and generosity to the people in your life who create messes for you? This is what John's talking about—that's the old and new command. And he goes on and says anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves a brother and sister lives in the light and there's nothing in them to make them stumble because that's the object of the game: they're living by the rules, the new and old command. But anybody who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; they don't know where they're going because the darkness has blinded them.

What he's saying is this: no matter how many Bible verses you know from memory, no matter how many fish stickers and Caleb stickers you have on a car, no matter if you came to the first in-person Saturday night church service or not, frankly, if you hate people, you're still in the darkness. You know, maybe right now in your life there's somebody that you frankly have hated for years, and maybe you feel justified in that hatred. But John is saying that that hatred will eat you up like cancer; it'll blind you. He says blind you till you don't know what's up or down anymore. You say, “Man, yeah, that's tough. René, how do I forgive that person?” Well, I think the key is in point two: I need to remember how I am loved. Big theme of 1 John: remember how I'm loved. We forget what we've got sometimes, right?

I don't know if you read the headline just this past week: a 26 million dollar super lotto plus ticket was destroyed in the laundry. Norwalk store manager says here's the story: a woman bought a lotto ticket, wrote down her numbers, watched the drawing, she won, and then she realized she'd left the ticket in her pants when they went through the washing machine. The winning ticket is now a pile of pocket lint. Now they know she bought it; there's security camera footage of her in the store buying the ticket. But California lotto officials say there's nothing they can do; you have to present the physical ticket. She had something worth millions in her hands but didn't realize what she had. Well, John's saying you already have so much in Christ. I don't think you realize the value of it, and that's why you're susceptible to these false teachers. He says things like, “I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name. And I write to you, fathers, because you've known him who's from the beginning. And I write to you, young men, because you've overcome the evil one.” And with some variation, he says the same thing in the next verse: “Your sins have been forgiven; you've known God; you have overcome.” Notice it's “you have, have, have,” not “you might if you try real hard,” not “one day you will.” It's in your hands! You will have this already. This truth has been spoken into your life by God.

Now he's not saying that all struggle in your life is over. He says God has spoken these things are true of you. You have all this in Christ. Why is this important to see this truth? Well, as I said a couple of weeks ago, we love as we believe ourselves to be loved. And when you remember you are loved, then you freely love. And we give as we believe ourselves to have received. And so I want to encourage you tonight, before you go to sleep, just take a moment to say, “I know who I am in Christ. I have all I need. I've received it in Christ already. I am rich and I am loved.” Remember the object of life is to love. Remember that you are already loved infinitely and unconditionally; you have abundant love in your life.

But then point three is also very crucial: remember what not to love. Remember what not to love. John says in verse 15, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Now wait a minute. Do not love the world, do not love anything in the world. What's he saying? Like I can't love Yosemite? That's part of the world? Anything in the world? I can't love Emmett, you know, my youngest grandson? I realized I haven't shown a grandson photo for a while, so I thought I'd squeeze one in. Let's all say aww together, ready? Aww. Thank you, that's very gratifying. No, of course John is not saying you can't love your grandkids or you can't love beauty. In fact, the Bible says things like the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, and God so loved the what? The world. So when he says don't love the world, he can't be saying don't love the people in the world, don't love the beauty of the world, don't love the souls in the world because God loves all of that.

So what does this mean when he says don't love the world or the things in the world? Well, luckily John actually explains exactly what he means in the very next verse. He says, “For everything in the world”—and here's how he defines what he's talking about—“the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, and the boasting of what he has and does comes not from the Father but from the world.” So think about this: let's break it down. First, the cravings of sinful man. You could call these appetites, cravings, whether it's food, sex, drugs, or some other craving. Whatever it is, they become idols. John is saying they compete for your love. And then he says the lust of his eyes: what my eyes see and think, “Oh yeah, I need that! I covet that!” Now when we hear the word lust, we tend to think sex. I think he kind of covers that in his first phrase about cravings. When he says lust of the eyes, I think he means captivated by outward appearance. When I'm all about how I look, how my car looks, how my furniture looks, how my house looks, well, how my life looks on Instagram, right? On social media, that's what he's talking about.

And then the boasting of what he has and does, he means achievement. You know, the boasting of what I have and what I have accomplished. These were all actually valued in Roman culture. If you read Roman writers in the first century, they're actually all boasting about all this stuff. And John is saying, “Yeah, you know what? You don't want to give your love to those things.” Why not? What is the problem with these things? He tells us in the next verse: because the world and its desires pass away. It's not just necessarily that those things are like evil or something, although they can become evil. He says it's the problem is much more basic than that: they don't last. Look back at those three things again: appearance, we all know how quickly that fades. How many of you right now, whether you're at home or joining us live, how many of you are actually living proof that appearance fades? Can I just see a show of hands? Right? How many of you are sitting next to somebody who is living proof that appearance fades? Can I say that? Show of hands!

Appetites, even when you do satisfy them, they don't stay satisfied for long, do they? Achievement, you know what I want to do to prove this because this sounds so churchy? I want to show you quotes I found this week from some successful people. And I mean, I could have shown you a hundred of these. I'm just gonna show you five or six people who have done all these things. They've achieved tons of stuff; they have appearance, they're good-looking; they found ways to satisfy all their appetites. Yet I appreciate their honesty. I'll start with Josh Radnor. He's the actor and producer who is behind the show How I Met Your Mother, a hit show. He says, “I bought into the not uncommon notion that when I taste success, then I'd be happy. But the strangest thing happened: as the show got more successful, I got more depressed.”

Lady Gaga, very honest, she says, “The more famous I got, the more I asked myself, ‘Okay, Stephanie, Gaga hybrid person, why am I unhappy? It feels shallow. I feel overworked, like I've just become a money machine, and that makes me unhappy.’” Let's reach back to John Lennon, as Beatles: “We had money, we had fame, and there was no joy.” I just saw a recent interview this year with Cameron Diaz, who's kind of stepped out of the Hollywood fame machine. She says, “If you're looking for fame to define you, then you will never be happy, and you will always be searching for happiness. You will never find it in fame.” It's a strange thing to say, and I know a lot of people won't understand it. And she went on to talk about how fame is an industry right now like it's never been before. Everybody wants to become the social media famous person or the idol of whatever. She's like, “Yeah, it's not there.”

So Eddie Murphy, this year, had a sequel to Coming to America come out, so he did a round of interviews. I was surprised how honest he was. He says, “You know what? I feel like there's something missing. I don't think there's anybody who feels like there isn't something missing, no matter how much money you make or how many cars or houses you have.” Someone I know over in Silicon Valley that I know personally said, “The lure of the carrot on the stick fades very quickly after you get the carrot.” Now to be clear, listen, I'm not happy that these people are sad. I'm not like, “Yeah, they're sad!” You know, that's not why I'm showing you this. But I appreciate their honesty, right? And I think they're just affirming what John the Apostle says here in 1 John: the world and its desires pass away. They just don't last. The bloom goes off the rose super fast.

And if you give your love there, they fade. Now, of course, this is not saying that it's wrong to be diligent and enterprising and a high achiever. Many proverbs in the Bible are all about that. The Apostle Paul talks a lot about how that's a good thing. The question is your motive, especially does it come from an unrealistic idea that this is the object of the game, that fulfillment comes from, you know, appearance and appetites and achievements? John says the thing is, even when you win the balloon stomp, that thrill of victory is fleeting. So what isn't fleeting? Well, the one who does the will of God, which we have learned is what? What does he clarify? The will of God is to love. To love! He says it about 37 times in this short letter. The will of God is to love, and the one who does the will of God lives forever.

What does that mean? It's not just talking about length of life; it's talking about quality of life. Eternal life also means abundant life, a rich life, a meaningful life. Let me give you a current example of this: my friend Pat Gelsinger. I don't know if you remember when Pat spoke here at Twin Lakes Church a couple of years ago. Pat was recently named CEO of Intel. That's a pretty high achiever. In fact, I'd say Pat's the most goal-oriented person I know, yet very open about his faith in Jesus. As he puts it, “I'm a full-time Christian.” And he says he knows that most high achievers end up miserable. He says, “So my mission field is rich, influential, miserly pagans.” And how does he influence them? Love! He says, “These are the people I've been called to be responsible for as a CEO.” He says, “If you think of your employees like employees, you have failed. You need to think of them as your flock.” What does a shepherd do? It's a sovereign responsibility that you've taken on as a leader. He leads with love, and that's probably why in a recent survey by Glassdoor, he was voted the most widely admired CEO in America—that's in 2021—where the culture is not exactly super sympathetic to Christians at all times. And Pat's absolutely open about his faith in Christ; he talks about it constantly. But he has a goal as a CEO: his goal is to make the company money and also to love his employees, truly love them. And consequently, there's a sense of satisfaction in Pat that goes far deeper than just winning the Silicon Valley balloon stomp.

And this is what John is saying: the object of life is to love others as God loves us. So I want to challenge you as we wrap this up. On page two of your notes, and again if you're joining us on the livestream, you can download it at TLC.org/notes, I put some questions to help you apply this. I'm gonna encourage you to take these tonight, maybe before you forget, or maybe later on this week and ask yourself, “So how am I doing in this? If this is the object of the game, you know, how does the command to love one another actually impact my life? Like how does it impact my words, my texts, my emails, my social media posts? Are your words consistently loving and life-giving, or do your words stomp balloons?”

My attitude: is your first sort of reflexive response to people, especially people who make messes and are hard to love and splatter you with ketchup, good-humored? Do you give them the benefit of the doubt, or is it cynical or even hostile? My spending: in your mind, scroll through the way that you spend money. This is just between you and God, but does how—if the object of the game is love one another—how does love one another impact your spending? How about my spiritual life? True confessions: when somebody asks me how my spiritual life is going, you know where I tend to go? “Oh, did I have a devotional time this morning? Did I pray this morning? How many minutes did I pray?” That's all fine, but the central question that ought to come to my mind is, “How am I growing in love?” That's the object of the game. And as you'll see, John repeats this over and over and over throughout the book of 1 John.

Let me just give you a little spoiler alert, preview of coming attractions. John says, “This is the message you heard from the beginning: we should love one another.” And then in the next week, you're gonna hear this: “Dear friends, since God so loved us, dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.” And then the next week you're gonna hear this verse: “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to—say it with me—love one another.” You think he's trying to get a point across? And that's just a few examples; I could go on. Why does John talk about love so much? Why do you think he does? Any guesses? Because we don't get it.

I had the blessing of meeting a man named Juan Carlos Ortiz. Juan was the pastor at a very large church in Argentina, and then he came up to lead the Hispanic ministry at a church in Southern California and became kind of my role model for what we want to start here at Twin Lakes Church. We're hiring a bilingual pastor to start TLC Español. Hear this, your pray about that. I'm super stoked about that! But this is what Juan Carlos Ortiz is doing now in Southern California. But before that, he was the senior pastor at a mega church down in Argentina. So I met Juan and just had a talk with him a few years ago down in Southern California, and we talked about the challenge of preaching the book of 1 John, precisely because it's so cyclical and John seems to bring up the same things over.

1 John is not written as an argument like many books of the Bible are, you know, point A, point B, point C, like that. The letters of the Apostle Paul, John is like a poet. He's like Bob Dylan song lyrics; he just kind of keeps coming back to the same thing over and over and over again. And Juan Carlos Ortiz tells me, “Well, that's it; it is a challenge. But let me tell you how I preached the book of 1 John at my church in Buenos Aires.” He says, “First week I got up, and I want you to picture this huge church five times the size of Twin Lakes, and Juan Carlos Ortiz gets up and he says, ‘Today I'm starting a four-week series in the book of 1 John: love one another.’” And then he sits down, and he stays seated, and nothing happens. The worship team doesn't come back; there's silence, and everybody looks really uncomfortable just staring at him. He waits several minutes, gets back up to the podium and says, “Love one another.” And then he goes and sits down again, and people are looking around. That seems like a super short message. And then he gets up a third time and says, “Love one another,” and sits down. That's the end. They get up; the worship team plays the last song, and people—kind of a few people start to catch on, and they kind of turn to people next to them and say, “Okay, well, I want to let—how are you doing? Can I pray for you? Is there some area where you could use some help?”

Next week, he says, “Well, today, week two of our series in 1 John,” and he does the exact same thing. And for the next month, every single weekend, that is the only sermon that Juan Carlos Ortiz preaches in his series on 1 John: three words, “Love one another,” to give people the sense of this book of the Bible. Now you will notice I am not doing that this weekend because here at TLC we get paid by the word. But you know the message of 1 John really is that simple. In fact, I've been talking with Mark and Adrian and some of the other preachers who are going to be joining us in this series, and we've been talking about how the message of 1 John is, in some ways, so simple that it's hard to talk about it without junking it up or complicating it. John just keeps saying in different ways for different reasons: people, object of the game, don't love the world; that's all illusion. Love one another as God loves you. The end.

Remember the balloon stomp game today. The question for you and me and the question on every day for you and me is this: which game do you want to play? Let's pray together. Would you bow your heads with me? Dear Lord, thank you that you love the whole world so much that you sent your only begotten son, Jesus, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And God, we receive that love, perhaps some today for the very first time, or perhaps some today as a rededication. And now, God, I just pray that you would let that love just overflow to everybody around us. May we radiate love as individual Christians and as a church, and may we impact our world because that is the object of the game. And we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.