The Call to Love

The invitation of the Christian life is to gaze in wonder at the beauty of the Father. We, however, default to fear rather than the invitation of love. It permeates our culture and our churches. What might it look like if we actually recognized the God of compassion that is so tenderly demonstrated in the life of Christ?

For more about Josh and Wind Ministries, visit: https://www.windministries.ca/

Transcript

00;00;19;17 - 00;00;41;15
Joshua Hoffert
And I love that. And there's a team praying for me for the service. And one of the things Andrew Andrew had said when he prayed for me and Andrew and I haven't connected since I've been back, but he he prayed for me the same thing he prayed just now. Said in the last three weeks, the Lord's expanded your heart.

00;00;41;15 - 00;01;07;10
Joshua Hoffert
I just love how my father confirms. I really feel that. But he doesn't know that. So it's not like I've said to him. This is where the father has me right now. It's just that he started praying that. And I was just. Oh, you're so good. As you confirm your words, you confirm your work with the people around us.

00;01;07;13 - 00;01;31;26
Joshua Hoffert
And so I'm just so appreciative. I just of each and every one of you. And it's not even just like I'm appreciative of each and every one of you. The father is fond of you. You know that. The father is fond of you, and he loves you and he cares for you. Just the profundity of that. That the father loves you.

00;01;31;28 - 00;01;52;02
Joshua Hoffert
And, you know, sometimes it's easy to just kind of loosely throw around church jargon that he loves us. And so that's why I want to use the term that the father is fond of. You. It's not just that he kind of is obliged to love you. Because sometimes we feel like we're obliged to love those around us. Right?

00;01;52;04 - 00;02;12;25
Joshua Hoffert
And we've never felt that. But he's fond of you. He actually enjoys you. As the Revelation 411 says that everything was created to bring pleasure to him out of his pleasure to bring him pleasure. That's incredible.

00;02;12;27 - 00;02;45;20
Joshua Hoffert
Oh, wow. It's just so good. You know, Lord's just had me and is just in the last few weeks. He's just had me in this in this interesting place of, you know, the love of God. That's a good place to be. But I'm just. I'm looking at Scripture and, you know, have you ever been in a season when you're reading scripture or you're looking at things, are you thinking about things and you're going, I've just never seen it that way before.

00;02;45;22 - 00;03;06;17
Joshua Hoffert
I just haven't seen that that that depth or that level or that layer of scripture or that or that idea or whatever, That's just where I feel like I'm at in this season is I just haven't seen Oh, God, haven't seen that before. And as I've been reading and I've been contemplating things, I'm just going, Hey, I hadn't noticed it that way before.

00;03;06;17 - 00;03;40;08
Joshua Hoffert
And it's it's like this this brooding of the love of God. And I don't you know, I'm like, it's like Andrew said, I've been gone for three weeks and I don't I think my wife has been gone for three weeks because one Fiona was it it's like, oh, there was a hurting while I was gone. She so, you know, there wasn't any church that day in the formal sense of a gathering just because he's called you his bride.

00;03;40;08 - 00;04;11;05
Joshua Hoffert
So that didn't change. Just because you couldn't come doesn't adjust how he sees you. But then, you know, sickness rolls through the home like. And sometimes it seems like when I go, there's like the ten plagues hits the house. Anyway. So, yeah, I've just been in this place where the father's just been showing me things about his love and about his tenderness and about his fondness and.

00;04;11;06 - 00;04;38;24
Joshua Hoffert
And it's, you know, it's so strikes me just going back to things that I've said in the past and what we talked about earlier this year, how fear and joy are the are the two most powerful motivators. They're brain fuel for your life. And I've just been looking at this and seeing just how the depth to which we allow fear to be the prime motivator of our life.

00;04;38;26 - 00;05;09;13
Joshua Hoffert
And it's like it not all of us would say like, I'm not presently afraid of something. So I wouldn't say that I'm in fear because I'm not afraid. Right. You know, you'd say, Oh, well, I'm afraid because I'm in fear. But I'm saying how how permeated it's been in our culture and in our lives. I was sitting in the Cologne airport waiting for my flight just a couple days ago and all the flights for four.

00;05;09;16 - 00;05;53;25
Joshua Hoffert
And I'm going to talk about a bag check story like Tracy shared a big check story with us. I don't know if she would have been successful in this particular place, but I had already checked my carry on bag. So anyway, the father fond of you, Tracy? Yeah, I'm fond of you, Tracy. So the the flights for riding on the flights for the plane, the bleed goes out before like if anybody can check their carry on bag, the flight's full so there's not enough room in the overhead compartment.

00;05;53;25 - 00;06;10;05
Joshua Hoffert
And you know, it seems like every time, every couple of years, they change the size of the overhead compartment, make it smaller and smaller. And so, yeah, they do that or they put inserts in there maybe to make it smaller just to play with you and mess with you. I don't know. I don't think they do that, though.

00;06;10;07 - 00;06;39;27
Joshua Hoffert
And and so they even said the overhead compartment is smaller than you're used to, so your bag probably won't fit. So please check your bag. Okay. And so you know that that announcement goes out a few different times and maybe 1% of the people there listen to it. And then finally, the the the lady that was working at the desk, she says, you know where the flight's full if you haven't checked bag, you can bring it in.

00;06;39;27 - 00;07;06;24
Joshua Hoffert
Please bring it in. If you don't bring it in, we're probably going to have to sit on the runway and we're going to have to pull the bags out and it's going to take long and we're going to be late. And and I realized in the moment, just as I'm I've been thinking about this, the love of God and and the tenderness of the father and how he reveals himself and and all these kind of things, I realized, oh, that she's using fear to motivate us.

00;07;06;26 - 00;07;12;04
Joshua Hoffert
And if if you don't, this will happen.

00;07;12;06 - 00;07;43;26
Joshua Hoffert
And and it's struck me by how commonplace that is. And I don't even think it's wrong for the flight attendant to do that. But what struck me is that we do that in the church and I'm like, why are we sometimes are we no better than Air Canada? If you don't? I've got one. Bless you. And we picked that up culturally.

00;07;43;28 - 00;08;13;14
Joshua Hoffert
If you don't, this will happen. And so we use fear to manipulate the outcome. And I'm not saying that I'm afraid. What I'm saying is that fear has now permeated my culture and fear is my motivator. And so the initial plea of the flight attendant was based on compassion. But you know, how quickly we move past the revelation of compassion to use fear.

00;08;13;14 - 00;08;35;11
Joshua Hoffert
When compassion doesn't work, we do it really quick. I even see myself coming back from B.C. I even see myself doing with my kids how easy it is to do with my kids. It's like if you don't listen to me, this will happen. Like, Oh, that. I'm using fear to gain a desired outcome. Like, Oh God, I thought.

00;08;35;13 - 00;09;03;01
Joshua Hoffert
But, but I'm like, You've revealed your love to me and I'm doing this to. It's not like a fear is present before me, but I'm, I'm recognizing that there's this depth to our culture that relies on fear to bring motivation. You know, how many of you have been afraid of failing a class? I don't like the entire school system.

00;09;03;02 - 00;09;30;11
Joshua Hoffert
Use fear to motivate. You are not turning in your homework assignment or you know, if if there is, there is the joy of achievement and success that does happen and in the school system growing up. But that's like 5% of in 95% of it is I'm going to miss out. I'm going to miss something. Or how many of you hear a statement like Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

00;09;30;11 - 00;09;49;24
Joshua Hoffert
And you go, Oh, all right. We don't look at that as an invitation. We look at that as a condemnation because the enemy plays in fear and traffics in fear on your life that you're never going to live up to the ideal that that sets out. But it's not a condemnation. It's an invitation, right? It's not. I have to do this.

00;09;49;24 - 00;10;13;28
Joshua Hoffert
I have to love the Lord. Your God with all my heart, mind, soul and strength I get to. It's an invitation that I get to work out throughout my entire life because he reveals his goodness to me and he attracts me to him. And so I see something of his heart. And I go, Oh, I want that. You know, there's there's a there's a season that we're entering into.

00;10;13;28 - 00;10;35;21
Joshua Hoffert
Don't you want to call it a season? Because the season the implication of a season is it could last like the way that we kind of throw away that or throw out that type of terminology is it's like a season can last like 3 hours. I'm in a season of prayer this morning, but we use that kind of terminology all the time.

00;10;35;21 - 00;11;07;13
Joshua Hoffert
So I don't even want to use that as a term to talk about what the father's doing. But I'm noticing it as I'm talking to different people in different locations that the father is visiting and he's inviting us to affection and where we're previous areas of the church, even even just just, you know, I'd say and just in the last couple of years where we've largely seen ourselves in terms of how we align with each other or how we agree with each other, or do we have an assignment together, Right?

00;11;07;13 - 00;11;39;08
Joshua Hoffert
And so we band around the assignment and we band around the shared value, We band around the the, the theological, you know, construct that we've all agreed on. But affection is greater than all of us because once you have no sign, once you finish the assignment, what do you have? Well, hopefully you have affection, but the assignment doesn't teach you affection and over aligned by shared values.

00;11;39;08 - 00;11;59;23
Joshua Hoffert
What happens when someone messes up? Are you out because you're not part of the group anymore? Because you all of a sudden you don't. You don't share the same value. Or if we have affection, I can walk with you regardless of the what you're aligned with. So the father's doing something right now and he's inviting us into something.

00;11;59;23 - 00;12;23;20
Joshua Hoffert
And it is we're entering. I'll say it this way we're entering into an era of the father's affection that will transcend the assignment you have in your life, the people that you align with, and whether you're in theological or doctrinal agreement with others. And it used to be it used to be that what defined you was the denomination that you belong to.

00;12;23;20 - 00;12;54;16
Joshua Hoffert
Or if you were in a non-denominational, then your goals. So you know, that defined you, but it was what it was what you agreed with that brings definition to you. But that's been shifting and that that those edifices have been crumbling, that we no longer really think of ourselves in terms of how we agree theologically. But I think of myself in relation to how affectionate I am towards you.

00;12;54;18 - 00;13;15;27
Joshua Hoffert
There's something that the Lord's doing, something we're entering into the area, the era of his affection. And and, you know, one of the things that we want to do when we're in the midst of affection is figuring out how this is all going to work, how is this going to work, how it structure we can do. You remember we were I was talking with a friend about this and he said, well, but how do you maintain that?

00;13;15;27 - 00;13;37;09
Joshua Hoffert
And that's like and I said to him, if we're in the air of affection, like, how many of you how many of you are married or have been in a relationship before, how many we ever had a first kiss? Let's just say that, okay? How we were had a first kiss. Yes. Okay. I think pretty much everybody here is going to say yes.

00;13;37;11 - 00;14;18;03
Joshua Hoffert
Pretty much. I remember I remember how many of you I mean, to me, the first kiss that Aaron and I shared were is like marks on my memory. Like, I'll never forget that moment. Never, ever, ever forget that moment. It was it was a good moment in in in the moment of the first kiss. You don't plan a wedding In the moment of the first kiss, you're not thinking, How do I sustain this?

00;14;18;05 - 00;14;43;04
Joshua Hoffert
In the moment of the first kiss you're not thinking about How do I cultivate momentum in the moment of the first kiss? You're going, Whoa, This is where we are with the father. This is the invitation. The invitation to romance, the invitation to affection. The invitation. This is the season of visitation. You know, we tell ourselves we've been using this language that we're a people of encounter.

00;14;43;04 - 00;15;00;15
Joshua Hoffert
And what the Lord's been showing me is that, Josh, it's not so much that you encounter me, it's that I come to you for Encounter and I'm going to go. That's a totally different way of thinking of it. The father encounters me. I'm not a person of encounter. He's a being of encounter. And I get invited into that and I get to respond.

00;15;00;15 - 00;15;22;02
Joshua Hoffert
And it's not about me. It's about him. I get invited into the love to love the Lord, your God with all my heart, mind, soul and strength. I'm not told to do it. I'm invited into it. And now I participate and I become one with you is by invitation. So I don't encounter him. He comes and visits me.

00;15;22;04 - 00;15;46;18
Joshua Hoffert
We're not a people of encounter because we've styled our lives around this, around a system of encounter or a people of encounter because we've been marked by him encountering us. It's a different way of thinking about ourselves, you know, that shifts the focus off of me and puts it on to him. Oh, I just feel like I have so much to share with you guys.

00;15;46;25 - 00;15;53;26
Joshua Hoffert
There's just not enough time because we're already like over time, like honor or pastor or something.

00;15;53;28 - 00;16;00;21
Joshua Hoffert
Just how.

00;16;00;23 - 00;16;21;13
Joshua Hoffert
Much, you know, we build these systems based on fear that says something like, Well, if you haven't shared the gospel with enough people, then somehow you're a failure. So rather than an invitation to share how God has marked you with his love, it's a system of oppression to say, if you don't do it enough, you're actually not living up to the ideal.

00;16;21;15 - 00;16;44;22
Joshua Hoffert
And so we again, fear has permeated our culture. Or, you know, if you don't come to this meeting, you're not going to experience your next big breakthrough. I'm going to have that foisted upon you like you understand how subtle the difference is. But before it, but behind saying, let's just take the example of a small example of a meeting that we're going to have.

00;16;44;25 - 00;17;04;18
Joshua Hoffert
In this meeting. We're going, I don't do that. We don't do this because it's not as effective. All right? We don't go in this meeting. We're hoping to encounter the father. We go in this meeting. If you don't come, you're going to miss an encounter with the father. Right. And one of them. So one's more effective because fear provides us an adrenaline hit right in the moment, I'm going to miss it, so I better come.

00;17;04;23 - 00;17;33;23
Joshua Hoffert
But then everybody that comes are all the most afraid people are. We don't want we don't we're not comfortable with the selling. Point being is love. We're more comfortable with the selling point being how much you're going to miss, what's like, What in the world are we doing? And we're like, I can understand Air Canada doing it, but we're supposed to be different.

00;17;33;25 - 00;18;14;03
Joshua Hoffert
We're supposed to be marked by his tenderness and his love and his affection. This grand invitation to romance, where in the first verse, if Song of Solomon one one says, Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth like that's romance. We're supposed to be marked by that. And we're like, We just look like them. Look, Father, just help us to see your grand invitation just to share this one thing.

00;18;14;03 - 00;18;55;26
Joshua Hoffert
I'll just take a minute, okay? Oh, there. He told the kids to go. This will just take a second. John 21, verse one. And after these things, Jesus manifested himself again to the disciples, right? Not that they encountered him, but He encountered them at the Sea of Tiberius. And he manifested himself in this way was to they were together.

00;18;56;01 - 00;19;14;28
Joshua Hoffert
SIMON Peter and Thomas called Didymus and the Daniel of Canaan, Galilee, and the Sons of Zebedee and two others of his disciples. SIMON Peter said to them, I am going fishing. And they said to him, we will come with you. Also. They went out and got into the boat, and that night they caught nothing. So they just gone through a calamitous experience, right?

00;19;15;00 - 00;19;34;13
Joshua Hoffert
The death of Christ. He left. They didn't know what to do, so they just gone through a very difficult circumstance. Peter is still holding on to this. I've denied him three times, but he hasn't yet had this interaction with Jesus. He's about to. But that's not what I'm going to get to. My point is they lost sight of something.

00;19;34;13 - 00;19;52;25
Joshua Hoffert
And so what did they do? They went back to what they were good at. This used to work for us. They lost sight of what had just been revealed to them. The beautiful tenderness of the heart of God had just been revealed to them. They lost sight of it. And so let's go back to the old way of doing things because it worked for us.

00;19;52;27 - 00;20;11;05
Joshua Hoffert
This is. But here's the thing. In the season we're entering into in the area, the area we're entering into, the old ways won't work anymore. It used to work where we can throw that, we can throw that net over, but it's not working anymore. That's the temptation is to go back and say, well, this used to work, so we're going to do it again.

00;20;11;08 - 00;20;43;20
Joshua Hoffert
It won't produce the same fruit, it won't. The old ways are going to leave you with catching nothing. But here's the temptation and catching nothing. By the way, is being proud of yourself for having done something. Well, at least we threw the net over. Now. At least we hosted the meetings. Or at least we invited the people. Or at least we did it right.

00;20;43;27 - 00;21;08;26
Joshua Hoffert
Then you take pride in the actual work and not in the union. As you're more important than the work. You're far more important than the work the workers. More important than the work. Well, at least we did something good when the day was not breaking, Jesus stood on the beach at the disciples, did not know that it was Jesus again.

00;21;08;26 - 00;21;29;15
Joshua Hoffert
They'd lost sight of him. They lost sight of him, and they returned to something they used to know how to do. Jesus said, Children, you don't have any fish, do you? And they answered him No. Then he would recognize his voice and think about this. Okay, he's on the shore. They're on the ship. This means he's going this children, not children.

00;21;29;17 - 00;22;08;07
Joshua Hoffert
Children. He's yelling and they're still not getting it. Throw your net on the other side of the boat and all this. What the. You know what the thing is about? That Jesus met them in the very thing they did because they lost sight of him and they still didn't even recognize him, even when it produced great fruit. It wasn't until John said, that's the Lord that Peter recognizes.

00;22;08;10 - 00;22;30;03
Joshua Hoffert
We can get so caught up with the importance of the systems, with the importance of how we've done things, with the importance of how it's supposed to work, and that even when it's fruitful and touched and blessed by him, we can lose sight of him. We need the people in our midst to go, He's over there. He's not Look at this.

00;22;30;03 - 00;22;48;14
Joshua Hoffert
He's not in the work. He's on the shore. He's waiting for you to get out of the boat. He's not in the thing you're doing, but he still blesses it because this is what we do. The book of the Book of Acts. It says this. They said frequently it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us. But what we do is, well, it seems good to us now.

00;22;48;14 - 00;23;11;27
Joshua Hoffert
Holy Spirit, will you bless us because we direct our gaze here, not there. But the invitation is to put your gaze there. And we've gotten away from that just as a body of Christ. I'm not saying just here, I'm saying broadly we've gotten away from that. And the end the call back is the invitation to redirect our gaze.

00;23;12;00 - 00;23;32;25
Joshua Hoffert
And it's not the Oh, no, we've missed it. It's that all we get is so beautiful and lovely and he's pulling us back to that place and he's drawing us and he's visiting us with affection and with love and with tenderness. Like what happened here. And the invitation isn't. If you don't come forward, you're going to miss it.

00;23;33;01 - 00;23;59;16
Joshua Hoffert
The invitation is, he's so beautiful. Let's just respond to That's the invitation of the season. Expect him to visit you and when he and when you have a morning was like, I don't know if you visited me. I believe that he's going to later because the invitation is there. His he's ready to do away with our systems of fear because that's not supposed to exist here.

00;23;59;19 - 00;24;31;11
Joshua Hoffert
It's okay if it exists there, but not here. We need to relearn a whole different way because love is what's visiting us. Affection is what's visiting us. You know, we might we don't need to align over the same values. I hope we don't. My goodness. I hope we don't. I hope that were this motley display, myriad of interests and passions and loves and pursuits and.

00;24;31;14 - 00;25;24;01
Joshua Hoffert
Well, you got to think like I do. No, no, no, no. You don't have to think like I do, but I have affection or, you know, let's run with him because he's drawing us and he's wooing us. It's a season of visitation with a worship and can come up just as we're let's wrap this up. I heard the Lord say to me the other day, just as I was in a moment with him, he said, Josh, what starts as a drop will become a flood and my people will be a people known by the fathers Love, which starts as a drop will become a flood.

00;25;24;03 - 00;25;52;18
Joshua Hoffert
You know, I mean, I wasn't hurt here for Fiona, but it started with a drop. It quickly became a flood. Sometimes it takes a little longer. We've had lots of storms, we've had lots of drops, lots, I believe the invitation of the father and the promise of the father in this season is if if we have a drop, it's going to increase.

00;25;52;20 - 00;26;18;26
Joshua Hoffert
What starts as a drop will become a flood. And we're going to be marked by his love. It's not even you have to be. You need to be. Let's get rid of that kind of language. You get to be. He's inviting us. He's marking us. He starts as a drop of accompaniment.

00;26;18;28 - 00;26;21;08
Joshua Hoffert
And you're marked the long.