Wearing Dust: Love & Faithfulness
LISTEN:
NOTES:
Wearing Dust: Love & Faithfulness
February 25th, 2024
“Wearing dust” means to sit in God’s Word and to follow Jesus’ Ways.
Why wear the dust of Jesus? Because this is the life we are looking for!
Habit Stacking the Word of God
Personal connection
Group interaction
Congregational worship
The Life Changing Ways of Jesus (Jesus Dust)
Love & Faithfulness
Unexpected Grace
Humble Service
Relentless Witness
Wearing the dust of Jesus is an intentional decision, a natural process and a transformative path!
John 14:1-12 (NIV) “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” 8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” 9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
Wearing the dust of Jesus is personally transformative and it is purpose defining!
Way #1 Love & Faithfulness
Exodus 34:5-6 (NIV) 5 Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name the Lord 6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.
Love = hesed : Faithfulness = met.
Hesed is God’s unfailing, loyal and devoted love.
Met is God’s reliable trustworthiness.
Exodus 34:29 (NIV) 29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord.
Psalm 117 (NIV) “Praise the Lord, all you nations; extol him, all you peoples. 2 For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord.
Isaiah 53:2,3 (NIV) He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Jesus made people feel…
safe
known
loved
Matthew 22:34-40 34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Agape is a whole-self, selfless, unconditional love. agape in Greek carries the weight of hesed in the Hebrew.
The Impact of God’s Love and Faithfulness
It soaks through the rough exterior created to protect ourselves from being hurt.
It heals old wounds of rejection.
It changes how we see ourselves, reversing years of negative self-worth.
It infuses us with purpose as we become keenly aware of others need for His love and faithfulness.
When we get covered with the dust of love and faithfulness we become
more soft, less hard
more secure, less defensive
more bold, less afraid
more outwardly focused, less internally obsessed.
We are all going to wear someone’s dust, whose dust will you wear? How do you wear the dust of Jesus?
Make an intentional decision to sit in the word and follow His ways. Look for His dust & stay in it.
Surrender to the natural process of Holy Spirit empowered dust. Become His dust & carry it.
Proverbs 3:1-6 (NIV)My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, 2 for they will prolong your life many years and bring you peace and prosperity. 3 Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. 4 Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. 5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.