The Most Difficult Doctrine

Well, the title of this morning's sermon is The Most Difficult Doctrine, and that is referring to the difficult doctrine of love. I believe it is difficult to comprehend what love is, and it is even more difficult to live it out. Before we begin, let us revisit our sermon two weeks ago in the passage 1 John 1 through 2.6. And let's give a brief summary. There's two basic reasons we want to study 1 John. There's two purposes for the book. The first purpose that John tells us, or the one we'll discuss first, at least, is that he's seeking to give the church assurance. False teachers have come into the body that John is addressing. And they've caused doubt. They've caused confusion. They've denied who Jesus is and what He taught. And so, He's wanting to come to them and give them clarity for how they can have assurance for what Christ has done and what He has done in them. Because without assurance of salvation, we're completely ineffective for the gospel, for the kingdom. The second, purpose would address is really the reason he said he wrote the letter in the end of verse three of chapter one and verse four, that you have fellowship with us and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We discussed what Christian fellowship was. Christian fellowship is unique from any other time of spending time with people, of hanging out, of casual time. Because we don't come together for our own interests. We don't come together merely for other people's interests. We come together to experience Jesus Christ in one another. That's a central focus of the book and everything else has to be understood in light of that. Really, everything that follows from first five down is how to experience Christ in each other. And the best way we can experience Christ in each other is to be living constantly seeking to bless one another, to love one another, confessing our sins to one another, and experiencing how Christ's healing and forgiving power is being proclaimed in one another. So, as we look at our passage this morning, it is about Christian fellowship. It's about how we can experience Christ in one another. Let's look to our passage. 1 John 2. We're going to be looking at verses 7-11. verses seven through eleven. You can see that he begins a new section that still follows from the it's still connected to the previous section, but it is a new section. Dear friends, I am not writing you a new commandment, but an old one which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have learned. You have heard it. I'm 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. Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves their brother or sister lives in the light and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going because the darkness has blinded them. Now, if you look at this passage, there is one This is the main point that we're going to be looking at. We're going to be considering together. Our assurance of salvation is specifically tied to how much we love one another, or if we love one another. Our assurance of salvation is specifically tied to how we love one another. He says it's a new command and he says it's an old command. We'll discuss that in due time. But let's first figure out what is this command that he's referring to? I believe he's referring to the command to love one another. In 2 John 5, he writes, And now I beg you, lady, referring to the church, not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. That's 2 John 5. Or maybe in this text, he's actually referring to the book that he's already written, the gospel of John. He knows that they already have the gospel itself. This letter or this little sermon that he's written is really just an application of the gospel in John 13, 34, that Matthew's already read for us. A new command I give you, love one another as I have loved you. So you must love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. So I believe the command that we're looking at this morning, the command that is central to our assurance, the command that is central to our identity as Christians is love one another. Simple to say. Harder to comprehend, even harder to practice. So, what does it mean to love one another? Well, it means to will the good of another. To intentionally will the good of another. Now, this is counter to our nature. This is contrary to the way we really function in life. Because we're really selfish. The first thing we want to will is our own good. The first thing we want to do is to figure out what can I get out of a situation. But the Christian life is radically different. Our desires and our affections are not for us, but for each other. Now, the scope of the command that Jesus gave in John is really narrowed in 1 John. 1 John, the evangelist here is only speaking about love within the church. He's telling us to turn our eyes inward here. Let's think about how we should be loving one another. And the reason he's telling us to turn inward is because problems have happened inside. We need to clean this up before we can start thinking about going out there and proclaiming the gospel. Some people say that he's narrowed the scope too much. We shouldn't always be thinking about our internal life, how we should be loving one another. Well, no, this is the gospel. If we can't commit to loving each other truthfully and faithfully, believers, why would we want to go out and try to spread the love of Christ outside of the walls? When I evangelize, I want to know that when I'm sharing the gospel with someone, I can invite them to the church where they will actually see the gospel lived out inside among the members. Why would I go out and proclaim love God to those outside of the church. If we are not committed to loving one another inside the church. It should be much more natural for us to love one another. Because we're all brothers and sisters in Christ, we are the family of God. But as we know, it actually gets more difficult to love in here. Because we're always rubbing elbows with one another. Because we're always interacting and we're always sinners. And therefore, sin is constantly threatening the unity and the life of the church. That's why the previous section went on and on about how we must be confessing our sins to one another. And confessing our sins to Christ. So, if you think about this commandment to love one another, realize it is focused here. And as we think about this, we must be thinking about who we should love. how we should love them. So the command is to love one another as Christ has loved us. Well, let's get to our second key question we should have about this text. The first one is what is the command? The second one really is, is the command old or new? As you read it first reading, John, make up your mind. Is it older? Is it an old commandment or is it a new commandment? Now, let me first give us a little coaching as we read Scripture. Whenever we come across something we don't understand, our first inclination isn't to think, well, this doesn't make sense. Our first inclination shouldn't be there's something wrong with what has been written here. You see, this is more trustworthy and reliable than anything we can think or know. This is God's word. We have to repent of thinking what is wrong with this passage if he's saying it's new and it's old. Our first inclination is should be there's something wrong with me, there's something wrong with my mind or even more so my heart that isn't allowing me to see the truth of the passage. And then we must commit to doing the hard work of study to understand it. Now, thankfully, there is a fairly simple reason as to why John says this is an old commandment and a new commandment. It's an old commandment because it's a commandment that the believers would have heard from the beginning of their conversion. It's an old commandment because Christians had always been teaching this. It was the commandment of Jesus Christ. Love one another. John is saying the false teachers are telling you that this is something new we've added to the gospel, but no. Jesus Christ, this was His commission to us. This was His declaration and His command. This is nothing new. The false teachers are presenting something new. We are being faithful to the head of the church. And so he has to first say that it's an old commandment that you've heard from the beginning because Jesus taught this commandment. You've heard it from the beginning because Jesus said, love one another as I have loved the church. Well, it even goes older than that, really. The commandment wasn't really that new to Jesus. Because Leviticus 19 states, love one another. And so, it's old to Christians in the sense that we have heard Jesus say it. And it was old to all of Israel because Moses said it. But there's a newness to it. There's a newness to it from Moses to Jesus because Jesus gives you the weight and the gravity and the great depth of what love truly is. Jesus says, love one another as I have loved you. That adds to what Moses says. That makes it a new commandment because He lays down His life for us. Even as I have loved you. There is no greater friend than this, but He who lays down His life for His friends. There is no greater love than this, but the One who lays down His life. It's a new commandment for Christians because Jesus shows us how to love. He shows us the great demand of how far love goes. But let's look at the specific phrase here. The old commandment is the word that you have heard at the same time. It is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you. John specifically is going to focus on the newness of the commandment for the present church, not referring back to what Jesus said. We're referring to what the church should be experiencing in Jesus. He says it is a new commandment which is true in Him and in you. So how should we as a church be experiencing the commandment as a new commandment in Him? Which is referring to Jesus Christ. Well, it goes back to the fact that Jesus said, love one another as I have loved you. What we have to do is commit ourselves to not growing content with our understanding of the gospel. That's hard. That's hard to do, because what I like to do is have a checklist of things and then I like to be able to check those things off and say, look, I finished that. I can move on to the next thing. I even add. This is how bad my self-righteousness is. I add things I've already done to my checklist just so I can start checking them off. That's how we treat Christianity. Who's Jesus? Well, I know He's incarnate. He's fully divine. He's fully human. He died on the cross. He rose again. He's coming again. There I go. I've got the gospel. I can move on with life. No, friends. No, we can never grow content with what Christ has done because it's the greatest mystery the world's ever heard. The depth of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ never grows old. It's never fully comprehended. You can't wrap your head around it. All you can do is hope to catch just a glimpse of the beauty of the incarnation, of the beauty of the cross, of the beauty of the resurrection. So how do we practice always growing a greater love for what Christ has done for us, because only as we do that will we grow and a greater love for one another. Well, Christmas season's around the corner, so let's think about the Incarnation. It's not just a baby that's born. It's not just a great story of how God brought a baby from a virgin. It's not about the angels or the shepherds. It's about God Himself, who's right. Let's think about rights. His right, his nature says he should always be worshipped all the time in all places. Jesus Christ left his proper place of being worshipped constantly by angels. To come down and walk among us and live like us. Where he wasn't worshipped. He wasn't even recognized. Beyond that, He was spat upon. He was beaten and He was crucified. What great love does someone have for us that they leave the place of being adored and worshipped properly and take upon a nature that's foreign to them and lower than them? A nature where they're going to be persecuted, punished, tortured, and face constant suffering. As we think about what Christ has done, let us be moved to recognize what great love it is that He gives up all of His rights for us, because He gained only the joy of knowing that He was saving us from our sins. We have everything to gain in His sacrifice. And if you think about what He accomplished in coming so far down from being worshipped to being spat upon, that's a high bar. The bar to love each other as Christ has loved us. To give up all of our rights. To give up everything that we think is rightfully ours for the sake of other people. Friends, we never... We'll comprehend that. We never can say, I can check that off because I made a commitment. Because I gave an offering. Because I prayed for a missionary. These are great things to practice in order to correct our hearts that are so bent upon themselves. But the Gospel, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, where He gives up everything for our well-being, We never comprehend that. And we can never live up to it. We can't love each other as Christ loved us. We're too sinful. We're too selfish. That doesn't mean we stop. That doesn't mean we give up. That means we pray for more power from the Spirit so that we can be more like Jesus. So that we can be more like Him in His love for us. So, as we look at how this is new, This is a new commandment in Him. The farther we get in our walk with Christ, the longer we are existing together as a church, the longer we are walking here in this life, the more we should be understanding anew the Gospel. The more it should grip us in our love for Him. But look, it also says in a way the commandment is new in another way. It's not just true in Him, but in you. Now, the English language is impoverished. It doesn't really capture what the word is here. There's only one English dialect that is intellectual enough to capture what the Greek does. It's a second person plural and only the southern dialect provides the y'all. So you can write that in if you are part of that inspired group of English speakers. Really, it's a second person plural here. John is saying the commandment is new in us. The commandment should be experienced anew as we live our lives together. This is done in two ways, or there's at least two ways we can be doing this. As I mentioned before, the more we live together, the more we're united, the more we're together in Christ, the more we're going to be sinning against each other. the more we're going to see each other sin. This has given us opportunity to experience this new command all the more. Because as others come and they either sin against us intentionally or unintentionally, we have to be armed with grace. We have to have forgiveness in the holster, ready to come out. Because whenever someone sins against us are either confronted and repent or maybe they don't repent. Us working from the heart of what Jesus has done for us should be quick to forgive. That's how we love one another in the church. That's how we grow in our understanding of this new commandment. That's how we grow in our love for God to realize that we need to always be ready to forgive all those who sin against us. It's going to happen. We shouldn't be surprised when sin happens. But what we must do is be armed to forgive quickly. The gospel is magnified among us. The commandment is magnified among us when true reconciliation takes place. See, reconciliation takes place when one party repents and the other party forgives. You may be in relationships where someone isn't repenting. That doesn't mean your responsibility is not to forgive them. You may be in a situation where you've repented and someone's not forgiving you. That doesn't mean your responsibility is not to repent. The goal is reconciliation in all of our relationships. We have to realize we have to be responsible for what we have been called to do, and that is to repent when sin is confronted in our lives and to forgive when we are sinned against. The second way I think the new command can be experienced is by watching other brothers and sisters persevere in trials. This is how we can see the new commandment. We can love one another and experience the love of Christ as other brothers and sisters experience trials. Now, the trick here is that those who are going through trials have to allow others in their lives. There has to be a certain amount of transparency. There has to be a certain amount of openness that allows others to come in and help us in our weaknesses. Now, I'm having to preach on love after my mentor, Donald Fowler, came up here last week and talked about how this is the most difficult doctrine to talk about. Let me say this for Donald Fowler. The reason I chose him, and the reason I have always looked up to him, is that he's the first man I ever heard talk about his own sin. He's the first man that I ever heard talk about his own weakness. And he did it so that the gospel would be magnified. See, we can talk about how straight and narrow and clean we are. We can present ourselves as But it doesn't allow anybody to love us. You see, by constantly coming and presenting yourself as having it all together, as constantly coming and presenting yourself as, I'm okay, you need to worry about the other sinners. You're losing the opportunity to experience love. Because in order to experience love, you have to open yourself up in your weaknesses. You have to open yourself up in your weaknesses. And in your sin, it's only then that the other Christians can come into you and come around you and be part of your life and apply the gospel and let healing take place. That's why we need to start talking about our sins in appropriate ways, in appropriate settings. But if you're not confessing sin to one another. You're not experiencing the love of Christ among one another. The way God has called you to the way God wants to bless you. So if we think about how this is a new command in him and in you. Let's desire a greater understanding and a greater love for who Christ is and what he's done for us. And let us each choose to lead the way. To talk about their weaknesses, to talk about their sins. So that God's love is truly experienced in a new way among us each day. The third thing we should look at this morning is why the command to love is essential to the Christian of life. John states it in two ways. If you look at the end of the verse that we were just reading. At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is it true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. He's already said earlier that God is light. In chapter one, verse five, God is light. The light has begun to shine in this dark world. Goodness has started to shine in this world's evil and rebellion. And I believe what John is saying here is that if you really want to claim to be part of the light, to be part of the renewal, to be part of what God is doing, you need some fruit. It's not enough just to say that I am part of the light. You have to be able to live it. And he gets more specific and clear in the next verses. Verse 9, whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness, and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes." He gives three very clear rules. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And something that you see through the Gospel of John is that Jesus being the Son, He is always doing the work of the Father. That's the Hebrew understanding of Sonship. If you're a son, the basic doctrine of Sonship, not just speaking of divine Sonship, but just being a son, means that you are about the work of your Father. That's why Jesus was a carpenter before the Father called Him into the ministry. Now, that does have great implications Your children should be about your work, not necessarily speaking of your vocation, but of your spiritual life. But here it's referring to all of us as sons and daughters. Jesus was about the work of the Father. He was about sharing and spreading the light of the gospel. By the way He lived, by the way He talked, with everything He did. He is the light. Now, the question is, if we are sons and daughters of God, we are supposed to be about the work of the Father. We are supposed to be about living and speaking and walking in this life according to how the Father has taught us. And the clearest command from the Son who received it from the Father is that we are to love one another. It's easy to confess that we're children. We want to say we're children. We want to be able to say, God loves me. I'm one of His family. But if there's no fruit, if there's no fruit that proves there is light in your heart, if there's no fruit that proves there's a love for God and a love for one another, it's a lie. And the worst part about that lie is you're lying to yourself. The worst part about that lie that I want to be a child of God, so I'm just going to say I'm a child of God. If there's no fruit in your life, you're lying to yourself. You're giving yourself an assurance and that assurance is keeping you from actually experiencing what it means to be a child of God. A child of the light, a child of love. One of the things I constantly need are brothers and a wife. I'm full of self-deception, and so are you. That's why we need a body that's unified and committed to the Gospel, and has committed themselves, each other, to being watchful for each other. Because in my self-deception, I want to think everything's okay. I want to think that you're believing the lie that I'm presenting, that everything's okay. That's why we need to be deep in our self-deception. deep inside of each other's lives. Not just casual conversation, but deep in the lives of one another. Where we know how to see sin. We know how to diagnose the sin. We know how to care for the sin. We know how to apply the gospel to the sin. It's a great temptation to claim to be a part of the family. but to then live like the black sheep of the family, or to live not according to the family. Friends, what we need to do as a church is be so involved in each other's lives, we see the sin. And we experience the sin. We need to be so involved in each other's lives that we encourage one another in their love. Because I think one of the things I see more in my little bit of counseling that I do I need to encourage one another as well as confront one another. We need the confrontation, but many are wrestling with assurance. Many are wrestling with what it means to be a child of God and wrestling with their own lack of an experience of God. You know how you can care for those people? Is tell them the evidences of grace that you see in their lives. I see evidence of grace in so many that I've talked to, in everyone that I've met. I've seen the evidence of God's grace in the way you're hospitable, you're generous, you're caring, you're loving. What we need to do in our one-on-one, our small group settings, our home setting, is make sure that you do not let an opportunity go by where you could tell someone, you know what? I see the evidence of God's grace in your life when you are doing this. Or when you did this. It's so easy to think, you know, I should compliment that person. But you never get around to it. That's why we're brothers and sisters. That's why we're united in the church, so that we will encourage one another in what we see God doing in each other. That's the way God wants us to be a part of each other's lives. Now, one last comment about the text. Verse 11, because the darkness has blinded his eyes or their eyes. So let me go back up and does not. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes. Now, this is obviously an accusation against the false teachers. John is saying that these men who say they're in the family, but they're not loving. They're so deep in the dark. They're so deep in the darkness of their own sin. They have no idea where they're going. And the accusation here is they're claiming to be leaders in the church. And you don't follow those who don't know where they're going. That's what John is accusing them of there. Let's get to some application of our own sin. Why is the command so difficult? Why is the command so difficult? And the first Sunday School answer is sin. Why is it difficult to love one another? Sin. Okay, let's get a little more specific. James says it's because of our own selfish desires. It's because to will the good of another is not what we naturally will to do. Our hearts aren't bent that direction anymore. No, they're bent the wrong way. They're bent in on ourselves. And so we have to go through the great spiritual discipline of bending our hearts back to God and back to others. Now, as we go through, I'm going to list some specific sinful desires that are contrary to loving one another. Because of our self-righteousness, we are tempted to think of someone else as we hear these. Someone here. We're always tempted to think, oh, that person did that to me. Well, that's not how you need to hear this. Do the spiritual discipline of thinking about how I am guilty of these sins. And worry about the repentance that you need to do. And if you can't stop thinking of someone, Start praying for the power to forgive that person. Self-preservation. A desire and a love for self-preservation. This is contrary to the command to love one another. It's obvious in the sense that Jesus said, no greater love does a man have than this, that he lays down his life for his friends. Jesus' model is not preserving his own life, but giving it and giving it and giving it until he finally dies and gives it completely. Our love for ourselves gives us a spirit and a desire for self-preservation that is contrary to the command of love. We do not give to others of our own gifts and talents because we're worried about not having to spend on ourselves. Now, we could go back into James and look at other passages that refer to when someone has a need, don't just say bless them, you need to give them. What's really twisted about our own society is that we don't refuse to give to people because we may not be able to eat if we give it. Now, we're so blessed in our society, we're afraid to give to people because we may not be able to further spend and spoil ourselves with goods. I mean, I look around this congregation and I don't see many, and if I'm overlooking you, please let me know, that are threatened with going hungry, or threatened with not having clothes to wear, or threatened with the basic needs of life. And yet, there are those out in the world who do need the most basic care. But we're afraid to give, not out of self-preservation, but out of self-spoiling. We have everything we could possibly need in a grocery store. We have everything we could possibly need financially. Our sin goes deeper than just not wanting to give to others who are in need because we're in need. No. It goes so much deeper because we want to spoil ourselves with what God has given us. Let me give you a practical way that you can repent and act in a way that keeps you from a desire to further spoil yourself in self-preservation. One of my prayers is that this will be a missionary church. I hope to present a number of missionaries to you. The missions committee and I will be working hard to find missionaries that we can find who are faithful to the Gospel, faithful to a Gospel ministry, and that we believe we can present to you and say, support these men and women. Now, these men and women actually need your finances to live. And they need your finances to go across borders to share the Gospel. My prayer is that you would already be praying to God for what you can give above and beyond your tithe. To say, I'm going to commit to these missionaries. You see, a lot of worry over the last years has been in investments. You know, where can I put my money where it will make the most gain? Where can I get the best return? Friends, if you're really worried about that, invest it in the kingdom of heaven. Find missionaries who you know that are going to be faithful, good stewards of everything that's been given to them. They're going to go to nations that we can't go. They're going to go and share the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's an eternal reward you can't get in any investment. I pray that we would be a missionary church that seeks not to spoil ourselves further, but to spoil missionaries. to give them everything they want, give them everything they need, and even more than what they could possibly want financially. If we're always seeking self-preservation, we're never going to love one another openly the way Jesus has modeled for us and commanded. The second major sin that I think keeps us from loving one another the way Christ has taught us is a desire for control. Control is really the opposite of love, isn't it? Wanting to control someone is the opposite of loving them and willing their good. But this is what we do because this is how selfish we can be. We're not patient or kind with others because we want them to do exactly what we expected them to do when we wanted them to do it. We have an agenda that rules over other people. Like little princes and princesses that expect everyone to be where we want them to be, when we want them to be. And act the way we want them to act. This is the opposite of love. A spirit that seeks to control other people so that they do our will and not ours. As I've continued to wrestle with my own sin, this is what lies behind most of my sinful behavior. It's a desire for my little kingdom to continue to be happy and healthy, and everyone else needs to work alongside to make sure my little kingdom is happy and healthy. It's manifested in the car. Everyone needs to get out of my way. I'm in a hurry. It's manifested when I want to eat, and what I want to eat. It's a desire to control everything around us so that we're happy, instead of willing the good for others. See, what happens when we have a desire for control? We end up being a curse to the world. We've been called out to be a blessing to the world. We have to stop wanting to control others, but to love them. If you think about if you're married, think about the first few weeks. We can pray for Kyla Mallory in this way. Think about the first few weeks of your marriage, especially if you're a bachelor for a good little season. Think about how you had your set way of life and how there was this conflict. Because you didn't know how to give up your set way of life. And there was tension because you wanted her or she wanted you to do something a certain way, but it was never expressed. It was never explained. That's the sin of control. And the longer we live with one another, the longer we care for one another, I pray the less we'll seek to control one another, but truly express our expectations and truly love each other. At the end of the day, seeking to control one another and seeking to Preserve our lives is really the sin of not trusting God. Realize that when we're seeking to control our own lives and we're seeking to preserve our lives, you're not trusting God. That's the sin. You don't believe there's a God who's good, who's powerful, who's loving, who desires your own good and will take care of you. That's at the root of those two sins that keep us from loving one another. It's a God problem. It's not a personality conflict. It's not that you just don't get along with that person. It's a God problem. You, we don't trust God enough. So finally, how can I obey this difficult command? The first thing we have to do is make sure the gospel is central to everything we think and do. The more we experience the love of Christ, the more we're going to want to express the love of Christ. The more we realize the depth of our sin and what we have done to offend God, the less we're going to take seriously our offenses. In the sense of when people offend us, we're not going to see them as the grand offense of the day. No, what we do when people offend us is put it in perspective of how much we've offended God. When someone sins against you, realize your sin against God. And realize that He has forgiven you. Realize that He continues to love you. That helps you put The offense against you in proper perspective so that you do not get so overwhelmed with we do not get so overwhelmed with ourselves. And this puts the makes the gospel central to our relationships. The other way to obey the command. Is to be intentional about loving everyone in this church, it's an internal command. Now, one of the temptations is to get a group of people that you feel comfortable with and not relate to everyone else. Ask yourself, do you love everyone in this church? What does it look like for you to love everyone in this church? Now, practically speaking, you're going to have deeper relationships with some than others. But do you actually walk down the hall and say, I know they've been here for a long time, but I don't know them and it's too late now. That's not loving them. Now, I'm glad you're not throwing rocks at them, that would be hating them, but you're not obeying the command to love them. If you're just saying, you know what, they are a member, I'm a member, they have their group, I have their group. If we're going to take the full gravity of the passage, we're supposed to be seeking out every relationship we can within the church to love one another. Finally, when we come to church, when we come to our gathering for worship and edification, don't come seeking to get what you can out of the service. Come with a mind that says, I'm going to think of someone else as more important than myself. I'm going to think of someone else's agenda as more important as my own. I'm going to come each service, and I'm going to try to figure out a way to serve and love someone new in a new way. You see, when you do that, you're going to have the mind of Christ that Paul talks about in Philippians 2. Paul gives that exact language. Think of others as more important than yourself. Think of others' interests and desires as more important than your own. As a church, that's how we can practically love one another. To be intentional. To just let each other walk by with a mutual hello, that's not love. To invite each other out, no matter what your age difference, no matter what your vocation difference is, and hear your testimonies. Hear what God has done in you and is doing in you. That's how you can begin to love one another. And I said finally, but one more. Pray through the directory. I'm trying to model that in the pastoral prayer. That's a way to love one another very easily, very practically in your own lazy boy in your own living room. Or on your knees at your couch or your bed. Go to the directory and be praying constantly for each member of the church. Let's pray. Almighty God, we come before You. You are great and mighty and we love You only because You first loved us. Your love is great. Your love is powerful. Your love has changed us in the way we live, the way we hope. I pray that Your love would continue to change us. I pray that we would continue as a church to be moved by the depth of the incarnation, and the depth of the cross, and the depth of the resurrection, and the depth of your return, and the depth of all Christian teaching that is motivated by your love for us. And I pray that we as a church will continue to be known throughout this city as a church who loves one another and who loves you. Let us spread this love abroad. In your name I pray, Amen.