First John chapter four. Tom, praying for you. Actually, I told my son, he said he has got some guts, amen, to call out. But it's good to be here tonight. Thank you, Pastor Sean, for the privilege, for entrusting me tonight to share the word of God. Men, I hope you have done what you were asked to do last night, and that is to read 1 John. I've been reading it for an entire year, and I tell you, it has been a blessing to me these last two days. Yesterday, this morning, we've heard some great truths from the Word of God. We were challenged in preparation for this retreat to not just come to First John at our appointed time and preach a message, but to try our best to connect all the way through First John. Last night, Steve Rahn did a tremendous job of laying a foundation to build on with those four questions that I think we ought to ask ourselves regularly. Amen? Amen. Ask them from that exact biblical mandate. Are we still in church and loving it and committed to it? Just like we're committed to our Savior. Are we faithful in that and confessing sins? And those questions, I don't want to repeat all of them, but what a foundation. And then Mike works this morning with the devotion, just continuing right along with this authentic belief produces assurance. I have dealt with so many people in my ministry, and I was blown away today. Somebody asked me where I was pastoring, and I told them. And then I said I've been preaching since I was 18. And then I did the math. That's 28 years. I was blown away by that. It doesn't seem like that. But 28 years, I've dealt with so many people who their Christian life never seems to really gain ground because they're always doubting. You know, if we never get this settled right here, we're going to struggle. With everything else that we try to do, we'll never succeed. And, you know, we have to settle on the fact that we're either gathering or we're scattering. I mean, we're either bringing in... I was challenged by that, Mike. Thank you for that pointed point of who's that disciple? Can you name him? Who are you discipling? And then Bill this morning. Wasn't that a great message? I'm not just trying to build these men up. What I'm trying to do with the Holy Spirit's help is to see the connection. John wants us to know some things. Amen? He doesn't want us to doubt it. He doesn't want us to go home tomorrow to our wives wondering if we can be a great husband. He wants us to know that by the power of God, we can be. Amen? Through the assurance of our faith. That we don't live with that subjective guilt. Hey look, if we were honest, I'm sure every man in this room would raise your hand and say, I beat myself up a whole lot of times. when I shouldn't because I am a child of God. Not because I'm perfect. Not because I'm sinless. Hey, there was only one. Amen? Jesus Christ. But because I'm a child of God, I can stand, the Bible says that, in His righteousness. Amen? And face Him. And then we come to 1 John 4. Verse 7. I don't have nearly as many verses as the rest of the guys. And I'm thankful for that. In fact, Pastor Sean said when I was assigned my passage, he said, if you mess that one up. But I feel like the guy in the baton race, you know, and it's been handed off. And my biggest thing is not just finishing the race. Just don't drop the baton. Just don't. So I can hand it off to Doc in the morning for devotion. Amen. Let's read the word of God together. First John 4 7. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. And this was manifested, the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. here in His love. Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. all of our sins, amen? Not just mine, not just yours, but ours. Beloved, if God so loved us, did He? We ought also to love one another. No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit, and we have seen, and do testify. that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Let me read that verse again. And we have seen and do testify. Hey, here's John's confession of faith. This is what I believe. That the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Why? Because He loves us. Even when we were His enemy, He loved us. See, that's why He can say, love your enemies and do good to them, because He did it. And by the way, without getting too far ahead of myself, that's why we can do it. Because He did it. Verse 15. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And I think verse 16 is the key verse here for John and for us tonight. and we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, So are we in this world. Did you get that? As He is now, we are in this world. as Jesus is right now. Victorious, glorified, on the right hand of the Father, making intercession. He said we can be that in this world. Now, I'm not saying we're glorified now, but what I'm saying is we can live in the glory of Jesus Christ and live in victory and we can live, even ourselves, making intercession for others and for their needs. In this world, One place in the Bible calls it this present evil world. Haven't you found that to be true? And you know what a lot of times we do, man? Let's be honest. We make excuses for our failures based on the present evil world. Don't we? We blame our failure on the evil around us when this verse says we can have victory in this present evil world because as He is, we can be in this present world. Verse 18, There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, How can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God, love his brother also. Heavenly Father, God, I pray right now, in these next few moments, I pray that the Holy Spirit of God would be real to us tonight. Lord, we need you. Lord, I have nothing to say without you. Lord, but I believe in the power of your word. Lord, I believe in the power to transform lives. Lord, we saw witness of that this morning in Taylor. And God, thank you for what you've done in his life and others around this room and how you are still transforming lives today. Lord, if there is one under the sound of my voice tonight, under the moving of the Holy Spirit of God, draw them to that saving faith tonight. And God will give you the praise. Lord, help us tonight to exalt you and your truth and point men to you. And Lord, it's for all of your glory and none of ours. And it's in your precious holy name we pray. Amen. Amen. I've been meditating and praying and reading these verses, and over the last night, this morning, there's one thing I know for sure, and that is that John wants us to know some things, amen? He wants us to know for certain when we leave here that, man, we have authentic faith. But here's the thing too, he also wants you, if you don't have authentic faith, he wants you to know that as well. He doesn't want you to leave here, you know, I'm a good church member and I do all these things. No, He wants you to know that it's faith in Jesus Christ. And He states that emphatically in verse 7, when He gives the command to love one another, He puts on that command, the only way that it can be done to love one another is you must be born of God. Look at it. Look at what it says in verse 7 again with me. It says, Beloved, let us love one another for love is of God and everyone that loveth is born of God. So what he's saying is the only way that you can love the way he's talking about here is you have to have a relationship with God the Father through Jesus Christ and when that relationship happens in you and you are made a new creature, guess what? Love comes to dwell inside of you the love of God because of your relationship with Jesus Christ. We're trying to love without the right relationship. We're trying to love with falls in the relationship. We're trying to love when we're not even sure that the relationship is what it is. And that's why John is saying, I want you to know. And I want you to carry that out. I don't want you to obey this command. Look at verse 11. Look at what he says in verse 11. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. That phrase ought also there literally is the idea. The wording is we are under obligation. Now, why are we under obligation to love each other? Because God loved us. But hold on, it's even deeper than that. Because we're born of God. We're His children. We've been given the power to become the children of God, the sons of God. And as children of God, we're to reflect the Father. And because we're born of Him, we are under obligation to love. I think we've done ourselves a huge injustice as men. I get it, it's Friday night. And we get to talking about love. When we get, I don't mean, we've done ourselves an injustice by not getting to know the love of God. In fact, I wrote this statement down today, and if I'm wrong, Pastor Sean can straighten me out tomorrow in his message. I don't think I am. I wrote this down today. It is a sin for us not to love like we should. And here's what I mean by that, James 4, 17. If a man knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. So we get to this place and we start talking about love, and I think the reason we do is because we've overused that term in our culture, haven't we? Man, we love everything. I guarantee you in conversations today, some of you have said, man, I love Mountain Dew. or something like that, you know what I'm saying? And then, that's Harrison. Lord bless this man. Save him. I would get Pastor Sheldon to say amen, but he converted and quit drinking Mountain Dew too, I heard. But then, just a few minutes later, we turn around and say, I love God, I love this, I love that, I love football, and we just throw that term around, and yet we really understand that Nate don't love football as much as he loves his wife, right? Here's what I'm saying. Here's what I'm saying. I'm not the expert tonight on love. But I know who is. I thought about it long and hard. I said, man, I want to give a definition of love and I can't. But I can tell you this, I can describe it for you from the pages of Scripture what I said. Here's what I see in these verses. I see, number one, that if we're loving each other the way we should, it has to be a sacrificial love. Look at verse 9 and 10. It says, And this was manifested, the love God had toward us, because God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. He had one. And He gave it. Listen, we've got things in our life. We've got a bunch of them. We won't give one of them to God. We got a lot of time, but yet, men, don't throw rocks at me, okay? We won't give our wife the time that she needs lovingly the way that we should. We won't give our children what they need sacrificially. I'm preaching to myself too, so don't... We'll give it over here to work. Man, I'll pour everything I've got into what I'm doing at work or at the church and get home and here's what happens. My daughter says, Dad, can you help me with homework? And I blow the top. I lose it. Why did you wait until the night before to get your homework done? Now the thing about it is, she shouldn't have waited until the night before, amen? But as a loving father, she now needs to see love even though she's messed up. I'm not excusing what she's done by waiting, but what I'm saying now, if I'm going to love her the way I'm commanded to, I have to sacrificially not be so selfish, even when I'm at my very wits end, and sit down and show the love of God to her, even in algebra homework. He said love one another. Sacrificial. Notice what He did. He gave His life. Jesus. In verse 11, He gave His life so that we could live through Him. Who are you investing your life in? That's discipling. It's not just Wednesday night, hey man, I'm praying for you. I mean, it's Friday night when they call and they've messed up. They fell off the wagon and they need somebody to pray with them and help them. And you're willing to get up out of bed at 2 o'clock in the morning and go help? Hey, listen, I'm just going to be honest with you. We don't like to do those things, but that's where we need to be. That's what loving is. Sacrificial. And then as I read on, I noticed it's not only sacrificial, but it's a love that can be duplicated because of a great example. Look at verse 11. Beloved, if God so loved us, We are under obligation to love by His example. So here's the thing. If I want to love like He loves, I've got to get to know His love. I have to be conscious of recognizing how His love doesn't change. and that it's consistent, and that it's right, and that it's not with any evil intent, and that it's not selfish at all, and know that hey, because of His love for me, I can now turn and love my enemy. I can do good to them because it can be duplicated. Listen, the problem we have in showing the love that we need to show is we're looking to the wrong examples. Break it down. Here's what I mean by that. We grew up in a home where dad was abusive, hateful, mean. That's the love we learned. And that's if we're not careful, the excuse we'll make the rest of our lives on why we don't love the way that we should. Listen, your earthly father may have failed you. may have abandoned you, walked out, may have been abusive, but your heavenly Father isn't. That's right. The One who gave you a new birth, a birth from above, a birth from God, made you a new creature, is saying tonight in this verse, it doesn't matter what daddy was, or what mama was, or what your first spouse was, or what this is or that is, by the help of God. And listen, it's right here. By dwelling with Him, in genuine assurance of I'm trusting in God, I can overcome, and I have a better example, amen, than what Danny was. And we can go back and you can put all kinds of examples in there. It may have been a daddy. It may have been some other leadership in your life. It may have been even a church pastor. And we can go on down the line. Somebody had failed. Hey, we need to get our eyes back on God. He's the Father. Hey, we're born from Him. Follow His example and duplicate. Just learn what He's doing. Get in His Word. Find out how He loved you and then try your best by the help of the Holy Spirit to love others. It's an indwelling love. Look at verse 16. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him. The word dwelleth there literally means to be present continually. To continually be present. To stay in that place. He's telling us to dwell in love. Dwelling with God. Dwelling in that love. You know, there's so many things that's trying to draw us away from God and move us in this world. That's why He says back in a previous chapter, don't love this world or anything in it. Make sure that you don't do it. Because here's what it's doing. It's drawing away from that place where we'll continue to remain and stay in that love. He says, dwell with Him. But the only way we can do that is we've got to do what verse 16 says and get to know Him. And get to understand and believe it. And then I notice this. I'm going to come back to verse 16 in a moment. It's a strengthening love. Look at verse 17. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. Because as He is, so are we in this world. You say, preacher, help me. How can my love be strengthening? Here's what I can tell you. Along those lines is this. If what you're doing in love is not building someone else up, it's not love. You may think it's love. You may say, well, I did it in love. I did it. But if it's not encouraging them, strengthening you, we're to admonish one another. We're to edify the brother. We're to build them up. The Bible says speak the truth in love. So we're giving truth. Amen? So we've got truth. And I can take truth and I can present it one of two ways. I can give truth straight from the Bible, but without any heart of love whatsoever. And guess what? It'll hurt. But in the love of God, that same truth, by the leadership of the Holy Spirit, can take on a whole new purpose in that heart. Let me give you an example. Hey Dad, why do I have to do this? Because I said so. Amen? Because I said so. All right? Children, obey your parents and the Lord for this is right. Truth is, I said so, you're supposed to do it as a child, right? Sure. But here's the thing. Dad, why should I do it? Because God says in His Word, now take them back to the Word of God in love from the love of God and point them to their heavenly Father. So here's the thing, I'm loving with truth and that truth is being breathed into that life by the power of the Holy Spirit and they're getting to know the love of God. Listen, I can either just give truth or I can give it in love for their soul. Listen, I'm thankful for the Word of God. I'm thankful for His truth. But I'm so thankful that He loved us enough to come down on the cross for our sins. And that love, notice this, is overcoming. It overcomes fear. Look at verse 18. There is no fear in love. But perfect love casts without fear because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. So here's again. I said so. You know what? They'll do it because they fear you. They're afraid of Dad's judgment. They're afraid of what Dad's going to do. Here's the thing. We ought to fear God. Amen? So we not fear God. But should we only serve Him because we fear Him? Because we love Him. perfect love says, yes, I fear God, but I also know that God loves me and that God cares about me and that God wants me to glorify Him and God cares for my good and God wants me to dwell in that love because that love casts out fear. That love, you know what it does? It takes care of that subjective guilt. That love, when we get to know the love of God and we understand that He loves us no matter what, that He loves us, and when I say that, don't get me wrong, He hates our sin. Amen? I write these things to you that you sin not. I don't want you to sin. But if you do, remember this, I love you and I want to forgive you. And you know what? I'm thankful for the fear of God. Amen? I am so thankful for the fear of God. But I'm also thankful to know that in God's love, No matter what I've done, I can be rooted in the fact that He still loves me, so that no matter how far I get, I can always come back to Him and know that I have a loving Father waiting for me. And you know what? Your children need to know that. Because let me tell you, not every kid is going to grow up in church, fall in love with the Lord, and stay there the rest of his life. I guarantee you in a room this size, a whole lot of you, at some point in time, went the way of the prodigal. Strayed away from God. Left the fold. Went out, Mike. Weren't making disciples. Weren't concerned about gathering. What was it? Fear? Yeah. Love? The sacrificial love for you? Holy Spirit drawing you, pleading with you to come back. Hey, listen. We need to show the love of God to one another. In order to do that, look at it, we have to get to know the love of God. Let me show you. Verse 16. Look at what John says. And we have known and believe the love that God hath for us. I thought about that verse. I've read it, re-read it, thought about it. How did John get to know emphatically that Jesus loved him? And I thought about it. It's real simple. Because he followed Jesus and spent time with Him. John's fishing. Jesus calls him. Hey, follow me. John puts all those nets back out in the boat, leaves the boat behind, takes off and follows Jesus with no idea what he's about to experience. Amen? Not a clue what he's going to experience. And then I got to thinking about, as John followed Jesus, what did he see that brought him to the place that he knew the love of Jesus? Can I show you? So He's with Jesus. He's following Him. He's given everything. He's being faithful. He's there. And one day as He's with Jesus and the other disciples, John chapter 4, Jesus said, Hey man, I got to go through Samaria. Right? Remember the story? Why did He have to go through Samaria? Because there was a woman there at a well, who was empty, who needed Jesus' love in her life to be changed by her. And guess, John says he's going along, and they get to Samaria, and he sees Jesus love the woman at the well. And he's like, huh. He sees it. And then we leave John chapter 4, and we don't have time to elaborate on all of these, but we leave John chapter 4, and they go a little further, and we get to John chapter 8. And guess what? There's a woman who's caught in the very act of adultery. That means that if she's caught in the act of adultery, she's probably not got very much clothes on when she gets in front of Jesus. Amen? I've often wondered, where's the man? Why didn't they bring him too? And they throw this woman at the feet of Jesus. By the way, I can put myself in her place Because here's the thing, all of our sin before Jesus is guilt. And here she is. He looks up and says, woman, where are those nine accusers? And she said, they're all gone. I don't have any. And he says these words, neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. And John's standing over there listening to this. and he's seeing it, and he's doing what you and I would do, what we're thinking. But Lord, she was caught in the very act. She's guilty. But He doesn't condemn her. You with me? Let's take another step. How does he get to see? How does he get to believe it? We go to John chapter 11. Lazarus is dead. Amen? How many of you have ever been there where you've got a loved one and you just needed the love of Jesus? Amen? And they are there as they see the tears roll down the face of Jesus. And you know what somebody in your life needs? They just need you to sit with them and cry sometimes. I know that's not a manly thing to do. But I can tell you this, it was an encouragement to me to watch that man weep this morning. He watches Jesus wept. And here's what it says, the people said this, behold how he loved him. And then we get to John chapter 13. Jesus washes the disciples' feet. There's a good example of love, amen? I mean, he gets down here at their dirty feet. And John's sitting there going, why would you? You know what all of a sudden happens? Because he loves me. Right. Because He loves me. And you know what? He can write 1 John and say, I want you to know, whoever you are, I want you to know that He loves you. Because John saw it first hand by putting himself, listen, by putting himself in a place, he could see the love of Jesus. That's why in chapter 1, He says, you make sure you stay connected to the church. That's why He said, you make sure that you stay under some good, sound, pastoral leadership. Because here's the thing, a pastor who loves Jesus, guess what he's going to do? He's going to love you. And He's going to encourage you. And that's why John could write it. Because he had been there. He had seen it. He gets over to John 17. He hears Jesus pray. That priestly prayer in John 17. And He says, I'm praying for you. Hey, you know what He said? If He's praying for me, that means He loves me. You want to know how to love somebody else? Pray for them. You see that enemy that you can't love? Start praying for him. I guarantee you'll start loving him. It'll take on a whole new meaning! Because you can't hate them and pray for them. One of two things will happen. You'll get further away from God and quit praying, or you'll get right with God and start loving Him. We get to John 19, verse 26. Turn there, real quick. John chapter 19. What time are we supposed to be done? John chapter 19. John chapter 19 verse 26. I want you to see this. John 19, verse 26. We're at the cross, man. Jesus is dying. And from the cross, He looks down at John and Jesus' mother. And He says, Woman, behold thy son. And son, He loved me enough to call me out from the cross. You know how John knew? Because by faith he stayed there long enough to see it. Listen to me, men. This is what we're talking about this week. A belief that produces an assurance of your regeneration requires faith that sticks long enough to stay until Jesus shows up. Listen, we run in, we run out so much. Hey, we want instantaneous. I mean, man, this Facebook generation where we can see everything that's going on all over the world in the foot of a second and all of those things. Hey, you know what? Sometimes you've got to tarry long at the foot of the cross to find what you need from Jesus Christ. And you've got to have enough faith that sticks there. But you know what's easier to do as men? Get up and let's go do something. Mama, I'm going to go fix this. I'll tell you what, I know how to take care of this problem. You know how much has been done wrong by trying to fix something? When all Jesus wants is for you to sit right there and wait with Him. I can prove it. Mary and Martha. He said, you're so worried and cumbered about the moment of serving, she's chosen the good part to sit right here. Hey, we need Mary's and Martha's, amen? I'm glad we got some men who will go get things done, amen? I'm glad we got some men who under the leadership will just go, hey, but you know what? You better, but long before we ever go, we must sit and spend some time and put ourselves in that place. Hey, that's why we gotta stay connected to the church. I can go on, John 21. They've denied Jesus, they've left, Peter has. They've gone back fishing. Jesus shows up on the beach, amen? And he's talking to Peter. Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep. Do you love me? Feed my sheep. We get past that interchange between Jesus and Peter, and the Bible says this. Peter looked behind him, and John is following. I believe John heard the entire conversation between Jesus and Peter. I can't prove it, but here's what I do know. He saw them walking together. The man who just denied Jesus. Who just has beaten himself up with guilt. Amen? Feels like he's blew it and will never get used by God again. Hey Peter, do you want to serve me? That's not what he said, is it? He said, Peter, do you love me? And boy how it raped across the heart of Peter. And you know what? Sometimes it does us good to get right across by a loving God who's willing to call us out where we failed in love and say, yeah, I know exactly what you did, but I can still use you if you'll keep on loving me. And John watches this and he sees them walk off together. And John, the quietness of his soul is like, wow, he loves us. Amen? When he gets over here to 1 John, he can write with such boldness. He can write with such anointing of the Holy Spirit because he's been there and he knows that Jesus loves him. That's why it's important, men, that we make sure we put ourselves and stay in places where we can get in touch with the Lord, where we can hear from Him. That's why church matters so much. Hey, that's why Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, micro group. Hey, that's why discipleship. Hey, that's why taking a Christian out to lunch and fellowshipping together is so important because it's there where we can meet and understand the love of Jesus Christ in His Word, in His commission, make disciples. There's nothing no more loving than making disciples for Jesus Christ. The effects of this love, what will it do? Look at it real quick. Go back to 1 John chapter 4. We'll be done in just a moment. What will it do? We've hit on it a little bit, but I just want to highlight real quickly. What are the effects of getting to know and believing. By the way, when you know the love of God, you assent to it. You say, yeah, He loves me. But when you believe the love of God, you realize that He loves you no matter what. Okay? And that's not going to change. Alright? And then here's what it says, verse 16. And dwell in that love. Remain continual in it. And here's what it'll do. Look at it. It'll help. by the power of the Holy Spirit. We can't leave that out. Verse 13. Let's go back to verse 13 real quick. Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit. The Spirit of God helps us to dwell in that love. because the devil tries best to get us out. Our flesh will try its best to get us out. Amen? Hey, we let things get in to get in the way. And most of the time, those things that draw us away, it's not the devil going, hey, come over here. It's us going over there on our own. Amen? Because we're not sacrificing our flesh. And the only way we're going to do that is through the Holy Spirit of God. And the Spirit says, stay right here. Get in here. Plug in here. Get to know that guy. Hey, go fellowship with them. Hey, stay right there. Because I want to help you to know, and I want to help you to be able to live in this present world in victory. And listen, judgment's coming. And we can either go there boldly with the power of God, through His love, through the life given for us, or we can live defeated everyday lives. By the way, it is possible. How do I know? Because as He is, so can we be in this present world. It is possible. It is possible to love those who are unlovable. It's possible to show the love of Christ even to a wife that doesn't want the love of Christ. It's possible, but only as we stay surrendered to the Holy Spirit of God. Only as we dwell there, remain present in it, We can then love him, closing with these two verses, verse 20 and 21. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that knoweth, I'm sorry, let me put my glasses on, I can't see a thing. It's 28 years, amen? By the way, if you're wondering, I am 46. Not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? and this commandment have we from Him. It's not a suggestion, man. Right? It's a commandment. It's an old commandment, by the way. From the very beginning. We saw that earlier. And then he says it's a new commandment because here's the thing, the new commandment is you can do it because of Jesus Christ. So it's not something we can't do, it's something we can do, and it's something we should do, and it's something if we have the assurance and we dwell in the Holy Spirit, we will do. So let's be honest. If I'm not, loving sacrificially, if I'm not loving my enemy, praying for them, if I'm not loving enough to go make disciples, then only am I not loving them, I'm hating them, and sinning against them and God. Because I know what's good to do. Because He commanded it. And here's what he said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. So I know it's good. I'm not doing it. And I'm sinning against God. I'm sinning. If it's my wife, I'm not loving the way I should. I'm now sinning against her. My children, that little girl who needs help with her mouth, algebra, homework. And I'm too tired. to sacrificially love? I'm sinning against her because you know what I just did? I just hurt her soul. Because she's looking to Dead to show the love of God. And I didn't dwell there long enough to help her see the love of God. And a co-worker who doesn't know Jesus Christ and they're looking for answers? They're looking for some hope? And they've heard you talk about going to church and loving Jesus? By the way, if we don't, it says we don't know God. Men, I get it, Friday night. I don't have all the answers. I'd love to just spell out everything and be able to say, here, you do these things, and man, there's the love. But I can tell you what I do know. The only chance we have of getting it right is making sure we get to know Him. Dwell in His Spirit. Spend some time. I heard this man say it not long ago. I don't even remember the context, but I heard him say it. I was listening to him preach. He said, talk to the Spirit in you. You know what? We need to do a whole lot of time talking to the Spirit of God in us and listening to what He has to say. If we do, that's the only way we can make sure that John's able to say about us, yeah, they passed the test. But listen, if we're not over here in this loving category, we can't say, well, I'm passing the test because I love God. Lord, I thank you tonight. Pray that you'd help us. Lord, we know the example. You laid it out for us. sacrificially on the cross. You knew what you demanded of us. And you said, here, I'm going to show you. I'm going to make it possible. I'm going to give everything for you. I'm going to be your atonement so that you can. Lord, I pray that you would help us tonight under this tent to understand, to know, to believe, to put ourselves in those places of surrender where we come by the leading of the Holy Spirit and we get to know the love of God and believe the love of God and dwell in that so that we have that evidence along with these others that says, yes, it's authentic, yes, You're a believer. Yes! Lord, I pray that you'd help us. Lord, to not make excuses. Lord, to not excuse away and say, well, it's just the way I was raised or it's just who I am. But to really get to know and believe and in obedience live out your love to others. God, help us tonight to know that you love us and then take that love to those in our homes and those on our street and those that we work with, that they too may know that God loves them and died for them and that they can come and know and be led by the Holy Spirit and drawn to that place of saving faith. God, we thank you. In Jesus' precious holy name we pray, amen.