Morning It's great to see each one of you here this morning. I think there might be some folks sitting back and overflow. We're thinking of you People watching online. It's just great to be together as people It was a sad week in our nation. I think for everybody For about half the people in the country the votes didn't go their way but if you're an American of any party and Wednesday was a sad day, right, to watch a protest in Washington turn into a forcible entry into our Capitol building that led to five deaths. So if you're an American and you're a Christian, now what? What do we do now? Where do we look for hope? We're continuing this morning in our studies in Matthew, right where we left off last week. But I honestly, I was praying this week about what to preach on and I felt like this is the best passage I could come up with for us to look at today. In the summers, for me, in past summers, often I've gone with my buddy Jake Heppner, who lives in Minnesota. We go canoeing up in the boundary waters of Minnesota. So in between Minnesota and Canada, there's this wilderness, and you can only get in there with a canoe. You have to carry all your stuff. There's mosquitoes the size of horses. Something that often happens, you can imagine by looking at this picture of it, if you're in a canoe there, there's just not a lot around you to go off of. And so often as we're canoeing in the wilderness trying to go from one lake to another, we're like, where are we? And the right thing to do is to stop rowing, get out the map, get out the compass and think now, what's north and where are we at and where should we be going? And I feel like the election's over, it's time for American Christians to stop rowing for a bit, pull out the map and the compass and ask ourselves, now what? Right? Joe Biden's gonna be inaugurated in 10 days. What's true north for us followers of Jesus? What do we do now? And where do we look for hope? Okay, so let's start with the most important thing. The most important thing is love the Lord your God above all else. Now, where we're at in Matthew, I accidentally blocked it. There's buttons that do things I don't even know about. Where we're at in Matthew, this is the last week of Jesus's life, and we are here at April 1st on Wednesday. We've been studying this controversy with the leaders in the temple. Two days from where we're at today, Jesus is going to be hanging on a cross, and so we're very near the end of his life. What started this chain of events that we're at right now is back in 21 verse 23. Look there, Jesus is teaching in the temple and the Pharisees come and publicly challenge his authority. Matthew 21, 23, see it there. When Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him while he was teaching and said, by what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority? Well, Jesus answered the Pharisees in a couple of different ways. One, he told three parables, and in these parables, without exactly saying it outright, Jesus said, I am the Son of God, sent by God himself, and turned it on them and said, you will be judged for not recognizing me as God's Son. That was the parables, and then after those parables, the Pharisees, if you look at chapter 22, verse 15, They came up with another tack. Matthew 22, 15 says, the Pharisees went and plotted together how they might trap him in what he said. And so the Pharisees came first. They tried to trap him with a question about taxes. And then their rivals, the Sadducees came and tried to trap him with a question about resurrection. Both attempts failed. And then we come to our passage here, Matthew 22, verse 34. But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together. One of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him. So the Pharisees try again. What they're trying to do is get Jesus to say something that's gonna get him in trouble, where they can kick him out of the temple or kick him off the planet, would be better in their minds. They're trying to trap him, they're failing, and so they're trying again. This is their third attempt, twice for the Pharisees and once for the Sadducees. They're working together in this case. And so they send a lawyer. Now, this man's not a lawyer in the sense that we think of as a lawyer, but he's a, we call him a theologian. He's an expert in the law of God. And so he's, maybe they've picked their best, their best expert at debating the finer points of the law. And they're, they're trying to get Jesus to say something that's out of line. So they send this lawyer and he asks what sounds like an innocent question, but he's not asking out of a genuine heart, he's trying to trap Jesus. So look at verse 35, the lawyer comes, he says, verse 36, Teacher, what is the great commandment in the law? Now, how's that a trap? What are they expecting Jesus to say that's going to get him into trouble here? I don't know for sure that Jesus was known for thinking kind of independently. You tend to do that when you're divine. And so he had said things up in Galilee that if he said here, they could, they could jump on him for he said things like the son of man is Lord of the Sabbath. And so maybe they think Jesus is going to say something blasphemous, like I'm above the law. Well, they're hoping that Jesus, and although it's Jesus, so he, I mean, he spoke the law in the first place. It wouldn't really be blasphemous, right? But they're hoping he's going to say something they can jump on him for. Verse 36, teacher, what is the great commandment in the law? Now the Old Testament law has 612 commands. So Jesus, which one is most important? Which command? I mean, all the commands are important, but which one should we follow more than all the rest of them? They asked. The Pharisees themselves debated this question. Different rabbis had suggested different answers to the question. What's most important? Jesus says there actually is a right answer to this question. The right answer is Deuteronomy 6, 5. And then he quotes it to them in verse 37. Look there. Jesus said to him, what's the greatest commandment? You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. Well, the Pharisees were looking for Jesus to say something controversial. They failed here. This particular commandment that Jesus said is the most important might be the command that was most on their tongues for the life of an everyday Jew. These Jews, they recited this verse and the one that came before it every morning when they got up and they recited this verse again when they went to bed at night. Every time a Jew went to the synagogue, the service began with this verse. When in prayer, a pious Jew would wear these words strapped to his forehead. They had these little leather boxes, and they would tie them to their heads, and inside the box would be these words. And also, the words that Jesus is quoting here, these words were written on the doorposts of their houses, they would write them on their gates. I mean, these words were everywhere in the life of an ordinary Jew. What are the words Deuteronomy 6, 4, and 5? It goes like this, quoting from the Old Testament, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. So in quoting this as the most important commandment, Jesus is telling them, hey, listen, the command that you hear and use the most often, that's the most important one. Love God and love him above all else. He says, love him with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind. What's the difference? Why does Jesus say heart, soul, mind? Well, all three of these words, it refers to the same thing. Heart, soul, and mind is all referring to our inner person, who we are on the inside. But they have slightly different emphases. The word heart refers to who you are on the inside, who you are. It's like your identity. And we're to love God from our very identity, from the core of who we are. The word soul includes a person's emotions. It's used in scripture when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane weeping, shedding drops of blood in his grief. He said, my soul is deeply grieved. My soul is grieved to the point of death. So our soul is the seat of our emotions. Other places a person's soul is described as being well-pleased or their soul is described as being at rest And so Jesus says if you're happy love God out of your joy And if your heart is ripped apart with grief in that moment when you're torn apart inside love God from your grief Love God with your heart and your soul your mind One Greek dictionary says that the word mind has to do with understanding, reasoning, thinking, and deciding. And so with our thoughts, we're to love God. When I'm focused in thinking about something important, I'm to love God with those thoughts. When my mind is wandering, I'm to love God with those thoughts. If I set my mind to something, if you have goals and dreams, we're to love God with those goals and those dreams. What's Jesus say? What's he mean when he says, love God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind? What he's saying is that with everything that you are, with what you feel and think and believe and decide and hope for and long for, all of these things that are you, love God with those things. That, Jesus says, is the most important thing. There's no other command that matters as much as that. Now, with love, Love is a thing that prioritizes, and we recognize this. I love chocolate, chocolate chip cookies. I love them. I love them so much that I am willing to put on a pound or two every time my wife makes a batch. I'll lose it later. It'll be fine, but it's worth it, right? There's things I love more than chocolate chip cookies. I love you guys more than cookies. I mean, if you came over and there was a batch, I'd give you some of my cookies. Shows, I mean, the level of concern I have for you as your pastor. Well, let's say, and really, boy, I pray for all of you. We do as a staff, as elders. But let's say that there was a situation where one of you were in a crisis and my daughter were in a crisis, right? She's in the hospital or something. Where am I going to be? Well, I love you, but I'll send Fred, right? Because I need to be with my daughter. Love prioritizes. There was a time, a little over 20 years ago, Chris and I had been dating for months, and I had just gotten to the place where this is the girl I want to be with forever, right? But we hadn't ever... used the word love with each other before, because I think we both just kind of knew this was a big deal to say I love you. So it wasn't something we had done. And so I used to go visit Chris, it was like three and a half hours away, so I would have plans for the visit, what I was going to accomplish. This visit I wanted to accomplish telling her that I loved her, because I really did. And so We went to our favorite place and it was under this tree outside. It was as romantic as Mike Kalinske can get. I tell Chris, hey Chris, I love you. And Chris knew because we hadn't used those words before. She knew that I didn't mean I loved her like a chocolate chip cookie. What I was trying to say was, I wanted to be with her for the rest of my life. I wanted to put her above all other people, so long as we both shall live. And I was kind of hoping that she would feel the same about me. I was saying all that in those words. And Chris's response, I still remember it, she said, thank you. And so then we left. And it was great. And I was worried. We got together again the next day before I left back for school. And then she told me she loved me. And she told me why she had waited. She had decided that she didn't ever want to, just in an emotional moment, tell somebody that she loved them, like the guy she's going to be with. Like she wanted to be well thought out. And I mean, I'd come prepared, but she didn't know this was coming. And so she went home and prayed and said, Lord, should I go tell him I love him? Right. So it was a big deal. Okay, now the Lord, He commands us to love Him. What kind of priority are we supposed to put on our love for God? Are we to love God like a cookie? Are we to love Him like a friend? Like a daughter? Like a husband? According to the Lord, we are to love Him above all other loves. We're to love Him with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind. And so here's a question for each one of us. Do you love God above all other loves? This is the most important thing about each one of us. Do we love God above all else? You know, that's the only way that God will enter into a relationship with you. We have to put Him first because that's where He belongs. If we're to know God at all, we must love him above all others. Hold your finger here in Matthew and turn over to the next book, to Mark. Mark, of course, tells the same story as Jesus, but he includes some things that Matthew doesn't and vice versa. In Mark, when we finish this... conflict between Jesus and the disciples in the temple. Mark goes and he tells this story. Matthew doesn't tell it, but I think that Mark intends for this to be an illustration of what Jesus has just said about love. So we're in Mark chapter 12. Look over at verse 41. Mark 12, 41. This happens right after the conflict in the temple. Mark 12, 41. And Jesus sat down opposite the treasury and began observing how the people were putting money into the treasury. And many rich people were putting in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a cent. Calling his disciples to him, he said to them, truly, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury. For they all put in out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty put in all she owned, all she had to live on. Here's a widow. She has no husband. She has very little income. All she has to her name is two small copper coins which amount to a cent. But this widow loves God with all her heart and all her soul and all her mind. The Lord is first for her. And so she's come to the temple this day and everyone's putting in these great offerings and she can't participate in that, but she loves the Lord and she wants to worship him. And so she does what she can. She takes all of her money. She takes her two copper coins and she puts them in the offering and nobody else notices except for the Lord. The Lord sees her love and he's pleased because she's done what he wants. She's loving him with all her heart and her soul and her mind. American Christians, what do we do now? Here's what we should start with. Love the Lord your God above all else. Boy, has your heart been uneasy? Have you been angry? I think a lot of us have experienced those emotions, if not everyone. But what's going on there? Could it be that for some of us we've put something else or someone else in a place where we're putting them up with God and we're loving them at that level? If that's the case, we ought to take that thing, that other love that's too high, right, and put it back in its rightful place and love the Lord our God above all else. Now, if we're going to please God in our lives, there's not just one thing that we must do. The question that was asked of Jesus, what's the most important command? And boy, Jesus answered that perfectly, right? Now we know the answer. What's the most important command was to love God with all that we have. But if you're going to boil down how to please God with your life, you can't stop there. If you want to know how to please God in the most simple, basic form, you have to have two commands in your head, not just one. And so Jesus doesn't just stop with answering the question. He says, okay, but there's something else you need to know. Okay, there's another command. There's two great commands. And the second one is this, love the person next to you as much as you love yourself. Love the person next to you as much as you love yourself. Look at verse 39, back in Matthew chapter 22. Matthew 22, 39. He's just said this is the great and foremost commandment. Now, verse 39, the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets. Verse 40 literally reads on these two commandments, hang the law and the prophets. It's like all the rest of the Old Testament commands are hanging, they're suspended from these two. You cannot keep any of the other commandments if you fail to keep these two. Maybe we could picture it like a door on hinges. Okay, so this door is obeying God, it's pleasing Him with your life. And this door of obeying God and pleasing Him, it swings on two hinges. The hinges are loving God with all that you are and loving your neighbor as yourself. And if we have those two things, then we can, there's other things to do, specifics, right? But if we've got those two things, we can please God and we can obey Him. But if we lose one of those two, either one, then that door won't open. We can't obey God. We can't please Him unless we've got these two things that all the rest of God's commands hang upon. Love the Lord your God above all else and love the person next to you as much as you love yourself. See, God loves people. And so if we truly love him, we must love the people that he loves. God loves sinners. And if we truly love him, we must love the sinners that he loves. God loves the people who hate him and resist him and blaspheme him. And so if we are to love God, we must love the people that hate and resist and blaspheme our God. as much as he loves them. The Bible makes this clear many places. One of them would be 1 John 4, verses 20 and 21. If someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar. For the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, sorry about Jesus, this commandment we have from him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. Now, we try to get out of this. This is what the Pharisees did. This is what we want to do. We want to say, well, who's my brother and neighbor that I have to love? I mean, surely my neighbors are the people that are kind to me and that love God and are fighting for good things and, you know, people that share my convictions. Those are the people, I'll love them. That's my brothers, my neighbors. But Jesus has made this very clear already in Matthew. Your neighbor is whatever person you come into contact with. So if you're on social media and some person makes a comment there and you see it, that commenter is your neighbor. Maybe you know them in real life, maybe you don't, but it's a person. You're interacting with them, that person now becomes your neighbor. If you're watching TV and there's somebody on the screen speaking, maybe there's an actress on the screen acting, you are to love them, love her as God loves her. Maybe sometimes that means I've got to turn the screen off because I have love for this person. Maybe you're listening to the radio and there's someone speaking. They're quoting somebody's speech or there's a commentator on there. Well, that's a person and now I'm interacting with them and so God is calling me to love that person as I love myself. Any person that I come into contact with in any way, whether virtually or in person, that person now is my neighbor because I'm interacting with them. I've come into contact and so this is the person that I am to love as much as I love myself. Say, well, how much do you love yourself? Well, you love yourself a lot. You love yourself a lot. How do I know that? Well, when you have needs, you meet them for yourself, right? If you have something that you want and you can get it, you get it for yourself. If you have something that you want and you can't get it, you feel sorry for yourself, right? Because we just naturally love ourselves. It's assumed in the Bible that this is there. In fact, we all naturally love ourselves too much. We all naturally love ourselves too much. The essence of sin is disordered love, right? And so if I'm loving myself more than I'm loving you, I'm sinning. If I'm loving myself more than I'm loving God, I'm sinning. And we all do that. Do you know that the Bible never commands a person to love themselves? You're not going to find on the pages of scripture, what you need is to love yourself more. It doesn't ever show up. It's interesting, it's because it contrasts to our culture. In our culture, we believe that, like, you have to love yourself. Like, that's the basis of a healthy life, is a self-love. But that is not an emphasis you'll ever find in Scripture. Now, I'm not saying don't care for yourself. I'm not saying don't sleep, don't eat, don't rest, right? You should do those things. I'm certainly not saying you shouldn't take to heart what God says about you. God says he's made you in his image. He says that he loves you, right? Those things are real and we ought to cherish them. But when Jesus is Talking about how to please him how to live a life that pleases him Basically, the idea is this to please God take your eyes off of yourself and focus on these two things Love God with all your heart and love that person whoever it is that you're interacting with Verse 37, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Brothers and sisters, we just finished an election season. I read that the two parties just spent $14 billion trying to get the people into office. And I don't know, I mean, I didn't watch all $14 billion of political ads, thankfully. During a certain season, it seemed like most of it was coming our way, right? But I don't know about you, most of the ads that I saw weren't, here's why this idea for governing the nation is better than this idea, right? That's not the way the ads come, is it? What were the ads coming to me, the ones I was seeing, they were all saying, you can't trust this person. You shouldn't like this person. Right? It's as if we just had $14 billion of marketing thrown at us, mostly seeking to motivate us to mistrust and hate one another. And the money spent was effective. There's so much mistrust and hatred in our nation now, it boils out and it spills out everywhere. And so for Christians, it's a good time for us to stop and check our compasses. Okay, what's, Lord, what's true north for us? Well, true north for us, according to our Lord, is to be committed to love. Now, I agree, and I don't want to downplay this, I agree that we are surrounded by enemies. There's enemies of the gospel, there's enemies of the Lord all around. But the enemies that surround us are evil spirits. Satan and his demons are our enemies. But listen, the people that Satan is using Those people are not our enemies. Satan is our enemy, but the people that Satan is using, those people are not our enemies. Look here at Ephesians chapter six. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. And we saw this in Sunday school today. There are going to be some people that view us as enemies because we love God first. We're committed to his word. And so they're going to treat us like enemies. And there are some people probably are going to come after us and they're coming after us to try to hurt us and take away the things that are ours. But as they're coming after us, we ought to greet these people with love. You know, I don't think in from scripture that there's one person that's living that we ought to treat as an enemy You go read 2nd Timothy and it's talking about these people that God that Satan is using in the world to hurt God's Causes and it and it says of them that they've been held captive by Satan to do as well So our enemy our enemy is the evil one the people that are doing his work. Those aren't our enemies. They're captives These are the people we want to love The two great commandments that God gives to us are not love God and crush evil. It's love God and love your neighbor as yourself. So I, my prayer for us in 2021 is that in our every interaction with every person, whether it's online or in person, that all of these interactions that we'd be marked by love. And I'm praying that in 2021, God would send us out in love. Like you say, what can I do? Like everything's falling apart and it's so horrible. Like, what can I do? Well, here's, I think, what God gives us to do. Are there some folks that are hurting that you could go and help? Are there some folks that don't know Christ that you could go and reach out to? Well, here's, boy, here's something to do. I think this is what God is calling us to do. He's calling us to love. So, American Christians, what do we do now? Love the Lord above all else. Love the person next to you as much as you love yourself. Okay, the second question, what do we do? Second question is, where do we look for hope? Where do we look for hope? Listen, if you're looking for hope, don't fix your eyes on Joe Biden. If you're looking for hope, don't fix your eyes on Donald Trump. If you're looking for hope, fix your eyes on the son of David. Okay, look, we're jumping back into our passage here. So the Pharisees and then the Sadducees and now the Pharisees again, they tried to trap Jesus. Here's Luke's summary of what happened next after all these traps failed. They're trying to trap him and he gives this profound truth. Even his enemies are like, whoa, that's good, right? Some of the scribes answered and said, teacher, you have spoken well. For they did not have courage to question him any longer about anything. But since Jesus has them all gathered together, he wants to take the opportunity to teach them something. And really he's still answering their question, by what authority do you do these things? And so he does it by asking them this question. Look at verse 41, Matthew 22, 41. Pharisees were gathered together. Jesus asked them a question. What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he? They said to him, the son of David. This is a no-brainer. If you read the Old Testament, whose son is the Messiah? What's the son of David? It's not hard for the Pharisees. You know, in the temple, they kept detailed genealogical records. In AD 70, when it got destroyed, they lost a lot of that, but it was so important to the Jews, they would keep records for everybody in the temple. And so, for sure, the Pharisees pulled Jesus's file, right? I guess he's claiming to be the people as he's coming to the city. They're saying Hosanna to the son of David They're like, we'll see about son of David. Well, if it checks out when he is the son of David by his through his father and his mother Joseph and Mary So they can't deny that Jesus is a son of David. They don't want to admit that he's the son of David Jesus wants to say more What he wants to say here and what he's gonna say next is, I'm not just the son of David, but I'm also the son of God. He claims more than they asked. Look at verse 43. He said to them, okay, then how does David in the spirit call him Lord? Saying the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies beneath your feet. Jesus here is quoting Psalm 110. You look it up in the Old Testament, it goes this way, it's the Psalm of David. Now this whole Psalm 110, if you look it up and read it, it's all about the Messiah. There's gonna be the son of David, and he's gonna come, he's gonna rule over the nations. That's the subject of Psalm 110. It starts off with God speaking to the Messiah. God says at the beginning of Psalm 110, to the Messiah, he says, sit at my right hand. But what Jesus points out here is the first part of this. Okay, so it's the Psalm of David, David's writing it. The Lord is God. God says to my Lord, this is the Messiah. Now, Jesus asked him a question. He says, well, listen, if the Messiah is David's son, then why does David call him my Lord? I mean, that's not the way I normally talk to Ethan and Luke, like my Lord, it's time to get up for breakfast. No, that's not how that works in my house. It seems like it'd be wrong, right? Why would David refer to his far-off descendant as my Lord, Jesus asks. And while we're at it, since we're highlighting how high this person is, first David calls him my Lord and then God seats him at his right hand. Like who is this that God himself is going to seat him at his right hand? Jesus asked them, verse 45, if David calls him Lord, how is he his son? The Pharisees have no idea how he's, why the Messiah, why David would call him my Lord. They say, verse 46, nothing. They say, no one was able to answer him a word. See, the Pharisees, they viewed the Messiah as just David 2.0. Like, David in the old time, boy, he defeated Goliath and those Philistines and he set his people free. And so they're thinking, Messiah 2.0, when the Son of David comes, he's gonna defeat Rome and set us free. Here we go, round two, it's great. But Jesus says, no, you're missing something in the prophecies. The Son of David is more than just another human king. The Son of David to come is the Son of God. The Pharisees didn't get it. A few days, Thomas got it. He saw Jesus alive from the dead. Remember what Thomas said? He said, my Lord and my God. Right? This is no mere man. John would later explain in his gospel who this Jesus was. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. This Jesus is our hope. Look there at verse 44. There's two phases to Jesus' exaltation that's highlighted here, and this is important to note. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand. Do you know that's where Jesus is right now? If you picture Jesus, where do you picture him? Do you picture him in the manger? Do you picture him on the cross? That's not where he is. Jesus right now is sitting at the right hand of God. Hebrews 10, 12 says it. He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God. I think it's important for us to note, though, is this where the story ends with Jesus? Like, He died for our sins, He rose again, He's seated at the right hand of God, great! No, Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God, but there He's waiting. See the second, verse 13 here? Now he's seated at God's right hand. He's waiting from that time onward until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet. See, Jesus isn't done with his plan. He's exalted. He's in a high position. The angels are praising him, but the world doesn't know how glorious he is. We know a little bit of it by faith because we know him and we believe these things we read, but the angels can see it and someday the world will see it. He's waiting until his enemies be made a footstool. How are they going to be made a footstool? He's going to come and crush them. Second Thessalonians one verse seven talks about this. It says the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power when he comes to be glorified in his saints on that day and to be marveled at among all who have believed. There's a day coming. Jesus is going to return from heaven. Where do we look for hope? That's where we're supposed to look. I appreciate Caleb picking the songs today. The last two songs, we're looking at Jesus return. That's the hope that's held out to us in scripture. If you're looking for hope, don't fix your eyes on Joe Biden. If you're looking for hope, don't fix your eyes on Donald Trump. If you're looking for hope, fix your eyes on the son of David, the son of God. And really, this hope that we know that Jesus is coming, he's gonna defeat evil, this is why we can love instead of fighting. Because listen, if the triumph of good in the world was dependent upon us fighting and winning, then we better get our swords, people, But that's not how it is. The triumph of good in the world isn't dependent upon us fighting. Jesus is going to set it up when he returns. He's waiting for the Father to send him. And until that day when he comes, while Jesus is waiting to come and defeat evil, he's made it very clear what he wants us to do. While he waits and we wait, we're to love God with all of our hearts. And we're going to love other people as much as we love ourselves. This is our mission that he sent us on. Will you join me as we pray? God, if we thank you for your word, and it really is like a compass to us, we can look there and see north, and boy, just like it is when I'm in my canoe in the wilderness, sometimes I think I'm going the right way, I gotta stop and look and realize, oh, that's north. Lord, we thank you that in this passage you've given us just very clearly what we're to be about. We're to be about love, loving all the people that we interact with. We're to be about loving you above all. And we're to set our hope in Jesus. We're to set our hope in Jesus, who has been exalted and sits at your right hand, and one day will return in glory to defeat evil, and we'll be part of that. So God, will you give us people to love and busy us with that? Will you lead many to Christ through us in this year? Will you help a lot of people that are hurting? Find us and find our help as we love, like you've called us to do. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.