My Bible automatically opens to the book of John when I open it. Isn't that funny? Oh. First Peter. Chapter one. I don't want to move too fast. And I felt like I moved too fast last week. But remember, this is not a grammatical construction of the sentences. It's a exposing of the context. It's an exposing of the point and the purpose and the power of the word of God. And we're here together because it's what we are, in one sense, obligated to do. And I'm gonna talk about that. I'm gonna debunk that idea today. as a reframing, not that it's wrong, you are obligated, but I want to reframe that obligation. And then we're also here out of a motivation, and that motivation is going to determine the outcome of what we see. So the questions I posed a couple of weeks ago is, you know, who am I and what do I want? And in answering those things, as we've seen in the first few verses of 1 Peter, these people understood who they were in the gospel. They found the answer to those questions in Christ. Because they'd lost everything. They'd lost everything. But in a sense, they'd lost nothing and gained everything. I want you to sit with that for just a minute. Because isn't it loss? This just sort of hit me a few days ago. Isn't it loss that actually destroys us? Loss of idea, loss of identity, loss of relationship, loss of love, loss of money, loss of health. It's losing something, it's having something taken, even if it was an idea. This is the way I thought it was going to be and it's not. You've lost it, you've lost the dream, you've lost the vision. This is what I signed up for. You lost your focus. And the New Testament is all about several things, and the first thing is about revealing God the Son and the work that He did for His people. Thus, revealing God Himself in His infinite glory, in His ultimate glory, in His highest glory, in His exalting glory. And then it is to show us who we are. And then it is to show us where our joy rests. And then it is to speak to every iteration of every thought and every idea and every affection that comes in our minds so that we may exhibit Christ likeness, compassion, kindness, patience, tenderness. affection and love in every situation in life. From the most intimate relationship with ourselves to our spouse, significant other, children, neighbor, church family, job, career, go on and so on and so forth. We are to love as Christ loved. There is no other message in the Bible. but that one, and everything else. If the Bible tells you to clip your toenails on Thursday at 6 p.m., there's a reason that it applies to the love of God in your life as an identity and to the persons around you whom you may love. You're scratching them. You need to cut the fingernail. So cut the fingernail. There is no such thing as an arbitrary set of rules within the context of the New Testament that are just there because And our motivation in life is just as Westerners. And I was thinking, I thought about that this morning, like four o'clock this morning, I woke up and I just had that on my mind. I said, if they had come to the other coast, we'd be the Easterners. Don't go there. Stay with me. I was talking to myself, to myself, about myself. But as Westerners, we have a, First world pain is still pain. First world problem, you don't know what that means, is like, you know, I get up in the morning and say, oh man, my phone didn't charge. Dag nabbit. I mean, you know. Shucks. Somebody left the pizza out. We won't be eating leftovers. Oh well, give it to the dogs. See, it's still a problem. It's just in comparison to other people's problems of like, what's a phone, what's pizza? What's a morning? What's good about it? We still have problems. And we still have crises. Now some of us are geared different. Some of us are geared not to be poets and artists and writers and romantics and look at flowers and stuff, but we still shoot, fight, and get rugged. Now don't look at me like that. The point is, some of us are sort of stoic, just in personality. Some of us are choleric. If you don't know what that is, you know, look at some different personality styles. I mean, there's no wanting for writings and books and things about personal development and psychology and personality. I mean, there's a lot of it. And everybody's seeking the same thing. They're trying to find a way to get motivated to get what they want and to be who they are. And so when we see Peter writing, when we see John writing, when we see Paul writing this New Testament, this new instruction, it really is just about knowing how we're to live in this life and what it all means. You've heard me say this before, but I've really been on it this week for personally, is that we have a tendency to do some things at the extreme as Christians in this culture. We've borrowed it. for mysticism, it's not a Christian concept. And that is to make the ethereal, the mystical heaven, the future, the afterlife being the point of everything. To the point that we do not either put any stock in validating the necessity and the value of this present life and world as if it didn't come from God. Almost like panentheistic, if you will. Okay, God spun all this into work and then we're just living around trying to figure it all out. No, that flies in the face of what sovereign love and sovereign grace is. Okay, so this day and everything that it comprises, everything that you're experiencing, everything that you're thinking, everything that you're feeling, is a gift of God to you. Everything. Every relationship, every good, bad, and bump and ugly. that comes from it, whether it be a speed bump, a P-bump, or a mountain that you hit. It is from the Lord as a gift. So we don't need to lose sight because the New Testament is not about living for heaven, it's about living as a citizen of glory in this earth. And that's why the cults are so impressive upon people's hearts when they've had enough of the earth. Okay, let's put our spacesuits on and let's die, the comet's coming. Let's drink this Kool-Aid and be done with this place." I mean, those are two literal examples of mass suicides. In the name of God, in the name of Jesus. And those are just two that made the news. It happens all the time. And if it's not a cult, it's a gang. If it's not a gang, it's an ideology. If it's not an ideology, it's a political party. It's not a political party, it's some other stance. It's some other way of which we would find ourselves happy in this world to make it feel like that we have a purpose in this world. Because what we've done in Western culture and American Christianity is we've Puritanized it to a fault without actually living like Puritans, but we want to get out of here. And that's okay. It's not a problem. It's a good thing. But we missed the point. And I should go to Paul right now and where he says, he says, you know, I don't know what's better for me. Because I want to be with Christ. I don't want to be in jail anymore. I've lived with nothing my entire ministry. I've been hated. I was somebody, y'all. I was the doctor of doctors of doctors. I was the head of this thing. People looked at me and said, hey, Mr. Paul, how are you? So good to see you today. Oh, that man right there, he's awesome. People praised me for who I was. I lived a life so impeccable that you could find no fault with me. And now I'm treated like a common criminal with no friends, with no family, with no money, with no help. hated and despised just like my Lord and Jesus Christ. So for me, getting off this rock is really a great opportunity. It's something that, you know, when the doorbell rings, I'm running. Ding dong, let's go. But for your sake, oh beloved, you know, to die is gain because I have Christ. But I have Christ now, Paul says. I have Christ this moment. And if I have Christ this moment, that these chains do not bind the Word of God and it does not bind the Word of God in me or through me or to me. It does not bind the Word of God from you. I am going to stay in this body for your sake. And then I know what some of you think. I'm so tired of being obligated to others. Aren't you and I in the same boat? And therein lies the problem. We've obligated ourself in a way of trying to see that when we do all these wonderful things for other people, that's who we are. That's our purpose. You couldn't be further from the truth. And when we do feel like general, when we do feel like authentic expressions of affection become obligation, we've messed up our thinking. Several places in this text this morning, it's going to be all over the place because my brain is all over the place. But it's going to make sense in the end. We know. We know who we are. We know what God has done. We know who Christ is and we know that which we've been called to. We already know that by reading first Peter. And beloved, let me let me reiterate that as well. These letters were not intended to be picked apart over years. They were intended to be read at a sitting and then picked apart for the rest of our lives. To be reminded and to understand and to be applied. Not picked apart academically, but picked apart exegetically. That means we take the text and we pull out of the text and we explain itself out of the text and we apply it based on the text. And if that text makes sense, we can test it with the other text. And if the other text is congruent, then we go, hey, we're on the right path here. But beloved, we as a generation, every day, every day that we're alive, we are to be interpreting and applying scripture according to our lives. according to our experiences, according to the evidences, and according to the Bible. And while we do not put much stock into our common sense or to our thoughts and feelings, we do not ignore them. We test them. The Bible says to take every thought captive. So take your thoughts that you're having right now captive and filter them through what you know and then whatever's left you can do with what you please. But here we see this gospel. We see this gospel identity, we see this gospel power, we see this gospel purpose that these elect saints by the foreknowledge of God have been put into this place because of the wisdom of God for their joy. So in the midst of losing everything, now see we can't apply that context holistically to us. But we may have lost some things that feel like we've lost everything. I want you to hear that. We may have lost some things that feel like we've lost everything. And sometimes that feels like we've lost ourselves. Because a guy like me never had time nor cared about who I was because I had it all together. And then when I didn't, I worked that out in my head and just walked accordingly until I couldn't. So what's better? Working it out every day. Living today. Today, right now, is the best day of your life. If you're wanting a better day tomorrow, you're looking in the wrong place. If you're longing for the better days of yesterday, good luck. because luck is what you're going to need to dig up what is gone. How about be where you are today? That's Peter's message to these people. Be where you are. You're in the desert? Be there. You're in a hole? Be there. You're on the top of a mountain? So be it. A mentor of mine always had wise things to say, and one day he came in and he said, James, you know what? He said, I got to tell you something. I'm like, oh gosh, I better write this down. It was before you could text on the phone like notes, you had to write it down and remember it. He said, from the very beginning of time, all the way to this very moment has brought you where you are. Here you are. And he smiles. I'm like, get out of here. This is the same guy that told me I had to eat dirt in order to love God. I get it, I've yet to eat dirt, but I'll explain that to you one day. Here we are, and this is all we've got today. Today is the best day of your life. What motivates you to say that? What would motivate these people? What would motivate Paul to say that? What would motivate Paul to say, I'm content? Doesn't the best day of your life mean that you couldn't get any better? There's nothing else you want. There may be other things you need, but it's okay if you don't have them. That's content. That's the best day of your life. You're lacking nothing. Doesn't James say that the person of God, if they just pray for wisdom, that they would lack nothing? And what's the context of that? In trials, in trials, in suffering. But yet, what do we do? I wish I had this. I wish I could do this. I wish. And it's not even selfish, but it is selfish. We can't get away from being self-centered, folks. It's just going to be the way it is. It's OK. Take care of yourself. Feel good when you do things for other people because it makes you feel good. That's fine. You can love them, too. There's no such thing as pure, absolute, selfless love except through Jesus Christ. To be honest about it. So here these people, for the most part, had made up their mind, we've lost everything. We're going to die in this dispersion. We're not going to be able to see a future like we have had in the past. What lies ahead of us? Verse 10, concerning this salvation. If you don't have the context there, then you got 14 sermons behind me. You can go listen, or you can just read that, nine verses real quick. Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours, searched and inquired very carefully, inquiring what person and at what time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but you in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Things into which angels long to look. And because of this, verse 13, put your minds in gear to go somewhere. There's James's paraphrase. Put your mind in gear to go somewhere to do something. Put your mind in the state in which you're about to be propelled into action. And you're always preparing and be sober minded. Arrest your thoughts. Don't fall into the sitting into your feelings. Arrest your thoughts. by setting your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. And the revelation of Jesus Christ in verse 13, we already know that we will see that one whom we love that we have not seen, but we love Him anyway. And so what I want to do is I want to sort of unpack this reality that the motivation that these people are told to have is the love of God for them. That's the motivation. Because this salvation is the love of God, the grace that was manifest, the grace of God, the love of God, the mercy of God, the hope of God, the gospel of God. It's all grace. We've done a disservice to the idea of the grace of God by turning the word into a package deal of some tangible thing that this is God's grace over here and this is God. No, God is love. And I'll go ahead and give you something I was going to say toward the end, but I think a lot of people who can't love like Christ don't grasp the gospel of grace. They don't grasp it. They just don't get it. They create a new law everywhere it goes. So here we find the motivation of these Jews in this dispersion is the love of God for them. And we talked a little bit last week about how we are to love like Christ loves. and why we love Him. But now we motivate ourselves to live in the present. How do we motivate ourselves to arrest our thoughts? How do we motivate ourselves to apply what we're about to be seeing? I spent a lot of time reading a good portion of chapter 1 and even touched into chapter 2. Put away. Be subject. Be holy. Do not. but do, be respectful, have unity of mind, have sympathy, et cetera, et cetera, and so forth. And all of these things are going to really fall into a very comfortable condition with us, because then we'll start saying, now I know, all right, now I know what to do. Now I know how to be happy. Now I know how to, listen, you can follow the rules all you want, but it doesn't mean it's love. And eventually, when we live that way, these people could have followed these teachings. How often did the Israelites in captivity and in the Exodus follow the teachings? For a little while, and then they didn't. But God loved them, then told them, now do this for your joy, because I love you. Sometimes we get all tied up in the idea that, well, I want to live for me. Live for you, great, fine. But why do you want to live for you? And what do you want to do in living for you? Because it'd be easier to go back. I listened to my first two sermons in James from the Reading James midweek in June of 2021. And the things that came out of my mouth, if it weren't me on the screen, I wouldn't even recognize it. How do I know this stuff that didn't live it? And it's like God was letting me speak into the air the very prophecy that would be fulfilled in my life two years later. The very trials. And I'm laying in the bed listening to this three nights ago. and I'm laughing out loud at the humor. We are not gonna get away from these types of things. We are going to say, yes, I believe that, I hold that, I need, thank you, pastor, for reminding me of what I already knew, and then a year from now, you're gonna look back and go, what, I didn't know nothing. I really believe that wisdom is, acquired unconsciously in that we're not aware that we're wise. We're constantly thinking we're unwise. Because how many times did I say, you know what I learned last year? You know what I'm learning right now? You know what I've decided? You know what I've discovered? You know how many times I've said that? Only to find out I didn't know squat from Squiddle. I don't even know what those two things are, see? I couldn't tell them apart if I saw them. That was stupid. The salvation. I lived for myself, but the prophets wanted to live for themselves too. But look what they did. They prophesied about the grace that was to be yours. Present day brothers and sisters in the dispersion, yours. They were looking into things that were going to work for you. See, that's what's wrong with the world today. And that's why Christianity has some amazing answers to some of the world's problems. But the problem is with Christianity as it is today in the culture is it's not Christianity. I mean, Christian nationalism is not Christianity. Christian evangelicalism is not Christianity. Reformed tradition Christianity is not Christianity. I mean, you just take a stab, throw a dart at the wall and let it hit it and we can look and say, wow, what is Christianity? Christianity is knowing, understanding, applying, working, interpreting, living out the gospel of grace in the person of Jesus Christ every single day. Today, today, there's not going to be likes and upvotes. There's not going to be accolades, stickers and stars and trophies and caps and gowns. There's not going to be, what do they call those things? They're not hoods. You can't put them on your head. I tried. You can't put your doctoral hood on your head, which is stupid. It's a hood. It's a hood. You're not going to walk around with any of that stuff. We're not going to take our certificates, our licenses, and our diplomas. We're not going to take our children and all the good things that we've done. We're not going to take all the stuff that we've put. We're not going to have our CV. We're not going to have a resume. We're going to have us naked and unashamed. And that's it. And Jesus. And the symbolism of nakedness is nothing. We have nothing but Christ right. We'll be clothed in his robes. It sounds so meaningless. And in the face of other people, they say, man, that's impressive. Is that impressive? I talk to a lot of people all the time, engaging with people in life, people who identify as atheist, agnostic, mystics, Buddhist, You name it. And I've always been in those conversations. And what's crazy is when I get into a public setting, I get into a professional setting, and I'm talking about these things, people come to me and go, I just never really had much to do with religion. I said, great, me either. That's not a necessarily true statement, but I get the point from what they're saying I'm not involved in. And then when I just explain the scripture, I just share my story, in relation to God's good report, they're never hostile. They're amazed. But they're also not impressed. They're really impressed about things that I like to do, things that I've learned, things that I've accomplished. And so I have to be careful not to go, yeah, let's just go over there. Let me show you another trick that I learned to do like my dog. Because that's all of our accomplishments. They're really like tricks. Like obedience training. Like production training. In 2003, I was teaching to a very small group. of youth on a Wednesday night, about 40 of them. And there were some adults in the room, and I said something about architecture, and I love architecture. I love to look at buildings. I used to take pictures of buildings. And I said another thing, look at this amazing, look at this amazing roof line. Oh my gosh, can I go watch paint dry? Yes, let's do it. But I talked about all this accolade stuff and how we build. And I said, imagine the buildings and the things that we love, the things from antiquity, the things that are still around. And yet, they're gone. They mean nothing. None of them will remain in a twinkling of an eye. And one of the guys up front, who is a pretty good friend of mine now, but that day he was sort of like, I don't like this cat, was an architect. And he later told me, man, you ruined my entire identity, basically. You messed up my entire world. You messed up my life. I was just thinking, I'm going to leave an imprint on the world. And God's going to go and erase it. It's his imprint. Now see, be honest that that unsettles us, OK? These people were not walking around going, it's cool, God's got it. They were troubled with their circumstances, but the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories is the remedy for that trouble. Motivated to love. Motivated to love because of the divine picture of love. It was revealed, verse 12, to them that they were serving not themselves but you. in the things that have now been proclaimed to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. Beloved, there are seasons of my life, and even now, just in the last few weeks, where I thought, man, I just need to stop trying so hard to share all of these things with people. I need to stop writing and doing online things. I just need to do, like, whatever, just sit and And then it's like God goes, all right, you little turd, I'll show you. And I get a text message, or I get an email, or I get a, not kidding, they came, four of them in the same week, from all across the world. Pastor, don't ever stop writing. And some of you have even said that to me, recently. Articles from last year, Five years ago, I really, I see this. We don't know. We don't know why we put out what we put out. We don't know why we engage the way we engage. We don't have a plan. God has a plan. A video I did a week after one of the hardest, darkest days of my life. Trying to encourage myself and others to stay the course has been the launching pad of a dying sister who is engaged in severe darkness, who now is embracing the light of Christ and saying, thank God every day that I found these. And I wanted to delete them all. You know what's cool? Had I deleted them all, God would have found somebody else's. But don't lose sight of it. This life is about His glory. In every part, not just later, now. The job you do is about His glory. You don't have to have an I love Jesus sticker on your chest every time you zoom. Or evoke Romans 13 every time you're arguing something with somebody. Just be authentically Christ's. God showed His love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. This is the motivation for our love in this world. This is the motivation, let me just change that, for living, not just loving. In this, the love of God was made manifest, 1 John 4, 9, that God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. And so we're to love as we exist, we're to love in action. Over in verse 22, having purified your souls by obedience to the truth for sincere brotherly affection, love one another earnestly from a pure heart since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. It is why we are here this morning, beloved. We are here this morning so that we may grow in our understanding of the love of God for us, that we may act in accordance to this calling so that we may live in the world around us and that we may love everyone we come in contact with intentionally. Not out of obligation, but out of compulsion. out of motivating love. I'm compelled to do something. I have to do something. It's different than, oh, I ought to do something. Now, you may parse the words there, but we identify the terms in that context. Stop looking at it like a chore that has to be done and look at our interaction in this world as something that we do as a response to the love that's been given to us. It's responding out of love. A new commandment that I give to you that you love one another. John 13, 34. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. John 13, 35. Now let's break that down for a minute. That means you'll love the church. That means you'll love your neighbor. That means you'll love your enemy. That means you'll love your spouse. That means you'll love your children. That means you'll love. That means you'll love the most vile person. Someone asked me a question this week about why they're being told, spiritually speaking, to stay in a severely physical abusive relationship. So after I got through writing a text message that filled the phone, I decided just to transfer that into a article and I posted it and sent it to him. No, I did a video on it. And I still called this person to love the abuser, but to leave them. And I say that out of context here because some people hear me say, you just got to love somebody. It doesn't mean that you continue to put yourself in danger. And God's word does not say you have to. And if people want to piecemeal that with pretext, go ahead, write your own book. But it's wrong. It's antichrist to tell someone they must remain in danger, especially if you have kids. Let love be genuine, abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good. We can say this is wrong, we can say this person is terrible, but we can still actively love them. What's the minimum? Praying for them. Instead of thinking about each other so much, about how much we can't stand each other, it's because we've reframed them in a way that we're only looking at the negative. You know what? They can do it to us, too. There's some great Christ-like wisdom that my grandmother, Tippin, used to always say, what goes around comes around. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Most people don't even know what a gander is. It's a male goose. You can't use those illustrations with the canine persuasion because it gets profane. But it can be done. The golden rule, right? Have you ever tried to quit something God has absolutely called you to do? You can't. You're compelled. I don't get up every day and go, you know what, I just got to do this job. No, I just want to do it. I want to do it, even when I don't want to do it. I want to do it. I have to do it. You can't decide you're not going to breathe anymore. And you can hold your breath. until you pass out and your body will breathe. It will act authentically in the context of its makeup, of its workings, of its brain. If everything's still working, then you will live. Your body will live for itself. You need to understand that because of God's love for us, when we focus on these things, when we grow in our understanding of what Peter is teaching us, we will act according to our nature, which is born again by the love of God, for the love of God, for the glory of God. And this motivates our love. We love because he has first loved us, 1 John 4. And this is love, 2 John 1 6, that we walk according to his commandments. And this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. What is it? Love one another. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as you've kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. See, I love it when I don't love it. That's sarcasm. A lot of times people say, well, see, people that aren't loving are lost. That's not true. The people who are lost and you correct them in their unloving change. I mean, don't change. Unless you make that love obligatory. Unless you make that love tied to their public image. Unless it's benevolence and altruism and other things. There's nothing wrong with those things. God uses them. But it's not Christ. So the love of God inspires us to love and to rest and to live. But it also compels us to love each other in the same way. This is the driving force to fulfill God's commandments joyfully. John would say in his first epistle that the commandments of God are not a burden to the believer. That's why marriage is such a perfect picture of the gospel. But it's so backwards today. For 500 years, it's been so backwards for maybe a thousand, maybe for 2000. I mean, non-Christian marriages are lasting exponentially longer and more fulfilling than Christian marriages today. There's a reason. And it's not what you probably are thinking. Husbands love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. You know what's not a part of that instruction? The husband. It's not about what we want, what we need, what we desire, what we deserve. I mean, our 28th anniversary is coming up. Y'all's too. That's a long time, but it seems like it's just been a few days sometimes. But if we focus on the ugh, goodness, oh, that's tough, it feels like a century. You focus on the willful affection and the framing of why we love and that we choose to love each other. It just. You feel like newlyweds. Love. Your wife, as you love yourself. There's a practical, friends, when we get to chapter two, every bit of it's practical. I don't know how many, but I mean, there's at least a dozen practical commandments given to the church through this letter. How are you going to do them? Out of an obligation to do what's required, or out of a motivation That's an expression of your love for God because of his love for you. Thus would be an expression of your love for someone else. There's a misunderstanding of love and grace. In Galatians five, Paul says that the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself. But if you show partiality, James says, you're committing sin and convicted by the law as a transgressor. Well, I'm not partial. Yes, you are. Yes, I am. James, you're partial. You can't get away from it. Some of us are partial because of economics. Some of us are partial because of politics. Some of us are partial because of academics. Some of us are partial because of gender or sex or addiction. Can't tell you the number of times people have looked at me like I'm an idiot because I have a Southern accent. I need to go hang out in California. I need to go to Boston for a couple of weeks. I'll come back, I'll have that thing, it'll be gone. Imagine a twangy Boston accent. We do share partiality. And then when those things become our way of feeling alive and feeling purposeful and having meaning, If someone doesn't feel those things, then we hate them. How do we know we hate them? The greatest example of hate is to be indifferent. I'm going to say that again. I'm going to say it very slowly. The greatest example of hate is to be indifferent towards someone, is to just not care. And that's a willful choice. Because our emotions are ours to conquer in Christ. Not the other way around. And I hate saying that because I don't have time to unpack the application there, so it makes you feel guilty. And then you're obligated again to change. And then you're motivated to do something out of a fear of not being loved by the Father or being good enough for someone else, maybe even me. I don't know. Then we're back to square one. What do we do? Burn it all down. Let's go home and shoot some pool. We've got to pray. That's what we do. And above all these things, Paul says to the Church of Colossae, put on love. I love how he puts this, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Everything together in perfect harmony. I love musical metaphor because an orchestra is vast in its talents, and vast in its sounds, and vast in its time on the page and in the air. I mean, you may have an instrument that just plays like four measures out of 400, but it's important to the piece. And you may only love in a certain way, or you may not be able to play certain things right now. You may only have a little harmony that you found. If you played it by yourself, it'd be like, oh, that sounds dumb. But oh, when it's missing, the conductor hears it. When it's missing from the body, the body feels it. Even though they don't know the lick, they don't know the tone, they don't know what's missing, they know something is. Paul uses that same metaphor of musical instruments over in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. He says, if we don't have love, and even if we speak in amazing tongues of men and angels, I'm just a gong or a clangy cymbal. It's like one time in a rehearsal, a dress rehearsal, as a matter of fact, and we're playing the planets. Good stuff. And somebody knocks over a cymbal in the middle of a quiet part of Uranus. You can't say Uranus anymore. And it ruined it. It's like, what is that noise? Well, that noise 16 measures later is necessary, but when it falls on the ground in the wrong spot, it's out of place and it jars everybody and we jump and we don't know what's going on. And the piccolos start throwing things. They've lost their minds because they're always on edge anyway. I mean, you know that noise. No, love bears all things. Love believes all things, love hopes all things, love endures all things. In first Corinthians 13, it goes on to say now faith, love, hope, abide these three, but the greatest of these is love. See, beloved love. is acting out of our nature because of our focus on whose we are and how God loves us. We are able to love because we have been loved. Not because we feel like loving, not because we want to love, but because we are loved. We want to do what pleases Him. Not so that He'll love us. We do what pleases God because He does love us. Because He loved us actively, willfully, decisively. He loved us. He gave His Son for us. That is what love is. Giving someone for someone else. And who do we have to give? We have our life. Beloved, if you can do nothing else, pray for the ones you love. That is love. Pray for the ones you love. And sometimes people get to a place they don't want you to pray for them. They don't want to hear the Bible. You don't have to talk to them to pray for them. You don't have to invest in that. You don't have to pursue that breaking that emotional boundary. The God of heaven can do it. And if you can't love, pray for yourself. Pray. Knowing that you've been ransomed out of the darkness of your mind, knowing that you've been given a an inheritance that is greater value than all the cosmos. And recognizing that God's love cannot be earned. It is actively and eternally at work for us, providing and proving himself every day. And when we love, we loved and we love beloved. Let me say this in closing. We love in failed ways. We love in failed ways. But Christians have a higher standard. We don't throw our hands up and go, I just can't do this. We have a higher standard, not because we're supposed to do it, because we want to do it when we focus on the love of God for us. We want to help. We want to do what makes others joyful. And when they expect that from us, we have an obligation to go, I love you because I choose to love you, not because I have to. I say that to Robin a lot and to the kids. I don't know if they get it. The kids, that is. But it's okay. It's the way we frame it. So, beloved, before we can put away malice and deceit, Before we can long like infants for pure spiritual milk, to grow up into salvation, to taste and see that the Lord is good, we have to know the love of God and be reminded of it and rest in it. Let's pray. We thank you, Father, for the day, for the greatest day of our life, this day, the only one we have. And so, Lord, as we continue to worship, to take the table, to sing, May we do so because of your love. May we respond to the love that you've given us. And Father, help us to see that although other things in life are important and vital, they are not ultimate. So help us to keep our focus and our gaze on what is truly ultimate. The life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for us, your love for us manifested to us. that we may live and be motivated therein. In Christ's name we pray, amen.