Please turn in your Bibles to 1 John and chapter 3. And before I read that word, I have an exhortation for you. We live in an age of celebrity pastors and influential people. And tonight, the sermon is going to be a little bit deficient because I am not your pastor. And you have a man who's labored faithfully among you for 30 years, preaching the word, always prepared, always praying for you. The best preaching in the world is pastoral preaching. We love this celebrity conference style preaching, but the preaching you receive every week, twice a week, for your pastors the best kind of preaching. So we highly esteem your work of ministry and your faithfulness, Boyd, and so this is gonna be below what you normally receive tonight. Turn again to 1 John 3. I'm going to begin reading in verse 11, 1 John 3. This is God's holy and infallible word. For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. I'm going to pause here to tell you I brought my King James Bible with me for study. This is not a King James only situation. This is what I read devotionally every day, and I didn't know I was preaching, and I preached twice on this trip, so I'm preaching out of the King James. Verse 12, Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous. Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. If you're paying attention, the sermon is about verse 16 primarily. Verse 17. But whoso hath this world's goods, and sees his brother have need, and shut up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue. but in deed and in truth, and hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then we have confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. He that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us by the spirit which he hath given us. May the Lord be pleased with our study. of his most excellent word. Please pray with me now. O righteous God, we ask that you would transform us through the powerful working of your Holy Spirit. We come with a sense of expectancy, and I ask that you bless these your people. Grant them the full measure of blessing of that fellowship with you and fellowship with one another. I also ask that this evening you would so work that these, your dear saints, would be more perfectly conformed to Christ and his likeness. And we pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. The title of the message today is Lay Down Your Life for the Brethren. lay down your life for the brethren. And my five-word or six-word thesis is the precious gemstone of Christian love, the precious gemstone of Christian love. I hope to expound this doctrine. This is an unusual kind of sermon for me because I'm preaching through 1 John, but I've only done the first four verses of chapter one. So this is kind of a topical exposition on this particular subject, drawing from several elements in 1 John. I hope to expound on these things by answering three questions. First, what is love? Amen. What is love? Second, how has God demonstrated His love? You could quote that verse in your mind, probably. How has God demonstrated His love? And third, and probably the biggest point of application for us, how should you reflect His love? How should you reflect His love? The precious gemstone of Christian love. Three questions. In context, at the end of chapter one, verse four, John writes that he's writing these things so that their joy might be full. This seems to be an overarching theme in 1 John. Fellowship with God in through Jesus Christ and fellowship with the people of God That's all of those who are united to Him. By virtue of their union with Him, this is the fullness of joy. If you're cut off from Christ, there is no joy. If you be in Christ, you are also united to the body of Christ. John here wants his hearers, and because of this divine authorship of the Holy Spirit, The Holy Spirit wants us to know that we can enjoy complete communion with God and his people. Communion with God demands, this is very much connected to 1 John, loving communion with his people. If you say you love Christ and don't love his people, you have a want of love for Christ. When you say, I love to keep the law, you love to keep the first table of the law, you are a lawbreaker if you don't love your neighbor. So to love God requires us to love those who are united to Christ, because they're united to Christ, who's himself God. John identifies three kind of core errors in his epistle. This is all to help us understand what we're driving at here first. not sequentially, but kind of prominently, is there are false teachers that have come in, as they so often do. We learned this morning that they're coming in with all kinds of things. And in this case, they're hoping to seduce the Christian away from the church and away from Christ because they deny that Jesus is the Christ. They deny that he came in the flesh as the second person of the Trinity. This is a grievous error, and I'm sure no one here believes that, or is holding to that error. To have this error, to embrace it, is to cut yourself off from salvation. There is no salvation apart from Christ and his mediation. This is a plain denial of the gospel. That one's pretty easy. The last time I was here, I bet you can't remember what I preached on, But the second thing that is in this book that is an error or something that the church has to be warned against is the love of the world. That has creeped into the church. That's creeped into your life and your house. So this resonates with us. The love of the world, that's a real battle for the Christian. That's timely for all of us. In every church, everywhere, this love of the world must be put to death. He says in chapter two, love not the world, neither the things in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world is passing away in the lust thereof, but he who does the will of God abideth forever. connected to that love of the world is a corresponding antinomianism. Someone might say, I know him, I love Jesus Christ, but they have no desire to keep his commandments. They don't know Christ. They have no desire to keep his commands, they don't know him. It can be weak, it can be not strong, but if there's a complete absence of a desire to be obedient to God and his law, then there is no good hope for salvation. Well, this one, the third one, really hits home today. The third error that the church, is experiencing in some way that John is writing against as a want of love for the brethren. This is the focal point of the message, the imperative of Christian love. The greatest expression of God's love for us is Christ, God himself, and he laid down his life for us. your appropriate response and worship and obedience, you also ought to lay down your life for the brethren. Heterodoxy about the person and work of Christ will lead your brother astray, the first two errors. If you don't have the right view of Christ, you're going to have all kinds of problems, doctrinally and et cetera. If you love the world, children, you don't understand this. Your love for the world and your own sinfulness, because we are so united to Christ and to one another, when you sin, it affects the larger body of Christ. We forget that. We're so individualistic. It's just me and my relationship with God. My sin is only between me and God. No. When we sin, particularly egregiously, our sin affects the body. It affects the communion of the saints, and this is something that we should labor to preserve. It says in the first chapter, verse 7, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. It's interesting. The idea of salvation is corporate. We are individually saved, but we are united to Christ, and we're united to the brethren. I'd like you to look at something really quickly, and this will be the final thing I'll do to set the stage for this. Turn over to chapter four of 1 John, and it is a staggering amount of love one another in chapter four. I'm gonna begin reading in verse seven. 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. John ties this idea of love, agape, to the very character and attributes of God. God himself is a God of love. And whenever we think about defining love, we have to understand this is who God is, and this is what God is. He is love. He's many things, but he is loving. Everything he does is loving. It's consistent with his character. So when we think about our ideas of love, we can look to the world. We can look to our friends. We can look to what everybody's saying about love. But God is love, and God has revealed what love is because he's given his Son. His Son has gone to the cross, as our brother preached so faithfully this morning, because he loved us, to take away our sins, to bring us into the communion and fellowship and love of God. Verse nine, 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. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, 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. Whoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believe 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. that 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 hated his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this is the commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also. All right, now let's turn back to our text. Chapter three starts with an incredible statement. It's not part of our text, but I'm just gonna read it to remind you. It kicks off this imperative of love in 1 John. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not. There are four Greek words that are used in ancient literature, and two of them are most prominent in the New Testament. The first one is eros, and you remember that's probably sensual, romantic kind of love, and that's a love that's really popular in the culture. Superficial, sensual, lust-filled Eros. Storge we can get behind. It's love between family members. It only shows up once in the New Testament. Phileo is brotherly love, and that comes up quite a bit in the Scriptures. The love that we are to have for one another. It's a brotherly love. But the love that is described in 1 John, and it's a very big theme in John's writings, is agape love. And if you leave here with only one thing tonight, the kind of love that is here described is self-sacrificing. Self-sacrificing love. The love of Christ for his people, he sacrifices himself on the cross. to make atonement for our sins, to make us right with God. That level of love is what is required of you as the people of God toward one another. The highest form of love is this agape love. It's described here in our text. It's the love that describes God and his attributes. We just went over this. It is this word, agape, that is the self-sacrificing love that pervades this epistle. This is the love that seeks not its own. Brethren, I have a new working theory about our mortification of the flesh and our sanctification. I believe that our deathbed provides something very important to us. I know some people die suddenly and all those things. I think we finally put ourselves to death at the end because we realize that that flesh that we cherish is failing. We can't hang on to it anymore. I think it's one of the last things that happens before we enter into the presence of God. I'm asking you to do that before you get to your deathbed. Our love looks like the world's love. It's transactional versus being covenantal. I love you when you love me. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. It's not this kind of love. In fact, it's not very loving at all. The pagans do that. You remember that love is the basis of law. Love for God, this comprehensive, exhaustive, with all that you are, your mind, your body, your strength, your whole person, is loving God, the first table of the law. You're sacrificing your interest for the glory of God. But the second table is the same kind of thing. It's a self-sacrificing love for others. comprehensively, exhaustively. Personal holiness and corporate holiness in its essence is actionable love. That's what it is. It's really at the root of the commandments. It's love for God and it's love for our brother. Now, if I'm commanded by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount to love my enemies, how much more should I love the people of God? You should have a deep sense of love for the brethren, and you should be willing to lay down your interest for the good of this body of Christ. Galatians 6, that we are charged to do good to all, but especially to those who belong to the household of faith. Brethren, I'm here today with some bad news. Our love is wanting. We don't love each other in this way. And in fact, I would say this is the key to the transformation of your marriage, your family life, your work life, your life in this church. If you will love as is commanded and required here in the scriptures, if you will sacrifice your interest for the good of the brethren, if you husbands will lay down your lives for your wives, wives will lay down your interest for your husband, parents to children, children to parents, your lives will be utterly transformed. But we're self-seeking, aren't we? Tonight, smash the idol of that self-interest on these wood floors. This self-love is what we have to put to death. And our self-love prevents us from experiencing the fullness of joy and fellowship with God and his people. In verse 11 of chapter three, This is where I'd like us to start thinking about this precious gemstone of Christian love. The precious gemstone of Christian love is that we would love one another. In fact, it's a watermark for genuine faith in Christ. The Christian must love as Christ has loved. The royal law, according to the scripture, is to love in the manner Jesus has loved. Jesus has loved His enemies so much that He's made His enemies His bride and brought them in. And He hasn't just brought them to a place of neutrality. He's embraced us fully in His bosom. He has taken the church to be His wife. He loves her in that way. The Christian must sacrifice himself. We have to be crucified with Christ in our love, and we have to lay down our lives in service to God and to one another. You know, men are known by their loves. The unrighteous man is known by his love of vice and sin and lust. You and I must be known for our love for Christ and our love for the brethren. If anyone loves the world, chapter two, the love of the Father is not in him, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but it is of the world. The most righteous here among us is self-seeking, and we're commanded to be self-sacrificing. This is the kind of love that God is admonishing us to. It's not strategic love. It's not to give in order to get something back. It's to give to keep on giving. Young men, you need to find a woman to marry who you can spend the whole of your life loving her, hoping to get nothing in return. Nobody thinks like that. Oh, what a marriage you would have if the husband and the wife were doing that. I only want to love the object of my affection. I don't love her so that she'll love me back and give me what I really want. I just want to love her. That's my wife. I want to adore her. I want to love her. I want to sacrifice my interest for hers. Well, this love is radically different than the world's kind of love. The second question, how is love, this kind of love, God's love, demonstrated? Any kind of sin reveals a want of love for God. It's really hard to deal with, isn't it? When we sin, we're just not loving God or his people. When you love God, you keep his commands and his commandments are not burdensome. Children, you know why the commandments are sometimes burdensome? We just don't love, don't love God that way. We love our interests more in those moments. God's love is demonstrated by his love toward us and that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. the ultimate question about why God has saved us, his people, from sin for his namesake. Its origin stretches back to the covenant of redemption and eternity past, its consummation on the last day, all encompassing that timeline where he will dwell in our presence, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to make us their abode, their dwelling place in the Spirit, His people, from start to finish. It cannot be explained by any other circumstance or any other way. It's because He loves us. The elect of God are loved by God and it's unexplainable. Out of his character, out of his goodness and mercy, he has a people, and you are those people. And he has poured out his love on you. This makes our love for one another easier, doesn't it? When we think about it, we dwell upon it. In our text, an antithesis is offered. Look at verse 12 of chapter three. Cain, who was of that wicked one, he killed his brother. And why did he kill him? Because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous. And you say, there's a long distance between a want of love for the brethren and Cain killing Abel, and the scripture makes a closer connection. Murder begins in the heart. Hatred for my brother is the path to murder. In fact, hatred in my heart is murder, according to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. So what's a far remove from actually doing it? It's not as far as you think. So if there be a want of love for the brethren, we are actually on the path toward hating our brother. And if we hate our brother, we're on the path of killing our brother, even if it's just internally, even if it's just a murderous heart. Marvel not, it says, that the brethren, if the world hates you, we know that we have passed from death to life. If I've asked you this morning after church, how do we know that we have passed from death to life? You might've given a good answer, because we believe in Jesus Christ. It's a very good answer, but John adds a little teeth to it, doesn't he? Because we love the brethren. So if the litmus test of your faith tonight is, you say, I have a strong faith in Christ. I have solid Reformed theology. I know all the things. How's your test of love for the brethren? You can know that you have passed from death to life because you love the brethren. Now, I should point this out. John is not trying to get everyone kicked out of the church as non-believers. And in fact, John is probably the best book. If you have someone that's struggling with assurance of salvation, take them to 1 John. It'll help them a lot. He's urging us to a better version of ourselves in Christ. He's challenging us to say, you're in Christ, you should love the brethren. How is your love for the brethren? If you are completely devoid of love for the brethren, then we have to say you don't know Christ. But what a helpful thing. Counseling is evangelism or discipleship. That's all it ever is. You're either discipling the saints or you're evangelizing the lost. Do you love the brethren? He that loveth not his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Now here it is. Pay close attention. Verse 16, Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. If a wicked man entered the building now seeking to do us harm, I have no doubt several men would jump up and do something to put down the threat. That's noble. That's admirable. If a man broke into your home, husbands, I know you would go to great lengths to defend your wife and your children. That's human dignity. That's the right thing to do. It's not even heroic, believe it or not. But will you lay down your interests your pettiness, your snowflakeness, your easily offendable-ness for your brethren. That's a little bit harder. The big things, I think, in the Christian life, sometimes we can do those. If you're going to be persecuted and you're going to death, you're not going to deny Christ. You'll say, I'll go to death. I will not deny my Savior. But in the little things, will you love your brethren in this way, laying down your interest in favor of the good of your brother? God has laid down his life for us. The royal law has been fulfilled by our king. He gave his life to be the satisfaction of divine justice. No greater love exists than this, that he who would lay down his life for his friends. This self-sacrificing love is very rare. I think we love each other probably in the phileo, brotherly love way. I'm not sure we love each other in the agape way. Whatever conflict could exist or could come up in the future, as it always does in churches, the remedy is this precious gemstone of Christian love. So I'm going to put down my interests in favor of the interests of my brother, or maybe better still, I'm going to lay down my interests for the peace and unity and purity of this body of Christ. I'm not going to disrupt that, because I love it too much, I cherish it too much. What would church look like if each member sacrificed their interest and service to the body Philippi was a remarkable place. I'm not going to turn there. If you need a devotional reading this week, read the book of Philippians. They're generous in their support of Paul, almost single-handedly. It's a great Sabbath day reading to read through Philippians really quickly. But there were two ladies named Euodia and Syntyche, And they were at odds with one another. And this great Christian church at Philippi was nearly torn to shreds because two ladies couldn't get along. Imagine what happens. Two ladies are at conflict. Well, they have husbands, and they have children, and they have friends. And so this faction starts happening in the church, and they start not being able to get along. Paul called them to be of one mind. to serve and love God and to love one another. There's another thing. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be a liar. When I'm unloving to my brethren, I lie about the transformative work of Christ. I lie about Christ and his power to transform sinners like me. If there be any want of this kind of love, the Koinonia Fellowship will suffer. I have my first level of application to give you now. There's another little thing I'm going to do in just a moment. This is under the heading of the want of love. What does a want or the absence of love look like? The first one I want to point out to you is the cruelty of cold indifference. Sometimes we can approach the church service and we could even deny the basic dignity of the Imago Dei and our fellow Christian and be cold and indifferent about them. There should be a warmth to our fellowship. There should be an outgoing, loving disposition of our hearts to every person in the body of Christ. To be cold and indifferent towards someone is, in some cases, more cruel than open hate. What about lukewarmness? We know we shouldn't be lukewarm in some ways, but can you take it or leave it in fellowship with some of the brethren here? I can take it or I can leave it. That lukewarmness is not the proper kind of love. We should be full-on hot for one another in the sense that we love each other in this very pure way. We're not lukewarm. We can't take it or leave it. We love our brethren. If someone has to move away from your church because they've been called to some new work assignment, I sometimes question that, Pastor. People move away, there's no church there, but they're going to take a job. Your heart should break if someone leaves the membership. Tears should roll down your face. There should be grief in your heart that someone has left and the reality is we just don't love each other in this way. Our commitment to each other is not that strong so it doesn't bother us so much to either leave or to watch someone leave. There's another way that we have a want of love and that's allowing unresolved conflict with our brethren to linger. If you have conflict with someone here today, I'm gonna ask you to not let another day pass, and you go make it right with them today. Isn't that how we, in churches like ours, and we reform people, we say, I believe that doctrine, we don't really act on it. Intellectual assent to the truth, we love that. If there be any conflict with your brother, leave your gift at the altar and be reconciled to your brother. You say, well, I might go do that this week. Don't do it this week, do it today. If there be any unresolved conflict in this body, address it today. Make it right today. Love each other properly today. If you have estrangement from loved ones, go home and get on the phone and call them. Set up a meeting and go meet somebody this week. If there's another Christian brother or sister that you are in conflict with, go and make it right with them now. Show them this love of Christ. Well, how should we reflect His love? I have a final illustration to help us with this, and it's why I called this the gemstone of Christian love. Gemstones are graded according to several factors. The first is according to their weight in carats. And so I want to ask you today, is your love for the brethren, is it substantive? Is it weighty or is it hollow and superficial? We have to have weighty love for one another. It has to have depth, it has to have richness, and it has to have some weightiness to it. Is your self-sacrificing love for the brethren evident? Is it conspicuous? Are you laying down your life for the sake of the brethren? I'm going to tell you something right now. Your pastor's been doing it for a long time. Do you hear those pastoral prayers? He's given his life for this church. He's giving you a good example. You and I have to love the brethren in this way. Our love for one another in Christ should be weighty. Since I was a young man, I have not liked superficiality. I've really not liked it. I don't like empty, hollow talk, flattery. But is there superficiality in your love for one another? I don't want that. I want the weighty stuff. I want us to love each other deeply. There's another element in grading gemstones, and that is color. Imagine the specific color of the stone, and rubies should be red. So if you are in Christ's kingdom a ruby, you should be bright red. If you're a sapphire, I know there's other colors. I learned more about gemstones than I wanted to. But you should be blue. Deep blue. If you're an emerald, you should be green. If you're a diamond, you should be clear. So this idea is our sacrificing love should be vivid. And it should reflect Christ's love. Is your love for Christ so conspicuous that it can be observed? Can others say they are ruby red gemstones of Christ? The tone of the color should be deep. There should be a deep green if you're an emerald in Christ's kingdom, saturated with color. I love the description when I was learning about this, the strength of the stone's color is shown versus any gray being present. There is no gray area in our love for Christ and for one another. We are utterly saturated in the love of Christ and our love for one another. The other part of the gemstone is clarity. This is very interesting when we think about our sanctification. The clarity of the stone refers to the amount of inclusions or defects. I hope you've identified some defects in your love tonight. A gemstone that is utterly free of defects and inclusions is shown to be free even under a 10X, 10 times magnification. Now maybe you look good on the outside, but what if we shined the microscope of God's Word and His Holy Spirit upon your heart? How would your love look there? Would the defects show up? Would they be lightly included? Would they be moderately included? Defects observable to the naked eye? Maybe you can see some in yourself. Part of the stone's clarity is the brilliance that it displays. This is related mostly to the way the stone is cut. Every Christian is a gemstone, but they might be raw. They might be uncut, they might be unpolished. The Christian begins as an uncut and unpolished stone, but every believer in Christ possesses this precious gem of Christ's self-sacrificing love. And it's funny, we are given the tools through the ordinary means of grace to cut and polish our raw stones to make more bright and brilliant our reflection of the radiance of Christ's love. You see, these stones only have color when light shines them, on them. The love of Christ has shone in our hearts. So are we, is there a dull reflection of that love? Or is there a rich color, saturated, reflective coming out of every facet of our being, a reflection of the light of Christ in us? If it's not, we can be encouraged because the Holy Spirit in our own love for Christ encouraged us to get to work, to cut and polish our own stones. I want to close here. This church reflects the glory of Christ. In Zechariah chapter 9, and that's an incredible chapter. You'll remember in this time of year that when we think about things like the resurrection and the ascension, Ascension Sunday was last week, and we don't follow the church calendar in that way, If you follow history, this is an interesting period in time. It says in Zechariah 9, and it's a course, as Pastor Boyd mentioned, this prophecy, earlier in that prophecy of chapter 9 is the triumphal entry of Jesus. Behold, your king is coming, right? It talks about the blood of the covenant, then it gets to this one. It's a very amazing progression in Zechariah 9. It says this, the Lord their God will save them in that day as the flock of his people. And here it is. Precious gemstones of our existence in Christ. For they shall be like the jewels of a crown. lifted like a banner over his land. For how great is his goodness and how great is his beauty. Grain shall make the young men thrive and new wine the women. Your lives of faith, your obedience, your fruit bearing become the precious gemstones, your life, becomes the jewels that adorn the crown of Christ. May the light of Christ be so radiated in this place that the unbeliever would say, oh, see how they love one another because the love of Christ is in them. And may our mission to the world be just like John's aim at the beginning of chapter one. It says, we declare to you that eternal life, which was with the father and was manifested to us, that which we have seen and heard, we declare to you that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. We write and declare these things that your joy may be full. Brethren, I don't know what you're facing. I assure you of this. Give the entirety of your being and love for Christ and do that same thing in your love for the brethren. And I assure you, your life will be filled with joy. Hereby we perceive the love of God, because he laid down his life for us. Christ, his gospel, it's interesting there, the hypostatic union, which Boyd talked about today, it declares Jesus to be God here in this section of scripture. God himself laid down his life for us in the person of Christ, therefore, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Let's love each other in this way. Amen? Let's pray together. Oh Lord, we thank you for your word and Lord, we are aware now that there is a deficiency and a want in our love, but we take heart because there is no want or deficiency in yours. We thank you, Jesus, that you have loved us in this way, and I pray that because we've experienced this love, both in a propositional truth way, but we are in our own hearts, we know the love of God. shining there. O Lord, I pray that we would take this, and this would cause us to love one another in a radically new and committed way. O Lord, help us to be the thickest-skinned people that there is, and yet maintain a tenderness of heart. O Lord, let us have both of those. Be tender-hearted to one another, but also insulated, not offendable, willing to yield, willing to forgive, willing to be reconciled. Make us those kinds of people for your glory and namesake, we pray in Jesus' name.